S/O How did you/your child search for their college?

wgeo

wgeo

DIS Veteran
Joined
May 2, 2011
My oldest is finishing 9th grade, and I have an 8th grader right behind him. So - how soon did you start really looking at colleges? And what did looking at colleges mean to you? Did you take multiple trips to tour colleges, spend vacation time touring etc.? What's the process, and when do submissions/applications really start - end of 11th grade, beginning of 12th?
 
We did some very preliminary touring sophomore year (large public, smaller publics, privates). Then, we did net cost calculators like crazy fools to figure out which schools were within our budget (both my kids were given hard dollar limits we were willing to spend and told that anything beyond that was on them.....if they chose wisely, they could do it debt free). Once they knew which schools were "affordable", they each asked to tour a few for a second time, with more specific program visits. They each chose ONE to do a very early application (for decisions before Thanksgiving....which gave them time to do other applications if they did not get in to their chosen first choice). They were both accepted. Done. It does not have to be crazy. Seriously. Have them do a LOT of research about the colleges on line....there's a TON of stuff available without leaving your house. Then tour those that meet budget and program requirements.

Applications are done in the first half of their senior year, for the most part. Some a bit later.

I would encourage you first to get a handle on the cost piece. It's eye opening (and sometimes surprising) how much families are expected to contribute. Needs based aid is not available to too many folks. Scholarships can be a crap shoot. Finances can dictate pretty quickly what kind of school your kid attends, unless they want to take on debt.

We did not spend crazy amounts of time touring. My son ended up attending the U of Minnesota, where he was already enrolled as "dual enrolled" senior....so he knew EXACTLY what he was getting. My daughter narrowed her choices to two, which happened to be in the same community. We did an overnight visit and saw them both.

Our preliminary tours were done while we were on road trips, or generally in the neighborhood already.
 
mnrose said:
We did some very preliminary touring sophomore year (large public, smaller publics, privates). Then, we did net cost calculators like crazy fools to figure out which schools were within our budget (both my kids were given hard dollar limits we were willing to spend and told that anything beyond that was on them.....if they chose wisely, they could do it debt free). Once they knew which schools were "affordable", they each asked to tour a few for a second time, with more specific program visits. They each chose ONE to do a very early application (for decisions before Thanksgiving....which gave them time to do other applications if they did not get in to their chosen first choice). They were both accepted. Done. It does not have to be crazy. Seriously. Have them do a LOT of research about the colleges on line....there's a TON of stuff available without leaving your house. Then tour those that meet budget and program requirements.

Applications are done in the first half of their senior year, for the most part. Some a bit later.

I would encourage you first to get a handle on the cost piece. It's eye opening (and sometimes surprising) how much families are expected to contribute. Needs based aid is not available to too many folks. Scholarships can be a crap shoot. Finances can dictate pretty quickly what kind of school your kid attends, unless they want to take on debt.

We did not spend crazy amounts of time touring. My son ended up attending the U of Minnesota, where he was already enrolled as "dual enrolled" senior....so he knew EXACTLY what he was getting. My daughter narrowed her choices to two, which happened to be in the same community. We did an overnight visit and saw them both.

Our preliminary tours were done while we were on road trips, or generally in the neighborhood already.
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I've heard of a few families doing extensive "tours" during sophomore year covering 4 - 5 colleges per week and they did a couple of those trips. That just seems excessive to me, but I wasn't sure if I was just underestimating the whole thing.
 
We started by wandering around on any college campus we were already going to be near. It gave my son a sense of what size school he was interested in and also his preferences about urban/suburban/rural. At the beginning of his junior year we started discussing what he wanted to study so we were able to look more closely at schools that offer programs in his chosen area of study. Once he closed in on how far he was willing to travel (& how much $$ was a reasonable amount) we started scheduling actual tours. We did three small trips of two schools each and he applied to all six, plus two that we didn't visit (just in case).
 


I started looking into my colleges the summer after freshman year, but it was a very cursory look that wasn't too serious. I got more serious about research in the middle of 11th grade, and took tours in the spring/summer. I narrowed down my choices based on cost, what I wanted to study, class sizes, and just overall feel.
 
We started walking through college campuses in 9th grade when we were somewhere nearby one. No formal tours, just mostly wandering through.

It gave my daughter a flavor of different options. Our narrowing started with negatives - it's usually easier to get someone to point out things they don't like.

This really helped as my daughter soon figured out she wanted to go to school in a city. Not right outside or nearby but right in the heart of a city.

She also decided she wanted to be within a reasonable drive of our house.

Those things narrowed down her choices greatly.

She's now happily finishing her sophomore year in the heart of DC.

I highly recommend the college search tool on www.collegeboard.org it has great filters to narrow choices down to a reasonable list.
 
We toured colleges that had good or well respected programs in the major that they were interested in. The only school that really was questionable as to whether they'd get in was the engineering program at Purdue University. He made it but he was not a shoe in by any means. All of the other schools were relatively easy to get into compared to that.
 


Here they had expo type days for university and the same for our colleges. We went to them and collected their books. We knew we were looking for Nursing for our daughter and power engineering for our son. Some also came to their school .

Once we narrowed it down where they may like to go we went to the schools open houses. These were very helpful. They knew pretty well if they liked the feel of the campus.

We started in grade 10 as well , that way we knew what coarses they needed for the programs. Since we started early we could visit the campus more than once.

Son went 5 hours away...daughter went 2 hours away. That is how she choose her schools, by distance didn’t want to be to far but not close to see us all the time...lol
 
My kid is young, so here is how my search went.

College tours - When I was a young teenager (maybe 14?) we went to Boston. We went to see my parents' beloved alma mater play football (note: my parents did not go to any Boston-based colleges, it was an away game). On that long weekend, we took a few hours out to walk the Freedom Trail, and to visit Harvard. I indicated that I thought the college looked cool.

Application time: My parents told me that I could apply to their alma mater and Harvard, but that otherwise, application fees were too steep and they didn't have any interest in paying them. So, I applied to my parents' alma mater and Harvard.

Ultimately: Harvard didn't accept me (though I know I made it through a number of "rounds").

I love my/my parents' alma mater. I loved going there. I have no regrets.
 
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wgeo said:
I've heard of a few families doing extensive "tours" during sophomore year covering 4 - 5 colleges per week and they did a couple of those trips. That just seems excessive to me, but I wasn't sure if I was just underestimating the whole thing.
Click to expand...


Personally, I think that kind of "touring" is what adds pressure to the kid...like it's SOOOOOOO important. Yes, college IS important....I'm not saying that, but it's not like there's just ONE college that will work. LOL. As I told my kids at the outset....there's a college for EVERYONE, and you WILL get into college if that's what you want to do. Relax. The important thing to me is that they pick schools that "fit" them personality wise AND qualifications wise.

I also detect some pretty significant "regional" differences in how people approach this. Here, no family that I know went crazy. But, I have friends on both coasts and from Texas, and oh my heck...crazy.

I'm a pretty laid back person in general, and I think that style helped my kids a lot. My son got into a very hard to get into engineering program (less than 9% of applicants were admitted), so it's not like they are slouches academically. But, he KNEW where his qualifications made him an exceptional candidate, applied to that single program and got in. But, he also applied VERY early, which gave him time to recover with another school if it was needed (it wasn't).

ETA: Should also add that the whole thing was more relaxed because both my kids knew their college choice was "affordable" (to us) and therefore we didn't have to go through the nail biting of "will there be enough aid", which tends to be a later decision.
 
Our vacation between Junior and Senior year for both kids was doing college tours. Colleges have open houses that are open to everyone, but we set up appointments with admissions counselors and none of the colleges we looked at would do that unless the student was a Junior.
 
My twin DDs were recruited to play a sport at their college. They were doing college camps and showcases but, honestly, didn't dig most of those schools. So we also did tours at schools they were interested in but wouldn't play on team for. We were moving from northern state to southern and suggested they look at state schools in our new state. They did and they liked them. They also liked some in FL. But then they got an offer to play at a college up north, they went with that.
 
Mine are still young, but from what I remember, our guidance counselor started talking about colleges in junior year. We signed up for some mailing list to get brochures for the schools. This was in the pre internet days. We did some tours junior and senior year. Then I applied in fall of senior year and had to choose in the spring of my senior year.
 
I basically knew I was starting at my county community college. The first two years of Gen Ed classes for less than half the price for the same classes elsewhere? Yeah, sign me up.

From there, I basically figured it would be one of three SUNY-affiliated colleges within commuting distance. One was too far out for the winter weather, so I nixed it. These schools all have transfer agreements that allow you to transfer all earned credits to the 4-year schools.

That left UB or Buffalo State College.
I chose Buffalo State because it was historically known as a Teacher College. My great aunt also was an alumna from back in the 40s, so that was kind of cool. In all reality, the programs were the same and would have given me the same outcome.

I didn't do campus tours or any of that. I didn't need to know there's a coffee shop and tennis courts and a gym. I needed to know that they offered the programs I wanted with ability to transfer credits and not be stuck in a lecture hall of 200 students for all classes.

I would basically look less at how the campus itself is and more at the programs offered.

I qualified for NO financial aid whatsoever because my parents had assets. I did get a few scholarships, but not enough to cover all four years. This was, of course, incentive to choose wisely when choosing schools. $6400/year versus $35K/year at the prestigious private college? My entire education up to and including my Master's didn't cost what one year of the local private college does.
 
Because of his chosen major, DS20 (current college sophomore) had a very involved and kind of unusual college search. He set his sights on a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Musical Theater (BFA/MT). Most schools that offer this major require an audition to be admitted into the program. DH (being a data geek) made a huge spreadsheet of all the BFA/MT programs in the country. He listed their artistic and general ed requirements. DS studied the list and did a lot of research to narrow down the list. He really wanted a program that would include a weekly private voice lesson. He also wanted more emphasis on voice and acting, and a little less on dance.

His road to selecting a school started with a summer audition coaching program before his senior year. Then he met monthly with an audition coach who helped him select and rehearse his monologues. His voice teacher helped him select his songs. We also hired a dance teacher to help him with his dance clips. Then we rented a studio for a few hours to film everything. These clips were sent to the schools that required video prescreens. If he passed those, he was invited to audition in person. He ended up with 10 auditions. Luckily, the colleges come together and hold "unified" auditions in several cities. You basically go from room to room and audition for various schools in one weekend. We took him to New York and LA. One school required him to audition on campus, so we spent a weekend in Texas. Most programs audition up to 1000 or more students, and they accept anywhere from 10 to 60 each years. DS was accepted to several really good programs. We took him on a week-long trip over spring break to tour his top three schools. Then we sat down, had a discussion and ran the numbers based on the scholarships each school offered. It came down to one school just standing out head and shoulders above the rest. He loved the campus, the atmosphere, and especially the program. The head of the department and an acting teacher met with us for over an hour to explain their program in great detail. They expressed that they really wanted DS to accept their offer. The other schools did that as well, but this one just checked all the boxes for him. After almost two years, he is loving every minute and very glad that he selected this school!
 
We had a 2 month long road trip around the US when my daughter was going into 11th and along the way we stopped a college she was interested in to tour it since we were in California and Stanford was on her list. Then in 11th during one of the breaks we went and toured 4 colleges in Boston she was interested in and the other break 4 colleges in NYC she was interested in. She applied to somewhere between 16 and 18 colleges and once we got the acceptances and financial aid packages from each she narrowed it down to who gave her the most and which she liked best- luckily her number 3 choice gave her full tuition financial aid so it was a no brainer.
 
We officially started the search in the summer after sophomore year. Basically, at the first sign of our son showing interest in beginning to look at a college (Univ. of Denver), we made a trip for an Open House. After that, we usually spent a day or two during breaks visiting schools. We didn't look at a lot of colleges - I think we officially toured 5 or 6 in total. One school he applied to as a 'safety' school - a nearby university that he didn't necessarily plan on attending. That one we didn't tour, but he had been on the campus a couple times for other reasons.
 
We are just beginning the process with our oldest child. She is finishing up her sophomore year of high school.

Her freshman year we went to the college fair at her high school to get a feel for what colleges where available, pick up their brochures and browse their websites.
Beginning of Sophomore year I had her take her first try at the ACT test to see what kind of score she would get.
Recently she has made a list of the colleges that she wants to visit. We have a list of 9 schools. I have given her a radius of a 4 hour drive because she is in band. She wants to do concert band and marching band and as a parent I would like to be able to be there at her concerts and see her perform.
We recently made our first college visit appointment for April 20 at Mizzou. I will try to squeeze in a few visits she wants to do on her days off school, but we we will utilize most of her Junior year to visit colleges while she takes another shot at the ACT test.
Beginning of her senior year if we aren't happy with her ACT score she will take in the spring of junior year we will take the ACT test one more time and will start the application process afterwards. We will not make a formal decision until we see the financials of each school in writing.
 
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My dd decided she wanted to stay in state for financial reasons and because her major is only offered at a handful of schools here she picked one of the top 2. Visited that one and instantly knew that is where she belonged. Now she is looking at grad schools, but not in our state, not sure how she is going to decide on which one since it will be impossible to visit all of them (a few our over seas).
My ds is currently searching for the right school. He is looking to go in to the trades, and I was surprised to see the choices of colleges that offer degrees, but it is still limited. We went on a visit this past weekend at his top choice.
 
Our daughter wanted a school that had both a specific degree and a marching band, so that cut down the list significantly. And when she decided to stay in state, that cut down the list to one.

Our son decided in 7th grade where he wanted to go to school, then decided on his major senior year of high school. :confused3
 
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