Our Family’s College Journey (Part I)
For the next couple of weeks I’m going to share details about my family’s college admissions experience with our son— things we did better, factors beyond our control, and how you might learn from our experience to plan for the process with your family.
Today I’m going to go over some factors beyond our control that worked for and against us.
Personality
Everyone who has more than one child know they all come with their own unique personalities. Our son is more laid back than his sister. He was also able to make more decisions early in the process, like declaring a favorite school for early decision.
Academics & Testing
I’m fortunate that both of my kids are smart, good students, who are also great test takers. However, both also have anxiety that has, in different ways, impacted their performance in school. My son has a few more Bs on his high school transcript than his sister. Each was reasonable given the class, teacher, and situation at the time.
Early Focus on Specific School Types
Almost from the start of our school search (towards the end of 10th grade) my son has expressed a clear preference for smaller schools. He wasn’t clear on a specific major, but consistently gravitated to areas like history, sociology, political science, philosophy, and anthropology. By the middle of his junior year, we were looking exclusively at small liberal arts colleges, most outside of Texas.
Cooperation & Effort from Our High School
We switched our son to a private school his junior year. Our daughter graduated from our large public high school. Teachers and counselors at both put time and effort into letters of recommendation. My son’s high school made the process easier.
We benefited from the tone and expectations set by the school. The college counselor started meeting with students junior year to discuss college lists. He encouraged our son to research schools and suggested a variety of options. Yes, the personal attention was great, but I really appreciated the school-wide promotion of a variety of schools with a focus on fit.
Fortuitous Timing
We’ve had college decisions since January, leading to a lower stress spring, the complete opposite of our experience with our daughter, who was waiting until the last week in March to hear from a few colleges.
Our son applied to five school, with the idea that if he hadn’t gotten good news by winter break, we could add more schools before the January 1 deadline. He applied to one school Early Decision, one Early Action, and the remainder regular decision. We knew the early ones would have a decision in December, but the three regular decision schools got back to him early, so he could start comparing schools and offers early. Yes, his ability to get all applications submitted by early October helped, but it was nice to hear back ahead of schedule.
Conclusion
I list these as factors beyond our control which means I don’t have many suggestions or to-do steps for you. Yes, it would be great if you have an easy-going kid who can quickly narrow down their college list. Or a super test taker or a student with great grades.
Next week I’ll outline the positive things we did to improve the process and I’ll have specific tips and suggestions.