Our College Admission Process

Like many mothers, 12 months ago around this time, I was reminding my college-bound son to finalize his list of colleges to apply to.

Even though this was the third time I was sending my child to college, the process was different and nerve wracking.

There were a lot of what if's.

 So in order to narrow down our choices and make the process not as stressful as it could have been, we did:

1) Start Early. Our college selection process started when my son was a freshman in High School. We documented every extra curricular activities and community service. We had a spreadsheet of how many hours he spent on each organization and how many hours he spent giving back to the community. This spreadsheet helped in filling in the college applications.

It was my son's responsibility to spend time going over the colleges' websites, identifying admission requirements, deadlines and academic curriculum.

We visited various universities. Our list consisted of schools I wanted him to visit, schools he really wanted to attend, and schools that might have a potential. We tried to cover the universities that were a train ride away. For the schools that required a weekend trip, we waited until his junior and senior years and focused on schools he was really interested in applying. We attended the information sessions and various campus tours.

2) Support Group.  At the end of my child's junior year in High School, my son's guidance counselor met with us (parents and student) and went over a check list on how to go about the college process. It was a very useful part of the process. The guidance counselor gave us target dates and check list on how to request and submit teachers' letters of recommendations, test scores, transcripts, college applications and essays. My son's guidance counselor emphasized the importance of thoroughly reviewing applications and essays.  

The summer before my son's senior year, he set up an appointment with one of the teachers to go over his resume.  (His teacher was one of the teachers who encouraged him to apply to Columbia University)

3) Know The Environment and Faculty.  My son wanted to have the experience of what it would be like to be in a college setting. He scheduled meetings with admissions officers, financial aid representatives and various faculty members. He sat in a few classes, spoke to students and gathered a lot of information about financial aid.

4) No surprises.  My son's high school uses the Naviance System, a college and career readiness system that helps connect academic achievement to college goals. In this system, students keyed-in the colleges they plan on applying and the system provided statistics based on the admission rate, GPA and SAT scores. Through this program, we had a basic idea what to expect as far as my son's chances of being admitted.

5) Safe School.  Admission process is a process. There's no specific mathematical equation. Decisions whether your child will be accepted or not do not rely on one aspect of his high school life. It's a combination of grades, activities, community service, college interview and test scores. One thing with my son was that he didn't focus on a particular kind of school. The colleges ranged from tough to get in, average and safe. His main goal was to get accepted at any of the colleges he applied to -- where he'd learn not just academically, but musically, intellectually and socially. Our main deciding factor was for the school to be affordable.

6) Financial Aid. In my family, education is important. However, we also emphasized that the cost of college is a 50-50 split financially. We tried to encourage our children to apply to as many scholarships and financial assistance that they're eligible for.

In order to be eligible for any financial aid or university grants, I requested for my son's FAFSA PIN number when he was in 10th grade. The summer before my child's senior year,  I put together a spreadsheet of the colleges my son's interested in applying and the cost of tuition, room and board.

In his senior year in high school, I filled in a FAFSAapplication and filed our income tax returns by March.

Universities like Columbia University give you access to a program called "Net Price Calculator". The calculator gave us an early indication of how much it'll cost us to send our child to such university and what types of financial aid we might qualify.

This process eliminated a lot of the guessing game as far as determining the cost of college.

7) Early  Decision. Early Decision requires that if your child gets admitted, he would attend. It's a binding agreement. Applying Early Decision was a very important and careful choice that we made. It was a big decision which we pondered on for months and months. We were only able to make that decision after identifying the cost of college and after my son's numerous visits and conversations with the students, admissions, financial aid officers and faculty members.

8) Done. Once all the applications were submitted, we marked our calendars. We put the process behind us and prayed.

  

Applying to college is one of the stressful times in our lives, but we can definitely find ways to tone it down a notch or two. Every child is different. Listen to what your child is saying and try to enjoy the process.

My fourth and youngest, is only in seventh grade. I have a few years to re-organize. I'm sure it'll be a different adventure all over again. 

It's a new phase in our lives. Congratulations!