The College Search Blog

Things Look Up

Rachel will be going to college in the fall after all! Honestly, I was a little worried that we'd miscalculated and all the colleges on her list had overnight become too selective.

But two acceptances were posted on Sunday. She's been accepted to U.C. San Diego and U.C. Santa Cruz. If she hadn't gotten into Santa Cruz, we would have been really deflated, even depressed. Santa Cruz is one of the easier U.C.s to get into and was her backup.

As for U.C. San Diego, she was not at all interested in going there (arbitrary reason: too far south for her), but persistence on my part finally convinced her to just apply anyway. We literally added U.C. San Diego to the U.C. online application at the last minute before we hit the Submit button. OK, it actually took 30 minutes to add it because she had to pick one of the six colleges at U.C. San Diego to be her first choice. That took a little poking around on the Web site at about 11 p.m.

But I'm so glad we did, and so is Rachel now. She's actually excited that she got in. I think it's become her first-choice college all of a sudden. Or maybe she's just relieved that she got accepted somewhere!

The First Decision: A Rejection

The very first decision Rachel received from a college was a rejection. I came home from work to find her bravely tapping away on the computer keyboard, working on her dreaded A Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man essay. But I knew something was amiss. Her eyes were red. The desk was strewn with wadded-up tissues. An empty tissue box lay in the trash. Being observant and a born detective, I just KNEW.

"So how are you?" I asked politely. "Fine," she said with a wan smile. I sat down on the bed and examined her watery eyes. That's all it took. The floodgates flew open.

"Oh Mommy, Davis rejected me!" she blurted out. It was that bad: I had become "Mommy," not "Mom." Obviously, a new box of tissues was in order.

As I ran to the cupboard and foraged for the tissues, I admit I was shaken too. The University of California at Davis — my alma mater — always seemed to be a shoe-in for her. Davis is not necessarily an easy school to get into these days, but it's not out of her reach. Her grades and test scores where right in the range published on the U.C. Davis Web site. The thought crossed my mind, "What if she doesn't get into any of the schools she applied to?"

A crazy thought. Silly. I did my research. I had a handle on the stats. But ... had I miscalculated the intensity of the competition these days? Was the bad economy to blame here?

Rachel, I knew, was thinking similar thoughts, that her dreams might need to be adjusted downward.

Returning with the tissues, I gave her a hug. "Honey, hang tough. This is just the first of many twists and turns on the road to college." How wise I sounded.

It was enough to get her through the evening. She went back to her essay and even managed to come to the table for dinner.

My Cornell History

How do families pick colleges to tour? Family tradition can be one big reason and is exactly why we started out at Cornell.

My father was a graduate student in the philosophy department there when I was about 5 years old. My parents, my little brother and I lived in a row of duplexes near the campus, in married-student housing, to be exact. I remember much of those days: my father coming home with wet pant legs from the deep snow. My father playing the piano. Building forts with my brother out of sofa cushions. I remember walking around the campus, throwing rocks into the gorges and seeing students sing Christmas carols. Tragically, in his second year there, my father died in a skiing accident while out with his graduate school buddies. After his death, my mom moved us back to Salt Lake City, to be near her family.

I've always wanted to return to Cornell to visit the old spots I vividly remember, but there was never an opportunity to do so. I was accepted into Cornell when it was my turn to go to college, but I decided to go to college closer to home, in California. I always slightly regretted it, although I had a great college experience where I ended up (U.C. Davis). Also, I guess I was afraid that if I went it might bring back sad memories for my mother.

In Rachel's sophomore year of high school, in a required class called College and Careers, she had to write a research paper about one in-state college and one out-of-state college. She chose Cornell for her out-of-state school, simply because her maternal grandfather went there. She could have picked the University of Utah, where her maternal grandmother went; or the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, where her paternal grandparents went; or Goddard College in Vermont, where her father went, but no. I think it was because she knew Cornell has a vet school, and she once wanted to be a vet. In other words, it was a bit arbitrary.

Plan Ahead

I was incredibly organized, if I do say so. Before we left home, I:

• Discussed colleges with Rachel and came up with a list of those that she'd consider and those that I insisted we visit
• Signed up at three colleges for tours (using their Web sites)
• Mapquested my way from Buffalo to Cornell and to each destination thereafter
• Arranged for hotels and places to stay with friends along the way
• Bought the plane tickets and rented the car

Planning all this out took a good chunk of time in the weeks prior to our trip, so if you're planning a doozy of a college tour for your family, make sure you allow enough time to plan adequately. It's worth it. Our trip went very well. No nasty surprises, like getting lost in Manhattan in a rental car or finding out that the college tours were fully booked (which can happen, especially during spring break).

Our Big Fat East Coast College Tour

Out-of-state college tours are pricey. And I started our college touring with a dooozy of a trip. I don't think most families need to do it the way we did.

Last spring break, I packed up the kids (Rachel and her 11-year-old brother, Alex) and headed east. Our trip certainly wasn't the biggest college tour I've ever heard of — one family I know visited twice as many schools as we did in the same amount of time. But for us, this was a big, very expensive trip.

Rachel wanted to see Cornell University most of all the East Coast colleges, so I bundled tours of several other colleges into one long road trip, from Buffalo to Baltimore. Because Rachel had no other East Coast colleges on her list, and because I didn't want our 10-day spring break trip to be just for one college, I arranged tours wherever we happened to have friends or family, so the trip was actually multifunctional.

We flew into Buffalo, New York, and started our odyssey by heading south to Cornell in a rented car.

Heading Into the Eye of the Storm

My daughter (who I'm giving the alias "Rachel" for privacy purposes) is a senior in high school preparing to go to college. When I asked her what name she'd like me to use for her here, in true teen fashion, she said she didn't care. Not that she's apathetic about most things. But I do seem to get "I don't know" and "I don't care" from her quite a bit these days. I also get lots of strong opinions from her, some half formed and others surprisingly well thought out.

By and large, I think she has good instincts. It's her ability to articulate them that can be problematic. She receives great grades for her essays on Hamlet and American democracy, but ask her to describe what she wants from college or a career and she'll curl up into a fetal position and moan.

So, for this blog, I'll call her Rachel. Rachel and I are deep into the college admissions process. We've passed through the outer bands of the hurricane and are now aimed for the eye of the storm. We've been following all of the prompts provided by her high school to get her ready.

For example, Rachel took the PSAT in her sophomore year (a practice run for the PSAT in her junior year). Like all good juniors, she took the PSAT in the fall of her junior year (a practice run for the SAT). So, essentially, she had two practice runs for the SAT.

Then, she took the SAT in the spring of her junior year. But she had to take the SAT again a few weeks ago, because, even though she had the two practice runs for the SAT, she still forgot that the SAT penalizes you for guessing, so she scored lower than she would have if she had remembered that simple rule.

She's taken two SAT subject tests and is signing up to take a third, just in case.

Meanwhile, she's been careful to take all the classes required by our state university system (the University of California).

Seems like a lot of hoops to jump through just to get to college. That's my humble opinion.

So here we are, in mid-October, poised to make the next important decision of her young life: Where to go to college?

In the next few months, we'll continue our ongoing search for the right college. She'll get teacher recommendations and write college application essays. She'll create a giant spreadsheet of deadlines and requirements. Meanwhile, I'll be her trusty assistant and counselor, allowing her to make certain executive decisions but guiding her with a light touch and providing soothing words and "atta girl" encouragement. I'll also blog about our journey together. I'm hoping I can turn this stressful journey into a fun ride for everyone.

A New Search

My son, Alex, is now  relatively comfortably ensconced in middle school. But the search for schools never ends (it seems) and I'm in the midst of aiding and abetting my daughter in her college search. We actually started the process in earnest last spring with a big college tour during spring break. After the tour came much discussion, research in books and on Web sites, and comparing notes with friends. The task ahead seems daunting. More daunting than searching for an elementary school, a middle school or a high school, although all of those searches seemed like a lot of work at the time. Well, here we go again! Time to dive in!

Alex's Transition to Middle School

Sixth-graders: On your mark, get set ... and, go! Alex is off and running at his middle school.

The first month of middle school has been a roller coaster for him. I'll share the good news first: He enjoys moving around between classes. He's excited about having a locker. For the first time in his school career, he has male teachers — all five of them are male, in fact. He seems to like this.

But the transition to middle school can be tough, especially for kids moving from a small school to a big feeder middle school such as Alex's. There are 1300 kids from all over the city at this school.

Last year, at his elementary school, he looked like a confident big kid. Now he looks small and vulnerable, like a little boy. I think he feels pretty much the way he looks.

Now for the bad news. One of his teachers is the very same teacher who nearly gave my daughter a nervous breakdown the first month of her sixth-grade year. After she told me that he was destroying her self-confidence and humiliating her classmates, I removed her from his class  (Thankfully, she went on to have a fine year.)

Now the fates have decreed that Alex should also face the fearsome Mr. R.! And once again, I'm being told by the counseling office: "This man is a great teacher. All the parents and the kids love him once they get to know him. Just stick with him."

So far, Alex is not traumatized by Mr. R. However, Alex and I are wary. Mr R. has been out for medical reasons for several weeks and will return next week. My surveillance of the situation will resume at that time. For now, the jury is out: is Mr. R. truly as bad as my daughter says, and therefore bad for Alex, or will Mr. R. turn out to be the academic savior he's reputed to be? To be continued...

[GreatSchools has lots of expert advice on topics like this one.]

Finally, on top of everything else, Alex's best friend, the one that was going to accompany him to this school, unexpectedly moved away over the summer, leaving Alex with no close friends at the school. Although Alex makes friends easily, and I think he'll do fine socially, I do feel for him.

The Wheel of Fortune

I spun the Wheel of Fortune and I hit the jackpot.

The Wheel of Fortune, in this case, is the San Francisco Unified School District's school choice lottery, and the jackpot is a seat at our first-choice school.

I have to say, it sure was a nice feeling to open that assignment letter from the district. All my research, touring and analyzing paid off, and the process is winding down. Until my older child applies to college, anyway. But that's two years off.

At least I don't have to negotiate with the district, write appeals or hold out for the 10-day count — all strategies that could be implemented if necessary. No, it's settled. But was I lucky? If so, how lucky?

I realize most people have absolutely no idea how the SFUSD assigns students to schools. Every community with school choice has its own unique way of doing things. But San Francisco's system is really quite interesting. That's because it's a lottery that tries to create diversity in the schools, and, at the same time, make as many parents happy as possible. How can this work, you might reasonably ask? Here's how (and don't think there isn't a lot of griping and tweaking of the system going on continually):

Whenever there are more applicants than openings at a school, the lottery kicks in. But it's not a pure lottery. Instead, the district uses a formula called the Diversity Index to determine if each applicant will add diversity to the school. The five "race neutral" factors used in the Diversity Index are:

1. "Extreme poverty" (for example: Does the student live in public housing or is the student homeless?)
2. Socioeconomic status — determined by participation in the free/reduced lunch program or other assistance programs
3. The student's home language
4. The academic performance of the sending school
5. The academic achievement of the student — determined by standardized test scores, or for an incoming kindergartner, by whether or not she attended preschool

This year, 84% of San Francisco schools received more requests than there were seats available. This may give the impression that the schools in San Francisco are incredibly popular, but it's simply that families can request up to seven schools. Therefore, there are up to seven times the number of requests for seats than actual students needing seats, giving the appearance of high demand.

The reality is that 81% of the 3,145 families looking for middle schools got their first-choice school this year.

Our first-choice school, His Sister's Old School, had five requests per seat, more than any of the other middle schools. "Wow," you might think, "She's so lucky." Sure, but 81% of all fifth-grade applicants got their first-choice school, so I'm not that lucky.

To tell the truth, this year I found that there were five middle schools that I would have been happy sending Alex to. That was rather a pleasant realization. I wasn't terribly stressed out about the process of picking the right public middle school. I'm more concerned that Alex might do better in a little, tiny private school, with small class sizes.

So, even though I spun the Wheel of Fortune and won the public school jackpot, I'm still not completely free of stress and concern. If I were, I wouldn't be a very modern parent, would I?

Having Second Thoughts About My First Choice

So I turned in the school district's application form the other day. I made the deadline with two hours to spare.

I was happy to hear that I wasn't the very last parent to make up her mind. No, there was a pack of us making the decision at the last minute this year. I don't know what excuses the others had, but mine was that I couldn't find a clear first choice.

I listed five public schools that I would be happy to send Alex to. I was supposed to list seven, but I could only come up with five. All five are great schools, though. 

I put His Sister's Old School as our first choice because it's close to our house and his sister received a fine, if overly rigorous, education there.

I put The Hidden Gem in second place. I did this because, while it's a smaller school (a good thing), it's farther from our house (not a good thing). Proximity is always important, but especially so when kids are starting to venture from school to home on their own. I'd like Alex's first forays into solo city navigation to be simple and safe.

But, now...now I think I should have put that darn Hidden Gem in first place! For heaven's sake, Alex and I can deal with a longer commute if it means he'll have a school that better suits his learning style! And Alex learns much better in smaller groups, which The Hidden Gem offers. Dang! What was I thinking?

These second thoughts really intensified when a friend called me after reading my blog. "You raved about The Hidden Gem and then you didn't put it down as your first choice. What's that all about?" she asked silkily. And I didn't have a ready answer.

I comfort myself with the notion that if I'd left it up to Alex, he would have picked His Sister's Old School. But then I torture myself with the notion that he's a kid, his reasons are purely juvenile, I shouldn't leave it up to him anyway. He only wants to go to His Sister's Old School because that's where he thinks his friends are going to go.

Although his social life should not trump his academic needs, his social life is important to his overall success. (This reminds me of the day that we toured His Sister's Old School and one of the touring moms conducted an impromptu interview of the kids waiting for the morning bell. She asked them, "Why did you choose this school?" They answered, "Because our friends were going to go here!" This mom, a middle-school counselor, later told me, "Educators and parents often forget just how important it is that kids are happy socially.")

On one school tour this year I met a wise "parent ambassador" named Sue, who shared with me a lesson she had learned the year before. Sue told me that her daughter had come to her in sixth grade and asked to be transferred out of her school (which, ironically, is the school I've chosen for Alex, His Sister's Old School). Sue said she was surprised at how calm her daughter was about everything. Her daughter "just knew" she would do better in her new school and calmly awaited her reassignment in seventh grade. The moral: if the first choice doesn't turn out to be the best choice, kids can handle switching schools just fine. I've been thinking about this little tale a lot lately.