Pushing the SUBMIT Button!

Most college applicants apply RD (regular decision) and their applications are due January 1st, January 15th, February 1st or later. Some schools accept applications until March or even April 1st. Students applying Early Decision, ED, submit applications as of November 1st or 15th. These students will be notified of their acceptances by December 15th or so. Many schools have something wonderful called 'Early Action" which allows students to apply early, to be notified early, but to not have to commit to just one school early.

Today, Elsa completed her on line applications and pressed the submit button to apply to three schools: two early action and one early decision. If she is accepted to her early decision school, she must withdraw her early action applications. In that case, she will be done and will not need to submit any further applications to any colleges. If she is deferred or rejected to her ED school, she will apply to four or five additional schools. We will hope for acceptances to her EA schools in the interim. My friend Heather's daughter already has one acceptance under her belt. It was from a school with rolling admissions. These schools accept or reject students as the applications roll in. When they have enough acceptances, they simply close their registration for the semester.

We are nervous, excited and a bit in disbelief that the official process has begun!

For more information on rolling, early action, early decision and regular admissions, check out collegeconfidential.com, discussion, parents. This website has been of enormous help to me!

Good luck to all applicants!

The CSS Profile

The CSS profile is the form many private LACs use to determine the financial needs of families. Other schools, including most SUNYS, use the FAFSA, or both. The advantage of the FAFSA, as I understand it, is that it looks at income only, and is not concerned with home equity, an advantage for families whose homes have increased in value significantly over the years.

Over the summer, we read a book, "How To Pay For Your Child's Education Without Going Broke." Using the book, we were able to determine our EFC, estimated family contribution to the COA, cost of attendance to college. Using an on-line EFC calculator, our estimated EFC was frightening. Using the workbook, we got a better, but still upsetting number. On College Confidential, a website devoted to the posts of college seeking families, I learned that regarding EFC, there is shock, denial and then acceptance. We are moving through the phases.

Our family completed and submitted our CSS profile last night. Elsa is applying to her top school ED and this form was due earlier this month. We missed the deadline, but were told by the FA office that if we got it in in the next few days that we would be in good shape. These decisions are big and complicated. The FAFSA needs to be completed as soon after January 1st as possible. One's tax forms for the previous year should be completed and submitted as soon as possible as well.

For more information about the CSS profile, go to collegeboard.com. About the FAFSA, look at fafsa.org. There is also lots and lots of information on collegeconfidential. com. I read the Parent Pages, Financial Aid pages and the College Admission pages regularly. But, if you are new to this process, be prepared to feel a but upset and panicky after viewing many posts. Avoid the "chance me" posts for sure!

Additional Colleges

I am hoping to be able to post observations and photos from my friend Heather's latest college visits to St. Lawrence College as well as to Juniata College in PA. In the interim, Elsa has done overnights at Wesleyan and at Haverford. She has enjoyed the experiences immensely.



Recently, Wesleyan hosted an all day open house which our family attended. It was great. There were financial aid workshops, admissions workshops, tours of dorms, of the athletic center, of the campus, of the sciences, etc. Students spoke, the president spoke, Elsa attended a class in her area of interest and we got to eat on the campus and experience real college food.



While were were in town, we stayed with family and were lucky enough to tour Trinity College on a cold Sunday afternoon. The college is beautiful, if not just a bit deserted, but located in an area of town that must make some families from pristine suburbs more than a bit nervous. Coming from NYC, we are consistently un-phased by such "less than stellar" neighborhoods, but I can just imagine the CC posts about Hartford, CT!

Interviews and Overnights

This fall, Elsa has been trying to narrow the list of colleges to which she will apply.

One way to do this is to spend the night at a college and possibly attend classes during the day. Athletes are often invited by coaches to attend games, to eat and to stay over with members of the team with which they would play, if accepted. This weekend, Elsa had two overnights scheduled: Smith and Mount Holyoke College. The Smith overnight was rather loose, but very pleasant. Elsa enjoyed her host, Meredith, and her house very much. She wasn't able to attend classes, but she did see a practice and she got to sample Smith food. She had a wonderful time.



















The Mount Holyoke overnight was a more structured event called Focus on Athletics. Prospective athletes for many sports were invited to attend a series of events including a performance by an a capella group, a panel discussion, a campus tour, an overnight and the opportunity to attend classes during the day.







Elsa attended, but later did not feel well and ended up not spending the night. It was a well organized and welcoming event, and I felt that it gave an honest inside view of the school. Many students who love the school now were skeptical in the beginning and not necessarily looking for an all women's college to attend. Many now feel that they definitely benefitted from the experience and believe in the value of single sex education for women. Interesting!





The weekend began when the Beacon soccer coach, Kevin Jacobs, drove the varsity team to Wesleyan for a tour and a meeting with the women's soccer coach. From CT, they traveled to Amherst, his almer mater, to meet with the Amherst women's coach. The team spent the night at the house of a former professor (how generous!) and then had a tour of the campus the next day. Elsa missed these festivities as she was at Smith. Mr. Jacobs kindly dropped her off. But we did join the team on Saturday for the Williams/Amherst women's soccer game, an annual rivalry, to see former Beacon teammate Chelsea's new team play. It was a rainy afternoon of great soccer. Unfortunately Chelsea did not play. Williams won 3-0, although Amherst looked strong in the beginning and challenged Williams several times.

Elsa has four more overnights scheduled before she will make her final decisions. Whew!

A Nice New Wrinkle in our College Search

Elsa was nominated by a friend who graduated Beacon last year for a Posse Scholarship. The Posse Foundation is one which identifies solid students who might not have quite the grades or test scores for admittance into top schools. For each participating school, ten finalists are selected from a bigger pool by the schools and offered an opportunity to attend each school and their tuition is paid. Recipients still pay room and board.

Here is a quote from the Posse Foundation web site:

The Posse Foundation identifies public high school students with extraordinary academic and leadership potential who may be overlooked by traditional college selection processes. Posse’s partner colleges and universities award Posse Scholars four-year, full-tuition leadership scholarships. These Scholars graduate at a rate of 90 percent and make a visible difference on campus and throughout their professional careers.

The following schools accept New York City Posse scholars: Babson, Brandeis, Colby, DePauw, Dickinson, Franklin & Marshall, Lafayette, LAwrence, Middlebury, Trinity, Vanderbuilt, and Wheaton. Some of these schools are already on Elsa's list, making this possibility very exciting.

The rub is that Posse recipients agree to weekly two hour meetings with fellow Posse scholars, beginning right after acceptance in December (like early decision.) These meetings continue throughout the four years of undergraduate study. That's a big comittment! Also, Posse recipients do not ever learn if they would have been accepted at their other choice schools.

Elsa survived the first of three rounds of interviews. The second is next week. If she survives that round, we will have some serious decision making to do!

For more information about The Posse Foundation, go to: www.possefoundation.org.

Bowdoin

One evening this summer, Elsa suddenly decided that she was interested in one Maine college, Bowdoin. It's ranked # 6 in US News and World Reports and it's even more selective than her other choices. Terrific! Chris had told her how beautiful it is, so Elsa decided to investigate. She contacted the soccer coach and arranged a tour and a meeting for shortly after her arrival in Portland. Unfortunately, she couldn't interview on the same day, so I scheduled an interview for her for the following week, on the day we collected Jeremy from camp and Elsa and Chris from New Harbor.



The day of our visit was sunny and hot. The campus looked especially gorgeous, but as we walked around, I wondered how often it looked and felt like this, warm and pleasant, during the school year. We did a 1:30 tour with Melissa and a 2:30 information session with an admissions officer and a student. It was Jonathan's, Jeremy's and our dog, Phoebe's first college tour.





There is a warm and welcoming feeling about Bowdoin. The school doesn't feel pretentious or as indifferent to visitors as Brown did. And, I have to say, that it felt more relaxed even than Wesleyan does to me. Maybe that's because we visited during the summer. (Of course, we were also at Wesleyan during the summer as well.) I also have to say that the information session was not as specific and informative as it might have been. I cannot now clearly articulate what makes Bowdoin Bowdoin.

I get that it is rigorous, and intellectual, and there seems to be a degree of flexibility. The student presenter described an Italian class that met in a cafe outside of class to chat and practice conversational Italian. The campus is breathtaking, and one, like Dickinson in Carlisle and Brown in Providence, that is sprinkled into the town of Brunswick, a very cute and happening little Maine town where Jonathan actually used to live. Bowdoin is also close to Portland, which is appealing as well.


Bowdoin was founded on the principle of "the common good." Quoting the viewbook that is: "...the belief that education should be used to improve the lives of others and not for personal gain.* Nice.

What I like most about Bowdoin is the information it provides on its financial aid web site. There are two pod casts on there with Bowdoin financial aid officers giving general FA information, as well as information specific to Bowdoin applicants. Simply by offering such helpful and encouraging assistance makes me, as a parent, feel that our daughter is encouraged to apply both to the school and for financial aid. So, I guess we're adding another "reach" school to the list. Our next job is to whittle the list down to 10 schools. We'll post when we do.

All photos on this post were taken by Chris Bittner. (My camera battery died.)

Steely Dan

As we were leaving our house to go to the Beacon Theater August 3rd, we saw our neighbor, Paul.

"Where are you going?" he asked as we loaded into our car.

"To a concert," I responded.

"Really? What concert?" he asked.

"Steely Dan!" I replied enthusiastically.

"Wow!" was his response.

"Yes, I know. We never do anything like this." I explained.

"We never do anything at all," my husband Jonathan added, truthfully.

According to the New York Times, Steely Dan, a band I have admired for years, has not performed on a tour since 1974. I would have been 16. Impossible. We don't do many concerts, especially not expensive ones. I can name the artists I have seen live in my life: Hall & Oates, George Harrison (I was 16,) Jackson Browne, James Taylor (twice) and now, Steely Dan. I named my cat 'Aja' after this album.

I have to say, this was a lifetime highlight. I've been to Africa. I've seen Steely Dan. I can die now.

The concert was fantastic. This band is SO talented. I love their music. Not one single bit was annoying. I love every song/piece they play. It's my type of music. The concert was worth the price of the VERY expensive tickets.

The concert, Aja, reminded my of my second year of college at UK. Lexington, Kentucky experienced a huge snowstorm one winter. There were three feet of snow on the ground and the state owned no snow plows. The town shut down completely. I was stuck at home, at 200 Richmond Avenue, a tiny Arts and Crafts style bungalow knockoff, with my wonderful roommate, Sugar, and her boyfriend at the time, David Sorrell. We drank Bloody Marys in the afternoons and listened to Aja. Need I say more? Thank you Becker and Fagen for those wonderful memories. Thank you for allowing me to remember them again.

PS This photo was taken from the Times web site. Had I been allowed to bring my camera, I would have taken a photo of my own. This one was taken by Michael Nagle. Where's Becker?
Read the Times review: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/30/arts/music/30steely.html

Williams and Bennington

Neither school is on our list, but somehow this week's adventure was spent on both campuses. Elsa's Beacon teammate, Chelsea, will attend Williams in the fall and is working some of their summer clinics. Somehow it seemed like a good idea to attend this clinic in case a possible link or connection might somehow be established. Most college researchers know that Williams is tied with Amherst for the #1 and #2 spots on the US News and World Report ranking of LACs in the US. While I am not someone who cares much about rankings, these positions make Williams and Amherst extremely hard to get into and allows them to be incredibly selective of their applicants. I have often been dismayed in this college search process because schools that we like are ranked high on these lists. For our family, high rankings will only serve to deter us rather than encourage us in the application process.

Unlike the Swarthmore clinic last weekend, the Williams clinic was an all day affair, beginning at 8:30 and ending after 4. There were two practice sessions and two scrimmages, as well as lunch and a campus tour. Sophomores and juniors got a brief 'how the application and recruiting process works' talk at the end of the clinic from the assistant coach, but nothing as detailed and informative as the athletes day at Haverford.



The head coach, Michelyne Pinard, spoke briefly with her interested seniors also after the clinic, but Elsa thought we were leaving and declined an appointment. Too bad!




During the clinic, Elsa's boyfriend, Chris, and I had lots of time to kill. We began with a self guided tour of the campus. Williams is a very attractive campus in a lovely area of Massachusetts. The campus is set on a hilly area with magnificent mountain views all around. The architecture is varied. One negative is that, to me, the buildings did not seem to be well planned out in terms of their placement. There was lots going on and plenty of people around for football recruiting, tennis camp, squash camp, a golf event and other things. Chris and I also joined the end of Elsa's campus tour and got to see a dorm common room, which looked just like another school's but I don't remember which. It was not especially nicely decorated and included couches, oversized chairs and a flat screened TV. On our own we found a few shops in what we believe to be the town of Willamstown. There are also banks and other businesses sprinkled into the campus. My favorite aspect of Williams is the many large sculptures placed in lovely and surprising places all over campus.

Chris and I also ventured to The Clark, an impressive art gallery set in a scenic park, complete with walking trails and picnic areas. Two parking lots were full of cars as visitors flocked to see an exhibit of Georgia O'Keefe paintings. While Chris, a student, could enter for free, adult admission is $12.50, which I found a bit steep for the half hour we had available. I would have happily offered a $5 donation, but I was not willing to pay more, so we left without seeing Georgia. We also spent time in a coffee shop in town where while I ate a great quiche, neither of us could log on to the internet. A bit frustrating! We ended the day watching the girls scrimmage.

We had spent the night before in Bennington, Vermont (about 8 miles north of Williamstown?) at a cute, clean motel called America's Best Value Inn, (great water pressure.) After we checked in, we set out to see Bennington College. One odd thing we noticed is there is not one, and we drove through many times, not one sign in town directing visitors to the campus. We happend upon it eventually, after driving 24 miles north and back out of our way because I had misread the map. While lost, we saw a moose on the side of the road! By that time we found the college, it was getting pretty dark, but we managed a self guided dusk tour in the car. Verdict: Bennington is tiny, although very beautiful. It reminded me of my son Jeremy's camp, Hidden Valley, as it has a huge red barn in the center of campus, aptly named "The Barn."

The next day, Chris and I returned to Benington in the daylight to get a better look. The place was deserted. We saw some dorms, the library, and the admissions office, which looks like a grandma's porch equipped with rocking chairs overlooking the mountains. I filled out an admissions card for Elsa on which the school asks applicants to recommend a book that "everyone should read,"-nice evaluative assessment of your applicant pool- and I consulted Chris about what Elsa might recommend.

All in all, it was a relaxing, interesting and enjoyable adventure, at least for me.

College Interviews

For us, the next step in this college search and application ordeal has been a return visit to Elsa's top choice schools to interview. We have elected to do as many as possible during the summer because next fall will be jam packed with club and varsity soccer (NYC girls will play in the fall now thanks to Title IX,) SAT II's, the ACT, overnight visits and college soccer games. Oh, and there are also the essays to write and applications to fill out, on top of homework!

Elsa's first interview was scheduled at Franklin and Marshall after our tour during our April college tour trip. Elsa interviewed with an admissions officer, which was great, but the interview conflicted with the information session, and as a result, I don't feel I know as much about the school as I would like. I may have to return on my own to attend an information session. Her second interviews were last week, at Wesleyan and Connecticut College, and both were conducted by senior student interviewers.



This past week, she interviewed at Haverford and Swarthmore. At Haverford, Elsa interviewed with a senior and at Swarthmore, a really cool adult admissions officer named Nick. So far, all of her interviews have consisted of really great conversations. They have not been hard or dreadful or challenging for Elsa at all. We like revisitng the campuses again. Whenever possible, we will stop by an visit the soccer coach again. So far, none have been available. Next week: Smith and Mount Holyoke...

Connecticut College

Our college search continues, now with much more focus on finding "target" and "likely" schools. Having learned about FAFSA and something called the CSS profile, we are now looking for schools which offer merit aid for qualified students. We have learned so, so much since those early days and tours of February and April.

We learned, for example, that the athletic conference, NESCAC, in which many CT and MA schools, such as Wesleyan, Amherst, Williams, etc, participate, does not allow any kind of financial consideration for academically accomplished athletes.

Other schools, in other conferences, can offer strong students merit aid, so these are the schools we are now seeking out. However, CT College, for its location, reputation and beauty seemed worth a visit. So, Elsa scheduled an interview while I toured and attended an information session.


What stands out about this school? It's co-ed, for one thing. It has a reputation for being "preppy" but we didn't necessarily see evidence of that. I toured with a Brooklyn girl from Berkeley Carroll who had seen Wesleyan in the morning and didn't care for it but loved CT, so maybe there is something in the air that smacks of a little more conservatism than at Wesleyan. CT has an honor code, as does Haverford. It's a nice sized school, about 2,000 students. They do not offer African American studies, but they do have Africana studies, at least. Our tour guide Brianne, is a cheerful and enthusiastic sophomore who got full time work at the school for the summer. Elsa interviewed with a senior named Carly who is just as nice and friendly as she could be. We had a lovely visit on a beautiful day and really enjoyed seeing the school. We were not able to meet the women's soccer coach, but we know that her team has not been successful. I'm not sure they won any games last year, which would be depressing, I think. We did see the athletic center, which is under renovation. CT has both an ice rink and a pool.