How can parents help their kids get into college?

[BocaBum99 Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close BocaBum99]

My DD is an art student, and goes to SVA, in Manhattan. She is taking courses on animation, story boarding, cartooning, and video game design. She does drawings for videos games, etc.

Her school has a large concentration on video game design. Most of the boys in her school are involved one way or the other in animation, video game design, photography, or film. Video game design, has become a huge major.

Interesting. This thread is opening my eyes to options I didn't know were available.

As you describe what your daughter is doing, it sounds more and more like video game design is perfect for my son in terms of what he loves and what he is good at. He dropped out of band to get into ART. He really loves it. One of his electives this semester is 3-D art. He is always creating computer animations and he recently got second in his class in an art competition. He did a very clever inversion where looking at the art one way it said PIE. When turned upside down, it said 3.14.

[Barbeque Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Barbeque]

Just a different way of approaching the goal. When my son was in 6th grade he studied hard, and had a 2.5 Grade Point average. Between 6th and seventh grade I started giving him fish oil pills (From small caught fish mercury free) I buy the better ones. For seventh grade he was above a 3.0, and eighth grade above a 3.5. He is now a freshman in high school and is in the GATE program and is excelling in school.
I think nutrition is more important than most of us realize, and that all the chemicals in processed foods and in our environment may be harming us and our children more than we realize.

My son always tried hard, but successes breed confidence. This was a great help to him.

[Steamboat Bill Banned Find all posts View Profile Close Steamboat Bill]

He did a very clever inversion where looking at the art one way it said PIE. When turned upside down, it said 3.14.

Very Clever...now can he squeeze in a 22/7

[BocaBum99 Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close BocaBum99]

Very Clever...now can he squeeze in a 22/7

That would be making the irrational rational. LOL.

[joycapecod Silver Contributor Find all posts View Profile Close joycapecod]

Very Clever...now can he squeeze in a 22/7

The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender...

Another 22/7

JOy

[Luanne Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Luanne]

Decided against my original post.

[Holly in South Jersey Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Holly in South Jersey]

Writing video games- what's the job market like? Maybe use that as a hook to steer them toward engineering? Seems like writing video games is a specialized software writing, so software engineer?

Holly

[chs225 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close chs225]

A simple thing you can do to aid your son's admission process

On the computer start a word document entitled "Accomplishments"
Lists absolutely everything you can think of that he has done in the past (babysitting, mowed lawns, played baseball,raised money for church) Continue to add to this list as he progresses(writing awards, summer activities) Leave out nothing. Every college looks for different things, your collective memories will not be enough to recall what make have seemed trivial to you at the time but is important now.

I did not do this for my oldest but as a result did for the next two. The difference was amazing

One last thought
Send him to the school that is right for him, not right for you

[BocaBum99 Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close BocaBum99]

A simple thing you can do to aid your son's admission process

On the computer start a word document entitled "Accomplishments"
Lists absolutely everything you can think of that he has done in the past (babysitting, mowed lawns, played baseball,raised money for church) Continue to add to this list as he progresses(writing awards, summer activities) Leave out nothing. Every college looks for different things, your collective memories will not be enough to recall what make have seemed trivial to you at the time but is important now.

I did not do this for my oldest but as a result did for the next two. The difference was amazing

Yeah, this is a good idea. When discussing this concept with my son, we are preparing now for the "resume" he will have in his senior year.

One last thought
Send him to the school that is right for him, not right for you

I completely agree. Actually, I am pretty good at this one thing. My son quit band in order to take up art. I personally didn't want for him to do it. After probing the situation in multiple ways, I concluded that it was the right decision for him. I just wanted to make sure he really wanted to do it for the right reasons and he wasn't cutting off other opportunities later.

[silly_stitcher Member Find all posts View Profile Close silly_stitcher]

I've been an ACT/SAT instructor off and on for 10 years now and attended a "top" university within the past 10-15 years, so here's my $0.02:

First, Boca, it sounds like your son would LOVE Carnegie Mellon! Hard to get into either the comp sci or the arts program, but the synergy between the two makes it the top gaming program in the country. When I applied, I got into the Liberal Arts division, which was reputed to be relatively easy to get into, but then I found out that transferring within divisions at CMU is incredibly difficult. So DO NOT assume that transferring between programs at the same university is easily doable.

Second, test scores sometimes count for waaaaaay too much. I say that as a former high school slacker who barely graduated in the top third but had the top ACT and SAT scores of the class and perfect SAT II scores. I ended up at one of my "reach/dream" schools and many of my higher-ranked classmates ended up in their safety schools. Kids should take the SAT II subject tests right after taking the subject and the SAT/ACT during the spring of their junior year. Why? Because...

Third, APPLY EARLY. The sooner the application is in, the better. The competition is less fierce when there are fewer applicants to compare your kid against! Most kids applying to competitive institutions get their applications in between Thanksgiving and New Year's. I got mine in by the first week in October. Some serious advantages to getting ready early: my teachers weren't yet swamped with requests for letters of recommendation, I spent the summer between junior and senior years working on my essays (except for University of Chicago's, which always has funky essay topics), and I had my scores in hand to better gauge where I had a fighting chance of admission. Of course, there's one big danger to applying (and getting in) early: senioritis. I was in a great school before Thanksgiving thanks to rolling admissions, so I pretty much goofed off my entire senior year and probably killed my chances at the schools that asked for my first semester grades. Still, it was nice to have some of the pressure lifted that early.

Fourth, investigate little-known-gems. I think another one of the reasons I got into one school is that I was the only applicant from my high school to that school. Some schools are "sexy" during a particular application season: my senior year, Duke, Brown and Northwestern were especially hot. Out of a class of 180, I think about 25% of us applied to at least one of those three schools. There's no way any of these schools were going to take more than a handful of us, no matter how qualified the rest of the applicants from my high school were! There are some outstanding, yet unknown, schools out there.

Fifth, if your kid really wants to apply to a popular school, he may be competing most with his very own classmates. Another personal example: Tufts University had five applicants from my high school senior class. Tufts accepted the highest-ranked applicant, waitlisted the second-highest applicant, and rejected the rest of us. Yes, I was one of the five. No, I didn't get in -- relatively awful grades, remember? So here's where grades really do matter: if there's more than one applicant from your kid's high school to a relatively small and competitive school, your kid should try to find out if he/she is the highest ranked applicant or has a "hook" -- otherwise, it's probably a waste of an application fee. And believe me, those fees add up.

Fifth, bassoon is a great suggestion, as is French horn or euphonium. A friend of mine played both tuba and euphonium and had his pick of universities, including Peabody and West Point. Of course, he also had the grades and the scores, but the Army marching band is always looking for a euphonium player! Seriously though, a kid has to really ENJOY playing the bassoon or the euphonium -- otherwise it just looks fake. My friend was a top euphonium player and the only way to get there is to love it. Generally speaking, almost any unusual, yet valued, and well-developed talent is helpful in tipping the scales your kid's way. But it's impossible to predict which school is going to want/need your kid's talent. And unless your kid is Division I sports material, an extracurricular is NOT going to get your kid in without the right test scores and grades.

Sixth, be prepared for your child to apply to many, many more schools than you did. It's not uncommon for kids to apply to 8-10+ schools now. When I applied (albeit a little while ago), I cast a wide net: two state schools (Ohio State and University of Michigan), two Ivies (Columbia and University of Pennsylvania), one techie school (Carnegie Mellon), two small liberal arts colleges (Swarthmore and Tufts), and three private universities (Northwestern, Georgetown, and University of Chicago). Of these 10 schools, I got into 3, waitlisted at 1, and rejected by 6. I attended the school that waitlisted me, so it is possible to get in off the waitlist, but it's HARD and it's only gotten harder over the years.

Finally, remember: There's nothing "fair" about the college admissions game. Schools are rejecting perfectly qualified applicants. There are just too many qualified students applying to the same schools, so schools are accepting students by keeping an eye on the class as a whole. Kids get in sometimes by what appears to be chance/luck/etc. So try not to take it all too personally and try to prepare your child for the possibility of not getting into his/her top school. I thought my rejections were the end of the world, despite getting into a number of fantastic schools. Lo and behold, I came through just fine. So does just about everyone else.

And of course if, for some reason, things don't work out, there's always the transfer option!

[bnoble Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close bnoble]

Help them find something they love, and excel at it, and apply to a range of schools that are of interest. They won't get into all of them, but if they apply intelligently, they will get into some.

As you describe what your daughter is doing, it sounds more and more like video game design is perfect for my son in terms of what he loves and what he is good at.

This is good motivation, but a dicey career plan. I'm a CS professor at a major research university, and am teaching the intro CS course for CS, CE, and EE majors. We've got about 300 students this term. The vast majority of them want to "build video games". I can gaurantee you that there aren't enough jobs in that industry annually to even hire all of our students, let alone those everywhere else.

it sounds like your son would LOVE Carnegie Mellon!

My graduate degrees are from CMU. I would not recommend it for an undergraduate unless they are 100% sure they know what they want to do---and it is something CMU is good at. CMU has some excellent departments. They also have some lousy ones. Most students who have some uncertainty about what they want would be better served at a school with a broad base of good departments, even if none of them are truly great.

The biggest advice I could give any student---high school, undergraduate, or graduate---is to make the most of your time, however you spend it. I see a lot of really smart kids just going through the motions here at Michigan. They get "okay" grades, and they'll get "okay" jobs, but in a real sense, they are wasting their time. If you're going to take a class, take it seriously.

[BocaBum99 Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close BocaBum99]

This is good motivation, but a dicey career plan. I'm a CS professor at a major research university, and am teaching the intro CS course for CS, CE, and EE majors. We've got about 300 students this term. The vast majority of them want to "build video games". I can gaurantee you that there aren't enough jobs in that industry annually to even hire all of our students, let alone those everywhere else.

This is a good point. I told him that I'll teach him how to sell timeshares if he wants. Needless to say, he is not interested. LOL.

The thing that is true about selling timeshares is that there isn't much competition. Think about it. How many students who got accepted into a top 50 University (by any measure) wrote an essay about why they want to be a timeshare salesman? I think used car salesman beat it out. ROFL.

I just want for him to be motivated and to go for whatever he wants with great passion. No matter the competition or the result, only good can come from that effort.

I have plenty of back up plans for him that can provide a better safety net than McDonald's. Well, that is if he doesn't own the franchise.

[wackymother Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close wackymother]

I just want for him to be motivated and to go for whatever he wants with great passion. No matter the competition or the result, only good can come from that effort.

This is so, so true. Good luck to your son in the next four years and in life!

[bnoble Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close bnoble]

I just want for him to be motivated and to go for whatever he wants with great passion.

Then you're ahead of most parents. I can't count the number of students who don't want to be engineers, but are in the College because "their parents think it's a good career." Because they don't love what they do, those kids are at best average until they get into something they enjoy a lot more.