[berettafan]

Son is HS sr this year and college went from being a vague idea requiring money to a steel toed boot to the nuts in a hurry! We've been talking with other parents in our circle to get some perspective and of course researching the heck out of schools, costs, etc online.

So for parents who've yet to send their first to college here are a few observations-

-Out of state tuition/room & board at public colleges are easy $40-50k/yr. Private colleges can be $75k/yr easy. Private schools have more money to throw at you. Don't write one off just because it's more $$ on the website.

-There are apparently a LOT of kids out there making a job out of maxing their SAT scores. 1500 is no promise of ivy. And we've learned 1300+ is no promise of mid to upper tier publics.

-Money spent on college app essay training is probably well worth it. We didn't do this for our son but will definitely be doing so for his younger sister. Seems ridiculous but the competition is doing it guaranteed.

-Everybody wants to go to school in Fla and the schools there know it. Don't look at FSU's average accepted SAT and assume you're golden.

-Acceptance rates are dropping like a rock. Many schools we're looking at are reporting 20% increases in apps rec'd. Niche app might say xyz U has 65% acceptance rate but we've got an email where the math is a lot closer to 15%.

-Consider early admission. Much nicer to have choices in January/February than to wait till April. Schools want deposits by May 1.

-Yield protection is a thing. Perusing the admissions forums for various schools shows kids with 1550 SAT's getting denied from 'lesser' schools. Don't assume State U is a safety choice. They may deny your 1500 SAT/Cheer captain student because they assume she won't accept if offered.

-State schools can and do offer differently to in state and out of state students. Have seen reports of 2x's the offer % to OOS vs IS.

-Sports- Our kid is a 3 sport athlete with all manner of awards but he's not a D1 athlete in any of them and wants the best possible engineering degree so we're out of play on this aspect. But we have several friends whose kids ARE potential D1s and the stories we get are very interesting.

Football and basketball are the revenue generators for colleges. That is where resources go. Consider this before dropping $5k plus on a season of travel baseball , field hockey, etc. Nobody gives a **** what your kid did pre HS. They want to know measurables. Sprint times, height, weight and how recently did he hit puberty. 5'11" with a beard freshman hitting bombs on the diamond projects for ****. That kid is invisible to recruiters. 6'4" bean pole freshman with good speed on passing routes...that kid projects. Get your fast, projectable football kid to set up a twitter, link HUDL film and if he's projectable he might start getting calls. BUT be aware you might be invited to a camp/tour just to put pressure on another kid who was already offered but hasn't accepted. Heard first hand of this happening. It is a wild world out there for the big two sports. Every other sport...play for the love but don't think you are investing. We ALL say it's about the fun and to an extent it is but we easily spent a year's tuition on travel baseball over the years. In retrospect...no thanks. The wise play would've been to stay local and have fun. Legion ball (almost free), occasional lessons and a good workout routine would accomplish the same. No doubt there are parallels in most other sports.