I’ve seen a lot of senior families get stalled in the application process by decisions that actually didn’t need to be made at that time. As you prepare to apply to college, it’s helpful to separate questions about where to apply from those about where to attend.
How many schools will you apply to? Will you apply early decision? Will you find some safety schools (please do)? Will you apply for financial aid and scholarships? Those are decisions about applying, and they all need to be made in the next few months.
But decisions about where to attend are best made when you’ve received your offers of admission and financial aid. That might seem obvious, but here are some examples of decisions that sometimes bog families down prematurely:
For students:
Are you ready to go to school far away from home?
Should you take out a student loan to pay for school?
Will you major in accounting or business?
Will you live off campus or commute?
For parents:
Will a private school be worth the money?
Is your student equipped to succeed at a large school?
Is your student prepared to live far away from home?
Are you prepared to have your student live far away from home?
Those are important questions and I’m not suggesting you shouldn’t be considering any or all of them now. But don’t let any of them paralyze your application process. You don’t know how much financial aid you’re going to get or if you’ll need to take out a loan. You don’t know whether you’ll still be interested in accounting ten months from now. Parents, you don’t know whether your student will still want to live far away, whether he’ll even be admitted to an expensive private school, or what he might do academically during the senior year to show he’s ready for a big school environment. Those questions can be considered, but they can't be answered until you have the admissions and financial aid information next spring.
If you find yourself feeling anxious about the application-related decisions you're considering, ask yourself if it's a decision about applying, or rather, one about attending. That will take some pressure off as you start the application process.