Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion College application strategy

Wren,

Good luck to your daughter.

As a parent who has successfully gone through elite college admissions twice, the most useful advice I can give you right now is for her to get every other application fully ready before she hears back from Harvard. If she gets good news in December, she won't care about how much time she "wasted" on other apps.

But if not, it is far better to have completed or nearly completed apps when her mood is good rather than try to complete them all in two weeks when she is anxious.

I do disagree with one part of your advice though, and that is regarding the teacher recommendations. Generally colleges like to see recommendations from junior year teachers as that is the most current, and usually the most advanced classes. In her case, AP Physics is an advanced class, but most of the time the 9th grade class will not be.