College Apps

School will be out in a couple of weeks. Mr. A will be finished with his junior year. He’ll take the SATs one more time. Then he needs to crank out those college applications. Doesn’t exactly sound like a fun summer, does it?

Mr. A still has his sights on attending the US Naval Academy. He is already an official candidate for the Class of 2015. Either I've grown accustomed to the sound of "Class of 2015" or it's just made me numb. The application process for all of the service academies is rough. It includes the actual application, essay, and recommendation letters. But it also includes a physical fitness test and a nomination from a Senator or Congressman. The nomination packet is another whole subset application with essays, interviews, and such.

Whether or not Mr. A attends the Academy, he still wants to be a Naval officer. So his back-up plan consists of Navy ROTC. The NROTC scholarship is… you guess it… another application process. A process that is already underway. Mr. A still needs to write his essay and select five universities from the NROTC list. Then he needs to apply to each of those five schools. More essays. He tallied them up and he has 12 to write. We did a little bit of brainstorming this weekend and it looks like he’ll be able to retread some of them. Also, three of the schools that Mr. A is looking at use the Common Application so that should cut down on some of the paperwork.

Currently, his ROTC list has six schools and he needs to cut one. All of the schools so far have made the cut for engineering programs and “life outside the classroom.” He’s now ranking schools based on dorms and meals plans. He’s looking for co-ed dorms and an unlimited meal plan. The meal plan must be high up on the list because Notre Dame is still in the running and they definitely don’t have co-ed dorms.

To help cut down the list Mr. A has visited the two schools in Florida that he’s considering. A couple of weeks ago we went to the University of Florida. I was overwhelmed by the enormity of the school. It’s ten times the size of the university that I attended. I must have looked like a tourist in Times Square the entire time I was there.

I was also very surprised by the attitude we encountered while touring UF. Normally, I thought a school would try to woo prospective students. Instead the attitude that came across was, We think we’re fabulous and you’ll be privileged if we let you attend. I was truly surprised that I got this kind of feeling from a state university that everyone in Florida should be able to attend.

Another thing Mr. A and I noticed at UF, all of the other prospective students on the tour had UF as their first choice. Mr. A was there trying to decide if he wanted to keep it on his list of back-up schools. We had such a totally different perspective of the school than the other students and parents. But since UF has an unlimited meal plan, it’s still on the list.

All of this college application stuff boggles my mind. Mr. A is driving the bus on this because this is what he wants to do. The rest of us are along for the ride to offer support and assistant when needed. My approach to college was much different. I went to college because that’s what I was supposed to do. I didn’t know what I wanted to study. I certainly didn’t know what kind of career I wanted. I look at my son and wonder, Is he really my kid?

Did you know what you wanted to study in school?
Did you have your career mapped out?
Is your current career in your field of study?
Have college admissions always been so competitive?