2017 parent seeking advice from experienced parents...

Parents Forum
1

<p>I know I am early to the party but I also know that in order to have the strongest chance at her first tier schools, I need help from experienced parents. How do you organize, plan , and prioritize activities, extracurriculars, summer programs, etc?</p>

<p>My current 8th grader is very interested in pursuing a medical career. She will enter 9th grade (science magnet student) with 3 high school courses done - English 1H, Spanish 1H, and Algebra 1H and have a predicted gpa of 4.75. She is a state "Junior Scholar", which is earned with a combination of GPA and performance on the SAT and PSAT. Her freshman year will be pretty aggressive:</p>

<p>Geo H
Biology 1H
Eng 2H
AP Human Geography
Spanish 2H
Orchestra and an additional elective/related art</p>

<p>She wants to run with the cross country team in high school (it's a very competitive and high performing team) and has started training. </p>

<p>She is active in the music program in our area - 2nd chair her youth symphony. She also was in the regional and state orchestra. She wants to continue with music but as a hobby.</p>

<p>She will attend our state's Governor's School (science) residential program this summer and study anatomy with current med school professors.</p>

<p>After reading the summer programs section of the forum I am a bit anxious about what she should be doing during her summers in order to both encourage her love of science and help build her experience for college applications. How did you keep track of your students experiences/activities? How did you discover new programs (summer or during the school year) for them to explore and how did you determine which program would benefit your student the most?</p>

<p>Thank you!</p>

<p>I appreciate any and all suggestions.</p>

2

<p>I think you are over-worrying. She is already very motivated and pursuing her interests outside of school. She should continue to pursue her interests because she is passionate about them, NOT to “build her experience for college applications.” </p>

<p>Let her enjoy her teen/high school years. Don’t put the pressure on for any particular college. There are colleges for everyone. If you are obsessed, you can talk to all of us here. You can also explore summer programs you think she will be interested in and share with her at the appropriate time. Again, she should do whatever program she likes. </p>

<p>Your DD sounds like a wonderful all-around student. Continue to encourage that. Learning to multi-task and time manage will take her far.</p>

<p>Starting in middle school, I informally kept a list of my kids’ activities and accomplishments, just in a word document, adding to it as they went along. It was helpful for filling out the application for National Honor Society in HS and then as they put together resumes and activities lists for college apps (of course dropping off MS awards/activities). They didn’t even know I was doing it at the beginning.</p>

<p>Please relax. Enjoy your daughter. The next four years will go by in an instant.</p>

3

<p>One thing you might do is to take a look at the “official” admissions results threads for the schools that are of most interest to your daughter. These gave me a dope slap into reality about the current climate. There is, simply put, nothing you can do to ensure admission. You can do absolutely everything perfectly and not be admitted. As the Dean of Admissions at Stanford once put it, once you have 30K applicants, you just begin “rejecting duplicates of the same kid.”</p>

<p>So…live with that, and begin to fall in love with other options. Genuinely find out what there is to love and appreciate about those schools that WILL be safeties, that will give her huge merit scholarships to sweeten the deal, that will treat her like a Star-Bellied Sneetch. She may end up at a top tier private anyway, but just in case, YOU start falling in love with other options because if you don’t love them, she won’t.</p>

<p>Next, take a look at the common application format so that you know what they will be asking, and in what format. They do kind of expect some type of consistency and growth in the extra-curricular area, since it’s just a table to fill out where you have to list the position you held (what position does one hold in the school play, I ask you?) and what years you participated (with the implication that more years are better). Not that you would want to shape your life around this–I agree–you should let her do what interests her and not what you think will impress the admissions committees–but it’s worthwhile to know what the shape of the box is that she is going to have to squish this into. There is a space to list awards and honors…so, yes, it’s nice to have something to put there and useful to engage in activities that hand those out.</p>

<p>Also, be aware that interviewers at some top schools are asked, literally, to inquire about national-level accomplishments such as academic and athletic competitions. So, if your daughter does have the opportunity to engage in such endeavors, she should go ahead and do that. My kids’ school doesn’t even offer the French National Contest. I thought it no longer existed. Had I known 1)that my daughter would be asked about national-level accomplishments and 2) that the contest still existed, I might have inquired about how she could compete in it because the school just up the road REQUIRES students to compete!</p>

<p>There might be a box for “community service hours” but it would obviously make more sense to engage in an activity consistently over time that makes a contribution to the community (and therefore, fits in the other boxes, too) than to rack up random hours for the sake of hours. </p>

<p>Also, it’s ok if an 8th grader doesn’t spend her summers preparing for a medical career. They do spend four years in medical school…after college…that gives them a chance to pick up a few things here and there!</p>

4

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</p>

<p>Make sure she stays healthy: <a href=“http://www.stolaf.edu/athletics/sportsmed/media/ferritininfo.doc[/url]”>www.stolaf.edu/athletics/sportsmed/media/ferritininfo.doc</a></p>

5

<p>She already doing her job. Now you have to do yours. And that means thinking about money.</p>

<p>It would be a good time to review your family financial situation and learn about how financial aid works. Especially if your daughter continues to be interested in medicine (which requires four years of expensive medical school after college), finances are a very important consideration.</p>

6

<p>You have gotten great advice. I hope you take it and have peace of mind. Make sure your D can be a happy, fun KID in high school, not a little machine. There is nothing you can do to guarantee acceptance- really, anywhere. With a drive like she has and a wide range of interests like she has shown, she’s on the right path for- really, anywhere.
Be sure summer includes some fun. I can promise, colleges- top ones, even- admit kids who slept and went to the pool…</p>

7

<p>Do yourself a favor and read some of the “rejected from all my colleges” threads that are active right now. Encouraging your daughter to do things for how they will look on college applications is the wrong approach. She is in eighth grade, for heaven’s sake. Let her be a kid. If she wants to go to med school it doesn’t matter where she gets her undergrad–she mostly needs to have a high college GPA. She is already a motivated student. Please back off now before you get more caught up in the madness. It just isn’t worth the potential costs to her or to your relationship with her.</p>

8

<p>Sounds a bit as if you’d like to make her a generic copy of other kids, thinking that makes her more competitive. But, adcoms will see 10,000 virtual copies. What will make her stand out isn’t the same “active in hs” (tho that is important) plus paid-for enrichment programs. Get her to roll up her sleeves and truly test her interest in working with/for people, stretching herself- and doing some good for others. </p>

<p>8th grade is too soon to focus on the med path because she’s still growing. Not too soon to show she has empathy and can take on age-appropriate responsibilities.</p>

<p>Start with community-based vol work. Something she will stick with, that betters others’ lives, where she has a direct impact . Personally, I don’t care if it’s working at a soup ktchen, but something that shows she can climb past her own interests, her own formula for her own future. It’s a good thing to do and a good life lesson. Next year, ask us for the next step.</p>

<p>And, why human geo instead of history? Is this the high school’s track? Because breadth and depth in the trad humanities is important, too. All the anatomy, genetics, psych, etc, can look awfully spot shot, if it isn’t backed up by the traditional ed paths.</p>

9

<p>Based on my experience (S is now a college sophomore) I agree with other posters. Don’t put undue pressure on your daughter. Self-motivated students put enough pressure on themselves…and that pressure will become increasingly intense as she approaches her latter years of high school. </p>

<p>At one point S ended up depressed and in counseling because of all the stress he was feeling. During those months, I felt terrible for him and wished I had not placed pressure on him to achieve. Fortunately, he worked through it, got into an excellent college and is happy. But for awhile there, it was looking pretty dark.</p>

10

<p>She sounds like a great motivated kid. You have gotten great advice. She should do what she loves and should feel free to explore new interests regardless of what it means to elite schools. </p>

<p>I wouldn’t frame the conversations about top schools but on having as many options as possible. It is heartbreaking to feel you have disappointed your parents because you were not accepted to a lottery school.</p>

<p>The kid who enters high school is not at all the young adult who exits. She may want med school now but may later discover she wants to teach special education. You should allow her the freedom to consider it all. On way to do this us to focus on the present day. Not on. …she really wants to go to med school.</p>

11

<p>Re-read deskpotato’s comments - they are worth re-reading, IMHO! </p>

<p>I have 2 kids admitted to Northwestern, 1 ED, and one RD. The ED kid could have gone anywhere he wanted to, including MIT, Princeton or Stanford. Both kids did what THEY wanted to do for ECs, and their summers were spent on their sport, not camps, although they both also took non-AP reqs in summer school, so they could take more meaningful courses during the reg school period. (Drivers Ed and basic Business are both required in our HS system.) Both kids also took advantage of not having to take gym Senior years because of a varsity sport exemption, which also allowed them to take more AP courses.</p>

<p>If you want to encourage your kid, let them tell you what they want to do, although I think you can suggest programs, if you discover any that might appeal to her, but i would not suggest pushing it.</p>

<p>It looks to me that you have done all the rigfht things to get her into a position to take the next steps. Let her take them, and concentrate on being the rock-solid base of support for her, and the voice of reason when it comes to putting things into perspective.
And the best perspective is that NOBODY IS GUARANTEED ADMISSION TO THE TOP ELITES - unless you can donate a dorm or a building wing… Sp be grateful that their are a lot of options out there that you CAN take advantage of, and good luck.</p>

12

<p>If your daughter doesn’t have a college fund in some utterly safe investment that will cover the full costs anywhere plus medical school, at some point in time money will become an issue. Get on the same page about the money issue with any other parent(s) and/or family members who will have a say in the final decision. Be prepared to kick the lovely-but-too-expensive options to the curb and move on come spring 2017. Families that are in agreement on the money issue don’t have any difficulty at all in dropping the unaffordables without regret.</p>

<p>There is a lot of useful information about the money issues in the Financial Aid Forum. I’d suggest you spend some time there.</p>

<p>Wishing you all the best as you begin this process!</p>

13

<p>Good advice.
Check out what schools cost nowadays. I had no idea. In my head, a public school cost $15K/year and a private school cost $30K. This is nowhere near the truth.</p>

<p>Next, get an understanding of what “need-based aid” means and how “need” is defined not by you, and your sense of what your discretionary funds available to fork over for college might be, but by a formula that produces an expected contribution that very frequently approximates half your gross pay.</p>

<p>Then, find a FAFSA calculator and figure out yourfederally-defined expected family contribution (EFC). That is the very first shock to the system and you must allow that time to sink in. Realize that colleges have their own institutional methodologies that may weigh other types of assets differently but might also weigh different types of liabilities and expenses differently. You might see if you can get a look at the CSS-Profile to see what is included in their considerations.</p>

<p>I have read many articles about how to move assets around, how to time-shift expenditures, etc., in order to maximize eligibility for need-based aid. But none of these articles are frank about telling you that there isn’t a guarantee that universities will provide grants to meet that need. </p>

<p>If your income is ~$200K, you may be relieved to learn that there’s nothing much you can do to qualify for need-based aid and then you don’t have to get yourself in a dither about whether you could have allocated your assets differently. But you’ll need to brace yourself for paying the bills. (And we know that $200K is a huge, huge amount of money in many parts of the country, but could also be just enough to cover expenses in a pricey suburb of a major city.)</p>

<p>Then swallow hard and carry on!</p>

<p>The good news is that there are many, many, fine institutions in this country. Not just the handful of uber-prestigious schools that a student of your daughter’s caliber would have been aiming at in my day, in my high school. Because the number of applicants has increased DRAMATICALLY in the past 30 years, top schools could now literally fill their classes five times over with students as qualified as those they admitted back in my day. And where do those four extra cohorts of Harvard-qualified students go? To schools that weren’t previously filled with kids of that academic caliber, but now they are. This rising tide has lifted many boats. Your daughter will have many options to choose from.</p>

14

<p>I have two teenagers in high school (a 9th grader and a 10th grader). My kids know they want a shot at selective schools (they decided this themselves, mostly from watching so many online college courses from MIT opencourseware.) They also know how competitive it is, that cost does matter, that they have numerous other options, that high school is a worth while experience itself and not just a means to an end (admission to a selective school). Reading posts on CC by seniors who cannot go to their dream school (rejected or for financial reasons) is sobering. So many say they feel that “all their hard work in high school was for nothing.” I do not want my kids to think this. I want them challenge themselves because it is worthwhile to do so. I do not want my kids to think that they should choose their activities in high school so they can go to a selective school. I want them to choose activities that spark their interests and challenge them. My kids do naturally challenge themselves, but they also ask for advice on a variety of subjects. When they express an interest in an area, I do all I can to facilitate their pursuit of that interest. I do read about summer camps in areas that interest them and tell them about what I have learned. I do read about course sequences and AP exams and try to make sure we have as much info as possible so we can all make good choices. I do encourage them to practice the SAT Question of the Day. I do not tell them they need to do xy and z to get into their dream schools though. They can use and benefit from help and guidance from us, their parents.</p>

<p>I do not think 8th grade is too early to start thinking about ways to maximize the student’s high school experience. But it should be about high school/challenging themselves/gaining a good foundation set of skills/exploring a variety of option, etc. It should not be about getting into school X. There is no road map for that.</p>

15

<p>My S17 is my first and only, so I have no wisdom to offer, but I wanted to extend and invitation to come join us on the Parents on '17 thread. There are number of experienced parents there!</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1479899-parents-high-school-class-2017-a.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1479899-parents-high-school-class-2017-a.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

16

<p>I too started researching how college admissions works when oldest kid was in 8th grade. I then told said kid the rules of the game. Within reason, it was up to said kid to decide whether or not to play the game. I was just making sure kid could never turn to me and say “if only I’d known.” Now it is perfectly true that LOTS of kids play the game and don’t get into their dream schools and your child should know that from the outset. However, she should also know that if she is white or Asian with 2 college educated parents, especially one who lives in the Boston to DC corridor, who is not a legacy or a recruited athlete, it is highly unlikely she will be admitted to the top schools without participating in the game to some extent. So, sit down now and read at least one of the “overview” books. If you’re thinking of top schools, read something like “A Is For Admission.” </p>

<p>Here are some ideas:

  1. Let your kid overload in 9th grade. If she can’t juggle all the plates at once, she’ll learn that and adjust. 9th grade grades are the least important. A few colleges don’t count them at all. So, make sure she finds her balance in 9th grade. Some parents think it’s wise to let a kid “ease into” high school. They think kids should make sure kids have academics under control first and then add ECs in 10th grade. This is a huge mistake. If grades do fall a bit from trying to do it all, it’s better for that to happen in 9th grade than in 10th. Second, it’s hard to get any leadership activities if you join activities late. So, if she WANTS to do more than you think she should, let her go ahead and do it.</p>

<ol>
<li><p>Test scores are important. When she finishes that 9th grade AP, FORCE her to take the AP test and see how she does. Believe me, it will not hurt her in the least if she doesn’t do well on an AP in 9th grade. If she does well, it will help. Moreover, it will give her experience with the AP format. Personally, I think test taking improves as you take tests in the same format. So, treat the 9th grade AP as a chance to get some experience. She’ll learn whether her school prepares her adequately for exams or whether she’s going to have to do some extra work herself. It at all possible, have her take the PSAT in 10th grade. (Do NOT take the real SAT early.) </p></li>
<li><p>Tell her to befriend some older kids. They will be able to offer good advice as to which teachers are good, which summer programs are good, and what contests are out there that she might enter. I don’t mean she should walk up to a senior on day one and say “help me get into college.” I do mean that if she’s involved in an activity like track, she will naturally get to know the older kids and she should pay attention when they start talking about summer programs and colleges. If she’s in a good science magnet, the kids a few years ahead of her will know about science opportunities and summer programs. You can ask their parents too. (For us, this also paid off because when my kid visited colleges, these older kids were hosts.) </p></li>
<li><p>If there is a research track at her school, get her into it. For the sciency types, research helps. Not everybody wins an Intel, but the experience of doing research and writing it up can be useful for anyone who wants to continue with science in college. If she ends up hating it, she might want to reconsider her future plans–and that can be good too.</p></li>
<li><p>Tell her to introduce herself to her GC. GCs don’t just help with college admissions. Often, they are the person who gets info about summer programs and sometimes write recs for those. They can help with scheduling snafus. It’s just human nature that folks are more inclined to go out of their way to help someone who got to know them before there was a problem. Let the GC know of her interests and ask himI/her to keep your D in mind for science opportunities.When it does come time to write recs, the kids GCs know well will get better recs than the kids they met for 10 minutes senior year. </p></li>
<li><p>If her kid has a community service requirement, get started on it in 9th grade. For some kids, CS is a major EC. For kids who have other ECs and tough course loads, it can be hard to finish up requirements junior and senior year. So, get as much of the requirement done as possible during 9th and 10th grade.</p></li>
</ol>

<p>Good luck!</p>

17

<p>My advice is to let her learn and develop as naturally as possible. It’s the only way I know to develop the uniqueness of each child. You have a lot of stuff programmed, now let her enjoy her 4 years.</p>

<p>Also, even the best plan is a crap shoot if all her first tier choices are Ivy League schools so have several solid second tier choices that you guys will be equally happy attending and a safety that is acceptable and doesn’t feel like a divine punishment for not studying an extra 15 minutes per night.</p>

18

<p>Op,
Haven’t read all the threads above, so I apologize if this is a duplicate.
Your question is how to set up ECs so that your 8th grader will get accepted to college as a premed, correct?
Acceptance to HYPS is a lottery; thus, your D needs to make sure that she is doing all this for her interests and passions and goals. You don’t want to hear from your D, 4 years from now, that she “wasted” those 4 years of her life choosing things that didn’t interest her.</p>

<p>To answer your question, please get the book
“How to be a Highschool superstar” by Cal Newport. He talks about how to develop strong and unique interests and recommends taking less of the the grind classes.</p>

<p>[Amazon.com:</a> how to be a high school superstar](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_sc_0_18?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=how+to+be+a+high+school+superstar&sprefix=how+to+be+a+highsc%2Caps%2C393]Amazon.com:”>http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_sc_0_18?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=how+to+be+a+high+school+superstar&sprefix=how+to+be+a+highsc%2Caps%2C393)</p>

<p>Things that look the most amazing for premed candidates:

  1. Work related to NIH. There is a thread somewhere in the summer program section of cc
  2. Being an author on a publication in a medical journal…extremely hard to do. You have to find a MD or PhD at a medical school who is willing to take kid under wing and go lab work, and the lab work has to be less basic science and more clinical science for any hope of her name being listed as an author
  3. Working in a lab without authorship potential, but learning lots.
    Those are the best.
    Then
  4. Volunteering at a hosp, but only if the volunteering leads to meaningful discussions with MDs, RNs, PAs etc to get plugged into other areas of the hospital
  5. Volunteering at a hosp in a generic way</p>

<p>There are also science-type classes that are related to medicine. Again, the summer section of cc can help you. Classes at COSMOS or others.
[Summer</a> Programs - College Confidential](<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/summer-programs/]Summer”>Summer Programs - College Confidential Forums)</p>

<p>Lastly, when she is a jr in HS, if she absolutely knows that she wants to be premed, better to go to an 8 year BS/MD program than to HYPS for 4 years then med school. The whole thing is such a grind (undergrad, med school, internship, residency, fellowship, possible masters of public health, possible research years, possible PhD) that an 8 yr BS/MD will lock in the MD path, so at least she can have some fun during her undergrad years.</p>

<p>Lastly, the income earning potential of MDs will go the way of the middle manager in business due to changes in healthcare. So she should do it only if she loves it.</p>

19

<p>Speaking from personal experience, don’t program your kids to do 1, 2, 3 and such like on the check list that you find in some “self-help” books, no matter how impressive it sounds, as if your child were an automaton. We did help our children planning out their HS curriculum. Like it or not, the “most rigorous” course work box has to be checked by the counselor and kids being kids, they are not yet good at planning anything far out. We encouraged them to play at least one sport - it’s not because of college admission but for their own physical development. We encouraged them to take part in school activities - we did this even in elementary schools. All told, my kids were slackers compared to cc standards, seriously :). My D ended up being president of a couple of her school clubs, the dime a dozen thing you see in every school, nothing special. She did one selective summer program (free program but not nationally known). She played tennis through HS but not an accomplished player by any mean. She did volunteer at a couple of summer camps and at our local hospital all four years. That’s as far as college admission goes. She got accepted every where she applied to, except for Harvard. My D was a STEM kid but she decided not to pursue it in college. We didn’t/wouldn’t plan around a certain major during HS. Too early for that.</p>

<p>Edit - this bit of info is important to our family at least. I wanted to ensure that my kids have at least one full ride (room, board, tuition) to a college just in case something goes wrong with our finances by making them to take the PSAT seriously. Our school bills the PSAT as a practice to SAT so a lot of kids treat it like that - just a practice. If your child qualifies for NMF, there are a number of good schools that offer such scholarship. We ended up not resorting to that route but I still think it’s a good idea.</p>

20

<p>OP - It’s terrific that you are a caring parent. The prior posts give good advise. </p>

<p>At this point, your best bet is to encourage and support her interests (ha, even when it sometimes means more driving/carpooling than you’d like). Also, start a folder or box to file paperwork tidbits - awards, concert programs, test scores, etc. </p>

<p>In a few years, if your D wants the help, you could collect it into a resume doc. That’s what I did - DS was too busy doing his great activities to even consider tracking them… I was the scribe. To be honest, he rarely used the actual resume doc I created. It was mostly just reference when he filled out the many applications for colleges and scholarships. I think we showed it at some early college visit info sessions. When he did college interviews, he had it in a folder for reference in case there was a lull. (He never opened the folder, but it was a good warm fuzzy).</p>