<p>This is a college forum, and I have one piece of adivce. Before Highschool, or before your childs sophmore or junior year, take them to visit some colleges. Now that doesn't mean, take a cross country trip to every highly prestigious school, no, take them somewhere close, or if you are on vacation etc. Let them get a feel for the different campuses, but more importantly, what is required of them in terms of admission.</p>
<p>I'm sure that plenty of you have done this, but if your child really likes a certan college they visit, maybe it will motivate them to work a bit harder so they can get in. Thanks for reading</p>
<p>You are preaching to the choir, I wish you could get the word out to all the clueless parents that have never heard of this site (we made a point of seeing colleges and discovered CC much later). Having visited colleges does NOT always lead to working harder to get in; adding what is required to go to school X doesn't help either. If any parent came up with the magic formula to get a teenager to do what is in their best interest we would all use it. BTW, didn't your HS offer parent sessions about getting into college, or at least give handouts to the students (or did you throw them away...)?</p>
<p>Naw we never had parent sessions or anything like that. Alot of the stuff that has to do with college at our school, they don't talk to us about until our senior year. But yeah, I agree, it won't always motivate someone, but it sure worked for me.</p>
<p>You make a good point OP. I am glad it worked for you. Early awareness on the part of the student appears to be a factor in later success. Junior and senior year college presentations at school don't really cut it , do they?</p>
<p>I don't know how important the pre jr year campus "visit" is, what do you do just walk around? Not too exciting for a middle schooler imho. But sure, if there is a local college, I see no problem with attending a campus function that would be interesting to the little tyke open to the public.</p>
<p>BUT it is very important for parents to be very clear to their children the value of education, encouraging them to do their homework and take school seriously. In hs we did not encourage our son to get a job during the school year, making it clear that school was his job. However summer work was mandatory.</p>
<p>Thank you, C-Bolt. I think your advice is very sound. Not a panacea, maybe, for low-motivation students. But a wonderful way to make the abstract concept of college "real", get kids thinking about environments they would like, picture themselves in that life and that can almost always only be a positive thing.</p>
<p>I think the OP's advice is sound. One of the key things kids hear at the info sessions on college visits is that their grades and course selection are most important. If students don't hear this information until the summer before senior year, it may be too late to do anything about this.</p>
<p>Also, with regard to HS parent sessions, our HS offers those. Among the gems of advice the GC running ours offered was that there was not really any difference among colleges for the first two years, so students may as well go to community college those first two years and then transfer. I would guess that ours is not the only HS in the country that offers such nonsense.</p>
<p>I've done this with my kids and have recommended it to others. It's surprising how many HS Juniors and even Seniors have never even stepped foot on a college campus. Merely visiting a couple of convenient ones and walking around has some benefit IMO. Even more beneficil is to participate in a summer program or some other program on campus geared to younger groups. This can even include 1 week long sports camps where the kid stays in a dorm and eats in a dining hall for a week. I think visiting some campuses helps the kid get a mental image of college stuck in the back of their brain and expands their horizons somewhat.</p>
<p>We were on vacation in DC when I visited George WAshington. My parents and younger sister who is in eighth grad came along. I think my sister liked the tour and the presention to about 150 people by the admission folks.</p>
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It's surprising how many HS Juniors and even Seniors have never even stepped foot on a college campus.
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<p>And it's amazing how many parents (1) don't have a clue how the college admissions process works (2) have no idea what financial aid is (3) have no idea what courses their kids should be taking in H.S. (4) have no idea why ECs are important (5) why we spent so much time and money visiting colleges in 5 different states....</p>
<p>My list could go on and on...I've been asked repeatedly by parents of a Junior or a Senior why my D's admissions process has been so successful. My advice to them is...do research! Find out for yourself! This is exactly what I did.</p>
<p>I took a group of kids on the UCLA tour at the beginning of their junior year. A couple of them suddenly became more motivated to take AP classes and to work harder in all of their classes. Definitely a good idea both for seeing what different atmospheres are like and for motivating kids who might not see the whole spectrum of possibilities.</p>
<p>I completely agree with you, SpringfieldMom, on the benefits of visiting colleges. My D learned a lot about what she was looking for in a college; when she reduced her list to the last eight, we made sure to visit them all, and, if interviews were given on campus, she made sure to interview. I have no idea of what her outcome will be, but even though it was logistically and fiscally (!) difficult, the campus visits gave her more confidence in the whole process. Not only that, but she realized there were a number of schools that she felt she would be happy at. Anyway we're crossing our fingers for Pomona ED1, which is (from the lifeless stats, only) a big stretch for her. Good luck to all!</p>
<p>Agree with you California-Bolt; we took rising senior daughter and rising junior son to 5 colleges over summer vacation and though it was for the purpose of daughter's decision making, it actually inspired my son who is finally taking school seriously. Both kids could picture or not picture themselves in the different colleges and I have to say these visits were a learning experience for the whole family.</p>
<p>i completely agree with OP's advice. Someone gave this advice to us when DS was a HS sophomore. There is only so many ways a parent can tell their child what needs to be done to get ready for college and what is important for college admission. Kids typically nod their head yes and ignore the advice. But when a college admission advisor says the exact same thing, well then, that makes quite an impression. It did for my DS and friends of his that visited schools between their sophomore and jr years. I really felt it kept him motivated and gave him specific goals to work towards.
Younger DS is a HS soph now. Just today he brought up the topic of college searches for himself. He wants to start making list of potential schools now so we can plan a few trips this summer for campus tours. He was too young to get much out of the tours we did for older brother and now he wants the opportunity to find schools that match what he wants and find out what he needs to do to get into his kind of schools. Kudos for him! And I didn't even have to bring up the topic- this is something he wants to do.</p>
<p>I totally agree that visits are valuable and motivating. Some people think we're nuts (bug-eating nuts?) to have visited 20 campuses on 4 different trips. It's not something everyone can do, but for us, it was a great use of time and money and we managed to have a lot of fun too. Seeing those beautiful campuses was inspiring and there were so many S could see himself attending that I think it lowers the stress of having one "dream" school he "has" to get into. Also, if the first school doesn't work out for some reason, he'll know that there are a lot of other good ones out there.</p>
<p>We visited 6 colleges grouped into 3 long weekends with our son and that was more than enough for all of us. After about the fourth intro session, student led tour and dining hall "experience" a sense of repetition set in to the point where, on several occasions, we discretely left the group to explore on our own. Our son and a friend visited two colleges(Cornell&Rochester) on their own, leaving us grateful parents behind. BTW, his friend is attending Cornell and both got ehh vibes from Rochester and neither applied.</p>
<p>I am not suggesting that college visits are unimportant. They are. But they were certainly not something we enjoyed doing. After all they are primarily sales sessions when you get right down to it. And we certainly would have lot more fun spending that jr year Presidents weekend skiing in Park City or Killington than visiting a few more college campuses.</p>
<p>I just penned it out and I may have missed some but the total ends up with 31 separate campuses visited, 27 in some depth with 4 drive-bys. 3 plane flights and well over 12,000 miles by truck. When I was fishing for attaboys at T'giving , saying what a good job we had done on the search, DD remarked that she ended up at a school we had seen on our first trip. Well, yeah, if you look at it THAT way it seems a little over the top but.... uhhh.... but...I'll get back to y'all on that.</p>
<p>Well lets see, our family (not all have been to all) is up to at least 38 visits so far spread over the last four years with two oldest kids. All my kids are very active in athletics and have had a chance to do a lot of travel with their various events and teams. We've been from Reed in Portland, OR to Colby in Waterville, ME to TCU in Texas to U-Toronto in the North and all various points in between. </p>
<p>We usually try to do a drive by, or a visit or go to a collegiate game on various campuses whenever we have to go somewhere. I did a quick count of 19 states and 2 provinces so far. I see another half a dozen visits coming up before the end of February. Even the other younger siblings have been on a few drivebys. We could have probably visited another 50 had we taken the opportunity when near a school.</p>
<p>Overall, its been a good experience and helpful. Each kid is different with different interests and we can definitely sort out the marketing from the substance. With more kids yet to follow, I figure I'll hit at least 100 schools before its all over as they all have different academic, athletic and cirriculum interests and capabilities requiring looking at everything from the ivys to big state U. Its better than going to a movie, playing video games, or hanging around hotel rooms and relatively painless if the visit is incorporated into a pre-existing trip. Going to a football, basketball or hockey game, or going on a walk through a real nice campus can actually be a lot of fun. It doesn't have to be set up as drudgery and if you take a few years to cover a lot of ground you don't feel pressured to have "to do it all" quickly. It just happens.</p>
<p>After seeing so many places, they really start to get a feeling for what they like.</p>
<p>We visited seven east coast schools in six days. They were chosen to include an example of as many different types of institution as possible. While DD found this interesting the end result of her trip was to confirm as absolute the choice of her #1 school. </p>
<p>DS just out of middle school at the time was bored out of his mind and to this day doesn't want to hear about colleges. We will see if that changes next year when the process starts for him.</p>