<p>Each family situation is different. I am not suggesting one way or the other. This is to purely seek data.</p>
<p>Does any one have any published data to correlate college admission to whether a parent staying home. In other words, is there any data suggest children do better if one of the parents stay home during children's pre-college years. "Better" is defined by test score, hours of E/C, GPA, etc. </p>
<p>Again, I understand each family is different. Some will be willing and capable to have one of the parents stay home. Others may not want to or could not afford to. </p>
<p>Colleague and I had this discussion this morning. I know some students benefit significantly from a "on call taxi". I also know some kids are doing very good with both parents doing professional jobs.</p>
<p>Things getting a little dull for you, Dad II? ;)</p>
<p>I do not know of such a study, but your criteria of “better” also strongly correlate with family income. There can be interesting correlations of having a parent stay home and households with high income. On the other hand, the current economic crisis is creating more at-home parents with reduced family incomes. </p>
<p>It’s not clear if the important factor would be a parent encouraging a child to study/participate in ECs, or if it’s crucial to have transportation access. The on-call taxi service can also be provided by a nanny or other child/teen care, or (in highly urban areas) by public transportation. A school that offers highly enhanced after-school offerings can also fill this gap.</p>
<p>I would imagine that the data would vary by region and by types of colleges. Obviously data from schools in more middle class/conservative areas, where the classic one-parent-works-the-other-stays-home is more common will differ from, say, stats from urban community colleges that cater largely to a working class population.</p>
<p>I worked part time - for years outside the house, then later for myself with an office in the house. While it was certainly helpful that both my husband and I have somewhat flexible hours, I think our kids would have done fine even if we had had more traditional jobs. They were not particularly demanding in terms of us needing to drive them places. (My husband works all the time, but takes much of his work home.)</p>
I’m no social scientist, but the criteria here are way too vague to be meaningful. No one can even agree on standards to measure GPAs across the geographic and economic spectrum. Nor can anyone quantify precisely how SATs/GPA/ECs affect college admissions, let alone agree on how these factors are related to a parent staying home “during children’s pre-college years.” What does the last phrase even mean - staying home for 2 years, 5 years, or the entire 18 year period that the kid was pre-college?</p>
<p>Having been an at-home and paid work Mom, I can safely say that PMK’s future college prospects played absolutely no role in making that decision. </p>
<p>DB, keep us updated on your sons research, sounds interesting.</p>
Shouldn’t “better” really mean more involved in the college process? I can always tell if moms/dads don’t have a job: they’re the ones who gossip the most!</p>
<p>For us it played a major role. We knew 1 income meant no retirement savings and no college savings. 2 incomes would provide retirement savings and college savings. </p>
<p>1.5 incomes was neither practical nor available. :(</p>
<p>Interesting that no one has pointed out that double income families have more disposable income and in theory have more money for the “extras” like test prep, etc. and to be selective regarding colleges choices because finances should be less of a concern. I cannot make the leap to staying at home produces “smarter” kids… the kids are in school the same amount, they are in ECs the same amount…they arrive home from ECs and sports when the parents arrive home from the office or shortly ahead or behind the other. Not much difference with one staying home (while the kids aren’t there.) My guess is like others that the correlations exist primarily with income levels; whether those income levels are generated by one or by two parents.</p>
<p>Well, if someone actually does such a study, I hope they will examine additional variables other than GPA and ECs in order to define “better”! Sheesh!</p>
<ol>
<li> Stay at home parent with a full time nanny (dad, the parent, not good with babies)</li>
<li> Stay at home parent with 1/2 day daycare (toddler wanted socialization)</li>
<li> Stay at home parent with preschool all day</li>
<li> Children generally ignored and left to entertain themselves as parents didn’t think it was their job to entertain their children even when home.<br></li>
</ol>
<p>Children have/are doing fine and achieving nicely.</p>
<p>When they run this study, I hope they let us know which part contributed most to our good outcome so that we can insist that our grandchildren-to-be get brought up properly.</p>
<p>Here is what happened. Colleague A is doing very well in his career and has two elementary school age kids. His wife has an advanced degree but currently is staying home to take care their kids. </p>
<p>He knows about our kids attending good schools. So, the discussion was - should his DW staying home or go back to work. Purely from income point of view, it is definitely better to go back to work. On the other hand, if it has a validated direct correlation… …</p>
<p>If you are really looking to see if college admission is correlated with anything, you need to define what you mean by college admission. There are MANY open admission colleges that admit anyone with a high school degree or a GED. Admission to those colleges is positively correlated with having a degree or a GED. ;)</p>
<p>If Colleague A has an income that makes them ineligible for need based aid and they don’t have the $500K in their college savings accounts and he wants the kids to go to top private schools (that don’t give merit aid), maybe his wife should go back to work so they can afford college. again</p>
<p>my oldest attended top school that met 100% of EFC, & at the time our EFC was less than in state tuition.
This was while I was mostly @ home with another child & in school pt time at a community college.
Worked out for us- so I say- follow my lead- drop out of high school & don’t worry about college loans so your kids can go to school & have need met.
;)</p>
<p>In many cases there is absolutely no choice but for both parents to work. Sometimes there are situation like the case quoted by DadII, there is a choice. But that family needs to weigh the pros/cons specific to their own family, not a study. </p>
<p>We were lucky to be a family that did have a choice. Two incomes OR or one income (maybe one and half if lucky with job options) and a lot of budgeting. I was glad to have time home (4-5 months leave, 6 or so months half time) when babies were under one. But I was also glad I opted to work full-time, especially during DH’s year of unemployment. Truly the stresses of job instabiilty are much less with 2 incomes.</p>
<p>Maybe one way to determine the answer would be to look at the home lives of the students admitted to the top universities, and compare the percentage of them who have stay home moms (or dads) with the percentage of the population at large in their age group who have sahms.</p>
<p>I think there are pros/cons to a parent staying home or two parents working full time. But I don’t see that as related to GPA, test scores and college admissions. I also am with woody on that I’d hope that “doing better” would not be defined by GPA and test scores. </p>
<p>(for the most part, my kids had a stay at home mom when growing up)</p>
<p>I would think that the educational level of the parents (whether at home or in the paid work force) has more to do with achievement than whether one or both are collecting a paycheck. </p>
<p>We tried to balance the need to keep my career viable so we could pay for college vs. the need to have a parent around for the kids’ needs. I’m fortunate that we live in an area that is supportive of part-time career-related work and that my boss has four kids and “gets it.” I also have a lot of friends with graduate degrees who have been home full-time all along and have no regrets. I have friends where Dad is the at-home parent and it works beautifully.</p>
<p>I will say that the older my kids got, the more they needed a parent vs. a caregiver. The caretaking role changes as they get older, and there are some conversations YOU want to have with your child. I loved driving them to their activities – we had more honest, open talks in the car than anywhere else.</p>
<p>For the record: At home FT for first three years, FT job for four years, part time for 3.5 years, home FT on unpaid medical leave for five years, PT again the past 2.5 years. Everything I make goes to college expenses. DH works 50-60 hours a week and travels often. We have lived simply for many years to have the flexibility for me to be available for the kids, and so that we can also do what we need to accomplish for retirement and college.</p>
<p>The decision making process about careers, family, college and other financial decisions is unique to every family and will certainly change over the 20-25 years one is raising a family. I can’t imagine putting it into one simple equation.</p>
again</p>