College info for friends dealing with dad's death

Parents Forum
1

I have a friend (not real close, but our boys are good friends) whose husband was diagnosed in November with an aggressive cancer and who died in late February. She, her S (HS Class of 2016) and D (8th grade) are obviously overwhelmed. With all the valuable college info I have gleaned from CC fresh in my mind (my D is Class of 2015), I offered to help as she is worried that they’ll miss some steps needed to get him into college. Ideas so far:

GC: Our kids have the same GC (assigned alphabetically) so with friend’s permission, I e-mailed GC to ask that she reach out to friend to schedule end-of-year junior conference soon. GC is aware of the sudden death, attended funeral, etc. She is great but has 300+ students to deal with and this is an unusual situation.

SAT testing schedule: Her S took it this past Saturday but expects he did poorly. He’d registered before his dad took an abrupt turn for the worse, didn’t prep at all, etc. He took PSAT in Oct 2014 at school but I don’t know his scores. Friend would like him to do some prep and hopefully be in a better state of mind to focus the next time around, so I’m thinking October – or is that too late? He is not looking at elite schools, will not need subject tests.

SAT Prep: I offered them our leftover SAT prep books but she thinks her S may need the push of an actual course. County Intermediate Unit offers SAT prep course in summer, 30 hours for about $180. If she wants her S to attend, I could register my S (Class of 2017) to attend as well (although the SAT will be changing, I’m thinking my S could take in Oct and Dec and maybe have his testing out of the way.)

ACT? My D took ACT and preferred it to SAT but I don’t know whether throwing another potential test in the mix is too much for them to consider right now?

Financials: Would running the NPCs help her at all? Two concerns: 1) her H owned his own small business (truck repair), which she is trying to keep running until she can figure out what to do with it; and 2) no idea how life insurance proceeds would factor in. It will be 2015 income that she’d input, right? So if she decides to sell the business this year, that could seriously affect his financial aid?

Visits: Once I get a better sense of his stats, interests, etc. (I’ve known him for 10 years but I have my own teenage boy so I know this isn’t easy to figure out), I thought maybe I’d take him with my son to a local school or two. Friend of course wants to take him but time is limited for the foreseeable future as she has H’s business concerns to clean up plus her own job, which gave her basically a leave of absence but she needs to get back. I don’t want to usurp in any way, but thought maybe a casual invitation like, “Hey, I’m taking S to see School X and he’d probably have much better time if he had a friend along for the ride. Any interest?”

I would truly appreciate feedback, suggestions, etc. Having learned so much here in the last year (I mainly lurk but I lurk a lot!) this is sort of my way of paying it forward.

2

If the school doesn’t already do this, suggest that he work on his essays over the summer.

I know that you are just looking for suggestions and not praise, but I want to give you kudos for doing this, OP. You are one of the good people in this world.

3

^^ Big yes to the essays. If he doesn’t know where he wants to apply, that complicates things a bit, but the topics for the Common App should be available any time now, so at least working on those over the summer will help, and they are often similar or can be used as a springboard for other essays. Also, some/many schools require a “personal statement” and there is pretty broad flexibility in what it should be (e.g., why do you want to go to a particular college, or what are your goals for college or how has life up to now affected your hopes for the future, etc.), so that would be another more general essay he could work on that would likely be easy to adapt to other school-specific topics. If your HS offers essay-writing help sessions during the summer (some do…), this might be something to offer to take him to with your own son. Or, since motivation to sit down and actually focus and write can be hard during the summer, maybe invite him over for an essay brainstorming/writing/editing session with your son, followed by .

Also, it might be helpful to make up a list she can hang on the refrigerator to help remind her/her son of big deadlines. Every HS does it differently, but for example our HS wants juniors to have requested letters of recommendation by May of their junior year so teachers and guidance counselors can write over the summer. Then there are different deadlines by which you have to request transcripts in the fall, etc… If there are schools he and your S are both interested in, then putting in their deadlines for application for early action, scholarship consideration, and regular decision would be good.

4

I agree, study SATs over the summer. Take in October. Use PSAT scores x 10 to get an idea of SAT scores to use when looking for colleges. Also over the summer visit some colleges. Write the common app essay over the summer.

5

Suggest they consider taking both SAT and ACT in junior year, at least to see which is a better test for them.

Also, knowing the scores before the last high school summer gives more information for determining reach, match, and safety schools.

Given the business and other household finance variables, net price calculators may be less reliable. If obvious admission safeties are not reliably affordable, then they may want to consider automatic large merit scholarships for safeties, if they qualify: http://automaticfulltuition.yolasite.com/ .

6

My friend lost her husband during her daughter’s senior year. He’d been ill from mid-soph year until mid-senior year. She engaged an independent college counselor to help with all the details, the essays, and deadlines in case she, the parent, was simply unable to deal with the daughter’s college planning. This might be a good option for the OPs friend.

7

Could he do June SAT or is that too soon? That way he could re-take in October if necessary. For big instates with rolling admissions the earlier the apps are in the better.

I think offering to take him to see local schools with your son is a great thing to do. That might get him talking about what he is interested in. If you have spring break coming up, may be a good time. But it may also be very hard for him to focus on this now. He may not be ready to commit, or may even feel compelled to stay home and help his mom.

I agree it is so nice of you to think of all this. But don’t be too surprised if the kid is not that receptive, at least at this time.

8

You said friend’s S need to take SAT subject tests? Is he currently in AP classes that would have a corresponding subject test? For my kids it worked well to take subject tests in June which is only a few weeks after AP exams (for example, were in APUSH and BC calc, so took Math 2 and US History subject tests). All the school review work for AP’s carried forward and they just looked at a review book to familiarize themselves with format and sample questions. This could get something out of the way without a lot of extra prep time - assuming of course that the schools AP courses really have them ready. And it would leave him free to improve his regular SAT or ACT in the fall which is important.

9

AP courses are not necessary for SAT subject tests, since the latter cover normal high school level material (e.g. math level 2 does not include calculus, although it includes precalculus). Of course, if the high school’s courses are of poor quality, the student may not do well on the SAT subject tests (the same goes for the AP courses with respect to AP tests).

10

I’d encourage this student to take a practice ACT and see if he likes it better or if he does better on it. Then he can f focus on the one that is better for him.

If his dad’s death really hit him hard, then it’s possible that he will not do well at a uni. Community college may be a better option for him with a plan to transfer to a four year uni later. There is no shame in this. In some cases, it’s an ideal way to go.

11

Thank you all for your suggestions. Can’t believe I didn’t think of working on the essays early–probably because I spent much of last summer encouraging/nagging my D to get cracking on them but met with little success.

I sent friend and son the link to schools that use Subject tests (and reminded him to check school websites to confirm) just in case he’ll need them, but I think that’s unlikely. I’ll mention the June ACT test but because he’ll be preparing for 2-3 AP tests to be taken in May, I doubt if he’ll have time to prep at all for the ACT. Is it a bad idea to take the ACT cold? My D prepped from a book and did fine; but she wasn’t facing the (understandable) distractions and challenges that he has right now. I think many schools allow you to send either the SAT or ACT so maybe it’s not too risky. Or he could take it in September, but that would mean he’d have to prep for both the SAT and ACT over the summer. Ugh!

The idea of staying local (we are in PA so there are many options within 1-2 hours of home) with probably appeal to him and to his mom. The idea of possibly starting at a CC (or a branch of the flagship) and then transferring in 2 years might be what they all need right now.

12

UCB, I know the tests are not directly correlated, but IF you have good AP classes, they cover a lot of the same and actually D took Math 2 after her pre-cal year so you are right about not having to be AP, but at least at our HS, there was lots of review around AP time and for my girls it carried over nicely into subject tests without any real additional review.

A first hit list of schools would be good at this point so he can look up which ones actually require subject tests.

13

Unless things have changed, the ACT folks let you pick and choose exactly which of their test scores you want sent to a college. So taking the ACT without any prep and possibly getting a bad ACT score wouldn’t ruin this child’s prospects for college. Of course, with all he is dealing with right now, plus regular final exams and AP exams, he may need the summer free of testing to recuperate mentally and emotionally.

14

/\ Some colleges, however, required all scores, so it would be better to prep before any standardized tests.

15

When my kid was deciding on whether to try the ACT, we looked around and found a free sample online test on our county library website. It was a low steess way for her to get a feel for the test.

16

PA publics do not give good in-state financial aid, so they may need to get high SAT and ACT scores to go along with high GPA to qualify for big merit scholarships (whether at schools in PA or elsewhere).

17

^ That applies for all schools, yes. I know Temple has really good merit scholarships so if your son’s friend gets good scores through all of this, Temple might be a good option.

18

^I agree with @ucbalumnus above, but depending on the family’s financial situation and which PASSHE school(s) applied to, financial aid can be better than expected. To my surprise, my son, with very average stats (B+ average, 1570 SAT - 3-part), recently received a FA offer of not only a full Pell Grant, but $1300 SEOG, $3000 scholarship, and $3000 Work Study from IUP (Indiana University of Pennsylvania). There are also PA state (PHEAA) grants available for low to middle income Pennsylvania residents attending PA schools. (We submitted that application yesterday).