“… Nevertheless, if you’re the parent of a teenager with college aspirations, you’ve probably wished for a CliffsNotes guide to the application process to help you both survive the period with minimal emotional scarring. Here’s a primer, based on input from parents, college-counseling experts and test-prep gurus:” …
This will made the CC crowd…where college planning started when the tiny genius was still in diapers…laugh.
@SwimmingDad – still in diapers, are you kidding me?!? That’s way too late. We had tiny speakers playing classical music connected to DW’s ovaries so that the eggs were ripened in the proper environment.
When we went to our daughter’s 1st grade parent night, the teacher pointed out the use of ethnic names in student work sheets. She explained to the assembled parents, “We expose students to a variety of names so that when they take the SAT they won’t be caught off-guard by the names used on the test.” :))
I really think my parents’ work on test prep set me up to have well-prepared babies.
@droppedit I was going to say something about math flash cards in the womb…but I cannot come close to your “ripened” comment. #I’mNotWorthy
On a serious note, I was pleased that at my DS Middle School graduation, the Ed Board member who spoke did a great job. She let the students know that they were now “going live” as far as grades. She impressed upon them that they needed to focus from Day 1 if they wanted to succeed and/or go to college. I thought it was a great suggestion.
@GoldPenn your ethnic names made me laugh. At my kids schools there are primarily ethnic names but we live in a extremely diverse area with lots of immigrants. Names like John, Susan etc are very rare. I usually have to have a quick name review time with my daughter or the teacher when I chaperone since I have no idea how to pronounce many of the names. Fortunately my chaperoning days are over now.
Serious question…just got an email that D21’s school is having a college open house in October. It’s open to the whole school. I thought it would be a good chance to just go and look around and get some brochures. Is she too young??
My daughter started looking her sophomore year of her HS. I don’t think it’s too early to start getting a feel for what sounds interesting. Just be aware that if she giver her name/address/email, she will be bombarded with main/email. My daughter’s school recommended not signing up for anything until junior year. It’s overwhelming enough then!
9th grade was too young for all my kids to start looking at colleges. You just started highschool some of the most formative years in a person’s life, but NO let’s look at colleges.
10th grade maybe, but 9th really only in the least serious of terms.
@droppedit By not providing a suitable environment for one’s swimmers as well, maybe one’s kids are doomed to mere state flagships and can forget about any chance at Ivies.
That could lead to a much better education- above. Too much credit given to those schools when there are many elite public U’s.
The article is good- a timeline that is practical. I might quibble with the three test takes, but hopefully by junior year it will become clearer.
I started going to our high school’s college night when my oldest was a freshman, but the kid’s didn’t attend till they were juniors. It generally opened with some reassuring speaker (the one I remember was 75% of the colleges in the US accept 100% of their applicants) and then had break out sessions with stuff like a panel of AOs from highly selective colleges, or engineering colleges, or NY colleges. There was also a yearly presentation from the Guidance Office that went over the basics and another assembly for financial aid and another one for sports admissions. I don’t think it would be a bad idea for parents of freshmen to see what the Common Application looks like. But neither of my kids looked at a college before January of junior year.
I think all parents should go for The Talk (“How College Money Works”) in ninth grade. But kids only need to know the basics about how test scores work; some general demographics about how many kids stay local, how few go Ivy, etc; what it takes to get into a few representative schools from the state; a little bit about paying (mostly loan limits for students); and an admonition to enjoy the rest of their time at school.
Honestly most kids are not in the rat race that’s lived out on CC each year. Maybe let the parents know how to identify if their kid should be thinking about top schools and an offer of a meeting.
My oldest was a slow decision maker. So spring of sophomore year we visited a big state school in a college town; a small school in a college town (phew…both in the same town), city school, and drove past a suburban school (we got close and said no). He figured out he wanted city school…maybe college town…and bigger rather than smaller schools. That made it much easier to look junior year (he was a three sport athlete so he had little time to get away to look).