Help prepare my sister for a scholarship!

Paying for College
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<p>My sister has just turned eight, and in my eyes she's a bright, athletically and musically gifted kid whose reasonably hard working. Most importantly, she's ambitious (perhaps sometimes overly), and enjoys challenges. Could someone give me some advice on how we can help her maximize her potential and increase her chances on getting a scholarship or a lot of financial aid to a stellar university?</p>

<p>Our family has recently suffered from a huge financial loss, and while we're not in poverty or anything, if things continue at this rate it will become difficult for my family to support college educaton for her without making significant sacrifices.</p>

<p>I want to stress that I'm not trying to pressure her into being someone she is not, or trying to take away her happy childhood, or anything like that. She should still be able to live a healthy, happy life. </p>

<p>From time spent lurking the boards, I think the three big pieces in the college admissions puzzle are academics, extracurriculars, and essays. </p>

<p>Academically, she isn't doing very well in school, but I'm not worried since this is only her second year in Canada and she's still learning the basics of the language. Also, I was doing bad in school until grade 11, when everything just clicked for me, and since I feel she's at least as smart as me and has a lot more time on her hands, she should be able to excel given time and a push in the right direction. Since the SAT is such an integral part of college admissions, I'm planning on exposing her to it as soon as she can actually read at reasonably fluent level. Due to the SAT's high correlation with IQ, and what I perceive to be a strong similarity between the types of questions on the tests, I think I will start giving her practice IQ/brain-boosting questions everyday now. Starting with just a couple day and then gradually progressing as she matures. She loves problem solving so I think she'll enjoy them too, especially if I sell it as a game type thing with small rewards. She's also enrolled in a weekly math class, and while math does not seem to be her strong suit, I feel that if she continues with the class from now till high school the extra practice alone will allow her to do well on the math section. </p>

<p>For extracurriculars, she's a very good pianist for her age, and is currently level 5 according to the Royal Conservatory of Music. Unfortunately, she's also Chinese, and I realize that the prodigious number of chinese piano prodigies makes being one somewhat less impressive to colleges. She has an interest in jazz music, so I think once she solidly masters the fundamentals of piano she can start learning jazz piano, which I hope will make her more unique as an applicant. She's also interested in skating, swimming, soccer, volleyball... actually, just about every sport, and is quite athletic for her age. Additionally, she has a fantastic sense of rhythm, and it's funny that whenever I play hip hop music she always starts dancing in a fashion that she probably picked up from MTV. The thing is, she's actually not bad, especially for someone who has never learned dance, so I'm wondering if I should encourage her to learn hip hop dance. In a nutshell, I'm hoping by high school she'll be excelling as a jazz pianist and either a figure skater, a provincial level sport player, or a fairly accomplished dancer (maybe she could start a dance crew at her school or something).</p>

<p>There isn't much I can prepare her for in regards to college essays, except make sure that she doesn't end up writing them the night before the deadline like i did lol. </p>

<p>So uh.. That's the plan I guess lol. Suggestions? Criticism? tl;dr? I'm all ears.</p>

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<p>I’m sorry but I stopped here. You shouldn’t be worrying about this for a long time now.</p>

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<p>Well, I know a lot of people, me included, who tried to prepare for college way too late, and ended up regretting it. I know eight is definitely earlier than conventional, but it is an age where children are far more receptive than later on, and I feel that earlier preparation leads to a lot less pressure down the road and the potential for better results. </p>

<p>If you read on, I hope you’ll see that I’m not some evil whip cracking brother who wants to enslave her into a college prep machine.</p>

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<p>“the SAT is such an integral part of college admissions”
You’re absolutely right, and the best way for someone her age to start preparing for this now is to read…A LOT. Reading will help on nearly all sections of the SAT and ACT - even math (word problems etc.). Reading will also allow her to become familiar with more mature forms of writing, which will be useful not only on the ACT/SAT writing sections but also in future courses. Learning to read/comprehend quickly is crucial for success on these exams.</p>

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<p>I read the rest of your post, but it’s still way too early for her. She’s in (I’m assuming) 3rd grade, and you want to expose her to SAT questions? Isn’t she just barely mastering multiplication?</p>

<p>Starting too early will put an unnecessary pressure on her. In fact, she might regret you starting her early. Obviously it’s better to start early but 3rd grade is /beyond/ too soon to be thinking about this. When I was in 3rd grade I thought you had to pay a million dollars to get into college.</p>

<p>Start the SAT questions in late middle school. She doesn’t need this pressure now. I didn’t start worrying about college Freshman year and some people think that was too soon anyways.</p>

<p>Let the poor kid just do what her heart leads her to. The only advice I can give you is to have her read A LOT.</p>

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<p>I said I wanted to expose her to SAT questions when she could read at a reasonably fluent level, which is at least two or three years down the road. I think basic IQ questions, and later on SSAT questions, should suffice before the SAT.</p>

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<p>You’re missing the point. I’m telling you you’re going to add an unnecessary pressure on her to succeed way too early.</p>

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<p>It takes 4 years to get through college, usually–she has more than twice that amount before she applies!</p>

<p>I know several people who were pressured that early, and they’re all deeply unhappy and unpleasant to be around, however prestigious the schools they are attending are. (Some are not attending schools that are very prestigious at all, FYI.)</p>

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<p>Ehhh. I think sophomore year is an adequate time to start preparing for the SAT. Before that, the best thing you can do is to promote her reading things that challenge her (for her age). But test prep before high school is insane.</p>

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<p>I understand the western culture has some radical differences from the eastern culture, but is making her do a reasonable amount (like, beginning with 2-3 then progressing gradually to greater numbers) IQ/SSAT questions a day, as well as encouraging her to put her best effort into certain extracurriculars, really going to end up making her deeply unhappy and unpleasant to be around?</p>

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<p>I agree with posters above that focusing on college and standardized tests at the age of eight is a bit too much but there are still things you can do to help. Try and teach her LIFE SKILLS and the TOOLS to be more successful later. Teach a man to fish instead of giving a man a fish.</p>

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<li><p>Inspire her to READ. Reading in general gives so many advantages in life that even if she just starts with Twilight as long as she keeps reading she should be good.</p></li>
<li><p>Make sure she does her homework stuff like that but dont over do it. Try to balance between the pressure-cooker style Asian stereotype and the smart but never tries type. </p></li>
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<p>Things like this are more important than SAT’s or developing “passions” (quoted with emphasis). Encourage to try to new things and find stuff she likes not what colleges would like or her life-long “passion”.</p>

<p>Good Luck!</p>

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<p>I was responding to the attitude, not the specifics of the proposal. If she decided to do test prep on her own? Cool. If OP was like “hey 11-year-old sister (note not at present) I think this might help you why don’t we do a couple a day for kicks?” Cool. “WOAHMG COLLEGE TEST PREP let’s use economic terms to talk about the “development” of my sister to “maximize” her “potential” not as a person but in terms of college admissions and scholarship $?” Alarm bells.</p>

<p>It has always been my view that the SAT CR section (the hardest to study for) tests mostly how much you read before the age of 14. I do not know how to increase the excitement someone feels for reading, though. So far as I can tell, it’s just an innate personality thing, and I would definitely not want to associate reading with being a chore, something I have to do because it will supposedly help me in life.</p>

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<p>Ah, I see. I can understand how you got that connotation from my use of the words “development”, “maximize”, and “potential”. I’m sorry that so many people seems to have gotten the impression that I was looking at my sister from a detached, economic, crazy-asian-brother-inheriting-will-of-parents perspective, as opposed to a brother who wants his sister to be as successful as possible, and yes that includes developing her abilities and making the most out of her “potential”. Yes, her success will also take a burden off of our family too. No, I do not believe that doing exercises that build her critical thinking skills early on will scar her in any way, nor do I believe there is any scientific evidence to support that it would. No, I have no intention on letting my sister have a **** childhood and grow up to be a spiteful person.</p>

<p>EDIT:</p>

<p>I completely agree that reading can contribute enourmously to success not just on the SAT, but in life. As of yet, she hasn’t shown a marked interest in reading, but I think that’s because she doesn’t understand half the words in most books.</p>

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<p>I agree. Age 8 is waaaaay to early to think about college stuff. It’s great that she has such a caring big sister … encourage her to follow her passions, and READ, READ, READ.</p>

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<p>Found this list that might help: [Scholarships</a> for Children Under Age 13](<a href=“Your Guide for College Financial Aid - Finaid”>Resources for Students Age 13 and Under - Finaid)</p>

<p>There are also programs that offer college scholarships to students in grade school on the condition that student ends up going to college. These programs are more common in low-income areas where the graduation rates of the public school system are extremely low, as a way of combating a student’s urge to give up in school when they know their family doesn’t have the money to send them to college. I don’t know a whole lot about these programs, but you could certainly look into this. DC school systems has something like this, you can use that as a reference.</p>

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<p>You need to dial it back a little so that you don’t scare her or her teachers. Encourage her to read whatever it is that SHE likes to read. Even if it is a Junie B. Jones novel. Success at reading breeds success at reading. Good reading for you on that subject is “The Power of Reading” by Stephen Krashen.</p>

<p>Please don’t waste her time, or yours, just yet with SAT-type questions. Most people’s brains don’t develop the rational skills necessary for that until middle school or later. Start your reading about that by googling for Piaget’s theory of cognitive development.</p>

<p>She is still mastering English, and learning to read. You don’t know yet what her true interests are likely to be, or where her real talents lie. Take her to the zoo. Take her to movies. Take her to the Canadian National Parks. Play board games with her that have no overt educational value. Talk with her about what she observes, and pay attention to what she has to say about things. Get to know the person that she is. Be the fun older sibling that she can love, and trust, so that when she does get to an age when she’s ready to think about college and her future, she knows that she can rely on your good judgment - and she also knows that you truly have her individual best interests at heart.</p>

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<p>If she’s an international student then her options for scholarships will be limited in the US.</p>