Not having much luck on motivating my D to look into colleges she is interested in. She has interest in aviation, music, and biology. I have offered suggestions on schools and the need to maybe set up some tours. They are my suggestions and not hers. She is in her junior year, so I feel like this is something that needs to be planned in the next 6 months. She has 4.0 GPA and will take her SAT in May. Is it realistic to wait until senior year to really start the college search? Any tips or suggestions for me as Mom? I follow Sara Harberson and have gotten alot of good info from her website/FB posts.
She should be touring now so her list is set by fall. Fall is super busy with applications. There is lead time on LOR requests, and she should apply early to an EA or rolling admission school to take some pressure off by hopefully getting an early acceptance in hand.
May is late for the SAT. Many students don’t like their first score and study/retake. Until she has scores, the college list can’t be finalized. A student with a 4.0 can have very good choices,but needs to get going.
I would play the financial card with her. Tell her that schools that offer scholarships often have earlier application dates. Some of them care about interest shown, too. And there can be many supplemental essays required in the fall, too. I’d insist on visits to a few local schools in the next 2 months. Her spring break is a good time to visit, too, if schools are in session. Summer tours can be less productive if students aren’t on campus.
Sometimes a couple of local tours can unstick things and get them moving.
We too had problems getting our twins to come up with lists, so we resorted to hire a consultant to help us (just for the search part – not for essays, applications, and all that.) He interviewed the kids and was able to get them to express views they might have been reluctant to tell us. With the two wanting very different things, he was able to come up with very good suggestions based on the the kids preferences, GPAs, and scores (including several schools we never would have considered on our own.) Not everyone has the luxury of doing this, but it worked well for our family.
Tour a couple schools within driving distance of home. Then take the time to discuss what did and didn’t appeal and how the school was different in person than in the brochure or website.
You don’t have to visit all the schools your child is applying to, though it is good to visit at least some to know you are on the right track.
Aviation – if your child wants to be a pilot, you may want to look into the air force and schools with Air Force ROTC.
AFA is on her list and we did a tour last fall. We are also looking into Air National Guard/ROTC. The Guard has more options for a degree, whereas AFA and ROTC are geared toward aeronautical engineering/aerospace. We are encouraging her to get a degree in something other than flying as a backup.
For one of my two kids I had to start the ball rolling. I arranged a few tours of different types of colleges (size, location, religious affiliation etc.) within driving distance that were in his wheelhouse. Once he saw these he got a much better sense of what he was looking for and became much more invested in the process.
We toured schools in sophomore and junior year to see what type of school felt comfortable. We narrowed by areas of interest and where there were good chances of merit aid. We made a list of schools that fit criteria…D wasn’t super engaged in process until we narrowed it down. Senior year that really changed as friends and classmates were on same journey.
My S was the same way when I brought up tours, thought he was too busy, waste of time, etc. He and I had come up with a long list of potential colleges and I started the ball rolling with the closest ones. (i.e., “DS, we are going to X college on Saturday. I booked a tour. Wear a clean shirt.”
We did not start visiting until April break of Junior year and did many visits in early summer. Some advice - I found the all day open houses did not show the schools as well. Too many prospective students and a long day. It was better to do it on a different day where we signed up for the admission session and tour. Also, even though it seems efficient, doing too many in a row leads to burnout. Learned the hard way - I took a week of my vacation time and we toured 5 schools in 4 days.
He had to go back to do a few interviews in the Fall. again it would have been more efficient to do those on the first visit but he was more prepared by Fall. And we had narrowed a list of 20 schools to 9.
My D was interested as a Junior, but very busy and overwhelmed with making a list of colleges from so many possibilities. A lot of her friend’s parents had hired college counselors and she wanted to do that too, but that basically gave me an excuse to work on the list myself. I’m not doing her work, I’m saving money!
Anyway, I used what she said she wanted and some financial criteria to come up with a list of about 25. I coordinated visits to a 2-3 of them during the spring of junior year and that helped her clarify what she wanted. Then over the summer, her job was to research the 25 and get the list down to 10.
She did that, and it worked great. She put in a lot of effort, but started with a more manageable list, all of which we can support her attending.
Have you asked her what the issues are? Is she just busy? Overwhelmed with homework? Concerned about the process? In denial about going away?
I would start there. Open the lines of communication without judgment. Spring break is a really nice time to do tours. My DDs and I had some terrific road trips and we planned some fun stop-offs in there too. We did a lot over the summer too.
Some kids are happy going to state flagships and staying close to home. Some kids arent that interested in college at all.
My junior 3.77, all Dual Credit, (31 ACT soph) she has seen 8-10 schools with her older sister. Doesnt really care where she goes.
She has seen great schools none of them wowed her Rice, Wake Forest, Trinity…none of them did anything. Meh they are okay.
@WWC4me …yes I think busy and overwhelmed with sports, school, and just being a teenager. Instagram is such a time waster! Once basketball season is over, she should have more time in her schedule to give some thought on colleges and where to tour/apply.
@java2go My now senior was at this stage last year, I just planned a week tour of schools. Once I had a basic list, I asked her if she had any to add or leave off. She got into as we started, but I think it just seems like one more chore when they have so many other things on their plate.
I planned a view visits but met with apathy and even resistance. So I told my oldest that it was fine with me if he didn’t go to college right away and worked. I said this sincerely and meant it. I went out for awhile and when I returned he had made a color-coded schedule for visits.
My oldest loved looking at the Fiske book – she treated it like a kind of shopping. D2, not so much. She asked me to go through Fiske and mark schools I thought would work for her, then we chatted about them and we narrowed the list down to which ones to visit. She was content to have me organize visits, etc with input from her. In general I acted as her administrative assistant in the process, tracking test score ranges, due dates for apps, FA considerations, etc. Given the cost of college, I had no problem lending a hand.
This is a perfect example of a kid who could benefit from a little bit of private college consulting services. I often work with families whose kids either are overwhelmed by the process (which reads to the parents as disinterest or lack of motivation) or who think they have more time. Usually after working with them for an hour, I can come up with solid criteria to help start building a list of schools. And I always share a timeline- sometimes hearing it from anyone other than the parents will light the fire!
Does s/he have a good guidance counselor at school? If so, meeting with him/her may do the trick. If not, hire it out- just for a few hours. Feel free to PM me if you have more questions, and good luck!
PS- I second what @intparent said: junior year spring is for visiting and making lists, summer is for more visiting and honing the list, and by August/September of senior year, it’s time to hit the ground running with applications- at that point the search should be more or less over. Hope that helps!
@intparent I had no idea about the Fiske book. Will definitely order it. I think it will get the conversations flowing. D is our first so there is so much to learn and absorb. Thank you everyone for the input. Keep it coming!
With my eldest, I said “Go make a list of colleges to visit during Spring Break” and she did. She loves to research stuff on the internet. With my youngest, I tried the same thing, but nothing really happened…I had taken her to our State Flagship U over Junior year fall break and also a smaller public school…so she knew she didn’t like big schools. I took her to the library to look at Fiske guides and the like and to just have her concentrate on that…but at some point she said “You like to look stuff up on the internet…can you make me a list.” So I did, based on her desire to be within 2 hours of home, not a huge school, not in the city, her SAT/ACT scores, not wanting to be the biggest fish in the pond…and affordable (for me).
We toured a bunch over Junior year spring break…She ended up applying ED to the small public school (which I thought she would like and is the one she compared all others too) and is thriving.
So try to figure out what the issue is:
- Overwhelmed on where to even look for info?
- Not sure what she wants in a college ? I would just pick the State Flagship, a smaller public and a LAC nearby and do a tour to see what is interesting to her.
- Not sure if she wants to go to college right now? Is she overwhelmed with school?
- Not sure if she wants to go to college at all?
You can probably get Fiske from her GC or at the library. The aviation interest is a bit specific – you’ll have to use some online search tools for that, I’m guessing. Also, you don’t need this year’s newest Fiske – once a few years old is fine.
Also, I seem to recall there is a lot of lead time on ROTC scholarships. I’m not sure she can just wait til next fall and expect to get one.
I told my pups we would only pay for community college if they did not have a list of schools to visit by April 1st. April Fool’s.
Since DH had to take time off from work to plan visits/tours, they understood that not doing anything was NOT an option.
DH told them from the time they were in kindergarten and were getting their first allowance, that if they didn’t go to college, we’d start charging them rent, and they’d have to keep living in our house listening to Mom snore - to which I would add “and Dad’s farts”. So they made a point to save a portion of their allowance.
Different kids get motivated in different ways.