I’m really envious to see many HS kids on this board asking for advice, etc. My D who is a junior now seems completely uninterested in thinking about college planning. To be fair, she does have stellar academics, but just completely unmotivated about researching colleges etc. So far it’s been only me looking for info online, plan for her summer camps and college visits. My most recent attempted conversation with her about college went something like this:
Me: so what kind of college you want to go to?
D: eh, a good one.
Me: can you be more specific?
D: eh, I don’t know.
Me: do you want to stay close to home or go far?
D: not too close to home
Me: you like large schools or small ones?
D: eh, nowhere smaller than my high school
Me: any place you really like, maybe a dream school?
D: eh, who knows.
So this is like pooling teeth. We are going to a college fair offered by her school tomorrow. How do I get her to be more motivated about this since she’s supposed to seek info and introduce herself to various college reps at the fair? Or should I just let her be, hoping she will get on board with the process in the fall?
Her basic stats: ACT 36, SAT subject Math II and Chem both 800, PSAT 1510, 4.0 uw, 8 APs. Likely going into engineering.
Wow. Those are really impressive academics. If you all think college should be the plan for after graduation, the fall is really to late to wait for her to get on board. Many applications open in the summer and for some schools it does matter when you apply for various reasons.
I think I’d have a big heart to heart and tell her now is the time to get serious about college if she truly cares or has preferences. What about taking her on a few college visits nearby to see if that drums up some interest or excitement?Maybe be strategic to high schools or programs that you think might interest her. Keep putting information before her to see if you can strike a chord?
She has the stats to get significant merit money at many schools however, her disinterest could show through in essays and personal statements, and she may find herself rejected from colleges or honor colleges or scholarships that she thought were a shoo in.
Perhaps some kind of gap year with purpose is better? I’ll be interested to hear what others think.
This will be me next year. Thanks for this post, it made me smile.
As far as suggestions, my son has already suggested to me that rather than go to college, he can earn great money working on an oil rig or a crabbing boat in Alaska. He also informed me that next year, as a junior, he will have all his needed credits and can graduate early. I informed him that while technically true, that won’t be happening.
ETA: Come up with an initial list of schools that you think SHE will like. Get the Fiske Guide or similar. Then try to make it interesting by talking up some of the good things you have learned about each school. I did this to a ceratin extent with my eldest and she found it helpful
I recommend the book, “I’m going to college, not you”.
While it sounds like a book about helicopter parents, it’s also about the different ways kids deal with college admissions stress. Maybe you will recognize your daughter in there. Maybe you can read it together.
Maybe she is not too picky. That can be a good thing, in that she will not be fixated on a dream school that could be too expensive, and will do well at a wide range of schools that offer her desired major and do not make it difficult to choose that major. With high stats, that can make it relatively easy to find suitable schools at affordable prices.
As the parent, be sure to make your financial plan, and inform her of the parental spending limit before she makes an application list.
well, asking her is getting you nowhere. so make a list of schools that YOU think would be good fits and tell her to apply to them when the application season opens.
that way, if she never comes around, she will have at least applied somewhere.
Once she visits schools she might get more motivation. Then again she might not be up to pouring her heart into essays if she lacks motivation and interest now. There are some great colleges that have simpler applications. I think WASHU does not require essays, for instance.
Encourage her to take a gap year. I wasn’t interested in college when I graduated HS, much less in my junior year. I took two years off, worked, traveled, and finally decided that I wanted to pursue higher ed. I applied last fall, and just committed to my favorite, perfect fit school for fall '17.
My parents supported my decision to take time off. They gently encouraged me to consider college throughout my gap years, and jumped at the chance to take me on tours, help me with applications, and hire an ACT tutor once I expressed a desire to continue my education. I think they were relieved! I really appreciated their ability to “stay in their lane” while I figured out what I wanted to do, instead of insisting I go to college right away.
Don’t give in to the pressure to do everything in HS/college “on schedule”! One size does not fit all. She has excellent stats and will be a strong applicant when she’s ready - the motivation will come.
I started having this conversation with my HS freshman because I knew it was going to be a tedious process. I finally had her make a list of things she wants in a college and things she absolutely doesn’t want along with some parameters as to how far driving distance she wants to be from home. I’m keeping a spreadsheet for her as I research colleges. I’m also learning some interesting things about her. I never knew, for instance, that she hates snow and loves football. Harvard out; Alabama in.
Great stats and therefore great options. I get it- my gifted son was hard to convince even though we all knew he was college bound. Your D could get caught up in fear of failure/perfectionism and be avoiding the whole thing. Or not. Fear of the future, loss of the comfortable world she is in can contribute to avoiding college thoughts.
Where you live matters. Her interests in HS matter. Definitely put your state flagship on the to apply to list. Top/elite private colleges do not have room for all of the stellar students. Make lists of elite colleges that are potential places for her. Include OOS public top tier schools as well. Her interests- sciences, humanities, social sciences et al will determine which schools to consider. MIT if STEM, otherwise no way. Liberal arts colleges may have good sciences but the schools better known for STEM subjects will have more like minded students and offerings. Research Honors programs/colleges- they vary greatly from school to school.
Make it a June summer assignment (presumably too busy during the school year) for her to come up with a list of ten schools to apply to. This doesn’t have to be the final list, btw.
In the fall you get to tear your hair out and bug your kid. My son got his Stanford application in (we parents had no input- too stubborn) by midnight CALIFORNIA time! He later told my sister he would choose UW (Madison) over Stanford if he had the choice. I can see why- Taco Bell campus vs etc. He never would finish the Princeton application. Note- gifted kid was a couple of grades ahead and turned 16 fall of senior year (gifted means disparate levels of development, no easy answers).
It is not helicoptering to push a kid into researching colleges. Teens notoriously live in the moment, regardless of their abilities. Force her to start the process now so in the fall she will be able to apply to schools. You, the parents, also know your financial situation- or if not, need to research and figure out how much you can afford, how scholarships work… This will help with lists of dream schools and practical choices both academically and financially. Flagship U’s Honors programs have many top stat students who can’t afford to go elsewhere (or won’t apply, sigh).
@carbmom Don’t mistake prolific posters here for enthusiastic kids!! My 3 were ALL like yours at this stage. It’s stress.
I mean, having everything you’ve done up to this point be summarized and scrutinized against your peers so you can move to a place you’ve never been to with people you don’t know to study something that WILL DETERMINE THE REST OF YOUR LIFE sounds so fun, doesn’t it?
For the kid wanting to crabboat-- let him. It might become the most interesting essay anyone ever read.
Go visit a few schools near you. Pick a large U, a LAC and something in between. Go visit at least one surburban school and one in the boondocks. Go while the college is in session, if possible, to get a better feel for the school. With my kids I started the search by looking for schools with good programs in what ever they wanted to major in, and we narrowed from there. I then had my kids rank the colleges I found and we then proceeded to visit as many as possible.
Is it possible that your daughter is just overwhelmed or doesn’t know where to start? A lot of kids have no frame of reference in which to start the whole decision process. This decision is so different then any other decision they have likely made before. There is also a very likely they they are afraid of making a bad decision.
It might help to sit down and her make a list of things to look for in a school. Then discuss the pro and cons of each criterion and suggest whys of evaluating each one. Then visit a few local schools to give her a feel for different types of schools. In this way she might get a better feel for what she likes and get her involved in the process.
My daughter was very unmotivated to visit schools. We ended up picking a few schools that we felt were a good fit academically and then visited the schools range from VERY small LAC to large state flagship. She was able to get a feel for the size and type of school. Like you, I felt she should have driven the initial selection process but it just wasn’t happening. She did drive the final process so it ended up well.
Your big problem here will be the essays required for elite schools, if she isn’t motivated to do the research and put the time into writing them, than you are wasting your money and time with applying. My oldest was the same way, I filled out the application for the top state engineering school and four years later she had a degree in chemical engineering from a very good school and is out working in the real world. My youngest was much more motivated and is currently accepted at UChicago, class of 2021.
Your D is a junior. What she should be doing at this point is finding something fulfilling and interesting for the summer and mapping out great classes for senior year. There will be enough stress in her future. You may look back on this time and wish you could travel back to it. Of course, as parents, we have ways to get our kids to be “compliant”. I suggest you use the same tactics that have worked successfully for you in the past.
What’s the process at her high school? Has the GC met with her and with you about college? Has he/she given her a preliminary list? Have you done any visits?
Some kids find it overwhelming. And some are really not that picky. As long as she is interested in going to college, her essays should be fine. She may be so overwhelmed with the workload of junior year, preparing for SAT/ACT tests, AP tests, and her classes that thinking about college is low on her list. Even with visits, one of mine pretty much liked almost every school we visited. He mostly visited schools that I put on the list, with a few from his GC. He was able to sort it out as we visited more schools - liked cities, except he still liked this one LAC in the middle of nowhere. It came down to schools that offered his major and affordability (his top choice did not offer any merit money and he did not think it was worth an overall cost of $80 to $100K more).
Don’t despair. She will likely get more excited as the time comes for applications. If she really doesn’t and she doesn’t put any effort into her applications, the results next year at this time may reflect that. And if she really doesn’t want to go, a gap year could be an option.