This truly resonates with me, having gone through this last year with an equally unmotivated child. No interest in the college research, selection or application process or even in chatting about the topic. He knew he wanted to go to college and that was all. Since last fall, the words ‘college’ and ‘essays’ have been forbidden in any conversations with him. He would stonewall us if we talked about either. We had to force him to come up with a list of colleges and he still thinks it was unnecessary. I don’t have any good advice, just wanted to share and let you know you’re not alone.
Our DS procrastinated and left everything for the last minute. This was somewhat expected because that’s how he rolls. He is very bright and has never had to work very hard for good results unlike DD. Even though we expected his to be a different process than his sister’s, it has still been difficult. It’s hard to watch your child sabotaging their chances by putting in a marginal effort into the application process.
He had some applications for which he wrote essays in the car while driving to an event, others that he barely got done before the deadline of midnight on the date it was due. He wasn’t motivated to work harder on the later applications even after the early rejection from ‘dream’ school 1. There wasn’t one application that was in before the late evening hours of the deadline, most of them squeaked in just before midnight.
What could we do? This was his process and he had to own it. We hoped he would learn that procrastination wasn’t helping him. For our part, we made ourselves available on his time-table, stayed up to review his essays for errors and to pay the application fees. I made sure that I sent his ACT and SAT scores on time, his counselor sent all the other materials on time because of Naviance. He didn’t care. There were 4-5 colleges for which the scores, the school materials and recommendations were sent but he never finished the applications.
A few things that helped us and that may help you.
We made him go and visit some colleges. One was planned as a Spring Break outing with his friend and their family. That helped generate some interest.
Over summer, we made him create a spreadsheet with a list of all the colleges with deadlines, requirements, etc. It helped me keep track of the dates for sure, equally sure he never looked at it once it was created.
His school mandates that students attend the college fair during their junior and senior years. They have to sit through a number of presentations and get a signature from the presenter to validate that. That helped him in making the list.
The most useful thing was an auto-forward he set up for the email he used for college applications. Anything with the words ‘college’ or ‘university’ was automatically forwarded to my email and I was able to help keep track of what was due when.
However hard this has been, it’s almost over and our son has good choices available to him and he will be going to college! Yay, we’re done with this phase of parenting! Sorry, this became a long post - more of a vent!
Advice, not sure I’m qualified to give any since we didn’t navigate the troubled waters too well but here goes…Talk to your daughter as often as she will let you, ask her to come up with a list of what is important to her and help her then come up with a list of colleges. Take her to see a few colleges, start with the ones closer to you and make the trip a fun event by asking her friends to join if possible, combining with some interesting activity, etc. If you have any constraints such as distance or financial limits, make sure she knows what they are. Most importantly, what I wasn’t able to do too well, don’t let your stress over this process affect your child. Sometimes, it is better to bite your tongue and keep your thoughts to yourself.
Good luck to your daughter and I’m sure things will work out well in the end. With her high stats, she will have great options.
