<p>^^ One of the best parts of parenting is watching your child discover his/her interests and see where these interests lead them. Enjoy the ride</p>
<p>Whatever you do, please do NOT start talking about college with your kids except in the most vague and infrequent terms. If they decide you are “obsessed” with college or that you have specific goals for them, they will do a lot less exploring and not “enjoy the ride” as SlackerMomMD says above. Not only that, it goes without saying extreme pressure is not good for kids. There is a parent here whose school has already seen several suicides of high-achieving kids in the first month of school. If you are in a competitive, show-offy environment, I’d be very watchful.</p>
<p>For me, I would want to have my kids at the same school if at all possible–for them as well as for me. You may have good reasons for splitting them up, though.</p>
<p>There are literally hundreds of great colleges out there, catering to every possible kind of student. And many, many places can help them be successful. I’d focus my “behind the scenes” research on getting the lay of the land beyond what you already know or assume.</p>
<p>I wanted to address the private high school issue for your 8th grader. I think it depends upon your child. Our son is is a sophomore in a private school like that. No question if he were in the public school or the diocesan high school, he’d have a 4.0 or darn near it. As it is, he’s got a 3.2. His freshman PSAT’s were over 200. He’s a bright kid but he’s not a natural worker. And neither the public nor diocesan options would force a good work ethic upon him. At those schools, except for a few honors classes, he’d be in the average track and it would be too easy for him - at his private high school, other than Religion, there really aren’t any easy A’s. For a kid like him, that’s a good thing. I know too many bright boys who cruised through high school on their natural ability without any sense of discipline at all. They get to college and get overwhelmed by the work required and end up dropping out. Even if the only work that’s required is to get yourself to class on Monday morning after drinking all weekend, there is still a discipline and maturity required when Mom’s not around to get you out of bed. </p>
<p>For us, the private high school our son attends is an end in itself. It’s not about getting him into a good or a better college. We’re reasonably sure he’s going to Penn State - and he likely would have been able to get in there no matter where he went to high school. In fact, unless he gets his GPA up, his chances are probably worse of getting admitted than they would have been with cheaper options. We are, of course, assuming he’ll get his GPA up. Freshman year was a bit of a baptism by fire for him. He was no longer one of the smartest guys in the room and that was a big adjustment for him. After a miserable first semester he picked his grades up nicely to four A’s and two B’s in the second half of the year. We’re very proud of him but if he were to have had his first introduction to academic discipline when mom and dad wouldn’t be looking over his shoulder and giving him a push when he needed it (i.e. at college), who knows how he’d have done.</p>
<p>Since I believe private high schools often are an end in themselves, I don’t think you can look at where the students matriculate and draw big conclusions. At private high schools, there are an awful lot of families who will be completely shut out from financial aid. And many of them - including my husband and me - don’t believe an undergraduate degree is worth a quarter of a million dollars. </p>
<p>I don’t think discussing college with an 8th grader precludes them from enjoying HS.
On the contrary, having a broad plan sketched out could help them feel confident in the choices they make as they fill in their plan. Without any discussion a kid could start feeling anxious and driftless as sophomore year starts.
The thing is, imo, to let the child know & feel that this is their plan, and you are just a guide / resource.</p>
<p>I agree - “vague and infrequent” gave my DD just enough to fixate anxiously on, without enough to feel that she had a support system in place. “This is the method we’ll use to eliminate unaffordable choices before you start narrowing down your list / this is the method we’ll use to help you know what different schools are like / this is our suggestion for timing of standardized tests” helped her put aside the worrying because she knew that we wouldn’t let her accidentally limit herself unnecessarily. Odds are that none of that will be exactly what happens when the time comes, but having a tentative plan helps some kids.</p>
<p>And for god’s sake, don’t be the parent who says, “We will find a way to make it work if you get into XYZ college” unless you ACTUALLY have a plan to make it work. Thinking, oh, we’ll tap into our home equity if you have no equity right now, or thinking “we can borrow against our life insurance policies” if you only have term insurance is not a plan.</p>
<p>Scores of kids post here every April after they’ve had the rude awakening that their families cannot come up with their share of the EFC. And they don’t have a solid plan B (they’d been told, “We’ll make it work”.) But you can’t magically conjure up another 10K or 20K per year if you don’t have it, especially with kids so close together in age.</p>
<p>Run the financial aid calculators now based on your financial reality and come up with a plan based on that. Not based on the financial aid fairy visiting your house.</p>
<p>"Things I wish I had known back in 9th grade:
- Leadership in community service / charity is a big deal in selective schools & scholarships"</p>
<p>I also had no idea that most scholarships require a lot of community service. However, what would you have done if you knew this? Make your kid drop what interests them and “volunteer” hundreds of hours?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I would not be surprised if the many students and parents looking at a pile of rejections from super-selective schools and big scholarships believe that the ECs not done are the ones they should have done to get admitted. I.e. the musician wishing that s/he had done sports, the athlete wishing that s/he had done community service, and the volunteer wishing that s/he had done piano or violin.</p>
<p>Don’t most high schools require community service these days? </p>
<p>I think it’s perfectly appropriate to talk with kids in 8th/9th grade about college as their decisions/choices (e.g. whether to take prereqs for AP courses) in these grades may play a role in where they’re going to college. High school first semester senior grades are often not available when college apps are submitted. College decisions as to submitting, even admitting, are often based primarily on the first 3 years of high school. If you don’t start in 8th/9th grade, when do you start, the beginning of 11th grade?? I’m not saying a parent has to be obsessive about college with a kid in 8th/9th grade as I strongly believe that kids should fully enjoy their teen years as they go by quickly. But for parents to be thinking ahead and begin to broach the subject of college with 8th/9th graders is the right thing to do. At a minimum, it’s kinda like the sex talk. I don’t want my 13/14 year old to be having sex. (In fact one of my two basic rules for my S was I didn’t want grandchildren before I had a daughter in law. So far so good). But they need to get the notion that their decisions/choices in the next few years may have real long term consequences other than say a “time out” for a poor choice </p>
<p>A lot of the big scholarship sites specifically talk about community service leadership. I should have looked at them when my D was in middle school. As it is she has service hours but nothing that would compare to kids who started their own charity program or what not.
I would have advised her to select her senior project more carefully - the topic she selected is not that interesting to her and doesn’t show that much community involvement but at the time I didn’t want to butt in too much. Lesson learned.</p>
<p>I was never a fan of mandatory community service. Seems like an oxymoron, at least in spirit.</p>
<p>And know that you need to periodically revisit the NPCs because some schools will shift their aid philosophies.<br>
OP, may as well understand finaid in general. Eg, retirement funds are treated differently than other (theoretically) accessible assets. Some parents assume their total net worth places them out of range of some aid.</p>
<p>I haven’t had the chance to read the whole thread, and I apologize if someone else has already brought up my pet topic – SAT Subject Tests.</p>
<p>By the time in 9th grade when students are selecting courses for 10th grade – if not earlier – it makes sense to give some thought to SAT Subject Tests. Do you and the student think it likely that the student will apply to colleges that require them? If the answer is yes, which tests might be the best choices for the student, and how should the student plan his/her course schedule in order to be ready at the appropriate time?</p>
<p>A few issues to consider:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>High school curricula are not necessarily designed with the SAT Subject Tests in mind. School systems care about meeting state standards. They (typically) don’t care much about what happens to the small number of kids who take Subject Tests.</p></li>
<li><p>Students need to take the SAT Subject Tests by the beginning of 12th grade. Therefore, it is not practical to take them on the basis of a 12th grade course. </p></li>
<li><p>It’s amazing how much people can forget in a year. So, for example, if your school has a terrific chemistry course that provides excellent preparation for the SAT Subject Test, and your student takes that course in 10th grade, the optimum time to take the Subject Test is at the end of 10th grade – not a year later, when most people start thinking about Subject Tests. (Full disclosure: This is how I got my one and only 800, back when they were called Achievement Tests.)</p></li>
<li><p>Some AP courses provide excellent preparation for the Subject Test in the same subject. Others don’t because they cover material unrelated to what’s on the Subject Test.</p></li>
<li><p>Don’t expect your school to tell you any of this in time for you to make use of it. Often, they don’t.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>One thing about ECs: it really helps if they are sincere. Trying to plan community involvement and leadership roles based on “how it will look” on a college resume is really wrong, in my opinion. My older child was counseled at his school to do exactly this; he said NO WAY would he do something he didn’t care personally about. He did just fine with college admissions (and anyway, who would want to be admitted on the basis of an insincere application?). My younger child doesn’t have time for volunteering or other ECs because she dances 15 hours a week and has a part-time job. She too is going to do fine.</p>
<p>^^
Completely agree with the sincerity factor. When it comes time to discuss EC’s / community involvement with my middle schooler, my idea is to ask her to explore what she cares about and not just do it for the resume.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>On the other hand, if there’s nothing your kid really cares about, doing ECs/community service for the resume is better than doing nothing at all. </p>
<p>LOL @Marian, very true. Better than sitting on the couch playing video games.</p>
<p>@scholarme Or the kid could get a job to pay for the video games. That’s what one of my kids did – dropped all his ECs in favor of a paying job that would feed his software habit. A job is a legitimate EC (though not legitimate community service).</p>
<p>Getting a job is definitely good to have on the resume.</p>