Good luck with that at 17.
Let her find her way. Your job is to keep presenting her with opportunities and advice/guidance.
Keeping her grades up this semester and SAT/ACT test prep should be top priorities–after dealing with any issues that brought her to your home. Get her a prep book and do practice tests at home before she takes a real test. ( I do not advise taking SAT/ACT without prep for “baseline scores” as many school counselors might recommend. If she hasn’t prepared for tests, prep first. Test in late spring through early fall. )
Depending on her/your family situation, she may want to stay close to home. Look at local colleges first. My sister-in-law recently took custody of two nieces after their junior year when their single mother died unexpectedly. One was an excellent student and ended up with a full ride at a small LAC in their home city. The other is living with another relative and attending a nearby community college.
As others have said, research financial aid for her specific situation. You may have to make phone calls to college FA offices because of her unique situation.
Most students don’t have career plans at this age. She should be getting a feeling about what subjects interest her more than others, which subjects she is best at, etc. Her high school or local community college probably offers an interest/aptitude test which might help give her some direction.
She’s only a junior. My kids didn’t even think about college until spring of junior year. And they ended up at top colleges. It’s fine to wait until summer before junior year or even later if that is what suits her emotional timetable. It is also fine to do community college and then transfer, as many are doing these days for financial reasons.
Given the situation, I think you might need to change your priorities. Settling in with a new family for a 17 year old takes huge psychic energy. I think your expectations are a bit high right now. There is just a little judgment coming through in your post.
Get a copy of “The Myth of Laziness.” (maybe also be on the lookout for any need for evaluation.) I found it helpful.
Or maybe go talk to a counselor to help YOU through this transition. It must be very hard for you and your family and it is apparent you take the responsibility very seriously.
Is she seeing someone?
Just know for now that nothing needs to be done urgently and you can relax and learn to live together.
Whatever the reason, you are a wonderful person to take a niece in.
You should be applauded for taking in your 17 year old niece while you are parenting toddlers. But I totally agree to focus on her mental health and well being for now. If she’s still doing well in school and staying on track with that, she is doing better than many 17 year olds. A gap year (or more) is completely fine if she needs it. I would not push AT ALL. Is she receiving counseling/therapy? Many many teens go to college with an undeclared major. Or swear they have a major and change in anyway.
I have a senior with competitive stats that is unlikely to go to a competitive college for reasons both financial and in terms of personality. Don’t think that needs to be a thing that happens to be a happy, successful, productive adult. She will find her wheels when she is ready. Teens change so much even from month to month. Focusing on her emotional health now will pay out in dividends later.
Seems like the only thing for the rest of this school year, beside school, for her to do in terms of college planning is to take the SAT and/or ACT. Even that is not strictly necessary this school year, but is desirable in terms having time for a retake in senior year if desired and getting an earlier idea of which colleges are realistic for admissions and scholarships.
As the guardians, you can look into the cost and financial aid situation.
No need to push hard on the college front now.
I think we don’t have enough info on why the guardianship to make good recommendations here. If the OP is willing to share that info it would be helpful but I can understand being uncomfortable doing that.
I think your only responsibility is to make sure she does everything to preserve opportunities. Take the SAT and ACT. Make sure she completes all requirements to get into a state school or to get a state scholarship like the A-G requirements in California or qualifying for Bright Futures or the HOPE in Georgia or Tennessee. Keep good records for things like community service hours, the names and contact info for teachers who could write letters of recommendation if she decides not to go to college right out of high school. She may already have attended 2 or more high schools, and having a notebook of things she did while in high school makes filling out those applications easier. If she takes a gap year (or two) having all the info really helps. Memories fade fast.
If your guardianship is an informal one (if the state didn’t take custody of your niece), you might want to look into making it a formal one through the state. When it comes time to fill out financial aid forms, she might be in a better position to get financial aid if she is ‘independent’ and not dependent. If she’s still a dependent, she’d have to use one of her parents’ financial information and of course find that parent. That may be hard. Having the state take legal custody often has to be done before the child turns 18.
“Lazy” probably translates into “terrified.” I see so many kids at school – and my own daughter last year as well-- who were in the same position. It’s hard to move from what you’ve known your whole life to the great unknown.
Is there a reason she needs to be at a competitive school?
Here’s what I did with my daughter: I did a LOT of the groundwork, far more than many of the parents here. (Hey, my kid wasn’t a typical CC kid.) I found schools, I found programs. But here’s the thing-- I found schools I thought SHE would want, not necessarily the ones I would choose for myself.
I originally made the mistake of pushing too hard, and she pushed back. So I backed off. But when she finally did bring up the subject, I had the research ready.
This is a new and difficult situation for all of you, but especially for her.
She might be depressed, anxious, overwhelmed by her new life circumstances.
Is she attending a new school as well?
Can you offer her the opportunity to see a therapist to work through this transition with her?
Encourage her to join activities at school to make new friends, something she enjoys, sports, drama, music, debate, etc.
Approach test prep and college planning slowly. Her school might offer a SAT prep class. Or she can do some free practice tests from the Collegeboard website.
She can sign up for May or June and August SAT, giving her more time to adjust to her new life and school.
I would not send her away to camp unless she asks to go to one. I think more time with the family will help her to feel part of your family quicker.
In the spring you can tour a few colleges nearby. Public, private.
She doesn’t have to go to competitive schools. The goal is for her to be successful and get a degree, if that’s what she wants.
She doesn’t have to know what she wants to be yet.
Right now, something happened that pulled the rug out from under her, her life has drastically changed. Give her time to deal with this.
So much good advice here. I hope that you are encouraged by knowing that there is a big community rooting for you and your niece during this process.
As a parent of a current HS senior who had to be dragged into the college process late junior year and then had all her applications completed by Dec 1 of senior year, I second the advice not to worry if she is not interested yet. And my very smart and talented senior has no idea of what she wants to do and is applying as “undecided” to all her colleges. So no need for you to stress over that.
Tasks for you in the college process:
- Do your homework about the legal status of your guardianship and how it will affect financial aid applications and state residency (if your niece needed to change states when she moved in with you)
- Have a low-key conversation about what she may be looking for in a college–things like:
geographic location (does she want to be close enough to you for weekend visits if you will continue to be her home base after HS? does weather/politics/transportation issues affect her choices?)
setting–city/town/rural (sounds like she already has a view on that)
size of school–large, medium, small
big sports team as a campus focus or avoiding that
any particular interest she would want to have access to (sports/arts/clubs/outdoorsy activities/science/tech) - You can take the info from the above conversation and make a list of possible colleges for her to check out. This is what I did when my child told me that the search was too overwhelming. It gave her a starting point, and she applied to many of the schools I suggested, dismissed others and added a few schools of her own. Stress that she is in charge, but that this is a way for her to start the process.
- Research gap year options AND whether colleges on your list include the option for deferred enrollment. Just so you will have that info when the time comes. Put it away until needed.
- She has a good GPA and will get in somewhere. Don’t stress about top schools–there are plenty of other choices out there and lots of resources to help you find them, including here on CC. Your state college system might be a good place to start.
Tasks for her in the college search right now:
Figure out when she will take SAT or ACT.
Keep doing well in school.
Settle into her new home.
Best of luck to all of you. Things will turn out fine.
You have to put yourself in her shoes. Her world had been turned inside out and upside down. Everything she has known in the past is gone. Even the simple things like mac and cheese for dinner on Wednesday and Joey in math class is a jerk and always has been, is gone. Everything is different. I second getting her into therapy and finding a good fit with a therapist. Having someone to talk to about all the changes and to reassure her is what she needs right now. She needs to adjust to her new world and find the new stable items.
OP, thank you for being there for a teen in need! And taking it on with two toddlers…that’s a lot. You are doing a great thing. Parenting teens is hard (so are toddlers), and you’ve been thrown into the fire so to speak without the tween years to build up your patience!
Here’s some perspective: One year ago, it sounds like my son was exactly the same as your niece: “17 year old. Currently good grades, 3.7 gpa… Taking dual enrollment. She is a Junior. Here is the problem. She lacks initiative, a non-starter. All school related stuff we have to push and nudge. Smart kid but seemingly “lazy” with the road to college process.” This was my son. While I slowly had weaned away from micromanaging stuff do with high school, he completely lacked initiative in the college process. He also had to be dragged to get his drivers’ license, for example. Not super high on initiative until he feels he “has to.”
So now he is in his senior year, has multiple offers, with merit, from great schools. Harvard? No. Great schools with great reputations that fit him? Yes. Your niece is not behind and still has plenty of time for a college search. Don’t get overwhelmed with the posts on CC with the boatloads of extracurriculars, leadership, full rides, tippy top test scores, 4.8 GPAs etc. etc.
How did my son get here? I took him to a couple of local schools so he could think about questions like big/small/medium, city/rural, geography, stuff like that. I asked him to start thinking about what he would like to study. Over time he came up with two ideas from his high school classes (Psychology, Political Science). Since those are offered everywhere, this was not a limiting factor. I started building a list of LACs, since I think that would fit his very vague major/career ideas, and also looked at schools ranked in these majors (later, those rankings have turned out not to matter, but it led me to some schools to put on a list to start looking into). He took the ACT and we got a local tutor. We did more visits over spring break and his ideas started to become more clear about the type of school and fit. Another visit over the summer, and come senior fall he had a list of about 10 schools to apply to, with me doing a lot of the research, including the finances, and handing it to him to make decisions on where to visit and apply. Yes I had to “nag” during app season when deadlines were approaching. They all got done and submitted on time. He ended up in a great position from starting where your niece was (academically, I don’t mean to discount what has happened personally). Try not to be overly worried. Much as we would like them to, these mini-adults do NOT have our priority system or work ethic.
@Pzaz99 - Lots of wonderful advice on this thread. DH and I became guardians of our niece for her last two years of high school. She moved to our home; though we were close all through her life, this was a huge transition. All agreed the guardianship was the best way forward, yet there was grief and anger at the circumstances, as well as the challenge of a different household with adults at the helm.
Your niece is in good shape academically. You are showing her what matters to you with every question asked and every issue you nudge to the foreground. Focusing on getting to know her by listening and following her lead, noticing her interests, and how the days are going (without achievement oriented expectations dominating) will help build what our niece aptly labeled “the firm surface to push off from” she needed as an emerging young adult. You don’t have to know everything, yet can help her access support and resources as indicated. By way of encouragement, our niece has made her way into her mid-thirties with a wonderful husband, several well-tended kids and pursuit of her goals. We remain extremely close. All the best.
Could it be possible… from your niece’s point of view, she may be reluctant to delve into college research out of financial embarrassment? She probably has no expectation you’re paying for her tuition, but without guidance, she doesn’t know how on earth she can pay anything for it either. She knows nothing about how financial aid works. Even researching colleges is completely new to her (as it is to most 17-year-olds). So like a deer in the headlights, she freezes. Avoidance is her comfortable coping mechanism.
I would talk finances with her. Stress that you love her, she is part of your family now, and part of that is setting her up for a brighter future, and you are going to learn and explore the possibilities, and together make good things happen for her. Remind her that you’ll have her back.
Though I would suggest that the OP do the following first before talking to the student about college finances:
a. Figure out what financial aid situation the student will be applying for financial aid as (e.g. independent or dependent student, etc.).
b. Figure out how much the OP can comfortably afford to contribute if the OP wants to contribute to her college costs. This may require some financial planning that the OP has not yet done.
c. Run some net price calculators on some colleges of possible interest (e.g. state flagship, local state university, private colleges commonly of interest to students in the area, etc.). But be aware that some colleges’ net price calculators may be less accurate for unusual situations.
The above can be done in the background without having to talk to the student about college at all. But then the OP will be ready to have the college finance discussion when the student is ready to start talking about college thinking about making an application list.
The Questbridge program may be of use in this case.
I don’t think we know enough about your niece’s situation – e.g., why the guardianship, psychological state, legal issues etc. – to offer you specific advice, though I will say that the posters here have offered very good advice.
Some general advice. I have seen my job as a parent and would see my job as a guardian as helping prepare my children to lead fulfilling, successful adult lives. As such, I have taken the long view. There is no reason a HS junior should know what she wants to do for a career – in fact, as I tell my kids, the two jobs I have had for the longest periods of my adult career didn’t exist when I was in grad school, let alone in college. I think that the evolution of jobs is faster now than it was then, so the lesson is to learn skills and ways of thinking that they can continue to apply as the world changes and that college should be about learning think (and communicate) clearly and how to learn on one’s own.
Assuming you share that goal for your niece, I think going slow and making sure she is engaged and dealing well with the world is more important than pushing things through. @MaineLonghorn echoes something I have told my kids: Life is not a race.
My son took a gap year before college. He needed a surgery but didn’t actually apply to college until his gap year. People told us that would hurt him, but I didn’t believe them and they were, I think, dead wrong. He had more time to study for the standardized tests (see below) and more time to do his college apps as he was not competing with HS courses. He did a number of interesting things that year and so they also helped his college application. He got into very good schools and is doing well – he completed an MBA and an MS and started his second company last year while he was in grad school with a partner he chose from his MBA program and they have been recognized in national publications. He told me that he appreciated the additional maturity he had when he was a freshman and sophomore.
I encouraged my daughter to take a gap year, but she was so excited about the school she got into that she didn’t want to defer, but she then transferred at the end of the first semester. [She’s done very well as well, so it didn’t hurt her that much, but I think her decision-making might have been better with another year].
Finally, I learned on CC about something called the Xiggi method for preparing for standardized tests from posts by a guy on here named @xiggi. I’d look it up, but it largely involved taking all the real, available practice tests. It worked well for both kids. My son spent half a day each day for three weeks and then took the tests.
Hug her, support her, and cheer her on. Give her time to know she can count on you. Meanwhile, don’t push, but help her by buying her an SAT study guide (there’s one you can purchase through College Board), and then ask her when she wants to take the SAT. Local spots fill up fast, so the sooner you can sign her up for the test, the better.