Parent/Child timetable for high school

Parents Forum
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<p>As I have been looking and gleaning information from this board, I started to make a list of what we should do. I've included things I have done as well as other things I have seen on here. I started in 10th grade and ended the summer of junior year. To be honest, that is because I only have a junior at the present. If anyone wants to do something similar for senior year, feel free. I'm just not there yet. Here is is:</p>

<p>10th grade year:
Student considers what his major will be ( if he knows).
He makes a list of schools that are strong in his major.
He considers what he/she wants in a college: size, big city/rural, etc.</p>

<p>Meanwhile, the parents should REALISTICALLY look at what they can afford to pay. I might actually lowball it. If you think you can afford to pay 15,000 a year, then say 12,000. That way you have a cushion for unexpected fees and tuition increases.
If parent thinks their child will be a good test taker, make a list of schools that offer good merit aid for good test scores like University of Alabama.</p>

<p>End of the 10th grade year
Now, student and parent sit down together and talk about what they have found. Student shares likes/dislikes and possible schools. Together they narrow it down to 20 ( if the student even had that many)</p>

<p>I would also have the student and parents create a notebook where they put scholarship possibilities. Start exploring websites and local opportunities. ( My electric co-operative gives scholarships..who knew???) Highlight the deadlines for the various scholarships.</p>

<p>Fall of 11th grade year</p>

<p>Student works on narrowing down his list. </p>

<p>Parents investigate the financial/merit aid of the schools involved, especially as the student’s test scores become available. Look particularly at what amount of need the schools actually provide. ( For instance NYU- nothing!) </p>

<p>Meet again midyear and try to whittle down the list and/or substitute if either of you have found a school in your research. The list should be down to 15 or less by Christmas.
Continue to add to the scholarship notebook. Remember to consider your student’s strengths and weaknesses. If your student is a math/science kid and not the best writer, do not have him enter 15 essay contests!!!! It would be a waste of time and energy!</p>

<p>Spring of 11th grade
Student should start compiling a notebook of his school choices. He should put a copy of admission requirements, deadlines, and a copy of the application. (Yes, most are online but you can generally print a hard copy that they can fill out together and that way you are just copying the information online.) He should also look at essay topics the schools require. </p>

<p>At the end of this semester the parent and child should meet again and narrow it down to 10 or fewer schools. </p>

<p>Summer before 12th grade
The student should plan on spending at least an hour a day on this over the summer. This is the best time to work on it rather than in the fall when they are juggling school classes.
1. He/she should be filling out the paper copy of the applications so that when they are able to apply in late summer/fall, they can just copy it.
2. He should work on his admission essays.
3. He should actively be working on scholarships; writing applications, filling them out ( even if they are not due until spring and the new applications are not out, most of the time they don’t change that much. So they can just copy the information into the scholarship application)
4. Practice admission interview questions if that applies.</p>

<p>The parent should also be spending some time this summer:
1. Make a college calendar. Put all application deadlines, financial aid deadlines, etc on it. Also put scholarship deadlines on it as well. ( Both school and outside scholarships.)
2. Make sure you are as organized as possible with your finances. Remember, you will need to fill out the FAFSA as quickly after January as possible. </p>

<p>I hope someone finds this helpful.</p>

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<p>Thankfully our high school guidance office does a lot of this for us, especially the scholarship information/deadlines. That is a lot of work. They have a spreadsheet of all of the scholarships they know about that we can just pull up online and sort as needed. It’s about 10 pages of 9 font excel. It’s WONDERFUL.</p>

<p>Ok, we just aren’t that organized here. One thing I would add to your plan is to at least take the PSAT and/or PLAN tests to give you a good baseline score.</p>

<p>Our kids had a lot of opportunities to be on college campuses before 10th grade for sports camps, concerts, all kids of things so they had a pretty good idea what they liked about each campus and what they did not. By 10th grade they did know they didn’t want to go to a big school. That helped narrow down the search tremendously. I think that is more important than focusing on a particular program they may like in 10th grade. </p>

<p>We don’t have any notebooks or spread sheets for application information yet. Most of the schools they have looked at have similar deadlines, procedures so that helps. I do agree that the more they can do in the summer before senior year, the better off they will be. Our kids will have to do that because with their schedules next fall, they won’t have time to spend doing applications, etc.</p>

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<p>I question this part. At this point, most students have no idea what their SAT scores will be. Even if they took the PSAT as sophomores (and many don’t), that gives only a ballpark figure. Without SAT scores, it’s hard to choose appropriate colleges. A list of schools that are strong in, say, computer science, and appropriate for students with an SAT score of 2300 will be very different from the list of schools that are strong in the same major and appropriate for students with an SAT score of 1600.</p>

<p>I also think that students in 10th grade should not feel pressured to choose college majors. Some do know (one of my two did at that point), but others have no clue. It’s OK to have no clue at this point.</p>

<p>One more thing that perhaps should be added to your lists is consideration of the SAT Subject Tests. (This is my pet peeve.) If there is any chance that the student may apply to colleges that require these tests, the student and parent (and perhaps teachers and the guidance counselor) should discuss whether it would be wise for the student to take any of these tests at the end of 10th grade. (In rare cases, students sometimes take them at the end of 9th grade, too.) Sometimes, a student is doing extremely well in a one-year course in 10th grade where the school’s curriculum is a very good match for the SAT Subject Test’s expectations. In that case, it makes very good sense for the student to take that test at the end of 10th grade. (My daughter got a very high score in U.S. History by doing just that, and a generation earlier, I did the same thing with Chemistry.) Also, some students may reach the optimum point at which they should take a particular test at the end of 10th grade (for example, some may finish precalculus at that time – this is the optimum point at which to take the Math 2 Subject Test).</p>

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<p>i would allow for the tuition increases…wouldnt consider them to be unexpected… when figuring out what you can afford… calculate them into the formula.</p>

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<p>I want to know how to get a 10th grader to start making a list of colleges. Mentioning college at this point (at our house anyway) gets a shrug.</p>

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<p>One other thing that might be added to the list is the parent and student (perhaps with assistance from the guidance counselor) reviewing each year’s high school course choices with college in mind.</p>

<p>For example, my son wanted to drop his foreign language after level 3. Given his academic level, his likely major, and the schools he was interested in, this turned out to be an OK decision. But we did considerable research before coming to the conclusion that it was OK for him to do it. For some students, in some situations, it would not be OK.</p>

<p>Also, for students at the highest levels (which my son was not, but my daughter was), the SAT Subject Tests should be taken into account when making high school course choices. The object of the game for students who take the Subject Tests is to do very well on two tests in two different areas – and this must happen by the end of 11th grade. High school course choices are important here. For example, if the school has an excellent physics course that provides very good preparation for the Physics Subject Test, but the school’s chemistry curriculum is not a good match for the Chemistry Subject Test’s expectations, the student would be well advised to take Physics in 11th grade or earlier, and postpone Chemistry until 12th grade if necessary. Or, to give another example, if the student is interested in taking both AP U.S. History and AP Macro/Microeconomics, it makes sense to take the history course in 11th grade and the economics course in 12th (AP U.S. History provides excellent preparation for the U.S. History subject test; there is no economics subject test).</p>

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<p>Yeah, I left PSAT, SAT, and ACT as well as regular studying out. I just concentrated on the college search. But yes, mine took the PSAT as a soph.</p>

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<p>I couldn’t get my son to start thinking about college until we actually visited one. We went to a university nearby for an open house and tour. Suddenly, the thought of college was no longer an abstract idea; it became something he could visualize himself doing. I think this was in early Fall of his Junior year of high school.</p>

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<p>

Way, way too early for any of this. This can easily wait till winter/spring of junior year. </p>

<p>IMO what you should do sophomore year:</p>

<p>Student
Take the PSAT for practice.
Take the SAT subject test if you are taking AP Bio, AP Chem, AP Physics B, AP US History or AP World, or Pre-Calc.
Make sure that you are on track with the college prep curriculum appropriate to your child - some kids may be in 1 or 2 AP courses as sophomores, most won’t be and that’s okay. The average student accepted at MIT has only taken 5 APs.
Take a look at the Common Application, not to write essays, but just to see what the forms look like. Do you want a big blank where they ask about volunteer activities or jobs? (It’s okay if you have better things to do, but if you don’t, consider how to fill those empty boxes.)
**
Parent**
Run financial calculators and figure out what you are going to be willing to pay for
You might take a slacker kid to visit one nearby college to light a spark, but I can’t imagine doing more than that</p>

<p>Junior year</p>

<p>Student
Take the PSAT in the fall
This is the year grades count the most, do well in your courses
Plan for taking the SAT twice and the subject tests once or twice by the end of the year (Unless of course you already have great subject tests scores from soph year).
Pick out two teachers you’ll want to ask for recommendations and ask them in the spring if they will be able to write you a strong recommendation</p>

<p>Parent and Student
Visit a variety of colleges when they are in sessions (we used Feb, and Spring break)
It’s okay to visit one or two that you think your kid will hate because it helps them articulate what they do and don’t like in a college, and it may turn out that tiny vs huge or urban vs rural appeals to them after all. Visit potential safeties first - they are the hardest to find and fall in love with</p>

<p>Summer before Senior year</p>

<p>This is the student’s last chance to make summer count - get a job, do volunteer work etc.
Print out the Common Application and let it percolate over the summer - my kids did not start essays before the fall and I would not panic if your kid doesn’t either
Visit any last colleges in the fall
First semester grades count too.
If any college on your list offers Early Action or Rolling Admissions apply early - you will have all your major essays done by October and with luck you’ll have good news come December and have a much less stressful spring.</p>

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<p>Even if the student is not ready to talk about college until 11th grade, there is much that the parent can do, and the OP has identified a lot of it.</p>

<p>First, the financial research and decision making are entirely the parent’s responsibility, and they can proceed regardless of the student’s disinterest. The parent can also do research on scholarships. </p>

<p>Second, the parent can (1) find out what tests the student should be taking and when and ensure that the student signs up for them, and (2) review high school course choices for college-related implications. The student’s mind may be firmly in high school at this point, with little interest in the far-off prospect of college, but in my experience, students don’t seem to object if the parent says something like “It would be a good idea for you to take the U.S. History Subject test at the end of this year because you’re taking AP U.S. History, so you’ll probably get a really good score.” The student can deal with something straightforward like this even if the full complexity of the college admissions process isn’t something he or she is ready for yet.</p>

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<p>FrancescaBennett–I agree 100%. Visit a campus, ANY campus, take a tour, don’t just walk around. It’s a great starting point for any child, even if they go unwillingly. More often than not they will start processing that this is real. They will also have a starting point for what to look for in the future.</p>

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<p>Consider taking one each of the SAT and ACT instead of taking one of the tests twice (or at least trying one each of practice tests). Some students do significantly better on one versus the other.</p>

<p>Schedule SAT subject tests at the end of the year when the student completes the relevant course (e.g. Math Level 2 when completing precalculus).</p>

<p>For high school course planning, the following should be a good general guide:</p>

<p>English: 4 years
Math: to precalculus minimum; calculus preferable if completing precalculus 11th grade or earlier and it is available
Foreign language: to 4th or higher level, or verifiable level of proficiency that colleges accept (e.g. AP test)
History and social studies: 3 years or more
Science: 3 years or more, including biology, chemistry, and physics
Art and/or Music: yes</p>

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<p>If your kid is a bad tester, and you almost certainly do know that by now based on results going back to elementary school, chat with the counselor and/or school psychologist about possible reasons. Maybe it is bad testing strategies (that can be fixed with a good test-prep course), but maybe it is test-induced anxiety, or even a to-date unidentified LD. Whatever the reason, your kid deserves a fighting chance at doing well on these exams and/or a pass on taking them altogether. Happykid is a bad tester (dyslexia-type issues) and so skipped the whole PSAT/SAT/ACT series, and only took the AP English Lit exam and the Spanish CLEP (after she got to college). It’s not a bad thing to bookmark [The</a> National Center for Fair & Open Testing | FairTest](<a href=“http://www.fairtest.org%5DThe”>http://www.fairtest.org) if you suspect your child will need to take a look at test-optional schools.</p>

<p>Pay attention to your child’s potential career interests. Most 9th and 10th graders don’t have a clue about this. Some do. Happykid has had an unwavering career goal since then, and as a result all of her summer internships (volunteer at first, paid later on) have been in her career field, and she is working professionally part-time in her second year of college.</p>

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<p>I like this timetable:</p>

<p>[College</a> Planning / Grade Level Planning Calendars](<a href=“http://www.granvilleschools.org/Page/300]College”>http://www.granvilleschools.org/Page/300)</p>

<p>The sophomore one is basically about course selection, grades, activities and taking the PSAT.</p>

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<p>I give that calendar a B, ohiobassmom.</p>

<p>It gets credit for having a parents’ Financial Aid Night that is open to parents of students in all grades.</p>

<p>But it loses points because there’s no mention of taking SAT Subject Tests before grade 11. I see no reason to omit this possibility, even if it’s only relevant to a small number of students.</p>

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<p>Which ones might be appropriate for a soph? (Curious for D15 who takes somewhat advanced classes so far)</p>

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<p>Best time to take an SAT subject test is at the end of the school year in which the student is taking the course. If this is freshman or even sophomore year, then do it then, unless the student is scheduled to take a more advanced course on the same topic the next year.</p>

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<p>I’ve been told that though D is taking geometry now as a freshman andwill have AII as a soph, she should take Math 2 later, not Math 1 next year. I wonder if similar is true for, say Chemistry taken in 10th grade? Or Bio - she’s taking “pre-AP Bio” now but the SAT Bio is really testing a higher level of Bio?</p>

<p>The CB site says:</p>

<p>"Taking SAT Subject Tests</p>

<p>Although most students take SAT Subject Tests beginning in their junior year, there are some tests that your child should take as soon as possible after taking the subject, including World History, Biology E/M, Chemistry and Physics. Your child will do better in other subjects, such as languages, after at least two years of study."</p>

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<p>It’s better to take Math 2 if possible,especially if your kid is a math/science person.</p>

<p>I’d like to add one thing to the sophomore schedule, or even the freshman schedule–it may be a little controversial. This is a time to take a sharp look at your kid’s activities and consider if there are things he can do to get recognition for them. I’m not suggesting picking activities for how they will look to colleges, but rather that you think about how you will eventually show colleges that you are good at the things you like to do. For example, if you are interested in art or writing, you should participate in the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards competition–you can do this even if your school doesn’t know anything about it. There may be other competitions, local, regional, or national, for the things you do. If you’re a Boy Scout or a Girl Scout, sophomore year is a good time to get in gear and move toward your Eagle or Gold Award while you still have some time. This is also a time to think about summer programs that may relate to your interests.</p>

<p>One additional point about SAT Subject tests–taking three or even two at a time can be difficult, which is another reason to take one at the end of 10th grade if it matches a course you are taking that year.</p>

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<p>^^ I strongly support Hunt’s suggestion. As parents when we look back, some of their activities were waste of time, money and effort.</p>