How do you give your child guidance? Trying not to have this be the only topic of conversation around our home. But, as we head into the 2nd qtr of junior year, I’m beginning to worry a little.
I keep asking: location, weather, size of school, etc. I’m trying to keep it general enough where I’m not overwhelming him. But he is giving me nothing.
It’s driving me nuts.
Start with how much you can afford.
That will narrow it a lot.
Then use the supermatch guide and find a few that might interest him. Maybe take a weekend and go see one or two representative samples. That should get the topic started.
Just start looking at colleges. Do a few tours. We did when one of my kids was being recruited, and the first school showed them what the drill was. Tour, interview, free water and cookies. Daughter wasn’t sure if she wanted accounting or some math major, mentioned engineering, and after that it was all engineering, all the time. Some schools felt too small. We visited my nephew at UF and my daughter knew it was too big for her.
Your son might show some interest once he sees a few options. If there are colleges near you, go to a few events at those schools - games, art shows, science events, political speeches. If you are going on vacation near a college, do a drive through. Drag him (and you might have to drag) to a college fair or college night at your high school. He might be happy going to the closest public school or flagship in your state
If the student is undecided what to major in a large university may be best. If he goes to Boston College as a science major and decides he wants engineering he would have to transfer to another school for example. While at Boston university it would be an internal transfer.
Fiske Guide to Colleges and the Book of majors (from CollegeBoard) are two useful tools. Ask your kid to spend time with both with some post-its – one color for “Looks great!” and one for “Coykd be interesting”.
Has he done any career exploration like summer camps or shadowing? That’s how our son found his major - went to several camps like bio-technology, psychology, healthcare…then we picked schools that were good for his major. But I agree that if they are undecided you go with the best school in case they change their major.
My son was like this. When we did visit colleges, he would read a magazine while his younger sister looked at catalogs! I was making a list of places to visit and looking things up etc. without his participation.
One day, I told him that he didn’t have to go to college, it was fine with me. (He knew I meant it.) I said he could get a job and live life and go when he was ready.
I came back to the house and found him doing a color coded chart.
He ended up doing very well with admissions. And career. For some reason he just couldn’t face the whole college thing at first: trouble with transitions.
Specifics will differ, and I was not doing anything wrong. I was not helicoptering or pressuring. But when I really put it on his plate, he did take it up.
Thanks for your quick replies. I wish DS would be as quick. I just told him he has until the end of these nine weeks to give me some kind of info.
He went with us when we toured for D16 (toured 5). We found that we all agreed on schools we liked/disliked. He’s told us that he doesn’t want to tour other schools prior to knowing which ones accept him. I know that can be a crap shoot. I may try and convince him to do a tour through his HS. They do several throughout the year; in state, northeast, west and south.
@Dustyfeathers, thankfully we are ok in the tuition dept., though we are not a blank check.
@twoinanddone, he’s going to begin attending college school visits at his HS. The reps come to the school. He’s attending couple next week, actually. I’m hoping that will get his juices flowing. His HS does do a college fair night where over 80 colleges attend. However, that isn’t until Feb. This very impatient mother needs some kind of direction sooner than that.
@TomSrOfBoston, that makes good sense. I do feel that he does need to attend a big school. But that’s just it. There are many good, big schools. I need to light that fire under his bottom. That’s where I need help.
@intparent, I’ll look into those guides. Thanks
@Rollout no, he’s never done any type of career exploration or shadowing. Hmmm. Isn’t it kind of late for that?
@compmom yes, he and his sister are totally different beasts when it come to the college game. They are very similar in their academics but he’s totally laid back. He’s my “Don’t worry mom, I got it” kid. He usually does have it. But it’s hard for me to sit back and not give him what I consider to be the same opportunities/attention I gave his sister.
What is the reason for this ultimatum? And what would you do anyway if he has no answers in this time period?
My suggestion…stop fretting about this and stop talking about this…period. There are plenty of HS juniors who have no idea about what they want to do after HS, and they don’t want to talk about it…at all.
Let your son enjoy his junior year of high school. He won’t need to apply to college before fall of his senior year. Many students apply later than that. Most students don’t do college visits at all.
Just let this topic go…completely…NO nine week ultimatum. No college talk.
If you happen to be going on a road trip, you can see IF he would like to,stop and visit one college along the way.
But please…let your kid take the lead here. It sounds to me like you want him to make these decisions on your timeline. Let him make them on his.
It will all work out.
Junior year?
That’s pretty early – no wonder your kid doesn’t have a clue.
Neither of my kids decided where to apply until fall quarter of their senior years. My daughter did one college visit in the winter of her junior year because she was invited to accompany a friend who was graduating that year – put off the other college visits until September and October of Senior year.
If you want to do college visits over the summer, then you might work with your kid in the spring to plan those trips (That wasn’t something on our family agenda, for various reasons).
@thumper1 I guess it is an ultimatum. I didn’t see it as such when I said it. Some of us have a harder time switching gears with each child.
You may be right. Anything that’s been said and done to this point has gone nowhere. And you are definitely right that it will work out. I do admit my faults and the biggest one is lack of patience. Thankfully, my sone knows that and knows I only have his best interest at heart.
I will do my best to not push the point and have him come to me. Only time will tell where that leads us.
Since he will have plenty of college talk at school that should be enough to spark some interest.
@calmom I not asking him for a major I’m asking him for ideas as to where he may want to attend. For example, many kids love one of their in state flagship schools and have no clue as to what to study. All my D16 knew what that she wanted out of our state. She wanted to experience something new.
The question to him was: want a big/small school, huge in football or not, do you care about the cold, wanna stay east of Mississippi or does it not matter? I dont think those questions are too difficult for a junior to answer, even if they only answer one.
When my DD was a freshman, sophomore and beginning junior, she wanted to go to Southern Methodist University…period. It was a school she has visited when her older brother was looking at schools. Every time I brought the subject of college up, she said “I’m going to SMU.”
So…we were getting ready for a family vacation (we combined college visits with family vacations). I suggested going to Texas during junior year spring break. Kid announced “TEXAS? I am not going to college in Texas!”
So we did a trip to CA instead.
My point is…even IF your son answers your questions NOW, his point of view could change very much before he is a HS senior.
He will get there! He will!
I agree with many of the ideas. First have a talk and give your son any parameters you have – it should include anything including but is not limited to geography and cost.
If there are any nearby colleges you can visit I would try to take him to one large, medium and small school. Even if they are not schools he will apply to it can make it all real and can give him a concrete sense of some of the types of schools out there. We did this with my S and it helped him to sort out what he wanted in a college.
And yes some of the guide books (Fiske, Princeton Review) are good, but it may be too early for him.
And as an aside, I would disagree with post #3 about a larger school automatically being best – as long as your S knows he doesn’t want a specialty program (ex. engineering, business, etc.) then a small school could work just as well. In fact many large colleges make it extremely difficult to transfer between schools so that is something you would have to research on a school-by-school basis in advance (for example if the engineering or business programs is harder to get into as a freshman, the school doesn’t want students applying to the liberal arts arm of the college and then immediately flipping into engineering or business so one way they can combat this by making internal transfers very difficult).
I have some college junior students who are still not quite sure about their majors even though they had declared one. 
For students like these, a university with a deeper liberal arts curriculum foundation will give them more time to decide.
I would tell him you will do whatever he needs to support his search, when he asks, and the timeline is up to him. Then stop talking about it and resume your normal relationship with him. It will work out.
And maybe tell him that if he doesn’t want to go that’s fine too : )
I actually thought this was from a senior parent and still wasn’t overly alarmed, there are those out there in your shoes 12 months later. No worries for you, many have zero interest or ideas in fall of junior year. With that nine week deadline however, no offense intended - but I do think you are wound a little tighter than you should be and that could make for a very long college application process. It could really really affect the entire thing and your relationship if you don’t sit back a bit. That is setting the stage for him not liking anything you do, or checking out schools just to make you uncomfortable, both a big waste of time. Tell yourself now you are going to be patient and let this play out as mentioned above.
He won’t have the answers yet - the buzz hasn’t really begun at school at this point, it starts in late winter when they have those planning meetings after they have gotten the seniors apps and recommendations behind them.Then the buzz ramps up for the juniors and kids are talking more about it. He will get more interested.
It sounds like you have thrown these out there, but tell him he should just be thinking about this kind of thing for now :
Do you want a more anonymous experience in college (big school) or really want to know your professors (smaller school)?
Big city or big country?
Big spirit school or none of that necessary?
Are there certain parts of the country he would never consider? Maybe weather or political attitudes drive this…
Is there anything he sees himself doing - science based or humanities based, etc.
These are just lobbing the softball over the plate to get him thinking. Visit different types if you can - tell him you are just checking it for reference of size/spirit/student body, etc… just test driving to get a feel, not cause you think he wants to go there.
My senior daughter had been on about 30 college visits before her junior year with her siblings (dragged along), and was sure she wanted large public which may be because her siblings are all at privates and she wants to be different. Who knows what is in their mind as teenagers?! She is applying to all kinds now (big/small/public/private) and I have no idea what she is gonna pick come May. Point is, it is a moving target until they commit, so don’t try to lock him down so early. He can’t do it, nor should he at this time.
Lastly (sorry so long) - try to keep it fun - it is a process that you only go through with them once and then, zap, it is gone - just like all the other times. When I woke up in some hotel or wherever, for every college visit, I always told myself, “we are gonna laugh a lot today” instead of getting all uptight about where I was going, where to park, getting everything answered. Enjoy the ride when you can cause there is certainly stress you can’t avoid. But don’t go creating more than necessary.
Preferable is a large university with many majors, but with few or none of the ones of possible interest which are highly restricted, impacted, or selective majors.
Restricted, impacted, or selective majors are those which, at that school, are enrolled to full capacity, and where merely remaining in good academic standing while passing the major’s prerequisites is not sufficient to declare the major. Highly restricted, impacted, or selective majors are those where competition is heavy to get into the major, so that a high college GPA is needed, or a competitive admission process where most students admitted to the major have a high college GPA is used.
There are problems with waiting to visit until after acceptance. Since it sounds like you can afford visiting, here are some of them:
That said, you do have some time. Here are some things I think you should do now:
Finally – he is a boy, and this is a form of shopping. Could definitely be the reason he is not excited. Cut him some slack – but set some minimum expectations, too.
Agree that you should start by evaluating your cost constraints.
Run the net price calculators on your in-state public schools and various other schools of possible interest to get an idea of what may or may not be affordable. (Do not limit the private schools to super-selective ones for this purpose, since many offer much better financial aid than most private schools do.)