My son was not ready fall of junior year, but by spring break that year he began to take an interest and agreed to a college visit trip. Some of it happy, some annoyed (we probably saw too many schools). We spento ne day at an amusement park, which broke up the trip. Second semester junior year is when the GCs meet with the kids, when the kids start talking about schools more, and when interest is often awakened. Other kids don’t really want to visit until fall of senior year. That didn’t work for him because he plays a fall sport and had no time until late November.
My thought would be to tell him the times you want to visit schools and why you need to do so before next summer. Then back off and let him come up with a list. Since he is doing the testing, he seems to be thinking about it to some extent.
Neither kid thought about college fall of junior year. They did take the PSAT and took the SATs in the spring. I took both on a few college trips in the spring. In one case, I took my youngest to two colleges that did not fit his criteria “bigger than my high school” and “not rural”. But they were both within two hours drive and they both had things about them I thought he should think about even if he didn’t choose to keep them on the list. In the end Bard was way too rural and way too small, but he kept Vassar on the list in case he changed his mind in the spring about what he was looking for. (He ended up at a medium sized research university, in a suburban/urban location.) Junior year he hadn’t a clue what he was looking for - he liked history best of all his high school courses, but didn’t see any obvious career paths. BTW he majored in IR and is going to Officer Training School for the Navy. They do figure it out eventually!
My very verbal child became silent when I tried to seriously discuss college with her during junior year. I think she was simply scared about leaving home and I didn’t recognize that early on. I was so glad to leave home at her age, I figured she would be, too, but she wasn’t. In hindsight, I’m glad I did not become frustrated with her because that would’ve made things worse. The longest conversation we had about colleges lasted 15 minutes. Other than that, I received one and two word answers for about 12 months. Watching her body language when we visited campuses helped to give me clues. We walked around many college campuses silently together, holding hands, and that was enough for her. Now that she’s happily in college, and the house is very still, I’m glad I let her just be as quiet as she needed to be. It all worked out in the end.
My D1 begged to tour colleges between sophomore and junior year. This kid was always a planner. I humored her - we did a 2300 mile road trip that included stops with friends and family. She discovered her obscure major on that tour and ended up at that college. I quietly did research based on her parameters and was able to discuss her options. But mostly it was her search.
D2 was completely different. She wanted nothing to do with college tours junior year. I tried to be very patient. Tried. I also suggested a gap year. She did one tour of a huge reach during the summer before senior year. (Her run away first choice, but we both knew acceptance was unlikely.) The rest she toured over weekends early in her senior year. This all worked out because she was considering a relatively common major, and her strengths lead to other majors that are also common if she changes her mind. She applied to a couple far away schools sight unseen, but she expected to stay withing a day’s drive. I enlisted the help of her GC for suggestions. She thought several schools were “fine” during the tours, a couple were no-gos. She attended the accepted students days at 4 choices, 1/2 hour to 6 hours from home. She didn’t get into the huge reach, but at one accepted students day she literally said, “I have found my people.” Choice made.
The take-away is that my kids are very different and approached the college search completely differently. Both are happy and successful at their schools.
We did tour schools across the country the summer after D16’s sophomore year. It was early but she did learn what she did not want in a college. We combined it with a family vacation. It was good that we took the trip because she needed spinal surgery the following summer so she was not able to travel.
My D18 is just now starting to think about what she wants. She does not like the whole process-thinks college board is evil, loves to learn but doesn’t care about grades. She wants a school with a lot of spirit and sports but likes small classes and enjoys knowing her teachers.
Every parent who is not independently wealthy better start exploring options due to the following:
Finances - never mind where your child wants to go, can your family afford it.
Niche - There is no rubric re: how to get into school A or B, and exceeding number of qualified students are applying and being rejected
There are many great schools and alternative ways to get there. My son is a freshman at SMU, we started looking at coleges his freshman year of HS, we applied to almost 20 schools of which SMU was the last. We applied to Columbia Univ. - Engineering Program and alternatively applied to Davidson (liberal arts college) bc it has a dual program with Columbia’s Engineering Program. This all takes time to learn and organize.
Family Decision - please do not leave it up to your children. We strategically worked throughout HS, college tours, etc.
I don’t know if this would work for you, but maybe you could try a bait and switch. I couldn’t get my son interested in colleges when I wanted him to start thinking about the process. But he’s really into soccer and was entertaining the idea of trying to play in college. So last year I started telling him I was taking him to see the X University soccer team playing against Y university. Then I would make sure we got there really early so there would be nothing to do but walk around campus. Eventually he decided playing soccer in college was not for him, so I had to abandon the ruse, but by that time he started showing interest in looking at colleges just for the college part. Good luck!
I have laid off bringing up college. S18 has come to me and asked when do I need info to work on his spreadsheet like I did for D16. On Naviance he has added 3 schools he’s thinking about. So far, only 1 in state.
I’m happy with where we are at this point. He’s the one engaging me in conversation about school. We’ll see what January/February leads us. By then we’ll at least have results of his second SAT score and he’ll have more input on his needs.
@wustl93 Good idea, but that wouldn’t work for us. He plays a sport in HS but doesn’t think he wants to play in college.