Please help me help my nephew -- any insights welcome.

Parents Forum
1

<p>Hi:</p>

<p>Here's my situation: I am the uncle of a HS freshman boy who is receiving little to no guidance from his parents or peers. I need help asking the right questions of him, getting him on the right track to plan his HS years so that he doesn't come to applying to college as I did as a sort of last minute almost afterthought.</p>

<p>No one is having these discussions with him, but I have learned that my interest is being more than welcomed, it is being supported and very much appreciated. Both by him and by his parents. </p>

<p>I want to know:</p>

<p>1) What are the ten things you'd say to an HS freshman to gear him up for undertaking planning to get to college?
2) Books to read?
3) Activities to undertake?
4) Does anybody know about junior year abroad? Can they give me information?</p>

<p>BACKGROUND:</p>

<p>I am from the San Francisco Bay Area and recently visited my sister and her family in a mountain state that I want to keep anonymous right now. I happened to mention that I thought he should pay attention to the fact that PSATs would be coming up (I couldn't remember if they were to be taken at the end of the sophomore or beginning of the junior year). I told him that I had regretted nobody every explained to me what these were important for and that had I known I thought I might have done better (as it was, on my first ever and only taking, I was a National Merit SF, but I didn't even really know why I was taking the test or why it was important).</p>

<p>My nephew is in a private school. It is Christian. He is a very devoted Christian whereas I am agnostic. I don't try to force my view down his throat, and I have told him that I don't care where he goes to school or what he studies as long as he's happy and has tried to act with some intentionality. My theory is the more he makes active choices, the more likely he is to appreciate his own path and start making more active and better decisions.</p>

<p>I told him I think he needs to start broadening his life (I didn't put in such a derogatory way, I just asked him if he had any summer plans). For instance, he has an opportunity to go to Costa Rica this summer and work in a Christian relief mission. I told him he should jump on that chance, that the more experiences he has like that the better. In terms of personal development for himself, and also in terms of being a more interesting candidate for schools he applies to.</p>

<p>I asked him where he wants to go to college (it was clear he hadn't thought about this at all), and he replied Oxford (with a laugh). I told him that might be possible (though I really think there'd be a lot of obstacles to that actually happening), but that he needed to be on the ball right now and start planning.</p>

<p>I asked him where he stood in his class. He is in a small Christian school, and he said about in the middle.</p>

<p>He is introverted. He is a plodding sort of kid. Not stupid, by any stretch, but his intelligence is sometimes shrouded by his muteness and introversion. He's not a world-beater, and this is one of the reasons I felt I should intervene.</p>

<p>One thing I did get out of him is that he thinks studying abroad his junior year would be great fun. My mom, his grandmother, took him to Tanzania a few years ago on safari, partly to broaden his horizons. It seems to have taken hold. He said he'd like to study in Japan. I have basic concerns: would this distract him from a very important HS year here? would it cost too much? and other more particular concerns about him: could he really handle being on his own in a place like Japan without the support of his family and friends?</p>

<p>Another thing: his father is a Vietnam vet with a disability. As such, apparently, and I don't know the details completely, he will receive substantial support from the government to go to college in the state where his father lives. His father now lives in the mountain state, but is likely to move to California when his son graduates HS. So, it may be that the focus will naturally fall to California colleges. I don't know if this law is actually written this way; this info. came from my mom. </p>

<p>ANY HELP ABOUT ANYTHING WILL HELP ME GREATLY, EVEN IF IT'S JUST ABOUT HOW TO TALK TO HIM.</p>

<p>THANKS! THANKS! THANKS! THANKS! THANKS!</p>

2

<p>Oh: a couple of follow-ups to the above:</p>

<p>How possible is it to study abroad in hs in a place like Japan if you don't know the language?</p>

<p>Just so you know: I think my nephew is never going to be Ivy League material, nor perhaps would want to be. That'd be more like his little brother who's in 7th grade and already announced he wants to go to Berkeley, play football, and become a lawyer. And I think he'd be a smaller school kind of person.</p>

3

<p>These are the first ideas off the top of my head about what he should be doing:</p>

<ol>
<li>Ten things he should do...
-develop good study habits
-take classes that challenge and interest him
-make sure he's meeting those pesky school graduation requirements like Health or Fine Arts classes NOW if possible so he has more room in his schedule come senior year (especially important if he plans to go away junior year)
-find some extracurricular activities he likes to do
-keep busy during the summer (with volunteering, job, internship, camp, summer classes, whatever)
-take the PSAT sophomore year, especially if he plans to be away junior year, to have an idea of where he stands with it
-start visiting colleges sophomore year if he will be away junior year (just nearby schools, to get an idea of whether he wants big or small schools, urban or rural, etc.)
-form positive relationships with teachers
-keep a healthy balance of schoolwork, other activities and time to just relax
-enjoy high school!</li>
<li>Personally I can't think of any specific books that one needs to read, but reading in general is a great way to exercise the mind and of course prepare for the SAT as well. </li>
<li>Be involved in something. Literally, anything. A sport, a club, a hobby...anything that he likes and enjoys doing outside of school. That's it. </li>
<li>From what I hear, it is good to plan Junior Year Abroad early, as there is often a lot of red tape with the school, but it is a wonderful thing for kids who can go and are interested. Search "study abroad" or "high school year abroad"; there are many excellent threads on this board. </li>
</ol>

<p>Good luck!</p>

4

<p>I don't have a list of ten things to do, but this is the number one piece of advice I give my own freshman and sophomore students: download copies of teacher and counselor recommendation forms from commonapp.org or specific colleges of interest. Take a good hard look at the criteria these educators will be using to evaluate you in a few years. Do an honest self assessment--rank yourself right now. And ask someone you trust that knows you well to do the same. This should give you a good indication of which habits / qualities / characteristics you should try to strengthen/improve. And the good news is, there is still time!</p>

5

<p>Wow, these are already great suggestions. I would welcome more. Thanks so much.</p>

<p>I just talked to my sister: I found out he is in the middle of his class, but I also found out he is in fact going to a school that has its "A" cut-off at a higher level (92 versus 90), he has a 3.3 GPA and is consistently on the honor roll, and his high school tends to graduate students that are a year ahead of all other schools nearby in terms of math and science and reading and writing. I also found out his stipend related to his father's disability won't be limited to one state. Finally, I know for a fact that those applying from his state have an easier time getting into places. I have a graduate school friend from that state who went to Harvard as an undergrad as did her 5 siblings (!) Now, they were exceptionally talented on the whole (1 Rhodes Scholar, 1 White House Fellow). But she told me that the informal state quota system helped her family a lot. So, given his private high school education and the other things, he is in better shape than I would have thought. He's just not a world-beater as I said. He does play soccer and is pretty good, but from what I know, not on the line to become Tier 1 competitive material (though I fear I have been underestimating him).</p>

6

<p>Avuncular, what I told my kids when they were that age was "keep your options open and do what you need to do to keep them open."<br>
In my book that means, get the BEST grades you can, take four years of English, four of math, etc. (no slacking off with course selection).<br>
Beyond that if you push too hard or too early it could backfire on you.<br>
As you describe your nephew, he sounds like a candidate for a good LAC. It does not sound like he is competitive enough for the Tier 1 sports routine or the Harvard, Oxford bit either.<br>
He is not an overachiever, sounds like a great kid who is happy in the middle.<br>
Etselec had some great points....
As far as moving and California goes, don't forget that to check out the residency requirements for instate vs OOS. I believe it is 12 months prior to any college attendance.
That said, there are some great LACs in California and many of them have some religious affiliation that sounds like it would be a fit for him.
Pepperdine for one comes to mind, Point Loma Nazarene, etc.</p>

7

<p>You all have been helpful so far, very much so, and I welcome other suggestions. I am going to cut and paste your suggestions in an email (with a bit of editing) and send them to him.</p>

<p>Thanks again and keep it coming! Please!</p>

8

<p>See if you can get a list of where the kids from his highschool most commonly go to college. Most schools are pretty free with that info. That gives you an idea of what his peers will be doing and what the talk is going to be like when they start thinking about college. </p>

<p>With some private college inching (more like leaping) to the $50K per year mark, finances are an important issue. Also find out what schools have tended to give merit/financial aid generously to kids from that high school. This is not to limit your search but give you a base line. Unless your nephew gets some fascination with an area or facet of education, or becomes adventuresome, you want some things close to his comfort level. Also get the details on what kind of money he can get, and how the state his father is in will treat residency. You can't go by someone's intentions, in my experience. My friend's ex has been planning to move to Ohio for the last 7 years, and her kids went to college there because he said he was moving there shortly, and she figured they would get state rates eventually. Ha! Never happened. Also look for schools in his state and those affiliated with his religion. As you get familiar with his comfort zone and status quo, you can then start branching further out or tweaking things to get some "reach" type schools with some more innovative features. </p>

<p>Look into community centers and rec depts that may be offereing SAT/PSAT prep at good prices. Ask the highschool as well, so that he can start scheduling those tests. The first PSAT can be the baseline for him. </p>

<p>In my experience, boys tend to bloom later. He may bring up his grades, and develop interests that can narrow his search further or expand it. It is a bit early to hone in too closely. My son is a junior and is clueless as to what he wants in a college.</p>

9

<p>
[quote]
My nephew is in a private school. It is Christian.

[/quote]

You might want to verify that the school has sufficient hegher-end classes available. Several of the private Christian schools I checked out at one time for my kids really didn't have as high level classes (all the AP classes) as the public HS and this wasn't a top HS. I chose to have my kids go to the public HS instead for this reason as well as others. You can probably find out where the kids who graduate from there typically go to college.</p>

<p>If you're targeting higher end colleges which I assume you are then it's important he try to take the highest track he can in HS and this pretty much needs to start in the Freshman year.</p>

<p>Pursuing true and quantifiable community service helps a lot as well. this can be on his own, through scouts, through his church, etc. It should be a reasonably large number of hours that benefits the community in general. In addition to a great experience and helping the community, it looks great on college apps and is very helpful for scholarships.</p>

<p>Grades up through the Junior year are the most critical since those are the ones colleges will see.</p>