My DC will be entering 8th grade this year, so it doesn’t seem so long until we will be making choices regarding activities, classes, summer programs, etc for HS. Since this is my first child, everything will be new to us.
What advice would you have for me based on your experiences? What do you wish you had known? What do you wish you or your child had done differently?
Lay out a testing plan for standardized tests that fits your family’s schedule, don’t wait until 11th grade to try to figure this all out. The 11th grade PSAT is very important if there a chance at National Merit. You should only take actual standardize tests after prepping and taking timed practice tests. Look up the dates offered and make sure you register on time, many sites fill up quickly.
Our schedule:
9ht grade AP’s in April
10th grade PSAT OCT, SAT March, APs April SAT2s May
11th grade SAT and PSAT OCT, APs April (optional retake of SAT or ACT in June)
12th grade college applications and scholarship application
Keep in mind that not all SAT2’s are given on all SAT test dates and they should be complete as close to their corresponding class as possible, as no all schools require these.
Completing standardized testing early gives you a good idea of what colleges your child might be competitive for and what merit might be available. Some school have automatic merit base on SAT/ACT and GPA
Help your child find EC’s and volunteer opportunities that they ENJOY and keep a log of their volunteer hours and accomplishments. Better yet have them keep their own records!
If you are in a school that ranks figure out their system, all schools do this differently, this very important in Texas schools.
Put away as much money into college saving as possible - it costs more than you think!
I would have paid less attention to college preparation and more attention to adulthood preparation. The high school years are often the last opportunity you have to teach kids skills they will need as adults. For example:
@Marian those are some really good points about adulting! I’m thinking about getting my kids (two in high school and one college freshmen) a Dave Ramsey book or video for Christmas to learn about car loans, 401ks, emergency savings accounts… I feel we have fallen down on the job on that front.
I totally agree with:
“Help your child find EC’s and volunteer opportunities that they ENJOY and keep a log of their volunteer hours and accomplishments.”
And
“Put away as much money into college savings as possible - it costs more an you think!”
And
All of Marian’s advice.
My three are: 4 years out of college and married, 2 years out of college and starting medical school in the fall, and one is still in college. So with the wisdom that comes from that much time in the rearview mirror, my personal advice to myself would have been to relax and enjoy those high school years. My kids and their classmates seem to have found their way. All the parental pushing in the world is not going to change a kid from a “perfectly happy and well matched for a regional public school” into an “accepted at 2 Ivies and Stanford” kid.
They don’t need to take every single AP class. Or even many. Or even any, if they are not well suited to do so. They don’t need to be in the all-state (whatever). They don’t need to be a starter in a sport. They MIGHT do those things, but success in college and adulthood does not require any of those things. They DO need to learn to cook, do laundry, drive, manage their own money.
My kid who is med school bound did take a ton of AP classes, and was first chair in the all-state band, and was a captain on a team that won states. BUT that was all him. All we did was try to keep up. There was no pushing, he was not stressed or unable to handle the work load, or unable to fit in a healthy social life or getting by on only a few hours of sleep. My other two were also involved in sports and music and had healthy social lives and mostly got enough sleep. They took a few AP classes. My youngest didn’t even bother to take the AP tests. They all got into appropriate colleges, and got decent grades, were involved in campus activities and had active social lives.
I know a good number of kids who had miserable high school years as a result of being pushed way too far past their personal comfort levels. They should have time to enjoy themselves, time to play a sport or to be involved in a few extra curricular activities without burning out. They should have time to learn to be an adult. They should be able to take a family vacation in the summer or over spring break. You should feel just fine telling a coach or a band director that your kid will be gone for a week of family vacation. It won’t be the end of the world.
“What do you wish you had known? What do you wish you or your child had done differently?”
I love my parents dearly and turned out great. (as far as I can tell!).
So all is good with me.
But looking back they were WAY over protective. Not a plus for any social life. My older sister would concur.
I look back and wish in SO many ways that my parents had let the reins go earlier and let me make many more decisions for myself. That’s for classes, EC’s. Everything.
None of it would have been “life-changing” or “career-threatening”…but maybe in the end it would have been me with a semblance of a back bone.
I’ll say “lighten the reins”.
Sleep is more important than grades and athletic injuries need to be attended to immediately.
D played great on freshman soccer team. Played through knee injury but was cut from JV sophomore year because coach told her that though she played well enough to make the team, the knee needed to be treated. Tried out again Junior year and certainly played well enough to make JV but was cut because they wanted to invest in younger players to prepare them for varsity. So basically, her losing the year ended her soccer career. Had we pushed the PT earlier, she would have made JV sophomore year and would be in a more competitive position junior year to be on varsity.
She continued to compete in a private gymnastics club but suffered a really serious injury that fortunately didn’t paralyze her but caused her to miss a lot of school. Her school load was too heavy junior year anyway, and we think that the sleep deprivation played a role in causing this injury as she forgot part of her routine midair.
Since this injury, she’s had several other debilitating chronic conditions that didn’t exist before the injury.
We’ll never know how much of her problems come from the sleep deprivation, or from the injury, but it is regrettable that we didn’t emphasize that sleep is more important than grades.
Develop solid study habits and time management skills early on. Teach them how to break down long term goals into manageable chunks using logical progression (something many HS kids are terrible at)… have them practice this over and over again with smaller goals so that by the time they get to college the process becomes second-nature to them. Instinctively they will know that to get from here to there, they need to complete X, Y, then Z… teach them how to focus on one step at a time so that they don’t become overwhelmed.
Test prep summer after sophomore year, take SAT and ACT fall of junior year and get them out of the way.
As a parent, understand how paying for college works (cost, need based aid, merit aid, eligibility), and how each factor will affect us in our individual situation. Make a point to figure this out well ahead of junior year so when the time comes to apply, expectations are realistic.
Help my kids learn healthy study skills and life skills, and help them to pursue their own interests as much as possible.
I wish I’d been at least a little aware of things like GPA and test scores. I did well, but that was basically by default, and I had that terrible habit of looking down on “strivers,” including my class’s valedictorian, because I was laboring under the misapprehension that the tiny thing we think of as “talent” or “innate intelligence” was a much bigger thing. I’m glad I wasn’t the grade grubber type, or over-anxious, for sure, but it would have been nice to have developed something resembling a work ethic before my first college mid-terms forced me to do so.
Re #2
Also consider money sense / personal finance skills. Too many people are bad at it so they end up out of money and feeling “poor” even on very high incomes.
Re tests
Both SAT and ACT in 11th grade. Some do better on one versus the other.
PSAT in 11th grade is the National Merit qualifier.
AP and (if needed for colleges of interest ) SAT subject tests are best taken as one us completing the associated course.
I wouldn’t have pushed so much. I would have let them goof off more. I would have hugged them more, even when they resisted.
I feel very lucky that my kids were good test takers and invested in doing well in school without going crazy about it. They did a few activities in school and for both, what they did outside school ended up being more important in terms of their interests and/or what they ended up using as essay fodder. They basically took stuff they loved doing and ran with it. Neither of my kids did sports and I have to say, it made their lives (and my life) much more relaxed. I know too many parents who thought their kids were getting athletic scholarships until injuries junior year when it was too late to regroup.
Our kids also had to contend with SAT subject tests spring junior year. Each took SAT twice and didn’t try the ACT as their scores were fine.
I agree with Marian about getting a driver’s license early. My kids were in no hurry. They got learner’s permits and then put off actually getting the license. Older one is out in CA and still doesn’t drive. Younger one got his license literally weeks before going to Officer Candidate’s School - so will have at least three months of no practice at all.
My kids are procrastinator’s and kept it up through college. To some extent I think it’s in their wiring. One thing I did do was not nag or find out what their deadlines were or anything. One of my son’s friends whose parents were much more helicopterish really floundered in college. He should have graduated from Princeton six years ago, but he’s never written his thesis.
Agree about the driver’s license. A lot of kids in this generation are shockingly uninterested in learning to drive. D1’s college boyfriend didn’t know how to drive and missed out on a job as a result. It’s an important life skill that’s best learned while kids are home.
Agree that knowing how to drive a car is a useful skill, but parents should be aware that a new 16-year-old driver will cause increased car insurance premiums, so checking what they will be beforehand would be advisable.
Knowing that stressing about a child being kicked out of HS would end up being the best possible thing for said kiddo, tho it definitely didn’t feel like it at the time. Trusting that in time, things would work themselves out, no matter how tough they were at times.
Sadly, couldn’t really have known either of these things without benefit of hindsight.
It is easy to overcommit on ECs. More time is expected in HS than middle school for a given EC. And there is a lot of new stuff to try. Also, as mentioned above, your kids should do ECs inside & outside school that interest them. Don’t force them to do ECs you’d prefer or that you think look good to colleges. Let them decide.
I wish I had known that for us, high school was really just three years plus a year of transition to college. With all the early decisions, seniors began to focus on post high school life earlier and disengaged emotionally from school by senior year.