Here’s the thing- you post on a public message board asking for help- you are going to get suggestions you don’t like or agree with.
Your kid sounds great. I think the word “roadmap” is pushing some buttons. You are becoming defensive when someone makes a suggestion you don’t like, and that pushes some buttons.
Peace, out.
The college counselors at Andover, St Paul’s, Groton, Deerfield, Exeter, Thacher, and probably most top boarding schools are all in agreement.
They do this for a living and supposedly have relevant experience and knowledge.
Seems arrogant to assume they are all wrong?
Did your child already contact their college counselor to ask for a 4-year plan? What did their counselor advise?
@Blossom Thanks Blossom. I think most of the comments are great. I used roadmap because to me, it means a visual exploration. But good to know that it means different things perhaps.
@calimex No actually, I am really focused on gathering information from knowledgeable parents rather than getting into a contest about something that “triggers” someone.
Some of your points about college stress are valid, but they aren’t relevant to this thread at all. Not all kids and parents are stressed. Not all want to go to Harvard. And not all kids are/aren’t taking advantage of BS because they are also thinking about college. Some kids believe it or not are planners. Some kids want to look at colleges during high school and some will. And they should.
And no I didn’t mean to write your words as again they have no context in this thread. This thread is about roadmaps and not about reasons not to do anything unless proscribed by your BS. I think you need to start your own thread about whatever triggered you. Seems you have a lot to add and say rather than hijacking this thread.
Nobody here has hijacked the thread. You asked for parental experiences. Some of us are suggesting a “roadmap” where 9th and 10th grade have little to no direct college related activities. Those are valid responses and suggestions.
MODERATOR’S NOTE:
Might I remind members of the forum rules: “Our forum is expected to be a friendly and welcoming place.”
Move the conversation forward, please.
See whether any of this year’s classes lead to a subject test at the end of this year, and if so, take them. Your kid sounds like one who might respond happily to prepping for and taking the ACT or SAT over the summer after sophomore year. If he’s had the math he needs, he could have scores and be done with that, and that’ll lift a big load, especially because it’s very important to do well junior year (and the material will be the most challenging.)
Christmas of junior year, go through a Fiske guide and see what looks good to him. BS have long spring breaks, so plan on doing a lot of visits then (junior year). He’ll come back from those with a clear sense of vibe, test scores, good idea of grades, and full attention of his CC at BS. You can do additional visits over summer and he can start on essays. If you need any additional time to retake tests, you will have this summer. If you need to visit a few more schools, you can fit that in fall of senior year.
But this will give you plenty of time, spread out the most onerous parts, and have him thinking about where he’d like to be when he’s not so far from that point.
As a parent, you can definitely do some poking around on your own so you feel informed. (Everything from FA to calendars to course planning. You can find everything on the internet!)
But yes, keep his head in the BS game, rather than the college game, for as long as possible. You’ve all made a huge investment in that 4 year experience - help him be there for it.
I think “discovering what you like” and thinking about colleges don’t have to be mutually exclusive. My high school junior knew in middle school that she wants to pursue a particular art field. However, that art is not taught or emphasized at all colleges, so putting together a list to think about has been important. Last summer, the summer after her sophomore year, we visited eight colleges, three of which were art schools. My daughter enjoyed that a lot and learned that she doesn’t want to attend an art college, that she wants to go to a regular university that has a program in her art field. She also learned that she wants a college where she can have a lot of flexibility in her course choices as opposed to ones like NYU Tisch that are quite prescriptive in the required courses. This was very helpful. So now she is putting together a list of four more colleges to visit next summer. I think it would have been very stressful to do all the college visits the summer before senior year. And due to my job requirements, I can’t take my daughter to visit far-flung colleges during her spring break. So starting early—sophomore year— on creating a list of colleges to apply to has been less stressful, I think, than waiting till the summer before senior year. As for prepping for the SAT tests, she is just starting that this year. But I agree that talking about colleges earlier than junior year can make the college-discovery process less stressful for some, and my daughter is still exploring clubs without a thought to college admissions. Talking about college choices doesn’t necessarily make a student mold herself to some preconceived idea of what others want; it in itself can be a form of self-discovery, at least it has been so far for my kid.
@CAClover What a great story about your daughter. I am hoping for something similar. We’ll start looking around soon and begin to getting more info. It must be helpful for your daughter to know more about what she does and doesn’t want as she takes the next steps.
If anyone reading this wants links to the detailed, 4-year roadmaps recommended by college counseling staff at some of the top boarding and day schools, just PM me. Happy to pass the information along to those who might value it.
Knowing you are a planner, as is your daughter, I think you can mesh the bs advice of waiting with your natural tendencies.
True confessions: I have a serious ocd streak, so I can’t help myself but do research- but there isn’t much time for kiddo to do it at school. I keep it to myself. I plan on being able to have productive conversations with him when he is ready. At a minimum, I have a say in planning tours, what is affordable, and I want to be a sounding board. So those things are my focus.
First, Find out from your daughter how much she wants you involved. Sounds like she wants you to be very involved, so…
Educate yourself on the various schools without involving her. Buy a book. Look at websites - I have started looking, and find Cappex and Niche particularly good. You can get a sense enough of the schools and what your daughter’s options generically are, what schools have what you think she would want (yes, that might change) and become fluent in college-speak. So when it is time, you can contribute to the conversation with your daughter about what she wants. That time probably starts around spring of sophomore year. YMMV. For my kid, I can’t imagine math not being an important part of his college experience, and I can’t imagine him being a wild partier. Those two guides are enough for me to have fun learning about schools.
Concurrent with your school research, Figure out how many trips during the school years your family can realistically take between now and fall senior year. For fun, map out some hypothetical tours. What can you do casually in day trips? What trips will the school do, so you don’t have to? What regions are chock full of possibilities and what ones are sparse? What will work for summer trips? All of this is subject to change (you probably won’t talk much about this stuff to your daughter yet anyway), but the process of clustering schools for a trip is illuminating in and of itself. What will travel look like if your kid ends up in that region? Does imagining your daughter far away in a school evoke any surprising feelings for you? Consider this trip planning practice for when you are planning the trips for real.
If it an issue, learn about merit aid v financial aid. And the fafsa, etc.
I guess what I am saying is prime yourself so you can hit the ground running as her support person when your daughter is home and wants to dig in. I am quite certain I am wasting my time on a lot of this because kiddo will go his own path with the help of the college counselor, but I am having fun with it anyway. So I don’t care. I am just being careful not to do my obsessing in front of him.
What I am not bothering with is anything that has to do test prep. I can’t add anything to what the school does on that front.
@Happytimes2001 I think you have received lots of good advice above. I can say for us, we went through the college admission process 6 times over the course of 5 years. (4 kids, one gap year and one college transfer) I think having a roadmap has made it easier over the years. (Meaning we had none with the first and developed one by the last)
Here are my general stops on the roadmap.
Hope this helps. Again I think laying the groundwork for a college roadmap by taking advantage of all the wonderful opportunities in BS is a win win situation.
The college process is very long and stressful. Regardless of the actions taken earlier, by spring junior year and early senior year, it will utterly consume your child and often is the main topic of conversation among the kids. I didn’t see any reason to make the process any longer than it already is, but YMMV.
One other point is sat 2 subject tests. I’ve read here that they should be taken the year you take the subject. For Biology for many that’s freshman year. Things like that are important details and totally omitted from the BS “junior year and up” plan. In fact it was @skieurope who wrote that in an old thread. I would never have known.
Also important to remember that just as there is a right fit of schools there is also a right fit of process. Even for athletic recruits most boarding schools have the process starting junior year. Sorry, but for girls in many sports that’s too late. If I had listened to that advice my older kid would be out of luck.
Yes, this was a public question but the question was “share a four year road map” not “should I have a four year college process?” I think @Happytimes2001 gets that for many BS kids junior year is a good time to start the process. For his/her family, as for mine, earlier is better. That isn’t wrong. No matter how many BS college guides you want to pull up. There are some families and some kids that need to do it a bit differently. As I shared above, those guides are ultra generic. As evidenced by the fact that almost every single BS, no matter how different, has the same guide = generic. That means it’s not for everyone.
Let’s give @Happytimes2001 the benefit of the doubt that he/she knows their own kid best and isn’t a crazy stress inducing helicopter nut job parent. Seems to me they are looking to minimize stress by having a plan. All good.
@vegas1 thank you, helpful post.
@one1ofeach Just throwing in my two cents, but the bio SAT subject test is really not something I would worry about. My older kid as well as pretty much all of her friends applied to schools where two SAT subject tests are ‘strongly recommended’. Her BFF applied early to Georgetown which wanted 3 subject tests. Quite a few of them took the bio subject test (even though school suggested otherwise) to get the show on the road. None of them ended up actually using it. Virtually everyone does better with these later on, the bio/pre-med track kids took advanced bio junior year and nailed it then, lots of them took Math 2/Chem/US History after sophomore year, and/or English Lit/Math 2 Physics junior year. Some did foreign language, etc. There are lots of options and your odds of getting close to 800 as a freshman are really pretty low. I am certainly not bothering with it with my current freshman, June of sophomore year is the first time SAT subject tests will even be thought about. And my daughter was jammed in spring of junior year so SAT testing was benched and she ended up taking the subject tests in August instead (after doing ACT in February). It required some studying in August but not a ton and she nailed the tests and those were the scores used, so even the sophomore testing turned out to be unnecessary, though the scores were good enough to use if she did not do better after junior year. The idea of doing something freshman year and getting it out of the way sounds great in theory but the vast majority of kids do better later on, and so focusing on high school for a year or two really is the best advice for most kids.
As for the athletic recruiting, if it is still something the kid wants to do next year we will do SAT or ACT at the end of sophomore year to have a baseline number for the schools. I know there are quite a few that need the scores before giving you serious consideration so that would have to be done. But not losing any sleep over it now.
@vegas1 Lots of good advice. Thanks. It’s interesting the BS wasn’t so great at pointing your oldest to schools. We have no experience with BS or the counselor to date so that’s good to keep in mind. Like you, our kids do a variety of things in various areas (part of being a balanced person). I also think this helps as they begin to narrow down their interests and passions.
Like you, we did early tests for talent search stuff so I think we’re covered there. The BS ( and SkiEurope) had suggested taking the AP tests at the end of the school year based on subject. Seems logical. I never would have thought of that. Again, nothing to worry about. Just good to know. Kids don’t have a choice at this BS, if you take the AP course, you take the test.
It’s funny how in a BS, the kids develop really deep relationships with staff. I think that will result in better recommendations.
I’m looking forward to being the backseat driver with knowledge and letting my kid drive the bus. Hopefully, we won’t be too lost. Although, the process along the way can be really fun. Thanks again.
@one1ofeach When I asked the question, I had looked online and found most roadmaps to be very generic. I knew this group would have the inside story.
For example, I never would have thought to group schools by region and do lots of different type schools all at once.
While I’m definitely not a helicopter parent, I am a big researcher. I honestly don’t have time to hover.
Our college counselor gave us the advice to visit different kinds of schools near our home or as we traveled, just to get a feel for different types of environments.
Have you connected with the college counseling staff at your kid’s school? They might have good advice for you, too.
It is worth reaching out if you haven’t yet.
@vegas1 Is your youngest enjoying her college experience more now?
Don’t neglect the non-prep school portion (the majority) of College Confidential. There is much info to glean and many knowledgable people.