<p>I didn’t want to hijack historymom’s post, so I’m starting a new one.</p>
<p>What do you wish you’d known/what should kids know about the whole college process and when? If a counselor was going to do information sessions for kids/parents, when should they begin and what should they cover? For instance:</p>
<p>Freshman year: Keep track of awards for resume/brag sheet, make good grades, have ECs, establish relationships with teachers.</p>
<p>Sophomore year: Take PSAT, begin college visits, test prep classes</p>
<p>Kind of frivolous: When the kids were in middle school, I wish we had stopped in at colleges to stretch our legs and eat lunch when we did a lot of road trip vacations. Just to get the kids used to the look of universities. </p>
<p>Serious: some of my friends from Europe were dismayed to find that their kids had been put in the ‘wrong’ math class in seventh grade. This dominoed, so they weren’t on the right track to take IB Math, so had trouble getting into an engineering program in university.</p>
<p>Karen- When my kids were in elementary school some “expert” told us we should take kids to colleges on vacations to inspire them. I didn’t then, but when my oldest was in eighth or ninth grade, we stopped by Harvard. They were completely unimpressed. I thought they would think Harvard Square was cool, but the only store they wanted to go in was the Gap. A year later we were in Princeton so stopped by. Again, completely unimpressed with buildings and grass. The football team had just won a game so the entire Princeton band was in the fountain, fully dressed, with their tubas and all, playing fight songs. I thought it looked like fun. My kids thought it was geeky. But this may be because Mommy suggested the excursion; if a real person like a guidance counselor spoke about colleges earlier something might sink in.</p>
<p>Kids would have exposure to university and non-university educational, training and work environments (not every kid should go to college right after high school) and be familiar enough with these situations to make informed choices what to do after high school and what type of environment is the most productive for them to be in.</p>
<p>Every young child should have multiple field trips to multiple local colleges to get an idea of what they are and how they function. Every young child should see how a techincal school trains people for professions. Every young child should tour a military base and understand that not everyone in the military carries a rifle and shoots the enemy, but many do other very challenging tasks.</p>
<p>Children are very practial and want very much to understand how they can fit into the bigger world. We just need to show them different paths and give them time to dwell upon the many choices available to them.</p>
<p>This would make the guidance counselor’s job so much easier, as when a child has a strong idea of what they want to do and where they want to do it, getting them prepared is sooo much easier.</p>
<p>Foolishly, we assumed that the time to take SAT IIs was at the end of junior year-a misguided effort to stave off the pressure for as long as possible that was based on our local high schools’ recommendation. As it turned out, our son had completed the math for the SAT II at the end of 10th grade and had moved on, with the result that he would have had to do a lot of reviewing to take the SAT II in Math. </p>
<p>Also foolishly, our son did an SAT prep course in the summer before his junior year-but he just wasn’t tuned into college testing at that point: It was a waste of time and money. A year later, after he had visited a few schools and understood the connection between test scores and admission, he was much more motivated and did the prep himself.</p>
<p>Finally, give the ACTs a try. We know several kids who had widely differing scores on the two tests-and others such as ours for whom the results were roughly the same.</p>
<p>I remember reading a story that indicated that the average toddler will look at (but not touch) a new food on his/her plate up to a dozen times before actually trying it. Sounds like you have a few more visits to go through before you get them to engage.</p>
<p>I took my (sophomore) on her first formal college tour over Labor Day (with a couple other drive-bys) on our way back to boarding school. I guess I am lucky, because she is very motivated to play college hockey, so these first visits seem to get her attention. We are planning a couple more drive-bys over the holidays when we are near another bunch of schools.</p>
<p>But yeah, I guess there are some things that are best not introduced by the parents, especially at certain ages.</p>
<p>Only the top third students in my kids hs are supposed to know that SAT IIs exist. That makes the school’s average score look good; the official word is that only a tiny fraction of schools (none that anyone in the top 34% should even dream of) require them.</p>
<p>My daughter took a weeklong college guidance “camp” program this summer before junior which was really good for her because “cool” adults explained the admission process and she went on the computer all by herself and found a school that had a good program in what she wants to study. She started junior year extremely motivated. I wish it had happened sooner!</p>
<p>One testing tip we received–perhaps from CC–related to PSAT. Take it as a ‘dry run’ sophomore year to familiarize student with test, etc… Prep for it beginning in july/august of junior year. Register for October SAT. Take PSAT ‘for real’ in Oct of jr. year and then take the SAT the next week or so–whatever the Oct date is. That plan worked well for my family–got a ‘two for one’ out of the prep course. A true college counselor may have offered this tip to us, but we didn’t have one!</p>
<p>I second the references in the above posts regarding course selection and timing for SATIIs. Even in schools such as D’s where counselors don’t have time to do any significant college selection counseling (although they do an excellent job once the students have decided where to apply) they should be keeping an eye on academic courseloads to be sure that the students are challenging themselves and considering courses that will lead to an appropriately competitive application. </p>
<p>My daughter would not have been ready to visit colleges with a serious eye before spring break of her junior year. We did visit some earlier, but she came away with very general impressions, sometimes being most impressed by the school having a dog park or the like, and didn’t apply to any of them. Our most productive visits were ones where she had become familiar with the school through their mailings and web sites, so that she knew what to ask and look for.</p>
<p>My daughter checked the “I want junk mail” box on her freshman SAT II so she was convinced that hundreds of colleges with beautiful campuses and beautiful students (dressed in lab coats so you know they’re smart) couldn’t wait for her to enroll. With one or two of them, I would exclaim, “oh, look, a REAL school!” But parents and kids without any experience in colleges might think that the College of St. Tiffany was worth considering.</p>