It’s definitely what you want, to answer your question. You are headed down a bad path unless you back off right now, in my opinion. Try to look at the long view. This is her life, her education, her major. She is telling you what she wants (theatre) but you are not listening. She is not invested because she knows she doesn’t really have a say. You are probably not going to listen to her opinion, so why should she tell you? She will just go along with what you say, probably, until she is actually in college. Then what? Is she happy? Will she stay there? Will she rebel finally? Will something bad happen? Will she end up resenting you for taking away her dream? What will your relationship be like with her when she is grown? Start over. Ask her what she wants and listen. Let her live her life the way she wants to. That’s my advice, since you asked.
I just reread the OP’s post again. I’m thinking this is a joke maybe, someone being sarcastic with this forum…
I understand. It’s fine, imho, to research first. In junior year, just let her know you’ll be imparting what you’ve learned and increasingly placing her in charge of her college search.
Researching colleges, majors, and careers is important for her to start doing now. Is she interested in voiceover, theater tech (lighting, sound?), arts management? Visits are critical to get a feel for the kind of college environment she responds to.
By summer of rising senior year, she needs to be hashing out those essays for a targeted group of schools. By then, you’ll have transferred a lot of your acumluated knowledge to her and she’ll be in the driver’s seat with her GC as co-pilot.
2 cents
So, after all these years of school, you have no idea what subjects she likes best? I find that a little odd.
I’m also wondering, did both of your own parents select your majors and career paths for you? How did you feel about that?
OP reminds me of the situation of my classmate in engineering school. He was brilliant, one of the top students in our class, yet was majoring in engineering because that’s the only degree his parents were interested in funding. While the rest of us were interviewing for engineering jobs during our senior year, he was applying to grad schools. We embarked on our engineering careers after graduation; he began graduate studies in English literature.
I know someone who would only fund his daughters’ graduate studies if the degree led to a license of some sort. He didn’t care what it was, but it had to be a license. It could be speech therapy, physical therapy, teaching, psychology, law, optometry, medicine, architecture, nursing, etc. He would not fund an MBA because it is not a license. His reasoning was that if they ever decided to leave the workforce for any period of time, they would always have that license to get back into the profession. He doesn’t have sons, so I don’t know what he would have done for boys.
hoosiermom, that was my ex pretty much. His interest was music instead of English, like your classmate, but his father would only pay for engineering. My ex did stick with engineering, but he and his father were never close again. He still works as an engineer but his heart is in his “night job” playing jazz in clubs.
Brantley…that is nuts. There are plenty of professions that don’t have a license…where job prospects are decent and you can earn a good living.
Sounds like the parent was just looking for a way to fund his choice.
This thread is really disturbing.
It’s your daughter’s life. She gets to choose her prospective college, her major, and her lifestyle. Stop assuming you know what’s best for her and sit down and ask her what she wants, and if she’s not ready to discuss it, let her know that you’re available any time. Above all, let her know that you love her and support her, regardless of whether she chooses what you would choose for her. If you force choices on her you will quite likely push her away, make her miserable, or both.
" I just don’t know if we are suppose to be making all of the decisions"
Your daughter sounds smart, beautiful and talented. No, you are not suppose to be making all the decisions. Exploring and deciding on colleges to apply to should involve both the parent(s) and the child. As the parent of an only child, I suggest that, for now, you put your research away and reset the process.
- She is a junior, has she registered for the PSAT in October? If not,this would be a good place to start. PSAT is qualifying test for NMS. If she's does not make the cutoff, it is not a problem. The PSAT brings good students to the attention of numerous colleges who begin to send flyers, brochures, magazines etc. To a teen, there is something exciting and cool about receiving that first brochure or letter from a college. Be prepared, you will be inundated with promotional mail, so have two boxes one to recycle and one for colleges that catch her interest.
FALL
This Fall attend at least one college fair. The information sessions and workshops tend to appeal to high school students. In addition, she will visit booths/tables and pick up information ( and sometimes a t-shirt) about colleges of various sizes and prestige. You may want to sort through the information together, keeping those that she shows interest in and recycling those she shows no interest in.
WINTER/SPRING
Start compiling a list of colleges and majors she may be interested in. Please note that most students change majors 3 times and some more than that!! Over Spring Break, if you can afford plan an in state college road trip. To help with the process check out from your local library or rent from Netflix College Road Trip starring Raven Symone. It’s Disney, silly , a semi-musical, doesn’t require any thinking to watch, and buried underneath is a nice lesson about parent involvement in the college process. Plan trip together including time to sightsee, shop etc.
Will she need to take ACT or SAT or both? Will she need a prep course or not. Does school offer prep?
Select one of the Spring dates to take the exam, take the exam
Begin to discuss possible majors. Listen to what she has to say. If she express interest in theatre or musical theatre, together research or have her research the audition process for these majors. Is she willing to do the preparation and put in the time needed to do so? Are you willing to support and encourage her if tis is the major she chooses? More-so than finances, this may be your most difficult conversation.
SUMMER
Visit several colleges. Yes, it summer so want get full sense of college, but they will be giving tours and each department should have a least one professor available.
Determine whether SAT or ACT needs to be retaken. Register for retake. Prep course or not?
LATE SUMMER/EARLY, EARLY FALL
Finalize college list, possible majors. Possible Audition Prep. Run Net Price Calculator. Celebrate the fact, that together you and your child have put together the best possible list and options for her.
FINAL THOUGHTS
I am so glad you reached out. The college admissions/choice learning curve is very different for parents of only children We don’t get to apply the lessons learned from Child No 1 to Child No 2. Often we erroneously think, we only have one chance to get it right. This type of parental thinking can overwhelm a teen. College admissions is a process, no one has cracked the code, but the best outcomes occur when the parent(s) and child are working together.
I frankly think a lot of the responses have overreacted to your post. You are her parents and you are invested in the process and want to help guide her. As one poster responded, there are many students who post on CC who would welcome a parent’s guidance and assistance. We began at the start of our twins’ junior year with the research process and college visits. It was enormously helpful in assisting them to develop an idea of what they were looking for in a school. Did they seem rather apathetic along the way? Of course! But it helped them to get an idea of what they did and did not want from their college experience. And while I took the driver’s seat in researching schools, scheduling the visits, etc., they offered some input about which schools they wanted to see and we included all of their choices in the process.
The selection of a major has been as different as night and day for our twins (as they are as different as night and day themselves!) Our S knows exactly what he wants to do and has had a very strong and committed focus toward it. The numerous engineering sessions and open houses we have attended have only strengthened and reinforced his decision. Our D has struggled a lot with this. She initially thought she wanted to go into Education. I got some criticism for steering her away from it, but as her mother, I simply knew it was not something her heart was into and it really was not a good match. Well, after taking some teacher preparatory classes junior year, she whole-heartedly agreed and has said she absolutely does NOT want to do anything related to teaching. I have taken the lead in helping her to research different majors, looking with her at the curriculum related to different majors and even having her do some job shadowing and volunteering to explore different options. TBH, she moans and groans through it all and rolls her eyes and sighs, but nonetheless, has started to formulate some ideas about what she may be interested in doing. Though she puts up a fuss about it, some of the most helpful experiences have been setting up appointments with professors or department heads in a few selected programs of interest. She was far more interested in what they had to say and learned a lot from them than listening to me! She resisted but I know it was enormously helpful. I think you absolutely have the right and even the obligation to assist your D in this process, keeping in mind what she wants and what interests her along the way. Try meeting with professionals in various departments and looking at curriculum, internship opportunities, and what types of careers the alumni are involved in.
Your D may get a better idea if she would like to stay close to home and commute or live on campus as she does some visits - definitely try to do open houses or tours that include a visit in the dorms, some included them and some do not. Hang out on campus for awhile, eat in the dining hall, and help her to get a sense of what living on campus is about. I lived on campus and definitely wanted my children to have this experience (and for the record, neither was the least bit interested in staying close to home or commuting, before anyone responds that I made the decision for them! 
)
Finally, a friend posted a great link to a very humorous article about our children’s lack of enthusiasm in the college search process . . . it definitely made me laugh and was entirely realistic!
http://betterafter50.com/2015/08/5-ways-to-choose-the-right-college-for-your-kid/
Wonder if the parents pick her clothes, her friends, her activities.
My son HATES to shop. And, as a 17 year old senior, he sees the college search process as one, long, ongoing shopping expedition.
I, on the other hand, love a good project. So here’s how we’ve approached the college search process:
I knew his PSAT (then, later, SAT) scores. I knew his major. I know that he wants to go away to school, and that he’s not a huge people person… he’s the type of a kid who would be content playing Xbox with the guys instead of going to a party. I know that he’ll want to be home for Thanksgiving and for the occasional visit. And of course I knew our financial situation.
So I came up with a huge preliminary list of schools, and gradually cut them. I eliminated ones that had the wrong slant on his major, ones that were too expensive or too far. I got him down to a list of about 20 or so.
Then, last fall (Junior year) we started to visit the schools. (One by one, on a weekend.) He loved the first. The second was OK, but too large for his comfort. OK, great, that size limit eliminated a number of schools from the list.
He’s now entering Senior year, and has a list of about 9 schools to which he’s applying. He’s loved 5 of the schools on the list (eliminated 2 after visits). We have hopes of visiting the others during the year-- did most of the further ones first or over the summer.
He’s unlike a lot of the kids here in that he doesn’t have a #1 and #2 list in order. He has a list of 5 schools he liked, and those 2 he eliminated. Once we get acceptances and financial info, he’ll choose from his “likes.”
So maybe I’m doing more than the average parent on CC, and that’s OK with me.
Last year I had a Junior homeroom, and one of the kids in my homeroom was a crying mess when SAT scores came back, sure that she wouldn’t get into any college.
I went home, spent an hour on the computer, and the next day gave her a list of 15 schools to look at. I can’t promise that any will be the right fit-- I’m not in college placement and she knew that I approached this like a mom, not a counselor. But at least she knew she had options-- she had a starting place. I’m hoping she took that list of schools where her scores seemed to fit, and looked at some of those schools over the summer. Or, at the very least, took a deep breath, stopped crying, and realized that there are options.
Not all 17 year olds are ready to tackle this process alone.
These parents sound really out of line, picking her major and school and so on. It’s her life, not yours. This is really bad talking about how you picked out everything. She will probably rebel. This is a bad situation.
I have seen problems like this with tutoring clients and experienced them myself. I got out of this hippy public high school where I wasn’t learning much and went to the regular public high school in the 12 grade. My mother went into the guidance counselor and picked out the classes for me. They weren’t what I wanted to take and I didn’t have the preparation for some. The result was I failed to elite classes the first semester of my senior year, which messed up my college applications. I later transferred to a top 30 school.
As a parent who enjoys the research part, I say go ahead and research all you want. Just hold that info until your child is ready to hear it. What your child needs most from you is an honest and accurate $$ amount that you are able to contribute each year to her college education. Not wishful thinking, but what you can afford without dipping into your retirement account. That sets the parameters for her college search. And that’s one of the first things you check. (I always checked to see if the school had my D’s intended major first.)
I had a shy, introverted child that I needed to build up her skills during high school so that she would be able to interact with college admissions. It is important for students to take the initiative in contacting schools to set up a visit. Admissions reps want to see interest coming from the student, and not just from the parents. You can’t go in with your child for an interview, and you want to make sure they are prepared.
Now, maybe your theater trained child won’t have any problems with interacting well. But the college will still probably note that the parents are doing all the communication preparing for visits. I started my shy child out at a local college fair. We wrote out some questions she could ask at each booth. I stood off in the back and made her gather some of the brochures and ask one or two questions before moving on.
Right after the fair, we sat at a restaurant and went through the brochures she had gathered. I asked her about her interest in each school, and whether that school should stay on her list. We then (over time) made plans to visit a lot of schools. My D wasn’t thrilled, but I knew it was important for her to see the campuses, to make it more real to her.
I knew our financial situation, and we could not afford the type of college she wanted without merit aid. And merit aid is given more freely to incoming freshmen, not as much to transfers. So we really needed to get it right the first time. If she had not liked her school during her freshman year, it would have to be a state school (free tuition in our state for public schools). And she didn’t want a large school. So we had the luxury of being able to visit a lot of college campuses within an easy driving range of our hometown.
We asked for feedback about what she liked/didn’t like at each school. The answers we got were more typical of a high school kid, and not related to details that parents care more about. Lots of green space, with trees, and a campus that is more compact. She preferred the campus to be a whole space to itself, although Georgia Tech stayed on the list despite it having city streets running all through it. After her very first visit, her only response was that the campus had too much concrete! But she was right, and I didn’t push her on it.
It seemed that smaller LAC was the type of school she preferred, and so we were able to narrow down. She wanted to continue her dancing, but not as her major. She ended up at an LAC with a great science department for her major, but with an okay dance department that was enough to keep her dancing and interacting with other dancers. The dance classes keep her GPA up after taking the difficult science courses, and they offer a chance to blow off steam when her major classes stress her out.
This can be a great season with your child, but I can tell you I stressed my D out talking about colleges all the time. If I could go back in time, we would have one hour a week to discuss college. Then let it go. Maybe Sunday afternoon each week once she is showing interest on her own.
Good luck to you!
I would say that this is a family that might benefit from hiring a private college counselor, if they can afford it. If you do, let your daughter talk to the counselor–not you. You are too involved, too soon.
Also, it sounds like she already told you what she’d like to major in, and you already told her no and picked something else. Why would you expect her to take any interest in the process?
I, too, think folks are over-reacting. At this point, the parents are putting together a list for visiting as a JUNIOR, not a mandatory list of where to apply and what to study. IF the latter were the case, then that would be a big problem.
Parents are often ahead of the kids on the college planning. My son, and many of his friends, were not that engaged in the process before junior year started and even once it got going. By junior year spring, when all of the kids were talking about college and after we had met with the guidance counselor who set some deadlines, he became more invested and opinionated. Although he still was not that into the research and most of the schools we visited started with a suggestion from me or his GC. But ultimately, he chose where to go (within the financial constraints) and what to study.
So if, OP, you are asking if it is typical for parents to start the list and set up some visits, in my experience yes. But if you considering limiting your daughter’s choice of college or major to only those you approve of, then that would not be advisable.
I think you will find that during the visits you will get better insight into what she wants. If I were you, I would lo
OP, remember that teenagers change a lot from one year to another. At the beginning of my middle son’s junior year, I was sure that he would want to stay close by, or at least in the state, when he started college. He ended up 12 hours away and has done wonderfully. He “grew up” a lot between the start of junior year and the end of his senior year. I definitely would research college or universities that you think might suit her, but give her a choice to choose some too and then go visit (but I would wait until next spring as right now she is focused on starting her junior year.) Also its good to wait to see how well she does in her classes her junior year, and how well she does in her PSAT, SAT or ACT. These also will give you an idea of the type of university she should attend (will she be in the middle range of the school, top etc.) Finally, definitely don’t TELL HER you have chosen her major etc. Keep that to yourself, and see what she chooses on her own. She might choose the exact same major, something totally unrelated, or actually ask for your input. You don’t want to have her blaming you later in life if she hates her job etc. because you chose what she had to study.
Seriously? You picked out a major for her? Hopefully she won’t blame you for the rest of her life if it doesn’t work out.
Enough said.
I had one daughter who I told “make a list of colleges for us to visit” and she did. The other one “hates researching stuff on the internet, but you do mom” so I started by asking her what she wanted in a college. IShe said one within 1-2 hours away. So early Junior year I took her to our Flagship State U and Smaller State College. I also took her to our local college fair to get her into the process. She made it half way through Flagship tours and let me know that wasn’t for her (SO big…the tour is on a bus). Smaller State College.she liked. I also at some point asked what she wanted to major in…she said Psychology. Every place has psychology so that is easy. I looked for colleges where she might get merit scholarship that weren’t too big and not too far way. We visited those at Spring Break Junior year.
In your case, I would look for colleges that have engineering and the ability to minor in Musical Theater.
If she wants to major in it, then there are specific things you have to do to audition but I would have her take the lead in it.