We first spoke to a private counselor about our first child when she was nearly done with 8th grade. She had been getting straight A’s and we had two questions. 1. How strong of a student is she really? 2. Based on that information, and our daughter’s interests, could he help our daughter plan a reasonable freshman high school schedule?
We didn’t want to be one of those parent whose middle schooler has straight A’s and immediately thinks that Harvard is the next stop. We wanted information.
The first thing he wanted was for her take a practice SAT, PSAT, or ACT. I got two PSAT tests and she took them at the dining room table a week apart, and I timed her and scored it. We then sent him the results to review.
He felt that it was really too early to have a clear picture, but thought that the test clarified where she was currently, and that a lot would depend on her performance in high school. He told her that she had a very good score, but he had seen many better, and that if she wanted to try to reach a top 10 school/Ivy league school, she had a chance, but she would need to take a difficult course load (all honors/ AP) at our high school and do well. Alternatively, she could pursue a somewhat less difficult course load (mix of Honors/AP and regular), and have a good chance to get into very good schools but probably not top 10. She has always liked a challenge and chose the more difficult route herself.
We told her she did not have to go that way if she did not want to. She thought for a second, and then asked whether we believed she could do it? She wasn’t really asking for our opinion. She wanted to know whether we believed in her. I said I thought she could do anything she put her mind to. She said that in that case, she wanted to do it.
That was basically the beginning of the college journey for us.