That one 82 in spanish freshman year would affect her rank so much at her ultra small school.
That while grades matter and kids should do their best, good colleges don’t stop at the tippy top schools. Kids can be successful at a lower ranked school. Or at a trade school. It is very difficult to find the balance between encouraging kids to do their best and accepting them for who they are.That there is only so much you can do if you have a child that is not motivated by grades.
Encourage (require) your student to be involved in something outside of the classroom and to give back in some way.
That life is a journey, not a race. The kid that may not be a great student in HS may become one in college (or not) or may be a great success in his/her working life.
That merit scholarships are very limited at highly ranked schools and that many schools that may be attractive to your kid only give need-based aid.
That what you think you can afford to pay for college and what the college things you can pay are often very different. Have the money talk as soon as college chat starts. Some kid may be focused on this well before junior year.
It goes by in the blink of an eye. Enjoy every minute.
Failures and struggles are sometimes the best learning opportunities.
Have a balanced college list and spend the most time figuring out the safeties and match schools, not the reaches.
I didn’t realize that in 9 (quick) years, my child would no longer need us and that was the goal all along. Does that sound strange? I consciously prepared myself for the ‘leaving home for college’ phase. I also mentally prepared for the ‘not living under our roof’ post-graduation phase. But this past weekend took me by emotional surprise.
This past weekend, my daughter moved from her first apartment to her second one. She found it on her own with her two roommates. She did the physical move without any assistance from us…rented a U-Haul and got friends to assist with moving all the furniture and boxes. She took care of all the logistics, financial and otherwise.
Last year we had helped her (and her friend) pick out an apartment, clean it, and furnish it. One year later, she didn’t need our help…at all…and she only lives an hour away.
It was bittersweet. On one hand, part of us wanted to help. On the other hand, we absolutely didn’t miss the physical work over the hottest weekend of the year.
It hit my husband and me that although she still needs us on an emotional level, our parental role has changed. Having less involvement is tough. For us it’s harder than the ‘empty nest feeling’ you experience when they physically leave your home. Intellectually we know it’s a good thing…a very good thing. Emotionally, it’s a fresh beginning and we are navigating our way through it.
Yeah, I think I’m going to be that lady at the store, who tells a young mother to enjoy everything, because it goes by so fast.
With S16, that by the time he was in HS he was really disliking school. If we had put the option of not immediately going to College on the table, the crash and burn he went through his freshman year of college could have been avoided. At this point he can’t imagine going back. With S18 we knew from the beginning that he would only do well when motivated. It wasn’t a surprise when he just squeaked by in classes he didn’t like.
Lots of great ideas!
I want to echo @intparent about prepping for the PSAT. We actually discouraged it, not wanting to place any pressure on a “practice test.” Our son was close to NMSF though going in cold. I don’t know if a ton of prep is wise, but certainly being familiar with the structure and doing a few practice tests would have benefited him.
Things that we did know that have been confirmed were that being ahead in math is very helpful and not having a video game console at home was probably wise. He got enough exposure at his friends’ houses.
I think you have to be careful about the “82 in Spanish” post. Pushing your kid for perfection or to maintain high rank isn’t a great idea. If your kid is a self starter, great. Mild pressure is sometimes needed. But you can destroy your relationship with your kid by being laser focused on grades. I’d rather have a great relationship with my adult kids even if they didn’t get into top schools than gain a few ranking points in college admissions but damanging that relationship.
Also, I’ve noticed that colleges are a bit more forgiving of slightly lower grades in foreign languages if other grades & test scores are strong. 
I wish I understood how fast high school goes and how much I’d miss them when they left. I wish I had been a little kinder with their missteps. In the end, they did just great despite them… probably better people with more understanding of themselves.
I’m not a parent and I don’t pretend to be. These are my observations from the other side (student’s) now that I’m about 10 years out of high school. I’m still close to a lot of my high school friends and these are some things we wish we knew then or had been different:
-Parents, always be a calm phone call away. No matter what stupid choices your kid makes, they need to know that you’ll be there for them. I had several classmates who would drink and drive because they knew their parents would be mad at them for drinking. The few times I drank (and needed to go home), I knew that no matter how smashed I was, my parents would come get me no questions asked. I used that safety net more than once.
-My most successful (by that I really mean happiest with at least a comfortable life) friends explored areas of personal interest in high school. Not everything was to package them for college. Several of my friends who tailored their lives to what they (& their parents) thought colleges wanted make a ton of money but are generally unhappy. They have a ton of money but they don’t know how to spend it because they never really developed hobbies.
-Depression is real. Mental illness is real. If you think there is something off about your child, intervene with the help of medical specialists. I lost too many friends to suicide because their parents told them to just suck it up.
-You can’t work your way through college. Be transparent about how much you can and will pay. This will save resentment in the long run.
-High schoolers are kids. Let them act like it. But they’re also close to adulthood. Let them make mistakes and figure out solutions on their own (of course, this isn’t applicable to everything). I have friends in their late 20s who still can’t problem solve because they rely on mom/dad for answers. I have a couple of friends who are engaged/married that have tension in their partnership because their partner relies on his/her parents for everything rather than talking it out with their partner like a well-adjusted adult.
I probably wouldn’t have encouraged my son to take the high road and had him pass/fail unweighted electives to boost his rank. I told him reporting his grades would show he excelled but didn’t realize how badly our school’s stupid P/F for unweighted policy/strategy impacts class rank. Many schools he is looking at factor in class rank along with ACT/SAT for merit scholarships.
Hopefully by the time your son/daughter applies to college, there is a way to recognize that AP Chem, Bio, Physics and unweighted electives in marketing, tech, etc. should be given some consideration in the class rank game for scholarships. There are many kids outranking him taking classes they know are weighted and easy As (sorry but AP US History was far easier than AP Chem - for at least many kids) or pass/failing unweighted classes to “play the game”.
Don’t fight about homework-- kids need to own their grades.
Have them find an EC that they love-- it provides a nice break from school.
If not playing varsity/high level club, play a rec sport just fun-- as above it provides exercise and a good break.
Give them space to problem solve their own issues instead of solving them for them. This includes letting them fail sometimes.
Remind them grades and test scores are not the be-all defining nature of who they are.
That there are going to be plenty of arguments. I never thought I would have to have an argument about her wanting to take an extra AP class Jr year and Mom and I telling her it might not be a great idea. Then 2 weeks into school that she was ready to back out of the class. We made her live up to her decision. That was hard to do. She stuck with it. It hurt her GPA, but she killed it on the ACT. She grew as a person.
I am happy she worked during the summers and some during school. Work ethic is important to me.
But in the end my simple goal with my kids is that after HS or College they are able to support themselves and be happy. I don’t care what school they attend or what they do. I just want them to be happy and out of my house.
Because there is a big difference between “knowing” and “experiencing,” knowing what I would miss by allowing our son to attend boarding school so far away from home was not sufficient to prepare me for the grief and loss I felt when I finally experienced all those misses: sports, proms, nightly dinners, school activities, awards, teenage drama, knowing his friends, watching him mature, etc. Every time he came home, I was sure he’d grown a foot, and he seemed so mature. I had to readjust my image of my son after every visit. Kids, boys especially, change a lot between 14 and 18. High school for us seemed like a rapid, time-lapse video. It went so, so fast. It’s probably best, though, that we didn’t fully understand what we would miss because we might have made a different HS decision. As he likes to remind me when I lament, “I know you feel like you missed a lot, mom, but I missed nothing.” And then comes that hug. It’s all good. I guess.
“From the time they set foot in the door the GPA matters. Colleges look at 6 semester for initial scholarship offers. Don’t think you can fix a bad semester later. It all matters. Don’t weight yourself down with AP if you don’t think you can do well and especially if your HS does not weight.
Enjoy your time it goes fast.”
This is my thought exactly. When my oldest entered high school it was right as the same time as both of his grandmothers died after long illnesses. It was a tough time and he did not get the parental oversight needed to help him focus on his grades. He did very well next two years but it wasn’t enough to get his GPA up to major-merit aid status. You really can’t make up grades as every class counts.
The other thing I wish we knew was how tough admissions have become. I along with many friends easily got into UC’s with average grades and stats, schools that today turn away 4.0 students. The competition for admission as well as real game-changer scholarships has skyrocketed. Until your child reaches the college phase many people use their own 25 year old knowledge and experience when it comes to understanding the college process. I have a friend whose just went through this very thing. Her son with a 4.0 gpa got rejected from the very UC she attended with average grades.
Thank you for all of these great insights! As my kids are in large public schools, if there isn’t much support from guidance counselors, what/who is the best place to get an overview of the process and make sure that we are not missing anything? Also thank you all for stressing reading and accelerated math, and keeping an eye out on grades starting freshman year!
I wish I had known what the PowerBall or MegaMillions numbers were going to be
That kids vape in the bathroom and he might have to hold it all day. That the school is so big no one even gets a locker as they cannot make it to class in time. That the kid you went to kindergarten with would offer you drugs and you have to know how to say no (I actually told him this and to blame me and when it happened he was glad I prepared him). That coaches are weird and rude at times. That girls can be dramatic. That grades are really important but that sleep is too. That slicky shorts are not good to wear 24/7 and that the ones with the paint stains should be thrown away. That I just want to spend 5-10 minutes each day finding out how he is.
@mjk050607 "As my kids are in large public schools, if there isn’t much support from guidance counselors, what/who is the best place to get an overview of the process and make sure that we are not missing anything? "
Make friends with parents who have older kids at your school who seem similar to your kids. Take them to coffee and ask for inside info.
@mjk050607 I found parents of slightly older kids to be really helpful. I had one friend whose daughter is 2 grades above mine who invited a few of us over for coffee right after her daughter finished going through senior year and she talked us through how the process had gone for them. She showed us what the Common App looked like and was open about where her daughter had applied and been accepted. Her daughter had fairly similar stats to my daughter and slightly different interests so it was really useful to sort of see what resources they had found helpful (e.g., that’s where I first heard of the Fiske guide among other resources). So if you have any friends or acquaintances locally who have kids of similar academic strength to yours that are now done, you could see if they’d be willing to give you some tips.
(One tip here - our school’s gcs never say much about SAT subject tests… they’ll mention them during ‘junior parent night’ but it’s usually as a side note as in ‘if you are applying to a highly selective school, you might also need to take a couple of SAT subject tests’. What is more useful is what I learned from other parents - if your kid is thinking about a STEM field at a selective school, they are likely to need 2 SAT subject tests. It makes the most sense in timing to take Math 2 right after they finish Precalculus, which for a lot of the mathier kids is actually the end of 10th grade. So by the time we even hear about these tests from the gcs, it’s 6 months or so later than what would have been the ideal test date. Not that you can’t take them later but it’s good to get it done when the material is fresh and before the rest of the busy junior year testing needs to happen.)
I would suggest keeping track of all your kid’s activities, awards, and extracurriculars starting in freshman year. Just keep a list somewhere and jot things down as they occur. This will help tremendously with the resume they will need in junior year. We didn’t do this with our older child (didn’t know), and we spent a lot of time trying to remember everything for the last three years. With our younger child, I started keeping track in 9th grade, and she easily plugged in the information into her resume template in junior year. She said that was the best thing anyone could’ve ever done for her.
Also, if you’re not going to qualify for financial aid and are not full pay, do your research early on which colleges offer merit aid. For our first child, he had the Ivy League in his sights, and we didn’t realize that they give no merit aid. He ended up not being accepted anyway, but we wouldn’t have wasted all those application fees had we known. He ended up with a full ride at a top LAC that we had never even heard of, and he had a wonderful experience.
If you have a kid who is remotely interested in engineering, pick the colleges accordingly. Our daughter already had a nice list of schools picked out in junior year, then she decided she wanted to major in engineering. And half the schools on the list did not have an engineering program. We had to start all over, because she wanted a private school that was close to home, and there weren’t that many with engineering programs. Fortunately, she ended up at a great school with almost a full tuition scholarship, and she’s very happy.
Most of all – enjoy these years. They go by so incredibly fast! I wish I would’ve been more present and not always worried about the future.