With one son in high school and the other in middle school, the time has come for us to start looking ahead a college planning and college admissions, and those formidable university years. Specifically:
1. Will my sons be accepted into a great school where they can learn, grow, thrive, excel?
2. Will my husband and I be able to afford their tuition without having to take on student loans?
3. How do we ensure they do well on those standardized tests that can have a huge impact on acceptances, and even more significant for us, merit scholarships?
4. Are we doing enough? Did we miss out on important, extracurricular building years? Should we have planned a different path for course selection?
5. When is it too soon to start to worry? When is it too late? What are we doing????
I have so many questions, and rummaging through all the information in so many dozens and dozens of books, sites, academic experts, etc has left us overwhelmed. We are trying to distill the information that actually matters and will most impact the success of our sons for the next decade, without driving them as crazy as we are starting to feel.
Our main goal is to make sure our sons end up in wonderful educational institutions where they are happy, feel like they fit, can pursue a meaningful degree so they can have a career that is both lucrative and fulfilling, and have some fun and make great friends along the way. On our end, we want to make sure they aren’t too far (hoping they aren’t looking at anything on the west coast for now) and we can afford to pay for it (combined with any aid/grants or scholarships they receive) so they can graduate without the burden of student loan debt.
We compiled most of our information thus far from respectable homeschool companies/teachers and various educational sites (we will share some we loved below), and hope that we are doing ok thus far, but we also realized we dropped the ball in some areas. We think we did a great job in these areas:
– We are readers, and books are everywhere. I read aloud to them, they read to me, we listened to audiobooks, and they have been exposed to great literature as well as lighter fluff (it’s all good stuff!)
– We spend a lot of time together as a family, so they have a secure foundation of knowing they are really loved and we value them, their company, and love them as they are
– We tried to scaffold their education if they ever struggled in an area, such as hiring a Greek language tutor to practice verbal skills or having them work with Kumon math workbooks if they needed more practice while learning fractions
– We offered sports and activities (they tended to try things out, and lose interest quickly, but the effort to provide access was there)
And in some areas, we think we failed:
– Too much screen time. Way too much. Just too much. Their favorite thing to do is play video games, and I find myself jealous of the late Steve Jobs when he said he didn’t allow his children to have iPads, and I couldn’t figure out how he managed that.
– Not encouraging them to stick with something when it required more work to excel, or when it meant practice and they preferred to keep playing games online with a friend. We let them take the easy road, because I wanted them to want to do more (self motivation), until I discovered most parents took away the option of other things (like a PlayStation) and that was all the motivation those bored kids needed to go out and try ice hockey or math club instead.
– Not having a “hook” or something that stands out (no robotics genius or star lacrosse players here) that would make them a shoo-in anywhere they applied.
We feel encouraged by support from other parents who are going through this process or have gone through it and have wisdom to share, as well as advisors who have expertise in these areas and help parents navigate the process of college admissions. Here are some sites and books and channels we enjoyed watching and learning from that might help you too:
Reading Rockets (love their entire blog posts section on “practice writing” via search bar)
Institute for Excellence in Writing (great video series)
Read Aloud Revival (I listen to the podcast in the car)
Big Fat Notebooks (cover a variety of subjects in a stream-lined, VERY easy to understand way- helpful for earth science and geometry)
Kumon workbooks (great for practice drills to master a math subject)
Valedictorians at the Gate (there are well over 20,000 valedictorians in the US graduating from high school every year… they aren’t all getting into M.I.T.)
Where You Go Is Not Who You’ll Be (why fit and career goals matter > prestigious institution name when picking a college)
Who Gets In and Why (understanding how students are selected for admission- merit, athletics, children of faculty, etc are all major factors)