Tips for Raising College-Bound Kids

Two interesting things happened in response to my blog “When is the Right Time to Start Planning for College”.  In the article I asserted that college planning begins in the 6^th grade.   The same week it was published, I sent out a direct mail piece to parents of students currently in grades 5-7. 

The day after the mail arrived in homes, a frazzled mother called me and informed me that she thought she had received my mailing by mistake because her daughter is “only 10 years old” and “we are not even thinking about college”.   I could hear the stress in her voice as she asked to be removed from my mailing list.  As her daughter is just finishing up 5^th grade, I tried to explain that decisions made at the beginning of the 6^th grade have a direct impact on a students’ eligibility to take advanced courses in high school, which is a major factor in college admissions.   She said, “I really can’t handle this right now, please just stop sending me mail”.   So, I took her name and removed her from my list.

On the same day, a Middle School Guidance Counselor on Linked In commented that his parents “whine”  when he encourages them to begin college planning early, but that he believes college planning actually begins at birth.

As I pondered these two responses it became clear that the college admissions process is stressful and emotionally charged.  While parents want to put it off for as long as possible, educators understand the distinct advantage afforded to kids whose parents plan for college right from the start.   This is especially true of kids who eventually decide to apply to Ivy League or other highly-selective colleges.

Think about what it means to raise college-bound kids.  Although my father was the first person in his family to go to college (and my mother did not go at all); he decided that both my brother and I were going to be college educated.  In fact, the only choice I had in the matter was WHERE I wanted to go to college (NOT if I would go).  Raising college-bound kids requires this mind-set to create a “college culture” in the home.  This, along with the following tips, will ensure that both you and your child are ready for college when the time comes:

1.    Start a college fund when your child is born

With the cost of tuition and housing for 4 years of college approaching $200K, it is important to start saving early.  You need to set aside $6-8K per year (or $500-650 per month) for 18 years in order to accumulate this amount.  Understandably, not every young family can afford this, but even $100 per month (with interest) will go a long way towards covering the cost of college.  Encourage your children to deposit a portion of any cash gifts they receive into their college fund.  Encourage family and friends to make a deposit rather than giving gifts of toys or clothing that will be long-gone by the time kids reach college.  Encourage your kids to help raise money for college by mowing lawns, selling lemonade, etc.   Instill the value of investing in the future.

2.    Develop reading and math readiness

Read with your child for 30 minutes every day through 5^th grade.  When they are young you will read to them, but encourage them to read to you as soon as they are able.  Help your child develop number sense and math readiness through counting, measuring, card games, board games and identifying shapes.   Starting in 3^rd grade, ask your child to add up the grocery bill or calculate tips when dining out.

3.    Talk about college and careers in your home

 Share stories from your college years with your kids and encourage family and friends to do the same.   Talk about your career and create opportunities for career exploration through job shadows, career days, interest inventories, etc.   Ask your kids which subjects and activities they like best and ask them to think about WHY they prefer them.   Encourage your kids to ask people they admire what they do and where they studied.

4.    Take advantage of teachable moments

I am sure you take your child to the zoo, art galleries, museums, planetariums, etc.   When raising college-bound kids, maximize these activities by researching careers before you go.  Find out about jobs at the zoo and explore qualifications for those careers.   Take the time to read the educational information at each exhibit.  Learn each animal’s genus and species, natural habitat, diet, etc.  If something you see sparks an interest in your child, encourage them to learn more.  Did you child fall in love with the African Lion?  This is a great opportunity to guide them through research about the continent and culture.     

5.    Incorporate college visits into your family vacations

Going to Disney World?  Great, stop by Everglades University or Florida Technical College in Orlando.  Plan a family road trip to Boston, or Washington DC or Philadelphia that includes tours of our nation’s oldest universities.    The goal here is just to expose your child to different sizes and types of colleges.  Don’t worry you don’t have to set up an admissions interview for your 4^th grader!

6.    Intervene immediately if your child is struggling in school

Seek extra help at the first sign of academic challenges.  If your child is just not getting division, get him or her extra help right away.  If he or she reading below grade level or underperforming on state assessments; find a tutor and deal with issues as they arise.  Waiting to see if things will improve is a mistake.  Address issues as they arise to prevent the need for more intense intervention in the future.  Maximize summer vacations to improve skills and enrich learning.

7.    Talk to a college counselor the summer before 6^th grade

Yes, you really do need to talk to a college counselor the summer between 5^th and 6^th grade to identify opportunities to increase rigor in middle school in order to lay the foundation for advanced coursework in high school.   Middle school students are not expected to know what career path they want to pursue or which colleges they want to go to.  The goal of middle school is just to make sure that students get to high school with all of their options open. 

Selective College Acceptance Counseling provides individual academic and extra-curricular guidance to students seeking entrance to highly-selective universities beginning in the 6^th grade. We understand the current college admissions landscape and provide keen insight, clear direction, moral support and strategic planning to students in Rochester, NY.   We offer a Summer Workshop for Students Entering Grades 6-8:

 

Maximizing Middle School for College Prep        

Identify opportunities to enhance academic rigor and distinction in middle school.  Identify your learning style and key study skills to ensure your success in every course.  You’ll create an individual roadmap to graduation including academic and activity planning, career exploration, and personal development.  Two dates to choose from: July 8-11, 2013 or   July 22-25, 2013

Workshop registration includes a FREE review of transcripts, test scores and activities and TWO HOURS of 1:1 in-home coaching ($250 Value). Lunch, workbook, and materials are also included.

All sessions will be held at St. John Fisher College Monday-Thursday 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

SAVE $50 when you register by 06/08/2013 at http://www.getaccepted.org/online-registration

Thoughts on the 2013-14 Common Application Essay Prompts

Instructions for the new 2013-2014 Common Application Essay prompts read as follows:

“The essay demonstrates your ability to write clearly and concisely on a selected topic and helps you distinguish yourself in your own voice.  What do you want the readers of your application to know about you apart from courses, grades, and test scores?  Choose the option that best helps you answer that question and write an essay of no more than 650 words, using the prompt to inspire and structure your response.  Remember: 650 words is your limit, not your goal.  Use the full range if you need it, but don't feel obligated to do so.  (The application won't accept a response shorter than 250 words.)”

There are five new prompts:    

• Some students have a background or story that is so central to their identity that they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story. 

• Recount an incident or time when you experienced failure.  How did it affect you, and what lessons did you learn? 

• Reflect on a time when you challenged a belief or idea.  What prompted you to act? Would you make the same decision again? 

• Describe a place or environment where you are perfectly content.  What do you do or experience there, and why is it meaningful to you? 

• Discuss an accomplishment or event, formal or informal, that marked your transition from childhood to adulthood within your culture, community, or family. (www.commonapp.org)

As an Independent College Counselor with Selective College Acceptance Counseling, I work with students targeting highly-selective colleges.  In the past, you may have heard me say that choosing the right essay prompt was about tailoring your selection to the types of colleges being targeted.  In fact, I thought the old essay prompt; “Discuss some issue of personal, local, national, or international concern and its importance to you” was the best choice for most students applying to Top 40 colleges.  I have been asked, which question I will recommend now.  The answer is not so clear.

The new writing prompts are more personal and require a deep knowledge of your students’ background and experiences.  I no longer believe there is a blanket “best prompt” It depends so much more now on the individual student and his or her story.  Here are my thoughts about the pitfalls and opportunities contained in these seemingly innocuous questions.  I’ll work backwards:

The Rite of Passage Question:

• Discuss an accomplishment or event, formal or informal, that marked your transition from childhood to adulthood within your culture, community, or family.

Pitfall:  This seems like a question choice fraught with opportunities for cliché’.  I am picturing hundreds of essays on Bah Mitzvahs and Quinceañeras …thousands more on getting your driver’s license or (dare I say) prom night.  YIKES!  As adolescent psychology tells us, the brain doesn’t reach maturity until somewhere between the ages of 22-24.  Empirically, the transition from childhood to adulthood does not occur until after college.  So, I would caution any 16-18 year-old from proclaiming that they have reached maturity.  This prompt could be used to point out that even though you had experienced some rite of passage, you have realized that you are only at the beginning of the journey to adulthood.  For the most part, I would advise students to avoid this question.

Opportunity:  There is an opportunity here for a student who has been saddled with adult responsibility at a young age to share his or her story.  I, myself, took on the responsibilities of grocery shopping, cooking and cleaning for my father and brother at the age of 12 due to my parents’ divorce.  At the time I entered college, most thought of me as mature beyond my years.  Of course, once I was freed from those responsibilities, I went a little wild and failed out of the first college I attended.  I believe college admissions representatives have seen this type of behavior before.  So, the challenge is to prove that once you are free, you won’t lose your head!

The Zen Question

  • Describe a place or environment where you are perfectly content.  What do you do or experience there, and why is it meaningful to you? 

Pitfall: Need I say it….I am seeing thousands of essays about the moments after a sports victory, or sharing an ice cream cone with your best friend on a beautiful Sunday afternoon.  Again, for the most part, moments of true contentment occur later in life.  Students applying to highly-selective colleges are driven, motivated, and striving for a larger goal that lies somewhere in their future.  Although we have all had brief moments of contentment, the hunger to do more, and be more, and accomplish more soon brings us out of the contented present and into dreaming about and working towards the future (at least it had better!).

Opportunity:  I think there is an opportunity here to write a future-tense essay about how content you WILL feel when you receive your acceptance letter from you first choice college, or find the cure for cancer, or otherwise meet your goals.  This would need to be crafted carefully and written to include a visualization of where you would be and what you would be feeling in vivid detail.  Beyond the scope of most teen writers, but maybe I’d recommend it for a few with strong prose skills.

The Rebel Question

• Reflect on a time when you challenged a belief or idea.  What prompted you to act? Would you make the same decision again? 

Pitfall: James Dean need not apply!  It is important that students do not position themselves as “rebels without a cause.”     This question does give students a chance to explain anything reported on his or her disciplinary record.  It is an opportunity to demonstrate that you were standing up for your beliefs or fighting for justice when you received that three-day suspension!  Tell your story, explain your motivation; give it a positive spin.  Not sure this will impress and much as explain, but that explanation could be crucial for certain students.

Opportunity: In the absence of the need to explain away a blemish on your record, this is an opportunity to talk about community activism and can be a way for the civic-minded student to share what he or she is passionate about.  I will advise students to give this question serious consideration.

The Edison Question

• Recount an incident or time when you experienced failure.  How did it affect you, and what lessons did you learn? 

Pitfall:  I can see many students using this question as an opportunity to explain away a bad grade; “I earned a” C” in AP Physics and this is why….”  Ok, but what did you LEARN from that.  The danger is in placing the blame for your failure on anyone besides yourself.   My teacher didn’t teach, or didn’t like me or whatever, but I was able to overcome it and still pass the class.  NO!

Opportunity:  If at first you don’t succeed, try, try, again!  It is well-known that Edison failed thousands of times in his quest to invent the light bulb.  His persistence and ability to learn from each mistake set him apart as a great man.  Students can use this question to do the same.  Definitely on my list of questions worth exploring.   

The Breakfast Club Question

• Some students have a background or story that is so central to their identity that they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story. 

Pitfall: Um…… like, that you will answer this as a character from The Breakfast Club (Hughes).  My parents raised me to be a (fill-in-the-blank) and that is why I am who I am.  In the book, The College Hook, Pam Proctor actually recommends that students use one  of ”The Top Ten College Hooks” as way to “package” themselves for college admissions.  Her hooks are:

·         The Athletic Hook

·         The International Hook

·         The Music hook

·         The Political hook

·         The Technology Hook

·         The Humanitarian Hook

·         The Science Hook

·         The Writing Hook

·         The Drama Hook

·         The Multicultural Hook   (Proctor)

I think it is a mistake for students to label or categorize themselves for college admissions officers.  They are not casting a movie and not looking for “types”.  As these new questions highlight, college admissions reps are looking for unique, mature, articulate students who can think critically about how their experiences have shaped who they are and influenced who they will become.

Opportunity:  At the end of “The Breakfast Club”, Anthony Michael Hall’s character reads the letter he wrote in response to a prompt very similar to this one; “Who are you?”  The answer he gives is brilliant:

“Dear Mr. Vernon, we accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it was that we did wrong. What we did WAS wrong. But we think you're crazy to make us write this essay telling you who we think we are. What do you care? You see us as you want to see us... in the simplest terms and the most convenient definitions. You see us as a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess and a criminal. Correct? That's the way we saw each other at seven o'clock this morning. We were brainwashed. But what we found out is that each one of us is a brain, and an athlete, and a basket case, a princess, and a criminal. Does that answer your question?
Sincerely yours, the Breakfast Club.”

The opportunity with this prompt is for students to demonstrate how they have been able to move beyond the situations or circumstances which sought to define them to become something unexpected.

Overall, I feel that these new questions are challenging and require a higher level of eloquence and self-knowledge than in the past.  It will be tricky for students to answer these questions from a unique perspective as there are any number of stock answers admissions reps are expecting (and dare I say dreading).  I love that the instructions guide students to the question that “helps you distinguish yourself in your own voice”.  That is the question the BEST question to answer; and the reason my summer workshop is called “Distinguish Yourself on the Common App”!

Citations:

"Https://www.commonapp.org/CommonApp/Docs/DownloadForms/2013/EssayAnnouncementFinal.pdf." The Common Application For Undergraduate College Admission. The Common Application, 05 Feb. 2013. Web. 05 May 2013.

Hughes, John, dir. The Breakfast Club. Universal Studios. Hollywood, CA, 1985. Motion Picture. Screen Play.

Proctor, Pam. The College Hook: Packaging Yourself to Win the College Admissions Game. New York, NY: Hachette Book Group USA, 2007. Print.

Common App Core Question Topic Selection: Tip One

Last summer, I was working with a student at the Huntington Learning Center who attended a College Application Essay writing class at a local high school. The class was taught by a high school English teacher, ran for two weeks and resulted in a final draft of a response to the core question. So, I asked to see it.


The essay was technically perfect and followed all the conventional wisdom on what college admissions officers want to see. It was written in the active voice, full of active verbs, and was free from grammatical and spelling errors. The student wrote in his own voice on a topic of his choice. Flawless: and yet all wrong.

The essay was about an experience the student had with bungee jumping. It described in vivid detail his ascent to the top of a bridge, painted a picture of the panoramic view before him. You could here his heart pounding as he looked down and experienced true fear for he first time in his life. The essay moved to the student’s inner conversation as he struggled to find the courage to jump; and finally the climatic leap off the bridge; flying, soaring, breathless. This student had learned to overcome his fears! A life lesson to be sure. The essay was thrilling, engaging, memorable…surely this would make and impression on college admissions officers. It made an impression on me! In fact, Selective College Acceptance Counseling was born as a result of reading this essay.

I asked the student how he chose his essay topic. Did the teacher give him any guidance? No. Did she review his transcripts and test scores? No. Did she look over his completed Common app as if she were in college admissions? No. She left the topic up to him. But, his theme seriously missed the mark. Why?

The student carried a 2.5 GPA at the end of his junior year. With Huntington’s help, he was able to increase his ACT score to a 27. Admissions officers will view him as a smart, unmotivated kid. Not good. I happen to know that he surprised himself with how well he was able to score on the ACT. Prior to that, he had no idea that he had that kind of potential. He also had a 504 plan for ADD/ADHD and took medication to help him focus. What he actually learned at Huntington was that if he put forth a consistent effort, he could produce amazing results. This should have been the topic of his essay. He needed to address the glaring discord between his GPA and test scores. He needed to talk about overcoming adversity and learning to become a good student. He needed to prove to admissions reps that he was a mature young man who is ready for college and would excel in that environment as a result of what he learned about himself the summer between his junior and senior year. Did his essay on bungee jumping accomplish that? I’ll leave that for you to decide.

I implored the student to revise his essay, but he had spent two weeks on it and it was done! It was then I decided that I had something to offer to students beyond SAT/ACT Prep. I decided that an effective college application essay begins with a review of the Common app as a whole to identify the questions admissions reps will still have about the student after they have read everything else. I decided students need guidance and direction in selecting a topic that will enhance their application and not detract from it. I decided students need to work with a counselor (not an English teacher or writer) to develop a persuasive essay rather than a narrative. The Common app core question is a student’s ONE opportunity to speak for himself about his unique perspectives and experiences. Clearly, they need someone with expertise in the college admissions process to direct them. Thus Selective College Acceptance Counseling was born.

Selective College Acceptance Counseling provides individual academic and extra-curricular guidance to students seeking entrance to highly-selective universities. We understand the current college admissions landscape and provide keen insight, clear direction, moral support and strategic planning to students in Rochester, NY. Our services include:

• Individual College Counseling

• Summer Workshops

• International Student Packages

Call (585) 233-9502 for a FREE Initial Consultation to include: Review of transcripts, activities, test scores, fall schedule and recommendations for the fall.

When is the right time to start planning for college?

So, when is the right time to start planning for college? 

Did you think junior year or even senior year?

I bet some ambitious parents even thought sophomore year or first year.

Did anyone think middle school?

Well, if your child has Ivy League or Top 40 college aspirations, middle school is the time when planning should begin.

In order to be on an advanced math track for example, your son or daughter MUST take Algebra in the 8th grade.  That means he or she must take Pre-algebra in 7th grade and score well enough to be recommended for Algebra.  This means that if your child is struggling with math in 5th or 6th grade, you must intervene immediately. 

Three main factors influence admissions to highly selective colleges: academic record (or GPA), rigor of secondary school curriculum and standardized test scores (SAT/ACT).  I served as the director of a learning center for several years and I cannot tell you how many parents brought their children in for remedial skill work in the 10th grade. By that point, half of your child’s academic record has already been recorded and cannot be changed.  It may be too late!

Parents need to ensure that students have a solid academic foundation in middle school and the study skills to earn high grades.  Middle school sets the stage for an accelerated course of study in core subjects, as well as access to Honors, Advanced Placement (AP) and International Baccalaureate (IB) coursework in high school.  However, many Middle schools throughout the country do not have Guidance Counselors; even fewer have College Counselors.  Often students are “tracked” into regular or advanced courses of study based on teacher recommendations/observation alone.  Parents are not asked (or even told) which course of study their child will pursue.

Do yourself (and your child) a favor; talk to a college counselor as early as possible if your goal is to help your child gain acceptance to a top-notch college.  I suggest having your first college-planning meeting the summer before 6th grade.  A college counselor will work with your child to begin to assess strengths and weaknesses, recommend any needed remedial skill work, and complete interest and personality inventories to identify possible career pathways   

Remember, top colleges are looking for top students.  Give your child the opportunity to start high school with the skills and motivation to perform his or her best from day one.

Holly M. Asposto, Ed. M is an Independent College Counselor with Selective College Acceptance Counseling.  She has successfully guided hundreds of students through the college application process over the past 15 years.  Students who have worked with Holly are now attending Cornell, University of Southern California, University of Rochester, Rochester Institute of Technology, Notre Dame, University of California at Berkeley, Boston University, and the United States Military Academy at West Point. Call or email today for a FREE College Readiness Evaluation.  585-233-9502 or holly@getaccepted.org.