How Should College-Bound Teens Spend Winter Break?

After family time and a bit of R&R, here are some tips on activities you can encourage your high school student to pursue during winter break, divvied out by grade:

Seniors. Your 12th Grader may be in the fortunate situation to have already heard good news from colleges. But unless she has been accepted Early Decision, there are still options on the table and applications to be completed. Even if all her applications are completed, your senior isn’t done yet! Encourage your student to apply for external scholarships, which you can research on FastWeb.com, Scholarships.com, ScholarshipExperts.com, or SchoolSoup.com. Even if the dollars amounts seem small, they add up.

Some scholarships sound hilarious, many require essays, others require nothing but filling out a form. Most seniors are too burnt out to bother with scholarships, but Woody Allen observed, “Half of life is just showing up,” so it is worth doing!

Mom and Dad, you’re not done yet either! It is time to become a financial aid maven. Read Pay for College without Sacrificing Your Retirement: A Guide to Your Financial Future by Tim Higgins and visit FinAid.org. Begin preparing a FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) with help from FAFSA.ed.gov. Prepare a CSS Profile (College Scholarship Student Profile) with help from CollegeBoard.com, if applying to private colleges. Even if you don’t believe you will qualify for need-based aid, fill out a FAFSA anyway. You may at least land low interest loans or work study: it all adds up. Some school-specific scholarships require you to file a FAFSA.

Juniors. Encourage your 11th Grader to take the SAT I Reasoning Test (1/23/10) at CollegeBoard.com or the ACT with Writing (2/6/10) at ActStudent.org. Your student should try to take a study course over vacation. Kaplan and Princeton Review offer in-person classes, small group or one-on-one tutoring, online courses and study guides,  ePrep offers video tutoring online, and Number2.com offers free prep. To determine whether SAT or ACT is better for your student, check Kaplan, Princeton Review and ePrep for SAT-ACT comparisons and diagnostic tests.

Your guidance counselor will kick off a junior college night in January, followed by students developing initial college lists. Help your teen prepare for the formulation of a college list by reading books from my post, “Reading List for 11th Grade Parents.” If you plan to work with tutors or a college consultant, this is a good time to ask around. Be sure your consultant is a member of IECA or NACAC.

Winter break is also a good time to explore and apply for summer programs. Junior year is the last summer experience before your adolescent applies to college. It is a perfect time for self-discovery, gaining hands-on experience in areas of interest, to go deeper with a passion or explore a road not taken to confirm/disconfirm interest in further pursuit of that activity. My post, “Ten Ways for Teens to Spend the Summer,” offers ideas, books and web resources.

Most important, clarify priorities with your 11th Grader. Ask your student to take a hard look at the balance between academics and extra-curricular activities, and if necessary, dial back activities to improve grades. Make no mistake, colleges care more about academic performancen in rigorous courses than activities. They are, after all, academic institutions! The upcoming semester is your student’s last chance to create an impressive full year GPA for the transcript, which will impact the class rank colleges will see next fall.

For more information on the pivotal junior year, review my post, “Your 11th Grader’s 11 Steps to Success.”

Sophomores. Just like families of juniors, 10th Graders should be exploring and applying to summer programs and solidifying priorities to balance academics and activities. Academic goals should not only focus on GPA, but on qualifying for more honors and AP classes for junior year.

Freshmen. Families of 9th Graders should pursue goals similar to 10th Graders. Freshman families should be disciplined about dialing back overwhelming sports or arts activities. Some students who were able to manage academics and activities in middle school may find something’s got to give in high school (especially if she has moved to a more rigorous school). Academics have to come first.

Middle School. Make sure your student is taking the prerequisites needed for honors classes in high school. This is a time for opening up options. Since many school systems don’t give late bloomers much of a chance, it is up to parents to ensure their kids are in the selective college prep “track” early in the game. Meet with your teen’s guidance counselor and make sure your student is on a trajectory that will maximize academic opportunities throughout high school.

Winter break is a time for rest and rejuvenation, and also a time for setting priorities and preparing for the demanding challenges ahead—at any age!

December 15 College News: Deferral or Denial

This post is the third in a series that looks at each early admission scenario, with advice on next steps from Admissions Matters: What Students and Parents Need to Know About Getting Into College by Sally S. Springer, Jon Reider & Marion R. Franck.

What to do if you’re deferred? What does deferral mean, anyway? It depends on the school. “Some, like Georgetown University, defer all or most [applicants they do not accept early], denying only those who clearly don’t meet the qualifications for admission…Other colleges prefer to make hard decisions sooner rather than later, denying many qualified candidates they know they would deny in the regular cycle anyway, and deferring just a small percentage who look competitive for the final round…If there is a trend, it is in the direction of denying more students in the early round rather than fewer.” (Springer, p. 215).

Michele Hernandez talks about the varying meanings of deferral in A is for Admission: The Insider’s Guide to Getting into the Ivy League and Other Top Colleges: “…You will not know if you were a polite defer (that is, a valedictorian with low test scores who will probably not be admitted anyway but was deferred to show that he was strong enough not to be rejected outright) or a realistic defer (that is, somebody who looked pretty strong but the college wanted to wait for more scores and/or midyear grades to see how the person performed while carrying a challenging senior year course load.” (Hernandez, p. 38).

Both Springer et al and Hernandez suggest the student call admissions to get a sense of how to improve his chances in the regular cycle, write a letter to reaffirm the school as his top choice, add at most one powerful letter of recommendation, and update the school about  new awards. And finish out the fall term with strong grades! But both authors caution that the odds of a deferred applicant gaining regular admission are not high (Springer, p. 216, Hernandez, pp. 39-41).

Given the low odds of admission after being deferred, your 12th Grader should continue to apply to meet Regular Decision deadlines. As J.S.  Mitchell advises in 8 First Choices: An Expert’s Strategy for Getting Into College, all the schools on the list should be genuine, attractive choices, not halfhearted backups. If the deferral decision was a wake-up call that your teen shot too high, reassess. Meet with the guidance counselor and utilize quantitative tools (i.e., Naviance Family Connection) to reevaluate the realism of the college list. If necessary, add  less competitive schools, but institutions your teen would be happy attending.

What to do if you’re denied? Most next steps are the same as for deferral. Of course, denial has a more painful sting. Springer et al point out: “The problem with an early application denial is that it usually occurs in isolation, and also at holiday time…students usually apply early to only one college, and those who receive denials have no simultaneous acceptances to ease the blow.” (Springer, p. 215)

While it is easier to “save face” with peers when a student is deferred, the finality of denial allows the student to move on. A deferral will most likely not end in eventual acceptance, but because it keeps hope alive it may result in a half-hearted, less effective application effort for the regular cycle. Denial is a blow, but (after blowing off steam) the student is ready to resume the college process. Hopefully, you have kept your student working on Regular Decision essays all along, so he will not be totally back at Square One.

This may be a difficult experience in your family. Some accepted students will not be gracious or supportive. Others who were deferred or denied may ignite a nasty, sour grapes attitude within the senior class. Keep your teen on the high ground. Eventually good news will come, but it is now a long four months away. Try to boost your teen’s self-esteem, with the reminder that this simply means that the admissions committee of this particular college decided not to admit him. This may mean his academic credentials were not quite strong enough for this institution, or that the admissions people surmised the match wasn’t there, or even random occurences over which he has no control.

Fast forward to the experience of college grads in this economy. In my consulting practice, I work with young adults who jobhunt for months, weathering disappointment, learning to be patient in between opportunities, keeping their spirits up until they land the job they want. Learning to postpone gratification is a key life skill. Early admission deferral or denial in Grade 12 may be the first time your child has faced this kind of challenge, but it won’t be the last. He might as well learn how to survive it with his self-esteem intact.

Ironically, Dec. 15 2009 is the 70th Anniversary of the premiere of Gone with the Wind in Atlanta, where my son goes to college. Margaret Mitchell’s masterpiece is a timeless tribute to hardy human beings who persevere and survive in the face of disappointment, rejection, heartbreak and loss. Adversity is painful but strengthens one’s survival muscles. With your support, your young adult can learn to weather this disappointment with resolve, resilience and grace.

Choosing Colleges in Cool Metro Areas

I just wrote a post on my careerblog, “Best cities for college grads and young professionals,” based on the work of urban expert Richard Florida, best-selling author of  Who’s Your City?: How the Creative Economy Is Making Where You Live the Most Important Decision of Your Life.

Florida posits that metro areas dominated by a “creative class” of high-tech knowledge workers, artists, musicians, gays/lesbians, and “high bohemians” foster an open, dynamic personal and professional atmosphere that correlates with high economic development.

Florida says living in the right place significantly affects one’s happiness, as much as choosing a career or a spouse. To choose a city, he suggests matching one’s lifestage and personality with a city’s physical aesthetics, social networks, job opportunities and services.  Florida’s “Who’s Your City?” website offers resources for selecting a place to live: Singles Map, Creative Class Map, Personality Maps, New Geography of Work, Real Estate Map, and Mega Regions of N. America.

My careerblog post explores “best cities” rankings for college grads and young single professionals, using Florida’s paradigm. But what does this have to do with choosing a college?

Many cities on “best” lists are large metros with many universities, or actual “college towns.” So NYC, Boston, Washington DC, Philadelphia, Chicago, Atlanta, Denver, Minneapolis, Milwauke, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Portland and Seattle are on many lists, but so are college towns like Austin TX, Madison WS, and Raleigh NC. Next Generation Consulting has identified many other college towns for its “next gen” hotspot list. To name a few: Eugene OR, Ann Arbor MI, Gainesville FL, Colorado Springs CO and Durham NC.

These metro areas share Florida’s “creative class” characteristics. In college towns, that stimulating atmosphere is likely partially driven by not only the student/alumni population, but the academic, research, healthcare and technology complex that is an outgrowth of major universities.

In my consulting practice, I find that many clients want colleges in “creative class” metro areas. Here in North Jersey, I may  be observing the sophisticated, cosmopolitan attitudes of teens in our area, who have been hopping the train to “go into the City” throughout high school.

When choosing a college, these students often reflect a Northeast bias, but also a city-bias. Many will not consider excellent, highly ranked schools in rural areas or even mid-sized cities that they do not perceive as–for want of a better word—“next generation.” They can’t articulate it, but Florida’s “creative class” explains what they are seeking in the environment surrounding their future college.

This is unfair to thousands of terrific schools that don’t happen to be plunked down in the middle of, say, Boston. I explain to my clients that every college, even with a student body of less than 2,000, is in and of itself a “creative class” mecca. When surrounded by some of the greatest minds in the country, who cares that beyond the campus walls there are only rolling hills and a few gas stations? Some students “get” that, but many believe they must have proximity to a “happening” metro area to “feel alive.”

Fair enough. It is crucial for high school students to be in touch with everything they’re looking for in a college, not only academic programs but campus setting and geography. It’s a personal thing, and it has more longterm impact than we realize when making the college decision.

Students become connected to the area where they go to college. If the school’s surrounding area has jobs, it may be easier to find internships, build professional networks, and land one’s entry level job in the college’s metro area. It is familiar and comfortable for the student who has already spent four years there. The student has connections among faculty, undergrads, grad students and alumni who have  chosen to stay in the local area for further study or career pursuits.

So choosing a college could be choosing where you will live as a college grad and young professional. Put that together with Florida’s premise that living in the right place is pivotal to a person’s happiness. We always knew college choice was a key life decision, but this adds another dimension to that choice–not only the what but the where.

First day of high school

Your teenager is excited with anticipation, worried by insecurity.  You’ve cleaned out Staples and Aeropostale. OMG! Sometime this week, your kid will begin his first year of high school (in some areas, it has already begun!).

In some cases the transition is a bigger deal than others. If your teen is going from a local middle school to a regional high school, it means a larger, more annonymous environment requiring more independence. If your kid is going from a public to a private school setting, it will mean an entirely new set of classmates, possibly a ramping up of academic rigor, and humbling grade deflation.

It is the beginning of a new chapter of adolescent development. You have survived middle school, so you feel you can take on any challenge! You’re probably right. (From middle school, there’s nowhere to go but up.) But every developmental stage is unique. You’ll be facing dating, driving, drinking, drugs, defiance, depression, all the “D” words.  And it will end with your child’s  “d-parting” for college.

Guidebooks to the roller coaster ride that began when your child turned 13 include: The Primal Teen: What the New Discoveries About the Teenage Brain Tell Us About Our Kids by B. Strauch, Yes, Your Teen IS Crazy!: Loving Your Kid Without Losing Your Mind by M.J. Bradley, and of course,  Get Out of My Life, But First Could You Drive Me & Cheryl to the Mall: A Parent’s Guide to the New Teenager, Revised & Updated by A.E. Wolf.

Since my focus is on college prep, here are 3 tips on what you can do now to help naturally position your 9th Grader for college without stress or overkill.

1. Take a 4-year planning approach to course selection. Meet with the guidance counselor early this fall for perspective. Of course, your 9th Grader is already enrolled for 9th Grade, but an early counselor meeting can determine if any modifications need to be made. The minimum “college prep” curriculum for most U.S. colleges includes:

• 4 years of English, including literature and composition
• 3 years of math, including algebra I & II and geometry
• 3 of laboratory science, including biology and chemistry
• 3 years of social studies/science, including geography, U.S. History, world cultures
• 2 years of the same world language

College Board advises a fourth year of math (trig, calculus or statistics), says many colleges require more than two years of foreign language, suggests arts electives to exercise the mind in unique ways, and a computer course.

I cannot stress enough the value of optimizing academic options, ensuring your teen can qualify for Advanced Placement courses junior or senior year. Some schools require an honors class as a prerequisite for AP, with a grade cutoff. Some schools have an entry test, because they don’t have enough AP sections to accomodate everyone.

This is why it is critical to meet with the guidance counselor to understand your school’s requirements. Does your teen need to be in all honors or AP courses? No! You don’t want her to be overwhelmed. Every student has to find a balance for her skillset and interests. In my view, it is better to get mostly A’s in a combination of AP, honors and regular courses than all B’s in all AP courses. Advise your teen to pick subjects in which she excels, and go for advanced versions of those courses.

Try not to be talked into a “no honors” approach by an overly conservative  counselor or an underconfident student. This will lock her out of advanced classes from the get-go and limit her flexibility. Encourage your student to go for at least one honor course this year if she can get access.

2. Don’t overdo extra-curricular activities. My regular  readers know my view! Your freshman will encounter major challenges this year (physiological, emotional, social). Academics will ramp up big time vs. middle school, and suddenly it counts. A 9th Grade transcript blip will not be the end of the world, but it will interfere with establishing a solid starting GPA and preclude entry to advanced classes later on. Avoid transcript disasters by resisting the temptation to overbook extra-curriculars.

3. Begin financial preparation for college. It’s never too early for this, especially in this economy! Become acquainted with the “pay for college” landscape by reading Pay for College without Sacrificing Your Retirement: A Guide to Your Financial Future by Tim Higgins. Become familiar with Kiplinger.com/money. Ask your guidance counselor about community workshops for parents on financial aid. Talk to your accountant or financial advisor about investing for college.

For more tips on navigating the early years of high school, check my post: 10 Things You Can Do for Your College-Bound 10th Grader. I welcome comments from parents who have survived the “white water” of high school!

Adjusting to college life: “Friendsickness”

Your college freshman will make many new adjustments, from doing laundry to managing a heavy academic load independently. But I’d like to focus on one key adjustment, establishing new social connections.

Psychologists E. Brier and S. Paul coined  the term “friendsickness” (2001) as “the pressing relational challenge for new college students that is induced by moving away from an established network of friends.” Freshman miss their families, but they also miss high school friends! They miss the comfort of peers who have known them a long time, who  “get” them, without their having to struggle to  gain acceptance.

Freshmen always have their parents and families for support. However, as researcher J.R. Stenrud has pointed out, friendships, due to their voluntary nature, are more difficult to maintain than are family ties; therefore, they often represent a more final sense of loss.

The preoccupation and grief associated with precollege friendships actually prevent freshmen from investing in new relationships, increasing further the risk for “friendsickness” and adjustment difficulties. Text/IMing make it easier to stay in touch, but also distract students from engaging in the “here and now.”

Jennifer C. Ishler, Ass’t. Prof. of Human Development & Family Studies at Penn State, traced the phenomenon of “friendsickness” through the first year of college through female students’ journal writing in her freshman seminar.

Ishler observed: ” [Students taking the seminar first semester] missed their friends from home and delayed making new friends at college for fear of betraying the friends they left behind. This sense of loyalty to old friends prohibited the new students from fully committing to their new college life. As a result, they did not start connecting to a new peer group, often felt lonely, and did not connect with the social aspect of their new environment.”

Students who took Ishler’s seminar during their second semester were clearly in a different place. “[They] wrote in their journals about the new friends they had made in college, how close they had become to these people in just a matter of months, how their new friends had helped them adjust to their new environment, and how they were going to miss their new friends over the summer. Students during the spring semester came to realize that precollege friendships did not exclude the formation of new friendships, but that both could co-exist.”

What can parents do to help freshman make smooth transition from grieving old friendships to making new connections at college?

The philosophical answer is, you don’t have to do anything, just let your child’s personal experience unfold naturally. After all, Plutarch observed, “Time is the wisest of all counselors.” By second semester, your freshman will feel connected at school, while maintaining historical friendships.

If your child needs help connecting, here are some ideas you can suggest:

1. Take a freshman seminar first vs. second semester. Many colleges require freshman seminars now, to ensure a first year opportunity to be in a small discussion class that guarantees interaction with faculty and classmates. The  seminar is intended to counterbalance the annonymous lecture hall setting of  introductory courses. Doing it fall semester ensures your child will have at least one class which is an engaging experience right away.

2. Join at least one extra-curricular activity. It’s obvious but essential. Your child can try something new, or enjoy an activity that has brought satisfaction and self-confidence throughout high school. Importantly, it will offer the opportunity to become connected.

3. If a roommate situation is clearly not working out, change it quickly. It’s just lousy luck, but it can ruin a kid’s first semester in college. If there is an opportunity to change a really bad situation, encourage your child to seize the chance. This is especially critical if the roommate is a substance abuser or if your teen finds himself constantly “sexiled”.

4. Keep a journal. Ishler found that journal-writing itself helped freshmen process friendsickness. It is a time-honored resource for all human beings, including adolescents, to reflect on their experiences and development.

5. Encourage a “wait-and-see” attiutde. Some teens interpret the initial stressors of college, including friendsickness, as a reason for transferring or dropping out. Such a proclamation  can cause a parent shock and distress. (Was all that work trying to get your child accepted to “First-Choice U” in vain?) Urge your teen to give it time. Meanwhile, remind him that if he wants to be in the position to transfer, he’d better earn great grades! It’s a win-win if he gets great grades and then realizes he still wants to stay.

Any advice from parents whose kids have survived freshman year “friendsickness”?

Welcome, Class of 2013! College Orientation Rites

Most freshmen will experience an avalanche of initiatory rites in the next few weeks. Some  already had their orientation back in June. But for many, this is the first time they will set foot on campus since their first tour over a year ago.

The edge of a great beginning. Here’s what to expect!

Many colleges offer optional outdoor pre-orientation programs to help small groups of freshmen bond through recreation, fitness or adventure trips before the official orientation week begins. College students often say that they find some of their best, long-lasting friendships that first week on an outdoor pre-orientation trip. Who knows?

Activities can include camping, hiking, mountain biking, rafting, kayaking, water skiing, sailing, challenge courses, the list goes on. Don’t worry, no skydiving. They’ll do that on their own, just to torture you!

Schools such as Duke, Muhlenberg, Bucknell, Lafayette, Kenyon, Tufts, Loyola, Hamilton and Bowdoin offer optional community service pre-orientation programs. These programs are great for freshmen who may not be “into” the outdoors, who would rather serve their college’s surrounding community, while also getting acquainted with each other.

Typically, dorm move-in immediately follows pre-orientation (some schools allow freshmen to move in prior to pre-orientation trips). Formal programs for students and parents begin shortly thereafter, with social activities to help freshmen get acquainted during the evenings. Having met my husband of 29 years at a dorm party the first week of school, I am a big believer that even the shyest student should make an effort to reach out at these events.

You can expect formal orientation schedules to include receptions, discussion panels, campus tours, president’s welcome events, academic department fairs, activity fairs, and religious services. Parents are then politely asked to “depart” (ah, such an understatement). After the “‘rents” are gone, orientation becomes more focused, with academic advising, placement exams, and class enrollment.

Make good use of time when your teen is away on a pre-orientation trip or social activity during orientation. Hopefully, you have assembled a college transition “bible” over the summer and now have it at your fingertips as a guide! Print out my college dorm checklist too. Get the lay of the land, so you can suggest close-by grocery stores, pharmacies, hair salons, office supply stores, UPS stores and eateries. Check out where shuttles and buses stop; locate nearby subway or light rail stations.

If you haven’t bought all the dorm room items yet, find a Staples, Bed Bath and Beyond, Target, Walmart, JCPenney, or Container Store in the area. If it’s too stressful to schlep multiple loads, you can rent a cargo van for under $20 a day (U-Haul, Budget). Don’t forget the Advil…your muscles will ache at the end of the day! You will sleep well!

If this is your first child going to college, keeping busy will have another benefit, too…and you know what it is.

The moment is coming. It will be different for everyone. Hopefully, you have talked about the separation now and again over the summer, so there has been some natural preparation. My advice is, be genuine, but don’t overdo it. Your goal is to help your child process this transition and feel good about the new world he or she is entering, not let it all hang out.

What to do after you leave is probably a whole post in and of itself, so let’s save that topic! Meanwhile, I welcome sharing of experiences from parents who have gone through orientation, move-in, and campus “departure”.

Your 11th Grader’s 11 Steps to Success

Junior year is here: the year that counts. Maybe your teen made mistakes, didn’t focus enough, experienced a few “blip” grades last year. But now…it’s time to get serious!

What does that mean, exactly? Be perfect? Get an electrode zap from genius headgear like in science fiction comedies? Never allow your teen to have any fun until the online version of the “fat envelope” comes from the dream college a year and a half from now? No, conscientious parent! Just follow these general guidelines…

1. Dial down extra-curriculars NOW. Does he do two varsity sports? Reduce it to one. Did she spend every night out last year on stage crew  for the musical, even though she doesn’t plan a theater career? Skip it this year. Unless that pizza delivery job is critical to family finances, persuade him to only work in the summer. One more club, one more karate belt, won’t make a difference in college opportunities. Trust me, grades will.

Yes, it’s hard to edit back, especially when you’re so proud of your kid’s dazzling accomplishments. But don’t be tempted to say, “Let’s see how it goes.” Often the wake-up call that a teenager is doing too much is a grade disaster during junior year. You do not want that wake-up call: it may be too late to recover, and colleges want to see an upward trend. It’s your job, as a parent, to pre-empt pitfalls by being one step ahead, and editing back activities before they become overwhelming.

2. Help your teen find a good balance between academic challenge and overkill. It is advisable for an 11th grader to challenge himself in areas of strength, so suggest taking honors courses and an AP if available in his favorite subjects. If your teen has missed this window, encourage him to knock it out of the park this year to be considered for honors or AP’s senior year.

However, don’t saddle your child with more honors or AP’s than he can  handle. Yes, advanced courses are worth more in high school and college weighting systems than regular courses, but don’t sacrifice grade performance. This is especially true in rigorous private schools, where grade deflation can sometimes underrepresent a student’s aptitude and effort, especially compared to a uniformly talented, intense student population.

It also gets tricky junior year, since many subjects ramp up significantly in terms of conceptual difficulty. For some courses, there is no prologue to predict success or failure (e.g., a student may excel in chemistry, but have no grasp of physics).  11th grade is usually the first time students will have AP’s, covering a tremendous amount of material and requiring more study than previous courses in that subject.

3. Spring for a tutor. Whether it is for SAT/ACT tests or a course your student is struggling with, I say go for it. If you can afford it, “tutor often and early” before an academic problem becomes insurmountable (don’t wait). Tutoring is generally a better financial investment than paying for extracurricular lessons, unless your student is headed for Div I sports or a fine arts institute.

Tutoring is not a “badge of shame” that your child is an underachiever or  unmotivated. One-on-one tutoring is a time honored, effective way to learn, it’s just not as cost-efficient as classroom teaching. The pedagogical approach at Oxford University in England is entirely tutor-based. Can you imagine taking piano lessons in a class of thirty kids? When hands-on learning or diagnosing systematic errors is required, tutoring may be the best key to unlock the door.

4. Prepare for the PSAT’s. You may hear no, it’s just for practice. But National Merit Scholarship qualifications are based on PSAT performance. Whether or not your child needs money, it is a great to achieve at least a commendation level. So at least do an online course with Kaplan or Princeton Review, or a free site called NumberTwo. Good PSAT performance also sets in motion an upward spiral of confidence that will be needed with all the testing your child will take over the next year.

5. Set aside this year’s spring break for college visits. Your high school’s guidance counselor will probably present junior college night in January and work with your child on developing a college list throughout the winter. If this is not happening, you may want to enlist the help of an independent consultant. But edit back  business trips and family plans so that, when your 11th grader is on break, you can visit campuses.

6. Educate yourself. Don’t drive your teen crazy too early. Just let her work hard and get good grades. Meanwhile, quietly build up your knowledge. I recommend: The College Solution by Lynn O’Shaughnessy and Greenes’ Guides’ Hidden Ivies 2nd Edition: 50 Colleges of Excellence. Talk with parents who have been through the college process, but only those who will give you sound advice without stressful hype. Consider buying the $14.95 premium online version of US News & World Report College Rankings. Become familiar with CollegeBoard.com and PrincetonReview.com.

7. Prepare financially. Become acquainted with the “pay for college” landscape by reading Pay for College without Sacrificing Your Retirement: A Guide to Your Financial Future by Tim Higgins. Become familiar with Kiplinger.com/money. Ask your guidance counselor about school or community workshops for parents on financial aid. Talk to your accountant or financial advisor about investing for college, and consider hiring a Certified College Planner. For qualified local advisers, check with National Institute of Certified College Planners.

8. Nurture a positive relationship with your student, and choose parent-teen battles carefully. You need all the goodwill possible to preserve a loving, constructive, honest relationship with your adolescent as the junior year evolves. This is the year of the SAT’s, AP tests,  junior prom, first big high school relationship, driving learner’s permit, and the ever-present danger of teenage rebellion and risky behaviors.

You will experience the “perfect storm” when your adolescent’s normal, powerful drive for autonomy eventually collides with the college application process. Don’t create it too early!  Protect goodwill: you will need it.

9. Provide clerical support! Make a filebox… collect things that your kid would otherwise lose. Test results, transcripts, awards, sports results, community service hours,  great essays. Don’t go crazy, don’t insist on your teen’s involvement, just quietly do it, so everything will be organized in one place by spring when you will need it all.

10. Encourage your teen to build relationships with 11th grade teachers. Colleges prefer recommendations from Grade 11 teachers  It is essential for your child to become assertive about participating in class, become a visible leader, and actively develop relationships with these teachers. It is critical for your child to do this, not only to make it easier to ask for a recommendation at the end of junior year, but because confident self-advocacy is also a key life skill that will serve your son or daughter well from now on.

11. Support your child’s growth and development as a complete human being. Your child needs support for physical and mental health, getting enough sleep, eating right, and managing stress. Who is going to help with all that if not Mom or Dad?

Your child’s life needs to be enriched in higher level dimensions: spiritual, ethical, aesthetic, social, emotional. You can help by being a caring, involved adult guide who is not too invasive but “always there” as a sounding board.

Parents who have survived the high school years, what would you recommend to families who have just begun the challenging junior year? If you could start all over, what would you have done to prepare for college when your child was beginning 11th grade?

Kris Hintz’s Top Ten College Websites

If I had to name my ten “faves”, in no particular order, these sites would be the top bookmarks. I urge parents not to rely on any one source when researching schools, but to check out multiple websites, including the college websites themselves.

1. CollegeBoard.com. Not just for test registration! It offers portals for students, parents and professionals, with topics such as Plan for College, Find a College (college matching), Apply to College, and Pay for College (with calculators). And it’s free.

2. FinAid.org. Award-winning, free public service site that is a complete education in every kind of financial aid, demystifying Federal forms, offering calculators and everything needed for “regular people” without CPA’s to apply for financial aid!

3. MeritAid.com. This new free beta site gives lists of merit scholarships for colleges. You simply plug in a college you’re interested in, or search colleges by state. But if you are seriously interested in a school, thoroughly investigate its website, because some complicated programs are not picked up by this service. Meritaid.com is powered by Cappex.com, a college matching program.

4. USA Today “How to Make NSSE Work for You”. The National Survey of Student Engagement annually surveys students in 1300 colleges in the USA and Canada. It evaluates schools based on academic challenge, active and collaborative learning, student-faculty interaction, enriching educational experiences, and supportive campus environment. USA Today’s article shows results for schools willing to share their data, comparing each school to benchmarks for its institutional category.

5. UCAN.org. The National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities developed U-CAN (the University and College Accountability Network), based on focus groups with students and families, to provide free, concise, common format, consumer-friendly college information.

6. US News & World Report College Rankings. It shouldn’t be the only ranking system you use, but it does give great stats in one place when you are researching and comparing colleges and universities. Premium membership (to get full information on every school) is $9.95 a year, but you only need it for a year.

7.  YouUniversityTV.com is a beta site with videos for over 400 colleges. Format is scripted, a painless way to absorb a school’s key facts, with interviews with college representatives. The “virtual tour” format portrays what it would be like walking the physical campus, which may encourage your family to actually visit the school—or not.

8. PrincetonReview.com. It’s not just about test prep and tutoring! It offers topics such as Colleges & Majors, School Search, Career Search, Study Abroad Programs, and Financial Aid (including College Values). It offers 162  rankings of colleges on a diverse range of categories, based on student surveys.

9. Kiplinger.com/money. The online version of Kiplinger’s personal finance magazine offers titles such as College & Family, Paying for College, and Best College Values. Check its Top 100 Best Values Rankings for public universities, private universities and liberal arts colleges.

10.  Colleges That Change Lives.org.  CTCL supports students finding schools that inspire a lifelong love of learning, based on Loren Pope’s book, Colleges That Change Lives, which describes 40 transformative colleges. The website gives profiles of the schools, which share two essential elements noted by Pope: “a familial sense of communal enterprise that gets students heavily involved in cooperative rather than competitive learning, and a faculty of scholars devoted to helping young people develop their powers, mentors who often become their valued friends.”

You do not need to be specifically interested in these 40 schools to gain valuable learning from the website. It offers a paradigm, a way of evaluating colleges, that is more intrinsic to the educational process than many ranking systems.

Colleges of the midwest

A few blocks from Lake Michigan’s Gold Coast and the start of the Magnificent Mile. On State Street, “that great street”, south of Lincoln Park Zoo and Wrigley Field, north of the Ambassador East and its legendary Pump Room.

My husband and I were young MBA’s, pleased to reside in a high rise with a doorman in a neighborhood we could never afford in NYC. Except on frigid January mornings when we caved, wasting cash on a cab to the Loop, because the biting wind whipping off the Lake made the trek to the bus too forbidding.

Looking back, I don’t recall much about the cold. But I do remember that those two years in Chicago were  the best in our lives. Spring days when every Chicagoan came out of hibernation. Biking along the Lake up Sheridan Road, leading to Northwestern in Evanston. Sneaking out of work on summer afternoons to watch the Cubbies play. St. Paddy’s Day when they dyed the Chicago River green. Saturdays wandering the Impressionist galleries of the Art Institute. Knowing the location of every scene from The Blues Brothers!

A young client of mine returned from a college visit in the Midwest with two observations: “It’s so–flat” and “They’re all so–friendly.” Yes, that’s the heartland! No purple mountain majesties, just amber waves of grain, friendly people, and colleges that are educational jewels. If you are unfamiliar with Midwest schools beyond the Big Ten, here are some names worthy of exploration!

Among US News & World Report’s 50 top-ranked liberal arts colleges, 7 are in the Midwest: Minnesota’s Carleton, St. Olaf and Macalester, Iowa’s Grinnell, Indiana’s DePauw, and Ohio’s Kenyon and Oberlin. Of US News‘ 50 top-ranked national universities, 8 are in the Midwest: Northwestern, U of Chicago, U. of Illinois-Urbana-Champlain, U. of Notre Dame in Indiana, Washington U. in St. Louis, U. of Michigan-Ann Arbor, U. of Wisconsin-Madison, and Case Western Reserve in Ohio.

Greenes’ Guides’ classic, The Hidden Ivies, an essential primer for parents of college-bound teens, mentions most of the above colleges among its 30 profiled schools or additional noteworthy institutions. Its additional schools also include Indiana U.-Bloomington and Purdue.

Loren Pope’s best-selling Colleges That Change Lives describes 40 transformative US colleges, 14 in the Midwest, such as Minnesota’s St. Olaf, Wisconsin’s Lawrence and Beloit, Michigan’s Kalamazoo, and Ohio’s Denison. The CTCL website profiles all 40 of the schools in Pope’s book.

The National Survey of Student Engagement annually surveys students in 1300 colleges in the USA and Canada. It evaluates schools based on level of academic challenge, active & collaborative learning, student-faculty interaction, enriching educational experiences, and supportive campus environment.

USA Today’s web article, “How to Make the NSSE Work for You”, shows results for schools willing to share their data. Many Midwestern schools identified by US News, Greenes’ Guides and/or Loren Pope were strong NSSE performers: St. Olaf, Grinnell, Beloit, U. Michigan-Ann Arbor, Kalamazoo, DePauw, Indiana U.-Bloomington, Purdue, Indiana’s Wabash, and Illinois’ Wheaton and Knox.

These sources, from their diverse perspectives, identify exceptional Midwestern colleges and universities. I hope this brief glimpse will raise your curiosity to encourage your teen to explore these schools. Each school’s website is a great place to start. Also try the video college tour sites: YouUniversityTV, CollegeClickTV. And if you are curious enough to visit a place that’s flat where the people are friendly, plan a family itinerary to tour some of these outstanding schools!

Countdown to senior year!

It’s July First! Ring a bell? Time to hoist the flag and buy hamburger buns? No, time to visit the Common Application website: the 2009-10 version launched today! Nothing stands in the way now for your  high school senior. She can complete the “Common App” as it is affectionately called.  The run for the roses has officially begun! Here’s the 10-to-1 summer countdown. If family schedule permits, I suggest trying to complete these 5 steps  in July:

10. MISE EN PLACE! The Culinary Institute of America coined “mise en place” (everything in place): Ingredients ready when you need them! Make a filebox for everything you’ll need. Update that transcript, then file it—transcripts do have a way of getting lost, like car keys. File test results (June SAT/ACT’s are out, AP’s arrive next week). Collect awards, sports results, and community service hours.

9. COMMON APP: Encourage your student to get clerical sections out of the way: main application pages 1-3 and top sections of teacher & counselor forms, secondary school report, midyear and final report.

8. ACTIVITY WORKSHEET: Before your student fills out the Common App extra-curricular form,  ask her to recreate that same form on a separate sheet of paper. This project should be done when your teen is fresh, to make sure nothing is inadvertently left out. If she is forgetful, help jog her memory, but decide how much involvement is appropriate based on your relationship.

7. RESUME: If your student does not have a resume, it’s time to create one. She can use it to “own the narrative” rather than simply fill out forms. She can upload/attach it to her application. Your student can also email the resume to her recommenders so they can read it this summer. Include academic honors, extra-curricular activities, paid employment, and community service.

6. COMMON APP: Your student can now finish the main application, pages 4-5, except for the short answer, main essay and additional info statement. Now your teen can actually say she finished her application in July. Whew! Lower stress already. In August, I suggest the next 5 things:

5. COLLEGE VISIT: Your family has probably visited colleges during  junior year, but hit a few more this summer.  Hopefully, these visits will help your child winnow down her list to a  strategic portfolio of 8-10 schools she could picture herself attending (reaches, realistics, likelies).

An early action or early decision school may emerge–encourage this route only if she feels very strongly about the school. If more visits are needed, you will have some time in the fall, but senior year gets crazy.

Your teen may be understandably tiring of this whole drill, but encourage her to hang in there. If she says, “I’ll just see where I get in and then visit,” don’t buy into it. This is her opportunity to choose her college experience: how can she be in the driver’s seat if she’s never even been to the campus?

4. FINANCIAL AID PREP: In 2009, it should not come as a surprise that you need to double check your kid’s 529 fund. More than any year, parents need to review the financial landscape. Financing should be an integral part of your application strategy, not a 2010 add-on!

Determine the costs of schools on your teen’s college list. Check merit scholarship availability through Meritaid.com and school websites. Often merit scholarships have separate applications, with deadlines before the  admission application.

If the words “FAFSA” and “CSS Profile” strike terror into your heart, skim: The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Financial Aid for College by David Rye, Pay for College Without Sacrificing Your Retirement: A Guide to Your Financial Future by Tim Higgins, or The College Solution by Lynn O’Shaughnessy (and her College Solution & CBSMoney Watch blogs). Visit Finaid.org, CollegeBoard.com, or KiplingerLetter.com. Go to a financial aid workshop in your local community. To hire a professional, check National Institute of Certified College Planners website for a directory of local qualified advisors.

3. BROWSE APPLICATION SUPPLEMENTS; Most colleges have a supplement even if they use  Common App. They contain additional essays, such as, “Why do you want to attend our school?” It will be helpful to know how many essays she will be writing and what the topics will be.

2. BRAINSTORM ESSAYS; Invite your student to brainstorm possible essay topics and stories. She can do it alone or with a tutor, provided that person is  facilitating a process, not writing the essay. It is essential that your student’s authentic “voice” be expressed, not only for integrity’s sake, but because this is your teen’s single opportunity to speak, unfiltered, for herself in her application to college. This is a rite of passage: she will be speaking for herself for the rest of her life.

1. TIE UP LOOSE ENDS: Your school’s guidance department may have asked students to fill out information or answer reflective questions over the summer. She may be retaking SAT/ACT  this fall, and there may be time to fit in a tutor or online prep course before school starts. Your teen probably has summer reading to finish up, too…

Parents who have gone through the college process already, what did you and your teen do during the summer to get ready for senior year? If you could do it over, what would you do differently?