Thank you Carol Montrose of www.BestColleges.org, for this great guest post! Read on so we can discuss Carol's suggestions below. These are some very helpful tips just in time for back-to-school.
Your kids are probably relying on you to keep track of relevant information pertaining to their upcoming college career. This means you need to be on the ball when it comes to making sure that your teenage children have all their ducks in a row before it comes time to fill out applications. So although you can make sure that they’re on track for graduation and they’ve been signed up for the proper college entrance exams, you still need to discuss important issues that they’ll have to handle more or less on their own (keeping up grades, taking preparatory classes, choosing a school, etc.).
Here are a few signs that it’s time to have the talk.
1. Starting high school. You might think that freshman year is a little early to start the college conversation, but the truth is that your kids will be under scrutiny from the first semester they start earning a GPA. For this reason, you should take the time to sit them down and explain why it is important not only to be studious and earn good grades, but also impart benefits of taking honors and AP courses (the latter may actually count towards some required college credits). When they understand the consequences of failing in high school they will be better equipped to make important decisions that could affect their college careers.
2. Taking exams. While end-of-term finals are important, the more crucial exams are those geared specifically at college entrance. Long before it comes time for your kids to participate in the SATs, PSATs, or other tests, you should be preparing them. This means that you should not only discuss the effect the right (or wrong) score can have on their potential acceptance to their schools of choice, but you should also arrange for the study time or tutoring they’ll need to excel on these exams.
3. No sign of interest. This is a rather nebulous “time” to talk to kids about college, but if your teens seem to have no inclination towards preparing to go to college then you clearly need to have a conversation about the future. Although you love your kids, you need to be firm with them. In this day and age a college education is practically required for anything other than low-level jobs. So unless they want to sling burger and fries for the next ten years they’ll need to attend college. If they would rather slack off, give them an ultimatum. They can either go to school and continue to have your financial support, or they can move out of your house and start caring for themselves after high school.
4. Friends with letters. Once your kids’ friends start receiving acceptance letters you know the hour is getting late. It’s definitely time to break out the college rankings and get to work selecting schools to apply to. In some cases, it may already be too late to apply for inclusion during the fall semester. But don’t let that stop you. If your kids have their hearts set on a particular school but they’ve missed the cutoff date, they can simply apply for spring semester, when they’ll have an even better shot at admission since far fewer students are coming in at this time.
5. Graduation. Just because your kids have reached high school graduation and decided to take some time off doesn’t mean they’ve missed the boat. If they’re not keen to go away for school, or they’d like to hold a job for a while, you might consider helping them to apply at some of the top online colleges. Those that are accredited should offer transferable credits to many real-world colleges and universities if and when your kids are ready to leave the nest.
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