Some people obsess about how to get junior into Yale from birth. That’s a serious problem. On the other side, many don’t think about it until junior year. That’s a problem too.
This posts discusses the pitfalls of either extreme and presents what I consider to be a better approach.
Starting (way) too early
You may have seen them, the babies dressed in elite college onesies. Sometimes it was alumni parents who bought it for their children, and other times they were gifts. Babies certainly look cute in them.
I have no problem with how babies are dressed (I discuss below how this can be a problem later). What’s more disturbing is the intense competition among some to get their babies into the “Baby Ivy” nursery schools. This started at least 20 years ago as this quote from a NY Times article indicates:
New York’s top-tier nurseries can be feeder schools to the ”right” kindergarten, and then Trinity and Dalton and upward to Harvard, and they offer the ”right” social element.
https://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/12/education/the-baby-ivies.html
Unfortunately, this is still happening recently. Even more silly, you can even hire consultants to prep your toddler to get into that elite nursery school.
This is madness. It is quite common for students to be admitted to the most selective colleges despite coming from (gasp!) public high schools. Both my kids did exactly that. And while there are some real advantages to private high schools, increased chances of elite college admissions is not one of them.
Thankfully, this madness is mostly confined to a small number of families. What I consider to be a bigger problem is when older children feel pressure to attend elite colleges. It is unhealthy if the child is past 10 years old and is subtly, or sometimes not so subtly, being told that they are expected to attend a highly selective college, which happens to have a single digit admit rate. Don’t be that parent, as it’s hard enough growing up today without this kind of pressure.
Starting Too Late
But don’t also the family where nobody thinks much about college until the junior year in high school. Sometime that year, the overworked school counselor has a short meeting with the student to discuss colleges that might be a fit for the student. The student comes home with the list and the family discussion of colleges and how to pay for them begins in earnest.
Most families approach college this way, because it’s how the parents approached college when they were applying 25+ years ago, and had little reason to assume it would be different today
No doubt some of you reading this will say “Our high school was very proactive about college and college planning began much earlier”. That’s wonderful for you, but A) The majority of high schools are not like that because they have too few school counselors, and B) This blog is meant for everyone, including the students that attend high schools with a shortage of counselors.
A better approach
Instead of either extreme above, I have a set of recommendations for students, and a separate set of recommendations for parents.
Guidance for students
If you have not yet finished 8th grade, this site is not for you. But I welcome you back when you are ready to enter high school.
Ok, so you are in high school. I recommend reading the Admission Basics page. You need to pay particular attention to parts about the College Admission Landscape and the Year-by-Year section.
Guidance for parents
The early years
When your child is very young, the only college topic you should be thinking about is how to pay for it. Not which college your children will attend. Not which activities you plan for them to excel in. And certainly not which nursery school will help them get into Harvard.
Junior high years
You have three jobs when your child is in junior high. Your first job is to have your child develop good study skills and put forth consistent effort in school. Some bright children might find junior high too easy. In that case, it is essential that you find an outside activity that challenges them mentally to the point that they really need to work at it.
Second, if your high school has different course levels (such as standard prep and honors), you need to make sure that your child is on track to enter the most rigorous courseload possible in their first year of high school.
Finally, you should expose your child to as many different activities as your budget reasonably allows. The goal here is to plant as many seeds as possible, and it’s likely that one will take root and become a deep interest and possibly a future “spike”An exceptional talent in an academic or extracurricular area... More.
High school years
During the high school years, your primary role is that of a coach. In other words, you are there to help your child do their best. But importantly, it’s your child that does the work, not you. Your most important goal at the end of high school is to have a happy, confident, and capable adult who is ready to meet the challenge of college.
As a coach, you should also read the Admission Basics page, again paying particular attention to the College Landscape and Year-by-Year sections.
There is one thing not mentioned in the year-by-year section that I will mention here. During the college application season, you have an essential job of being aware of all the application deadlines and making sure your child is on track to meet those deadlines. There are a lot of moving parts, and your child will be focused on the details, such as individual essays, so you can help make sure nothing gets missed.
Paying for College
This is an important aside. Before junior year, tell your child how much you are willing to pay for college. There is nothing worse than your child applying to a dream college, getting accepted, and then finding out it is not affordable. If the money needed for college are in risky assets (e.g. stocks), move them to less risky assets so you don’t have a shortfall during the college years due to a market decline.
