Is it too early to worry about college?

Really glad re your son, Rae.

Dag, I had fleeting serious thoughts of being a film editor. My dad was; he was a fellow editor in the thirties with a batch of folks who became the biggest name directors, and I think I would have been at least decent at it. There were even some women, though most back then were men. Another road not taken. Even now I have at least one 'film ed' friend.

quoting Dag,
but it's a lot easier in slovakia- parents don't have the daunting financial pressure of hording money for college, and are ultimately much less involved in the whole process of choosing (well, some parents will always be involved - those who want a lawyer or a doctor...). 'normal', non-obsessed parents have little to do other than supporting and advising their offspring.


Similar for me, re the fees of my day. As old as you all may suppose I am, it's not thaaaaaaaat much older.

Education has morphed more fully to investment. It always went there to some extent, and those who could dally in areas like architecture and art were, in a way, patronized, architecture being the fractionally more remunerative place to pick. We all know studying english lit is a road to perdition.

Maybe the whole idea of a liberal arts education is dead dead dead.

I guess I missed the discussion that went with the testing.

It's always a good idea to make sure your daughter is being sufficiently challenged by her schoolwork and other endeavors. This isn't to say that she shouldn't be getting straight As--after all, if she earned 'em then she earned 'em--but one of the frequent complaints I hear among the professors in my institution is that more and more high school kids (especially those coming from schools that put their students on the college track very early on) are coming to college having never known any kind of adversity or challenge. I've definitely experienced this firsthand with my own students: many of them come to college thinking that As are the default grade and that their role (as well as the professor's) is to maintain it, rather than the reverse (and more traditional) view that students come with a clean slate upon which they build, and thus earn, their grade. I've had students who would email me hours after taking a quiz, asking me if I've graded it yet and requesting both the exam grade and their overall grade so they can make sure they haven't dipped beneath A level. When they do, they will frequently come to office hours not to ask what more they needed to have done to get an A, but to insist that the points they lost were due to things that were not explicitly spelled out on the review sheet.

Anyway, all this is just to say that one of the best ways to prepare a high school kid for college is to make sure they've been put in situations where success is not necessarily guaranteed. And not just in schoolwork. I often regret that my parents didn't push me harder to get a part-time job in junior high and high school.

I have to agree with shapeless. Kids get too little adversity.

MArty Gap year international Student exchange.

Teaches kids to be their own person. Learn about another culture, learn another language.

Some are not suited.

* Foreign language if she isn't learning one already -- learn it for free (or at least included in your tax dollars), rather than as a part of expensive college tuition.
* Advanced placement classes, whatever she wants to do. Sounds like she might want to concentrate in sciences and math but might be okay with English, too. Again, cheaper costs. Plus, even if she doesn't get a good enough score on the AP tests it's still extremely good experience with college-level stuff and should make first year easier.
* AP English if she's qualified, so as to avoid having to take Freshman Comp (English 101).
* Since she's currently interested in Pharmacy, see if she can volunteer in a vet's office or anywhere else that she can see this happening (candy striping?). Of course things are tight with drug security but being around something similar may be a good experience for her. Or it may teach that that's not what she wants to do, which is a good lesson in and of itself. Plus, if she isn't already, she should be gearing up to take Chemistry. I recall it's generally in 11th grade but if it interests her she might want to read some books about it. Does she like to bake? That's all chem. -- it's all reactions and what happens if proportions are right (or wrong).
* Music biz is two things: music and business. Is she exposed to both? Taking an instrument or singing? It can be for fun or for church or the like, it need not be in school per se. As for biz, I dunno, can she visit some local businesses on occasion?

I agree with shapeless, there's a lot of protecting from adversity and smoothing over the rough edges these days when it comes to kids, and it's starting to show in the work force. It might be a good time (if it can be done outside of school so as not to hurt her GPA) for her to do something that's crushingly, painfully hard.

ossobuco, I assume it was quite differently when you went to school,
especially concerning tuition.

Schools are not only competitive nowadays, they also cost a fortune,
in addition to being overly crowded as college attendance has gone up -
which is very good news, however it forces parents and students to
start early and prepare for a possible acceptance at the college/university
of your child's choice resp. yours.

I want my daughter to have all the possibilities available to her in academia and if it means pushing her a bit until then, so be it. She is smart and I
know what she's capable of and what not.

As jespah said, foreign language is a requirement in high school and colleges, and I have prepared my child for it at an age where languages
come very easy to children. She started in Kindergarten and speaks three languages by now.

And that's exactly what I mean, by preparing your child for high school/college/university at an early age.

Ooh, scary.

I haven't done any of this with an eye to prep. My kid's smart, and I'm encouraging her interests, but college prep...? No.

I'm just 36, and my own college experience wasn't like this. I just did well enough in school (not great, I had a bit of a freak-out in high school and did the class cutting thing, that sort of stuff), and then went to the cheapest university that wasn't in my hometown (UW-Madison, which had and probably still has a reciprocity agreement with Minnesota). Then got merit-based scholarships once I was there (and over the freak-out phase).

My husband is a professor and probably will still be a professor when she goes off to college, and that means reduced tuition IF she ends up going to the university that employs him. So, I don't want to count on that, since I want her to have the option to go someplace else if she wants. (Depends somewhat on where he's employed... University of Chicago covers tuition ANYWHERE, up to the cost of a University of Chicago tuition... which is high. Sigh.)

Concerning schools that put their kids on the success track early on: I have a friend who was on a search committee not too long ago and was privy to the applicants' high school transcripts. Apparently there was one applicant who came from a very comfy private school that was aimed at putting as much padding on their kids' c.v.s as possible--this school actually gave students a grade for their lunch period. I'll repeat that: this school actually gave students a grade for their lunch period.*

I'm sure there are lots of good things about such schools, and in most cases it's great to show off a good grade if you've earned one, but getting a lunch grade does not make you look good to a college admissions officer.




* The real tragedy of this story, incidentally, is that this applicant's lunch grade was a B. I'll repeat that: this applicant's lunch grade was a B. It boggles the mind.

Well that's it. What if the university of your daughter's choice doesn't
accept her because there are too many applicants trying to get in,
and she doesn't meet all the requirements, resp. other applicants have
a better resume?

Shapeless, I have never heard of a lunch grade, and would not think
it made any impact in anything.

My daughter is in a charter school that is dependent on a high academic
score in order to receive continued state funding which translates to
pure academic achievements, so no lunch breaks here.

Well, right, that's why I said it. There's a balance, and I'm not sure where it is yet. It seems like there are dangers in being too college-focused too early, as well.

It probably depends where you live, sozobe. Here in southern California even the State colleges have waiting lists now, they never did up until just recently. How will it be in 10 years?

Gap year. I really think it should be mandatory.

Get some non-academic air going through their head.

*nods* I see a lot of parents going well overboard. While I'm sure they think they are helping their kids and preparing thenm for the future, the kids all seem to be miserable and detached from the realities of the world.

When do the kids get to be kids?

Oh yes, that's always the stringent argument: the kids are all miserable
and are not allowed to be kids. How appropriate.

Besides, I am not talking about small children, more in the 12 years and
up category.

It is an observation - not an arguement. It does however, seem to have hit a nerve...

Not at all fishin. I just find it interesting what arguments, oh pardon,
observations come from the opposing team. That's all!

I wouldn't have either, but in this poor fellow's case it actually had a negative effect on him... it made it look like his school just fabricated ways to give their students grades, which made his actual achievements look a little hollow. It really is the students who lose out when schools do stuff like that.