Tell me your HS Senior is not ready for college, with saying your HS student is not ready for colleg

[Anonymous]

I hate these “tell me without telling me” threads. So ridiculous.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No rising hs senior is or should be ready for college. They have another year of school.

Back off your kid, OP. You think you’re being cute with your post. Your anxiety and stress around controlling your kid are not attractive, and you’re here looking for validation with other controlling parents.

This. I had to be pretty directive to keep my senior on track with applications but he handled his senior year school work completely independently and just finished a great freshman year of college. Needing help with applications or procrastinating it or taking a slower timeline than you might want does not mean a kid is not going to do fine in college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:how much time does the eassys really take? My rising senior hasn't started yet, between work and summer school work, does it really take 1.5 hr everyday for a month? for how many essays?

Not even close. My kids worked on outlines and practice essays here and there during classes and writing seminars in spring of their junior year and then cranked out their essays over a few weekends in the fall.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is why we hired a consultant for our son four years ago to help with applications. He had to be accountable to someone, and we don't have to nag. School counselors don't have the same impact. We probably won't need to do this for our much younger daughter. Boys' frontal lobes develop at a slower pace. As a rising college senior now, he is just now showing real signs of maturity. Academically he has always been fine...I am talking about taking initiative to plan ahead, save money, etc. FWIW, he got into a top 20.

Okay. Tell me you are wealthy without telling me you’re wealthy.

We are comfortable, but we don't consider ourselves. We just have different priorities. My car is 9 years old, and my husband's is 11 years old. We have retirement savings, but won't be owning more than one home. I guess if you define that as wealthy, so be it.

Sounds wealthy to me!

They are not "wealthy"! They sound like a family that has prioritized education and the process over other goods in life.


Really the consultants are not that much if you choose to save and use them. I paid $4k for my kid starting in Jan junior year, but that price would have been the same if we had stared in August of Freshman HS. I alone got 50+ hours from the consulant, but would have gotten 150-200 if we'd found them freshman year. Much better use of $$$ than what most spend on sports, vacations, etc.

In the grand scheme of how much college costs, a counselor could help you find schools that will give your kid high merit if needed (not T20 schools but outside of that there are many). They will help your kid choose the right HS courses, etc. And with college costing so much, that $4k could really be worth it. I personally think it's worth it to have someone else guiding the teen and doing the "nagging" since teens listen much better to other adults than parents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:School counselors of public high schools will have close to 1,000 seniors, you’re kidding right ?

Yeah but a lot of them are already working on essays. The counselor won't be hearing from a lot of them.

HS counselors at public HS are overworked and not helpful in the college process. For the colleges that needed the "counselor letter" we practically wrote the letter with the "resume" we had to put together. No other way to do it as the counselor was literally just a "random person writing about a kid they had never actually met". I'm sure they spent only 20-30 mins writing the actual recommendation/letter. And I'm sure most colleges know this is the case for public HS (versus private schools where it is very different).

My kid had a new counselor starting junior year (during covid, online school) and had never even met their counselor. My kid never actually met their counselor in person before graduating HS, which is quite typical for the college bound students/better students. Our counselor had 800 students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is why we hired a consultant for our son four years ago to help with applications. He had to be accountable to someone, and we don't have to nag. School counselors don't have the same impact. We probably won't need to do this for our much younger daughter. Boys' frontal lobes develop at a slower pace. As a rising college senior now, he is just now showing real signs of maturity. Academically he has always been fine...I am talking about taking initiative to plan ahead, save money, etc. FWIW, he got into a top 20.

Okay. Tell me you are wealthy without telling me you’re wealthy.

We are comfortable, but we don't consider ourselves. We just have different priorities. My car is 9 years old, and my husband's is 11 years old. We have retirement savings, but won't be owning more than one home. I guess if you define that as wealthy, so be it.

5000 sq ft home and 9 year old Bentleys are still wealthy

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:School counselors of public high schools will have close to 1,000 seniors, you’re kidding right ?

Yeah but a lot of them are already working on essays. The counselor won't be hearing from a lot of them.

HS counselors at public HS are overworked and not helpful in the college process. For the colleges that needed the "counselor letter" we practically wrote the letter with the "resume" we had to put together. No other way to do it as the counselor was literally just a "random person writing about a kid they had never actually met". I'm sure they spent only 20-30 mins writing the actual recommendation/letter. And I'm sure most colleges know this is the case for public HS (versus private schools where it is very different).

My kid had a new counselor starting junior year (during covid, online school) and had never even met their counselor. My kid never actually met their counselor in person before graduating HS, which is quite typical for the college bound students/better students. Our counselor had 800 students.

I think you meant to say, "In my experience,..."

My four kids all had the same high school counselor in their MoCo public school, and they had a terrific experience. YMMV.

[Anonymous]

An hour and a half a day? Good lord. I couldn't do that (but then again my ADHD kid tells me I have undiagnosed ADHD).

I feel like you need to "chunk it up" if you're not going the route of a paid consultant who does the chunking.

Something like:

week 1 - read these 4 articles on good essays. by Friday, give me three ideas of themes for your essay.

Week 2 - let's work together and hone in on one idea.

Week 3 - outline

Week 4 - draft 1

Wek 5 - discussion and revision.

Etc. Maybe you have to chunk it up even more finely, but honestly 30 minutes a day, tops.

[Anonymous]

1.5 hours a day? Is he writing an essay or a book?

My kids did zero college application work before fall of senior year. ZERO. All of them were admitted to top colleges (UVA etc.).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:School counselors of public high schools will have close to 1,000 seniors, you’re kidding right ?

Yeah but a lot of them are already working on essays. The counselor won't be hearing from a lot of them.

HS counselors at public HS are overworked and not helpful in the college process. For the colleges that needed the "counselor letter" we practically wrote the letter with the "resume" we had to put together. No other way to do it as the counselor was literally just a "random person writing about a kid they had never actually met". I'm sure they spent only 20-30 mins writing the actual recommendation/letter. And I'm sure most colleges know this is the case for public HS (versus private schools where it is very different).

My kid had a new counselor starting junior year (during covid, online school) and had never even met their counselor. My kid never actually met their counselor in person before graduating HS, which is quite typical for the college bound students/better students. Our counselor had 800 students. [/quote

I think you meant to say, "In my experience,..."

My four kids all had the same high school counselor in their MoCo public school, and they had a terrific experience. YMMV.

I beg of you -- stop using that phrase. It's so incredibly annoying. It's even worse than "you do you."

[Anonymous]

an hour and a half EVERY DAY?! Aren't college essays no more than 600 words usually? I have so many questions...

[Anonymous]

College prof here. I've been teaching at the college level since 1997. I have yet to meet a student who was actually ready for college. The ones with great study habits have great study habits . . . for HS, and need to relearn them. The ones with terrific academic preparation may have some personal growth catching-up to do; the ones who seem to have their social life (and their friends' social lives) totally together might need to rebalance their time; the ones who tried to do it all in HS probably need to come to terms with focusing and narrowing their interests (which is often more traumatic than people think). And it's the ones who think they've got this all figured out (or whose families think they've got this all figured out) who tend to bottle it all up and not admit when they need help.

College is growth time, big time. If the young people we bring in as students were all totally ready for launch in every possible regard, and already perfectly prepared to contribute in the careers to which they aspire, I'd be out of a job. There's such an immense change between freshmen and seniors that they are almost unrecognizable.

Parents, please encourage your kids to admit when they *don't* have it all together and to ask for help when they need it. It's totally OK not to be ready to conquer the world when you arrive at college. What is important is knowing that imperfection and maybe even some actual failure is part of life, and that it is a mark of maturity and stability to be able to ask for help in order to grow.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:School counselors of public high schools will have close to 1,000 seniors, you’re kidding right ?

Yeah but a lot of them are already working on essays. The counselor won't be hearing from a lot of them.

HS counselors at public HS are overworked and not helpful in the college process. For the colleges that needed the "counselor letter" we practically wrote the letter with the "resume" we had to put together. No other way to do it as the counselor was literally just a "random person writing about a kid they had never actually met". I'm sure they spent only 20-30 mins writing the actual recommendation/letter. And I'm sure most colleges know this is the case for public HS (versus private schools where it is very different).

My kid had a new counselor starting junior year (during covid, online school) and had never even met their counselor. My kid never actually met their counselor in person before graduating HS, which is quite typical for the college bound students/better students. Our counselor had 800 students.

I think you meant to say, "In my experience,..."

My four kids all had the same high school counselor in their MoCo public school, and they had a terrific experience. YMMV.

Ok YMMV. But In My Experience with 4 kids graduating 4 different public HS (and all of the friends I have) and going onto college, this is not a typical experience. Most of the Public HS my friends and I have experienced have overworked HS counselors who barely know the students because it's hard with 600-800 students. I've yet to meet anyone (except you) who had a great experience with their HS counselor for the college applications. our counselors are for the HS experience, and even then most really only see them if there are major problems---have a great kid without any academic issues and you'd never meet them. Only met them with my oldest because we moved during HS and had to iron out getting credit for certain courses taken at the previous HS. Otherwise, my kids never really see their counselor. So it is kind of sad that colleges even still ask for counselor recommendations from public HS in my opinion. They have been worthless and meaningless for my kids. And I feel bad that every fall each counselor likely has 200-250 seniors, so that means 200+ at our school that are heading to college and might need these worthless recommendations. Really a waste of their time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:College prof here. I've been teaching at the college level since 1997. I have yet to meet a student who was actually ready for college. The ones with great study habits have great study habits . . . for HS, and need to relearn them. The ones with terrific academic preparation may have some personal growth catching-up to do; the ones who seem to have their social life (and their friends' social lives) totally together might need to rebalance their time; the ones who tried to do it all in HS probably need to come to terms with focusing and narrowing their interests (which is often more traumatic than people think). And it's the ones who think they've got this all figured out (or whose families think they've got this all figured out) who tend to bottle it all up and not admit when they need help.

College is growth time, big time. If the young people we bring in as students were all totally ready for launch in every possible regard, and already perfectly prepared to contribute in the careers to which they aspire, I'd be out of a job. There's such an immense change between freshmen and seniors that they are almost unrecognizable.

Parents, please encourage your kids to admit when they *don't* have it all together and to ask for help when they need it. It's totally OK not to be ready to conquer the world when you arrive at college. What is important is knowing that imperfection and maybe even some actual failure is part of life, and that it is a mark of maturity and stability to be able to ask for help in order to grow.

Excellent points!!!

Way back in the dark ages, when I attended a T20 school, at orientation they told the parents "for the first time in their lives, your kids will likely get something other than an A/A- at some point this year, likely fall semester. Just look around--everyone here was in the top 10% of their HS class, most were in the top 2% and about 20% were valedictorians. The cream of the crop is here and college is different. So support your kids and know that it's ok to get a B or a C. Encourage them to get help if they struggle and set expectations that it's ok to not be perfect."

I'd argue that this is even more relevant in today's pressure cooker environment of academics for getting into colleges.