Are you active in your kids college

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For some parents, the their child's college confers all sorts of bragging rights and is a huge source of pride. YEAHHH!! MY KIDS A BUCKEYE! This might be a little more common at schools where parents didn't attend college. For the schools, it satisfies a need that their tuition payers demand, more than a fundraising source. And, it gives the parents something to do rather than interfere with the students.

Yeah, my kid's a "BUCKEYE?" Pretty sure 99.8% percent of posters here would be concealing that.

Oh do shut up. Much better to be a Buckeye than a POS.

Are there other options?

[Anonymous]

Do stay in regular communication with your kid though. We have them let us know their class schedules and practice schedules just so we know when they would have some free time to chat during the day (evenings are usually busy for them and us). I will have a Junior and a 5th year senior this coming year, and we generally talk to them a couple of times a week - usually about nothing important at all.

If all is going well they likely will not be calling you. The problem is they also may not be calling if all is not going well (unless they need money). There will almost certainly be some hard knocks, and for kids who have always "over achieved" those may come as a surprise. It may be the first time your kid has sat in a classroom full of kids who are as smart or smarter than he/she is, and at least as accomplished. Your kid may be too embarrassed to ask for help, talk to the prof, or get (usually free) tutoring. We all know that getting a bad grade or grades on a test or in a class is not the end of the world, but it may seem that way for some kids. A good case in point is the story of Madison Holleran, an all-everything can't miss kid who went to Penn.

Finally -- make sure they are on top of their scheduling and graduation path. Mostly we have had to poke our kids to go see their academic counselors to make sure they are taking all necessary prereqs. and have checked all the boxes to keep things moving towards their degree. At bigger schools kids very often never see their general academic counselors. It is all on-line these days. When I was attending a Big 10 school many years ago, every major had a one page sheet that you picked up at the counseling offices and it laid out all of the courses you needed to have for that particular major. It was easy to visualize what you had to do. I made my kids make up something similar just so they too could keep in mind what else they needed to take. Both thought it a pain in the rear to make and unnecessary. Both have used it for scheduling and several of my daughter's teammates have since made their own up.