Reply to Parents: if you could go back to your kid’s freshman year, what would you do differently?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I am looking for wisdom or lessons learned from parents who are going through or have went through the process of supporting their kid through the college application and admission process.

Looking back with what you’ve learned, what would you do differently?[/quote]

For a 9th grader, I'd suggest wandering into random college tours on your vacations. We attached ourselves to tours at Harvard, Penn, and Columbia on various trips. It's low-key and stress free. Academic tourism. But it gets kids thinking about what they want.

Also, math. If you're shooting for selective schools, you need to get to Calculus BC by senior year. That might require a little summer school if you are not on the right track.

And encourage your kids to just do their thing. There's no right way or wrong way. But passion for something will go very far in college admissions. [/quote]

I think BC (or higher in some cases) is important for STEM, business, and Econ at top schools. But I think AB is often adequate for a history or literature major. [/quote]

I did virtually nothing.  Two very mature girls. They figured it out with no real help from me, except, of course, paying for it all.  No one in my family except my twin was college educated, and while we had tons of books and a supportive intellectual environment in the home, there wasn't much focus on college strategy or discussions over it, other than again to indicate full financial and emotional support.  I am not sure I was in tune with the college admission process.  My kids jokingly blame me for their penchant for non-fiction, as most of the books we would trip over at home were non-fiction.  I was more concerned with setting up a good home environment than college per se.

My wife was far better attuned than I was, but she is a big proponent of kids being very independent and we let the kids roll with the process.  One thing we did do was stop at college campuses while on vacation or driving trips.  It gave them ideas for the choices which were available.  They both chose Princeton, which worked out with no debt and no trauma. Very fortunate to have such great kids. [/quote]

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