Anonymous wrote:If she's in high school, she really doesn't need to be deciding on a career now. Most schools I know don't even require that you declare a major until sophomore year. The best college advice I got was each semester to choose a class on a topic that was totally unfamiliar and to keep an open mind. She'll be exposed to career ideas she doesn't even know exist.

+1

Niece #1: attended Mclean HS with average SAT score and with B average GPA. Attended NVCC then transferred to GMU. She is now a manager for Oracle IT sale and make close to 600K,
Niece #2: attended TJ with 1590/1600 SAT score and 4.3GPA. Attended an Ivy school. She is now working for niece #1 and making less than 1/4 of niece #1

At this age, you just don't know.

Physical therapy was the first thing that came to mind for me

Yeah sure to the above, but it sucks to find yourself at a SLAC as a Sophomore when you figure out you want to try for PT, OT or similar and can't get there from where you are and have to transfer or do a second undergrad degree someplace else. So if undecided at least pick a big University.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Let her find her own way. She will do fine.

+1
While you're intentions are perfectly fine OP, I would gently suggest that you back off. Your post comes off as a tiny bit pushy and even slightly judgmental that your second kid isn't as ambitious as your older daughter. Be okay with her not knowing what she wants to be when she is 25 and not even caring about it right now.

I agree with this. We saw my 17 year old niece over Christmas...we all hugged and said hi etc, and I said "how are you?!" And she said something along the lines of: "I'm great, life is good...and BEFORE anyone asks, I have no idea what I want to do with my life!" We may not be so cognizant of how much pressure high schoolers feel - the reality is, almost no one knows what they want to do at that age. I'd back off...be there as a resource and encourage her to explore and ask questions, but let her go to college and figure it out herself.

If she's in high school, she really doesn't need to be deciding on a career now. Most schools I know don't even require that you declare a major until sophomore year. The best college advice I got was each semester to choose a class on a topic that was totally unfamiliar and to keep an open mind. She'll be exposed to career ideas she doesn't even know exist.

Anonymous wrote:Let her find her own way. She will do fine.

+1
While you're intentions are perfectly fine OP, I would gently suggest that you back off. Your post comes off as a tiny bit pushy and even slightly judgmental that your second kid isn't as ambitious as your older daughter. Be okay with her not knowing what she wants to be when she is 25 and not even caring about it right now.

Being a social worker is a horrible career. I would say OT, PT or SLP.

Let her find her own way. She will do fine.

Social worker?

Careers like SLP, OT, RN, PT, social worker, teacher etc. came to mind right away. I have a daughter a lot like yours who is happily studying to become an occupational therapist after finding her passion working with individuals with disabilities through Best Buddies club in high school. She did not want to be in an office all day and wanted to feel like she was helping people in her job (as opposed to helping a corporation ...not that there's anything wrong with that). She just really likes people and wanted to incorporate that into her career.

Pay is good, and with the aging population there already is a major demand for healthcare workers.

Many of these fields are surprisingly competitive though. My daughter went through OT school application cycle for fall 2016 and most of the schools she applied to had hundreds of applications for ~30 spots (and she wasn't applying to the super prestigious programs either).

Anonymous wrote:teacher, physical therapist, occupational therapist, pediatric nurse (but lots of school), hospitality management; PR and communications if she is outgoing and fast paced.

also, you never know, sometimes students blossom when they find the thing they love to do.

This. Don't count her out so soon.

Also have her take one of those career tests. Something like this: https://www.psychologytoday.com/tests/career/career-personality-aptitude-test

Counselor
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PT, OT, RN but especially specialty nursing will take a lot of school and require her to be top of her class. Just sayin'

teacher, physical therapist, occupational therapist, pediatric nurse (but lots of school), hospitality management; PR and communications if she is outgoing and fast paced.

also, you never know, sometimes students blossom when they find the thing they love to do.

I have two teenager daughters. My first is ambitious, does great in school has lots of thoughts about her future career and we discuss different career choices etc. regularly (and it's likely she will go into the same field as I or a related field). She is the easy one (at least as far as career "guidance").

My other daughter is the one for whom I am seeking ideas. She is an OK student (because she gets lots of extra help and is good about doing homework and such and is pretty organized- her grades are mostly As). I expect her SAT grades will be very average.

She would despise a desk job (but she mostly likes school). A job that involved a lot of paper shuffling or in-depth, deep concentration on a regular basis would probably not be a good match.

She is very athletic-- all sports come completely naturally to her. I don't think she will be able to play sports in college with the course load (but maybe she can do a five year plan and/or some summer classes and such to keep her regular course load lighter??). While scholarships would be nice, we can swing 4 years of in-state tuition.

She is very outgoing and just super, super kind and sensitive to the needs of others. She is super helpful and thoughtful. (Many people-- from kids through seniors-- have told me that my daughter is literally the kindest person that they have ever met!) So, I think a career that accentuates these skills would likely be a good fit.

I would love to have her thinking about these things early... All help appreciated.