If you read my last post about your child's senior year of high school, you are now aware that it will be a wild ride. May the odds be ever in your favor. As promised and in no particular order, here are a few survival tips as you help your pride and joy through this process:
Make sure your child has at least one college application essay COMPLETED by the end of summer.
Since summer is flying by, I put this one first. This will be difficult. They will not want to do it. They will think they have eons of time before the November 1st or 15th or December or February deadline. They don't. You will have to nag them endlessly. But it will be a much more pleasant experience for you both if they get it done before a new school year starts with new academic demands and time constraints.
The Common App website currently has all of the writing prompts for students starting college this fall, but it will give you a general idea of the topics your kid can focus on. Just make sure you take a look at their top schools' websites to make sure they accept the Common App before they start writing.
Because I'm from the 1900's, we saved all Brynn's essays in several places. She created them on Google docs on both her account and mine, and we copied and pasted to a word doc and saved them to our desktop's hard drive.
Make a spreadsheet that includes all important information for each school.
For added enjoyment, color code that beautiful beast to reflect each school's colors for easy reference. Include total cost of attendance, not just tuition and fees. These numbers are drastically different and are available on every school's website. This step alone may help narrow down the search, especially when you experience the sticker shock of out of state tuition.
Include potential majors, minors, and extracurricular activities that would be of interest. Consider the possibility that the thing your kid swears they want to do for the rest of their life today may change after a semester in college, and figure out if schools have programs to fall back on if Plan A doesn't work out.
Include important dates and application requirements. One of the most frustrating things about this process is that every school does whatever they want. There is no uniformity to deadlines or notifications or what they consider a complete application. Application deadlines vary from November all the way through February. Some require several letters of recommendation, others will not even consider them. Some schools require SATs, others are test optional. Some require an activity resume that features your extracurriculars, volunteer, and paid work experience...this is actually a great thing to work on over the summer as well, and they can add their senior year activities to it later. If there's an honors college within the school your child can apply to, there will most likely be additional application requirements involved, like another essay. Refer to each school's website to get the most accurate information.
Encourage your child to start thinking about who they will ask for letters of recommendation.
These people should be someone who knows your kid well, who perhaps has seen them exhibit leadership, or maybe someone who has seen them work through hardship and grow as a human. The best teachers and coaches will most likely be slammed with recommendation requests come October, so timing the ask is critical. The very beginning of the school year probably isn't the best time as teachers work to establish a new routine with new students, and last minute isn't the best idea either. Keep in mind they'll probably have to ask for more later in the year when applying for scholarships.
Scholarships are out there. Just don't expect to get them.
Everyone tells you there is a ton of scholarship money out there, you just have to apply. This was not our experience. Applications were sent to dozens of websites and organizations, both locally and nationwide, beginning right after all of her college applications were sent until the end of April. I made another spreadsheet with application links, requirements, and deadlines. Some were broad and probably attracted tens of thousands of candidates, and others were very specific to school, location, or Brynn's field of study. All but one were a bust. Despite the weeeeeeeks spent writing and editing essays for each application* and the disappointment of rejection for nearly every single one, I can't say I wouldn't do it all over again. You just never know, and I thought it was worth the effort to try to slash thousands of dollars off that college price tag.
*Save every version of every essay you write! Most scholarship applications ask for an essay that is a lot like another essay you've written. A little cut here, a little paste there, a little change of wording or addition of a paragraph over there and you've saved yourself quite a bit of time.
You'll have to make decisions before you have all the information.
This was one of the most frustrating things about this process for me. Some schools will give you a merit scholarship right off the bat and include that offer in your acceptance letter. Other schools wait until your entire financial aid package (including any federal or state aid, work study, or student loan "opportunities") is ready (for us it was in March) before they let you know if you've gotten any additional scholarship money. Lots of private scholarships don't even notify you of acceptance or denial until AFTER the May 1st deadline to submit your enrollment deposit. It's like buying a car before you know how much it's going to cost. Make it make sense.
Hope for the best, prepare for disappointment.
Brynn is not going to her first choice school. She's not even going to her second choice school. She was accepted at both of these schools, but going to either of them would have meant taking out sizeable student loans. Using a college loan repayment calculator spelled it out for us...borrowing some money was ok with us, but borrowing so much she would be making payments of nearly $1000 per month for 30 years after graduation didn't seem to make any financial sense whatsoever. It was a heartbreaking realization, but we know this was the best decision for Brynn in the long run.
You may find yourself in the same predicament, where cost is the roadblock to what you and your child hoped was their path. Or they might not get into that dream school and be absolutely devastated. Save the "God has a plan" talk and just sit in the suck with them. They don't want to hear that everything will be alright because right now, it's not. WE know they'll eventually be alright, but they don't. Not yet. And that's ok.
Celebrate every task completed.
This process is a marathon, not a sprint, and sometimes it feels like people keep moving the damn finish line. There will be a lot of dragging of the feet, and even more cracking of the whip. Make sure you don't forget to sprinkle in the praise when they bang out a tough essay after a long day or click submit on their last scholarship application. Go out for ice cream when responses start coming in, good or bad. Remind them of how awesome they are, even if some putz reading their application puts it aside in favor of another. Curse that putz out together if it helps (I find swearing always helps). Remember your incredible kid is your incredible kid, no matter where their path takes them after high school. And remember it's not your job to figure it all out for them right now.
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