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August College Search Guide: The Road to College
Arcadia Weekly Aug 13, 2015
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By May S. Ruiz
It’s August – for some kids, summer vacation is winding down; for others, it has ended. If your children are heading back to school this week, I hope they had the chance to breathe, decompress, and savor the lull because they are once more face-to-face with the realities of high school life.
High schoolers in the San Gabriel Valley confront exceedingly fierce competition – this is where students get perfect SAT scores; have 4.0 GPAs; are first-class cellists/pianists/violinists; have a gazillion extra-curriculars. Everyone is so accomplished that it’s impossible for someone to stand out. Much has been written in the newspapers about how stressed out these children are. Some of them get through these four years relatively unscathed while there are a few who attempt to run away from it all, as one student from San Marino did a few weeks ago.
At my daughter’s school, stress was a given. Her classmates were taking five AP courses in one year, were competing in sports/debate/art, spearheading a club on campus, and taking an independent study outside of school. They pursued all kinds of activities and interests to build impressive resumes to go on their application to the most selective universities in the country. Whether that was their own choice or something imposed on them by their parents, I couldn’t say. My daughter was happy not to be one of these students who took on such a punishing load. Yet, even as a slacker by her school’s standards, she took a good number of AP courses, got consistently excellent marks, was actively involved in theatre, and took piano lessons every Saturday. She put in an ungodly amount of time doing everything she needed to accomplish; how her overachieving classmates survived high school is beyond me.
I advocate for parents cutting their kids some slack. Parents and children shouldn’t get fixated on the same eight universities with single digit acceptance rates (of course, at the high school my daughter went, applying to the Ivies was a sport). Institutions of higher learning in the United States are the envy of the world and for good reason. There are innumerable colleges and universities that offer excellent teaching; there is a school out there that is the right fit for your child. Recognize your children’s abilities and set your expectations accordingly.
Freshman: High school is vastly different from middle school. Your children no longer have a “home room,” they have different sets of classmates for each course; they make their own choices of academic courses, athletic activities, art electives, and campus clubs. More importantly, all their activities and grades will go on their resume; each AP course they take, sport they play, language they select, will count.
If your children didn’t have the chance to meet with their counselor during the summer break, they need to make the time to do it as soon as school starts. Their conversations with the counselor should start in 9th grade. Usually, there is a “Back to School Night” when parents get to meet all the teachers. This is a chance for you to see what your children will be learning during the school year. While you will no longer be as involved with your children’s activities as in previous years, find the time to be aware of what’s happening. Some schools welcome, even solicit, parents’ help for certain campus events.
In the first few days of 9th grade, your children will have several things they will be making decisions on, and tackling. I have listed them here with a brief description or explanation:
AP COURSES: Make sure your children choose the AP courses they will need in the course they will be taking in college. They shouldn’t pile up on APs to pad their resume because they would need to take the AP exams for these courses. Some universities only accept 4 or 5 on an AP exam for it to have any merit at all. While college Admissions Officers favor students who took on challenging AP subjects, they don’t look kindly at low AP grades either. Encourage your children to take courses they are truly interested in; students who study something they really like generally do well at it.
CLUBS: Your children should join the clubs they will be involved in and encourage them to participate actively. Ideally, your children could start a club based on their interest or something they feel strongly about. At my daughter’s school one student was into Marvel Comics so he started a Superheroes Movie Club. Members watched films like Iron Man on its opening night and they met several times during the school year to watch superhero movies at a designated area on campus. While they didn’t claim their activities to have academic merit, the club held fund-raising events that helped disadvantaged members of the community. My daughter only joined to have an excuse to go to the movies even when she had homework to do.
ATHLETICS: If your children are into sports and would like to play it in college, they need to start looking into the NCAA requirements now. Several universities offer scholarships to outstanding athletes and being a standout in a particular sport gives an applicant an edge.
ARTS CLASS: If your children’s school offers art electives, encourage them to take a course. Sometimes, they don’t realize they like something until they try it. My daughter discovered her love for acting only after she took a theatre course in 10th grade. She has been a stage actor since and remains one to this day. She is at the moment busy preparing to put on a production of a two-character play she will be performing in and directing.
LANGUAGE: Besides the core subjects — English, History, Math, Science — a foreign language is a requirement for admission into college. Encourage your children to choose a language they could later have a use for. At my daughter’s school, 8th graders take one foreign language class every quarter, and on the fourth they take the one they decide to carry on into high school. My daughter took French, Spanish, and Latin for the first three quarters. We encouraged her to select Spanish since it’s something useful in California, or French so she could converse with her Swiss cousins who speak French and German. But, like a typical teenager, she chose the one we told her not to take. She opted to learn Latin, a dead language, because she liked the teacher. Later she decided to pursue ancient spoken Greek as an independent study.
COMMUNITY SERVICE: Your children should do something they feel strongly about and work it every summer; it shows commitment to the activity they took on. My daughter believes in the importance of education so she volunteered to tutor at a charter school for high school dropouts. She taught Algebra, Geometry, Trigonometry, Biology, Chemistry, and Physics beginning the summer after 9th grade.
SUMMER CAMP/ENRICHMENT COURSE: If your children have a passion for a particular activity, they should pursue a summer program related to it. Some of my daughter’s friends from Theatre attended varied programs like pre-college acting at Carnegie-Mellon University; song and dance musical theatre at Idyllwild Arts. At my daughter’s school, college counselors hand out a list with close to 150 summer and gap-year programs available to students.
It goes without saying that all the above activities are merely supplements to good grades in the core subjects. Loading up on extra-curriculars at the expense of grades is definitely ill-advised. While admissions officers at all the universities my daughter and I visited spoke about their holistic approach in their selection process, the student’s GPA remains a very important, if not the single most important, component of your children’s college application.
Sophomore: Your children have fully transitioned into high school, the demands of which were drilled into their unconsciousness the past school year. With 9th grade behind them; they need to face 10th grade with renewed energy and enthusiasm.
Junior: Hopefully, your kids got a lot of rest, because they will be embarking on one of the most hectic years of high school life. Make sure your children confer with their school’s college counselor to ascertain they have all the courses required for graduating and for college. They need to know what standardized exams they’ll need to take for college application. They should research which colleges and universities offer the course they would like to pursue. This is the time to have a conversation with your children about financing their college education.
Senior: By now, your children should know where they would be applying and have visited the schools. They should have taken all standard exams required for college applications, firmed up their school list, researched all kinds of scholarships, lined up teachers to write their recommendations, perfected their personal statement, and learned how to complete the common application. They practically have to have their running shoes on by the time they get in the door of their high school!
College Freshman: Are your kids ready to leave their childhood behind? In a few weeks, they will be on a road not traveled. College life exposes them to the real world and I hope you let them practice how to live independently of you during summer break. Things they took for granted before – eating meals without having to turn on the stove, getting clothes laundered weekly for them, room being miraculously cleaned – will suddenly be a thing of the past. You won’t be there to do any of these. If their school offers catered meals, that’s one less chore to worry about. But there’ll still be laundry to do.
Congratulations, parents! You have successfully launched your child into college and adulthood. Hello, empty nest syndrome!
