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0:00:32 – Speaker 1
More than cyber parenting conversations to connect. Today we’re doing a show on college prep. Now I’m really excited about this show. I’m kind of giddy about it and this is why Because I was the first person in my family to go to college and I had no idea what I was doing, and now I feel like, with my daughter, i’ve really figured out some things, like I learned a process that has helped us, which I wish I would have had, but this has been a learning process for me. So she is right now. My daughter is a senior and we’re in that stage of getting acceptance letters and scholarships and really looking at the numbers in way more detail. And, honestly, over the last couple years, i’ve been looking for resources to help guide me and I feel like I couldn’t find anything that were practical things, easy. They seem so simple, but I was missing them in this whole process.
0:01:29 – Speaker 2
So, as we’re talking about these things that have really helped you walk your daughter through this process before we get to that, i just want to give like a little disclaimer. Now, college is awesome, but it’s not for every kid. There are successful kids that serve in the military, they pursue a trade, they work right out of high school or they do online school or go straight to some kind of career or a family business. Here it is. The opportunities are endless today, and I would say now more than ever, this generation of kids and the ones coming up behind them are looking at their life after high school very differently than we did, because there are so many different types of opportunities. So if you know your kid and college is the path that they seem to be on or looking forward to, this is going to be a great show for you. Lots of tips and steps that will be helpful.
0:02:21 – Speaker 1
Yeah, i just want to say you know, college is not the path, and I think sometimes it’s phrased that way It’s just a path. But what I have found in preparing my kid for this is that there’s a lot of things that you have to think about that I really wasn’t aware of And, because I was the first person in my family to go to college, no one taught me how to do it. So I feel like I’ve been teaching myself over the last couple of years and just some practical things that I think would be helpful to parents.
0:02:49 – Speaker 2
I wanted to share And to be honest, some of these steps are just helpful as your kids are growing up and preparing to be young adults, so I think anybody can take something away from this show.
0:02:59 – Speaker 1
Absolutely, and number one goes right into that. It’s a simple thing. You need to create an email account for your child, and this typically is probably around middle school. It will be it will change depending on when you start doing pre-AP, sat, psat, all that kind of stuff, but it needs to be not school affiliated. So oftentimes our school districts, our kids, will have a school affiliated email. That’s typically how they did online learning, google classroom, all of that kind of stuff. We need something that can grow with them, so they’re going to need a separate email account for just them. You need to be careful of the account name here. It cannot be Big Booty 69. I don’t know if that’s going to get cut. I don’t know was it too much?
0:03:49 – Speaker 2
Oh no, that’s staying.
0:03:51 – Speaker 1
So it needs to be something professional. Think about it like that, like a professional email that your kid will email colleges about. They will. When they start working, they will email their job from this email. So it’s a professional email account. I know sometimes in middle school we’re like they’re not ready for that, but they are. It’s time. It’s time In our home. How this kind of worked was. Our kids take a PSAT in middle school in our school district and every school district is different.
0:04:20 – Speaker 2
We just got an email issued by our school and I thought, check, we’ve done it. But this was a really great tip for me because I wasn’t thinking about, in the long run, my oldest needing an email that will grow with him, that he can use for jobs and colleges and whatnot, and so now’s the time to create that great tip for middle school parents.
0:04:38 – Speaker 1
Remember Kim, you can just practice with his school for a year or two and then you’ll be ready. Either way again, your family, your choice. There are options here, but it’s just something you need to be thinking about. Tip two I wish somebody would have told me this Recognize that when your kids start taking high school credits, so it may be in middle school For us it was eighth grade. Some school districts may do it even earlier But recognize, from the time they start taking high school credits to junior year, that is really going to create the transcript for your college admissions and scholarships.
So what I mean by that is most colleges open up their application process in the summer. So after your kid completes junior year, if college is the route for them, they will start thinking about applications. Many scholarships are awarded early on. You want to apply for those in the fall because the money will run out right, so you want to get your name in there for an apply for those scholarships as soon as you can. This is something that really took me by surprise. I don’t think I was prepared for it. And so here we are, completing junior year and I’m like, oh, your rank, your GPA, all this stuff is the college And it started when she was in eighth grade, taking high school classes, because that was her transcript. So you just need to be aware of that.
0:06:03 – Speaker 2
And so, again, this is really applicable for parents like me. I have a new sixth grader And if you have a middle schooler, sixth and seventh grade and you’re listening, now is the time to help them navigate all this new stuff, their schedules, the heavy workload, and let them fail. I know it’s hard to do, but this is the time because it doesn’t count. The conversations we’re having under our roof right now in sixth grade is how does it feel to balance school and sports and your social life and all of these things? what’s working, what’s not working? figuring out that flow now and letting them mess it up a little bit So by the time it counts in eighth grade, you’ve already helped them get a rhythm, so this is a great tip for young parents to prepare.
0:06:47 – Speaker 1
Well, and I want to say that by the time your kid starts taking high school classes, it may be seventh grade for some school districts. For our district it’s eighth grade. So six and seventh grade were great years for my kid to fail If they didn’t turn in an assignment. I let them feel that zero, you know, and because they need to understand the consequences and then you can start talking about next year when you start taking high school classes. This is on your transcript and what colleges will see.
Okay, number three get organized. You’re going to have to get organized. You need to create a file for all your college materials as soon as your kid starts taking the PSAT And that typically happens in middle school sometimes And, by the way, that’s a practice SAT. It’s like a before, a precursor to the real SAT. You’ll be getting a lot of materials because once they take that PSAT, it like puts them in a database. It opens the floodgate. You’re going to get all this mail. We had a system. My kid would go through it If there was. You know it was a college real far away and she didn’t want that. We would throw it away. If it was a, maybe we put it in our file for later And then we revisit it.
The other thing is passwords. You’re going to have so many passwords Once you start applying to colleges. You will have a password for each college. A lot of them have a dashboard that you will go into that shows your financial aid, your scholarships and everything. So, however you want to organize that, maybe your kid is keeping track of that. There’s a document that you have, whatever, but you need to make sure your kid is keeping all their passwords. The FAFSA, too, is a whole thing that you have to do And that’ll require another password. That requires taxes. That’s a whole thing. Once you get accepted into college and you’re moving in that direction and you need financial aid, the FAFSA is a whole other thing, but you have to be organized.
0:08:42 – Speaker 2
So I know Mandy personally and she is a spreadsheet, color coded, organized lady Like I. Bow down to her organization skills. She loves it, loves every minute of it. I see it spreadsheet and I want to run away and hide in a bush. So everybody is different. Every family is different. How you organize your family and this season of life needs to work for you. The point is, if you don’t have a system, it’s going to get crazy real quick with all the paperwork coming in from the PSAT on FAFSA passwords, college flyers I mean, it’s just a time, and so figure out something that works for your family and prepare for it before it becomes a mountain of paperwork that nobody knows what to do with.
0:09:28 – Speaker 1
So Kim put a precursor because I’m getting talked about our spreadsheet.
0:09:31 – Speaker 2
I’m trying to prepare them Mandy major And you’re right.
0:09:36 – Speaker 1
Not everybody thinks like a spreadsheet, and so if a spreadsheet doesn’t work for you, maybe it’s just handwriting it, maybe journaling it, whatever it is. But this is how we did it as a family. We carved out a time and we had a spreadsheet and we put her top 10 colleges on there And then we had columns and these are some of the columns. We had not all of them, but some of the most important ones College name, of course, the date the application was due, the date we completed the app, the tuition per year, the room and board. It’s important to break those two out because some colleges will say this is your full year cost plus your room and board. So you want to make sure you’re calculating tuition plus room and board. Scholarship notes were on there. This was a big one for my daughter. Campus population She wanted to know how big it was. Distance from home This was also a very big one for us Town population what high school credits does this college accept? So that was a column on there. Study abroad options That was big for my daughter. Social clubs those were important to her And this one is really important also Campus Ministry, church So how is your kid gonna find their Christian people at college right, and so all of your columns may be different, like what you’re thinking about, what’s important to you And, honestly, some of these things you can talk about even if your kid isn’t going to college but they’re moving away to a different town and they’re trying to find where they want to relocate to. These are conversations that you can have with your kid.
A couple things that I want to point out from the spreadsheet that were very, very important. The distance from home That was one of the very first conversations we had when we started talking about college, and it was because I said do we need to look out of state? Do we need to just look close by? And the conversation went something like this Honey, is it okay if you have to catch a flight to come home?
Because sometimes you may not be able to just come home on a whim. It may take planning to get on that flight because it may be full, and so how do you feel about that? And one of the first things she said was I want to be able to just hop in the car and come home if I’m having a bad week. So what we did was we originally looked at three-hour radius from our home And we looked at the college options. She wanted more options, So we expanded that to five-hour driving distance And then that gave us a really good bubble of colleges that we wanted to focus on and we wanted to visit and we wanted to consider.
0:12:19 – Speaker 2
I love that you started the conversation with the distance from home, because I think that’s a very practical way to bring this up And just the idea of do you want to be able to jump in the car or do you want to, are you okay with planning a trip That’s such a good advice and a way to start thinking about them outside of their bubble, of being at home and with their friends and in the space that they’re used to. And then that naturally kind of goes into the next conversations that are important, like campus culture and ministry and church. It’s a big deal and you have to start talking about those things early.
0:12:52 – Speaker 1
Yeah, and campus ministry church. I really want to talk about this for a second. It’s extremely important whether your kids go into college or moving away or whatever, and honestly, i’m so excited about this because I’ve recently got asked to endorse a book from a college campus minister And one of the things that I’ve been learning to him. By the way, i’ve read it already. It’s not out yet. I can’t wait for it to come out, but it’s a good resource. One of the things that I learned from him is listen.
I see these parents trying to get their kids plugged into ministry on campus right, and the parents are doing all the legwork.
My best advice to parents kids need to do the legwork, kids need to do the research.
Kids need to find a church online that they want to visit and maybe reach out to the college pastor and say, hey, i’m gonna be visiting this day this college, i’d like to meet with you, or what do you have available for college students in your area? Your kids need to take ownership of this And, honestly, this whole spreadsheet. Your kids need to take ownership of it. So I kind of helped her create the bare bones of this, but she, she went out and did the research because it invests her in it. She didn’t really know how to create a spreadsheet and what I was talking about when I said we need to get organized, and so I was kind of teaching her how to do that, but then she filled in the gaps with the research. So we want our kids to take ownership of everything, not just finding a church, but of the social clubs available, of how, what is the campus like, what is the culture, what is the tuition. They need to be involved in every step of the process.
0:14:24 – Speaker 2
And you know your kids like I’m thinking about my kids My firstborn would be like okay, and he would understand pretty easily what I meant by that and he’d be able to take ownership and and email and do those things. My secondborn, my middle kid, would be a little more overwhelmed by that, and so I think this is a great opportunity, too, to think about your kid, what their strengths are, and walk them through that process in a way that helps them not feel overwhelmed but encourages them and guides them towards getting the answers they need and taking ownership in a way that makes sense to them.
0:14:59 – Speaker 1
Absolutely Number four. Junior year is often the hardest and you have to prepare for it. Well, first of all they have to finish strong, because college applications are right around the corner, right So they’re ranked at the end of junior year of their GPA. All of that really matters. This is also the time, junior year, that everybody’s telling you visit colleges, go here, go there. So here’s something else.
I wish I could have done differently. I wish I would not have waited till junior year to visit colleges. I wish I would have started sophomore year. We could have spread it out more, it would have been less stressful. But junior year hit. All the things were happening And on top of it we had college visits. And we have a person on our team and they always say keep your kid looking out a couple years. I have found the first college visit was super overwhelming. Everybody was quiet in the car right home because we were all overwhelmed. We didn’t even know what to say. But the second, third and fourth college visit amazing. I saw this thing start to happen with my kid. She started to see her life at this campus And I saw her just come alive about being excited about her future. And so I think the sooner you can get them in those environments, the better it will be, and then they’ll take more ownership of doing the research and filling out your spreadsheet and getting organized, and all that because they’re excited to get there.
0:16:21 – Speaker 2
And it’s not so stressful. It gives them more brain space to process everything that they’ve seen. If you’re doing it before this junior year looming deadline, it just creates space for the conversations and opportunities.
0:16:35 – Speaker 1
You know, and the other thing in junior year that often happens is your kids taking a lot of AP and dual credit classes if they have that opportunity at their school. So that leads into point number five Know the difference between AP and dual credit if you have those options and do your research. And I’m talking just from a general perspective. When I say AP and dual credit classes, what I’m saying is classes that your kids can take in high school. That often translates into a college credit. Now you have to look at them differently because they’re structured differently.
Ap generally, you have to take a test at the end of the course And depending on what you get on that test, it determines if you get the college credit or not. Okay, Dual credit is different and dual credit varies by institution that offers it. So dual credit is often how it is in our school. The grade you get in the class will be the grade on your college transcript. Now I’m speaking generally here and from how it’s worked with us. So it’s very important for you to do your research for your specific school and your specific state. The other thing is if these opportunities are offered to you in high school. Another thing you also have to think about is will the credits transfer to the colleges that are on my kids top 10 list? So that’s another thing that you have to think about. So, again, just know the difference and do your research.
0:18:13 – Speaker 2
Okay, so number six it’s important to talk about the cost of college. Now, this could be number one on the list, because I think most people know that this is a big deal. It’s a conversation that may start earlier on in your child’s life, or maybe even before they’re born, because you’re thinking about are we going to save for college or not, but those very detailed, specific conversations are not going to happen, probably until they’re in high school. Yes, start the conversation young, like we’ve talked to our kids since elementary school and we’re talking to them in middle school about college cost and what that looks like in different options. But the detailed things that’s going to come later and it’s really important what that looks like.
0:18:53 – Speaker 1
Yeah, just like with any conversation, it starts out kind of general and then it gets real specific in high school because you’re talking actual numbers. One of our goals, if our kids choose the college route, is to get them through college with little or no debt. That’s a big goal. That is a big goal in our world today because it’s so, so expensive. So we’ve been talking about finances for a while, a couple of things that we’ve included in the conversation. Honey, it doesn’t make sense for you to spend 300,000 on an undergrad degree if you’re going to come out making $40,000 a year. So we want her to see the logical side of how much this is going to cost versus how much you’re going to make when you get out. And those are the conversations you’re going to start having more in detail in high school because they’re going to be considering different career fields. One other thing to note here when you’re looking at the financial picture, consider all your options Community college, online. There are so many options available today that we didn’t have growing up. The other thing about this financial conversation and how it looked like in our home, because we had the opportunity to take advantage of AP and dual credit. We looked at that and said to her this is going to be your job, because you’re gonna be able to save us more money getting these college classes in high school than if you had an hourly job.
Now, parents, at the end of that junior year, we made her get a real job and i mean she’s had babysitting jobs and she’s worked a little bit at our church and did stuff like that, but i mean like a real job where we didn’t know anybody And she was out on her home to do the interview, get the job and on her own, basically no help from us in finding that job right. And, honestly, it was one of the best parenting decisions we’ve ever made in our lives. I mean, every night my husband and i were like we did it. We’ve messed up a whole lot of stuff, but this was the right call Because and this is why by end of junior year, she had visited the colleges that she wanted to go to, we had made a list and we said this is how much we can help you with college and this is how much is going to be on you.
So when she started working those 10 and 12 our days in the summer after her junior year, she was super motivated to save every dime Because she saw these colleges that she wanted to attend and she was invested in wanting to get there and she knew what she was gonna have to contribute. And i think this is a really good thing that i’ve learned in how to get our kids invested In their college. So we toward the colleges. She found one she liked, we looked at the cost and then she realized i have to work for this, not gonna be given to me, and that was what motivated in her to get a better paying job, work more hours and save and not spend everything.
0:21:46 – Speaker 2
I think that’s one of those full circle moments we can talk about all day long. we can present, picture and show them the numbers or the situation When they’re actually in it and they’re experiencing the reality of what’s going on. It just hit them in a whole nother way, and so that makes total sense to me that she would understand how important Her choices are in working and where she’s going and needing to pay and how that connects at the end of the day. so that is, that’s a really big parenting way.
0:22:13 – Speaker 1
Yeah, and we get a lot of things wrong. But we really felt really good about that one and i wish somebody would have told me because we stumbled upon it. Nobody kind of told me to follow this path and so that’s kind of what i want to share. It really worked well for us and maybe it’ll help some other parents Connect everything for their kid for that full circle moment with spending, working, paying for college, all of that. The other thing i want to mention just on this tip five twenty nine is a college savings plan. So if you are interested in saving for college research that ask a trusted financial advisor, okay.
Number seven don’t rule out private colleges. This is a mistake i made. I looked at the sticker price of a private college and i was like there’s no way. There’s no way we’re gonna be able to do that with little or no debt. There’s no way. So i had a very good friend, which is why you need help on this parenting journey and we call them. I call him heads up mom is in my book, but one of my heads up moms said private schools give out way more scholarships often than public schools. So you need to weigh that option and see if she’s gonna be available for some scholarships And i’m talking like academic scholarships, like based on your gpa, your rank in your test course, and that can be your sate or your a ct that’s a whole other conversation. This is not at. This is not the athletics, that’s a whole other beast of the scholarships that you could be available for, this is just based on your academic performances. Let me tell you, my friend was 100% correct. My kid would have missed out on some great private schools had we put our foot down and said you can’t even look at those, because now we’re getting the scholarships from these private schools, we’re getting the offers right now, and when we lay it out on our beautiful color coded spreadsheet that i love so much And oftentimes these private schools, now with the scholarship money, is equal to or less than public universities in our state Number eight make sure they keep their options open. Here’s what i want you to be careful with as you’re visiting colleges.
One thing that we refrained from saying to our kids is you’ll walk it on campus and you’ll just know. That is not something we said to our child, and this is why, yes, we wanted them to love the culture. Yes, we wanted them to feel something about the university when they were there and got a good vibe. Of course that’s important, but, just with everything, it’s not all about our feelings. We have to look at the bigger picture here. We have to look at finances. We have to look at how much money you’re going to be making when you come out. We have to look at close proximity to home. Is important to you that? we have to look at that.
So, yes, feelings are important and there to be considered, but we didn’t want her going to a campus, falling in love with it and then, if the scholarships didn’t come, making a bad financial decision.
We didn’t want that for her and so we talked about that. And what’s really cool is, again, nobody told me to say this. It was just one of those prayerful, holy spirit things that we had with our kid and she recently came back to me and she was like I’m so glad you did not take the approach with me of Find the college that speaks to you and that’s the one you have to go to, because she was like all around me people are being Devastated because that was their mindset and it’s not panning out for them. They’re either not getting accepted or their scholarships aren’t coming through, and now they have to feel like they’d go with their backup plan and What we’ve kind of said was keep your options open, have a top three or a top five where you’ll be willing to go to any of those, and then we’ll line it up with the money, we’ll line it up with your career choice and we’ll make a big picture decision.
0:26:14 – Speaker 2
I think that’s so important, as with so many things we talk about here at next talk, is don’t go on feelings alone. Look at the whole picture and then filter it through what you know to be true About what’s important for you and your family and your faith. Then you can come to a decision That’s right for you at the win the time.
0:26:31 – Speaker 1
I mean, it’s just like dating. You know, feelings are important, obviously, but you also have to look at other things too. Are they stable? Are they nice? Are they kind? are that? you know all the things? Okay, the first eight things were very practical. Honestly, the most important two are the last, and Number nine is extremely important. Keep your child mentally healthy. Keep your child mentally healthy. This is a stressful process. They are going to get overwhelmed at times.
When you enter high school, every conversation cannot be about college and career choice. It cannot be. It is too much. We, we were making the mistake of doing that and our child one time said to me I need a break. We came up with a process that worked for us, and it was when we had to make a big college decision, or look at our calendars on what we, who we were going to visit next and All of that, all of those decisions that go into it. I would say to her can we carve out two hours in a couple days and we talk about all the college stuff? Typically, that conversation would happen on a weekend, because she was away from school and a little bit less stressed, and so we could really focus in on the decisions we needed to make.
What I want to say here is Your kid needs to be able to tell you when they’re overwhelmed and they don’t want to talk about it anymore.
Also, give your kid the freedom to change their mind If you have been saving for college and then all of a sudden they’re like I want to try this first, or I want to go to Community college, or I want to work for a year. First, hear them out. Yes, you need to talk through it. What’s your plan? How are you going to pay for things? Of course, there’s questions that you need to get answered, but you need to listen to them. This is their life, not yours, and we want them to take ownership of it. So keeping your child mentally healthy in this process is extremely, extremely important. Also, they may need to see a counselor, and this may be preventative stuff. Your kid may not be overwhelmed yet and you’re like I just want this relationship to be developed So they have a go-to counselor when it does spiral and get out of control, because these are big, overwhelming decisions That we’re wanting to talk to our kids about.
0:28:47 – Speaker 2
I would just add a little aster-keer about keeping your kid mentally healthy. It’s important in this time because it is so much not just for your kid But you’re for your family. You’re getting ready for this huge transition where literally the dynamic of this core family You’ve had for so long is about to change. Keep yourself mentally healthy, too, so you can be available and supportive for your kid And whatever that looks like carving out time with your spouse to talk through the things that are Hard on you or you’re struggling with or stressed about, or you seeing the counselor Add that to your checklist that your mental health is just as important as theirs.
0:29:23 – Speaker 1
Absolutely great, great, ad Kim. Number 10 Keep the lines of communication open. I mean, of course, we were going to end with this. This is our next talk, foundational principle, right? So your child has to be able to communicate with you with how they feel. And I want to state here sometimes as parents and what I see a lot happening we love where we went to school, we love where we went to college And we want our kids to follow in our footsteps And I don’t think that’s a bad thing. You know we had a great experience, we got a great education. You know we have roots there.
But you need to be careful with this, because sometimes we become so overbearing with what we want for them that they don’t get to do what they want, and it’s their life.
Again, this is about them taking ownership, and so we have to be careful here with the balance, because sometimes we’re thinking we’re keeping the lines of communication open and really it’s just us doing all the talking and recommending. We need to ask questions, we need to listen, we need to dream with our child. We need to say what are you good at, what are specific God-given qualities that you see in yourself that some of your friends may not have. That may put you on a certain career path. That may give you insight as to what you’re good at. Help them determine who they want to be after high school, what they want to do, whether it involves college or not. This is our job as parents, and so what we want to do is help them chase after their dreams, not ours. This show is really about how can we come alongside of them and help them in practical ways in figuring out their future.
0:31:09 – Speaker 2
So you know the dreaming with your child thing. I love that so much because you can start that when they’re young and then it becomes something normal that you do with your kid as they’re growing up and you get to see them grow and change, which is a really exciting part about parenting And this time I’ve watched you go through it and, as hard as it’s been, it’s also been so beautiful and exciting for you and watching you and your daughter prepare for this whole new season in Hawaii.
0:31:34 – Speaker 1
It’s been stressful but super exciting And it has been really cool to see God’s hand in all of it. I would say, you know, sometimes as parents, we since they’re little we have this vision of what their future’s gonna be, And it may not be what you think. It may not be college, It may not be the college you think. And again, it’s really diving into what are you good at? What does God have for you? We want them chasing after what God has for them not our plans, because we don’t always get it right, but God does. And so, if you can instill that in them, to chase after God, to pray about this decision, to really look at the big picture, they’re gonna be set. They’re gonna be set And, as stressful as it is, it is super exciting to see the doors God opens and the doors God slams. That you’re like oh, I thought that was an option, but it’s really not.
0:32:28 – Speaker 2
So that’s been kind of cool too to be in this process.
0:32:31 – Speaker 1
So y’all keep praying for us, because, you know, in less than a year she’s moving out and who knows what kind of shows we’re gonna be doing after that, because that’s gonna be super emotional Getting nervous now. I hope this helps someone. Again, it was a resource that I wrote that I feel like I would have wanted for myself, and I really was passionate about sharing it for you. I hope there’s some good tips along the way.
Transcribed by https://podium.page
