Accepting the Imperfections of Teens

 I work with teenagers for a living. I’m in the adolescence business. These people are a different sort. To excel at my craft, I have to understand that. It is essential to my success that I appreciate and accept the different thought processes they have and consider those as I work with teenagers. In turn, I spend a considerable amount of time helping their parents do the same as well as my colleagues on occasion.

Teenagers are imperfect. The sooner you understand this and accept their inherent shortcomings the easier your experiences with them will be. It has been said that most of the problems people have with other people stem from differences in expectations. If a parent constantly expects a teen to think, behave, and operate like an effective adult, that parent is sure to be disappointed. You wouldn’t expect a toddler to act like an adult and it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that teens are still children. The difference is that they look a lot more like adults, they are capable of adult conversations, and indeed are capable of making adult decisions regarding their actions. However, expecting them to do this on all occasions is a fallacy.

This doesn’t mean that teens should get a free pass. Their teen years can function as a training ground for adulthood. I believe that is how nature designed us. However, as is with training grounds, mistakes will be made and lessons will be learned. The most frustrated parents I work with do not tolerate this. They don’t understand what compelled their child to make such a poor decision. They expect them to be forthright, calculated, and scrupulous. When the teen falters, and they will, these same parents attack instead of scaffolding a learning opportunity. This only works to sour the relationship between parent and child and things can spiral downward from there.

The most effective parents are still disappointed when their children fall down. They know this is an inevitability though and are there to pick their children back up. They don’t condone their childrens’ poor decisions, but are not surprised by them. They impose consequences, calmly talk to their children about how to make better decisions in the future, and move on. The relationship strengthens and the child has a want to improve rather than a feeling of hopelessness in meeting an impossible standard. In other words, the child is able to train as they should on the training ground before they head off to battle on their own.

I truly believe that going into your relationship with teens with an expectation that they aren’t going to do everything right is the secret to successful relationships with them. Understand that they are learning to be better but they aren’t perfect yet. Be willing to help them in their journey towards adulthood and don’t be surprised at the moments they show you they are still kids. Doing so offers the support they need to be capable adults and makes for better outcomes in the future and the relationships you have with them.

The Pandemic's impact on College Admissions

  The global Corona Virus pandemic has had a tremendous impact on many things. College admission tests is among those. Let’s take a moment to review some of those changes and the impact they might have.

I think the highest impact change we’ve seen so far is a move away from the importance of standardized testing. Many colleges and universities have dropped their testing requirement or made it optional since the pandemic began. The testing services canceled test dates in the spring and summer of 2020, and while tests were offered in the fall many students, had reservations about going out to the public. As yet, no at-home testing is available from the SAT or ACT. With that in mind, I think many colleges felt like they didn’t have a choice but to move away from testing. It’s difficult to require test scores if students have limited opportunities to acquire them. Schools that don’t require tests have been around for a long time. I suspect many of those will continue their stance. However, I’m not convinced that others won’t revert back to requiring tests in the future. Their primary function is to serve as a way to compare different students from different backgrounds. A home-schooled student in California, a private school student in Florida, a public school student in Texas, and an international student from Tokyo might all have perfect grades but their educational experiences are very different. Tests serve as a way to put them on the same scale. Without those, colleges are left with a lot of guesswork.

The College Board has announced it will discontinue its Subject Tests and the optional essay on the SAT. Few colleges required the essay as I think they felt like the results were not as meaningful as other information culled from the test. It was also considerably more labor-intensive to grade. The rest of the test is multiple choice and can be machine graded. Essays must be read and graded by humans. I was a little surprised to see the subject tests going away, but as I’ve thought about it it makes sense. The Subject Tests allowed colleges to get a sense of a student’s knowledge in some specific content areas. However, they already had a way to do this in place. The College Board also publishes AP tests which students use to demonstrate what they’ve learned at the completion of AP courses. So, really, these tests largely do the same thing as Subject Tests. For the most part, colleges have told me in the past they don’t consider AP exam scores in the admission process. I think there is a good chance this will begin to shift in the absence of subject tests. That might be especially true for schools that previously required subject tests.

Answering the Discipline Question on College Applications

          A school resource officer once told me, “my job isn’t to get kids in trouble, it’s to keep them out of trouble.” Indeed, teenagers make a lot of decisions that can easily land them in trouble and sometimes those decisions can have lasting effects. Every college application I have ever see asks a question along the lines of, “have you ever been subject to any disciplinary action?” This is where those long-lasting effects from some poor decisions can come into play and it can be a tricky question to answer. 

Maybe the trickiest part of the question though is deciding if you should even answer it truthfully in the first place. You might say, “Who would ever find out and if I answer in the negative here, I’m definitely not getting into this school.” Those both might be valid points, but it doesn’t matter. The answer to the question is, yes, you should respond truthfully. If some information got back to the college that you worked to deceive them--maybe through a transcript, a rec letter, a future incident--repercussions could be far worse.

However, the question itself can often be worded awkwardly. Sometimes, the question specifically asks about infractions at school, sometimes it doesn’t. This can be complicated when something a student did cross the boundary between what happens at school and at home. Also, I think colleges are looking for serious stuff here. I don’t think they are too concerned about the one time in the 10th grade that a student pulled out his phone to check the time and fell victim to his high school’s draconian cell phone policy. But, I think a college would be very interested to know that a student broke into the concession stand at the baseball field one night and stole all the candy. 

There are a lot of things that could happen in terms of severity between those two examples and those gray areas are where this question can be especially hard to answer. From the school perspective, a single detention here or there is usually meant to serve as a reminder, “Hey, don’t do that. You know better.” A multi-day detention, or a suspension of some sort, or even an arrest are intended to make the lesson much more palatable and let a student know that what they did is far from acceptable (and often illegal). Those are the types of things I think colleges do want to know about and you should be honest about them on applications.

Reporting these lapses in judgment doesn’t mean your ship is sunk. We all make mistakes in life, but hopefully we learn from them. If a student does have some dark marks in their past, they would be well served to address how they have grown and learned from their missteps. This can be done through an essay, a separate letter included with the application, or maybe even asking for a recommendation written by someone who was familiar with the situation and asking them to specifically address it. I think you’ll find that colleges understand they are dealing with very young adults and they can be forgiving of past indiscretions if you’re honest about them.

When should you take the SAT and ACT

 One question I often hear from parents and students is “When is the right time to take the SAT and ACT?” There are a lot of factors that can influence a proper answer to this, but I do have a general prescription I’ll offer below. First though, there’s some important things to keep in mind regarding these tests.

The first is that the SAT and ACT are two different brands of the same thing. Most colleges will accept them interchangeably and I often refer to them that way. I also think it is important to take these tests multiple times. Experience with the test seems to have an impact on scores. Scores usually rise, to a point, with multiple tests so to some degree more tests can equate to better scores. Lastly, many, but not all, colleges and universities will super score the SAT and ACT. That means they will take the highest sub-tests taken on different dates and combine those for your best score. So, for example if you took an SAT in October and got a 600 in reading and a 550 in math and then took it again in March and got a 590 in reading and a 610 in math, your SAT super score would be 1210--that’s the 600 in reading from October and the 610 in math from March. The ACT super score would be the average of the best subscores across multiple tests.

So when do you take the test? Both the SAT and ACT are only offered a few times a year on national test dates which are always Saturdays except for some individual circumstances. The tests are administered at testing centers, often high schools, and anyone is eligible to test at any test center. In other words, you don’t have to attend a given high school to take a test there. Most test centers do not offer every test date so the exact dates you test might be impacted by when your preferred test center offers the test and that’s okay. 

Junior year is the time to start testing and I like to see a student take their first test (SAT or ACT) in the fall, perhaps October. Then in late winter or early spring (February or March), juniors should take the other test as well as a second sitting of the test they took in the fall. Now, students should have some idea of what each test is like and be starting to develop a preference and some familiarity. The ACT and SAT are both offered in early June and I think this test at the end of junior year has the most potential. Students have learned everything they can through 3 years of high school, and as school winds down hopefully they have a little more time in the days prior to the test to cram in some standardized test prep. Students can choose which test they prefer for this June test, or they may consider taking both. 

If there is a particular target score a student is trying to hit, perhaps to reach the minimum threshold for a scholarship or if they are close to a number that seems to fit a certain range of scores their favorite university might be interested in, students can take one or two more swings at a test as early as possible in the fall of their senior year. After that, college applications will be due and more tests will miss the cutoffs for college admission purposes.

So, that’s my prescribed testing timeline. Maybe the best thing I can say is don’t procrastinate in getting the ball rolling early in junior year. Take a fall test, allow yourself to get a sense of what the tests are like, and work to improve your score from there.

Consider Stay at Home College

       In the wake of COVID-19, many colleges and universities have sent their students home and fully transitioned to an online format. At the very least, others have expanded their online curriculum. Many high school students have grown accustomed to taking some or even all of their courses online, even as every community has a local high school. However, colleges and universities have traditionally been “destinations” despite having dabbled in online classes for years. So, in a sense, this expansion of online classes presents a new outlook on college. 

“Going away to college,” has been a right of passage for many young people for generations, and so the living expenses associated with that setting up of a new life in a new place has usually been a significant part of the “cost of college”, much of which has been made. In fact, at many colleges around the country the room and board portion of a college’s cost of attendance far outpaces the tuition.

So, if everything is online now anyway, why are we continuing to pay that? I know, in a lot of situations it’s just time for the little bird to leave the nest. The student is ready to get out of the house and the parent is ready for them to move on also. That’s a biological normalcy and very understandable. However, in some households, it sure makes a lot of financial sense for the student to stay at home and go to college from their bedroom. They might still be able to go to the college of their dreams and save all that money. They can have their cake and eat it too. 

This doesn’t have to be all or nothing either. In the first two years of college, a lot of the courses a student will take are general education courses. These are often the classes that take place in humongous lecture halls where there is limited interaction with professors anyway. General education courses tend to be less technical meaning there might be less hands-on classroom activities that a student really needs to be in an in-person format for. Therefore, perhaps a student can plan to spend their first two years of college at home taking online classes, then move to campus for their junior and senior year when the level of importance of more tangible in-class experiences will probably increase. In this way, students can receive the best of both worlds and make a drastic cut to the room and board portion of their entire college tab.

Indeed, there are some programs that will allow a student to earn a degree without ever leaving home. As college expenses continue to spiral upwards and the proliferation of the online curriculums presented by colleges increases, especially as fueled by the necessary changes colleges have implemented due to COVID-19, this is something families ought to at least consider as they make their college plans. I agree there are many situations where moving a young person out of a house is the right move for a family, but money is always a consideration when it comes to college so this is at least worth a thought. 

Thinking About Junior Year

  I have two goals for all the 11th graders I counsel. The first of those is to begin taking standardized tests, their SAT and ACT if college is the goal for them. My second goal is to think. By that, I mean I want them to begin the mental homework and emotional preparation that is needed to support the biggest decision most of them will make in their young lives. That is, what do I want to do after graduation.

I don’t mean “what do you want to be when you grow up” here. I mean students just need to determine what the next step is for them. Generally that means enlist in the military, immediately join the workforce, or pursue a skill through college or trade school or whatever. That decision is pretty weighty in its own right but truthfully, many students arrive at their junior year with this basic decision already made. However, there is more thinking to do.

If a student chooses the workforce, they are likely to continue working in their high school job. If they choose the military they need to decide which branch they want to join and perhaps think about the timing of enlistment, but if they choose college there is a lot to think about.

This means students really need to put some deep thought into where they might want to go to college. Perhaps they’ve always wanted to go to a given school, but now is the time to consider whether they can actually get into or afford that college. If their dream school isn’t feasible, what is? Where can they really see themselves? 

This line of thought is going to lead to a million more questions. Do I want to stay close to home or go far away? How does college affordability work into my decision? What colleges excel or even offer the degrees I am interested in? How do my grades and test scores stack up to other students admitted to this college? Students and their families need to do some legitimate research to answer these questions and others. 

Once students have done some thinking and some research, it’s time to start taking some college tours. There’s a huge difference in seeing a campus in person and just doing that research. There’s also a difference in taking a formal tour of a campus and just going to some football games on Saturday afternoons. Campus tours are critical parts of the research and thinking students need to do before they are in position to make their final decision during their senior year.

Skipping ahead to senior year, students will apply in the fall, wait for their decisions, then commit to their schools in the winter or spring of their senior year. It all starts with the mental preparation that should happen during junior year. Junior year is the research, senior year is when you’re at the dealership and buying the car.

Don't Waste Important Years of Productivity

 I ran into a former student not long ago who was working at a restaurant. We chatted, and the student informed me that finally, eight years after high school graduation, he was in his last semester of college and was going to graduate in a couple of months with a degree in accounting. I congratulated the student and am proud of him for sticking it out and reaching the finish line, but I was also struck by the lost opportunity and time this young person might have let slip through his fingers.

To be fair, I’m not sure what, if any, significant challenges this person had faced in the past eight years that might have delayed him. However, I do know there are many young people in a similar situation and many don’t have the best reasons or excuses for a drawn out college experience. Extending college in this way presents several inefficiencies and some of those aren’t immediately visible.

What I mean by this is lost earning years. One of the reasons people retire is that as we get on in years, our health might not support our ability to work any longer. So, a person who languishes in college and gets a late start on their career is missing out on their earning potential in those first few years. Let’s say that this student is making $25,000 a year at his restaurant job, but could start out making $50,000 a year as an accountant. Well, that’s a net of $100,000 this person has let slip his fingers. And, this is before we talk about additional student loans he might have taken in those additional college years or other “hidden” financial boons that extra $100,000 could have brought through things like compounding interest, buying a home instead of renting, etc. It probably translates to a lot more than $100,000 in the long run.

Even if you simply say, “Well he can just work an extra four years,” we don’t know if that will be possible 30 or 40 years down the road. Or, he just might not want to. Either way, I think you can certainly at least make the argument that he might have squandered four productive years in his twenties at the expense of facets of his life in his 60s or 70s.

I guess what this really boils down to is the following question; Is it better to move slowly through college, perhaps working and earning enough to keep you afloat along the way, or is better to try to move through college quickly and efficiently even if that means borrowing some money to get you through? To me, there is a clean answer to this question. 

Of course, it must be feasible for a student to do this.  It’s never wise for a college student to live beyond their means and borrow to do that. Life brings about differences in circumstances or throws us curve balls. Those things could understandably slow down a college experience. However, all things being equal, a young person’s twenties or the early part of their career can be an important and productive part of their career as a whole.