Freshman Year

   Each year of high school presents its own challenges to the student and parent as well as its own set of goals that families should strive to meet as they aim to transition to a life after high school. Of course the first of these years is freshman year and a big part of that is getting high school off on the right foot.

    I believe that the social aspect of high school plays its biggest role during the freshman year. These students find themselves right in the heart of puberty and they are currently searching to find their niche in the social scene. 9th graders recognize the fact that they are beginning a new chapter of life and that chapter will lead them into adulthood. They are often overwhelmingly preoccupied with their friends and the dynamics of friendships within groups as they struggle to create and maintain an identity.

    Unfortunately, this preoccupation often comes at the expense of academics and cutting academics short during the freshman year can create big holes on college applications. I like to remind my freshman that the GPA they have at the end of their junior year is far more important to me than the one they have at the end of their senior year. That is because students will be applying to college in the fall of their senior year, before any senior grades are in. Thus, the GPA colleges will use to determine acceptance are based on junior, sophomore, and freshman grades. So, grades from freshman year comprise a full third of one of the largest components colleges use to determine who they admit. Freshmen year matters. A lot.

    It goes without saying that doing badly during freshman year can impact the classes you take in subsequent years and the rigor of schedule is certainly something colleges examine. It should be obvious too that a student who does poorly freshman year is probably not learning all he or she can and that can impact standardized test scores.

    I think the key here is to expect some turbulent air as your child takes off for high school. Parents need to understand that the start of high school is a tough time in a young person’s life. There is likely much more they are dealing with besides what is happening in their classes and that extra social stuff might not be something freshmen are entirely forthcoming about in conversations with their parents. There is a thin line that must be walked between keeping grades up in the early goings of high school and not berating students to the point that they want to thrown their hands up and walk away from academics because the pressure of the social aspects and academic ones are all just too much.

    Be supportive of your child and understanding of the unseen struggles they are facing while patiently reinforcing good study habits. Even if freshmen year doesn’t turn out to be the best in all of high school, surviving it without being overly detrimental to post-high school goals should be considered a moral victory.

World Languages in High School

     Foreign language, more politically correctly called world language these days, is
an important part of the high school curriculum. Many are surprised to find, though,
that world languages are usually not a graduation requirement. They are, however,
most often a requirement for admission to a four year university so the majority
of high school students are encouraged to take these classes.
    With all that being said, there are several points to consider in taking
world languages.  The first thing to decide is whether to take one in the
first place. World languages can be tough. They are considered academic
electives and that means more homework, book work, etc. If you have a student
who is not performing particularly well in high school or for whom it has become
apparent that admission to a four year university directly out of high school is unlikely,
adding an academic elective may not be wise. That student could always start at
a community college which seldom requires a world language and transfer to a
four year university later.
    If you do choose to take a world language though, you'll need to decide which
language to study. Students are often limited to choose among the languages
their school offers but the advent of online educational programs means one can
look beyond their school's curriculum. It has always made sense to me to choose
a language that has some geographical or family relevance. Thus students in
Florida and Texas might benefit most from Spanish, Chinese and Japanese might be
very appropriate in the west, etc. Of course if a student has Portuguese
grandparents or a hearing impaired cousin those corresponding languages may be a
good fit.
    The last step in the process is to choose how many years of a language a
student should take. Two consecutive years of the same language is usually
considered the minimum. Taking additional language credits (preferably in the same
language, except for special circumstances) is highly coveted by colleges
and universities, however. The most competitive of those might even require
additional world language course work beyond the first two years. Therefore, it is
always a good idea to do a little research into the world language requirements
of the colleges you are interested in.
    It goes without saying that as a student moves through additional years of
their language, the classes will get harder. Like math, world languages are highly
foundational. So if a student chooses to blow off that first year in, say,
Spanish 1 and does poorly in the class,  the chances of them making it to Spanish 4 and
doing well there  are greatly diminished. Make sure your student is ready for a
world language and is prepared for a class that can truly open up the world to
them.

Time for your teen to get organized

A peek inside the book bag of many teenagers is really not so different than taking a look inside your kitchen trash can. Who knows what is shoved in there, however long ago, with little regard to what happens next. The difference is that the things in the book bag probably will be used again. The fact is, many teens and tweens struggle with organization but there is a lot that parents can do to help.

    You have to start by thinking about how personal organization evolves in a young person. Little children are not expected to be well organized. Often their teacher and parents maintain their book bag and mom or dad are completely in charge of what time practice and dentist appointments are. As a child gets older though, such responsibilities increase. By the time a child is a teenager, they have assumed the responsibility of maintaining their book bag, keeping things in their room in their place, and much of their own scheduling. What used to be keeping track of a couple of things has bloomed into a life full of responsibility. What’s more, just as adults face the harsh reality that their memory isn’t what it used to be, teens have to accept the fact that life grows too complicated to keep track of it with just their heads and without some level of organization.

    All effective adults have some way of keeping their acts together. Those methods can vary greatly from one person to the next, but they all have some format or procedure they’ve developed to keep themselves organized. Those methods probably came about over time, but they usually are effective in their own way. The unorganized and forgetful teen though has not yet figured out that he needs to be organized and has not developed his personal system to become so.

    Therefore, there comes a time in your parenting when you need to step in and say, “we have to change some habits.” It might be easiest to do this at the start of a school year and especially high school or whenever you see your student slipping sheerly due to unorganization.

    It is important to let your teen have some autonomy in the process. Don’t make them do the exact same thing you do. If you write everything down on a desk calendar and they want to use their phone’s note pad, that’s okay. The critical thing is that they are developing a way to keep track of all that they have going on. If you disagree with their methodology you can politely point out their method’s flaws and try to redirect them. This is a process that will have to have some trial and error and that can’t really be forced.

    The bottom line here is that at some point the shove-everything-loosely-into-your- book-bag-and-do-everything-else-by-memory-alone strategy is going to fall apart. When that happens, parents need to help flick the switch making teens aware that some habits needs to change in order to become effective adults. Teens will then need some assistance in developing those new habits, but they ultimately need to develop an organizational system that works for them in their life.

Your Teen's Coworkers

            It's summer time and that means many teens will be getting summer jobs. Summer jobs are great opportunities. Teens gain work experience and are able to add income that can pay for many of their own expenses. They also gain life experience in those jobs. Here, they learn the way the world works which is often quite different than the way school works. Don't show up for school, for example, and you just have to get your mom to write you a note. Don't show up to work, and you're fired.

            A great deal of that life experience comes from the interactions with other adults. Now, I'm a huge believer in the fact that young people, especially teens, need positive influence in their lives from adults that are not their parents or caretakers. Many of the issues they deal with stem from their parents in the first place and at the very least the perspective that others can provide on life outside of their family circle is invaluable and can make for a more well-rounded person.

            Whether they realize it or not, many parents have already vetted the adults in their children's lives. Grandparents, aunt, uncles, and other relatives as well as family friends and neighbors are typically known well enough by parents before they spend significant time with children and teens to know if there are any red flags. Teachers, coaches, and church staff either have extensive background checks or at least are screened before working with children as well.

            Few parents, though, typically know much about their teen's adult  supervisors or coworkers. Often, these end up being the adults that teens spend the most time with outside of their parents. However, there is no mechanism for a parent to have any sort of  background check on the other workers at, say a random restaurant or shop, that the parent has no ties to.

            I believe that 99.9% of people are more or less good natured and unless you keep your kid in a bubble you can't shelter them forever. But, you do need to be aware that these are going to be influential people in your malleable young person's life. Thus, take the time to ask your child about work and the people there the same way you do about their school day. Make some visits here and there to their work, if that is reasonable, and casually meet some of those people.

            I'm not advocating spying or witch hunting, I'm just advocating awareness of the people your child is around. Teens enjoy the company of adults and will gravitate towards them if and when they have a chance to form a bond. Be sure you're at least a little bit in the loop on who those people are.

Bullying, Hazing, and Sexual Harrassment

I’m not sure that bullying, hazing, and/or sexual harassment are any more prevalent today among young people than they were in years past. In fact, I suspect those threats may be less common than they once were. I do know, however, that the stigma attached to them particularly at the high school and middle school levels has increased significantly in recent years.

        Obviously, there are many problems associated with these three treats, but one of my biggest concerns is how I see children educated, or not educated, about the threats. Far too many children only learn these things are wrong after they have committed them or been a victim of them.

        Students and their families are doing a better job with bullying. It is really a buzzword throughout schools and education. Schools, media, and parents have done pretty well recently, I think, in making students aware of what bullying is and how to curb it. Hazing and sexual harassment are different though.

        In the latter’s case, few talk to little kids about sexual harassment. Sure, we talk about good touch and bad touch, but how many parents talk about acceptable comments and inappropriate comments? Also as children develop their sexuality, what might have been “keep your hands to yourself” in elementary school may well escalate into “okay, you just pretty much groped that person” once some sexuality has developed. It can be hard for a tween or young teenager to see the line that should not be crossed as well as an adult can, particularly when that line might not have existed as little children. Thus, adults have a responsibility to talk about that line before a young person crosses it.

        The same is true for hazing. I’ve heard hazing juxtaposed to bullying as bullying is what you do to someone you don’t like, you haze people you like. Thus, teens may fail to see that imposing their will on a consenting friend is wrong in anyway. Hazing is, in fact, wrong and increased legislation is being passed to deal with hazing in the wake of recent cases in the national news. Here again, teens may fail to realize that what they are doing is wrong if an adult never defined hazing for them or had a discussion about it.

        There are a number places where parents can find resources to feed their discussions about these threats with their children. Stophazing.org, equalrights.org, and stopbullying.gov are great places to start. As young people reach puberty, conversations about bullying, hazing, and sexual harassment need to happen at home and a lot of schools could probably do a better job of shedding light on these subjects as well. The repercussions of not having these discussions can easily lead to criminal acts committed by the child for something they never fully grasped was wrong. That can have a devastating impact on a child’s future and it can all be easily prevented with a good old fashioned talk.

The EFC

    As a family prepares to send a graduating high school senior off to college there is an important number that will weigh heavily on parents’ minds. That number is what is known as the Expected Family Contribution or EFC.

    The EFC is calculated from your FAFSA. That is the Free Application for Federal Student Aid and the mechanism through which all federal student aid is funneled. The FAFSA evaluates a family’s make up, income, and assets. The number it produces is the EFC which is used to determine how much federal aid a family is eligible for.

    Here is how it works. Let’s say the net price of a given college is $30,000. That net price should include all tuition, fees, and books as well as room, board, transportation and any other living expenses needed to attend that school. In theory, that should be the “all-inclusive” cost to attend the school for a year. The EFC that FAFSA produces is the amount the federal government feels the family should be able to contribute to go to a school and to the net price. What is left over is the amount of federal aid a student is eligible for. So, if the net price of a school is $30,000 and your EFC is $10,000, you’ll be eligible for $20,000 in aid at that school. That aid will be award by the school in the form of grants, scholarships, loans, or work study.

It is important to note that whatever your EFC is you won’t necessarily being paying that much out of pocket. The amount of the EFC could come from scholarships awarded by private groups, disbursements from college savings plans, contributions from other family members, private student loans, or other means. You also may be able to find ways to reduce that $30,000 net price but looking at cheaper housing, meal plans, etc than what the college has estimated as a norm. Doing so won’t change the amount of aid you are eligible for.

Anyone’s goal should be to have an EFC as low as possible and an EFC of zero is possible. In fact, there are many families who achieve that goal. The measures you take in financial planning as a child approaches college and the way in which you fill out the FAFSA is how you can dramatically lower your EFC. There are many FAFSA “tricks” you can employ to reduce your EFC and a good financial planner or accountant who is well versed in the FAFSA process can help you strategize. Essentially, all of those “tricks” work to demonstrate a reduced income and assets for parents and their college bound child.

           The EFC is not the amount a family will directly pay out of pocket for college, though it is often perceived as such. It is, however, a good jumping off point for that number. There are many ways to reduce the amount you have to pay out of pocket and there are many people who can help figure out how to do that including financial planners, accountants, and guidance counselors. Sending a child to college is sure to not come without some sacrifice on the family’s part and the amount of that sacrifice lies largely in the EFC.

Meet Your Admissions Counselor

I’m often asked questions by parents and students trying to find a general philosophy towards things like financial aid or admission for all colleges. There are some basic tenets that all colleges cling to, but there are many other pieces of philosophy that can vary dramatically from one school to the next. While I like to think of myself as a good and knowledgeable school counselor, I (or any other high school counselor) am really not the best person to answer many of the school-specific questions asked. That being said, It’s time to get to know your college admissions counselor.

I should that say that most high school counselors should be fairly knowledgeable about schools in their own state and geographically close by. Even then, the high school counselor is always still only a middleman, and it’s really not wise to expect them to know details about the admission processes at schools halfway across the country. That’s why those admissions counselors are on the colleges’ payroll.

One of the immediate differences you’ll find from one college to the next is what they call the admissions counselor. Some call them recruiters, admissions representatives, admissions specialists, or other similar names. The organizational structure within the admissions department can vary somewhat as well at each school, but all colleges have admissions counselors in some form.

Those individuals have two main functions. One of those is to answer questions about their school including financial aid, student life, academics, and admissions. They also read applications and have a very heavy hand in deciding who is accepted into their school. Thus, this is a person who is accessible to interested students’ families, whose job it is to communicate with you, and who is someone you want to have a relationship with. However, the vast the majority of families fail to make this connection.

My point to all this is as follows: when you want to know if “My Favorite State University” prefers an extra year of a foreign language or an extra science, when you want to know whether consideration will be given for a student who didn’t have a great sophomore year because they broke their back in a jet ski accident and missed a lot of school, when you want to know if taking the December SAT will allow scores to be back in time to be considered for admission, pick up the phone and call the admission counselors at the college.

That phone call does two things. One of those is giving you a straight answer from the horse’s mouth. The high school counselor can give you answers to questions like those above, but that answer is only a projection based on all the information they know about that college. Making that phone call also helps establish you with the admission counselor. That same counselor may well end up reading your application and if you are able to make a positive personal connection, that can only help you.

             Generally, you can find the names and contact information for admission counselors on a college’s admissions website. Counselors are often assigned based on geography so a particular counselor might cover a given state or county. If you can’t identify your assigned counselor on a website, call the college and tell the person who answers the phone (often a student and not an admissions counselor) where you live and that you’d like to speak with your assigned counselor. Admissions counselors do spend a lot of time on the road recruiting, so if you can’t get through by phone, track down their email and contact them that way.