Year: 2014

Managing Time, Managing Self: College Freshman Challenge — Part 1

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College students are often told that these years will be ”the time of your life,” but they might also need to be reminded that there are still 168 hours in a week. Having the ”time of your life” means using those hours wisely, yet some studies have suggested that as many as 48% of college students struggle with time management. Why this disconnect?

One of the major differences between the high school years and college years is the increased amount of ”free time” that students experience. College students may lead much less structured lives than in high school and have more independence. ”Free time” means time that students need to plan and define for themselves.

Students will spend less time in class and also be faced with longer term, independent assignments. Additionally, many students are working long hours to try to pay for college tuition and expenses. Students who are unprepared for the challenge of balancing school, work, social life and downtime may find themselves floundering.

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What to Do This Summer to Be Ready for a Successful College Start

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Once your student has been accepted to college, both you and she breathe a sigh of relief. The admissions ordeal is over. It’s time to relax a bit and enjoy the final part of senior year with all of the high school festivities taking place.

But once your student has walked across that high school graduation stage, the work of preparing for college begins. Although your student may very happily wait until the last minute to begin packing those boxes for the move to college, there are tasks that you and he should be undertaking now to be sure to be ready. These tasks may differ somewhat depending on your student and his school, but be sure to help him begin to focus on getting ready for the big move.

Take a look at some of our suggestions for getting started now – for college success in the fall.

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Getting to Know You: 15 Ways to Learn About a College

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College admission.  It looms over students  — often from an early age.  There’s so much anticipation, excitement — and pressure – around college admissions that sometimes parents and their students may not know where to begin.  How to you find just the right college?  How do you know whether the match is a perfect one?

The first thing that students and their parents need to recognize is that there probably is no perfect match.  Current research is suggesting that success in college, as well as after college, may have less to do with where a student attends and more to do with the student’s experiences and attitude while in school.  This is important information and may help to relieve pressure on some students around finding the ”perfect” school.

As your student begins to explore colleges, a good place to begin is by thinking about what matters to them.  If they have an interest in a particular major, does that school have a good program in that area?  If they are an athlete, will they have an opportunity to play?  What extracurricular activities matter?  How important is location?  The hundreds of options will begin to narrow as your student begins to focus on the things that are important to them.

But how will your student get a real sense of each school?  There are many things that you and your student can do as part of the ”getting acquainted” process of exploring a particular school.  Here are 15 possibilities.  Some are obvious and others may be approaches you haven’t considered.  Use any or all of them to get a true picture of a school.

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Do You Have a Super Senior? Making the Most of the Fifth Year of College

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To every parent their student is a ”super” kid, whether a senior or not.  But the term ”Super Senior” is not necessarily the term that parents hope to hear when referring to their college students.

What is a Super Senior?

Super Senior is the term sometimes used to refer to a student who is a college senior in the fifth, or sixth, year of college.  They have already been a freshman, sophomore, junior and senior — and are now a Super Senior — or fifth (or sixth) year college student. One study has suggested that only approximately 39% of students graduate with a bachelor’s degree in four years.  The Department of Education actually calculates a six year graduation rate, which comes closer to 59%.

So the term Super Senior is becoming increasingly common. But whether the numbers are accurate or not, or whether five or even six years is becoming the national average for completing a degree, if your student will be spending a fifth year in college, both you and your student should discuss the situation.

 

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Your Student Is Going to College! What Do You Do Now?

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Your student has been accepted to college.  Check.

Final decision made. Check.

Deposit paid. Check

Chances are that both you and your student have been consumed with the college application, admission and decision process for the past several months or years — maybe even longer.  Now that the decision and deposit are done, what do you do next?

A new kind of work begins now for your student — saying ”no, thank you” to other colleges, placement tests, roommate/housing surveys, registering for classes, checking in with other incoming freshmen on Facebook, and probably filling out endless forms of one kind or another.

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The College Decision — Taking Action – Making the Leap

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As the May 1 National Reply By deadline approaches, high school seniors all around the country wrestle with making that final decision.  It feels overwhelming.  It feels so final.  It feels so very important. And it is.

Some parents pressure students — thinking that they know best or just wanting to help their student make that decision.  Some parents stand back and let the student wrestle with the decision on their own.  Some parents guide and ask questions to help the student think through options.  No matter what your parenting style, if your student hasn’t yet made a final decision, this is a very stressful time.

Research suggests that in most families in this country, parents will be involved in helping students make this final decision — and students welcome some parental input.  We’ve suggested in earlier posts some approaches to help your student face this decision dilemma and some things to do once the decision is made.  We’d like to suggest here that you not only support your student in making this decision, but also that you encourage them to take the leap and make that final decision.

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How Your Student Can Get College Credit Without Taking a Course

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Your college student may already have a strong base of knowledge before he even sets foot on his college campus.  It is possible that he can get college credit for his knowledge by taking a CLEP exam.  The College Level Examination Program, administered by the College Board (the SAT organization) offers students the opportunity to demonstrate mastery of college level material and to earn college credit for information learned through independent study, on-the-job training or internships.

CLEP exams cover such areas as American Government, US History, Psychology, Sociology, Microeconomics, Macroeconomics, Literature, Composition, Biology, Business, Math, or World Languages.  There are 33 exams which cover material taught in courses a student would be likely to take in the first two years of college.  Each test covers one course and is worth anywhere from 3 to 12 credits.  Exams are 90 minutes long, are taken on a computer in a lab, cost $80 plus a small administration fee, and students receive their results immediately.

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Does Your College Student Need Textbooks?

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The question of whether or not your student needs textbooks in college is not as simple as it seems.  The simple answer is ”Yes, of course.”  The more complex answer may be, ”It depends.”

The cost of college textbooks is high. No one would argue that. The cost of producing most textbooks is high, most textbooks are required so students do not have choices, and the costs are passed along to the students.  One study conducted by the College Board has estimated that most students should expect to pay approximately $1200 annually on textbooks.  Many students, and their parents, have not calculated the cost of textbooks into their college costs.  So students are taken by surprise, and may feel that this is an additional, and therefore optional cost.

Because of the high cost of textbooks, many students are opting out of buying books.  The National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) found that approximately 30% of seniors and 25% of First Year students said that they did not purchase books. The Student Public Interest Research Group (PIRG), in a non-scientific survey of 1,905 students at 13 colleges found that 70% of students said they opted out of books for at least one course.  However, 78% of those students believed that they would not do as well in that course without the book.

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Happy Anniversary! College Parent Central Turns Five!

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We’re wishing ourselves a happy anniversary here at College Parent Central.  We’ve reached a five year milestone!  Somehow it seemed appropriate to begin this venture on April Fool’s Day — April 1, 2009 — as we launched ourselves into the unknown.  We believed then that college parents need support and are an important factor in student success.  Five years later we are even more convinced of the importance of parent education and support.

We’ve spent five years sharing nearly 500 posts, writing about college parenting, talking to college parents, working with college students, and working and speaking with professional colleagues.  During this time, we are proud to have contributed to the important dialogue that helps parents better understand and work with their students.

Throughout the past five years we have learned even more than we have shared.  We are grateful to those people who have shared their stories and wisdom and helped us as we continue to reach out to parents who may find our information helpful.

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The Final Decision: Why Your High School Senior May Be Stuck

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It’s all good.  Your high school student applied to multiple colleges — and they’ve been accepted to all of them.  You’ve made it through the harrowing admissions process.

But wait, the process isn’t quite over yet.  You and your student have survived the agonizing wait, but now the ball is back in your student’s court.  They need to make a decision — in just a few short weeks they will need to decide which college to attend.  This sounds like an ideal dilemma, but put the emphasis on dilemma.

For some soon-to-be college students the decision is easy.  They have had a clear favorite from the beginning and there is no hesitation.  For many more students, however, the decision may not be as clear.  There are many factors to weigh, options to consider.  For many high school students, this is not only a big decision; this may be the first major life decision that they have had to make.  To many students, this decision may be overwhelming and paralyzing.

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