April 1st, April Fool’s Day, is a milestone day at College Parent Central. It’s our anniversary, or birthday, or blogiversary. We like to celebrate every year.
This year, as we all settle in at home in the midst of a pandemic, our celebration is more subdued. We don’t know what’s ahead and we don’t know how long it will last, but we know we’ll make it through together.
It was April Fool’s Day in 2009 that we launched College Parent Central. We didn’t know where it would go or how long it would last. Eleven years later we’ve reached more parents than we can count. We’ve started a podcast. We’ve launched our first e-book. We’re still advocating for college parents as a key part of student success. We have an important job to do.
If you’ve just discovered College Parent Central, we hope you’ll find information and support here to help you in your new role. Know that you are joining the nearly four million parents who have also visited College Parent Central over the years. We’re grateful for the many parents, educators, and counselors who have shared our information with others, who have provided helpful feedback, and who have taught us so much over the years.
Our purpose
It is always a good idea, from time to time, to reflect on your roots. Each time we look back to the purpose that drove us to launch College Parent Central, we reaffirm that our basic principles haven’t changed.
- We believe that parents are partners in their child’s education from pre-school through college.
- We believe that parents want to be involved in their child’s college experience.
- We believe that parents have a place in their child’s college experience.
- We believe that many parents are unsure how to be involved in their child’s college experience.
- We believe that many parents need to better understand college today in order to support their student.
We’ve grown . . . and we continue to grow
College Parent Central now has nearly 700 articles and most of them are ”evergreen.” They remain relevant even if they are a few years old. A lot about college changes, but a lot remains the same. You can use the ”Articles by Category” tab at the top to begin searching for what you need.
This past year we launched our new College Parent Central podcast. Dr. Lynn Abrahams has joined me as co-host to share our information in a new format. We’re excited about the fourteen episodes already available and we continue to release two new episodes each month. You can find them wherever you like to listen to podcasts or here on the website (use the ”Podcast” tab at the top.)
We have a new e-book, 60 Practical Tips for Using the High School Years to Prepare Your Student for College Success. Success in college doesn’t start when you go to college, it begins years earlier. We’d like to help parents know where to start and what to cover.
Thank you
If you’ve read this far, thanks for indulging us in a bit of self-congratulation. We love hearing from and working with college parents, and we believe that this work is important. Thank you for allowing us to join you on this journey.
If you’d like to give us a birthday gift, leave a comment below and tell us what you would like to read about here on College Parent Central or hear about in our new podcast. We can’t promise we’ll be able to do it all, but we’d like to know what’s on your mind.
