Your student has been planning to attend college. Your student was excited about the prospect of attending college. Perhaps your student has already been accepted to college. Perhaps, it’s only a few weeks until your student leaves for college. It doesn’t happen to everyone, but it can happen anytime during the college process. Your student is suddenly struck with second thoughts and decides she doesn’t want to go.

If your student has just announced that she doesn’t want to attend college after all, you may be dumbfounded. It was such a long hard process to apply and be accepted to college. What happened? What changed her mind? What do you do now?

Perhaps the first thing that you should do as a parent is to stop and take a breath — even before you say anything. Don’t panic. Postponing the college experiences may be a very good thing for your student — or it may not. Here are some things for you and your student to consider and discuss that might help both of you decide what to do next.

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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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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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Obviously, most college students begin their college careers in the fall.  But for a growing number of college students and their families, January marks not only the beginning of a new calendar year, but also the beginning of their college experience.

Some students receive admissions decisions that admit them to college not for fall semester, but for spring admission.  This relatively new trend in college admission helps colleges fill openings that may occur for second term, and may provide a welcome break for students between high school and college.  Other students opt out of fall admission after being accepted and choose to defer their enrollment until second semester.  Still other students may have life experiences that intervene and force them to delay beginning their college career a semester, or they may have applied late.

Whatever your student’s reason for beginning college at mid-year, it is important that he think about both the advantages and potential challenges of stepping into college at the midpoint of the year.

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