Sometimes the parents of high schoolers applying to college can feel every bit as stressed as the high schoolers themselves! Here are some variations on that theme whom I regularly meet in my capacity as a college prep and standardized test prep tutor:
The parents of a teen, who—due to peer pressure from the other parents at their private high school—are melting down about whether they should already be enrolling their freshman into tutoring and test prep classes
The father of a junior, who—due to peer pressure from the other parents at their (private) high school—has registered his daughter for every single sitting of the SAT AND ACT
The mother of a senior, who—due to peer pressure from the other parents at her (private) high school—has extended her daughter’s college list to include a nutso total of 30 colleges
The more, the earlier, the better...right?
These parents often seek out my services when they feel like they’re on the brink of losing their marbles. Their poor brains and nervous systems are addled from a combination of peer pressure from fellow parents, and from the school college counselor, and from attending their first “college meeting” at school. They come to me hoping and praying for a less all-consuming, soul-sucking vision for their offspring’s junior and senior years.
And my Ace the Test: Game Plan™ session serves them that vision on a silver platter!
But I’ll give you the basic secret behind my Game Plan for free: staying sane through test prep is all about working hard on the RIGHT pieces of prep, and knowing how to tune out the static—which is pretty much everything else.
But what’s static and what’s melody? What’s chaff and what’s wheat? What’s filler and what’s killer? (OK, I’ll stop!) Well, here’s my master list of both: the things that are worth focusing on during your college application process and the things that are absolutely NOT worth focusing on.
Article Contents
1. DO focus on:
a. College list
b. SAT vs. ACT
c. Test dates
d. Which colleges your student actually likes
a. Taking the SAT and the ACT over and over
b. Starting test prep too early
c. Applying to tons and tons of colleges
d. Joining every extracurricular activity possible
3. Conclusion
Priorities when your teen is applying to college
1) Your high schooler’s college list.
Until your son or daughter has drafted this set of names, you won’t know what target Digital SAT or ACT scores they need to hit, or whether Super Scoring or Score Choice is allowed at the schools they might apply to.
To help your high schooler make her list, you can either give her the resources she needs to do it herself, or hire an independent college counselor. For the self-directed version, buy the Fiske Guide to Colleges and explore websites like the College Board's to learn about different universities. If you’re someone who thrives more with some targeted guidance, and the resources at your son or daughter’s high school aren’t meeting your needs, consider working with Abby Siegel. Her forte is helping your high schooler find the exact colleges that would fit his or her personality, interests, and academic focus.
2) Whether to take the SAT or the ACT.
This is a major decision. The good news, though, is that as soon as you've made it, you’ve saved yourself countless hours of test prep. That's why I focus on helping you make the call that’s right for YOU. You can use my free quiz or (for a more tailored approach) my Ace the Test: Game Plan™ to determine which test will best highlight your awesome teen’s strengths.
3) Which test dates to schedule around.
Settling on the specific dates on which your son or daughter will take the SAT or ACT allows you both to create a Testing Timeline with adequate (but not excessive, exhausting amounts of) study time. Your student’s plan needs to dedicate weeks to each of these tasks: drilling content, learning strategies, taking practice tests, and taking mock tests (which are NOT the same as a practice test!)—all before he or she actually sits for the real test.
Whether you enlist me to draft this Testing Timeline for you, or make one yourselves, a testing timeline lays out a clear path to test-day success. This takes stress off of everyone's plates and lets your high schooler actually get down to studying—rather than worrying about what and how much they should be studying.
4) Which colleges your son or daughter genuinely prefers.
After you’ve figured out a list, you should also plan visits to the schools your teen actually likes the most to make sure you’re on the right track. These campus trips are an investment of money and time, but a worthwhile one. College visits can help hone your student’s list AND excite and inspire him. After all, the college process can feel like a marathon—and it’s a relief for your student to see with their own eyes that it’s all leading somewhere fun and meaningful.
In addition to focusing on the right pieces of information, your job as a parent of a high school student is also to NOT get taken in by shoddy advice and the time-sinks of pointless extra work. Here’s a list of time-wasting myths to ignore, no matter how many times you hear them repeated by other parents.
What to avoid when your high schooler is applying to college
1) Taking both the SAT and the ACT multiple times
This is a enormous waste of your high schooler’s time and energy during the most stressful period of his or her life thus far. Instead of just throwing every possible test sitting at the wall and seeing what sticks, spend a little time up front to see which test is better, make your decision, and build a study plan (and test dates) ONLY around that one. You’re more likely to get the results you want if your teen focuses all of his energy on one thing.
2) Starting test prep too early
If you’re the parents of a freshman or sophomore and other parents are telling you that their teenager is starting test prep now, please do NOT follow their example. Contrary to popular belief, your high schooler should NOT start prepping for the ACT or SAT in 9th grade. It could even actively harm their college app success, and their mental health, if they do. (Here’s why this is my philosophy.)
3) Apply to tons and tons of colleges
As with the item above, more is NOT always better. Remember: even if a given college accepts the Common App and its one-and-done Personal Statement, your son or daughter will almost certainly have to write supplemental essays for that school—and every other college on their list. Spending too much time writing 25 supplemental essays will take time away from his or her senior year schoolwork (and, yes, colleges DO see and care about bad grades on your senior fall transcript). And the unpleasant cherry on top—you’ll ALSO have to pay the application fees for all of those schools, which adds up quick!
A dozen applications is normal. Twenty-five applications is unnecessary and exhausting.
4) Join every extracurricular activity ever, especially community service
When it comes to writing college applications, you don’t want to come off as a jack-of-all-trades who does a little of everything. Well-rounded applicants are way less appealing to admissions officers than students who’ve developed a true passion or two and explored them deeply. Haphazard community service, in particular, looks obviously insincere. I’ve written more about this under item #2 in this post on the top mistakes people make when applying to colleges.
Conclusion
What I hope to have showed in today’s post is that you CAN keep your cool during this incredibly stressful time in a parent’s life. To get to that happy place, you’ll want to develop a test prep plan with your student in advance, and help her stick to it. Instead of spreading your time and energies thin, use them where it counts. If you feel confident in where your son or daughter is going and how you’ll get there, you’ll be able to ignore the stress and urban myths circulated by the frazzled parents around you…which will also help you survive the college process with your sanity and cherished family relationships intact.
As always, if you could use a professional in your corner throughout any of this process, an Ace the Test: Game Plan™ may be for you. Or, if you think your high schooler might be experiencing unusual amounts of stress around their SAT or ACT, I’ve designed a testing confidence course to help them plug into their inner zenmaster.
