Educational Planning & Consulting
Have you ever experienced one of those dreams where you are sitting in a classroom while the teacher hands out the final exam, and you feel panic setting in as you realize that you are completely unprepared?
Sadly, this nightmare plays itself out in real life each year when high school juniors suddenly realize they have no idea how to decide upon a college to attend. Furthermore, as they frantically begin their college decision process, they learn that some schools must be eliminated from consideration because of decisions the student made years earlier.
Ms. Roberts comforted and guided me from a teary-eyed freshman to a confident college applicant into a program custom-fit for my interests. Juliann P. Molecular Biology UT DallasPharmacy UT Austin
These students' parents are invariably eager to help and often offer to assist, only to be rebuffed by their teenage children who place parental advice among the least influential. These parents then sit on the sidelines as college decisions are made based on ad hoc advice from friends, friends' siblings, and Google.
When -- if this scenario is to be avoided -- should a parent first bring up college planning to their child? As a teacher and counselor for 26 years, I recommend broaching the topic as early as fifth grade.
Not only does this timing start your child on an early path toward college, fifth graders allow parents into this phase of their development when they are most likely to appreciate parental input. Fifth graders benefit from understanding why behaviors they practice in middle school; time management, making good grades, committing themselves to people and activities, will help them before high school begins. Parents benefit from participating in post-secondary planning with their child.
Hello, I'm Kay Roberts, and I created Middlebridge Consulting to help students and parents bridge the transitions from elementary to middle school, from middle school to high school and beyond. Put my years of school counseling, college planning, curriculum advising, and continued contact with college students and admissions professionals to work for the students in your life. Contact me today to get started.
