How To Prepare Your Child For College

August 26, 2023 by dadofdivas Leave a Comment

Photo by Keira Burton: https://www.pexels.com/photo/man-and-woman-holding-notebooks-while-sitting-on-grass-6147369/

Almost every parent starts preparing for their children’s education immediately after birth. This is supported by statistics indicating that Americans intend to save up to $57,981 for college expenses. And no wonder- higher education can give anyone an added advantage in the world, enabling them to get prestigious jobs with lucrative benefits. Perhaps your child has finally graduated from high school and is preparing to continue their tertiary education. You already have the funds, but is your child prepared for the new journey? Here are some practical ways to psyche them up for college.

1) Guide them in the process of selecting their universities

The time to pick a university is here! While this can be exciting, your kids can quickly become overwhelmed, seeing that there are several schools to choose from. They can even develop anxiety from wondering if their school choice is the wisest decision. You can ease their stress and tension by guiding them through the process. The first thing you should do is create a list of their favorite schools. However, this should not be done at face value; you and your child must determine how each school will impact them socially, academically, and personally. You should also listen to what they need; some may want an academically inclined institution, while others may prefer one with more social connection.

After creating a list, it’s time to weigh them until the best option stands out. In this stage, you will want to factor in your funds. You don’t want a situation where your lack of finances will stress your kid when in school. Therefore, opt for one that you can comfortably pay for. You should also visit the campuses; first-hand experiences will give you a feel of what a school is like, helping your kid to make a more informed decision. You will also want to choose an institution that prioritizes higher ed strategic planning, as students are more likely to easily achieve their college goals in a college that receives this type of assistance. By all means, avoid compelling them to choose a particular school or major if they don’t want to.

2) Now is the time to teach them basic life skills

College life can be pretty exciting, especially for students who are leaving home for the first time. However, life on campus is definitely no bed of roses- things can be pretty costly around there. Therefore, things they could get away with at home may harm them in this environment. For instance, they may find themselves running through their monthly allowances at an alarming speed when buying food daily. Moreover, they risk conflicts with roommates if they can’t clean up after themselves. Therefore, take it upon yourself to equip your kids with these essential life skills to make their stay on campus more pleasant.

For instance, cooking is something they will benefit greatly from; they can have a wide variety of meals without breaking the bank. Let them help in the kitchen, and encourage them to try new recipes on their own. Another skill they need is cleaning and laundry; this way, they can maintain a clean environment and avoid being called names by their roommates. Let them tag along when performing these tasks at home, and teach them how to use the washing machine, dryer, vacuum cleaner, and so on.

3) Money management is essential for survival on campus

As stated earlier, takeouts and restaurant meals can harm a college student’s finances. But it doesn’t end here. Students often make the mistake of buying new sets of textbooks and expensive devices for a one-time assignment. Likewise, some make it a point to live luxuriously, especially when they don’t have the means to sustain this lifestyle. It will also be a huge financial mistake if your kid can’t create a feasible budget, as they won’t be able to track their expenses and how much they spend. Moreover, the lack of financial planning leaves them more vulnerable to impulse buying, causing them to waste more money.

Before heading off to college, your child must learn the importance of money management and how to find ways to cut expenses and save more. For instance, they can ditch the new textbooks for already used ones, as they are cheaper. They must also learn to draw a practical budget, prioritizing their needs over their wants. Anything they can live without is considered a luxury and should be put on hold until all the necessities are taken care of. Peer pressure is also a real money waster, so encourage your kids to avoid wasteful friends. They should also try to rescue their credit card use and leverage cash instead.

4) College students cannot afford to waste their time

Time management is important for all college students, as they must juggle various activities within a limited period. They must get to class, complete many assignments, go for their individual or group studies, study for tests, work on projects, and other academic activities. Moreover, all work and no play won’t complete the college experience, so students have to make time for recreational things like parties, road trips, picnics, and so on. Some students also have to work to support their finances. How, then, do they engage in all these without burning out? Can they get time to rest?

This is where time management comes in. As a parent, you can teach your kids how to use their time wisely before they move on to their campuses. Let them create a daily schedule, allocating time to each task they wish to embark on. Appreciate their efforts when they keep the schedule, and motivate them if they struggle to do so. With time, they will master the art of effective time management.

5) Don’t let them leave without proper advice

Although colleges are places to be imparted with academic knowledge and skills, it’s not without its share of social life. Colleges are where people meet their future partners, while others fully embrace casual dating and whatever comes with it. People also get hooked on drugs and alcohol due to destructive peer pressure. Therefore, you are responsible for discussing these issues with your kids. While at it, avoid telling them what they can or can’t do, as this may spark defiance. Instead, explain to them the importance of safe sex and how alcohol and drugs can affect them. Encourage them to find their way but always be careful to avoid making mistakes. Make them your friends by encouraging them to talk to you about anything and suppress the urge to be judgemental.

Of Sneezes And Sniffs: Helping Your Child Brace For Allergies On Campus

January 21, 2019 by dadofdivas Leave a Comment

It’s estimated that over 50 million Americans suffer from allergies each year, as found by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. There are a lot of different triggers for allergies like food, medicine, pollen, and even different animals. Allergic reactions can be anywhere from mild to extreme, so parents can’t help but worry about their children especially when they’re poised to leave for college. So how do you go about helping your child learn to healthfully cope with their allergies?

Familiarity is Key

Determining the trigger of your child’s allergies must be a priority. The doctors can help your family understand medical protocols when the type of allergy is causing symptoms. The earlier your child becomes familiar with allergic triggers, the more time they have to learn how to avoid it entirely. When your child does undergo an allergy attack, talk them through it and explain how to soothe it through appropriate medication or even a bath to curb symptoms. Teach them the virtue of staying hydrated, as this helps when their noses get runny. Involving your child in becoming aware of their health, such as noticing the symptoms of an allergy attack right away, drinking their medicine properly, or notifying an adult, will all help them build a strong foundation for coping. When they become teens and young adults, these familiar tactics shall be firmly ingrained and help them manage their allergies on their own.

Proactive Immunotherapy

As a parent, the automatic instinct is to protect and shelter our kids at the first sign of a health threat. This is a form of helicopter parenting and can be quite detrimental to their development as independent individuals. Still, some families are turning to the concept of immunotherapy to reduce allergy symptoms, which involves exposing individuals to the allergens that affect them most in small, manageable doses. This is in hopes of boosting their body’s natural resistance. This form of therapy can come in different forms, like a shot, drops, or pills. As your child grows older, they can be made responsible for keeping up with their doses. This will be truly helpful when it comes to be the time of year when their allergies are more prominent.

Pick a Good College Together

The choice of college is important when your soon-to-be college student has allergies. Allergies can be life-threatening, so the environment of their college is important. Peanut allergies can cause anaphylactic shock, so your child’s food must be carefully prepared. However, expecting a young adult to prepare all of their own food may not always be a viable option. Colleges like Stanford University have dining facilities that are completely peanut-free. University of California-Davis offers vegetarian and gluten-free meals on their campus. The University of Virginia has allergen-free zones. There are a lot of options to choose from, so you and your child can decide where they feel that they are safest.

To become a fully functional person, children need to be prepared – especially when they have to deal with allergies. As parents, we will eventually have to trust that we have done our jobs and launch our responsible adults out into the world. Giving them a helping hand as they start college and independent life should give everyone peace of mind.

A Room Buddy For The Ages: Prepping Your Kid To Be a Roommate Worth Having

January 4, 2019 by dadofdivas Leave a Comment

A roommate can deeply affect a student’s GPA and even the decisions that they make toward social options and peers. This nugget of wisdom was established by Bruce Sacerdote, a Professor of Economics at Dartmouth College. Prepping a child for college life isn’t just about getting the right sort of GPA or extracurricular application fodder. It is also about making sure that they are completely capable of being a decent person that a fellow college student can live with harmoniously. In all things, when it comes to preparing a child for adult life, it’s best to start early.

Build Respect and Responsibility

Respect for other people starts with learning how to respect one’s self; after all, if you can’t respect your own space, there’s no way that you’ll make room for other people. You can teach responsibility by trusting a child to care for their possessions as well as other things around the home. It can even build into being responsible for pets or siblings.

These lessons which start at the home are important building blocks for a decent person. College students bring more than just themselves to college; they come with precious tools that they need to succeed in their academics. If a student lacks respect and responsibility, they can find themselves mired in horrifying roommate situations that can bleed into their grades, their friend groups, and even later on toward their professional lives.

Chores, Chores, Chores!

The earlier you get your children involved with chores, the better their chances of building a “pitch-in” mindset that benefits their work ethic. This information is backed up by Julie Lythcott-Haims, the author of How To Raise an Adult. Common chores are taking out the garbage, making their own beds, doing the laundry, and even cooking a meal or two. All these enable a child to learn from the experience and give them the actual know-how to survive on their own. When they know how to take care of themselves, they will know right away what is not acceptable when it comes to other people. From there, that’s when your child’s analysis of the situation and their communication skills will come in.

Enhance Communication and Analysis Skills

People need to make use of verbal interactions to get their points across. As they grow, it is important that you teach your child to be able to express their thoughts in a cohesive and well thought out manner. Just because your child is in the right does not mean to say that they are capable of expressing their ideas in a non-abrasive manner. In smoothing out a prickly social situation, it’s not just the message but also the delivery that counts. As a parent, you need to teach your child how to handle verbal strife diplomatically.

College life is a very exciting and important era in a child’s life. For them to be able to make the most out of it and come out ready to tackle life, they need suitable help from you. Preparing them as early as their childhood years can arm them with the knowledge and ability to be great college roommates, with the ability to form long-lasting friendships.

How to Talk To Your Daughter about College Funding and Responsibility

June 22, 2017 by dadofdivas Leave a Comment

How to Talk To Your Daughter about College Funding and Responsibility

Your daughter will see her dad as the provider and head of the household, so she might not think that she has anything that she needs to do besides tell you where she wants to enroll. Next, you may not be on the same page when it comes to applying for scholarships and grants or exploring student loans. Ultimately, it will be your daughter’s actions that decide whether she will qualify for an academic scholarship or has what it takes to maintain an athletic scholarship during college. Lastly, there is the financial aid portion of planning for college that many teenage girls overlook. Whether she is eager to earn her bachelor of science in diagnostic medical sonography from ADU Online or really wants to become a teacher, financial aid is an important step that you will need to work together to complete. Here’s how to plan a great future for your precious daughter.

Talking Openly about College Expenses

You’ve lived together and shared a lot, but dads trying to sit down and come up with a sensible plan for college with their daughters have many challenges to contend with. Not all parents believe that they should outright pay their children’s college expenses, especially if their kids haven’t shown an adequate level of responsibility. You may need to talk to your daughter about her getting a part-time job as she works on her bachelor of medical sonography degree to help offset costs. Then there’s the fact that both you and your daughter might need to take out student loans to help get through college. If your daughter doesn’t have established credit, you will need to co-sign on all of her loans so that they get approved.

Discussing Responsibilities and Expectations

Perhaps the deal that you made with your daughter consists of her maintaining at least a 3.0 GPA for you to foot the bill. Other fathers require their daughters to check-in with them consistently, especially if they are going to college in a different state. Whatever your rules are, make sure you explain them adequately. Realize that your child is going to be quite busy and distracted with school, so she will appreciate knowing what her responsibilities are upfront rather than having a detailed discussion in the middle of spring semester.

Coming Up With Alternative College Plans

Remember that getting into college has a lot to do with grades, but luck also plays a part. Let your daughter know that she is not guaranteed to be accepted to her dream college and help her to make up alternative plans just in case. You might also face challenges when you start calculating college expenses, so see if there are any creative ways that you can your daughter can come up with to help fund her higher education.

If you can’t wait to watch your little girl graduate with her class and throw her cap in the air, make sure that you have an honest discussion about planning for college. You may not want to disappoint her on any level, but being upfront about expenses and responsibilities will actually help you to gain more respect. Remember that college is a new experience for young adults, so be understanding about her concerns and you will be able to enjoy an even stronger relationship with your daughter.

Saving and Paying for College Doesn’t Have to Be Hard!

April 29, 2016 by dadofdivas 1 Comment

I have worked in the College Admissions field for about 20 years now, and as my own kids get older and older people keep coming to me asking me for advice on paying for college and college planning in general.

I cannot say that I have all of the answers, but I can say that there are some things that I have been doing since my own children were young that may be helpful to you too.

For us, from an early age we started a 409 educational savings plan for our kids. While we were not always able to place a lot into the account, having it there accruing interest always helped. We also started talking to our kids from an early age about the future and the reality of the cost of higher education. While I work in higher education, it is safe to say that the cost continues to rise and even though I have been saving, I do not know that I can say that I will have enough saved to cover the entire college education that my kids will encounter in 7-9 years.

Just saying 7-9 years makes me realize how fast time flies as your kids grow up, and this is important for all parents to soak in early. Why? Because, if you keep saying, I’ll start saving tomorrow, soon you will find that tomorrow has past you by and college is on your doorstep.

As I mentioned, I know that I probably will not have enough saved for my kids, so I keep my eyes out for other options outside of just the federal government. One program that looked really promising lately is one called College Ave Student Loans Parent Loan. This parent loan seems to be a good option to consider for those families you may need to pay for college. In reading more about the loan itself; it can save you money (no origination fee, lower rates than the federal loan for those with qualifying credit), and personalized options to meet individual financial situations (such as money directly deposited in parents’ bank account to help pay for extra educational expenses, and multiple ways to pay back the loan including a reduced interest rate if you start paying back while your child is in school).

The site was easy to navigate and there was a very cool resource that I really appreciated: A student loan calculator! The new College Ave Student Loans parent loan offers qualified parent borrowers an average savings of $1,000 vs. the Federal Direct Parent which can really add up in the end.

Do you want to learn more about the The new College Ave Student Loans parent loan experience? Check out the below to find out more or to see if you may be qualified for their services!

About College Ave Student Loans

College Ave Student Loans, a leading online student loan marketplace lender, and Experian®, a leading global information services company, are offering a limited time joint offer of a credit health check — a complimentary, personalized credit education session with an Experian Credit EducatorSM agent — to families preparing to pay for college. College Ave is collaborating with Experian to better support parents who may need to consider borrowing or cosigning a private student loan if savings, scholarships and federal aid fall short of higher education costs. Families who may want to explore private financing options should start getting ready now. The personalized credit education session offers an in-depth, one-on-one, 35-minute phone call with an Experian Credit Educator agent.

I was selected for this opportunity as a member of Clever Girls and the content and opinions expressed here are all my own.

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Book Review – The Art of the College Essay

September 13, 2014 by dadofdivas Leave a Comment

About the Book
“You can do this,” Glancy tells us. “I’ll show you how.” Face-to-face with a blank page and the pressure of writing the most important essay of their lives—the college essay—students often encounter what successful writing coach and college admissions expert Gabrielle Glancy refers to as that which shall not be named—writer’s block. “Everyone tells you what you should do—tell a story; start in the middle; show don’t tell—but no one tells you how to do it,” Glancy explains. Using examples from essays that got students into the colleges of their choice, The Art of the College Essay shows what makes great essays great—and then tells you how to write one. Glancy provides a clear, highly readable, student-tested guide to writing college essays that are so powerful—so gripping, authentic, and real—that the Ad Com can only say yes. Helpful appendices list up-to-date college essay prompts, winning adjectives, grammar tips, trouble-shooting suggestions, and a step-by-step breakdown of the process.

My Take on the Book
What was great about this book was that the author was able to take a student from start to finish creating great personal statements/essays that can be turned into any college. As someone who has worked in College Admission for over 15 years, the writing of our candidates has become more and more challenging, so strong statements always put a smile on my face. That being said the author approaches this topic in a fun way that will engage any student. I found myself even motivated to get out some paper to write up a statement myself! I would also say that even though this book is geared toward the college essay process, the skills the author is teaching transcends this and can really be used for any writing endeavor!

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Book Review – How to Prepare a Standout College Application

July 22, 2013 by dadofdivas Leave a Comment

All opinions expressed in this review are my own and not influenced in any way by the company. Any product claim, statistic, quote or other representation about a product or service should be verified with the manufacturer or provider. Please refer to this site’s Disclaimer for more information. I have been compensated or given a product free of charge, but that does not impact my views or opinions.

About the Book
Demystifying the process of completing a college application is what How to Prepare a Standout College Application is all about.

Written by two former admissions officers at top universities and current admissions coaches, this book is a must-have for preparing a winning college application. The authors reveal the mystery behind what college admissions officers are looking for and show applicants how to leverage their credentials, stand out in the over-crowded applicants’ pool, and make a genuine, memorable impression. This is the book that will help the college-bound get off the “like many others” pile and onto the acceptance list.

Includes instructions and examples for every component of the college application, from writing the essay to answering questions like “Why do you want to go to College X?”
Shows how to avoid underestimating the importance of critical features on any application
Includes the latest information on the Common Application 4.0 and corrects outdated, holdover advice still stressed in many other books

This book is filled with step-by-step advice that students and parents can use immediately and will refer to again and again.

About the Authors
Alison Cooper Chisolm heads the college admissions consulting practice at Ivey Consulting. She came to private consulting after working in admissions for more than 10 years at three selective universities (Southern Methodist University, University of Chicago, and Dartmouth College).

Anna Ivey is the former Dean of Admissions at the University of Chicago Law School and founded Ivey Consulting to help college, law school, and MBA applicants navigate the admissions process and make smart choices about higher education. You can find more college admissions tips in their book How to Prepare a Standout College Application (Wiley, August 2013), and follow them on Twitter @IveyCollege.

My Take on the Book
I have worked in college admissions and higher education for the past 15 years and I am always looking for great books that demystify the process of entering college, as I too wrote my own book on this too. This book takes a little different tact and makes the reader consider the application and what helps to make them stand out from other applicants. As a past College Admissions Officer, I have to say that I know that for many colleges this is important, as colleges are more and more utilizing a holistic approach to admissions. What this means is that there is not just one way in which they are admitting students (GPA or test scores alone), but instead they are looking to have a diverse group of students with a diverse group of experiences that are coming into their academic institution. Thus, it becomes very important to consider these issues as a student as you enter high school and start to make choices that will follow you to your college search and application process.

This book is written in such a way that it makes it easy to set yourself up well to do just that. The book is clear and to-the-point and filled with practical advice that will assist all students with making the right decisions for their future.

The book also is a complete resource and you can tell that it is filled with amazing information that has been collected over time as the authors easily show their ease and expertise in the field itself.

All-in-all this was a great book that shares intimate knowledge of the college admission process and is definitely a book that any high school student or parent should check out today!

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