HealthyExpatParent’s Podcast

FS Kids and College - #2

• Susie Csorsz Brown

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Recording #2 - FS kids and University

A chat with Hannah Engel-Rebitzer, an independent Educational Consultant with Peak College Consulting, about what it is students should be looking for in university, and how parents can support this piece of the process.  We talk about location, academics, social scene, as well as a little about finances.  We talk about creating a balanced list and what that looks like.  

To reach Hannah:

hannah@peakcollegeconsulting.com

 www.peakcollegeconsulting.com


Resources mentioned:

Tools for creating a College list and researching


Finances


Another conversation on Kids in university: Ask LIsa Podcast https://youtu.be/dEh8JRM2ltk?si=yBhOgbrstfhOR-Sm

SPEAKER_00:

Hi friends, welcome again for another uh podcast. My name is Susie Church Brown, and you are here listening to another um episode of um Considerations for Foreign Service Kids and University. So I'm joined again with um Hannah Engel Rabitzer with um Peak College Consulting. She's an independent education consultant. Hi, nice to be here again. So last time we talked about um what colleges are looking for in their applicants, so what they're um getting into school, right? So we're gonna take um kind of another look at that equation today, and we're gonna talk about what students should be looking for in schools, um, and and also how parents can support this particular adventure and next step of uh of a high school student's um progression through education.

SPEAKER_01:

Great. So I think the first thing way that a parent can support students is just being realistic about the college landscape. Um, it's changed so, so much since we applied to school. Um first, the application process um is much more competitive. So, for example, I went to Cornell, it had 24% acceptance rate. Now it has a between 7 and 8% acceptance rate, um, depending on the year. It's become much, much, much more competitive. Um, that 24 acceptance rate is, you know, common now to see for state schools applying out of states. Um, and then it's also just so much more costly. And so the conversations, um, the price of cost, the price of college has increased much faster than rates of inflation and other um metrics of cost of living. And so we just have to be a lot more intentional about having those cost conversations with our kids in a way that maybe you didn't do with your own parents or your own families.

SPEAKER_00:

That is money is a really big consideration, especially considering it's not just a one-time investment. It is a regular for, you know, four to six years, depending on how the bachelor's program is gonna last, but it's it's it's an infusement of money out of it out of your pocket.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, and we'll talk a little bit more about cost. But um at Peak, we really focus on helping kids find schools that are good academic, social, and financial fits. That's kind of that is what our that's the core of what we do. Um, but before we start talking about academic, social, and financial, it's important to talk to your kid through kind of the very, very basics, which is like where in the United States or in Europe or in Canada do you want to go? Asking about location, um, asking about setting, rural, urban, um, city contained, meaning a campus within a city, um, kind of like uh maybe like an American university where the campus it feels campusy versus a city not contained, like a George Washington, where you could walk or a Boston University, you could walk past a college, not even know that that was a college building. Um, talking about size, all of like the um the basics about the setting of the college, because there are four more than 4,000 colleges in the United States. And that's a great way to start to narrow the search. Um, and then and then we can dive deeper into like what are you looking for in academics and social life, and then what what the family can do in terms of financing.

SPEAKER_00:

So um just our thought, my thought on on location. This was one of the things where um when we were looking at universities, um, you know, our kids weren't really necessarily um super set on any particular school, but they also weren't really aware of what we were talking about when we talked about um, you know, like a an urban campus or a research campus, or, you know, what a smaller liberal arts might look like as compared to a larger public university. Um and so when we were doing our tours, we were very specific and intentional in showing them these different settings just so they would have a better idea of what it would sort of feel like, although it was during COVID. So like it wasn't actually as accurate as it could have been. Um, but like, for example, my kids had no idea what when I referred to a lecture hall, yeah, what I was talking about. And so um we um we weren't really on a tour and we sort of invited ourselves into a lecture hall to visit. Um, but you know, it's really eye-opening for these kids that have gone to these smaller international schools to a walk on a college campus, but then to go into that 200-person lecture hall and realize that oh, that's really big.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Yeah, I was just working with a kid. It was like dream school was Penn State. And I said, Well, you get you can, you know, Penn State's open about some of their lectures being almost 400 kids. Um, I was in 400 kid classes at Cornell and she was like, but that's the size of my high school. And so I think that, but then to the touring thing, she doesn't need to then go necessarily to Penn State to feel what a 400-person lecture hall. Just go to the closest flagship or large university and get a feel for it. I think is a great way we can support our kids to get a sense to have fig help figure out what they want.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

All right, let's talk about academics. Um, so I think the first piece of academics is trying to figure out is there a specific program or major that your student is um passionate about? Obviously, undecided is super common and I encouraging kids to not rush into a program that they're not sure about. But if your kids are um thinking about entering a specific program, deciding do you want to do a direct entry program? Meaning, are you going to apply directly to a business school? Are you going to apply directly to a nursing school? Or are you going to are you, you know, going to apply to a university that has a business school and you don't apply until after two years and it's selective? Um, these are important conversations. And then also what pre-rec coursework is necessary. So business school example, most schools are looking for pre-calc, right? So making sure that these are that um both your you've done the pre-rec work or you're enrolled in the pre-rec is an important part of figuring out, like a finding a school with a good academic fit. And then I think the other piece of that is just talking about how rigorous um kids and students want their academic experience to be. Some schools are notoriously hard to get into and easy to get out of, and then vice versa. There's schools that are less selective that are very, very challenging and you work kids very hard. Um just an example of like James Madison, um, they have a you know a really, really strong business program. You're gonna take nine pre-business classes in your first two years. So having a conversation with your child, is this you know what you want your college experience to look like? Similarly with engineering programs, you may only have one elective your first year at school. Is this the type of academic experience you want? Or are you interested in more of a liberal arts education?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, right. That's that's a very heavy load for the first year of university.

SPEAKER_01:

Not a lot of um exploration going on.

SPEAKER_00:

Right. And that's the same time where a lot of kids are, especially foreign service kids, uh figuring out how to live on their own, do their own laundry, um, maybe navigate uh US transportation systems, which they haven't had the opportunity to do before. And so that's that's a lot of consideration for a freshman year.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. The next thing to think about in terms of academics are kind of the enhancements. So, like what type of study abroad? Is this a school that there's lots of research opportunities or those saved for grad students? What type of internships are available? Um, some schools have really interesting co-op models where you can actually get credits and get paid. Um, at Peak, we're huge fans of the University of Cincinnati, which has a really strong co-op model. Um, what type of advising is there? What's the structure of the curriculum? Um, all of these are super important to outside of just classes, but to um what what in the realm of academics, what other things do these schools offer to enhance the kids' experience?

SPEAKER_00:

Okay. Yeah, because it's not just all about classes all the time.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Um, another thing that I think comes up a lot with Foreign Service and um expat families is the academic calendar. Um, schools don't, schools run on different academic calendars, and it does kind of have implications if your family is on two or three different continents. For example, does Drexel doesn't get out until the end of June. WPI and Colorado College are known for having these kind of block schedules where you take one class intensively at a time. Um, so that's something kids think about. Um, and then always community college as a great option to do um, maybe a two-year program and then transfer in Maryland. We have an amazing community college system, and that uh you can then transfer to one of the state's uh schools.

SPEAKER_00:

So that was actually um a point I was I was hoping we could cover in the feeder system. And um and I don't think it's actually called uh a feeder system because that doesn't make it sound very very um beneficial, but this is a sort of situation where um states will have a network of community univers uh community colleges, usually two years, some of which offer um uh like on-campus living. So they have the same sort of atmosphere as a a full college or university. And then there is like um an agreement between that community college or that community network and the public university network in that state. Um I don't I I don't know if it's different states have different um agreements. Some of them it's like an automatic um transfer and acceptance and it varies by program too. So, I mean, this is a really interesting opportunity for kids to start the um their their higher education journey, but in a slightly um less competitive and um less expensive, less expensive opportunities.

SPEAKER_01:

On a side note, community colleges are recruiting heavily from in the international um lands student body um at a lot of the several of like the college conferences I've been here, although there have been a lot of community college reps. And so you you would get some also diversity, I think, at most community colleges, both socioeconomic but also um from different countries and racial and all of that, which is always a plus. Um okay, so if you're looking at academics, you're trying to understand a school, how can we do this? Obviously, like the school website's great. Um, College Navigator uh uses the government data sets, and it's it's a pretty um user-friendly interface. And then Big Futures is is um pretty strong site as well. That's a college board website um where you can you know just learn about different academic programs, selectivity, stuff like that.

SPEAKER_00:

And does that talk about like um class sizes and that sort of thing?

SPEAKER_01:

Ooh, great question. Where would we get class sizes from? We can put it in the show notes.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay, we'll we'll offer that in the show notes because there's definitely are I mean that is I mean that's a consideration, especially for um foreign service kids coming from smaller um international schools, you know, dropping them into a class of 400 lecture center or lecture room can be probably a little overwhelming, or maybe that's what they're looking for. So that's um something to think about um as you're you're having these conversations about um what is a good fit.

SPEAKER_01:

The FIS guide to college, like the big Bible that everybody you see reading about learn about different colleges, they they usually mention what percent of class sizes are 20 or less. So that's a good like start. Um, but I I always like before I refer resources, I want to make sure it uses federally reported data sets.

SPEAKER_00:

So we'll link uh a number of these um different sorts of um searching tools in the show notes so you guys can have some more information on this.

SPEAKER_01:

All right, let's talk about social. So a good social fit. I think that this is the hardest to gauge, um, especially from um, you know, the other side of the world. And also because, like as parents, we have ideas about these schools, and schools change, and it's hard to let go of certain perceptions we may have. I've put, for example, Rutgers, which is a selective state school on college, you know, kids' college lists, and parents are like, I just can't believe you would put that on, right? So it's very, very hard to gauge what the social climate, whereas like academics, it's very that's very quantitative data. Um social is much more qualitative. Um it really helps to visit a campus, it really helps to visit campuses when kids aren't there, which is makes is very, very hard for foreign service families to do. Um, I think that also like working with an independent education consultant, like the much of our time is spent visiting campuses. Most have visited hundreds of campuses, and they and it is they can get a vibe of the social scene. Um, admissions officers can help with that as well. Um, and then just trying to understand the values of the university. Um, what do they put on their website? What clubs are the most popular helps understand like what the social scene looks like. Um I would I would caution against using social media to get impressions of universities. Uh social media has a value for sure, but it can be also um, it can be detrimental to the college search process. Um I think it's really important for kids to look up because this is all qualitative data. You can it is to get some numbers. So um looking at the breakdown of diversity um will give you a good idea of what the campus looks like. You can look at the um percent that receive Pell Grants. Is there socioeconomic diversity or is this mostly wealthy kids? Um residential options, you can see what percent of freshmen live on campus, what percent of all kids live on campus. That gives you a really good sense. Is this like are kids um living in houses off the campus? Is this a commuter school? Um, give you a good sense of that. And then I think the stats around Greek life are really important. If there's a high percentage of Greek life, a lot of the social scene will be around fraternities and sororities. Um, lower percentage, you know, maybe there's other thriving things happening on campus. Um, not to say that a campus with a big Greek life, there isn't thriving things, but it may be more of the uh center of the like entertainment scene.

SPEAKER_00:

When we um so for the university that my both of my boys are going to, they do have a fairly strong Greek life scene. But um the other thing that we really liked about it is that it has a very active club sport and um other sorts of like student engagement opportunities. And that is um, I mean, important because not every kid is going to be able to play on the university's sports teams, right? But you still want them to be active and involved. And and so that is another thing that we really looked for.

SPEAKER_01:

All right, financial fit. This is this is my passion. Um so for most families, we're looking at a six-figure investment in universities. And this is similar to um like buying a home, right? Or another, well, really, it is like buying a home, right? Putting a down payment on a house. Um, maybe one year is like buying a really expensive car. So maybe buying four expensive cars, um, just to like put in perspective. But unlike buying a home or even really buying a car, there's no equivalent of a real estate agent. There's no pre-approval process for the loans. And so there's really no like guardrails on um paying for college in a way that's like a little scary. And so our next episode, we're gonna talk about ways to navigate paying for college. But I think the number one thing suggestion I have for parents is um have these conversations about affordability and the financing with your kids early in the process. Um, the more open and honest you can be with kids, the less painful this will be. Don't we don't want kids applying to schools that aren't good financial fits for the family. Um, it really pains me when parents say, well, we'll work it out. Like we're gonna, we're gonna have to figure out, you know, we'll make this work. Um do that making it work at the beginning of the process. So you're not in a position where a kid is getting into a school that they're very excited about and it's not a good financial fit. Um, those are much harder conversations to have. Um yeah, these are really, really, really tough. It's a very, very tough topic. Um and it's because we're talking about um our kids not buying a house and what we want for our kids. And so it can be painful to have to put guardrails on them and the college process. Uh, but I think in the long run, it's what's it's what's best for both kids and families.

SPEAKER_00:

It's not setting your kid up for their future life with you know, tens of thousands or more of loans is not a way to help them. Especially like imagine, so if someone's pursuing, for example, a medical degree, you know, they're in school for seven to ten years, depending on what specialty they want to go into. It's a lot of extra money that then they they start their their adult life, their career life, owing thousands and thousands of dollars. And that's just not that's just not setting up anyone for success. Tell me about um, you're gonna um share some resources here. Yes. But one of the um, one of the super interesting things I think is the net price calculator.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Yeah. So the net, so any school that's taking federal loans is required to publish a net price calculator. Um, these aren't amazing. They um you put in your your finances, um, and then it shoots out basically what you're going to be expected to pay. And it's an estimate. I did have a like I tell kids to screenshot those. I had a kid who won a financial aid appeal uh and is off to college because he's it was so different, his estimate versus his actual package. They're not bound, but bound to their what comes out of the net price calculator. But I think that it is really important that you um so a sticker price, so what a college says it costs, the sticker price is often very, very different than what your family will be paying. It's really important that you're having that conversation about the the price that is shot out in the net price calculator rather. Than the sticker price that's listed online. And it can be really shocking, right? Like it can be shockingly low and it can be shockingly high. Other resources, college scorecard is also uses federal is a federal, it's a government website. It's really great. It um it tells about average indebtedness and then average income. So that's super helpful when having these conversations because it's not just how much you're going into debt, it's the um career that your son or daughter is going to pursue. And does that amount of debt make sense? Um, Big J Education Consultant is they provide um a series of worksheets, which um it gives a lot, a lot of data on they've consolidated a lot of federal data sets. Again, like we should be using federal data when looking at this. Um, a lot of federal data sets about um how much merit and uh other aid different colleges give. I cannot recommend their worksheets enough for trying when you for the basis of these uh of these um conversations. You know, if you say the average merit package, I'm making this up at, you know, Hannah University is seven, you know,$70,000. But what percent of school of kids are getting that marit age package? Oh, 3%. Okay, so maybe the fact that they publish on their website that the average aid package, merit aid is this amount, um, isn't as powerful as a of a statistic. And again, we will go deep into this at our in our next podcast. Um, the last thing that is, I think the first thing all families should do is they should go on to um the FASFO website and do the SAI estimate. This is uh this tells you what the government expects you to contribute to college each year. Um it will be a specific number ranging from negative 1500, I think, to a huge 99999999 number. Um it is going to be higher than you can pay, right? There at that no one gets their SAI and thinks, wow, that was so low. But the government wants um, the government thinks you can, you know, take out second mortgage on your house. They um they expect you to have a lot of skin in the game, but that's a good um starter of what that is gonna be what most uh colleges expect you to be contributing to the tuition. We're gonna go deep, deep into this on the next podcast because there could be many, many podcasts about this.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And it, I mean, it's important that um all of all of you parents take the time to really consider what amount it is you can you can pay. And again, yes, we will go into finances a lot more, but in order to be able to help manage your child's expectations and to help them best create their balance list, which is what we're talking about next, and also, you know, where should they be looking? What should they be hoping for? Where should they be submitting their applications and putting their effort into these, you know, essays, etc.? Um if they don't actually know, if you don't actually know what you can afford, then it's kind of a crapshoot.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Let's talk about balanced lists. So when we're creating less for our kids, or like as an IEC, we really want to think about what's best for that kid. And so we often think of best. And we go and we look up, you know, US News World Report, best schools. What's the top 50, right? Or am I, I want my kid to go to the best school? And again, these are very loaded questions because I have four kids. Like, I want what's best for them, of course, right? But we really have to think of what best means for each family and for each kid. And it does not mean the same thing for everybody. And there are kids that best simply means the top 50 in US News and World Report. But stuff the we want to have this conversation with our kids. Like, what does best mean for us? Are we looking for the school that has the highest return on investment? Okay, well, let's look at those lists. I guarantee you, you won't recognize a lot of schools on those lists because the schools with the highest ROI have really low tuitions and they're great at placing kids and high-paying jobs, right? But they're not prestigious in the way that you would think of. Um, are we looking for best as like we want you to go to the most prestigious name school? Is that what's best for our family? Um, prestige, right, is important. Network is important, um, is best for our family, like avoiding loans at all costs. Um, and so I think that like we want to have this conversation ahead of time of like, what does this, what are we actually looking for? What is our goal here? Um, and then start looking for um to start constructing that um college list. So what do I think of when I'm um making a college list? I'm thinking, let's find eight to 12 schools that you'd be super excited to go to any of them. Um, I'm not filling buckets. I'm not thinking, okay, you have a high chance here, you have a low chance here, that's a lottery school. No, no, no. Let's find eight to 12 schools that you would be happy to go to any of them. There are 4,000 plus schools in the United States. We have Europe, we have Canada, we have Australia. Um, we don't, we should be able to find eight that we are excited to go. And the best feeling in the world is when a kid is like finalized their college list and they're like, Yeah, I'm excited. I'd go be happy any of these places. Um then once you've created that college list, let's make sure it's balanced. And this is when like an IC comes in or another professional who can say, Yeah, this feels like a college list where you know you're gonna get what you need as a you're gonna get an acceptance, you're gonna get the financial aid package you need um to be successful there. Um, but I do think I I warn parents about putting schools in buckets using language like safety. Like, what if they end up at their safety? How do you, how does a kid feel? Right. Um, so that's that's my best practice. I think eight to 12 is reasonable when there's high financial need, um, some kids apply to more because that just adds like another element. And some kids apply to you know, four or five schools. Again, it's all about finding that balance um rather than trying to fill buckets of like, well, that's a safety. So let's throw that on there. Um so let's talk about a little bit about selectivity and rankings. I'm jumping around here. Um, I think that when we're making the college list, it can be really hard to figure out how selective or um a school actually is. Um schools, just as we're shopping around for schools, schools are shopping around for students and we're not privy to institutional priorities. Um, when you think of colleges like businesses, and they are trying to fill different roles in their business. Um, and so if they're looking for like a French-born player from Oklahoma, um, your kid could be absolutely perfect, but it's not gonna um necessarily like fill the need of that college. Um, and then they also have to like, they need to um, they need enough funding to stay alive and keep their doors open. And so they are running extensive predictive models, right? And they're like, well, if we take this batch of kids, what is that gonna look like for funding? And if we take this batch of kids, what does that look like for our funding? And um it's just super important that we're when we are looking at rankings, when we're looking at um potentially like the selectiveness of a college, we understand, and we have these conversations with these kids that this is like a very nuanced process.

SPEAKER_00:

Um isn't the um isn't the selectivity also like it's not really reflective of there's so many different factors that go into that percentage, which is just basically, you know, a a number there. But especially schools that are deemed to be quote unquote good schools, they will get more applications, right? Right. And so as they get more applications, automatically their acceptance rate goes down because they literally can't accept everybody. Right. Um, but as we're talking about this, and this sort is sort of a tangent, can we talk a little bit about satellite university campuses? Because I think that also plays into um the acceptance rates and sort of the acceptance game that universities play.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. So oftentimes you'll apply, you may apply to Penn State main campus and then get accepted to a satellite campus. And then there's others like the Maryland system where you apply directly to University of Maryland, Baltimore County, um, which is yeah. So I guess um I think that like satellite schools are a great way to get into a state system if you're in a state where the main campus is extremely selective, which a lot of schools are becoming, a lot of the main of the like we'd say like the flagship university in that state.

SPEAKER_00:

And there's a lot of satellite campuses that are maybe a little more appealing to our foreign service kids because they are in, for example, the Sliniki, Greece, or Ireland, or I mean, anywhere in the Middle East. And that that acceptance is different than it would be to the main campus. Um, but then most of the kids, obviously there are different nuances and and asteris on this, but there are those kids can typically then transfer to the main campus at some point in their in their higher education journey. And so it's not like you are uh only allowed to attend classes on that satellite campus.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, yep, yep, yeah. Um, and if you end up, this is you know, if you go to community college and then go to University of Maryland or transfer to a main campus, what does it say on your degree? The name of the main campus. And so that's that's an important thing to remember. Um yeah, I think that like back to like the selectivity and rankings, um, like just examples of like school, like so. For example, Tennessee has gone from um admissions rates in the 70s, in the early 2020, 70% selectivity, and now it's like 40% um acceptance rate. So what's changed in four years, right? There's been some change in Tennessee state policy. Um, and there's also been a really winning sports team, football team, right? So again, having these conversations with kids, um, when they're making their list, like selectivity um uh doesn't necessarily have speak to the to the um rigor of the academics, um, doesn't speak to the quality of the kit education, um, as well as you know rankings additionally, right? Like rankings are very are done in a very, very complicated way. And and there's um a high-ranking school does not not necessarily equate with academic high, highly rigorous institution, nor does it equate with potentially um the you know, the best quality of education. It's really finding schools that are good, really encouraging your kids to like stay focused on that idea of like a good fit. Um, I think like another example is like at Peak, we really love the University of Pittsburgh, all been super impressed with the people we've met there and the campus. Um, but you know, its selectivity is like 50%, doesn't quite have the same prestige as like a UNC or a UVA. Um, but then it just got named by Forbes, you know, to be one of the top 10 public IVs, right? And so all of this stuff is very uh it's easy, like it's just complicated and really, really just, you know, uh you and your kid are looking for good academic, social, and financial fits. Let's try to keep the buzz of prestige and uh well, unless you've decided with your kid, prestige is the number one important thing for you, but for the most part, um there's a lot of confounding factors um in rankings and in selectivity numbers and all of that. And so it's tough.

SPEAKER_00:

So we were just having um a conversation um with uh the high school counselors for the the school that we're um that my kids go to here, and it was an interesting um conversation that the counselors were offering with the parents, saying um, I mean, there's a limit to the number of applications that they will endorse, which is totally fair because you know, you have the um you have all of the letters of recommendations, et cetera, that are are still required. And it's it's a lot of work, especially trying to help all of these um uh juniors and seniors navigate this route successfully. And it was interesting because some of the parents were just like, well, but how do I gain the system? Like, how do I get more applications out of you than just this 10? And um so there are some state systems where you uh you can apply to multiple universities with one application process. And it's basically, so I know of a couple, but let's let's use California as the example here. And so this mom was like, Well, so if we apply to California, then that for you counts as one, saying to the counselor, but then we can apply to all of this, all of the universities in the in the California system. And it was an interesting, um, awkward pause after she said this. And the counselor was like, Yeah, but should you? Like, are are all of the schools a good fit for your kid? Yeah. And um, she clearly hadn't thought about that, nor I think will she after that conversation. But it was just like, it's not, well, it's not about you, parent, mom, dad. Um, it's about what does your kid need? And what where will your kid really succeed? And um maybe that's not one of the University of California schools. Maybe that is, you know, some maybe it's the one in Cincinnati or something like it's it's really important to be open to all of these other opportunities.

SPEAKER_01:

I get that a lot where parents say, like, you know, they meet me for the first time, they're like, Well, we're gonna apply to all the Ivys. And I'm like, you know, you just think like Columbia, you're in you're in a Cantaine campus in New York City, Cornell, you're like freezing cold winters in Ithaca. These are radically different schools. Let's like, let's talk a little bit about what you're looking for in your academic experience. And maybe we do apply to a couple IVs. I'm not anti-Ivy, but let's let's really talk about what your kid needs.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Um, I think this also brings me to another conversation I think you need to have with your kid. The workload for applying to college is is substantial. And if you particularly if you have a kid who like is wants to apply to elite um universities, and I just think having that conversation with your son or daughter, is this worth it? Like, is this what we want to be doing? Are we gonna go down this path of 20 to 30 essays? Are we gonna go down the path of multiple rounds of taking the SATs and tutoring and making sure your summer is spent at an institution that aligns with your, you know, the program of study? Um and just having no judgment, right? If that's where we're going, let's go there. But have that conversation before you start it because I do think it can be shocking to kids come August when you're like, all right, you've done your personal narrative. Now let's do 20 supplementals, right?

SPEAKER_00:

Never mind the school load of junior year, senior, senior year.

SPEAKER_01:

I'm talking about senior year, yeah. Junior and senior year, yeah, yeah, junior and senior year. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

It is substantial. Right.

SPEAKER_01:

You're looking at a high achieving kid who's taking many, many rigorous classes. So that's another like best practice for uh the adults in a kid's life. Um, this is also this is kind of like a side note, but oftentimes I have kids saying things like, Oh, I just want to look at schools that are test optional because I'm not like, you know, I don't really want to study for the SATs. And I think that that's a way parents can really help guide kids. I think we should all be looking at standardized tests as like, you know what, let's try our best. Let's not close doors our junior year, um, and see what happens when we get those scores. I think also so many schools are test optional right now, um, which is different than test blind, meaning they're not going to look at your scores. So, like some stats like uh Princeton, 60% of applicants submit their SATs, 25% submit their ACTs. So yeah, they're test optional, but kids are submitting. Um, Duke said that 75% of the students that they admitted took their SATs. Again, test optional, but is it really test optional, right? Like you you start. So I think like we can, that's another way parents can really support kids. It's like, let's take these SATs seriously and let's see how you do. And maybe they will open doors. And they oftentimes, even if it doesn't, if it's not, if it's test optional in terms of acceptance at the university, kid parent uh schools are using merit aid to attract kids that they want. And so a huge way, a huge way they do it, and this is the nitty-gritty of it, but like kids with high SAT scores help their stats, move them up their rankings, and there's that's where you're gonna see some really huge merit packages. Um yeah, I think my last thing is just it's really important to remind students there are many pathways to the same destination. And um we're here to support them in all those different pathways and also to keep as many as we can open. Um, and the best way to do that is through honest conversations early in the process.

SPEAKER_00:

And hopefully not the first conversation happening um their December or November of their junior year. You've had these conversations ongoing because university is it's a big step, it's a big decision. Um, and if it's just the decisions already made, this child is going to university. What does that look like? Let's let's really like peel that onion and make sure that we we find the best fit for this kid. Um, so today we've talked about um what it is that um students um should be looking for in schools and how parents can support their student in this process. We've talked about setting and academics and social life, all of which you know really play into that, what that feels like once they're there. We've talked about that financial piece, which is obviously um a very important piece. Um and um we'll um dig much more into finances of university um in our next podcast. And then we talked about creating a balance list and what that really looks like. Um definitely uh hopefully your school has a um a designated college um counselor. Um if there's not a specific college counselor, there will be a counselor that is knowledgeable about the process. And there are, of course, um educational consultants that can help through this process as well. Um, we'll list a few of the resources that um that Hannah relies on and knows of in the show notes that so you can um really find the best fit for um your kid and your family and your finances. And um hopefully. This will listening to this has helped you maybe, maybe not necessarily answer all of your questions, but help you think of different um questions that you and and give you resources where you can get the best information for um finding a good fit.

SPEAKER_01:

And any last thoughts? No, thank you for your time. Um feel free to reach out with any questions.

SPEAKER_00:

We love questions, so please do uh please do send them our way. So thanks very much for joining, and we'll have um number three shared soon enough. Thank you very much. Bye.