Is Your Child Aiming Towards College? How to Help Them Prepare While They're Young
You want the best for your children. If your plans as a parent involve sending your kids off to college as soon as they graduate from high school, you want to make sure that everything is done right. The last thing you want is to hit an obstacle to your child's college education. Now that you're planning for their future, here are four steps you should take to prepare them for college.
Start the Educational Preparation Early
When it comes to sending your child off to college, early educational preparation is essential. You might think that freshman year in high school is the best time to start planning, but that might be a couple of years too late. The best time to start planning is while your child is still in junior high. Starting in junior high will give your child the opportunity to learn the study skills they'll need to excel in high school. Once they enter high school, they can use the skills they learned to branch out and take college-level classes, which they'll be able to add to their college applications.Work with your child's school to make sure they're actively engaging in activities that will lead to college.
Create a College Dream Sheet
As soon as your child enters high school, they should sit down and create a college dream sheet. This list should include all the colleges that they might want to attend in the future. Creating a dream sheet will allow you to reach out to these colleges for additional information that your child will be able to use to narrow the field. Reaching out early will also allow you to help your child understand the educational requirements of each university.
Understand the Financial Side of Things
While the educational side of college life is important, so is the financial side. Once your child has their dream sheet in order, it will be time for you to understand the financial side of those choices. Knowing the costs of each university your child has chosen will allow you to create a realistic budget that will help you prepare to pay for those educational goals.
Ensure Effective Applications
Once your child has narrowed their choices down to a handful of universities, it will be time for them to begin the application process. This is perhaps the most important part of the entire process. Each university your child applies for will receive hundreds – if not thousands – of applications for entering students. Make sure your child's application stands out in the crowd by adding those college-level classes they took and getting them involved with volunteer work in the community. Those additional entries on the application will help your child stand out in the crowd.
