I?m a planner and like to keep things as organized as possible. Christmas shopping? Done before Thanksgiving. Halloween costumes? Ready to go a month before. So when it comes to getting my kids ready for one of the biggest decisions of their life?where to go to college?I knew I had to start planning early. Luckily my kids inherited my planning gene, which has made it easier to get on the road to college success.
Going to college has never been a question for our kids. Both my husband and I are college graduates. We?ve talked about college all their lives and have made it a goal in our home that everyone will graduate from college. From the time my son was a toddler, he has always had a great interest in animals. It started with learning the animal sounds and grew into learning about exotic and rare breads of animals. To my husband and I it was pretty clear he would pursue a career related to animals, so we weren?t surprised when he said he wanted to be a veterinarian. Now that he is starting high school, we?ve gotten more realistic about his long-term goals. He?s still a few years from college, but he?s definitely on track to be where he wants to be.
Here are a few of our family?s tips to getting on the road to college success:
1. Start early. Your kids obviously don?t have to make their final college decisions right away, but help them set goals and start talking about college from an early age. Once they get into high school, meet with an academic counselor to create a plan.
2. Involve the family. We involve our son in every aspect of college planning. After all, it?s his future and he should decide what happens. We also involve the younger children in some aspects of planning so they can see what it takes to get to college. It has definitely helped my son stay on track, made him happier about the decisions, and brought us closer as a family.
3. Create a College To Do List. ?Preparing for college might seem a million miles away, but it’s never too early to start even if your child is working on middle school, being prepared and organized can help you figure out a road map and everything to get ready for college, from how you should be preparing to test prep and financial aid.
Getting the kids to college takes a lot of work, but with the right plan you can make all your child?s dreams come true.
What are you doing to prepare your kids for college?
(Disclosure: This is a sponsored post for SheSpeaks on behalf of Kaplan Test Prep. I received compensation to write this post, and any opinions expressed are my own, and reflect my actual experience. #JourneytoCollege)
Are kids are much too young now to plan with them about college, but we do have a college fund for them, and we do plan on taking every step once we reach that point to make sure they are ready and know.
I don’t have any children so don’t have to do any planning. I am also a college graduate and if I did have kids-they would be going as well!! In this day and age the most important thing you can do, in my opinion, is start a college fund as soon as you can!!
We haven’t gotten to the point where we discuss specific colleges, but do have regular conversations about what they might want to study when they get that age. It has changed a couple of time over the past couple of years, but we’re hoping by the time they get into high school they’ll have made up their mind and then we can focus on which school is best for them.
We started early with all of our children. They’ve all got their four years paid for in full, and then they can do what they want from there. I love your idea of involving them too, that’s a good one that we didn’t really do, but we did/do discuss college w/them so they know it’s avail. to them.
I started very young with our boys when it came to college preparedness. I have made it clear to them that having a college degree is necessary to ensure long-term success.
My oldest is in her junior year of college and I have learned that it is never to early to start planning. My middle daughter is a junior in high school and we are looking at colleges now for her.
This is great! thank you so much for sharing this info with us.