Five Pieces of Advice from the Mom of a Senior and a Freshman: What to do The Summer Before Senior Year
Will and Ellie Kisor in their Wakefield Spirit Gear.
Just a few random pieces of advice from the mom of a senior and a freshman:
1. Schedule an appointment to speak with Mr. John Clisham ([email protected]) at the earliest possible time. He is an OUTSTANDING resource for our students, and set us up so well for the process. Our friends who go to an expensive private school were stunned and jealous of the quality and quantity of support WHS students get from our college counseling team!
2. Create a separate email address for college and scholarship messages. The influx of messages your child will receive in their senior year is staggering — feels like the cicada swarm! It’s really easy to miss important things in the flood of 100+ messages a day some days, especially if your child has any executive functioning or organizational issues. Also teach them about the “unsubscribe” feature early to get off mailing lists of schools you know for sure you don’t want.
3. Set up a RaiseMe account to start acquiring micro-scholarships at some schools. Even if your preferred school isn’t on the list now, it’s still worth starting the process since new schools join all the time.
4. Keep an open mind about applying to private colleges. Many of them have generous scholarships and financial aid packages that are as good or better than in-state tuition.
5. It was very helpful to have an online portfolio of activities and accomplishments, both to keep track of dates for applications, and also to share with prospective colleges. Our oldest already had one from NCSA to keep track of sports, but we also created a free Shutterfly share group (with pictures, videos, links, etc.). My freshman and I just started to set one up one for her so that we don’t have to scramble to try to remember information a few years from now. And, at the end, you will have a really cute online scrapbook of their high school years!