As a parent of a new high school kid, I was so lost with all the information on High School Courses, Extra Curricular activities, AP, IB, College Credit Plus (CCP), Career Tech Programs, ACT, SAT Exams, College Research, Application, Admission process, College Financing, when is the right time to prepare for ACT, SAT etc. So, I tried to attend some sessions on these topics, and I will use this forum to summarize what I have learnt so it can be useful for other parents in a similar situation and also to help my kids if they want to refer to these in future.
Colleges give considerable importance to the following aspects in the order given below. I will go over some of these in detail.
- Good grades/GPA in all courses
- Did the student take any challenging courses such as College, AP, Honours Courses?
- ACT/SAT Scores
- Essay
- Counselor & Teacher Recommendations
- Extra-Curricular Activities
- Class Rank
High School Courses:
Every state has certain graduation requirements (e.g., 22 credits) and we need to pick courses to meet these minimal requirements. If we take normal high school courses at grade level, we usually aim for 4 GPA for each course if we get an A grade. But students are expected to take challenging courses, so they are better prepared for college rigor. These include Honors, AP, IB, CCP, Career Tech courses. Honors courses will result in 4.5 GPA if we get an A whereas AP, IB, CCP courses will result in 5.0 GPA if we get an A.
AP & IB Courses are provided by College Board & Internation Baccalaureate and offered in schools, taught by high school teachers. These are yearlong courses. Some of the courses are also considered by colleges and given credit.
College Credit Plus Courses
- Ohio has a dual enrollment program called College Credit Plus where students can attend some college courses during high school and get both high school and college credits.
- This is open to grades 7-12 and these courses can be taken up during school year or summer or online or in-person at participating colleges.
- We need to submit an "Intent to Participate" form by April 1st if we are interested to pursue it.
- This program is free for students if they pass the course. If they fail, they will be asked to pay approximately around 500 to 750$ per course.
- Students must take Level 1 courses first and must finish 15 credits before moving to Level 2. The Level 1 courses should be a continuation from high school course prerequisites.
- These are treated as AP courses and an 'A' grade in this course will be treated as 5.0 GPA.
- We need to earn a minimum qualification score on ACT/SAT/Assessment exams to be qualified to take these courses. (Eg: ACT score of 18 in English and 22 in Math).
Career Tech Courses
These courses are more career oriented and helps a student pursue their area of career interest early on. These courses help earn college credits and industry credentials and differentiates students on college applications and resumes. In Ohio, we have some organizations called DACC, Tolls etc. who offer these courses. Students apply as sophomores to most programs. Some course examples are given below.Bioscience
Engineering Technician
Digital Design
Culinary Arts
Exercise Science
Cybersecurity
Health Technology & Nursing
Welding
Pharmacy Technician
Wildlife & Resource Management
Robotics, Automation & Design
Early Childhood Education
Zoo School
Recommendations for Parents:
- Build a course plan for all 4 years of high school based on the chosen careen path and based on graduation requirements. It's better to do more than minimal graduation requirement as some colleges expect more that. (E.g., Graduation requirement excepts 2 world language course credits but some colleges except 3 world language credits).
- Push your kids to take up advanced (AP)/challenging courses if you think they have the capability. Sometimes we underestimate our kids, but they are definitely smarter than what we think.
- Keep kids occupied with classes, schoolwork, extra-curricular activities, volunteering etc. so they don't get distracted with other things.
- College Applications should show that we are very proactive, passionate, hardworking etc. So, our course choices, grades and extra-curricular activities should showcase this.
- All the advanced courses, electives and voluntary activities should be oriented towards the career path your student wants to pursue in college. (If you are pursuing medical field, I have some links in the appendix below which will help take better decisions on ideal courses, expected salaries as of this date and the career journey)
- Don't take College courses until you feel that the student is really ready for college classes.
ACT/SAT:
I attended a session for Parents by Dr Sampath from Prep Accelerator, and I found it to be very helpful. He conducts online ACT/SAT boot camps to students, and I would definitely recommend it when your kid is getting ready for these exams.
- ACT/SAT tests are much harder than High school tests as they require lot of memorization and are at a much faster pace and longer test duration (3 hrs.).
- These tests can be taken multiple times as needed to improve the scores. These are conducted 7 times a year nationally (just google for dates every year and register on the respective sites). Some schools also offer these tests to juniors in fall for free.
- Both these tests are equally accepted by universities, and we can choose to submit one of these or both of these as you prefer in the college applications.
- ACT maximum score is 36 and SAT maximum score is 1600.
- ACT has English (25%), Math (25%), Reading (25%) & Science (25%) whereas SAT has English (25%), Math (50%) & Reading (25%). Science includes Data Analysis.
- ACT has 215 questions for 3 hours and SAT has 154 questions 3 hours. ACT requires much faster pace than SAT.
- ACT Math involves some pre-calc and SAT Math involves some trigonometry.
- Test results would be available anywhere from 2 to 8 weeks post the actual test.
Recommendations for Parents:
- Pick up advanced Math in middle school itself. If your school allows 7/8 Math in 7'th grade, go for it at the time of Middle school course scheduling. This will put you in a good position with your ACT/SAT Prep.
- Complete Algebra I, Geometry, Algebra II and then start testing for ACT/SAT. You can focus on other components such as English, Reading, Science until then. If taking Algebra 2 in Junior year, start testing Dec or Feb of junior year by considering the bandwidth of your child with other school and extra-curricular activities.
- ACT/SAT English involves some grammar as well which is not taught in high schools here. So, look for other options to train your kids on English Grammar.
- Make sure kids are well prepared before taking these tests as these scores are available online and colleges can view them unless you specifically cancel them. There are some limitations on what test scores can be cancelled and within how many days. The tests conducted by schools cannot be cancelled.
- There is no negative marking on these tests. So please encourage students to attempt all the questions. Mark difficult questions and come back to them at the end.
- Identify the colleges you are interested in, find the target scores that are required to be eligible for those colleges and shoot for that target score when preparing and taking these tests.
College Applications & Financing:
College Application process begins in October/November timeframe for early admissions and Jan/Feb for normal admissions. We usually get responses from colleges in a month or two and we need to finalize from those colleges and communicate by May for Fall/August Enrollments.
Identify colleges that has good graduation rates, good value of the degree and major, good internship opportunities and good financial aids and use that information to make an optimal choice.
There is an option called Early decision where we have a binding agreement with the College if we get selected.
Types of Application deadlines:
- Early Decision can be used with only one college (and that college has to offer that option!). It is essentially a binding decision -- you'll withdraw any other applications and go to this school if you are accepted.
- Early Action is a second type of early application deadline but is not binding. Early deadlines often coincide with the deadline for scholarship consideration.
- Rolling Admissions means that the college will consider each application as it arrives and will return a decision more quickly to the applicant. They will continue to offer acceptance until they have filled their class up to their regular deadline date.
- Regular Deadline is the final date for applications. Some colleges will continue to accept applications after this date if they have space in their incoming class.
Early deadlines may happen as soon as mid-October or early November or December. They may also have slightly different names and definitions like Restricted Early Action and others.
College Financing
College Categories from most expensive to least are as follows -
- Ivy League (Approx 80K per year)
- Private Non-Profit (Approx 55K per year)
- Public Out of State (Approx 45K per year)
- Public In State (Approx 30K per year)
These are the 5 important questions we need to prepare for when thinking about College Financing.
- How much colleges think you can afford?
- How much can we actually afford?
- How to find schools that are generous with financial aid?
- What are the out-of-pocket costs for all 4 years of college?
- College funding gap and resulting student loans
For #1 above, utilize this FAFSA EFC Calculator -
Expected Family Contribution (EFC) Calculator (finaid.org)
FAFSA is a federal formula and considers parent income, student income, parent & student non-retirement-based assets to determine family income and determine scholarship need based on that.
Cost of College (COA) - Expected Family Contribution (EFC) = Financial Need
Recommendations for Parents:
- Avoid/Minimize Student Loans. For every 10,000$ student loan we take, we need to pay 100$ per month for 10 years. So never take out more than what our kids can make in the first year of job.
- Have College money talk with kids so they don't get disappointed in future if we cannot afford some college.
- Financial Aid forms (FAFSA) are available by October 1'st and it is recommended to apply by Nov 1st for Colleges starting in fall of following year. We need to fill this form each year.
- If you are not a financial need-based family, just ignore that and rather focus on colleges that provide Merit based scholarships and have your student focus on doing better at Academics.
- Visit the college websites for scholarship options and apply for those separately if your kid meets the eligibility requirements.
- Home – BigFuture | College Board
- Home | Federal Student Aid
- Find Scholarships for College Students in 2023-2024 | Bold.org
- Google for "Net Price Calculator" for any college
Volunteering & Service Hours:
- Search for Volunteering options around your area in Libraries, Hospitals, Food Donation Drives, Zoo, Animal shelters, Retirement & Medical facilities, School athletic/music events etc. Search over the internet, do direct visits and find out, talk to friends etc. Most of them have some minimum age requirements such as 14+ or 16+.
- Some of these institutions have an application process, deadlines, interviews, require referrals etc. just like actual job hiring. Once selected, there are some orientation/training sessions to get them started.
- Do more than recommended service hours for graduation if you want your kid to be eligible for National Honour Society which requires 24 service hours each in freshman and sophomore years and greater than 3.5 GPA.
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