A Parent’s Guide to College Planning
What’s Covered:
- How Parents Can Help Plan For College
- How Parents Can Help With College Preparation
- How Parents Can Help With the College Process
- Additional Resources
- Where to Get Free, Personalized Guidance on How to Support Your Child
Here at the CollegeVine blog, most of our posts are directed toward college-bound high school students. High school is a time of growth and increasing independence, and we want to make sure that future college applicants are actively and personally engaged with making and achieving their college goals.
However, parents play a major role in the college planning process, too. They help students make decisions, offer encouragement, provide reminders, and support their children throughout the process, in addition to contributing financial and other practical assistance.
Are you the parent of a high school student who hopes to attend college? This post is for you! We’ll go over various elements of the role you can expect to play in the college planning process, as well as advice for how to be a well-informed and well-prepared ally to your child as they plan for college.
How Parents Can Help Plan For College
There’s no one right way to handle the college planning process as a parent. Your ideal level and type of involvement in preparing your child for college will depend on your child’s individual needs, and much of the process must be owned by the student.
Making a college list and eventually filling out applications will inevitably require a great deal of independence from your child. No one but your child can take standardized tests, develop extracurricular interests, prepare academically for college coursework, or write the Common App essay.
Still, parents have many opportunities to help, and students definitely benefit when their parents play an active role. Your practical and emotional support can be essential for helping your high school student successfully navigate the complicated and sometimes difficult process of planning for college.
On a practical level, parents often do a great deal of the legwork that makes it possible for students to pursue academic and extracurricular opportunities. As a parent, you can expect to be asked to provide transportation, financial support for things like summer programs, access to technology (for example, your student may ask for a pair of noise-cancelling headphones to help them concentrate), and other logistical assistance as your child prepares for college.
Students can also benefit from the personal assistance that only a parent can provide. Parents can be their children’s greatest cheerleaders, closest advisors, and most thoughtful critics, all of which are essential roles as a student manages the stress of planning and preparing for college and going through the application process itself.
In the next sections, we’ll go over some more specific ways in which parents often assist their children with preparing for and ultimately applying to college.
How Parents Can Help With College Preparation
Students will differ in what exactly they need to do to prepare effectively for college, based on their interests and goals. However, generally speaking, high school students can prepare for college by building a solid academic record, pursuing extracurricular activities, doing well on standardized tests, and researching the college admissions process. There are a few things you can do as a parent to make these tasks considerably easier.
While you can’t complete your child’s schoolwork for them, you can encourage your child to take challenging courses and pursue high levels of academic achievement, as well as give them the assistance they need if/when they stumble while navigating a rigorous curriculum. For example, if your student isn’t as confident in their language abilities but has decided to push themselves by taking AP French, be prepared to potentially hire them a tutor if necessary.
You should also encourage your student to get involved with extracurricular activities that match their interests, and seek out leadership roles in these activities as they progress through high school. Assisting with issues like transportation and activity fees, as well as offering encouragement and maybe even some prodding if necessary, can allow your child to build a better extracurricular profile for personal benefit as well as future college applications.
Standardized test scores are another key piece of the application at many colleges, even with the rise of test-optional policies, and you can help your child manage registration dates and procedures, as well as provide transportation to testing sites. Additionally, tutoring, purchasing test prep books, or even just going over some practice questions together can substantially improve your student’s chances of doing well on the SAT or ACT.
Students should also get an early start on the process of researching their college options and trying to figure out which schools might be the best fit for them. As a parent, you can offer advice about which kinds of colleges and environments could align well with what your student is looking for, and do some of the practical legwork of planning college visits so that your student can experience a school firsthand.
Just make sure you aren’t pushing your own opinion on a school too much—your child honestly asking themselves what they want in a school, and working to figure out the answer, is what this process is all about!
Finally, remain aware that preparing for, and eventually attending, college requires a substantial investment of time and energy. Between homework and studying, extracurricular involvement, and the very real need for rest, you’ll likely notice that your student has less free time than they did in the past.
This is not to say that you should have no other expectations of your child during high school! Having chores or other tasks to complete at home is normal and expected. However, recognize that your child will now be balancing these tasks with the demands of the college preparation process, in addition to their regular responsibilities.
How Parents Can Help With the College Process
When it comes time for your student to actually apply to college, typically in the fall of their senior year of high school, you’ll have many opportunities to help out with practical tasks and provide emotional support. Your student will need to do the majority of the application work themselves, but you can certainly help them manage the application workload successfully.
This support could involve helping keep track of and meeting deadlines, providing transportation to college events and interviews, offering input on essays and other application materials, or assisting with college research. As long as the application itself remains your student’s own work and reflects who they truly are, you’re welcome to assist in whichever ways work best for you and your child!
Another area in which parental help can be useful is that of choosing a college that’s a good fit for your child. After all, you likely know your child better than almost anyone else. You’re uniquely situated to ask the right questions and encourage your child to consider all the important issues in choosing a college.
In the end, all students will need to make their own decisions about where to attend college. However, your advice and input during the stages of deciding where to apply, and, once acceptance letters come back, where to attend, do matter, and your child may be paying more attention than you think.
A final important way in which parents help students with their college choices is, of course, providing financial support. In most cases, a student’s parents are the ones who will be handling the cost of college. While financial aid, scholarships, and loans can help make college more affordable, cost is a very real factor for most college applicants.
As a parent, you need to be honest with your child about your financial resources and how much you can afford to contribute to college costs. If your student intends to apply for aid, you’ll also need to provide detailed information about your financial situation as part of the aid application. While these can be difficult discussions to have, it’s very important that you and your student be on the same page about money.
Do be aware that, while sticker prices can be intimidating, those raw numbers often don’t reflect what you will actually end up paying. Many schools commit to meeting 100% of a student’s demonstrated financial need. Looking up a school’s Net Price Calculator, which gives you an estimate of what you personally will need to pay based on your financial circumstances, can give you a much more realistic idea of what kind of bill you’ll be looking at.
Additional Resources
Your student’s guidance counselor is often a great person to answer questions about the college process. In addition to meeting with their guidance counselor with your student, you can also schedule a meeting to speak to them on your own. The latter setup can sometimes allow you to talk about certain topics, such as finances, more freely, without the risk of causing your child additional stress.
Guidance counselors and other school officials may also offer events that are specifically geared towards educating parents about the world of college admissions. From parents-only meetings to college fairs, these events can provide you with useful information about how to help your child with their applications.
It’s also a good idea to reach out to other parents in your community who have been through the college application process recently. These parents will often have helpful insight into the process and can speak from experience about challenges they encountered or resources they found helpful. Just keep in mind the process isn’t exactly the same for any two students, and some aspects can change even year to year, so some advice might not apply to your student, or may simply not be relevant for the coming admissions cycle.
Finally, there is a vast range of print and online resources that you can use to supplement what’s available within your own community. Some sources are more reputable or accurate than others, so you’ll need to use your judgment in selecting books and websites.
The following websites are good places to start learning about various aspects of the college application process, and will likely include links to other good options. You can also ask your student’s guidance counselor or family friends for recommendations!
- The College Board administers the PSAT, SAT, and AP tests and provides other college planning resources
- The ACT administers the ACT Test and provides additional resources
- The U.S. News and World Report annual college rankings are popular and well-known reviews of colleges in the United States, which include statistics and data for each college that allow you to get a quick portrait of that school
- The CollegeVine blog includes articles on many different admissions-related topics by writers with admissions experience and know-how, many of whom attended competitive colleges themselves
Whether from guidance counselors, other parents, or the media, you’ll find yourself bombarded with a lot of different advice about college admissions. Remember that every student is different, and not every piece of advice you hear may be applicable to your child’s particular situation—that’s totally normal!
The most important thing is to do your research, look up any terms or requirements that are confusing to you, and maintain an open dialogue with your child about how you can most effectively help with their personal process. Your support and assistance can be hugely influential in helping your child make good choices, navigate the often-stressful admissions process, and find a college that will provide them with an enriching, enjoyable higher educational experience.
Where to Get Free, Personalized Guidance on How to Support Your Child
Do you still have more questions, especially ones that are specific to your personal family situation? Meet Sage, our AI tutor and advisor, who can advise on all aspects of the college process, including how parents can best help and support!
