All Aboard!

Tomorrow, my older daughter begins her senior year of high school, and her sister starts her freshman year. That puts us all on the college admission journey. Some may wonder why I’m on the journey when it's my child who wants to go to college. Kids have been getting themselves into college for years, right? Their counselors tell them the requirements, they take the classes and tests, then apply, right? Not anymore. It’s a whole new world. The admissions process, even in the California public university system, is complex and competitive. If students don’t get it right, they risk rejection, sometimes even by their local university. Public high school counselors have huge caseloads, so they have limited time to make sure that individual students are on track. Unless students are in academic support programs like AVID, they have to rely on parents to help navigate them through. That’s why I’m on it, and that’s why I’m here. My daughter and I have been muddling through this by calling on every resource we have. By creating a blog, I thought I might be able to both develop new resources and become a resource to families just starting the process.

So let me make a few things clear. We live in Southern California, and my daughter plans to apply, for the most part, to California public universities. We’re not concerning ourselves with elite private schools. That’s an entirely different level of preparation, and requires expertise WAY beyond mine. There are plenty of books and high-priced consultants you can employ if that’s your path. It’s not ours. And please keep in mind, I am NOT an expert! I’m learning as I go, and I hope that by making our process public, it will help lots of us. It’s funny, because I thought that having spent sixteen years as a high school educator, I knew something about all of this. Wrong! My learning curve has been steep. My best resources have been other parents and educators who have recently been down this path. With any luck, they’ll be following this blog and keeping us on track! I’d be lost without them!
So here we go! Welcome to the journey!