ESSAY - At the Crossroads: The Right Timing of Hiring a College Consultant.

Sure, it’s a classic song by Robert Johnson (and Cream) about standing at a crossroads, symbolizing a pivotal decision or life-altering moment (and it’s also an unheralded movie starring Ralph Macchio), but that’s not important right now.  Following up the original essay I posted when I kicked the CKM off last month on the topic of ‘should you hire an IEC’, I want to take a few moments to address a corollary to that question: when should you start preparing for college?  I chose the use of “crossroads” intentionally here.  There are a number of realistic answers to the question, but some are better than others, and the answer varies based on your goals and needs. It’s a complex enough question that a discussion is warranted. 

I’ve heard a lot of different answers along the way during my journey as an IEC. Some families start REALLY early on… like shortly after the child is born.  Others are into it by the end of elementary school.  More are dialed in by the time they get the to end of middle school (junior high).  While the primary behaviors and talents that contribute to a solid, college-ready student are certainly cultivated at these early stages, when we say ‘preparing for college’, I don’t think any of these answers is correct.  Let’s let kids be kids for a while. 

Oddly enough, I posed a question in the first essay that I am literally going to copy/paste here: what are your needs as a family?  The general rule of thumb is that the further up the proverbial college ‘food chain’ you are hoping to climb, the more likely you will need to start early (like midway through 9^th grade or very early in 10^th grade).  Why, you ask?  Most of the ‘top 1%’ schools in terms of reputation and difficulty of admission are going to look at many different values that require time to develop and strengthen throughout high school.  Class rigor, beginning as early as 9^th grade (but clearly, the grades and level of difficulty matter more the further you advance in high school), very much matter in these types of difficult admission decisions.  How well is the student performing throughout high school?  Again, everyone knows grades matter.  Sometimes colleges start counting in 9^th grade, sometimes in 10^th, but in either case, the grades matter fairly early in the process, so sharpening your focus matters.  Development of extracurricular activities certainly paints a deeper picture of what the student is interested in, what they are good at, where and what they have explored during high school (and their summer breaks), and what that student is likely going to bring to the table for that college/university when they arrive (if they’re invited to attend).  Rarely does a student just jump in and excel in several different areas of exposure.  This takes time!  Further, high school is the absolute best time to explore different interests and determine which are so meaningful the student wishes to pursue it/them in college (or beyond college). 

Are there other things that matter in this process?  Of course, but many of the others can and likely will happen later on in the process (standardized testing, letters of recommendation, demonstrations of interest, among others), usually not starting to take shape until the student has reached the end of 10^th grade/ start of 11^th grade, so this begs the question: why can’t we start preparing for college at the start of 11^th grade?  You can, in many cases. 

If you have been on top of things early on and have a sense of the student’s direction, both academically and extracurricularly, I see no reason why you couldn’t get things underway at this stage of the game and expect success as the outcome.  Things like course selection become more important in 11^th and 12^th grades, especially because students really start to get options to work with and paths to go down.  Which AP/IB classes you take and how many of them you attempt starts to matter more now. 

The SAT and/or ACT come into focus as early as the summer after 10^th grade but can still take place early on in 12^th grade and still be used at just about any school in the nation (if they consider standardized tests at all).  Taking and preparing for one of the tests (there’s no bias on the application reader’s end of the story – it comes down to which of the tests is preferred by the student) matters, so getting advice on what to take, when, and having a reasonable goal score in mind, based on a cultivated college list are all good ideas to review at this time in the high schoolers ‘career’.

Speaking of building that college list, I think this is one of the most important reasons why you might hire an IEC.  There are an incredible number of colleges and universities in this country and I am pretty darn sure the average American knows very little about what those options really offer, what they are likely to cost their family, what their true odds of admission are at each school, and why each one is or is not a good fit for their student.  It’s easy to rely on the ‘tried and true’ names that are familiar in discussion circles at your favorite parties, but I can assure you those people know less than the average IEC does about what that experience is really going to be like, why it will or won’t benefit any one student (beyond the name-brand reputation of each institution), and then there’s the razor-thin chance of admission to many of those same schools.  There is a better way to do this.   

This is just the ‘tip of the iceberg’.  There’s more to discuss and contemplate, but I have taken up enough of your time already.  As such, I’ll leave you by quoting myself once more (from the prior essay: “The college process has always required patience and diligence. What’s different now is how early uncertainty shows up, and how loudly it echoes online. Parents don’t need more hot takes. They need help deciding what actually deserves their attention and the attention of their child.  I hope this helps.  Happy hunting!”

If I can be of any help, feel free to touch base via LinkedIn or email me directly: rob@premiercollegeguide.com.