I recently had the opportunity to work with these girl scouts towards their college knowledge badge. The badge has a variety of requirements they can do to earn the badge. The main steps include:
- Step 1: Explore your college search options
- Step 2: Start the admissions process
- Step 3: Make a financial plan
- Step 4: Get set for success
- Step 5: Build healthy habits
This process not only applies to girl scouts but one that all high school students should follow. Here is more detail about each step:
Explore Your College Search Options
This is where your child starts researching different colleges they would like to attend. Different factors that play deciding which colleges attend. Factors include what they want to major in, location, size, cost, and extracurricular activities.
Start the Admissions Process
This step pretty much explains itself but it’s more than just filling out the application. There are many documents that need to be pulled together. Your child needs to do their best on the SAT or ACT. If you want to know more about the admissions process, check out my interview with Linda Dennis, a college application expert. You can click here to access it.
Make a Financial Plan
This where you find out what it will cost to attend the colleges your child searched. You will want to research and apply for different scholarships. You can research for grants or find an employer who will help pay for college. Companies like Starbucks do this.
Get Set for Success
Prepare your child for the differences in college courses from high school. The classes might be much larger. The classes might be more challenging. This can be very intimidating and cause stress on your child. You can click here to see my article about how to help your child with stress.
Build Healthy Habits
Living away from home and learning how to juggle classes, homework, friends, and finances can be daunting on a college freshman. Remember the term “freshman 15”. This is the number of pounds a college freshman will typically gain. I remember many nights in college where we would eat lots of pizza while studying and stressing. This isn’t good for your child’s body and anxiety.
I will explore each of these steps in further detail in upcoming posts and provide you some tools. So you can help your child through this process.
Contact me if you know of any girls scouts or other groups who could benefit from me helping them through increasing their college knowledge. You can email me at laurie@myidealcollege.org.