The College Conversation by Eric J. Furda and Jacques Steinberg (Book Excerpt)
From THE COLLEGE CONVERSATION by Eric J. Furda and Jacques Steinberg, published by Viking, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House, LLC. Copyright © 2020 by Eric J. Furda and Jacques Steinberg.
As readers of this book, you may be joining the College Conversation at different points in your child’s development. But our particular focus here will be for parents of children currently in middle school or high school. If your oldest child is still in elementary school, our strong counsel is to let them enjoy being children—exploring their academic interests and having fun—as you gain insight into their emerging learning styles.
For those of you whose children are in middle school—typically grades six through eight—we believe that these years are far too early in a child’s development to be visiting colleges, and we can as- sure you that no college admissions officer is going to be dipping into your child’s middle school record as part of an admission decision. But the course selection that you and your child make in the middle school years can impact later academic choices. For example, a pre-algebra course in eighth grade can serve as a foundation for more advanced math classes in high school. You as a parent also have to balance whatever advice you do offer with your knowledge of your child and the importance of not pushing them too hard too early.
The same is true of extracurricular activities. As children approach their early teens, these should be a source of enjoyment, as well as enhancing their physical fitness and well-being. Let them explore a wide range of activities that might help them discover what they like and who they are. Middle school parents should not be looking ahead to senior year of high school, when their children will be dutifully listing their many extracurricular activities in their college applications. At a certain point during the transition from middle school to high school, their sampling may come to an end and their interests into sharper focus, as their lives become more complicated and busy with the demands of high school and adolescence. At this point they’re going to need you to provide some guidance and structure to help inform their decisions regarding those activities on which they might focus.
Middle school is also a time in children’s lives when they begin to develop the habits and pursuits that can serve them well in their high school and college years. Here we are talking about the child who makes a habit of reading for pleasure at night or whose interest in something like baseball box scores or the beam in gymnastics begins to cross the line to passion. Don’t push them to develop these habits and have these experiences with an end result in mind, but rather for the joy of doing so.
For those whose children are about to make the transition into ninth grade, please don’t view this moment as the firing of a starter pistol signaling a mad race to cram your child’s life with so many advanced courses, near-perfect grades, and pursuits outside the class- room that sleep becomes a rare luxury.
Now we know what you might be thinking: only a few pages ago we noted that in spring 2020 the University of Pennsylvania offered admission to only 8 percent of an applicant pool of more than 42,000, almost enough to fill Franklin Field, the school’s football stadium. Surely those teenagers fortunate enough to have been offered a space in the class shared one quality in common: perfection in every demonstrable category, having been ridden hard by parents who had somehow decoded the secret formula for acceptance.
Not even close.
Aside from the fact that there is no such formula—you are going to have to trust us both on that—this is your opportunity as a parent to set a tone that will encourage your child to value the four years of high school as its own experience, rather than as merely a means to an end. And it’s also your chance to disabuse them of the notion that there is any such thing as “perfect” when it comes to college admission. Later in this book we’ll explain that a good and effective college application is in fact a natural summation of these years, capturing lessons learned and experiences had, ideally for the sheer pleasure of those moments. If, on the other hand, you communicate to your child, however indirectly, that you view high school as one giant résumé builder, you will likely set them up for two disappointments. The first: they might not get into their chosen school. But the second disappointment is far more tragic: they will have missed out on the opportunity to make their own choices, develop their own interests, and, quite possibly, enjoy the journey of learning itself.
Which is not to say that the high school years—and decisions made about courses, and how your children spend their time—aren’t critically important. But by placing those years in the proper perspective for your children at the outset, you (and they) will be in a better position to find fulfillment, while also preparing them (and you) as they set sail on one of the many routes to and through college.
Eric J. Furda is the dean of admissions at the University of Pennsylvania and the former executive director of admissions at Columbia University. Jacques Steinberg is the New York Times bestselling author of The Gatekeepers and You Are an Ironman, and is a former New York Times education journalist. He has served as a senior executive at Say Yes to Education and is on the board of the National Association for College Admission Counseling. He appears periodically as a college admissions expert on NBC’s Today show.
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