The stress level that teens in Los Angeles experience is often a reflection of what is happening in their homes and families. Some LA teens have been struggling with college applications at the same time as their parents (or single parent) worry about keeping or finding a job, paying bills and figuring out how they are going to pay for that very expensive college education.
At every level, college is costly. Even community colleges are raising fees and tuition, and private colleges can approach $60,000 per year, not including such incidentals as enough money to be able to travel home on breaks. Clearly, cost is something that parents and their children need to discuss and evaluate carefully. And they usually do. Another concern, however, is linked to some parents’ need to micromanage a child, from crib to college.
In early January, some college acceptances begin to arrive. Most of those are early action or early acceptance decisions. For the bulk of the college applicants, final acceptances will arrive in early April. Most students, some of whom have applied to over 25 different colleges in the frenzy that appears to some to be only slightly more or less ludicrous than the hoops some Los Angeles parents went through to get their children into the “right” preschool; will be faced with making a decision and selecting a school to attend by May 1.
Despite the feeling that many parents have that they know what is best for their child, this is a perfect opportunity for parents to respect boundaries and allow the teen to make his or her own decision. Once all the information, including scholarships and financial aid is available, it is high time for parents to turn the decision making process over to the child. While there’s nothing wrong with encouraging a teen to revisit schools and to offer suggestions as to how to best make the decision, (a list of pros and cons for each school?) that final decision of which college to attend should be left to the teen.
The college experience is more than the sum of its parts, and if a teen is going to be motivated and successful at college they need to feel that they are attending the school of their choice. With the speed at which both the educational and workplace arenas are changing, no one has a magic ball that will guarantee a child’s success or happiness. Empowering a child and allowing them to attend the college of their choice, is the first step in the process of allowing a teen to develop into an independent adult. The “right” decision is usually the one that the teen selects for him or herself. Trust that your child, at the end of his or her teen years, can do this.
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