Disclosure / Disclaimer: I received this book, free of charge, from Random House Publishing, via netgalley, review purposes on this blog. No other compensation, monetary or in kind, has been received or implied for this post. Nor was I told how to post about it.
After all the testing and touring and applying, your child has been accepted to college.
Congratulations!
Now what?
Synopsis:
Every new student grapples with making a successful transition to college—with remaining healthy, happy, grounded, and in school. Indeed, the national statistics are sobering: One in three freshmen will not come back for sophomore year, and less than 50 percent will graduate on time. A student’s adjustment is key, especially during the period starting with the lazy summer months before move-in and ending at the dizzying close of a student’s first semester. Distilling lessons and sharing stories (some cautionary, some entertaining, all helpful) from her long college advisory career, three-time Ivy League dean Monique Rinere presents a unique month-by-month road map to a college experience that is rich, rewarding, and successful for teens and parents alike. Taking parents from the moment the acceptances arrive to the end of the first college semester, her expert advice covers:
• assessing the right fit among your child’s options: who and what to ask to get the real scoop on campus and academic life
• understanding actual costs: considering hidden expenses, financial-aid and scholarship fine print, loans, and work-study opportunities
• parenting through the senior slump so that students don’t jeopardize their hard-won college spot
• talking to your child about freshman culture shock and their new freedoms around parties, food, finances, and sleep
• what your child needs to know about working with an academic advisor, interacting with professors, and creating their own community of advisors
• how to help your rising freshman create a conceptual bridge from what they are, a graduating high school senior, to what they want to be, a college alum
• time-management and class-scheduling tips to help your child pick an appropriate class (and extracurricular) load
• advice for parents facing the emptying nest: letting go of your anxieties about your child’s autonomy and seizing this opportunity to reinvent your life
Review:
This book is really aimed at parents of high school seniors, who are wanting to go off to college. We already know that this generation is greatly unready for the rigors that they can can face both in class and out of it, living alone, without mom and dad to take care of day-to-day items. But getting your kids ready starts BEFORE they've graduated- and this book helps parents along the way, to see what skills your child will need both in and out of school, AND how to self-advocate for their self with advisors and teachers- no more helicoptering parent to the rescue! The book is unique in that it comes from one who has SEEN the issues affecting freshmen, and who knows what they colleges WANT from freshmen, for a different perspective, that will help YOU as parents see what skills your child may need work on, NOW. If you have a child about to start high school, I really would recommend reading this book now, so that you can help your child plan the next 4 years, to make the entry into college for all of you.
About the Author:
A first-generation college student, Monique studied seven languages, living in Germany for years, and changed her major five times, before finally earning a B.A. in German and Music in 1990 from the City University of New York (CUNY) Hunter College. Inspired by a college adviser, she also earned Phds in Germanic Languages and Literatures from Princeton University.
She has servied as the Director of Studies of Mathey College,as the Residential College Dean of Butler College at Princeton, the founding dean of Harvard College's Advising Programs Office, Dean of Advising for Columbia College and The Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science at Columbia University in the City of New York. Currently, she is an Associate Vice President at The New School, working to support students in myriad creative ways. She has also given dozens of talks to high school and college students and their parents, on how to choose a college and excel there.
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