Start Conversations About College and Life After High School

0:00:01.1 S1: As you start conversations about college with your student, or if you are the student with your family, it can feel stressful, you might not know what steps to take, where to go, what to do, you don’t want to have a lot of pressure with these conversations, do you have more than enough on your plate already, but what we want to do is help you know how to get started, give you the tools and resources, they’re going to help you find the right path, it’s going to be just right for your student or you… If you are the student.

0:00:32.9 S1: So stay tuned. And we will dive right in.

0:00:37.5 S1: For those of you that don’t know me, I am Courtney, I am the founder of confused to college ready. I am a mental health therapist, turned school counselor with 16 years experience, and I love being able to help families. So if you are new to our podcast or if this is something that you have enjoyed and you haven’t already, please please leave a review. We would love to be able to hear from you. We are celebrating almost… We’re going to have 30 podcast episodes coming out very soon, we are at almost 550 downloads, and I would love to hear from you about how the podcast has helped you, as well as please share it with your friends if it’s something that has been helpful. We would absolutely love to see this continue to grow over the next coming weeks. We also are going to be starting a launch for our new course that is going to be able to help students and families navigate, there will be different lessons and modules that we’re going to teach live, and then we’ll also have some coaching opportunities, so… Super, super excited for that.

0:01:51.5 S1: But let’s really dive in, I want to talk about these conversations and we have previous episodes about the path to college, our last two episodes, numbers 27 and 28 are all about finding that that right path to college is not one size fits all. We have other episodes that are really about having those challenging conversations and talking about finances, but I want to really dig in to see what are some steps that you can take… I’m going to share some of my own personal experiences and things that I learned, even though I went to school a while ago, there’s still some really good lessons, and then I also want to tell you about a family that I had worked with previously, so no matter where your student is in their college search, or where they are in their high school search, and timeline, you have time to be able to figure these pieces out and to be able to figure out, Okay, what careers might I be interested in? How do I know what I’m interested in? What steps do I take from here? And also being able to know where you want to go now, if your student is towards in the summer before senior year, your timeline might need to be expedited a little bit, and we’ve talked about that before too, and I will link a lot of these show…

0:03:13.6 S1: These episodes that are beneficial in our show notes as well for you.

0:03:20.4 S1: But we have… You definitely have time. And if your student is early on in college, the more that you take little steps at a time, the easier it’s going to be, so when we look at different tools, one of the first things that we want to be able to know about as we are looking at colleges is going to be potential careers, so I told you that I was going to share some information about myself… I have talked about this a little bit before, originally, when I went to college, I was a music major, and then ended up that that was not a good fit, I ultimately lost my scholarships because it was not… It was just not something that was right for me, so I had academic scholarships from my senior year in high school, I lost those, and so then I was responsible for making sure that everything got paid, which that was a hard thing to have happen then I ultimately found the right path, but there were several different starts and stops that I had in several different areas that I was looking at and trying to figure out What do I want to do, so I have finally settled in after multiple classes and trying to figure out what I wanted, I settled into Family Studies in Psychology, and then as I’ve shared, I became a Mental Health Therapist, and I did that for eight years, and now I have finished my eighth year as a school counselor.

0:04:56.3 S1: So there have been several different paths that I’ve taken, and I wouldn’t be who I am or where I am without that, so I certainly don’t regret any of it, but I’m not the Music major that I initially thought I was going to be, and the things that I was so sure of of what I wanted to do in high school, and so I want students to know that if things change, that is absolutely okay. And sometimes you take electives and that helps you identify what you do or don’t like both in high school and in college, and that exact career is not something that is going to be definite or defined. I am going to be hosting an interview with someone who is going to talk more with us about potential careers and things to look for as far as interviews and how to put your best foot forward with all of those pieces.

0:05:54.7 S1: There are multiple tools that you can use in order to search for those particular potential careers, so if you have… If your school has access to Avian, if your school has access to any other tools like that, there also is owned… In my next move, there are several different free tools where you can complete a career interest inventory, and then your school, like I said, if they have Navan, that’s something that the school would pay for, another really big piece to consider, and I’m going to give you a little spoiler, within the next two weeks, I am going to err a bonus episode with a lovely woman who I met, and she actually helped students and families navigate the scholarship search process and being able to make the most of your money and to be able to go into college with as little… And leave school with as little debt as possible and hopefully even done. So we’re going to share that episode, she has some really great tips that one is going to be coming soon, but then the other… And so there’s a big four things, so we’ve got your free tools looking at Navan, looking at finances, and Avian College Board as well, they have a career search option, they also have college searches, and so you can see what might be a good fit, the finances and what you’re going to be able to pay, that’s going to make a big difference on where you can apply if you know that there is not any kind of financial support to be able to pay more than…

0:07:40.6 S1: And I’m just growing just like X amount of dollars, just a random number, you put in for you what that X number of dollars is, then you need to consider, how am I going to pay for this? And is that something where I would want to take out loans? And again, we’ll talk more about this in that bonus episode, super, super excited to be able to have you here from her.

0:08:07.4 S1: But the other thing that I want you to think about is location, and so as we look at… And we’ve talked about this before, some two in previous episodes, as you look at where you want to attend school, you need to make sure that it’s something that you’re going to be fully comfortable with.

0:08:26.4 S1: And that if you are kind of on the fence in between a couple of majors that they have a program where you would end up being okay with going into either program once you had taken some color, more classes and be able to narrow that down.

0:08:44.0 S1: Another component might be if you’re a student athlete, some students are looking for a specific school, you want to make sure that even if you are not playing, that that one piece is not the only defining component to where you’re applying… You need to be able to remember that you’re there to get your education as well, and so that takes some consideration of, Do they have your particular major, so knowing that preferred or potential major can definitely help, but that doesn’t mean that… That doesn’t mean that you have to have… That it has to be defined and that it can’t change, so… Definitely change your mind if you don’t have any kind of idea. Again, that’s where it goes back to those electives being able to help, but what we want you to do as we start the conversations around each of those pieces… So I had a student that I worked with, and they were an average student, they had… Their grades that they had done pretty well, they were right in the middle, top 40% to 50% of the class, and it was a really large school and it was one where where all students excelled, and so they still were meeting scholarships, academic scholarships, Marita scholarships all of those pieces, but they weren’t sure what to do or how to start talking about things, so what we did is we gave them some step-by-step pieces, and they started with the free workbook that I have on how to start or expand your college search.

0:10:31.0 S1: And they started looking at those pieces to figure out what are their potential careers, looking at what are the things that they absolutely had to have in their college, and then also starting to really look and dive into that college search, and from there, we took them through an additional four steps, and we were able to help them narrow down those careers as we discuss things and the family had their own discussions in addition to the work that they did with me. Then they were actually able to look at what are some of the specific schools that I want to apply to, what do I want to be able to talk about? What is my personal unique story, how do I want to be able to share that with others? What are the things that I want to make sure that the college knows and understands about me, we talked about testing, we talked about what was that going to look like, we looked at what schools were going to be a good fit as far as safety and target schools and reach schools, we looked at all of the different components and then make sure that the student knew exactly what they needed to do as they were going through that application process, between letters of recommendation, between sending and transcripts, test scores, making sure that they had each component of the application done, and they knew how they were going to train, how they were going to train themselves to stay on top of things, how they were going to track those application deadlines, and making sure that they were really confident in what they submitted.

0:12:13.7 S1: Well, the family, they had gone from not knowing what to do, not knowing how to have these conversations to… By the time senior year rolled around, we were in… And when I say we, we work together, but they were in an amazing place, they felt really positive about the work that they had done, and understood that there were still some things that were going to be unknown and that they were going to have to figure out once they got to college like, Yep, this is the major that I’m interested in, but a potential career, it was a pretty broad field, and so they were able to do a lot more from there and looking at what their specific interests were and what they wanted to do after graduation. So there are a lot of steps. I started working with that family earlier in their high school career, but we got to a really good point, and so part of why I want to share the story about that family is because we were able to make a major difference, and I want to make sure that the families that I work with, that you all know that we have a lot of free resources here, and I am going to give you as much as I can to be able to help you and be able to help you navigate the college search process, the admissions process and everything that comes along with it, but if you are interested in having some additional one-on-one help, some additional support that.

0:13:46.1 S1: Course and those coaching sessions, the group coaching, and then I’m in our Facebook group answering questions, I would absolutely love to have you reach out to me, this is going to be coming soon. We want to get started this summer, and it doesn’t matter what grade your student is in, the information that I have to share is going to be… It can be used at every grade level, and the other thing I want to do is make it so that you’re not spending all of your time focused on the college search, we’re busy, I know that you’re busy, I know that your student is busy, and I want to be able to help serve you in your student, so stay tuned for more information on that, if you have not already, please go download our free guide on how to start or expand your college search, and that will make sure that you get the information and future emails about what we are doing. Also, again, if you have not shared our podcast with friends and there’s someone that you think that this would be helpful for, please please share with them, and then also please leave a review so that other people can find this podcast.

0:14:52.8 S1: I absolutely look forward to hearing how this has helped you and being able to have… Of those future conversations, set that time aside, try to remind yourself to take deep breaths as you’re going through… There’s no bad timing with this, and I absolutely. Look forward to talking with you next time. Take care.