College planning — it’s what keeps high school juniors and seniors (and their parents) up at night. Although college planning efforts reach their height in eleventh and twelfth grades, the buildup to ultimate college readiness begins much earlier. Below is a guide to begin your college planning efforts from PreK through through senior year so that your child can enjoy a fulfilling, joyful, and successful school journey and eventual college application process.
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PreK through 5th Grade
It’s reasonable for parents to think about college and career readiness at the outset of schooling. It’s certainly a popular practice for independent schools to showcase their high school and college admissions when families engage in the admissions process at very early ages. For most of our clients, college placement is the yardstick for success. While Faya and I would rather families not focus on entry to any one particular college when a student is on deck for a Preschool, Lower School, or Middle School placement, it’s certainly reasonable to use college readiness as a GPS for planning purposes. If a successful college experience is the desired destination, then we have to work backwards to scaffold that success. There’s a reason that preK-12 schools and school districts engage in curriculum mapping and backwards design.
Investing in early childhood education and mastery of core academic skills in the primary grades is a critical component of eventual college readiness. As an Elementary Educator and Curriculum and Instruction expert with nearly 30 years of teaching experience, I’ve seen the pendulum swing wildly too many times. Schools and school systems can often be too quick and impatient to usher in or out specific curricula and programs. Parents can get unnecessarily caught up in chasing technology and speculating about future careers. Today’s AI thrust is a great example of that. But what never seems to change is the necessity to be able to read, write, and do math in addition to mastering related process skills, executive function skills, and social skills that are directly tied to any and all content and school achievement.
Benchmarking is not a dirty word, and data is absolutely useful for teachers and parents with regard to instructional planning and supporting learning both at school and at home. There’s no excuse to avoid precisely defining how a student is performing. We have plenty of ways to measure student performance, and it can be done compassionately, holistically, and through a variety of assessment types, including work samples, MAP testing, CTP by ERB, state testing, and neuropsychological evaluations.
From early ages, we can precisely pinpoint all kinds of important metrics for targeting instruction relative to grade level and developmental expectations on a quarter-by-quarter basis of each school year. Families with children in Lower School regularly engage us to complete reading, writing, and math diagnostic work in order to look more carefully at alpha reading levels, developmental stages of spelling, mastery of grade level sight words, written output and progress with related writing traits, number sense and operations, place value understanding, fractions (e.g. common fractions, decimal fractions, and percentages), science process skills (e.g. observing, measuring, classifying, inferring, predicting, and communicating), and more. These foundational skills are critical for more advanced learning to come and eventual college readiness.
6th Grade
Since 7th grade matters quite a lot for high school admissions, we need to think about 6th grade as an optimal year for some appropriate academic risk taking, mistake making, and refinement of executive function skills. Performance in grade 6 is certainly important and represented on a middle school transcript, but there’s more wiggle room surrounding this adjustment year in much the same way that 9th grade is an understood adjustment year and some wobbles are expected. Traditionally, 6th grade is the start of middle school, although there are many schools that officially start the middle school division with 5th grade. At this point in the schooling trajectory, teaching is typically departmentalized, and students are transitioning from classroom to classroom. This transitioning requires enhanced executive function skills surrounding planning and time management, managing materials and a locker, navigating more faculty members and varying expectations, and negotiating social interactions and impulse control. It’s usually a noticeable increase over the lower school experience, and it’s a foundational year to be building skills and strategies that support enhanced effectiveness for the grade levels and related expectations to come.
This 6th grade school year is also a really important one to organize a comprehensive evaluation if there are any concerns about inattention or learning challenges or to consider updating testing from elementary school. Many students manage well enough through elementary school only to reach their edge with the departmentalization and increased demands of middle school. Having this information is important for a variety of reasons, including accommodations planning for grades 6-12. Psychologists often have wait lists, and it’s best to avoid an evaluation scramble and be proactive about this planning.
Notably, the publishers of the ISEE, SSAT, ACT and SAT all require documentation to support accommodations requests. ACT and SAT look for a documented history of challenges and accessing accommodations at school as part of their approval process and ADHD, for example, is best documented by age 12. Therefore, accommodations planning should begin as early as possible both to support your student at earlier ages and to lay the groundwork for future requests.
7th Grade
7th grade matters a lot for high school admissions, thus it’s a critical school year as you consider your 9th grade plans. Students and families interested in competitive day schools and boarding schools alike need to treat 7th grade with great care. It’s 7th grade performance that will matter the most during the fall admissions season that unfolds most typically from September through January of a student’s 8th grade year.
Maybe your child attends a school that ends after 8th grade, so you know that they will need to apply to high schools. Maybe your child attends a school that goes through 12th grade, but you think another school might be a better fit. Either way, 7th grade is the year to start thinking about high-school applications. You can draft a preliminary school list and help your child begin preparing to take the ISEE or other similar tests. Because the ISEE and SSAT are both designed as significantly above grade level measures, a longer runway for preparation is best. Therefore, we encourage families to organize ISEE diagnostic work in November, December, or January of the 7th grade year.
8th Grade
Fall of 8th grade is a busy and exciting time with many students involved in the high school application season. From open houses to interviews and tours, many families are actively exploring options and reflecting on what’s best for their student. The goal is to find a school partner that you trust and a school where you believe your child will thrive. Beyond core academics, does a given school offer electives that will engage your child? Are your child’s interests reflected in the extracurricular offerings? If your child has an exceptionality, what sorts of supports does the school have in place?
Fall of 8th grade is also admissions testing season, and you’ll want to schedule your child’s test dates strategically. For instance, students can take the ISEE two times per admissions season, thus most of our families have their child test once in November and once in December. This ISEE or SSAT preparation always serves to bolster high school readiness and is prerequisite content for the ACT or SAT to come.
9th Grade
Ninth grade is the start of prime time, thus both an exciting and crucial year; research has shown success in 9th grade to be a strong predictor of success in future grades, and these grades all now “count” in terms of the official high school transcript and eventual college applications. Your child’s grades should indicate that they are mastering the foundational skills necessary to thrive in higher level courses — especially in math and foreign language, which are heavily sequenced. With regard to foreign language, many selective colleges require three years of a foreign language and prefer four, so it’s important that the language your child chooses in 9th grade is one that they will want to stick with. At the same time, 9th grade, which frequently offers a student’s first experience with electives, is a time for the student to explore which subjects they find most exciting. Moreover, it’s an important year to engage in extracurriculars and begin to maximize the high school experience, which is ultimately showcased and reviewed through a holistic review college application process come senior year.
10th Grade
10th grade should find your child building further on the skills from 9th grade. It’s also the first year that most students take the PSAT, which schools typically organize. Significant preparation for the PSAT is not necessary unless a student is trying to qualify for a National Merit Scholarship. November to January of 10th grade is a good time to choose whether the ACT or SAT is right for your child (colleges accept either) and to then organize a test preparation plan for your selected test. For students taking Advanced Placement classes, May of 10th grade is their first encounter with a heavy testing schedule that simulates college exams; students should start preparing for AP tests months ahead of time. The summer after 10th grade is a great time for at least one “practice” college visit, or a few preliminary college visits as part of your college planning efforts. It’s also worth considering possible tours for the fall of junior year. Moreover, January of 10th grade is the time to be seriously considering and beginning to apply for pre-college summer programs.
11th Grade
Many students will begin taking the ACT or SAT in fall of junior year; the goal should be to finish SAT and ACT testing by the end of 11th grade. Most of our students test officially two to three times. 11th grade is also the second PSAT year. Again, significant preparation for the PSAT is not necessary unless there’s a goal to qualify for a National Merit Scholarship. Keep in mind that your child will want to put particular effort into studying for AP tests in the winter and spring terms, if applicable.
The fall term of 11th grade is a good time to formulate a working college list, which should include a reasonable balance of “very likely” schools, “just-right” schools, and “reach” schools. Most of our students apply to 12-15 colleges. Students should also begin scheduling college visits over school breaks if that planning is not yet already underway. Building relationships with colleges and demonstrating interest over time also needs to be managed incrementally over the course of this important school year.
Late winter or early spring term of 11th grade is the time to start the main Common Application essay, which typically undergoes numerous drafts (essay prompts are typically released in February or March for the following year). It’s also generally the time to engage preferred teachers in conversations about recommendation letters; many teachers get multiple requests and often only agree to write so many letters, thus it’s best to be proactive and give them as much lead time as possible. Moreover, we encourage families to complete as many campus visits as they can through the winter and spring while college campuses are fully operational. Any final visits could continue into the summer, but campus life may be more limited.
The Common App opens in early August, and your child can start filling in forms and drafting supplemental essays as appropriate. All of this hard work over the summer allows your child to enjoy a senior year that is not entirely consumed by college applications. Moreover, January of 11th grade is the time to be seriously considering and beginning to apply for pre-college summer programs.
12th Grade
Early September is the point to make any last decisions about Early Action or Early Decision schools, as some colleges’ deadline is as early as November 1. After that, with deadlines for each of your child’s schools written down, you and your child should sit down with a calendar and work out a schedule for doing the rest of their application work. If your child is interested in applying to arts or conservatory programs — for instance, in theater or visual art — they also must look up those application requirements early in September, as those programs sometimes have earlier deadlines than the rest of the college. Later in September, as applications progress, can be a time to interview with representatives from each college that offers them. Application deadlines will stretch from November to February; after that, the waiting is the hardest part. By May, your child will have some difficult but happy decisions to make as a result of your college planning efforts.
If you’re starting to think about college planning for your family, we can help to organize a customized plan. An initial planning meeting is usually the best way to get started. These meetings can be 30, 45, or 60 minutes by Zoom, by phone, or in person per a family’s preference. A single planning meeting allows us to talk more substantively about your family’s specific needs, priorities, and goals so that we can determine possible next steps. Please contact Brad Hoffman or Faya Hoffman by using this contact form.
We look forward to hearing from you!
By Brad Hoffman, MS.Ed. and Board Certified Educational Planner, Faya Hoffman, M.A. and Board Certified Educational Planner
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