We don’t very often engage in self-congratulation, but we’re taking a moment to wish ourselves a Happy Anniversary!  Seven years ago, on April 1, 2009, the College Parent Central website was launched with the hope that we could help parents make the transition to a new style of parenting as their sons and daughters became college students.

Seven years ago we believed, as we continue to believe now, that parents need information and guidance in order to best support their college student to succeed. We hoped to be able to provide some of the guidance that would help parents be able to navigate their new role. We’ve been more than pleased throughout the last seven years to hear from many parents who have found our information helpful.

Our purpose

Although the focus of some of our posts continues to change over the years as we continue to grow, the basic principles which drove us at the beginning continue to anchor us now.

• We believe that parents can be important partners in their child’s education from pre-school through college.
• We believe that most parents want to be involved in their child’s college experience.
• We believe that parents do have a place in their child’s college experience.
• We believe that many parents don’t know how to be involved in their child’s college experience.
• We believe that many parents don’t understand today’s college experience. (Those of us who attended college ourselves need to learn how the college experience has changed in the twenty-first century.)

Our journey

In spite of unchanging underlying principles, we’ve continued to evolve over the last seven years.

One of the areas which has evolved and grown has been the increasing recognition — by parents, students, and educators — that students need to be better prepared for college.  Many high schools are working to increase students’ academic readiness.  This is important.  We’ve begun to include more and more articles that can help parents help their students get ready for college success.  We believe that parents can no longer rely solely on the schools to prepare students — especially in the vitally important area of softer skills or life skills.

We have also focused more recently on helping parents find ways to work with their student when their student struggles or takes a detour.  More and more students take a winding, and often longer journey through college and parents need to know how to help students value their experiences — even their experiences of detour or failure.

Milestones

Anniversaries continue to be the ideal time to reflect.  We’ve celebrated some milestones over the past year:

• We have published a total of nearly 600 articles. (Be sure to take some time to look back through our archives.)
• We have had close to 1.4 million visitors to the website.
• We have over 100 colleges who have shared our material with their parents.
• We continue to connect with over 1400 followers through Twitter. (@collparcentral)
• We share our monthly newsletter with over 1000 parents and professionals. (Join them by signing up at the end of this post.)

Moving forward

Seven years ago, we probably would not have predicted that we would still be here, and still reaching out to more and more parents all of the time.  So we can’t begin to predict what’s ahead.  We look forward to continuing to connect with and support parents as they enter the college parent journey.

If you are a college parent, we hope that you will find College Parent Central a place where you feel validated in the importance of your role.  We said it best seven years ago, ”We hope that you will find information, support, and a celebration of the amazing experience of having a child in college.”  This is an incredible journey.

If there are topics you’d like us to cover, or you have found our information useful in the past, please leave a comment and let us know that.  Help us to shape the future of College Parent Central!

Thanks for joining us on our own journey.