College Academics and Success

Is Your New College Student a Victim of ”Impostor Syndrome?”

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Poet Maya Angelou once said, ”I have written eleven books, but each time I think, – uh-oh, they’re going to find out now.  I’ve run a game on everybody, and they’re going to find me out.”

It is not unusual for successful people to doubt the legitimacy of their success. Many college students are no different.  Your student worries that they don’t belong at the college, they’re a fraud, the college made a mistake by admitting them.  Your student is a victim of ”Impostor Syndrome.”

One psychologist found that as many as 70% of people admit to feeling, at some point in their lives, that they are inadequate and don’t deserve their success.  So if the feeling rings true for your student, they’re in good company.  If your student secretly worries about their abilities, it may help them to know that they’re not alone.

What does your student feel?

It is important to realize that, even though you know that your student’s admission was deserved and you know that your student will do well, the fear and concern that your student feels is real. Logic may tell them that they deserve to be where they are and that they are just as qualified as their classmates, but the belief that it is all a mistake is not based on logic.

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Readmission to College After Time Away

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If your student has been dismissed from college for poor academic performance, it can be a devastating blow.  Both you and your student will need to come to terms with the reality, evaluate what happened, and decide how to move forward.

Most students who are academically dismissed from college are asked to spend a certain period of time out of school.  That may be a semester, a year, or even longer.  The college recognizes that something went wrong for the student when he was enrolled and hopes that some time away will allow the student to address whatever issues interfered with his success.

Once you and your student have evaluated the situation, and perhaps taken some time away from school, your student may be ready to get back on track.

The decision to return

Before your student begins the readmission process he should be very sure that he is ready to return and to be successful.  Some students may be ready to return to school fairly quickly.  Perhaps the dismissal itself was all that it took for the student to have a ”wake-up call” and he is ready to return with a new attitude and approach.  Other students may have significant and serious work to do during their time away.  Perhaps your student simply needs time to mature and understand the importance of college.  Perhaps he needs to find direction and motivation.  Perhaps he has serious health, mental health, or family/life issues that need to be addressed before he can return and be successful.

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Should Your Student Consider a High School Post Grad Year?

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Your student is about to graduate from high school, and they’re ready to head to college in the fall.  Congratulations!

But wait! What if only part of that statement is true?

Your student may be about to graduate from high school, but that doesn’t automatically mean that they’re ready to head to college in the fall. Not all students mature and operate on the same timetable. Not all students have an immediate interest in college. More and more students and their parents are considering a postgrad or fifth year of high school to prepare for college.

What is a high school post grad year?

A postgrad year does not mean that your student simply stays in their high school a year longer.  It is not a fifth year because your student has not done well and is not ready to graduate.  A postgrad high school year is a specialized year of school for students who have already earned their high school diploma.  It is most often a year of school spent at an independent high school with a specialized curriculum designed for the experience.

Postgrad experiences have been around for a long time.  They have traditionally existed at New England prep schools for male athletes who need an extra year to improve athletically and to bolster grades.  Recently, however, more schools offer postgrad experiences, more students are applying, including females and non-athletes. According to the Boarding School Review, as many as 146 schools now offer such programs.  A few schools offer day programs as well.

A postgrad program serves as a transitional year for a student to experience living on their own, away from home.  Programs are generally designed for academically strong, motivated students who want to experience new courses, challenges and personal growth.  Programs are often competitive, and schools look for students who have demonstrated academic growth throughout their high school careers and who have demonstrated a positive trend.  The postgrad year allows these students to build on their past experiences.

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The Path To Graduation: Will Your College Student Graduate on Time?

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Your student graduated from high school and headed off to college, and you are picturing that next Commencement ceremony in another four years.  Or perhaps your student has been in college for a year or two and you see that Commencement just around the corner.  When your student walks across that stage it will be a big moment, and you are anxious for the celebration — and the last tuition bill.

But there is a possibility that your student’s college Commencement may not be four years after high school graduation.  Although four years of college is still the norm at most elite private colleges, more and more students are completing their college education on an individual timeline. According to the U.S. Department of Education National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES), the percentage of students who graduate in four years is approximately 36%.  The percentage who finish in six years is 57.5%. That means that some students may not graduate at all, and many students who do graduate may take significantly longer than four years to complete their education.  Five or six years of college is now becoming the norm for many students.

Objectively, we may hear these statistics and find them moderately interesting.  However, when it is our college student who may take more than four years to complete his college education, we may become not only very interested, but alarmed.  We may have seen this coming or we may be taken by surprise.  We may understand the reasons or we may not.  We may consider the reasons sensible or we may find them ridiculous.  We may take the news in stride or we may be angry and upset.

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What Is a Degree Audit and Why Does It Matter?

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Just as businesses conduct a financial audit to make sure their financial practices and reports are complete and accurate, college students should conduct a degree audit to make sure they are on track toward graduation.  Based on the results of their financial audit, businesses may make adjustments to their financial processes.  So, too, students, based on their degree audit, are in a better position to plan their degree completion.

Your college student should be tracking his own progress and course completion each semester, but just as many financial audits are conducted by objective, outside auditors, a degree audit should be conducted by the Registrar, Advising Office, or Academic Advisor at the college.

What is a degree audit?

A degree audit is an analysis of your student’s academic progress toward a degree.  It helps your student monitor where he is and what he still needs to do to complete his requirements.  A degree audit is an advising document that maps out degree requirements and compares them against your student’s transcript.  It is a vital tool for academic planning, course selection, and scheduling and should be used in conjunction with consultation with the student’s academic advisor.

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Why You Need to Talk to Your College Student About Academic Integrity

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Values, honesty, kindness, caring, work ethic.  We spend much of our children’s lives teaching them — overtly or through example — about the values that we hold dear.  It’s part of what raising a child is all about.

So by the time that our students reach college, we may assume that we’re done.  We’ve put in the work over the years to teach/show them what we believe and now they’re on their own to put it into practice. If they haven’t gotten it by now, there’s no use doing more talking.

While it’s true that we’ve been teaching and modeling values all through our children’s lives, it’s important — as your student heads to college — that you talk with them about academic integrity.  It matters, and your student’s college career could depend on a solid understanding of what it is, why it matters, and how to prevent getting into ”integrity trouble.”

Where do you start?

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Help Your Student Make Good Study Habits Stick

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”Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going.”

Jim Ryuh

January.  It’s the time of year for resolutions, new habits, and optimism that this year will be better than the last.  Thank goodness we all have an opportunity once each year for a reset.

For most students, the New Year not only provides the usual possibilities, it is often the start of a new semester as well.  This means a fresh start.  Even the best students often have plans to make this new semester even better than the last.

But unfortunately, we all know that most New Year’s resolutions often fall by the wayside a few months, weeks, days, or maybe even hours into the year.  We all have trouble making them stick, and students are no different.

An article on Headspace, an online meditation website, discussed ways to make meditation stick for those who were giving it a try.  Although we think meditation can be wonderful for students (and their parents,) this article is about how students can use the same principles that the Headspace article discussed to help them make new study habits stick.

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College Officials Gather to Discuss College Parents

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Yes, parents, colleges are talking about you.  In this age of constant communication between students and their parents, this age of increased parental involvement in many aspects of their students’ lives, and this age of growing concern over student success and persistence in college, institutions are continuing their quest to find ways to reach out to and engage the parents of college students.

This may sound strange as we hear so much about helicopter parents and snowplow parents.  Aren’t institutions trying to discourage parents, to get them to ”let go?”  The answer is, ”no.”  Colleges want parents to connect to the institution and to engage with the school — and with their students — in appropriate ways.  And they are realizing that parents may need help discovering how to do that.

This month, the Association of Higher Education Parent Program Professionals (AHEPPP) held its fifth annual conference in Boulder, Colorado.  Nearly 200 college personnel gathered to discuss the parent programming at their institutions.  Many of the individuals at the conference have as their sole job description working with the parents of students at their institutions.  So, parents, don’t think for a moment that your student’s institution doesn’t care about you — beyond your tuition dollars.

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Is Your Student “Present” at College?

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Distractions.  We’re surrounded by them in today’s world.  Children, students, adults: no one is immune to the constant bombardment and the temptation to try to go in many different directions at once.  We check our phones and social media, we send and receive texts, and we multitask. (How else would we ever get anything done?)  Some of us thrive on the energy — or at least we think we do.  Others lament the intrusion and wish we could shut the world out on occasion.  But whether we like it or not, we live in a distracted society.

What’s the problem?

The distractions we live with day to day can separate us from the present moment.  As we experience these distractions more and more, we lose, or at least weaken, our ability to be present now, where we find ourselves.  And although we all experience this separation, it can be even more of a problem for our college students.

For instance, several studies have indicated some alarming statistics about students and their phones. One study suggests that students check their phones on average every 11 minutes.  Another found that students check their phones 11.43 times each day while they are in class.  Still another study found that 40% of students said they would be incapable of going more than 10 minutes without checking their phones.  So clearly students are attached to their phones, to their social media, to their texts.  And in reality, so are many of their parents.

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The Delicate Balance of Support and Self-Reliance

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So much of the college experience is about balance.  Students work at learning to balance social life and studying, independence and responsibility, seriousness and frivolity.  As parents, it is sometimes difficult to watch as our students practice the skill of balance — and sometimes fail.  But just as we had to finally take the training wheels off and let go of the bicycle, we need to step back and watch as our students take off.

One of the balancing acts that many students struggle with, especially at the midpoint in a semester, is the balance between self-sufficiency and relying on others.  New college students, especially, may need to learn that being independent doesn’t necessarily mean they need to do everything alone.  Knowing when to rely on themselves and when to turn to others is part of responsible decision making.

Why wouldn’t my student ask for help if they need it?

There are many reasons why students may not seek the help they need when they need it.

  • ”I didn’t realize that I needed help.”
  • ”I’ve never needed help before, why would I need it now?”
  • ”Things will get better if I just wait long enough.”
  • ”I’ll look as though I’m dumb if I ask for help.”
  • ”Isn’t it cheating if I get help?”

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