Holy moly, it’s almost August again and classes are just around the corner. Time to dust off the ‘how to’ guides for parents. Here are a few favorite tips from the last few years that parents have found helpful.

1. Organization. Organization is a concept, not a tool. Identify tools they can and will use. Make sure they are using the calendar app on their phone. Have them figure out the best use of online tools the school provides. Many students need the help of a counselor they see 1-2x per month to help oversee their organization habits and tools. Get this all figured out before the car is packed.
2. GPA. Talk about what, if any, expectations you have for overall as well as per-course GPA. It’s a bit late to tell them at Thanksgiving dinner you wanted to see a 3.75 GPA for the semester. Best to discuss this in July and August. Make it realistic but also challenging. They are not going on vacation. They are coming to school to earn a degree and have some fun (after the work is done).
3. Appointments. What ever appointments need to happen leading up to or during the school year, have your little college kid get them setup and on the calendar now. It’s not too early to get the dentist appointment scheduled. If they take any type of medication, do not assume they can just have a walk-in appointment for a refill. Get this scheduled now (especially if they need to find and work with a psychiatrist for antidepressants or antianxiety meds).
4. Contact. How long is too long before you start to worry? Make it clear that if you text/call them, you expect a response (even a lame one) within XX hours. Stick to it. We all know they will get busy (or sleepy or drunk or distracted) but having you worry day after day is unnecessary if they simply check in regularly.
5. Scheduling. Kind of along the same line as appointments above, one of the most powerful sessions I have with students leading up to classes cranking is sitting down with their schedule and putting EVERY assignment, test, meeting, etc. into their calendar. Most professors post their syllabus on the school’s intranet and every student has access. Every syllabus is required to have all dates/times of classes as well as assignments and tests.
   But wait, there’s more!
   After we plug in all the items from the syllabus, we reverse-engineer. For example, if Mary has a test September 18 for Calc, we schedule back one week for studying (start September 11). For each day, we carve out 1 hour for studying (eg. Mon, Sept 11 3:00pm-4:00pm Review Calc). This makes it so each study session is a known, expected quantity with a specific day and time.For more insider tips, tricks and ways to support your college kid, contact me.