College Admissions Consulting Growing Minds, Not College Resumes: Why the Elementary Years Aren’t about College Admissions Written by Sara Calvert-Kubromon October 16th, 2024 My passion for higher education and working with students began as a resident assistant, admissions overnight host, and study abroad enthusiast as an undergraduate student at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon. Working with high school and college students has been at the core of my professional experiences ever since. My first few years out of college included serving as an AmeriCorps member, working in public health, and teaching yoga. I later worked for the Women’s and Gender Studies Program at Boston College and subsequently served as a lead administrator of a freshman study abroad program at Northeastern University in collaboration with their admissions team. While at Northeastern, I worked with faculty, deans, students, and parents in a wide-array of academic disciplines in several countries. It was exciting to provide robust academic and cultural experiences for students all over the world as they started college before returning to Boston to pursue the rest of their degree. I most recently served as an admissions officer at my alma mater, where I recruited students of diverse academic interests primarily from the East coast, California, and Arizona, and worked with applicants from all over the United States and the world. While at Lewis & Clark I worked with deposited students taking a gap year, coordinated the college’s release of admissions decisions, served as an athletics liaison working with athletic coaches and recruits, helped oversee visit and student-interviewer programs, and managed and trained new admissions counselors. Learn More About Sara academics, advice for students, parenting, recommendations, I vividly remember a day when my son was an infant and a parent chased me down in the parking lot of his childcare center, eager to ask me for guidance on how to prepare their preschooler to be a competitive applicant for highly selective colleges. Although I was startled and fumbled through that unexpected interaction, I later realized that at the core of that frenzied moment was a parent simply wanting the world for their child. As my children have grown and I’ve expanded my professional experience to include supporting parents of elementary school children, my perspectives as a college counselor, past admissions officer, and social worker have expanded as I’ve learned how to best support elementary school families. First, I want to provide some foundational understanding about the college admissions process to set realistic expectations and decrease the stress of families of elementary-aged students. Colleges truly have no preference between different extracurricular activities, and no activities or accomplishments prior to 9th grade will be part of the college application. There is no activity, accomplishment, advanced class, or any specific action that must be taken now to ensure success in the application process. Instead, elementary school is a time to explore! Encourage your student to try new things, quit some things, and figure out what interests they may want to pursue in middle school, high school, and beyond. You may notice over time that certain activities and events bring a natural joy, an easy smile, a spark to your child. If you see that, embrace opportunities to feed and nurture that spark – it may grow into their superpower! Elementary school is the strategic time to foster curiosity and a love of learning, while forming strong foundations in reading, writing, and math so students can deeply explore their academic interests as they grow. Many elementary schools focus on social-emotional learning as a core framework to help students engage in the world; these are essential skills that should be prioritized. Social-emotional learning (SEL) is the process through which children and adults understand and manage emotions, set and achieve positive goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain positive relationships, and make responsible decisions. The ultimate goal of SEL is to encourage practice and reflection of core character traits such as empathy, kindness, collaboration, and grit—all skills that will help our children throughout life’s ups and downs, including high school and the pathway to college. Activities can be ideal spaces to explore and stretch these emerging skills, but avoid the urge to create too much “busy-ness”—a full calendar of competitions, teams, and other activities, without time to breathe or reflect—to crowd out purposeful growth. Given these insights, here are some action items and recommended reading to support your student’s growth: Explore your student’s interests through activities and hobbies. Foster a love of learning and incorporating reading, writing, and math into life. Read up on social-emotional learning and its impact on childhood development. Read The Yes Brain: How to Cultivate Courage, Curiosity, and resilience in Your Child by Daniel J. Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson. The "Yes Brain" approach teaches balance, resilience, insight, and empathy to children and parents. Explore the CASEL (The Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning) website that includes resources for educators, policymakers, and families with an emphasis on evidence-based social and emotional learning. Finally, enjoy this season of life. I find it to be very true when people say, “The days are long but the years are short.” Try to step back and observe your child’s strengths, challenges, and joys, and be there to help them explore their interests. When is the right time to get started? How can you keep my child on track? Get all the answers to your most pressing questions. Find Out More Related Resources Read | Posted on September 19th, 2024 Tackling Toxic Achievement Culture in College Admissions Read | Posted on September 11th, 2024 Common App Tips; 10th & 11th Grade Goals; Co-Signed Loan Advice Read | Posted on August 28th, 2024 Is a 3-2 Engineering Program Right for Me?
