One of my Twitter friends sent me a direct message the other day asking me how to deal with an underachiever high school student. Honestly, it’s a question I asked myself years ago when my son was an average student and not making any attempt to focus on college goals. Part of his lack of interest, was my lack of participation as a parent. He was making average grades and never had to crack open a book. I was somewhat content to let him be and concentrate on other things. Once he made the decision to join the Marine Corps I realized he felt he had no options left but to enter the military. It taught me a valuable lesson: parents play a pivotal role in motivating our teens toward college. I did not make the same mistake with my daughter.

Here’s what I did differently the second time around:

• I researched all financial options, including scholarship opportunities. My son always knew that paying for college would be difficult and I never let him know that we had committed to help him and would pursue all options available.
• I helped my daughter stay organized and on top of the college process. We began early looking at colleges and applying for scholarships.
• I had numerous discussions with her about the importance of a college education and the importance of attending a college that fit her aspirations and goals.
• I let her be a part of the process but I didn’t leave her alone to figure it all out by herself.
• When her grades started to drop, I had conversations with her teachers and got her set up for extra tutoring.
• I taught her about consequences and she understood that ignoring her grades in high school would influence her acceptance into college.

Here are some other helpful tips that I have learned as a Parent College Coach:

• The best motivator is other teens. If your teen is hanging out with other teens who are motivated and achieving, they are more likely to do the same.
• Hook your teen up with a local college mentor. Here’s a resource that is available that might be of some help: BetterGrads
• Get some advice on teen motivation from parenting experts: Your Parent Partner
• Encourage your teen to sign up on College Week Live and talk to current college students in the chat rooms.
• Here is a great article that gives some positive advice: Get Your Unmotivated Child on Track
• Get inside your teen’s head and find out why they aren’t motivated. Are they afraid of college? Do they feel they won’t get accepted if they apply? Do they have a dream that is so big they need your encouragement?
• Listen. Quizzing never helps. Just sit in their room and listen to them talk. Listen to them talk on the way to school, at dinner, during television shows, and when their friends are hanging out at your house.

My daughter always wanted to go to college. But as I think back, so did my son. As a child he dreamed of attending Harvard. He definitely had the brains and the ability to be accepted at that college, but I never encouraged him to follow that dream. I honestly didn’t think as a middle class family, we could afford to pay for it. I have since learned otherwise and that’s why I want to pass this information on to other parents who are struggling with motivating their sons and daughters to succeed in high school so they can succeed in college. The best teacher is ALWAYS experience!

Last night I sat down for an hour and watched a web presentation at College Week Live about the the Common Application. It was basically a question/answer session where the Director of Outreach for the Common Application gave a brief synopsis of what the Common Application was and then fielded questions that were posted online.

Here are the basic highlights:

1. The Common Application service is COMPLETELY FREE and has a membership of 391 colleges.
2. The busiest day of the year for the service is December 31st because students are trying to get in under the wire for the January 1 application deadlines.
3. There is 24/7 online support, but NO telephone support. The average response time is 47 minutes via email.
4. Your teachers and counselors can submit their recommendations and forms online if they choose.
5. There are videos to help you with any questions you might have and an extensive knowledge base of articles.

Some Questions and Answers:

Q. Do colleges prefer their own application over the common application?

No. The common application and the college application are treated as equals. If a college is part of the Common Application membership, they receive it just as they receive their own college application.

Q. When can you start completing the application?

Each year the applications are purged (in the summer) to make room for new applications in the fall. You can get in and play with the applications, practice, familiarize yourself with it, whenever you choose. If you want to look at it as a freshman in high school, it’s perfectly acceptable because it will get purged in the summer. Once you are ready to apply to the colleges, you will want to do begin the process in the fall of the year you apply to prepare for submission.

Q. Why do some colleges add supplements and other do not?

The supplements give colleges the ability to gather information that they might consider unique to their institution. Some colleges need additional information, others find the application itself sufficient.

Q. Do you have to complete the common application AND the college’s application?

A. No. Once you complete the common application and submit it to the colleges you choose, you are finished.

Q. Do colleges prefer the online application or the paper one?

Colleges PREFER online applications over paper because it saves them time inputting data and enables them to share the information easily with others and read online. NOTE: DO NOT complete the online application and send a paper version. Do one or the other. It will complicate the situation and cause all sorts of problems with your application.

If you would like to view the hour long session, you can go to College Week Live, sign in and look for it in archived presentations.

Today’s guest blog post is from Westwood College, a college that designs its programs around the needs of its unique student population (both online and on campus). If your teen is considering any of the career paths that Westwood offers, you might want to add them to the mix of college possibilities.

When making a final decision on your education, it is important to research your options carefully. Whether you are looking to obtain an online degree or are looking to attend campus classes, every school has something different to offer. Westwood College is one of those schools that truly design their programs for the students rather than making the students bend their educational needs into a one size fits all education models.

Campuses include:

• Texas- Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston South
• Illinois- DuPage, Chicago Loop, O’Hare Airport, River Oaks
• Virginia- Annandale Satelite, Arlington Ballston
• California- Anaheim, Inland Empire, Los Angeles, South Bay
• Georgia- Atlanta Midtown, Atlanta Northlake
• Colorado- Denver North, Denver South

With 17 campuses in six states and top notch online degree and online MBA programs, Westwood College offers the flexibility that students need to succeed. Program availability varies from campus to campus with an on-site or online Bachelor Degree within three years, an on-site or online Associate Degree in just two years or an MBA in one year.

Programs offered are in-depth, engaging, and offer professional instruction and continued support before, during and after graduation. From the “Quick Start” program which helps new students transition to a college schedule to the “Westwood Success Team” which matches advisers to students to assist with financial options and answer any questions regarding your enrollment.

Westwood also offers a program that is rare in the college scene today. If eligible, students can return after they have graduated to retrain in their field in order to keep current with the latest training. That in itself is an important resource that few colleges can or will compete with. Offering these types of extended support to students is just one reason Westwood stands above the rest and possesses such a great rate of graduates finding work after their program completion.

Since 1952 Westwood has continued raising the bar for education standards. Several financing options are available for those who qualify and prospective students are encouraged to contact your closest campus to book a tour, meet with faculty, or even sit in on a class to get an idea of the caliber of education offered by Westwood College.

After deciding which educational institution is right for you, your next step is to figure out which program is going to get you to where you want to be in your future career. Follow the link below for a comprehensive list of programs available either online, on-site, or both.

Westwood Degree Programs

Due to the number of campuses and the online school availability, students have a plethora of professional options to earn their degree. Online colleges are an excellent option for those unable to attend regular classes. Students wishing to attend the Los Angeles College, the Denver College, the college in Dallas, or Virginia colleges have multiple choices for both location and training. Earn your Interior Design degree, a Construction Management Degree, your Computer Network Degree or IT training because your options are near limitless. It’s imperative for today’s youth to carefully consider their educational options as your on-campus or online degree is the best way that you can ensure a lucrative and productive future in a profession that you love.

What are you waiting for?

Today’s guest blogger is from Maryville College: Dr. Jeffery Fager, Vice-President and Dean of the College. Maryville College is ideally situated in Maryville, Tenn., between the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and Knoxville, the state’s third largest city. Known for its academic rigor and its focus on the liberal arts, Maryville is where students come to stretch their minds, stretch themselves and learn how to make a difference in the world. Dr. Fager offers some interesting insight into a liberal arts education and debunks the myths surrounding liberal arts.

Those of us committed to liberal arts education seem to be fighting an uphill battle in communicating the true nature of the liberal arts. Perhaps the first task is to dispel some common misconceptions.

1 – The Liberal Arts are not related to the Democratic or Republican (or Libertarian) political parties

2 – The liberal Arts are not highly specific fields of knowledge that are limited to only certain areas of life.

3 – The Liberal Arts are not lofty musings disconnected from the “real world” where people must get jobs and live their lives.

Those myths now cast aside, what exactly are the Liberal Arts?

Originally there were seven liberal arts, divided into two sections known by their Latin names, the quadrivium (arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music) and the trivium (logic, grammar, and rhetoric). These areas of inquiry were considered appropriate for a free person (Latin: liber) in contrast to manual skills that were appropriate for slaves.

Obviously, things have changed over the centuries. Other disciplines were added to the list, and some of the traditional ones slipped away or were subsumed in the newer areas. During this century, many referred to the liberal arts as certain disciplines that were considered “traditional” as opposed to those areas that are associated with particular careers. In addition, colleges that referred to themselves as “liberal arts colleges” developed general education programs that consisted of a menu of courses in those traditional disciplines. We are familiar with them: English, History, Philosophy, Economics, Mathematics, Science, etc.

It is interesting to note that at the beginning of the twentieth century Harvard did not recognize Chemistry as a proper discipline for a true university; it was considered a “trade” skill. In recent decades scholars have recognized that to limit “the liberal arts” to a list of specific disciplines would not be adequate. Knowledge was changing too quickly, and disciplines did not separate into neat, mutually exclusive “silos.” Therefore, the language in higher education is shifting from “the liberal arts” to “liberal education.” We no longer speak of a static collection of knowledge to be memorized but a way of approaching the world–or, more accurately, several ways of approaching the world.

Liberal education involves different ways of analyzing questions or problems and developing answers or solutions. Each question or problem may lend itself to a particular method of analysis: scientific (natural and social), humanistic, artistic, empirical, philosophical. We must learn these different methods and gain the ability to discern their appropriate applications. In complex cases, several methods must be applied in order to achieve the best possible solution or answer. The liberally educated individual will have the tools to perform such a complex analysis.

In the case of Maryville College, where I enjoy the role of academic dean, our Maryville Curriculum is intentionally interdisciplinary and developmental, in that students take core courses in every year of their college experience, constantly reinforcing and extending their analytical skills. Even in the discipline-specific courses, while content is important, critical analysis of the content is crucial. All students bring their education to culmination in a senior research project, in which they apply all of these skills in creating a product appropriate to their respective major.

And isn’t that what the world demands today…multiple skill sets, complex analysis, the ability to think critically about an issue or situation and provide an ethical, effective idea or solution? The liberally educated individual—one who has experienced the depth and breadth of a liberal arts education—is able to engage with this world successfully, adapting with the changes and complexities it presents.

Those, my friends, are the Liberal Arts.

You can follow Maryville College on Twitter @stretchyourmind. If your teen is interested in exploring the possibility of a liberal arts degree from Maryville College, click the logo below:

I asked Sarah Schupp (founder of University Parent) to be a guest blogger and fill us in on the benefits of her Parent Guides from various colleges that you can view online and download. Her site is jam-packed with useful information for parents.

UniversityParent.com partners with colleges and universities across the U.S. Our mission is to help parents easily find university and visitor information.

To this end, we have developed print and online guides for over 100 schools that provide detailed information on everything from where to stay when visiting your student, to a helpful list of frequently requested phone numbers. The university provides us with school specific information, such as: academic calendar, campus maps, articles about campus resources, managing finances, student life and tips for parents. To find this information, please visit, http://www.universityparent.com/online-guides and select your student’s school. You’ll find links on the left sidebar to the topics mentioned above. If you don’t see your student’s school listed, please email me at sarah@universityparent.com, and I’ll work on signing them up! If you’d like to download a PDF of the print guide, please visit: http://www.universityparent.com/downloads.

We also build a visitor guide with the help of the local convention and visitors bureau and the chamber of commerce. Our intent is to help parents easily navigate their student’s new community. If you’re planning a trip to your student’s campus, or want to send a birthday gift, check out the guide on the right sidebar. You can even book hotels right through our site!

We are working on building a community of college parents through our Facebook Fan Page, http://www.facebook.com/collegeparents and through our Twitter account, http://www.twitter.com/4collegeparents. Parent participation in the community helps us determine the types of issues parents are concerned about – and we try to address these on UniversityParent.com.

We hope these resources help nurture your connection and involvement in your student’s college experience!

About UniversityParent.com:

When the time came for my parents to visit me as a student at the University of Colorado, their anxieties heightened. They wanted to know where to stay, dine, and shop for last minute items they felt I couldn’t live without. They also wanted to know what activities they could do, or places they could visit while my orientation schedule kept me busy.

Although my campus offered a wide variety of useful information for visiting parents, we quickly learned that it was not compiled into one all-inclusive resource for easy and convenient use. My parents’ personal experience of a void of comprehensive information is what sparked this venture. The idea of producing a University Parent Guide began as my senior project through the Leeds School of Business Entrepreneurship Program at the University of Colorado, Boulder. After graduating in 2004, I pursued University Parent Media full-time. The University Parent Guide is now available at over 100 campuses nation-wide. This guide may not have been available when my parents needed it, but it is now! We hope you find it useful.