10 tips to maximize college visits

Summer is just around the corner, and it's the perfect time for all you high school rising juniors and seniors to get out and explore college campuses. This is a right of passage for many students and their parents - and an essential part of college admissions.

So, to help you make the most of your visits, we advise you to start planning now. We've put together tips on how to fully immerse yourself in each campus and gather all the information you will need to make an informed decision about your future college.

1. Research

Before hitting the road, prioritize your interests, academic programs, preferred location, and other essential factors. Then, dive into college websites and gather information about campus life, majors, extracurricular activities, and admission requirements.

2. Schedule

Contact the admissions office or visit the college's website to schedule your visit. With convenient online booking systems and special visitation days for prospective students, you'll quickly find a date that fits your timeline.

3. Prepare questions in advance 

Make a list of questions you want to ask during your visit. These should include inquiries about academics, campus life, housing, internship opportunities, career services, and anything that is important to you. Asking questions will also demonstrate your interest and help you gather valuable insights.

4. Dress appropriately

Dress comfortably yet presentably. Opt for business casual or smart casual attire, as this will give you a professional appearance while still being comfortable for walking around campus.

5. Pack wisely

Always have a notebook or phone handy to jot down notes during information sessions. You can also take videos or photos to capture essential details as you wander around. And remember, it gets hot on the college campus trail, so pack your water bottle!

6. Attend Info Sessions & Tours

Participate in guided campus tours and information sessions. These will allow you to explore campus, visit key facilities, and soak up the atmosphere. They will also help you gain valuable insights into the admissions process, financial aid, academic programs, and student support services.

7. Connect with students & faculty

Meet with current students and faculty members in your area of academic interest. Their perspectives can fill in the gaps of your college visit and help you make an informed decision.

8. Explore the surrounding Area

It is also important to allow time to explore the surrounding area beyond campus. With that in mind, check out nearby neighborhoods, coffee shops, restaurants, local attractions, and amenities to get a sense of what it would be like to live in the area. Four years is a long time after all!

9. Reflect & debrief

Take time to reflect on your experience after each campus visit. Write down your impressions, pros and cons, and other relevant observations. Trust us, colleges start to look and feel the same after a while, so this exercise will help you keep track of your thoughts.

10. Don’t forget to have fun!

Visiting college campuses is an excellent way to imagine yourself as a student and evaluate if a particular college is right for you. These experiences are also a right of passage, so savor the process and create special memories along the way. With this in mind, start compiling those road trip playlists, and get ready to hit the open road!

11. Bonus Tip: Save your child from cringeworthy moments!

If you are a parent gearing up for college visits with your high schooler this summer, click here for a sidesplitting and must-read checklist that will save you from becoming a walking embarrassment to your child while on campus. Thanks to The New Yorker Magazine for this hilarious gem!

And lastly, A few useful resources…

• To help you prepare for your upcoming roadtrips, we have created a Campus Visit Research Tool & Checklist. Just click on the link below, and we'll send it straight out to you.

• If your rising senior is planning to tackle their college essay over the summer months, check out our recent blog post, It’s College Essay Season: Let’s Get It Done!, for advice on how to pen an effective piece.

• And for tips on how your student can maximize their time this summer, read Rising Seniors: Get Ahead this Summer!

Contact KQ: An Expert guiding Voice

Working with an educational consultant can streamline the college admissions process and alleviate stress. Keating Quigley is here to help if you'd like to learn more about how to prepare for campus visits - or any other aspect of the college search. We're always just a phone call or email away!

Written By Verona Keating & Jacquie Quigley | Founding Partners | Keating Quigley Educational Consultants

Conquer Those End of Year To Do Lists!

There's no disputing it: time flies! And now that May is closing in, the last day of school will be here in the blink of an eye. With all the art shows, dance recitals, graduations, award ceremonies, field trips, team banquets, and recognition dinners, the final weeks of the school year can be a whirlwind. To help you stay an top of the craziness of it all, we’ve put together our top tips. Check it out…There’s something for everyone whether big or small!

What you can do At school…

1. Avoid ‘springitis’: Make sure your child puts in maximum effort right up to the last minute to ensure a strong end to the academic year. Consistency and accountability are crucial, so make sure they maintain their routine and stay on top of year-end projects, assignments, and finals.

2. Consider teacher options: If you think your child would react more favorably to a specific teacher’s personality and teaching style next year, now is the time to submit a request to the Division Head or Head of School. These discussions take place in early summer, so get to it!

3. Discuss class placement: Similarly, if you believe your child's classroom experience is being negatively impacted by a classmate or your child is too socially reliant on a friend, talk to their teacher and ask them to be placed in separate homerooms next year. Every child deserves the chance to grow into their own space at their own pace.

4. Crunch standardized test scores: And lastly, if you need guidance to decipher your child's recent standardized test scores and how they impact class placement, eligibility to advanced classes, or basic skills programs, contact your child's counselor, advisor, or teacher. They will help you make sense of the complicated percentile, stanine, and composite score data on the report.

What you can do At home…

1. Help your high schooler find a summer job:  Encourage your teen (assuming they’re old enough) to research summer employment or volunteering opportunities. Work experience is an excellent way to stay active over the long summer months and also teaches high schoolers the power of earning pocket money and helping others. And on another note: although the college application process might be a few years into your child's future, be aware that colleges prefer to see seasonal jobs listed in the Student Activity Log section of the Common App!

2. Sign your rising senior up for essay support: Summer is the ideal time for your child to work on the Common App essay before the demanding workload of senior year begins. Check out our recent blog, It's College Essay Season: Let's Get It Done!, for more info.

3. Show gratitude: There are most likely some staff members who made a positive impact on your child this year. Whoever they may be (a homeroom teacher, someone in the Main Office, the Head of School, or a member of the custodial staff), take time to thank them for their hard work and dedication personally. It may be a small gesture, but trust us, it goes a long way. 

4. Return & pick up ‘stuff’: Remember to trawl through closets and bedrooms at home and drop off IT equipment, library books, school supplies, or general classroom items on loan during the school year. Similarly, don't forget to pick up your child's yearbook, awards, art projects, etc., from the classroom before the last day of school.

5. Donate gently worn items: As the year winds down, this is the perfect opportunity to give your child's closet a once-over to determine what gently used uniforms and clothes to keep, donate, or toss. We promise you'll feel satisfied - not to mention lighter!

KQ: The Voice of Gentle Guidance & Reason

If you are looking for an educational consultant to advise you on any aspect of your child’s educational journey, email or call us. We’re always here to help...

Happy (almost) summer!

Written By Keating Quigley | Educational Consultants

Summer Reads from The Hoot!

Sit back, relax and embrace the gift of time with Anne’s 2021 summer picks

Summer gives us the gift of time to read for pleasure with longer days, warmer weather, and more sunlight. Let’s see what our reading can look like this summer whether you’re sitting on a beach, on a road trip with your family,  in a bunk at summer camp, or just relaxing. After a year of quarantining and isolation, let’s make it a goal to turn off our phones and shut off computers to experience the joy of turning pages - paper or digital.

With that in mind, here are some of my favorite summer reads to consider. They run the gamut of gripping, endearing, educational, inspiring, and entertaining, so be sure to check them out. I’ve made sure to include something for everyone, so feel free to share the list with friends and family as well. Have a great summer filled with happy reading! 

Parents

• Deacon King Kong by James McBride: “Some novels about city life are poems of alienation, interior portraits of the existentially isolated, but James McBride’s vision of New York is one of overwhelming human profusion.” (New Yorker)

• A Place For Us by Fatima Farheen Mirza: Mirza's book gets to a universal truth: To be part of a family is to learn how to be more than one person, how to remain an individual while fulfilling the duties we have to those who love us, who made us. It is almost never easy; it is sometimes, in fact, impossible.” (NPR)

High School

• Oasis by Katya Becerra: A supernatural thriller about six teenagers stranded on an oasis in the desert

• Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo (novel in verse): Two teenage girls realize that they share a father

• Found by Joseph Bruchac: After witnessing a crime, Nick survives in the wilderness to escape the murderer

• Girl, Unframed by Deb Caletti: While spending summer with her movie-star mother, Sydney, 16, finds love but also finds danger

• This Is My America by Kim Johnson: Teenager Tracy fights against racism in the justice system

Middle School

• Danny Constantino's First (and Maybe Last?) Date by Paul Acampora: A Middleschooler, Danny reconnects with an old friend, who is now a celebrity

• Raising Lumie by Joan Bauer: Newly orphaned and living with the half-sister, Olive, 12, rediscovers hope when she trains a guide dog puppy

• Catherine's War by Julia Billet (graphic novel): Set in France during WWII, Rachel Cohen must goe into hiding after being separated from her parents

• One Last Shot by John David Anderson: Malcolm, 12, takes up miniature golf to make his athletic father happy

Elementary School

• You Can Do It, Yasmine by Saadia Faruqi

• Benny McGee and the Shark by Derek Anderson

• The Boy Who Grew Dragons by Andy Shepherd

• Great Escapes (five historical fiction books) by W.N. Brown

Happy summer from KQ!

Written by Anne O’Reilly Connerty | Reading Specialist at Keating Quigley Educational Advisors

Reflections on Fatherhood

By Dave Olson, Former Middle School Head at Sacred Heart Greenwich and incoming Executive Director at the Waterside School, Stamford, CT

I am the proud father of an 11-year old son. I came to parenting later in life than many and had already spent more than 20-years as an educator before our son was born. Working with countless children and their families over the years has allowed me to develop some expertise, especially in the middle school years. I forever encourage parents to embrace the unpredictability of childhood and stay focused on the remarkable development their children will undergo over the span of their many years in school rather than focusing on the day-to-day successes, frustrations, and challenges.

Fatherhood has helped me embrace how difficult this is and has allowed me to learn the following additional truths:

It’s Not About You

I purchased a baseball glove for my son when he was three days old and soon after mounted a mini-basketball hoop in his bedroom. While I knew the pitfalls of being an overbearing parent I couldn’t resist exposing him to the things I loved and kept telling myself that I learned some of my greatest lessons through playing sports and being involved in competition. It turns out that my son has a mild interest in traditional sports, but really loves to read, skateboard, and create things with technology. Of course, my wife instantly fanned the flames of his interests, while I struggled to let go of my dreams of collegiate athletics, the Olympics, and additional feats of greatness in multiple sports. I am a recovering overbearing sports parent and working on supporting his interests so that he will continue to learn the valuable lessons that come from hard work in any venue and that he will experience the joy that comes from doing something he loves. I have even learned various skateboard terms like an “ollie” and a “frontside 180;” certainly I must be the hippest and proudest dad at the skatepark.

Be Present

One of my most salient fatherhood realizations is that my needs are secondary to the needs of my son. Being a father requires me to put the challenges of the day away when entering our home each evening so that I can be fully present for my son and wife. This is a work in progress. Thankfully, though, I have the most remarkable wife who picks up the slack regularly as I fall short. And while the pandemic created numerous profound challenges for schools and families, I found that it created greater opportunities for fathers to be more present in the lives of their children. We had a record number of working parents, many of whom are dads, participate in various virtual events this past year such as parent-teacher conferences. My hope is that fathers enjoyed the experience of being more intimately connected to their children’s education and that schools will continue to offer virtual options to encourage attendance. In addition, being quarantined for the spring of 2020 provided a profound experience for me as my son and I spent each afternoon playing outside together (yes, I “inspired” him to master the finer points of a jump-shot). When returning to in-person learning for the beginning of the 2020-2021 school year he earnestly asked “can you come home early from school each afternoon so that we can spend time together?” This hit me hard as I have spent so much of my life serving my various schools. Once again I am on the rocky road of mastering the simple concept of being present in my son’s daily life.

Enjoy the Ride

I often lament the lack of simplicity in the 21st Century, which is compounded by my tech skills as I am somewhere on the spectrum between a Luddite and digital native. Just like working in schools, being a father has forced me to embrace the sloppiness of each day and not get hung up on my utopian dream of having things arranged in vertical columns with neat bows. I am working on letting go of perfection, not getting sidetracked by complications, and simply enjoying time with my son. 

I salute all dads as we approach Father’s Day and encourage all to celebrate your small victories while remaining committed to being selfless, being present, and enjoying the greatest gift of being a father.