College info for my sophomore

I went to a college planning sessions at my sons' high school not because I'm hung up on getting my Sophomore into a top school, but because I thought I'd get a jump on things. I learned I was actually behind.

For one, I learned that the high school has an online system that will do some amazing things:

• It will give my son a personality test and an interest test.
• From those tests, it will tell him what kinds of careers he might want to consider.
• Based on those careers, what major should he have.
• From the major, what schools around the country offer it.
• In those schools, what the entrance requirements are.

That means that my son can answer questions about personality and interests and draw a straight line through to what he needs to do to get into a school so he can learn to do the jobs he'll like and be good at. Holy cow. We didn't have anything like that when I was a kid.

Further, the online system has two complete SAT and ACT tests in it, so, along with the PSAT that he's already taking, he can do a practice ACT, figure out which test he's best at (my 34 ACT score was way better than my 1240 SATs) and just take that test, since most schools these days take both SAT or ACT results.

This is all freely provided by the high school and, in fact, they have counseling sessions with the students at each grade level for them to get the most from this system.

It's no wonder that 93% of students from this high school go on to 4 or 2-year college degree programs.

That was the good part.

The scary part is that my eldest, half way through his Sophomore year, is essentially half-way through his high school career. Colleges only see their grades through the end of Junior year, since most college applications are due in the middle of January of their Senior year at the latest. I have to sit down with my son and have the conversation about how "even if you get a 4.0 from now on, the best grades you can have are..."

Is it just me or is the world moving faster with each passing day?

The "career choosing" software was pretty common fifteen years ago, and it doesn't always clearly give logic behind the choice, which makes it questionable to base a third of the hours in your adult life on. :-)

I am reviewing my blogroll and wonder your blog feed has been inactive for a few months or moved somewhere else?

Cheers.

My last blog post was about a month ago. I've been much more active on twitter when it comes to just links: http://twitter.com/csells