Last fall, I began making college visits with my baby girl. She is my favorite road trip warrior. I have my special things with each kid. With her, it’s road tripping. So, we combined our first college visit into a girls’ road trip, with her bringing along her best friend. In three days, we saw all but two of the colleges we wanted to see in North and South Carolina. We sang, we ate yummy, not-so-healthy food, I worked on the road, and we got lost and improvised often.
With so many colleges in the Northeast, you are likely wondering why we started in the South. The girl wants to go to college in the South. Even with great options in the eastern and western sides of the country’s higher education mecca, in Massachusetts, she declared that she wanted to study in the South after her first trip to New Orleans. To be honest, I have reservations. New Orleans is too much fun for me to handle, let alone an 18-year-old. She assures me that she “stands on business” as the kids say colloquially. I have to take her word for it.
During this road trip, we talked about a lot of things. I try to use this time to build connection with them and talk about the things that they don’t want to talk about, but have no choice when they are stuck in a car with me. No need to list them here, but you all know those topics.
We also talk about the choice of colleges. Our daughter really wants to go to a Historically Black College or University (HBCU). Our son goes to an HBCU. It was like performing a molar removal followed by a root canal, getting him to choose Howard over Brown University. Our daughter also says that she is very pragmatic. While she has her preference, at the end of the day, she will go wherever she gets the best deal.
On our North Carolina trip, I tried hard to figure out what baby girl wants to study. I know that most college students change their majors several times, but I wanted to know her starting point. After failing multiple times to get her to select anything, I had her take several assessments. Hospitality kept on coming up. I didn’t believe it. She is a nice young woman and likes people, but not enough to be in hospitality. I just couldn’t see it. After three assessments, one that we paid for, I assured her that it was okay to not know.
In contrast, her best friend has known what she wants to study and has been working toward that, volunteering and doing internships. I knew eventually baby girl would give it enough thought and figure out what she wants. It makes narrowing the college application choices a lot easier knowing what she wants to study.
This summer, she will study for the SAT and begin the application process. Thinking back to my college experience, I never visited any colleges or universities. I applied to four schools. My top choice, Brandeis, rejected me, so I made the financially savvy choice of going with UMass Boston. It propelled me to places Brandeis could have never sent me.
Going through the college process for the second time with my own children, I feel fortunate that higher education in the United States is a third-generation legacy for our children.
