Podcast with Melanie Studer: Parent-Student Communication for College Success

Hello, this is Shellee Howard, and I am so excited to share with you our next guest, Melanie Studer. Melanie is a wealth of knowledge, and I can't wait for you to hear about what she has in store. But before I do, I want to let you know that she's a wife, a mom, an educator, a speaker, and a parenting mentor. I think every parent could use a mentor. Um, she's the mom of 3 kids, all in their early 20s, and she's been a teacher of preschool, elementary, and middle school. She's pretty much seen it all. She has a blog and I just, you know, without further ado, welcome to the show.

Thank you. It's good to be here.

All right, well, let's dig in. I always like to, um, talk about how did you get into what you are currently doing? Maybe you can share the depths of what you're doing and how did you get there? Because there's a bunch of moms listening and some dads as well.

Sure. So about 7 years ago, uh, friend, one of my best friends, when she moved to Florida from where I am, which is Missouri, and we were trying to figure out a way to stay in touch. And we were both in the thick of teenagers. She had 2 girls, I had 3 boys. And so we started, we just thought, well, we both had read about blogs, we both followed different people, but we thought as parents of teens, there was so much out there for, you know, parents of babies and toddlers and even elementary, but there was, we, we weren't finding a whole lot out there about just raising teens. And, um, We both parented very similarly. We had, we were, had been bringing up our kids practically together when they moved. So we started our blog. Um, it had a different name in the beginning, but we switched it to Parenting High Schoolers to sort of niche down because really, hopefully the goal is most, if not all kids go to high school. And then from high school, there's, there's so many paths that you can take from there. That felt like a really good middle ground. Um, and then in 2019, her parents' health took a turn and she— we split off and we're still really great friends, but it took me about a year to decide, like, does this really still something I want to do on my own? And I decided, yeah, I still am passionate about helping parents. I feel like as a teacher of all those ages that you mentioned, plus, you know, being in the trenches myself, Um, and I'm kind of a nerd. Like if somebody has something that works, like I'm going to write about it. I want to share that message. Like, or like my oldest two kids have taken completely different routes. One, my oldest went to, you know, a traditional four-year, you know, small Midwest liberal arts college. And then our second son just really didn't know what to do. He was not a lover of school. And so we just encouraged him and he went to a community college. Um, and you know, it took 4 years to get that 2-year degree, but you know, he was working full-time. And so we've sort of experienced a lot of different aspects of parenting teens. And then our final son is a senior in high school, so we're still in the thick of it. So that's kind of the beginnings. I mean, since then I've written a book, I've got a blog like I mentioned, I have a YouTube channel which I have sort of ignored for the last few months. We've been in the middle of a massive downsize, but I was just today thought I'm kind of dressed up. I think I might do a video here. Um, I've got, uh, you know, I'm everywhere on social. And so I, you know, I really am trying to, to reach as many parents as I can just because no one has all the answers, but I think together we can combine our knowledge and help more people. So that's where I'm at.

So amazing. And you know, when I read your blog, there was no doubt in my mind. I'm like, she needs to be my guest because our goal at College Ready is to help families get in the best fit college. Well, to do that, the student has to learn who they are, why they matter, and why a college would offer them admissions. So starting with, well, parents are usually the first people that, that children mimic or follow or opposite of. And so it does start with the family and it does start at home. And that's why we work both with the student and the family, focusing on the academic and the financial. The brilliancy of that is hopefully we can get them on the same page. And you could probably appreciate this when we're going to help the, the family finally pick the list of colleges. I'll have them, uh, separately, the child and the parents in one room. I'll say, okay, student, rank in order of most importance: academic fit, social fit, financial fit. What do you think a student would do?

Absolutely social.

And then, and then it could go either way, depends how much the parents are listening, um, or the student. And now if I was to say to the parent, rank these in order of importance, what would you think they would say?

I would think 100% financial.

Sure. Because they care. They know what $300,000 in debt looks like, smells like, feels like. And I've had many a student where the parent looks at them like, we're not made of money. And the student's like, fine, just put, put my name on the loan. Like, you know, duh. And the parents are like, can we do that? And I'm like, no, you can't do that. They have no assets. So there's this huge misunderstanding, or lack of communication. And I know one of the things that you're really passionate about is communicating. So can you talk about how do you even start that conversation?

Well, so the blog was one way that we were trying to get our message out. And then me by myself, just, you know, talk with your teen. And then in the process of, you know, in my newsletters and stuff, you know, I had a lot of parents just asking like, Well, how does that work and what does that look like? And so I started— I had started taking notes with our oldest when he turned 14. He turned into this creature from the Black Lagoon or something that we were like, who are you? And we, we were trying to sort out through what, what were we doing right and what was, what was going wrong. And I think what we both discovered together, my husband and I, was that you know, parenting a smaller child, younger child is— I mean, yeah, there are challenges, but, you know, we felt pretty good about ourselves. We're like, you know, he's still alive and he's pretty okay. And he's, you know, he was a fun kid. But then, you know, you kind of— so you kind of— or we did sat back and thought, I think we got this. And that was our biggest mistake, we realized, was that we became hands-off. Not that we weren't still you know, involved in his life. But as far as the conversations and the way we were approaching parenting was, we had just sort of sat on our laurels and just thought we were the best things ever and realized, okay, well, maybe not. And so we started taking writing notes about, or I did, because I'm the nerd, like, what did I wish that I, that he knew? And, and what did we feel like was missing in the conversations that we were having. And so as they had been growing up, we had even had a little notebook for each kid and we would meet with them every 6 weeks when their grades came out, good or bad. We talked to them and kind of what was coming up. And so we thought, you know what, we need to start doing that again. Even though he's a teenager, he still needs us. Oh my gosh. Like this, like this dawning of you know, a moment of intelligence that we're like, how could we not have known that? But you, you really— parenting teenagers is such a complicated, and it can be really fun, but it can be super horrible too. So with that in mind, we, we sat him down and we said, okay, you are not in trouble, but we're gonna get ourselves in a bunch of trouble, you and us, if we cannot reconnect. And so the way we kind of approach that was tiny baby steps. Like, we're like, so instead of meeting every 6 weeks, we'd really like to meet a little more often, but what if we just pared it down to like 10 minutes? And so we got our calendars out. We're like, so Sunday at 4 o'clock, can you meet with us? And we set a timer. We wanted him to know that he truly was in charge. And we started from there. We just kind of reconnected in the beginning. And then we kind of honed in on what were some things that we felt like he needed to know in 8th grade. What was he thinking about college? Was he thinking about college? What did he think he wanted to do? What were his ideas for a job the following summer? All of those things. So we kept a list in the back of the notebook of things we wanted to cover. And in the front of the notebook, we realized really quickly that we needed to take, or at least some sort of summation of the, of what our conversations were, because A lot of times that next conversation would come up and he'd— well, I guess we maybe occasionally would say, we didn't talk about that, or that's not what we decided. So note to self and all of the rest of you, keep track, because then you could say, well, you know, this is what we decided. And I— we all signed and we started having to sign it too, because that was the other thing. As you know, he was very literal. And he's super smart. And he could argue his way out of a paper bag. So we really got with him. We were the most precise. The other two just kind of, we never stopped the conversation. So it never was quite the problem. And of course we had struggles with them, you know, in their own rights, but that's kind of how we started. So if you're in a place where you are not, it's things are not good right now. And believe me, even though we were doing that, there were still times where it was not good. Just remember that you're all in it together. And so just say, hey, do we have 10 minutes? And then there are sometimes, once you've been doing it for a while, you could say, you know what, this is a topic we'd like to cover, we might need longer. So could we schedule longer, or could we schedule 2 sessions? And we really made it a team decision. So we weren't telling him. And I think he appreciated that. And I think any teenager wants to be respected. They're, they're humans and they are growing up and they need that responsibility. So a lot of times we'd let him pick the time and the place and, you know, how long it was going to be. So that's kind of how it all started. Wow.

I really resonate with that as a parent and, you know, working with teenagers the last 15 years. I— they're all so unique and I try to help parents understand it has to be custom to that student because one may need a lot of pushing, some may need pulling, some may need to add a girl, add a boy. And so, and then from college-ready perspective, we really focus on what are their core values. A lot of times students don't know what they're, what's really important to them. And that helps to have conversation with a family. And then, you know, keeping it safe. That's the other thing. You know, as consultants, we work one-to-one with students and we tell them, we're here to get you what you want. No chores, no homework, like we're safe. And they'll tell us some things, woo, more than I need to know. And parents are like, how come they don't talk to me like that? I get it. I have many of them because they also hear, do your dishes, clean your room, la la la la la. Please don't feel bad, right? That's the—

Exactly.

Is sometimes it just takes a total stranger to get through.

Yes.

So, um, the next question that I had is a lot of parents will say to me, we don't have matching, um, idea of the best fit college. And I want to open that up to you because we have a whole process, a procedure, a strategy to get a family there. But from your perspective, how can you address that?

Well, the first thing I would recommend is start these conversations like really honestly, literally when they're in elementary. But if you're past that, wherever you are, start the conversation like immediately. And by that, I mean, like, are you taking a family vacation this summer? I just made a little graphic of this. So funny that you asked today. It's posting tonight. Are you going on a family vacation? Does your team have a tournament? Look around. Are there any local colleges or something within the hour nearby? Sign up, sign the whole team up, take a tour. And this is, even though it's some place 90% of them perhaps will not want to go to, it's a way to start that conversation. It's a way to say, ooh, that is the That is way too small for me. Or, oh, I think I like a bigger college. Or what a beautiful camp. Even if all it is, is it's a beautiful campus. I mean, you can start like, okay, let's keep a list. What do you like? Okay. Like small and not big. I'd like to be able to live within walking distance of the campus. Cause some, you know, inner city campuses, you are going to have to live far away and bus in. Do they offer, you know, what are you thinking about for your major and things like that? And that's the other piece of when you're traveling. Is there a place that you could take a tour of a business? You know, silly things like, well, not silly, but you know, even a newspaper, they will arrange tours. And you know, my kids would always go, oh my gosh, mom. But anytime we travel, I would try to put in at least one kind of thing like that because they're going to be told things by an adult that is not me and not my husband. And it gets those juices, you know, moving through their brains like, oh, well, I didn't know you could do that. And there are so many careers now that we, we don't even know about. And, um, so I really highly recommend, like, if you are traveling anywhere, even if it's on the way or on the way back home or while you're there, figure out a way to, to visit something, you know, to get those conversations going. Like, you know, does this career even— do you need a 4-year degree? Maybe you just need 2 years, or maybe it's a tech, you know, technical skill. Um, there's so many things to think about, but I think a lot of times our kids, you know, you graduate and you don't know what you want to do, which is totally typical. But if you've had the chance to kind of explore some options and see some things, at least you maybe hit the ground running, maybe not fast, but you've got some ideas and you can talk to the people within that college or, you know, like, this is kind of what I'm thinking, because we visited this place and I think this is so interesting, you know, and you're going to also get like, oh God, I can never do that. But that's a place to start. So I really encourage that kind of thing. And even in your own hometown, you know, just because Like we have the University of Missouri is right here, but we took a tour with our two older boys because once you get on that campus, you're not— like I said, if you want to live on campus and never see me till Christmas, I would cry every day. But you could do it because it's big enough and it's— it would be your choice. It's not like I'm asking you to go to Mizzou and then, you know, come see me every weekend. It's not— it's not like that. So I think they need to be given the opportunity to see what is out there.

That's perfect. And, and it's interesting, I tell families, they want to know when, when should we start doing this? I tell families, you know, start talking about it when they're really young, then they'll be curious, right? I remember taking my son to Harvard when he was in 5th grade, and it wasn't because I wanted him to go there. We were visiting family in Boston, and I'm like, kind of curious, what is Harvard like? And we went into the big main square, and he looked around, he goes, this is awesome. And I'm like, well, it's pretty intimidating for me, but if you think it's awesome, great. So it's those times that you can talk as a family about your experience or what you would have liked to experience and It could be as simple as, right, downloading the app to your phone, plugging in, walking around without any big commitment.

Yep.

And so I think that families sometimes think it has to be like this big event planned out. You know, it doesn't. Where I live, there's hundreds, literally in Southern California, hundreds of colleges, and you can see 4 in a day. Very simply. So families, I would encourage you, especially over the summer. I also think, like you said, writing it down. We give our students a journal. What did you like about it and what did you absolutely not like about it?

Yes.

Right. Those things are good.

Interesting to listen to what they— because, you know, it might be completely different than your opinion because maybe based on your own experience, but you know what? They're not going to college for us or making this career path for us. They need to do what they love. And so you've got to, then you've got to find that middle ground of, okay, what can we afford and how far can you go? Our middle son was an athlete and he had been being recruited. And then he had a career-ending injury for baseball, but it was really fun to go. And like one of the schools we went to visit his, um, end of his sophomore year, he's like, Mom, I don't want to live this far away. And so it was great. We went to the camp because it was one of the schools he was thinking maybe in the back of his mind, but it was— we ruled it out like nothing more than a— we just drew a circle around our hometown and, you know, put some dots where there were some schools that he could maybe play at. And of course that didn't end up happening, but that's a really good way to do it. And we were able to rule that out. In his sophomore year. Um, and like you said, when it's— or the earlier the better. Like, my youngest son went— my brother-in-law took him and his cousin to lunch one day in Springfield, Missouri, just randomly. And he goes, oh, I've got an errand over here. And they passed Missouri State, and they ended up just getting out of the car and walking around. And ever since then, our youngest is just— he loved it, like, for whatever reason. So We went and took a tour, and he still really loves it. It was just from that random visit. Now, where will he go for sure? I don't know, but right, you just never know what's going to make an impression. I love that your 5th grade son said that about Harvard. That's so funny. I think I would have been intimidated as well.

Yeah, I remember going to visit him with my youngest daughter, who's 4 years younger, and she looked around and she goes, oh, there's no way I'm going here. And so she knew from a very early age what she sensed. That social fit is a real thing for students. And how do you know what is a good fit school if you haven't done this before, right?

Even in schools that you— like you said, like if you're on a vacation, if you've already got a feel for what you like and don't like, when it's time to really look, you've already eliminated so many choices, and that's half the battle. Eliminating.

Absolutely. You know, oftentimes right now we're getting a lot of, um, to-be seniors, and they're freaking out about, you know, how do I have a balanced college list? How do I know what essay topics to write about? How does this all come together? Like, they spend 3 solid years plan, plan, plan, plan, plan, and then they're like deer in headlights.

Now what?

And I just would tell the parents out there, and you might be able to speak to this, not every high school does a good job of finding an academic, social, and financial fit. So in your, you know, wisdom, how could you share that with families?

Well, so I don't know how wise I am, but having been in the education realm of this, let me tell you what those high school counselors are. And they are all fabulous. I don't care what situation they are in. They are amazing people because their caseload is hundreds, if not thousands, depending on how they divide up. Do they divide up by alphabet or by year or whatever? Their main goal— and I've talked to a number of them as I've researched things— is to get these kids to graduate, period. And so that means they're really working on the kids that are truant, they're working on the kids that are— their grades are horrible. That's where their focus is because that's the number that the state needs to keep this school accredited. So keep that in mind. Don't rule them out. You can still call them, you can still email them, they are still going to help as much as they can. But I, I have often recommended to people too, there are so many college and career readiness counselors such as yourself. There are, there are other ways to get the information you might need. I will say we have 4 local high schools here in Columbia, and I have recommended to a lot of kids, and I say this anywhere you live, look in all of the high school guidance tabs, log into all the high schools, because like I know as a— there's like a portal for the city here. And so you can get into any school and then go to their guidance and then look at their scholarships because a lot of times the scholarships are the same and some are different and some are very specific to that high school, but a lot are not. So you've increased your chances of finding a scholarship by just spreading your search out. But I really, I respect counselors so much, but they are overwhelmed and just really not in a place that they can— they'll help when they can. And I, like, I know they give like a FAFSA workshop here in town. Which is great. If you know nothing about FAFSA, I would highly recommend going to that. Um, those kinds of things. A lot of times they'll have like an NCAA, you know, night. But, you know, if you don't know anything, I would say look on Shellee Howard's website, look on my website. Like, there are people out there putting information out there to help, but it's really hard for those school counselors to to do much more than they're just treading water as it is.

Yeah, I try to help parents put it in perspective. Even if they're paying for private school, the counselors are not evaluated on if you go to college. They're evaluated on if you graduate from high school. So that, that becomes the driving force to everything in priority for them. Like, I totally agree with you. I think counselors, whoo, they, they deserve huge awards for what they do. But I know with my youngest, she had 10 minutes in 4 years.

Yep.

With her counselor. And that to me, for the average family, would be terrifying. And so seek information, parents. You would never allow your high schooler to buy you a home. We're talking about the same amount of money, right?

Sometimes more.

Sometimes more. And so Knowledge is power. So how could they find out, you know, about your blog and book, and how can they reach you to, to get this extra knowledge?

So my website is, um, www.parentinghighschoolers.com, and my YouTube channel is the same. Um, I'm on Pinterest like that. I'm Facebook, and within Facebook I have other groups, but in each one I usually every couple months say, hey, are you in this group? So you would never miss out on that. Um, where else am I? Instagram. I'm on LinkedIn. I'm not quite as active as Shellee Howard, but I am there. Um, my book is on Amazon and there's a direct link to it from my blog and from many of my posts. Um, and you know, really, if you do nothing else, just start these conversations with your kids. I just, they have so much to say. And I think we don't give teens enough credit for what they already are thinking about. I remember being so surprised when we reconnected with our oldest, the things that he was already thinking about that I was like, oh, you know, not that— why, why was I surprised? He's a smart kid. But, you know, even I just think we don't give them credit and we don't listen enough. And so put your ears open and, you know, put your phone down. And that was one of our rules was no phones when we were having a conversation, unless somebody needed to look something up, it was down and off. Um, and just really try to— you need to become like a team. I mean, that's really truly how you're going to get your kids out the door successfully. And it's, it's not an easy task, but You know, people like Shellee Howard and I are out here truly to help. I'm not an expert. I, you know, I have bachelor's degree, but I have had 30 years in education and I've been a mom for 25. So I figure, well, that counts for something.

Absolutely. I think, you know, until you go through it, it's, it's a whole— and each child, right? You think, oh, I made it through number one, the rest I'm just gonna hit duplicate. I, I don't find that to be true. I have, uh, you know, twins in our program. We even have triplets in the program. We meet with all 3 of them separately because when we talk to them, one gets upset, the other one gets fired up. Like, it's just— so parents, please know we are here to support you. That is what this podcast is all about. And as always, um, remember the my book, How to Send Your Student to College Without Losing Your Mind or Your Money. It is real, a bestselling book on Amazon. Thank you so very much and make it a great week.

Bye-bye.