When senior year actually starts in August, what do you want for your kid?
I want them to walk in confident. I want YOU to walk in relieved.
Not anxious. Not behind. Not three weekends deep in a panicked Common App spiral. Relieved.
That doesn’t happen by accident. It happens because of three quiet things you do between now and August that almost nobody in the admissions industry is talking about.
I just dropped the full episode on this. Hit play below, or scroll for the written version. Or both. Whatever you need today.
The Two August Families
Every August I watch the same thing happen. Senior year starts. The Common App opens on August 1. Within ten days, two families exist.
Family A walks in confident. The kid has a plan. Mom has a plan. They might not have answers to every question yet, but they know what work is in front of them and they know what their reality is. They’re tired but they aren’t afraid.
Family B walks in panicked. Kid is stalled on the essay. Mom is making spreadsheets at midnight. Dad has a question about FAFSA that nobody is answering. The vibe is “we don’t know what we don’t know.”
What’s the difference between the two? What those families did in May, June, and July.
Thing One: Lock the June Testing Plan
our rising senior has two more shots at the SAT or ACT before applications go live. June 6 and June 13. That’s it.
Locking the plan means three things.
One, pick the test. SAT or ACT. If they have already taken both, run back the one that tells the better story.
Two, pick the date. Not “we’ll see how we feel.” A date. On the calendar. Registered.
Three, commit to a three-week prep window. Three weeks of consistent prep before the test moves more points than three months of “we’ll do some this weekend.”
What goes wrong: families wait until the end of the school year to decide. Then summer hits, the kid is in tournaments or working, and the test never gets locked in. By August they are scrambling for a fall date AND juggling the first weeks of senior year coursework.
Family A locks the testing plan in May. Family B is still talking about it in July.
Thing Two: Do the Activities Brain Dump
This is the one almost no one mentions to rising senior moms. Do the activities brain dump now.
Sit down with your kid in the next two weeks, while the year is still fresh in their head, and brain-dump every activity, role, job, leadership thing, hobby, family responsibility, and weird passion project they have touched since 9th grade.
Every one. Don’t edit. Don’t judge. Don’t say “that doesn’t really count.” Write it all down.
Why now? Because the Common App opens August 1, and one of the first things it asks is for the activities section. Ten slots. 150 characters each. The kids who walk in cold to that section leave things off. Big things. Important things.
The kids who walk in with a brain dump in hand pick their best ten, write tight descriptions, and tell a clear story with their list.
How to actually do this:
- Set a 30-minute window
- Sit with your kid (outside, with snacks, not at the kitchen counter where the math homework happens)
- Open a Google doc
- Start with 9th grade and walk forward
- YOUR job is to ASK. Not write.
The gold parent questions:
- What did you actually DO in this activity?
- What changed because you were involved?
- What skills did you develop?
- Why does this matter to you?
By the end of it your senior has the raw material for the activities section AND a pile of stories that will probably show up in supplemental essays later.
Family A does this in May or June. Family B is staring at a blinking cursor on August 4th wondering what their kid even did with their high school years.
Thing Three: Have the Money Conversation
The one most families want to skip and absolutely should not.
Have it now. Before applications go live. Before the college list is locked. Before your kid puts their heart into a school you can’t afford and don’t have a plan to pay for.
I see this go sideways every year. Family doesn’t talk about money until after acceptances. Kid gets into their dream school. School is unaffordable without massive debt. Now you have two months to either say no to your kid’s dream or watch them sign up for $200,000 in loans because you didn’t have the hard conversation in May.
You can prevent the whole thing with one conversation in the next six weeks.
Tell your kid the truth of your family’s actual situation. There is no right version of this conversation. There is only YOUR family’s version.
Maybe it’s: “We are budgeting X per year for college, and anything beyond that needs a real scholarship or it’s not on the list.”
Maybe it’s: “We will pay for in-state public, and out-of-state and private schools are only on the table if they bring substantial merit.”
Maybe it’s: “We can pay for any school you get into, but we need you to understand what we are giving up to make that happen, so you take it seriously.”
The transformation isn’t just financial. It’s relational. Your kid stops feeling like there’s a secret they don’t know. They stop applying to schools that were never going to work. They start looking at financial aid and merit as a real part of the puzzle. And they go into senior year trusted as a partner in their own admissions process.
That trust is what makes August feel different.
Family A has this conversation in May or June. Family B is doing it in March of senior year, ten days after the acceptance letter, when there are no options left.
Don’t be Family B.
The Real Payoff Nobody Tells You: Bandwidth for the Supplemental Essays
Here is what nobody tells rising senior moms.
When the Common App opens on August 1, your kid is not just filling out forms and writing one personal statement. Your kid is writing supplemental essays. Lots of them.
Why this college. Why this major. Tell us about a community you belong to. Tell us how you’d contribute. The school-specific questions that admissions officers actually read closely.
If your kid is applying to seven or eight schools, that is anywhere from ten to twenty supplemental essays. The volume is wild.
And here is the part nobody talks about: the supplemental essays are where admissions decisions get made for most selective schools.
The personal statement gets your kid in the door. The supplementals win the room.
Family A walks into August able to focus on those supplementals because the testing is locked, the activities are dumped, the money conversation is done, and the personal statement is finished or close to finished.
Family B walks into August trying to do the supplementals AND catch up on everything else. The supplementals get rushed. Every single time.
That is what these three things buy you. They buy your kid the bandwidth to write supplemental essays well in the fall. That is the real payoff.
Where to Start
Pick one of the three. Just one. Get it on the calendar this week.
If you want the timeline that maps out everything after these three things, grab the free Common App Timeline. Month-by-month roadmap from July through January, on one page. Stick it on the fridge.
If you want the small-group room for the personal statement so your kid is done with it before August, the Personal Statement Huddle is open. Four students, four weeks on Zoom, one finished personal statement by the end. First cohort kicks off Sunday May 31. I am running new cohorts all summer. They fill up fast though, so the trick is grabbing your spot before the group you want is gone.
→ Enroll in the Personal Statement Huddle
Already in my Dream Team or Parent Collective? You are covered. Dream Team families get the personal statement done one-on-one with me. Collective members have a dedicated essay group inside the membership. The Huddle is for moms who are not in either room yet.
Confident kid. Relieved parent. Strong supplementals. Better admissions outcomes.
That’s the whole thing.
