This is where I ate lunch everyday my freshman year. Pretty crazy, huh?

Every parent wants the best education for their children, and what could be better than Harvard? Or Yale…or any other top-tier school . . But what can you do to send your son or daughter off in the right direction? I want to share with you the single greatest gift my parents gave me that led me to attend Harvard and MIT (with acceptances from Yale, Stanford, Cornell, Columbia, Northwestern, and Wash U).

The secret to raising a daughter who goes to a Harvard and MIT is actually quite simple: Support. Support in everything. Supporting not pressuring; guiding not dictating. If you asked my mom what she did to get me into Harvard, she’d say, “Nothing”. (She’s a modest midwesterner after all.) Her support of me and my decisions is simply second nature to her. She couldn’t imagine being any other way.

SUPPORTING YOUR CHILD

As a child I never questioned whether my parents would be there for me.

I remember on the first day of kindergarten, I was so mad that there were kids who could read when I couldn’t. I went home and asked my parents to teach me to read that night. By the end of the year, I was one of the fastest readers in my class. If there was something I wanted to do, my parents did whatever they could to help me.

My parents were always budget-conscious. They never bought a new car. Our family vacations stayed cheap by getting around with road trips or flying standby to stay with people we knew. This lifestyle allowed them to afford activities like group tennis lessons for myself and piano lessons for my sister. My parents supported us in the things we wanted to do. They also encouraged us to try new things. In 7th grade, my mom suggested I start tutoring. She helped me make up flyers that were distributed at my grade school, and now I’ve been tutoring for over 10 years.

I didn’t grow up with Harvard and MIT sweatshirts. My parents didn’t pressure me at all about college.  I didn’t really even think about college in grade school.

In 7th grade, I received an invitation to take the ACT through the Duke TIP program. My dad helped me go through the practice exam and taught me all the things I hadn’t learned yet in school. When I scored high enough to go to one of the summer programs, my parents didn’t dismiss it by saying, “We can’t afford that.” Instead, we looked at the programs, one of which was at the University of Kansas, which was only a 30-minute drive from us. They decided we could afford that one, and off I went for three weeks of college courses by myself. But I didn’t let fear hold me back because I knew I had the support of my parents if I needed it.

SUPPORTING YOUR TEEN

Now comes the hard part – the teenage years. The best gift my parents gave me was allowing me to choose my high school. The public school district I lived in was unaccredited and religious education was very important to my mother. My family couldn’t afford the non-religious private schools, but there were several Catholic schools to choose from in my city. So I went to see what a day was like in three different schools.

The first Catholic school was closest to my home. It was the cheapest and was where most of my friends were going. It was the obvious choice, but when I spent a day there, it didn’t seem like a good fit. I knew I wanted to go to college outside of the Midwest and most of the graduates of that high school went to college in-state. So when I chose the second more prestigious Catholic school that was farthest from my house, where no one I knew was going, my parents fully supported me. We applied and received scholarships and financial aid, and, with the second child discount for my sister, we made it work.

After I took the high school entrance exam, the school contacted me about their morning math class for 8th graders. I had already missed the entire first semester of the class, and it meant adding a 40-minute round trip before regular school, which my mother waited through without complaint. It also meant getting my grade school to allow me to be late every day. Again, as my mom would tell you, I did all the work. But I was only open to the idea because I knew I had my parents’ support. I knew my mom would drive me and wait even though it was a huge sacrifice of her time. I also knew my dad would help me if I had any trouble in the class. Because of the class, I received a scholarship to the high school and was put on the accelerated math and science track that allowed me to become valedictorian and take multiple AP classes.

HOW YOU CAN SUPPORT YOUR CHILD

It’s easy to say “support your kids”, but what does that really mean? Here are the three things my parents did that helped me get accepted to Harvard, Yale, Stanford, MIT, Cornell, Columbia, Northwestern, and Wash U:

1. Support don’t Pressure – As a parent, it’s easy to feel like you need to push your kids hard to do their best. Don’t let that support become an overbearing pressure with expectations that ultimately won’t make your child happy or successful. Make sure they know you’ll be there to support them, whether they go to Harvard or play soccer in Brazil. You expect them to be their best in whatever they do, but what they do is ultimately up to them. “Make sure your child knows that they can always count on one person to give them pep talks.”
2. Guide don’t Dictate – Many parents feel like they need to dictate every aspect of their children’s lives. In my own experience as well as my Harvard friends’ experiences, that isn’t necessary. And in a lot of cases it can create a lot of tension in your relationship. Instead, providing guidance to help your child achieve what he or she wants is critical. I’ve put together a FREE 4-step Plan Your Base Workbook in my Ivy Application Kit as a tool to help you figure out your child’s strengths and interests as a family and use that to guide choices for school and activities. “Develop a plan that you implement consistently, purposely, urgently and without apologies.”
3. Support Educational Flexibility – If your child gets into an outside educational program, support it. Education outside of the classroom, or even flexible learning in class, fosters intellectual curiosity and allows your child to learn at an individualized pace. This was one of the greatest ways my parents supported me. You can supplement public or private education with outside learning to get some of the same benefits reported for homeschooling.

At the end of the day, the single most important thing you can do to help your children get into Harvard is to support them. Support them in whatever they want to do. Guide them to be their best. To make this even easier to take action on and read more about my story, I’ve added a special FREE gift to my Ivy Application Kit called Raising a Harvard Kid: The 3 Pillars of Support just for all The Raising Supaman Project readers. Please sign up for my newsletter to receive your FREE gifts.

Do you ever worry you’re not setting your child up for success? What else can parents do to help prepare their children for success?