Teen Life Suzanne Shaffer Analysis

In an article for Teen Life, Suzanne Shaffer maintains that parents should prepare their children for college early. She recommends that parents should emphasize the importance of education with children as young as kindergarten and take them on visits to college campuses. By middle school, she says students should investigate classes that will help them through high school, including studying a foreign language for a year or exploring an after-school internship. On the other hand, with first graders preparing college wish lists, perhaps planning can begin too early (Smith). Smith refers to parents and educators who state that children today are “overscheduled” and that college planning begun too early would just make the stress worse.