Countdown to College‘s New York Times Book Review!
I was thrilled to read a review of Countdown to College: The Essential Steps to Your Child’s Successful Launch in the @NYTIMES on August 23, 2019. Judith Newman, whose child is headed off to college this fall, found it a valuable resource for the nervous parent. The book is not just for nervous parents, of course, but I’m glad she found it helpful!
She wrote: ” According to U.S. News & World Report, roughly 30 percent of college students in the United States drop out after the first year; whether the problem is academic, social, financial or psychological, this is an alarming statistic. Two recent books hope you, or your kid, won’t become that statistic. HOW TO COLLEGE: What to Know Before You Go (and When You’re There) (St. Martin’s, paper, $16.99), by Andrea Malkin Brenner and Lara Hope Schwartz, is geared toward the student; COUNTDOWN TO COLLEGE: The Essential Steps to Your Child’s Successful Launch (Ballantine, paper, $17), by Monique Rinere, is for the anxious parent.”
“Both are solid primers,… Rinere, herself a first-generation college student, was an administrator at Princeton, Harvard and Columbia; she’s also an adept teacher, entertaining us with other people’s tales of triumph and woe. She does a particularly good job of looking at worst-case scenarios. What if your child gets in nowhere? What if your child refuses to sign the FERPA form? And what the hell is a FERPA form? (Everyone knows that medical information for people over 18 is private, but so are a young adult’s grades … unless he or she signs a waiver. Wonder what that waiver is going to cost me.)
“We’re all trained to think about how our kids are going to deal with drinking and drugs at school, but Rinere raises a less-discussed but still critical subject: What about those kids who are trying to break with the past and want to go off prescribed medication? Without hijacking the focus on your child, Rinere also tackles some of the questions parents are asking about themselves — with the emphasis on diving more enthusiastically back into your own life, especially your work life, given the bills you may be facing. It’s not just your kid who has to think about the future.”
Thank you, @JudithNewman, and to all the parents of new college students out there, I hope my book helps!