Who Is This Kid? Colleges Want to Know! Review from The Critical Thinking Co.™

Disclaimer: I received a FREE copy of this product through the HOMESCHOOL REVIEW CREW in exchange for my honest review. I was not required to write a positive review nor was I compensated in any other way.

 

The last several weeks my son has been working on Who Is This Kid? Colleges Want to Know!  from The Critical Thinking Co.™ My family received a physical copy of the book. It is also available as an eBook.

My son is now in high school and we are already figuring out courses for the next 4 years. Getting into college is more than SAT/ACT score but the application, essay and the interview. That part makes my head spin and I’m welcoming resources to help prepare my son for the college essay, interviews, and finding a college to fit his skills and ambitions. Colleges just don’t want the best scores but individuals who stand out and are a good fit for them too.

Who Is This Kid? Colleges Want to Know! is a softbound workbook. The pages are perforated to easily be removed while working through the workbook. The workbook is broken down into 5 parts with several subtopics following.

Words matter on essays. How can you stand out?

Part I: Student Self-Assignment: Thinking and Writing Exercises. The 1^st page grabbed our attention as trying to present yourself on a piece of paper can be daunting. How do you stand out on paper? One way is having colorful and descriptive adjectives to describe yourself in the essay. I know I get in a rut with using the same words that I’m comfortable with. There is a full page of Personal Quality Words.  

My son filled out his Personal Qualities questionnaire 

How do others view you in 5 words?

Now for the hard part as you examine yourself using the Personal Quality Words asking question like: My Personal Qualities According to my Mother, Father, Friends, and Myself. For each person you have 5 lines to fill in the blanks. Its hard to give an assessment of yourself but once you have words put together in one place it makes that task much easier. Other questions are asked where you fill in the blank and several pages to write down things like; important events in your life, topics for speeches, 3  people you admire the most, your favorite bands or musician, books, TV shows, movies, and many other topics that make you think about yourself and life events.

The second part College Culture Descriptions covers your interest, achievements, skills colleges are looking for; where do you fit in.  What are your interest or what is important to you; leadership, worldview, public speaker, performing arts, sports and achievements, and interest are just a few topics. 10-Step Campus Culture Quiz-favorite activity, subjects, what kind of student you are and ends with a key that you score yourself to give you an overview of the type of college you might thrive in the most based on your answers.

College Search Worksheets 

Part II: Searching the Colleges-Building Your College List. With more than 2,500 colleges in the US where do you start? How do you choose and how to go beyond college ratings? College Search Worksheets gives you tips and guided questions to research 10 to 12 colleges? The first part has you filling out worksheet on 3 colleges you have heard of. It has your basics information to write down like address and web address. You have to research information on the student body, researching number of undergraduates, graduates, ratio of gender, international student’s percentage. Residence of the college like your number of freshman and upperclassmen on campus, how many commute from home, and off campus living. It also has you looking into the academics like the average GPA, SAT/ACT scores, class size, popular majors, and more. What are the extracurricular opportunities at the college? The book has worksheets for you to brain storm what you learned. It also has you researching 3 colleges that they choose for you to research.

Keeping your meetings, visits, and impressions all in one organized place

Another worksheet has several questions to ask at college fair representatives. After you have spoken to them you have worksheets to fill out after your visits while the information is still fresh in your mind. Another activity is if you attend a colleges presentations and it also has a place for you to write down your thoughts and impressions.

There are several other worksheets and each have multiply copies like Campus Visit Worksheet, and a Final List of Ten Colleges which you plan on applying too.

Part III: Communications- Applications, Essays, and Interviews. By now you should have a pretty good idea of what colleges you are planning on applying to. There are 10 Final Application Organizer that helps you have everything in one place that you can see at a glance. Your user name, password, application deadlines, test score sent to check off, interview dates and other important information. This is a very handy tool to organize your information in.

5 page preview of a common college application

There are a lot of sample forms of a 5 page common first year application. I thought this was an excellent example of what to expect and not having to get surprised or stressed when you apply for colleges. As homeschoolers we don’t have college coaches or counselors to help us navigate this. Some may be comfortable with this process but it’s been over 30 years since I’ve seen a college application.  

Several essay exercises are provided that are broken up in topics: Why do you want to go to college, how will you spend your day, why do you want to come to this college, and in all there are 5 similar exercises.

College Interviews for both in person and online interviews. This is also a nice place to record your thoughts and impression of the college. You can also write down questions that you want to ask later that you didn’t think of earlier. It also has a place for you to send a thank-you email reminder with the date you sent it. Good information I didn’t know.

I like having a visual calendar of things we need to stay on course for my son's future

My personal favorite is Part IV College Admissions Calendar. It list when you need to start preparing for everything. A separate list for Juniors and Seniors that covers the whole year. It tells you a general outline by month things like when to take SAT/ACT if you haven’t yet, AP classes, attend college fairs, when to mail in your applications, and so much more.

Part V Glossary this gives you all the vocabulary, abbreviation if applicable, and definitions of college talk that you should know beforehand.

How Did I Use Who Is This Kid? Colleges Want to Know! In my Homeschool?

My son is a freshman now and this has been a great resource to plan and look ahead at the process we need to prepare for the next few years. He is obviously not sending out applications or having interviews with colleges at this point. So we have been focusing on Part I and a little on Part II.

As I mentioned earlier the first page grabbed my attention of the Personal Quality Words. My son and I spent some time talking about how changing up a word or two can really change a sentence on paper. Creative words can change the tone of a sentence.

My son is not really fond of talking about himself and is at that age that he gets pretty embarrassed. We spent some time working on the personal qualities section and what traits others see in him.  We spent awhile gathering information from others and working on that. We talked about the differences with each person and how he viewed himself against what other thought. Having these personal qualities brainstormed in one place will help when trying to stand out in your application.

What are some important events in your life. My son mentioned doing his Bar Mitzvah

My son worked thought Part I writing down 3 most important events in his life. He wrote about having a Bar Mitzvah, going to Israel, and he hasn’t decided on the 3^rd event yet.

He continued filling out things like what his favorite band is and other questions throughout the book. Since he was unable to do several of the parts in this workbook at his age we still went over the rest of the information together. We both learned and have a vision of what he needs to do.

We both feel a tad more prepared for college thanks to  Who Is This Kid? Colleges Want to Know! . This has been an excellent resource for anyone planning on attending college.

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There are 65 of the Homeschool Review Crew that have been using several different books from The Critical Thinking Co.™. They have a plethora of materials for all grades and subjects. To find out more click here or on the graphic below.