Also, visit our extensive registration resources for families.

Start Now—

We encourage families to begin these conversations during Winter Break. Formal registration activity begins in February, but with finals in the last week of January, it’s never to early to squeeze in some discussion with your student. To play the role of coach to your student, these decisions take discussion, information gathering, thought, and then discussion again.

Gather Information—

Take a look at last year’s course catalog (they change little year to year and new one comes out in February). You’ll find an outline of the typical progression of students toward requirements. Students will get lots of guidance on those from Counselors.The important part for your family lies in elective courses.

About a fourth of high school classes are open to student choice. All our departments offer a range of possibilities to fulfill graduation requirements.

Plan to Explore—

Students must make conscious choices about the interests they want to explore. None of us can do everything we want; we must choose which desires to fulfill and when. Help your student identify their interests and get creative about how to use graduation requirements, elective courses, community service, and clubs and athletics to build the experiences that will guide their next steps in life.

Get your student started mulling over the choices that lie ahead. We’ll have more on each of these “buckets” in the weeks to come.

Try this article from the Child Mind Institute for advice on productive discussions with teens.