After years of guiding and making decisions for your son or daughter, your child is finally ready to take an important step toward growth and independence: searching for a college. But how do you fit in? What is your role in this choice? Christian College Guide talked to four families about how they helped their children in the college search and application process.

For Arlene Estrada, thoughts about college began when her daughter, Ashley, was in the sixth grade. On a field trip, Ashley's class spent the day touring a local university campus and listening to speeches by college personnel. These speakers encouraged the students to begin planning for college while still in middle school.

Ashley took the challenge. And her mom was always right there beside her. Arlene says that together, they began very early to sort out Ashley's choices. They determined they wanted a moderately priced Christian college close to their home in Santa Maria, California. They also hoped to find a college that offered a music therapy program and scholarships for music students.

"Ashley and I work very well as a team," says Arlene. "She did a lot of the work herself, and I just tried to be a support. I also worked to educate myself on the process so I could be as much of a help as possible."

Arlene attended college information classes offered by Ashley's high school. Geared just for parents, the classes gave families information about various colleges and scholarships, deadlines, and what college prep courses their child should take. Arlene also took full advantage of help offered by Ashley's high school guidance counselor. "Every year, she would meet with us to check up on Ashley's goals," Arlene says. "And then she'd tell us what we needed to do to meet those goals."

By her senior year of high school, Ashley, now a college sophomore, had compiled a list of top schools, visited them all with her family and chosen to attend Vanguard University in Costa Mesa, California. After the decision was made, Ashley and Arlene began to search in earnest for scholarship money. Arlene's job was to monitor the many requirements and deadlines for different scholarships. This role included logging all of Ashley's volunteer hours for community scholarships and keeping up with her audition schedules for musical scholarships. Also, she says that she continually had to remind Ashley to balance her time and energies between her studies, music programs, church involvement and community service. She also prayed for her daughter.

"I think we are both stronger and more confident in our faith from watching God's hand leading us," Arlene says. "We know that God has a plan and a purpose for each of us and it's amazing to see God take Ashley in the direction he has called her to go."

When Debra and Rick Butterfield's son, Paul, started looking at colleges, a lot of Paul's "oldest child" traits began to show. His mom says that he did most of his own decision-making and paperwork for the college search and application process.

Debra and Rick, from Overgaard, Arizona, saw their role in Paul's search as encouragers and spiritual guides. The first thing they did was to encourage him to seek God's will. However, Debra admits that learning to trust God in the college search was a big step for her. In the early stages of his search, Paul didn't have a clear picture of which college he should choose. Debra says, "For someone like me who tends to like to have things planned out way in advance, I wondered, OK, Lord, where are you taking Paul?"

Finally, Rick and Debra made an important decision. As Paul was considering a state college and several Christian colleges, his parents suggested that the whole family should pray each day about a school for Paul. Not long after that, Rick saw an advertisement in their denomination's state newspaper about Boyce College in Louisville, Kentucky. Once they visited the school, Rick says Paul immediately felt like he had found where he should attend. Debra agrees: "Paul just felt like Boyce was where he could learn what God wanted him to learn."

When the time came for their second son, Michael, to choose a college, his parents took more of an active role. Although he wanted to attend Boyce from the beginning, Debra says, "We encouraged Michael to visit other campuses so he would be confident in his decision and not base his decision on Paul's choice. We knew our sons would benefit from being on the same campus, but we wanted Michael to make his own decision."

Along with praying and seeking God's will, the family attended a second preview weekend—this time with Michael as the prospective student and Paul already enrolled as a sophomore. They chose to arrive at Boyce a day before the official preview began, and they were able to listen to Paul's student evangelism group give testimonies after a night of ministry in downtown Louisville. Debra says, "After that, Michael said he knew God wanted him at Boyce. Michael was excited because he knew he would be encouraged to minister and to use his gifts."

Debra says her boys weren't the only ones learning during the college search process. After making the cross-country trip to take Paul for his first semester at Boyce, Debra says, "God used this time in my life to make me start trusting him to take care of my son. If I can't trust him with Paul in Kentucky, how could I trust him when Paul's working as a missionary halfway around the world?"

When her son Donald began thinking about going to college, Theresa Gadson of Pembroke Pines, Florida, discovered a side of her child she hadn't seen before. "I thought Donald would want more input from me, but he had the attitude of 'I can do it,'" his mom says.

Theresa and her husband didn't have to try to get Donald interested in the college search. Instead, Donald began to request brochures during his junior year of high school and then present the information to his parents. He filled out most of the application paperwork and met all of the deadlines on his own.

Since Donald was very self-motivated, Theresa admits she felt let down. She says, "He wanted to do a lot of the research on his own, so I had to kind of step back, which was really hard for me. I just kind of smiled through it, and I had to realize that he had grown up."

Because of Donald's self-motivation, she was freed up to help him in other areas, such as answering his questions about finances and critiquing his admissions essays. She, along with his dad and an aunt, read each draft and offered suggestions for rewriting his essays. They also encouraged him to communicate with his guidance counselor about which college prep courses he would need in high school. After he visited for a preview weekend, Donald decided on Southeastern University in Lakeland, Florida.

Theresa says there were times Donald really needed her help. "When he displayed signs of frustration I gently stepped in," she says. "He's an overachiever, so I would have to tell him to just relax." The hardest part—for both parents and son— was waiting for the official acceptance letter. To deal with those fears, Theresa says, "We prayed and asked the Lord to place Donald where he would be safe and happy and could be used by God."

Because the family has connections through their church to Covenant Bible College in Windsor, Colorado, Ron and Julie Persson both hoped their children would choose the school. The eldest two children, Matt and Krissy, knew early on in high school that they wanted to attend CBC. With their decisions made, Julie says her role was simply to pray for and encourage them.

When the time came for their third child, Joy, to think about college, Julie's role changed. She explains that Joy was undecided about which school to attend, because she didn't want to follow in Matt and Krissy's footsteps. Ron says, "Joy just wanted to be different from her older siblings."

Ron and Julie wanted to give Joy freedom, but also provided guidance. Unlike her brother and sister, Joy carefully looked at several other colleges. Julie says that while she did not steer Joy toward CBC, she did encourage her to look at Christian colleges. "She's interested in studying psychology, and I preferred she do that at a Christian college rather than a secular school. Other than that, we really left it up to her and prayed that God would guide her to the right place."

Joy did eventually choose CBC. But because she had a chance to look around at other schools, she was confident that she would attend CBC because it was the right school for her—not just because going to CBC was a family thing. Ron says Joy's choice was a good one. "Joy has blossomed the most at that school of the three kids," he says. "More than anything, we want our kids to be spiritually mature as they leave us, and Covenant can help them achieve that."

Copyright © 2006 by the author or Christianity Today International/Campus Life magazine.
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