PrepWell Podcast with Phil Black
Nov 1, 2026 · 14 min · 8 segments
In this week's podcast, I suggest that every parent has "the talk" with their child during their sophomore year (at the latest). "The Talk" refers to college admissions. It used to be a given that…
Phil BlackHost
Today, I'd like to suggest that parents have a serious talk with their children about college at some point during their sophomore year.
Could be earlier than that, depending on how mature the child is, but I would not wait much longer than sophomore year.
And the weird thing is that this talk, quote unquote, has never really been a thing between parents and children for decades, right? Why? Because for many families, going to college was a given.
It was something that every child who wanted to be successful someday would do reflexively without really thinking much about it.
Now, eventually, toward the end of their junior year in high school, as students got their SAT results back, conversations would start to percolate.
And they mostly revolved around topics like, what's the most prestigious college you think you could get into? Is it top 20? Is it top 10? Could it be an Ivy? That was about the extent of the talk.
The theory was the higher up on the list of U.S. News and World Report the college was, the better.
If you graduated from a top 10 or a top 15 school or an Ivy League school, the details would simply take care of themselves.
If you had any residual student loan debt, you would pay it off and you'd be off to the races.
It probably comes as no surprise that I'm here to suggest that those days are long gone.
This simplistic notion that college will be the solution to all of your problems is long gone.
We are in an entirely new world when it comes to college, the need for college, what happens at college, the value of college degrees, college affordability, you name it.
We need to understand what's happening around us in the marketplace and with technology and with society in general.
Today, I'd like to suggest that parents have a serious talk with their children about college at some point during their sophomore year.
Could be earlier than that, depending on how mature the child is, but I would not wait much longer than sophomore year.
And the weird thing is that this talk, quote unquote, has never really been a thing between parents and children for decades, right? Why? Because for many families, going to college was a given.
It was something that every child who wanted to be successful someday would do reflexively without really thinking much about it.
Now, eventually, toward the end of their junior year in high school, as students got their SAT results back, conversations would start to percolate.
And they mostly revolved around topics like, what's the most prestigious college you think you could get into? Is it top 20? Is it top 10? Could it be an Ivy? That was about the extent of the talk.
The theory was the higher up on the list of U.S. News and World Report the college was, the better.
If you graduated from a top 10 or a top 15 school or an Ivy League school, the details would simply take care of themselves.
If you had any residual student loan debt, you would pay it off and you'd be off to the races.
It probably comes as no surprise that I'm here to suggest that those days are long gone.
This simplistic notion that college will be the solution to all of your problems is long gone.
We are in an entirely new world when it comes to college, the need for college, what happens at college, the value of college degrees, college affordability, you name it.
We need to understand what's happening around us in the marketplace and with technology and with society in general.
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