Is Your Dog Ready for College?
What to look for.
Sending a child off to college is a life-altering experience often with intense emotional conflict. While one part of the experience is a struggle with loss, the other part offers an exciting new path. I am currently in the early stages of this journey and dealing with my impending loss, but I also know that Keith has just turned 11 and it is now or never for him to have a new journey and live his dreams.
As Keith grew from a young dog into a more mature and thoughtful dog, we often talked about his life goals and road to self-fulfillment. I tried to share my life experiences to help him find his path. During the day he often hung around my office and sat in on business calls and enjoyed the give and take of the work.
With his experience and confidence growing, he became more involved and would often signal his approval or disapproval of a presentation and add his opinions in the debrief.
Recently, however, I sensed a growing intellectual restlessness in Keith that could not be satisfied by participating in my work or listening to NPR or watching PBS. I observed more books missing from the shelves. Quite candidly, I began to avoid any conversations with Keith about his plans, knowing the likely outcome would have him leaving our home.
My love for Keith and his dreams has overcome my reluctance, however, and we have begun to make a list of possible colleges and universities. There are no readily available statistics on dogs attending college, however, there don’t appear to be any quotas. None that are published anyway.
During our discussions, Keith has declared the intent to go on after his bachelor’s and possibly attend veterinary school. He is perpetually dissatisfied with his personal doctors and feels that this is an opportunity to give back. We researched top veterinary schools and identified Penn and Cornell as the top two.
While I am happy to pay for an Ivy League education for graduate school, I am not sure if Keith would enjoy that environment as an undergrad. My sense is that he would prefer a larger school with a more vigorous sports program and Greek life. Every fraternity needs a dog to live in the house.
Keith is obviously a homeschooled student, one of a total of 2.3 million in the United States. While homeschooling has been a wonderful experience, the challenge with being a homeschooled student is that nothing is done for you by staff. There are no transcripts, teacher or counselor records and it is more challenging to find extracurricular activities.
Fortunately, most colleges and universities will accept homeschool transcripts and I have cobbled one together. I think he is stronger in the liberal arts than science and math. Also strong in exercise sports.
I reached out to our minister and a good friend who is a top Veterinarian for letters of recommendation. Both of them think highly of Keith.
Given his poor performance in various training programs as a puppy, Keith and I agreed that he may not be a good test taker and we chose to avoid the SAT and ACT. This narrowed our choices to test-optional schools, but we are confident we delivered a strong essay to fill any void. We also cut out any schools requiring an interview.
After narrowing our list to 15–20 schools, we decided to apply directly to each school versus utilizing the common app. Keith has a unique skill set that is better served by tailoring his abilities to the appropriate schools. We thought about applying for early decision at the University of Wisconsin, but decided to keep our options open. Keith’s clear preference is for schools that will have snowy winters.
With all of his applications submitted, we are now anxiously waiting to hear from the colleges and universities. I have done my best to manage Keith’s expectations and we are going on more long walks to ease the tension. It is a challenging time. I am excited about his next step and trying to remove my feelings from the process. He deserves this.
