SALT LAKE CITY — Kristin Drysdale has been watching and listening to her son, Benji, prepare for college since he was 4.
At age 3, Benji was drawing pictures of musical instruments after seeing them played by professionals on stage and by his older siblings at home. The next year, he picked up the cello, and it became a companion for him through the next 12 years of school.
Now a senior at Olympus High School, Benji Drysdale plans to apply and audition this fall for a spot at various music schools across the country, including Juilliard and the University of Utah.
Kristin Drysdale said her son always maintained some level of independence in developing his music skills, but there are elements of K-12 school and college preparation common to most students that require parental help.
And as a parent of several college students, Kristin Drysdale is used to fulfilling that role. She said for her family and others, there's an inevitable shift in responsibility that takes place in high school — a time she calls a "weaning period" — for many college-bound students.
"In high school, there's a gentle conversion because in a junior high, you're hands-on, watching everything to make sure everything gets handed in," Kristin Drysdale said. "And in high school, you're still kind of watching, but you're also handing it over to them."
It's not always an easy transition. As Benji Drysdale puts it: "It's really stressful, but it's part of how life works."
"I'm not worried about graduating, but I am worried about fitting everything in," he said, "because I feel like there's a ton of opportunities that you're given senior year, and you just want to take all of them, but you have to make choices."
Shelley Vroman, a counselor at Olympus High School, said some parents she meets struggle to find the right balance in helping their students transition from high school to college, and they're left wondering how they can help their kids prepare and stay on schedule without doing it all for them.
"Often you get parents not allowing their kids to do the process," Vroman said. "There are (students) that just sit there like a bump on a log and the parent is generating all the questions, and they're going to be the ones I try to teach how important it is that the student is the decision maker and they need to activate that process. Otherwise, they're going to be lost in college."
A joint effort
A common "disconnect" in families is how the responsibility of paying for college will be carried between the students, their parents and financial aid resources, according to David Buhler, commissioner of higher education.
He said tuition shouldn't be the only determining factor for families as they choose where to go to college, but they should try to get a realistic idea of who will bear those costs and what the benefits will be.
"There's a lot of important conversations that have to happen in life between parents and children. And one of them is college," Buhler said. "Where do you think you want to go? What are the costs and how are we going to pay for this? How much can the parents afford to help them with? How much do the students need to come up with?"
The Free Application for Federal Student Aid, known as the FAFSA, is the portal through which students can apply for Pell grants, federal student loans, work study positions and some institution-specific scholarships. The online application opens Jan. 1 of every year.
Most schools provide resources to help students fill out the FAFSA, but students are required to provide information from their parents' taxes and income levels to help determine eligibility. And in order for students to meet priority deadlines to take early advantage of available funds, parents must file their taxes well before the IRS deadline in April, according to Mary Parker, associate vice president for enrollment management at the University of Utah.
"Parents need to be looking within that fall semester of their senior year, making sure they meet scholarship deadlines, talking to the financial aid office on cost and what other programs are available for them to apply," Parker said. "That is critical."
College application deadlines and ACT testing dates also dot the calendar through the fall and spring semesters. Parents can help their high schoolers by keeping track of important deadlines while the student fills out applications and studies for the tests, according to Martha Evans, senior associate vice president of academic affairs at the University of Utah.
It's also a process of gathering information. College applications typically ask for a student's ACT scores, high school transcripts, social security number, driver's license information, residency status and answers to open-ended essay questions.
Evans said families should experience a "subtle movement" in letting students take responsibility for becoming college-ready during all four years of high school, with the help of parental guidance.
"When the student is still in high school, the parent can be a great support in terms of helping them get their information organized and helping them meet the deadlines and encouraging to look more broadly at scholarship opportunities," Evans said. "At some point, they have to do the handoff and the students, when they're at (college), they start being in charge of their decisions.
"We see our jobs as providing wrap-around support for them once they get here," she said.
Each student is different in the amount of help they need in choosing their high school courses and working their way through the college applications, Vroman said, but there are steps parents can take with every child.
"They're doing it together, they're looking over their shoulder," she said. "Maybe they have some oversight on what the deadlines are, that as parents, they're getting their tax information and knowing that the FAFSA needs to get off the ground in January. So it's a secondary role."
LDS missions
Since leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 2012 lowered the age requirements for missionary service, thousands of Utah high schoolers have been faced with the decision whether to leave for a mission right after high school or to attend some college first.
It's a decision that Benji Drysdale is weighing right now. He said he's considering enrolling for a year of college before leaving for a mission so he can "solidify" a spot in a music program and get scholarships, which, for many music majors, are based on musical ability.
"With music, he'll lose serious skill while he's on his mission, so he's got to prove himself that first year," Kristin Drysdale said.
But even if students plan on starting their missions the summer after high school graduation, much of their time in high school should still be focused on getting ready for their first semester of college, according to Buhler.
"The best thing for them to do is to go ahead and apply for college this fall, even if they're planning on going on a mission next summer. And then once they're admitted, they can defer their admission," he said. "That helps the college or university know that this student is coming and plan for them so they have a seat for them."
All eight of Utah's public colleges and universities will honor deferment requests for students leaving on church missions, he said.
But before they leave, education leaders recommend that students and their parents contact the school they plan to attend and obtain a waiver from the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, or FERPA. Having the waiver allows parents to act on their student's behalf while they're gone.
When it comes time to register for classes, parents will likely need their student's ID number and some idea of what classes they should take, which they can find out through their student's academic adviser. Then they can register for classes over the phone with the registrar's office.
Missionaries should also wait to fill out the FAFSA until the January before they begin classes, Buhler said. Then they'll fill out the application every year after that until they graduate from college.
Kristin Drysdale said moving on after high school isn't a new process for the Drysdale family, as Benji's is the last of four siblings to leave the family ensemble and find his place as a soloist.
Even so, the transition continues to bring old and new challenges for both the students and their parents, underscoring the need for continued family support during college, she said.
"It's kind of hard because when they're little, you're kind of on top of that and you kind of know all of their deadlines. And then you just gradually hand it over," she said. "Being a parent has kind of rotated around their activities and what's going on in their lives, so that's kind of an adjustment for me, too. I'm used to orchestrating the circus."
Email: mjacobsen@deseretnews.com; Twitter: MorganEJacobsen