For many high school seniors, the countdown has begun. It's only a matter of months now until girls and boys head off for college to learn all there is to know about anatomy, philosophy, and throwing up in the back of a cab at 2 a.m. It's a special time. But, as fun and awesome as it is, there's still some preparation that needs to be done ... preparation that goes beyond the purchase of extra-long twin sheets.

Since I a) was once a teenager, b) went to college, and c) am a lady person, here are 8 things teen girls need to know how to do before leaving home and entering the dorm.

I must admit, before I became a parent, I didn't worry much about the educational system in our city. However, now that my son is headed to kindergarten, it's all I can think about. The classroom experience they have now could shape the rest of their academic lives. It sounds dramatic, I know, but it's true. Sadly, not every child will receive a good education, whether that is because of their struggling district or their own lack of motivation. It's a subject near and dear to Dr. Jill Biden, a teacher herself for the past 32 years. We sat down with Dr. Biden and the four finalists for National Teacher of the Year to find out how parents and educations can work together to ensure a better future for our children. What they had to say about the realities of the situation was both enlightening and alarming. It's a discussion no parent should miss.

Girls have gone wild, yet again. This time, an Indiana sorority is under fire for a homeless-themed party. If you are one of those perpetually positive thinking parents who are envisioning a charity event where the coeds brought attention to the plight of those less fortunate, you would be dead wrong. Indiana University's Kappa Deltas smudged dirt on their faces and begged for food, money, and prayers. That's not all.

There seem to be just two responses to the latest essay going viral on the Internet. Either you love the open letter in the Wall Street Journal dubbed "To All the Colleges That Rejected Me" or you hate it. No matter which side you're on, Suzy Lee Weiss, the teenage girl who wrote it, has a message for you.

Rejection is good for our kids. Just look what it did for her.

As the mother of a daughter, I spend a lot of my time trying to ensure my girl is proud of her gender. The bunny even brought her a sweatshirt on Easter that proclaims, "Girls Can Change the World." I'm wondering if we should have the shirt upsized and sent to "Princeton Mom" Susan Patton.

Don't know the name? She's the Ivy League alum who wrote an open letter to the Daily Princetonian warning our girls that they have a "shelf life" so they better find husbands and QUICK!!

No matter what your profession, I guess everybody gets a little jaded now and then ... even (perhaps especially) college admissions officers. I'm sure once you've read your billionth essay written by a 17-year-old with big dreams, you stop thinking in terms of individual human beings and start looking at those letters as an endless supply of annoyances addressed to you personally. Everybody's human. BUT that's still no excuse -- not even a tiny bit of an excuse -- for what former Penn admissions officer Nadirah Farah Foley did with the student essays she found most annoying. And as a mother who knows exactly how much blood, sweat and tears goes into even the most awkwardly worded student assignment, what she did with those essays makes me absolutely sick.

What Foley did was to post excerpts from student essays on Facebook and mock them. Cruelly.

I've seen all kinds of words scrawled across bathroom walls, but none of them bear repeating (indeed, depending on the sort of company one keeps, to repeat most of them would be considered highly offensive). Sometimes the messages are crude, sometimes they're funny -- and sometimes they're even confessional. That's what Reddit user and college student cherrylauren found in a ladies room at her school: "In a girls' bathroom stall at my university, girls have written about some of their most horrifying life experiences," she wrote. From being raped to suffering from eating disorders to dealing with alcoholic parents, young women used Sharpies and ballpoint pens to tell the bathroom wall everything, all the things they'd never been able to tell anyone.

Cherrylauren decided to let them know someone was listening.

Who knew the best investment you could make in your kid's future is to not pay for college? That's the conclusion from a new study. Turns out, the more financial assistance a parent gives a child, the lower his GPA. The solution? Let our kids foot the bill. It's counter-intuitive, I know. Especially if you can afford to help pay the way. But this actually makes perfect sense and here's why.