College Consultants for Your Kids

You could pay $40,000 to Michele Hernandez who is a fellow Dartmouth grad and a family college consultant, or read my blog for free! Michele was the focus of a recent Business Week cover story (Oct. 22, 2007).  The Business Week article starts with a quote from the college application essay of a high school senior whose family hired Ms. Hernandez:

"As I listened to my 8th period English teacher drone on for the third time about how Finny, a character in A Separate Peace, was indeed the main character although he was not the narrator, it finally dawned on me that this was not the exciting world of high school that I had hoped for."

Why am I such a bargain? Not only is my advice free, but I graduated from Phillips Exeter Academy ... the prep school attended by Finny in "A Separate Peace" (not Devon!). Seriously, if you follow this advice ... and some common sense, you can work your way through the college admissions process!

As I'm writing this blog post, my wife and youngest son (a high school senior) are driving home from a few days of college visits (Valparaiso and Rose Hulman Institute of Technology). During both visits, Erik received more personalized attention than other students visitors. Why?  Here is our process:

• Junior Year in High School: Make initial college visits. Key aspects of these trips are:
  • Visit different kinds of schools (urban or rural community, religious or not, small or large school, etc). Early in the search process, this is almost more important than the specific schools you visit. Always do your research and contact the admissions director by email or phone. Ask for a private visit. Get business cards of everyone you visit.  Insist that your child email "thanks" to each person with whom they talked. You are establishing a relationship with each school!
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  • If one parent stays home (with the rest of the family), hold a debriefing session immediately when your child returns home from the visits.  My wife and I prefer to meet at a local Applebees. The parent who accompanied your child on the trips and saw the schools also should at first remain silent. The idea is to get your high school child to talk! Based upon this feedback, we were able to point our children in direction of schools which fit their parameters (not ours)! Obviously, as a parent you still have to agree with their choices; this is part of parenting.
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  • Finally, pick your target schools and make some more visits. However, be realistic! If your child is not Harvard material, accept that fact. There are lots of great other schools.
• Summer before Senior Year: Submit all the applications to your target schools by Labor Day. Your high school senior will love you for insisting on this deadline, once he or she realizes it makes senior Fall that much easier! In addition, more scholarship money is available for kids who apply early.
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• Fall of Senior Year in High School: Visit the schools one more time. Contact the folks you previously met from each school. Let them know that your child has ALREADY submitted an application to their school, and that you are coming for another visit.  Ask to meet again.

This basic process has worked extremely well for each of my three children. Erik has already been accepted at two of the five schools to which he applied (nice scholarship offers also). Much to our surprise, at two of the schools we learned that Erik's application was the very first one received for this year's class of candidates. This certainly can't hurt.  You want your child to become known!

Here is one final example of why I believe this process works. Yesterday at Valpo, during one of their college visit weekends, Erik received private tours from engineering faculty while almost all other visitors were given the large "group treatment". You might be wondering at this point whether my son is a whiz kid. No! While his credentials are very good, he is by no means national merit finalist caliber. However, the admissions department and engineering faculty knew Erik was very serious about their school.

If I've intrigued you with this post, read my other posts on the college search process. One final comment, we have an agreement with each of our children that unlike the attached graphic, one only takes four years to graduate. The message is: have fun in college, but education is serious. Parental funding ends after four years. The phone just rang; it was my son, Erik. Time to go meet my wife and him for another college debriefing session!.
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Comments

[VB]

Rich, great ideas! As I have a 16 year old preparing for college, your thoughts are right on the money. Thank you! Vlad

[EM]

About the 4 yr graduation: many excellent state universities are nowadays impossible to get out of in 4 years. It has to do with funding by the taxpayer and corporations. If you can't get in a class you need, and have to perhaps work, you're stuck. Some colleges now offer deals that if you take 15 hrs a semester and don't get out in 4 years because the classes you need were closed, they will pay the tuition for the extra time.

One way to help things is to take AP and dual enrollment classes. However a lot of colleges no longer honor them, especially the Ivies (makes me wonder if it isn't an issue of $$$) Now do I honestly believe that my daughter's junior year honors physics class (dual enrolled at a community college) is college physics? Maybe. But since she's in social sciences and bound for lawyer-hood, it's good enough, along with her AP credit for AP Bio, to clinch the science requirement. Her AP Calculus effort (or lack thereof, given her score and lack of interest) meant only 1 math class. She is in her second year with junior status and the AP Calc and Bio and Honors Physics left her with the skills to excel in some of the gnarlier Philosophy disciplines which also 'count' as math (logic). 4s and 5s in AP English, AP Econ, AP US Hist, AP Spanish... helped her et out of many requirements. So instead of continuing with Spanish, she's now taking Italian and going to study language and poli sci this summer in Italy.

What this AP credit means is that mommy and daddy have funds for her first year of law school or grad school--if she gets out in less than 4. Or $$ for her first year of apartment furnishing, or for starting a business. Whatever she wants. And if she wants a fourth undergrad year to explore some new subject, why not.

BTW, it's been incredibly freeing to her to not have gone to the private and out of state unis she lusted after (in California) and graduate with no debt.

I went to a then-#1-elite college and a second tier private grad school and I can say that for me, it made NO difference. No employer went AHA wink wink. In fact, my current employer once stated that they abhorred hiring out of MIT, Cal Tech, etc. because those folks didn't have 'good midwestern work ethics' LOL. Many employers deep down will admit that the B- student from local-tech U is a much better employee than prima donna A-student from an Ivy.
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Rich notes: Excellent comments ... Here in Minnesota, the University guarantees students will be able to graduate in four years, or the fifth is free! This assumes that the student takes full load of classes, declares a major in their sophomore year, and a couple of other requirements. With respect to your "prestigious" schools comment, see my prior post on the college search series! :)