Surviving the Perfect Storm - Choose Wisely

In this series of posts on surviving the college admission storm, we have focused thus far on the importance of keeping perspective and taking a student-centered approach.  

Now to the third tip.

Choosing wisely. 

You get to choose where you apply, not where you get accepted. 

Let me say that again.

You get to choose where you apply, not where you get accepted.

The former is in your control;  the latter is in the sole hands of the admission committee.

The goal then is to craft a college list that reflects the college reality.  

Think of an Egyptian pyramid.  

That’s the college admissions reality.  

There are only about 100 schools that admit fewer than apply (these also tend to be "need" schools that give money to students based on W-2's).  

The lion’s share of schools are still looking for a reason to admit you (and possibly give you a merit scholarship based on your GPA, test scores, and leadership credentials).  

It’s wise then to build a final college list where your academic credentials (GPA, test scores) are in the mid-50% to top 25% range of admitted students at half of your schools.

The impulse, of course, is to flip the pyramid over and apply to a majority of schools in which your credentials are "profile negative."

This is the "7-1" strategy.  

The student applies to 7 "reach" schools with a single digit admit rate.

And then applies to 1 "likely" school with close to a triple digit admit rate.

My advice.  Take a more balanced approach.

1-2 "reach" (25% chance or less) schools.

2-4 "target" (50-50% chance) schools.

And 1-2 "likely" (75% chance) schools.

Sometimes we like to use the term "financial likely" term, but as we're all discovering, it is becoming harder and harder to find these kinds of schools.

For our kids, we encourage them to use Naviance, in particular, which can help the student balance their application list.

Other ways is to look at the 75% to 25% ranges for test scores.  

One of the reasons I do keep a copy of the US News and World Report College Edition is because it provides test ranges that can help the student get an idea of the "competitive playing field," and therefore, what scores they need to aspire toward to get on the field for at least a tryout.

Surviving the Perfect Storm - Make a Bucket List

High school graduation rates.

1st Gen's matriculating to college.

International students.

The Common Application.

Marketing and Rankings.

Combine these forces and you have the perfect storm.

 So how you survive this perfect storm in college admissions?

 Yesterday we focused on the importance of keeping perspective.

 Today our focus will be on taking a student-centered approach to the admission process. 

As opposed to a destination-centered approach

It’s normal to want to begin with “The List.”   

But try instead to start with you (remember – you and not your parents, siblings, teachers, counselors, etc. are going to college).   

Make a “bucket list” of things you want to experience before college graduation.   

Do you want to join a sorority?   

Live in a big city?   

Double major?   

Study abroad?   

Play in an orchestra?   

Perform in a play?   

Compete in college athletics?   

Debate?   

Mountain climb?   

Surf?   

Tailgate on Saturday’s?   

Come home regularly?  

 Intern?   

Meet a diverse range of people?   

Conduct research?   

Write a mini dissertation?  

 Once you start figuring out what you want out of college, it will be far easier to find the kinds of colleges that best match your interests, ambitions, and preferences. 

Surviving the Perfect Storm - Keep Perspective

In my last post, I introduced the inimical forces converging in the college admission atmosphere to create the perfect storm.

High school graduation rates.

1st Gen. college students.

International students.

The Common Application.

The gazillions dumped into marketing.

How then do you, the student, come through the storm?

 First things first.

 Keep perspective.  The good news is that the overall acceptance rate at colleges is still 70%.  

 That hasn’t changed since the 1980’s.  

 In addition, it’s important to remember that only 24% of Americans have a college degree.   

Recent studies show that a person with a degree will earn $600,000 more over a lifetime than a person without a degree.    

That a person goes to college then is often more important than where they go to college.         

Surviving the Perfect Storm - Introduction

It’s the collective groan that college bound seniors at Casady and beyond are making these days in the face of emerging college application trends.

Take, for example, the University of California-Berkeley.

They just broke the all time record with over 90,000 applications. 

Vanderbilt and Yale just surpassed the 30,000 application marker.

It seems every school from the Big XII to the Ivy League are saying the same thing.

Applications are up.  Acceptances will certainly be down.

Harvard’s Dean of Admission, Bill Fitzsimmons, anticipates that America’s oldest college will accept less than 6% from their application volume of over 35,000.  

Harrowing statistics like these confirm what colleagues in my field have been forecasting for years – the perfect college admission storm.

Why is this?

Prognosticators point to five inimical forces converging in college admissions.

The rise of both high school graduates (roughly 70% of 3.2 million) and the spike in 1^st generation college students. 

The influx of international students to US colleges  (249,439 in 2012).

The popularity of the Common Application (922, 827 applications; 13.6 submissions per second; 3,014,132 teacher recommendations – and all just in the month of December).

And the billion dollar “attract to reject” marketing model (attract the application;  reject the applicant).

So how then do you, the student, not only survive the maw of the college admission storm, but, more importantly, emerge on the other side with excellent college choices?

That's what we will be exploring in the next five posts.

 

A Flight Plan for Helicopter Parents - Red Line Lowering

In my first post on this topic, I shared about the opportunity I had to engage Dr. Joanne Deak, a leading expert on the adolescent brain.

In her session on "Understanding the Adolescent Brain," she opened by saying point blank: "You are going against neurobiology. The adolescent brain is not equipped to handle the stresses and strains that 17-18 years old are put under, especially when it comes to the college process."

Like I mentioned in the first post, Dr.Deak explained how the Corpus collosum is under massive construction during the teenage years. Dr. Deaks compared the Corpus collosum to a 10-lane highway, like I-5 in LA. In order for teens to be able to think, organize, judge, and make morally sound, non-destructive decisions, "all lanes" on the Cc have to be open. What often happens though is that stress causes the Amygdala (feeling center) to swell, which then triggers a suppression of the Prefrontal cortex, which then causes the "highway to shut down."  What ensues is a series of emotional, academic, and volitional "crashes."

So what the new brain research shows is that adolescence is the worst time for organization. 

Many times kids are just trying to get from A to B, let alone trying to navigate the labyrinthine realities of college admission.   

This then is why one of the primary tasks of the helicopter parent involves lowering the red line.

Here then are five "red line lowering" strategies.

"College Talk":  It starts with how much time you spend talking about college, and what kind of tone you take when you do talk with your kids about college.

My parents did a very helpful thing in my junior and senior year.   They put limits on "college talk" within our home.  

In fact, we only broached the topic once a month.  

Once a month at lunch at our favorite Chinese restaurant.  

I always knew when, in other words.

The tone, moreover, was always conversational.  Warm and inviting.   

It was nice to know that college was only one piece of my life, instead of the whole pie!

Senior Year Course Selection:  My rule of thumb:  let the senior substitute out a class they DON'T want to take. 

 Still aim for 5 core course with upward traction rigor-wise in at least 4 of them.   

(*The exception to the rule are the Ivies.  Since they are often looking for a reason to not admit a student, I would be careful, since taking a "softer" course could give the Ivy school exactly what they need to put you in the defer or deny pile (did you drop below the red line?  sorry.)  I had a senior, for example, who took four of the hardest courses we offer - English IV, AP Biology, Multivariable Calculus, and AP Statistics - but added Chinese 1.  This was all a top Ivy needed - a freshman course in his senior year!)

Application Season:  Help your student think ahead and set aside a couple major blocks of time a couple weeks before application deadlines.  

It's amazing what 3-4 hours of uninterrupted blocks of time will do to help kids get stuff done.

"Decompressor Spaces":  Do things intermittently that are fun, relaxing, and stress relieving.  A movie, pedicure, massage, a round of golf, coffee, rock climbing, paint balling - you get the idea, just to remind your kids that life is more than SAT scores, college essays, interviewing tips, and financial aid dollars. 

Application Crush:  It's hard in the new "Common Application" era to resist the impulse to send out more apps, not less.  Not to mention there are the increased financial burdens today to find the best college deals.  So ultimately we give our kids license to apply to as many schools as they want, though we counsel them to consider limiting the total number to no more than 8.   We had one senior this year apply to 20 schools - new record;  a handful applied in the teens.  Most though applied to 3 or 4 schools.  

More importantly, we talk with students about taking a balanced-approach:  1-2 "reach" schools (25% or less), 2-3 "target" schools (50-50%), and 1-2 "financial likely" schools (75% or better.
___

Parenting teens is hard work.

I had a veteran parent (4 teens now in college) tell another parent (first in HS):  "Raising teens is all about lowering the bar of expectation."

 Good advice.  For you to your teen.  And for you to yourself.  

You aren't going to parent this process perfectly.  

You will have your own "red line" moments.

The key is just to try and keep first things first.

Your child.

And the relationship with that child that will go on way beyond the college years.

A Flight Plan for Helicopter Parents - Be a Cosmetic and Content Consultant

3. Be both a "cosmetic consultant" and "content consultant" on applications.

Examples of cosmetic consultant: grammar, punctuation, spelling, family information [employment, job title, email, name and year of college] on the application, etc. 

I have found that our texting, Twitter, and Facebook generation tends to slip into those modes of writing on applications. 

I can't tell you how many times I've had to "touch up" acme on the face of an application that is peppered with i's and u's.

Examples of content consultant: the overarching goal in revealing a student (not packaging) involves what I call the "framework work" in the application: this framework work involves narration (telling the student's story well), synthesis (connecting-the-dots of major themes, points of excellence, salient traits), and distinction (elevating that student from the pack; revealing points of excellence). 

 This is never an easy task. 

And no student (or counselor) can create this framework without the parent's insights.

So what I encourage parents to do is help identify the major "spheres" of their child's life, and then help the student and counselor identify "narrative moments" that have a colorful "word picture" within that moment that we narrate. 

Winston Churchill once said, "The ear is 1/10th the organ of the eye." 

College admissions need more than reasons to accept a student. 

They need visions. 

We want to connect then not only with the admission officer's mind, but their imaginations. 

Too often we forget that the mind is not so much a debating hall as it is a picture gallery. 

So help think of key images, frozen "action moments", and metaphors that the student and counselor can pull into their essays, interviews, rec letters, etc.

A Flight Plan for Helicopter Parents - The 75/25 Rule

Modeled after the Harkness Table at Phillips Exeter Academy, we have days in my English class where the students dialogue about the text we are reading, and I chart the threads of conversation between them.

The picture here illustrates this.

The goal is that 75% of the time, I'm charting threads, and only 25% of the time I'm saying something helpful or insightful about their threads.

I call it the 75/25 rule.

  

What I've found is that when there is a 75/25 split, these days are my best days as a teacher. Ironically, I've found that the efficacy of that day is the result not so much because of what I'm saying or doing, but because of what I am not saying or doing. 

My silence isn't absence; it's presence. 

And in my silence my students can hear the words, "Take ownership of your education. Make it an extraordinary experience. Take the conversation in directions that challenge, fascinate, and energize us for going further up and further in.”

Aim then to foster an environment where the student does 75% of the “college talking” – in meetings with college counselor or college reps, on tours, in info sessions, and in post-tour conversations.

Pre-Tour: Encourage student to research schools before they visit campus or visit with rep (on campus or at Casady).

Pre-Tour: Have your student write down 5 questions in their Phone to ask the tour guide.

Tour: Encourage students to jot down “Notes” on phone of major impressions, cool programs, and specifics.

Post Tour: Ask reflective questions:

·      "What did you learn about yourself on this college visit?"

·      "Why do you think this school may or may not be a good fit for you?

·      “What are one or two specific things you liked about this school?

 So here is the concluding point: The more your student can “own” the college experience, the more satisfied they will be with the journey and end destination.