College Planning Blog

I have received a number of questions lately from students and parents about the importance of having a career direction lined up before heading off to college. It seems the prevailing notion behind these questions is that “you need to know what you’re going to do before you decide on a college.” While it is easy to understand that families want some tangible evidence of their likely “return” on dollars invested in education, the reality is that most kids simply aren’t ready or well enough informed to make career decisions when they are seventeen!

If you are contemplating your college options, consider the statistics:

• You will probably change your major in college! Most students (about 65%) change their minds about their majors at least once while they are in college. Half of them change their minds twice.
• Many colleges report that 80-90% of the people who graduated more than 25 years ago are now in careers that did not exist when they graduated.
• About 85% of the parents I survey indicate they are no longer in the careers they intended to pursue when they were 18 years old!

So, what does this say about the importance of “knowing what you want to do for the rest of your life” before you start college? Not much when you think about it. That is why I encourage kids to make decisions based on finding colleges that fit them best. If you are still searching for some direction, don’t worry. You’re normal. It’s difficult to know at any age what you’ll do for the rest of your life, so relax. Seize the opportunity to explore. Turn your indecision into an opportunity to opens doors to learning at colleges that fit you well. Moreover, know that you’ve got a lot of time to figure out what the rest of your life will look like. Take advantage of your college years to become educated about a lot of things including yourself and the world around you. In doing so, learn how to learn. Even if you have pretty firm ideas about a career, your ability to process information and think critically will put you in good stead wherever you might find yourself in life.

Be discriminating as you look. If your passion is film studies and a college doesn’t offer a very substantive program in that area, then it’s not a good fit. And if you find yourself applying to a university that insists that you declare your major as an applicant–even though you haven’t figured it out yet–that place will not be a good fit for you either! The good news is that there are hundreds of great places that welcome students who are undecided about their futures! These are the same places that produce doctors, lawyers, engineers, teachers, accountants, curators and business executives from among the thousands of undecided students who enter their doors each year.

If you do know what you want to study in college, target places that will accommodate your interests and support your strengths. For example, if you want to pursue chemical engineering, focus on schools that offer it. The same is true with business, elementary education, or graphic design. Look for places that match up well with your interests and offer strong programs that meet your needs.

Finally, to have some fun, ask your parents to talk about their career aspirations when they were your age. The odds are they had vastly different ideas back then about what they would be doing at this point in their lives! Find out what influenced their thinking if and when they discovered new interests. What, if any, changes would they make?

Just as most people of your parent’s generation followed pathways to success that they couldn’t imagine when they were your age, you, too, will find your own path. A good college “fit,” then, is one that will encourage you to explore, follow new directions and offer you the opportunities to do so.

College applications require a lot of information that is ultimately useful to admission committees as they determine whom to admit. As a result, applicants routinely–almost mindlessly, complete forms that ask about home, school, family, extracurricular activities and unusual educational experiences. After all, it is usually easy to imagine where each piece of data might be useful to admission officers as they put your candidacy into a broader context.

Occasionally, however, there will be a question that gives the applicant reason to pause–a question that seems to have little bearing at all on the student’s personal qualifications. One such question asks applicants to “List the names of the other colleges to which you have applied.”

It turns out that this request and others like it show up in other places as well (interviews, meetings with alumni, recruiting sessions with athletic coaches, etc.) during the application process. Is seems innocuous enough; however, the savvy applicant is left wondering, “Just how will this information be used? Why do they want it and do I really need to give it to them?”

The answer is quite simple. Admission officers are pretty savvy about collecting information that can be used to predict the likelihood of your enrollment. This is particularly important in institutional environments where improving the yield on offers of admission and becoming more selective are criteria used to measure the success of their admission operations. As a result, admission officers are constantly trying to calibrate the yield on their offers of admission. The more they know about where you are applying (and likely to get in), the easier it is for them to determine the likelihood that you will enroll at their college if admitted. While the information you provide has no bearing whatsoever on the strength of your credentials, it can influence the status of your application if a college suspects that you are likely to pursue other options.

When you think about it, there is really nothing good that can result from providing such information. Therefore, I counsel students to leave the space blank. Unless you want admission officers to know where you are applying, keep that information to yourself. The same is true when the topic comes up conversationally. Give them only what you want them to know about your interests and intentions.

An interesting variation on this theme is found on the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) application–the form you must complete in order to qualify for financial aid administered by the state/federal governments and–in some cases, the colleges themselves. You see, the FAFSA will also ask you to list the colleges to which you have applied in order of preference. This information is required to complete and submit the FAFSA–and the resulting need analysis as well as the reported data will be forwarded to the colleges listed on the form. It is not uncommon for admission officers to cast side-long glances at such lists as they make their final determinations about whom to admit.

When asked for this information on the FAFSA, consider the implications of your response. You can list the schools in order of preference or you can confuse the issue by listing the schools in alphabetical order. While the ordering of schools on the FAFSA will not effect your eligibility for financial aid, just remember that it might have a bearing on how admission officers assess the likelihood of your enrollment.

The thing to remember about this whole discussion is that it is important to get on–and stay on–the “radar screens’ of the colleges that interest you. By making sure the authenticity of your interest in a college is clear and undeniable, you force admission officers to make decisions based on the strength of your academic and personal credentials.

Two days ago I found myself talking with Jean and her parents about her college future. Jean had submitted six applications including one for Early Action consideration. Now, however, a deferral letter from the EA school had shaken her confidence. While she wasn’t hysterical, it was clear that Jean was questioning herself. Would she get in? Could she get in? And what about her chances of finding admission to the other, equally selective universities to which she applied?

These were all good questions. While Jean possesses the academic credentials to be competitive for admission at any college or university in the country, the deferral letter had left her wondering what it would take to get in and had she done all she could do. I couldn’t find fault with the schools she had chosen nor the process she had followed in choosing them. On the surface, they all made sense for her–they were good fits. Digging deeper, however, I was able to uncover factors that might have influenced the outcome of her EA application and, if not addressed, would certainly have an impact on the outcomes of her other applications.

First, although Jean and her parents had been evaluating college options since her 9th grade year, she hadn’t visited any of the campuses in the last eighteen months. More specifically, she had never formally visited the school to which she applied EA. Despite her passion for the place, its admission officers had no way of knowing about her. Second, she had not sufficiently established her “hook”–the credential that might set her apart from her peers in a tight competition. A student leader and two-sport athlete with aspirations for playing in college, Jean had not made contact with college athletic recruiters in her sports. Finally, Jean had indicated on her application for admission that she would be a candidate for financial aid–a factor that could complicate things even at an institution that is reputedly “need blind” in the admission process.

As I talked with Jean, I wanted her to understand how the EA university might have reacted to her application. While she is a great candidate academically, the admission officers could afford to look for more as she competed with thousands of others who looked just like her. In making its decisions, the admission committee wasn’t asking: “Is she good enough?” Rather it was making a series of value judgments: “Who among these great candidates do we value most? What does this candidate bring us as we attempt to build a new community?”

In Jean’s case, when the admission officers asked, “If we admit her, what do we get?” nothing jumped out at them. What’s worse, they could find no evidence of her interest in their school when they asked, “What is the likelihood that she will come?” Uncertain of her level of interest and likely contributions, it is reasonable to assume that the next question of Jean was, “Is this someone in whom we are prepared to make a financial investment?”

It wasn’t long before Jean and her parents began to see the logic of the decision-making process at the highly selective schools to which she was applying. They could now rationalize the EA decision. More importantly, the despair that had hovered over the start of the conversation had given way to an excited sense of possibility as Jean began to develop a new “To Do” list. Even at this time of the year, Jean realized that it is not too late to get on the radar screens of the schools to which she had applied. Specifically, she saw the need to eliminate the perception that her interest in a given school is random while conveying a sense of the passion and talent within her that would set her apart from the rest of the competition.

Jean would make immediate plans to visit the campuses of the “high priority” schools on her list and attempt to introduce herself to the person(s) responsible for recruiting in her region. She will make sure they have her most recent grades as well as documentation of a couple of honors that have come her way since she submitted her applications. She also took heart in the possibility that she could still contact the coaches at some of the smaller colleges on her list and make sure they got the tapes of her athletic performance.

I admire Jean for her response to the situation. Rather than hanging her head and feeling pessimistic about her college future, she is already taking steps to affect the outcomes. Realizing that applying to college is a process and not an event, she is asserting herself. In doing so, she will eliminate the randomness of her application.

Will this new-found self-advocacy assure Jean admission to her favorite schools? Not necessarily. It will, however, give her the chance she deserves. At the very least, the schools on her list now have reason to pause in considering her possible contributions to the communities they are building. Now, they will have a better idea of what they get should they admit Jean–and they’ll have more confidence that hers is a serious interest that could result in her enrollment if accepted. Finally, if they value her for what she has to offer, they will be more likely to invest in her with financial aid and/or scholarships.

Consider the possibilities as they exist for you. When you apply for admission, take charge of the process. Seize the opportunity to build relationships with decision-makers (admission officers) at the schools that are important to you and be sure to tell your story. Give the admission officers every reason to want to include you in the communities they are building as they admit their entering classes!

To learn more about what is going on behind the closed doors of the admission office and to ask questions about what you can do now to make a difference with your application, plan to join the January 22 Straight Talk About College Admission teleseminar, “Taking Stock of What is Going on Around You.” Go to http://www.theadmissiongame.com/teleseminar_registration.php to learn more about the program and to register for the toll-free call-in information.

Happy New Year! I trust your holidays have been times of peace and joy and that 2008 is starting with great promise! As families with the prospect of college looming on the horizon for your young people, this couldn’t be a better time!

Before the holidays, a brief debate flared on the listserve for the National Association of College Admission Counseling (NACAC) of which I am a member. The debate centered on ownership for college planning and the role that parents should, or in some cases, do take in managing the process. More than a few secondary school counselors reported that many of their parents are yielding to impulse in the completion of applications. Transgressions range from filling out the forms to editing if not writing the essays!

Some colleagues found the actions of these parents defensible in light of the tremendous pressure students feel to perform in the classroom as well as their relative lack of experience in handling such transactions. Their argument, “Why not give these hard-working kids the support they deserve?” Besides, the logic continued, isn’t this type of parental support consistent with the tendency to hire private educational consultants, put kids in pricey test prep programs or pay for access to essay editing services?

But not surprisingly, the consensus in this discussion fell strongly in line with the notion that the student must shoulder the responsibility for making things happen. After all, the parents aren’t going to college. The application is not a representation of their respective bodies of work. Rather, it is the student who is evaluated in the competition for admission. And it is the student, who, based on the strength of his credentials, will be given the opportunity to test his skills at the next level educationally.

This is the underlying thesis of my book, Winning the College Admission Game: Strategies for Students and Parents. If you have seen the book, you know it is a “flip book.” It has two “front” covers and contains messages for two audiences–students and their parents. You see, this whole exercise of finding and getting into the college that is best for the student comes at a time in the student-parent relationship when communication can be strained and the only commonality in their respective visions for the future is that there will be a future!

Getting to that future, though, in a manner that is ultimately rewarding to the student and satisfying to the parent calls for a new kind of teamwork–an approach that requires parents to cede ownership to their students, an approach in which “directing” needs to give way to “guiding.” Turning over the controls isn’t easy, especially for parents who have spent their lives making things possible for their kids, but at some point it’s necessary. (If you have taught your kids to drive, you know what I mean!) For kids, going to college represents, among other things, the opportunity to step out of their parents’ shadows and into a world of possibilities they can begin to imagine for themselves. And getting there, despite their inexperience and busy schedules, is something they must learn to do for themselves.

The gift of ownership, then, can be incredibly empowering for a young person who is straining to define herself. If you are a parent, either early in the college discovery process or watching your student complete the college application process, it is important to loosen your grip on the controls and begin stepping back. The fact is that college admission officers are eager to see how students are emerging as young adults. They want to hear their voices and learn about their accomplishments. They want a measure of the student’s vision and self-confidence that can only come from the student. You have done your job in that you have brought her to the point where she can begin speaking for herself. Now, it’s her turn.

And if you are a student in the college planning process, know that this is your time. Mom and Dad aren’t going to college with you. This is a big step for both of you and your parents as your roles are changing. Letting go for them won’t be easy but the chances are they have prepared you well for what you are about to encounter. As much as you will continue to call on your parents for guidance in the college planning process and throughout your life, you cannot expect them to get you from where you are to where you want to be. This is your journey. In stepping forward, then, remember that your college application needs to tell your story. You need to be the voice behind your essay. Embrace the gift of ownership and run with it. Make your future happen!

Student ownership and the notion of a student-centered college planning process are central to the programming offered by The Admission Game(R). In particular, these messages shape the content of the monthly College Planning Newsletter and the Straight Talk About College Admission teleseminar series. The next Straight Talk seminar takes place Wednesday, January 9 (9PM ET) when I will be joined by former dean of admission, Sam Barnett, in talking about “Senior Year Course Selections that Make A Difference-and Why.” For more information about the seminar and to register, go to http://www.theadmissiongame.com/teleseminar_schedule.php.