College Admissions

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The Rules of Being the Parent of a College Applicant

dobler college consultingWhen I meet with new families for the first time, I do my best to make sure they know it’s the student who needs to be in the driver’s seat if they expect this process to go well. Some parents are relieved to hear this while I can tell that others aren’t so sure what to think.

They’ve been so involved with everything their son or daughter has been doing since birth that the idea of not being actively involved is, frankly, quite terrifying.

As a parent myself, I get it. But what I also get is that kids have to take responsibility for their college search. They have to figure out what matters most to them and which colleges (note the plural form here) fit them the best.

So while this is the drum I beat along the way, I also make sure parents know it’s okay to be involved, it’s okay to talk about college and it’s okay to have feelings about how the process is going.

It’s just not okay to do any of the following:

1. Calling the admissions office

Parents should not call the admissions office to ask questions about their daughter’s application, to share their view on an unfavorable grade or to try and explain why their son only volunteered so many hours at the local soup kitchen. Parents can and should call a college if they have questions on financial aid or anything to do with costs, but that’s where their dialing should end.

Admissions counselors tell me all the time that they want to hear from the applicants, not the parents. Having sat on their side of the desk for a number of years, I agree. Show me an applicant who has questions and is willing to pick up the phone and have a conversation about them and I’ll show you someone who is demonstrating maturity, responsibility and accountability.

2. Saying “we’ll figure it out” when it comes down to paying for college

Unless parents are sure they can pay for a school through some combination of means, saying otherwise never ends well.

Never.

There’s just too much emotion, effort and energy invested in the college search and application process to allow students to believe in a falsehood like this. For many parents, yes, it may be hard to talk about finances and affordability, but it will be so much better for their son or daughter to understand what is and what is not realistic up front rather than after months of falling in love with a college that will never work.

3. Making changes to their college essay

Depending on the kid, parents can sometimes be a great sounding board for essay ideas. But at the end of the day, this is their essay and it should sound like a 17-year old wrote it.

Admissions counselors aren’t sitting there questioning every last word choice as much as they are trying to learn more about who this student is through the story he or she is telling. Yes, an essay should be well written but in no way does that mean it should sound like a doctoral dissertation.

4. Making this about you

All too frequently I hear from parents that someone they know said their kid did THIS or was accepted THERE or was being recruited by THEM. Many of them feel the need to keep up, if not to flat out compete. I try to remind them that this process is about helping their own child to connect with a college where they will grow and change while creating a path into a happy and successful life. It’s never about bragging rights.

If you would like some assistance with your college search or financial aid process, let Eric know and he’ll set up a consultation to help you with your college planning needs.

Here’s what other families like yours are saying about how Dobler College Consulting made a difference for them.

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Eric May 23, 2016 , , , , , , , No Comments
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Courses and Activities – Making Good Choices

Dobler College ConsultingThis time of year, I find myself in conversations about courses and activities for the upcoming year. These are interesting discussions as students and I debate the merit of their options as they try to make decisions that make the most sense for them.

My advice to them is that their high school curriculum should present as much breadth and depth as possible but that it should also match up with their greatest interests and strengths as well. AP English is a great choice for the student who writes well and wants to be challenged, but is it a better choice than AP calculus or AP chemistry for the student who hopes to be an engineering major?

Admissions counselors will be looking to establish trends in individual subject areas and in a student’s overall academic record.

If you are a nursing applicant, what is your track record in the sciences? If you are a business student, have you taken four full years of math? What about relevant academic electives that your high school offers? Have you taken advantage of them along the way?

You have to read your transcript like an admissions counselor. Pick it apart, honestly assess the strengths and weaknesses and make changes where applicable so that whoever reviews it when you apply, has greater confidence in your ability to pursue the major you have checked off on your application. Just keep in mind that everything starts with your core subjects – English, math, science, social studies and foreign language. With so many college students changing majors, admissions counselors are first and foremost looking for academic rigor across all subjects.

When it comes to activities, the same rule generally applies. If you are an aspiring business major, have you joined DECA or FBLA? If you want to go into criminal justice or paramedicine, have you taken an EMT course and earned your license? Accounting majors, have you shadowed local accountants and learned more about the nuances of their work when it’s not tax season?

Even if you are undecided on what you may want to major in – and let’s be honest, whether you want to admit it or not, that’s most of you – it is better for you to show a depth of involvement in one or two activities that really mean something to you rather than lining up your resume with twenty clubs and organizations that hold little to no meaning for you as you head into your senior year.

Your application and supporting materials should reflect who you are as a student and, more importantly, as a person. Be true to you, invest your time wisely and, when in doubt, make good choices with how you spend your time.

Will all of this look good on college applications? Possibly.

But the greater good here is that you will have gained a greater understanding and appreciation for who you are, what’s important to you and how you want to live your life. There’s a lot to like about that.

If you would like some assistance with your college search or financial aid process, contact me today for a free consultation.

Here’s what other families like yours are saying about how Dobler College Consulting made a difference for them.

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Eric May 11, 2016 , , , , , , , No Comments
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What is the Coalition Application?

What is the Coalition ApplicationYou’ve heard of the Common Application and you might even have heard of the Universal Application. But just how much do you know about the Coalition Application?

Unless you’ve been paying very close attention to the sporadic media coverage or know someone in the college world who’s had an opinion on it (and there are many!), you probably haven’t heard too much about the Coalition for Access, Affordability, and Success.

The announcement of this new application occurred this past October. Recognized as some of the most selective colleges in the country, the Coalition Colleges say they want to increase college access for all students while providing a newer and more innovative way for students to apply. Although many of these colleges currently use the Common Application, one of the stated reasons these schools have formed the Coalition Application stems from the issues, technological being one of the more significant ones, the Common Application experienced in 2013.

To date, over 90 schools have joined the Coalition and apparently more are on the way.

These colleges feel that the admission process has been hindered by these issues and students have been limited in their ability to showcase their own innovation, creativity and overall performance. Therefore, the new Coalition Application will have virtual lockers for students where they can enter their work and accomplishments over a four year period of time. The Coalition’s virtual locker is planned to include: extracurricular activities, interests, writing samples, college essays, videos and more. Information to the colleges where the students choose to apply will not be available to them until the student releases their locker during their application season.

The Coalition intended to release this application to students in January, but due to demonstrative feedback from school counselors and independent counselors across the country, the official launch has been pushed back. The locker will be available in April while the application itself will launch over the summer. When it does launch, the manner in which students prepare for and apply to colleges could very well be unlike anything we’ve ever seen before.

The Coalition Colleges state that their intention is to provide early preparation and access to all students, regardless of financial means. However many counselors, like myself, are concerned that high school will become about just how much students can cram into their lockers in an all-out effort to impress a college rather than doing things that matter to them.

At this point, many questions remained unanswered:

  • Will colleges favor one application over the other?
  • How will the virtual locker be evaluated?
  • Will these colleges use interaction with the locker to measure demonstrated interest and factor that into admissions decisions?
  • If a 9th grader adds a college to their “my colleges” list, what type of communication will the college have with them?
  • What will the competition aspect be like?
  • What are hard timelines for the application?

Ultimately, the optimistic side of me says that the goal here is to make the application process more holistic so that colleges can gain more insight on applicants over a period of time. The Coalition believes in early engagement, being more transparent, increased interest in the public and collaboration.

These are fine ideals with good intentions. However, as we all know, the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.

Stay tuned. It’s going to be an interesting ride.

If you would like some assistance with your college search or financial aid process, contact me today for a free 60-minute consultation.

Here’s what other families like yours are saying about how Dobler College Consulting made a difference for them.

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Eric Feb 12, 2016 , , , , , , , No Comments
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Why Just Submitting an Application isn’t Enough

Why Just Submitting An Application Is Not EnoughFrequently I find students applying to too many colleges. They think there’s some underlying mathematical equation that says the more colleges you apply to, the greater your chances are of being admitted to one.

Unfortunately, it’s just not true. Especially with the more selective schools that sit atop the various sets of rankings. If your profile as an applicant doesn’t match up well with what the school looks for,  no matter how many schools you apply to, admission isn’t likely.

So, what are students to do?

The first thing I tell my students to do is to get beyond this ever-growing obsession with brand names. In my experience, what you do with your college experience is more predictive of your future success in life. It’s not the name of the school or how highly they were ranked on US News or Forbes. In fact, in most high profile professional fields a bachelor’s degree doesn’t get you very far. You’re going to need a master’s degree, or more, and that’s where you should be more focused on name brand recognition.

It’s about where you finish, not where you start.

The second thing I tell them is to build a college list that is focused more on quality than quantity.

I tell them they should be applying to colleges they love and where they feel they will be happy and successful. I tell them to apply to colleges they can afford. I tell them to apply to colleges where they will find everything they are looking for, where they will grow as people and where they will be successful.

Sometimes this means the list of colleges is five, sometimes it’s eight.

Regardless of the number, what matters most is how much effort they put into connecting with these schools prior to applying. When a student has matched themselves up well with a college and then does the right things along the way such as visiting, sitting in on a class, interviewing with an admission counselor, meeting with a professor or coach, attending special visit programs or an open house – when some combination of these factors happens, admission becomes much more likely.

Why?

Because demonstrated interest matters more now than it ever has. Colleges are in the business of enrolling students and as the number of applications far exceeds the number of seats in an incoming class, it becomes critical for colleges to identify the students who are most likely to enroll. There are so many ways to demonstrate your interest to a school while you attempt to learn everything you can about it. Apply to too many schools and you may not be able to demonstrate your interest let alone put together quality applications.

Ultimately, there will be circumstances outside of your control so make peace with that idea and control what you can: which colleges you apply to and how sincere and genuine your interest is. You may not get in everywhere you apply to, but if you conduct your college search the right way, you will get into and enroll at a college you love.

If you would like some assistance with your college search, contact me today for a free 60-minute consultation.

Here’s what other families like yours are saying about how Dobler College Consulting made a difference for them.

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Eric Dec 10, 2015 , , , , , , , , No Comments
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Why the Name of a College Really Doesn’t Matter

King's College

King’s College

Last week I was having breakfast with a friend of mine and the conversation rolled around to his two daughters, one of whom is a corporate mergers attorney and the other a nurse practitioner. Both of them are doing incredibly well in their chosen fields and are happy in their lives.

And yet, neither of them attended a highly ranked, brand-name college as undergraduates. Instead, they both went to small, liberal arts colleges where they stood out as academically talented students, took advantage of research opportunities and also benefitted from the mentorship of faculty.

Over the last several weeks, I’ve talked about the value of liberal arts colleges. Here’s two of the posts in case you missed them:

Why You Should be Considering Liberal Arts Colleges

The Benefits of Applying to Liberal Arts Colleges

And since the media and too many parents obsess over brand name colleges as the only path to success in life, I knew I had to share this story.

Both daughters chose small, liberal arts colleges in Pennsylvania – Messiah College and King’s College – and both received outstanding scholarships, one a full-ride, due to their academic strengths. With top grades and strong SAT scores, applicants to schools like this are highly coveted and will receive significant scholarships which can often cut a price-tag in half.

Because of their hard work and willingness to seek out opportunities, both daughters were recognized by professors and invited to participate in research. They were able to work closely with their professors and one of them was able to work through organic chemistry in her first semester because her professor was willing to spend the time with her until it clicked. Both were mentored by professors throughout their four years and were introduced to colleagues at other schools which helped lay the framework for summer research opportunities and graduate school – one to Yale and the other to law school at Boston University.

So while both of them ended up at highly ranked, brand name colleges, they did it when it mattered most – their terminal degree that helped place them in their professional field.

I have no doubt that if either or both of them started out at Boston University or Yale, their lives would have been drastically different. At these two schools, they wouldn’t have stood out among the pack of overachieving students who come from around the world. They wouldn’t have been mentored as closely and the research opportunities would not have been as plentiful. And they most definitely would not have saved the money they did.

But yet, they’re incredibly successful. They’re happy. They’re respected by their peers and doing challenging and rewarding work in their fields.

And it all started at two small liberal arts colleges who most people don’t even know exist. I only wish that more students and families would be as open-minded in their college search as my friend and his daughters were.

Regardless of where you go to college, it’s all about how you use the experience to launch you into your life. If you can save money, create impactful experiences by working closely with your professors and find success in your life, does the name of the school you attend really matter?

If you would like some assistance with your college search, contact me today for a free 60-minute consultation.

Here’s what other families like yours are saying about how Dobler College Consulting made a difference for them.

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Eric Jun 09, 2015 , , , , , , , No Comments