Be A Wait-List Hero

Your student was accepted to a college s/he has no intention of attending. That college is the dream school of someone who has been wait-listed. The wait-list waiting is stressful and worrisome.

In all the excitement of being accepted to YOUR dream school, it's easy to forget someone else's agony who's waiting to get off that school's wait-list. You can contact the school and tell them you're not coming, and just maybe your slot will be awarded to someone whose hopes will be realized.

Isn't it the right thing to do?

The Heartbreak Of Achievement

One of my more talented students was denied admission to 2 of his favored colleges. You can imagine how he felt: rejected and dejected.

I see this scenario every year at this time, and my heart aches for these kids, but only because their dream school said, "No." I never really addressed this issue as much as I did today when I sent this note to, well, let's call him Chris.

My Dear Chris,

As much as I try to understand why talented students like you do not get accepted, you must recognize that you were not rejected. There is a HUGE difference. The awful reality is NOT knowing why you were not accepted, and if you called the schools to ask why, they would likely compliment you and add why they agonized immeasurably over your great application.

Your application wasn’t accepted because of factors you could not have known in advance, or more troubling, had no control over, such as…

• they already filled their quota of students from Massachusetts by the time your application was reviewed;


• they wanted more students this year whose parents never went to college;


• they slightly exceeded the amount of males they wanted;


• your interest level in the college wasn’t demonstrable enough; or


• they were looking for more “local” students because their own stats indicate that more money comes from alumni who are closer to their geographical location.

And you’re thinking, “This is just too odd! What’s all this got to do with my great grades and SAT scores? I met all their requirements!” I'll bet my house that you did, except for all the stuff you didn’t even imagine could be factored into why you were denied admission. With colleges that accepted you, you met and most likely exceeded their academic requirements, and you met all of their odd criteria too.

You're living your first college lesson in Irony 101.

So rejection was not the end result for you, and I hope you’re clear on this.

These criteria have nothing to do with your long hard efforts and achievements in these past 4 years, which were well recognized by those colleges that hope you show up in September. If you’re not sure by May 1 where to go, see my blog on how to avoid the pressure of May 1: http://www.precollegeprep.blogspot.com/ (See below.)

This is going to be easy for me to say, but I won’t assume you’ll easily accept the implications. Here it is: you’re talented, good colleges have accepted you, and you can move on with your life. Yeah…I know, thanks but no thanks.

But just in case you’re okay with what I’ve said so far, I found something on the net this morning that I thought you could use http://www.theadmissiongame.com/blog/archives/54

By the way, I’ll always be proud of the fact that I had you as one of my better students, which should signal to you that I have full confidence that the decisions you make and where you go will reflect commendably on who you are.

Paul

Welcome To Our New Service

This is how you'll be able to get DAILY news and comments about college admissions and financial aid.

And your comments and questions are part of how this works. If you never add a word or ask a question, you will see what our clients are asking and saying. It should be fun, but more importantly, we promise this service to be informative and VERY up-to-date.

As a bonus feature, only our clients will be allowed to annouce where their kids have been accepted. It's a time for celebration, and we want our clients to tell the world the good news!

BUT...you won't receive this daily blog unless you put in your email address below in the blue rectangle.

Best Loans For College

Here's the entire article from yesterday's Wall Street Journal.

By EMILY GREEN, March 23, 2008

The best place to begin looking for good deals on private loans for college is still your college's list of preferred lenders.

To be sure, preferred-lender programs got a black eye last year: Financial-aid counselors at many colleges were found to have received financial incentives to direct students to particular lenders, regardless of their loan terms.

But that 2007 debacle caused many colleges to toughen their conflict-of-interest policies and review criteria for selecting lenders. "I don't deny that it was a nice wake-up call for the whole industry," says Dan Small, director of student financial assistance at George Washington University, which wasn't implicated in the scandal.

To win a spot on a college's list, a lender may offer students there lower-than-usual interest rates or fees. This happens particularly if the lender has had a good repayment experience with other students at that school.

Many colleges also weigh the quality of lenders' customer service to students when selecting lenders.

Finally, Mark Kantrowitz, creator of the student-aid Web site finaid.org, notes that there isn't a simple way to compare what you'd pay with various lenders. Many Web sites list lenders' best and worst rates. Those numbers "are completely irrelevant," Mr. Kantrowitz says, since borrowers' actual rates will depend on their credit ratings.

College Is An Expense, Not An Investment

When Ohio State spends 140 million on a athletic center so your son can climb a mountain indoors, when BU can issue a press release about adding a wave machine to their million-dollar Olympic pool, or when the Univ of Wisconsin at Madison can announce that they have a massage parlor on campus to relieve stress (I can't make up this stuff!), what kind of an investment is a parent making? An investment in stuff? In creature comforts? All the things that have nothing to do with academic rigor and excellence? All the stuff that will pamper and distract our kids in ways you might find counterproductive to preparing for the world after college?

Marketing to your kids by using such press releases says only one thing about the colleges: to get your student to their campus, they must appeal to their instincts. What happend to appealing to their minds?

By contrast, as if not to engage in such superficial behavior, new freshman students at Brown were greeted with these words from the president: "You are the smartest, the cutest, the savviest, extraordinary -- I could go on and on." The seeds were already planted by the school's president that students were going to enjoy a spoiling self-centeredness in an atmosphere of entitlement.

The arrogance of both these approaches from our colleges and universities - pandering to a child's instincts or fostering a sense of entitlement on super talented students - is what we're all forced to pay for.

Message to the parents: your student is going to do well if s/he has a work ethic, proof of his or her own achievement, and a desire to succeed. With over 4,000 colleges in America (read: choices!) you deserve the right to think for yourself without the college marketing machine giving you the impression that you can't survive without their brand of education.

The kind of education a student receives is ultimately up to the student, not up to the environment in which he has chosen for 4-5 years. Only then does college become an investment of time for the student, but parents still have an expense to cover.

How To Avoid The Pressure of May 1

Colleges want you to send in your deposit by May 1 as proof that you are going to attend. In other words, if you don’t send in your deposit, you will lose your bed and maybe a prized parking spot. The college's push for this deadline is to stop biting their own nails because April makes them nervous. Why? Because their fates are being determined by a bunch of talented 17- and 18-year-olds. And you thought colleges NEVER get nervous about anything.

What if you can’t make up your mind before May 1 which school you want to attend? That’s a lot of pressure that's being put on you by the colleges to meet their sacred deadline.

Here’s how you avoid the pressure of the May 1 deadline: make two or three non-refundable deposits by May 1 with your top 2 or 3 schools. It won't be cheap, but nothing as important as your future is.

Take the entire summer to decide which school you want to attend. Choosing the right college is a HUGE decision, and putting our kids under a deadline before their own high school graduation can be harmful to your student's future and your wallet. The "non-refundable" aspect of the deposit has a sting to it, but the sting will be greater if the school selected before the deadline turns out to be the wrong one. Ouch! Big Sting.

Colleges get a huge case of heart-burn by my telling you this; more accurately they're outraged at my suggestion here. They think that what I’m saying will deny some other deserving student a place at a college as if to suggest that no one else will place multiple deposits but you. Multiple depositing, colleges would suggest, makes you a bad person.

If this looks like a distasteful and loathsome way to maneuver to your advantage, so what? Distasteful and loathsome to whom? The colleges! They detest multiple depositing, but you shouldn't care a twit what the colleges think. They're coming after your money and your future's at stake.

Your purpose is to benefit your student, not the colleges. They have near exclusive rights on a vice called greed, and you’ve got to think of yourself first because you’re the customer, something the colleges forgot in Public Relations 101.

Here's a dirty little secret: colleges get oodles of cash from these deposits. In other words, if 2,000 students send in their non-refundable deposit of $500 but don’t show up, a college’s take on 2,000 students is - ready for this? - one million dollars, that's $1,000,000.00. Count the zeros.

Bottom Line: Weaponize your money! Make those multiple deposits and take off the pressure.

Announcing Our New Blog

This blog will allow you and all of our clients to share insights with each other about the college process. Feel free to ask questions, and on a daily basis I'll respond. No more newsletters every 2-4 weeks. Questions and answers are here daily. Or write something you'd like to share that you think will benefit this audience. Or ask a question to which I can answer that will help everyone else.

I'd like to get your feedback on whether you think your student ought to have their own blog that I can create just for them. You know...to vent, to observe, and to ask their own questions. After all we consider them adults who just so happen to be younger!

Because a blog is created daily by its participants, I just summarized below the article that Amy sent out regarding perfectionism. We hope that you will post your own comments to what you see below.

So let's get started. Tell us what's on your mind!

Perfectionism: The Damage We Can Do To Our Kids

"My parents were perfectly happy with getting Bs and Cs in college, but they expect me to get As." This from a college student whose parents demand more of their children than they did of themselves. In a recent article in Psychology Today, mostly inspired by a new book, A Nation Of Wimps, are quotable highlights:

• Perfectionism lowers the ability to take risks: it reduces creativity and innovation. Is this what we want from our kids?


• Perfectionism is an endless report card, an endless self-evaluation: you are absorbed in what you want to avoid. This undermines performance because the child is oriented toward failure. What do we reap from our kids? Endless frustration, anxiety and, yes, even depression.


• Perfectionist children feel that approval depends on performance, which leads them to believe they are only as good as they achieve.


• Perfectionist students do poorly on writng tests because they know it'll be critiqued, which is why they avoid courses in writing.


• Perfectionism comes from a parent's psychological control of the child's world, due to either the parent's exceesive concern for making their own mistakes, or from a parents' fear of separating from the child when going away to college is looming on the horizon.
  

The article makes some suggestions on what to do.

• Recognize the effort, not the end result. If your student went from an F grade to a C, that's a huge improvement. Shifting the focus to effort energizes a child to reach for a goal that's meaningful, not one that the parent expects or demands. When a good grade is achieved, resist the urge to say, "You're brilliant." Instead, you could say, "You're a good thinker," or, "It's terrific that you did X to achieve Y."
• Praise for effort produces positive moods states in what is now a positive environment for meaningful things to be done.
• Congratulate your kids. Ask why things worked out well and what they attribute their success to. Kids need to know what actions pay off in which situations. Material rewards don't work - not achieving signals a taking away of something to which you attributed value.

The most revealing moment in the article was from an executive of a major investment group. She hires only young people with the following profile: they must be first-generation immigrants because they are:

• resourceful
• hardworking, and
• good at problem-solving.

Why?

These kids have parents who don't speak English well and have to learn to figure things out for themselves; they can't rely on their parents. Their "disadvantage" made them stronger.

This article reminds me of one of my clients who's an executive at a major corporation in Massachusetts. He told me that his company's hiring criteria once included what college you went to. The company has since abandoned that criteria (HINT to Perfectionist Parents) and instead use an applicant's GPA as the most valuable criteria. Why? The company wants to see how you used your time in the last four years, not where you went to college (HINT to students).

To reinforce this point of view, the investment group executive made this remarkable statement:

"The 'fancy kids' are not perservering, not willing to work hard, not clever at problem-solving, not resourceful."

College Award Letters - They're In The Mail

At this time of year colleges are beginning to mail out their financial aid offers to next year's freshman class.

Be very careful what you read.

You did NOT receive a stone tablet where everything is carved in stone.

Here's what you're not seeing at the bottom of the letter because it's invisible:

"This is our first offer."

This is not at the bottom of the letter if your EFC (Expected Family Contibution = what you're expected to pay) exceeds the college's cost this year. But it's there if your EFC is below the college's cost of attendance.

This all means one thing: you can appeal the award letter. Yes!

Colleges think you're dumb enough NOT to notice that you can appeal their "award," which is really the bill made to look like a huge favor thrown in for good PR.

Don't be deceived. Colleges have appeal budgets that are not disclosed on their websites. Not for a moment are they going to signal to you that if you don't like their offer, you can always ask for more.

Bottom Line: You can ask for more. It doesn't mean you'll get more, but many colleges will offer a little bit more to make you feel good. It's a "touchee-feelee" thing with those people.*

What do you stand to lose if you don't ask?
______________
*"those people" is a term that Robert E. Lee used when he referred to his enemy during the Civil War. It's a term we use here in the same manner. In other words, the colleges are not your friends as much as they would like to portray themselves with all that glossy mailbox literature you receive.

College Blog for Parents

This is a great blog for parents to share their thoughts and experiences on the college process.

When they talk to other parents going through the same difficult process, they may feel brighter and not alone.