The Stress of College Admissions Means We Spend More Time With Our Kids. Good?

The Economix blog at the New York Times reports on a report (can you do that?) that concludes that the reason more and more college educated parents are spending so much time with their kids (when it would seem that it would be more rational for them to use their educations to make more money) is a result from the increasingly competitive nature of college admissions.
Interesting
Me? I’m going to skip my son’s soccer game tomorrow and make some money!
Just kidding.
Actually, as a college planner, I know that if I’m cheering him from the sidelines, he’ll feel loved, and strive to achieve, and therefore be admitted to Harvard seven years from now.
Just kidding again.
Let me know what YOU think:  More Parent-Child Quality Time? Thank Harvard – Economix Blog – NYTimes.com.
Mark Montgomery
Educational Consultant

Keeping Perspective on Selective College Admissions

Theresa, a dear friend whom I haven’t seen in ages, called me the other day.  We talked for a long time.  Her son is a sophomore in high school.  As his doting mother, Theresa is in a lather about his prospects for college admission.

As we hadn’t spoken in quite a while, Theresa asked me about my philosophy about college admissions.  She wanted to know what I thought were the quality colleges.

Theresa is an educator at a major state university.  I asked her what good education looks like, in her professional opinion.  She responded, predictably, that good education is all about what happens in the classroom between a well-prepared, knowledgeable, caring, and enthusiastic instructor and the willing, capable, and hard-working student.

Moral of the story:  education is not about an institution.  It is a process that occurs between teachers and students, primarily.  It is about learning, not about prestige.

The sad fact is that many of the most prestigious, Gotta-Get-In colleges do not deliver the best quality education—based on this bare-bones definition.  They deliver a lot of atmospherics and ivy and Nobel Prize winners and fantastic facilities (for graduate students, anyway).  But what happens in the classroom is not necessarily the priority of every Gotta-Got-In institution.

Theresa and I bandied these ideas around for quite some time, and we shared some interesting personal insights about our own educational experiences…both as students and as teachers.

A few hours after we hung up the phone, I came across an article written by Gregg Easterbrook, a writer for the Atlantic Monthly who has been a fellow at the Brookings Institution.  He wrote an article for Brookings in 2004, entitled “Who Needs Harvard?

I recommend it to my readers who want a glimpse of how I think about prestige and the Gotta-Get-In colleges.  I don’t think Harvard and the rest of the top 25 most selective colleges are all bad:  I attended one and taught at another, and I’m proud of my associations with both.  Furthermore, several of the top 25 are truly outstanding—places I might be delighted to see my kids or my nieces and nephews attend.

What I decry is the notion that entry into the top 25 becomes a life-or-death pursuit for many kids—and their parents.  We all must keep things in their proper perspective:  an excellent education can be had a literally hundreds of institutions around the country.

And the quality of a student’s education has much more to do with the initiative, intelligence, and focus of the student than with the quality of the institution she attends.

Mark Montgomery
Educational Consultant



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How Competitive is College Admissions? Enough to Tempt Parents to Behave Badly

The Chicago Tribune ran a story on Monday about the lengths to which some parents will go to get their darlings into college.  The whole process of selecting and applying to college is certainly stresseful.  And there is no doubt that the competition is fierce.


It’s also true that in some school communities, the competition is even more fierce.  At toney private schools in the East, for example, there may be 30 members of the 100 students in the graduating class who are all applying to Harvard or Tufts or both.  Clearly, no college will want to admit every student from that school who applies, even if every last one of them has perfect grades and a perfect test scores.  Colleges are social engineers, and to accept so many from one place would throw the community out of balance.


So, as this article describes, some parents are not holding back in their attempts to sandbag others’ kids in order to promote their own. Here are some examples of sandbagging from the article:


  • Anonymous notes to the admissions office recommending that they look at a rival’s Facebook page.
  • Phone calls suggesting that a student is lying about particular accomplishments or extracurricular involvements.
  • Newspaper clippings attesting to a student’s involvement in a crime or other bad behavior.


While this article does shed some light on how desperate a small number of parents (and their students) are to get into the most competitive colleges, the article does suggest that to focus on this sort of aberrant behavior only fans the fires of the fall admissions frenzy.


The article suggests that most admissions officers ignore these instances of parental interference, unless the letter is signed or unless it presents some sort of hard evidence–like the newspaper clipping.  The fact is that the practice of sandbagging other students is both rare and ineffective.  And if you read this article carefully, amid the sensationalist hype are some strong indications that the article’s headline bends reality in order to attract readers.


Here are some passages from the article that cool the hype.


College admissions officials said they do not track how many of these letters, calls or e-mails they receive and said they are unsure whether they’re getting more of them.


So is sandbagging becoming more common?  No data.  Admissions officials are “unsure” if the practice is increasing as competition increases.  Fact is, this practice has been going on for a long time.


“We see everything. Nothing shocks us anymore.”


So says the dean of admissions of Northwestern University.  Thus the article’s implication that sandbagging is a new phenomenon is misleading. Desperate and silly parents have been around for a long time.


…anonymous allegations typically get thrown in the trash. If the letters include specific allegations or a newspaper article detailing criminal activity, officials might follow up with a call to the applicants or their high schools.


Thus, sandbagging does not work.  Admissions officers are not stupid.  And they are also prudent.  So if they receive random messages written in crayon in unmarked envelopes, admissions people have a good laugh at the sandbagger’s expense and move on with their job.  Or they are careful to investigate specific allegations (which often turn up in teacher recommendations, anyway…either as the discreet but clear note at the bottom saying, “Call Me!”, or as a very weak letter of support).


The article also drops a little hint toward the end of the article that helps identify one of the sources of the problem, in general.  High schools generally do not put disciplinary information onto a transcript, nor do they report disciplinary actions to colleges in other ways.  This information is somehow deemed “private,” while the academic information is readily shared with college admissions officers.


In my mind, this is a huge problem.  It is also one of the reasons so many private consultants deal with families who arrive on our doorsteps with stories like this: “My daughter is really a great kid.  Of course, there was that one time she was busted for cocaine possession in Daytona Beach, and that time she was suspended for a week for selling marijuana–it was only a tiny amount.  We know you can help us tell her story in a way that will help cover for those minor infractions so she can get into the school of her dreams.”


I tell clients right up front that I will not be an accessory to a lie.  I will help the student explain the mistake, and if appropriate, help the contrite and apologetic young person explain past transgressions in terms of lessons learned and prospects for a better future.


While sandbagging is sleazy, I find it more sleazy–and much more common–that parents are totally comfortable with lying on behalf of their own child than they are willing to tear down someone else.  This finding is no consolation, to be sure.  But at least I keep my own conscience clear and my reputation intact.


Mark Montgomery

College Counselor






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College Applications: They Can Make You Sick

A recent article from the New York Times explored the high levels of stress that high school students are experiencing. It seems that applying to college can be quite nerve-wracking.
No kidding.
With more students graduating from high school than ever before, with more kids aiming for college than ever before, and with more students taking AP courses than ever before, it’s no wonder that acceptance rates at many of the Ivy League and other selective schools were well under 10% this year.
Pediatricians are not worried about the future of these young people: they’re worried about their health–in the present. Here’s a snippet from the article:

“The college admissions process is an initiation rite into adulthood,” says Dr. Kenneth Ginsburg, adolescent medicine specialist at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and author of books on teenage stress and resiliency for the American Academy of Pediatrics. “But if success is defined very narrowly, such as a fat envelope from a specific college, then many kids end up going through it and feeling like a failure.”
Students complain about lack of sleep, stomach pain and headaches, but doctors and educators also worry that stress tied to academic achievement can lead to depression, eating disorders and other mental health problems.
“There are some kids who can handle it,” says Denise Pope, a Stanford University education lecturer and author of “Doing School,” a book about stress and academics. “But some of these kids have had college on the brain since sixth or seventh grade or even earlier. When you have that kind of stress over that kind of time, that’s where it starts to worry us.”

How can a concerned parent help ensure that the application process does not result in forcing a student over the edge? (And how can parents keep their own sanity at the same time?)
The first thing is to realize that there is no single college that is nirvana. Students may develop their preferences, but it’s important in today’s competitive environment to help them see that there are likely several colleges that will meet their needs, will nurture their interests, and will fuel their aspirations. Kids who pin their every dream on one college can be setting themselves up for a big fall.
The second thing is to not telegraph that a student’s worth as a human being is in any way tied to the college they attend. You may have seen the statistics that indicate that the richest, most successful people in the US did not, by and large, attend elite universities. Rather they attended state and local institutions–include community colleges! A person’s worth is decided more by their actions and contributions, not by the name of an institution printed on a piece of paper.
Finally, many families find it enormously helpful to rely on a respected, ethical, andInner tubes on River knowledgeable third party to help them through the process. An independent counselor can keep everyone’s expectations on an even keel, and can manage the process and help everyone stay on track.
The admissions process is mighty cumbersome, and students and parents alike can feel like fish out of water. However, with a reliable, relaxed, and guide, the process for you can be more like a refreshing swim in a slow, cool river.
Mark Montgomery
Independent College Counselor
GreatCollegeAdvice.com

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