There are two camps of upperclass high school students: (1) seniors, who have made their enrollment decisions and (2) juniors who are “in the barrel,” ready to make the plunge into the full-blown college admissions process. For seniors, the hunt is over. They are eagerly anticipating the dramatic new adventure that awaits them at the end of the summer. Juniors, on the other hand, have miles to go before they can rest concerning their higher education futures.

We have discussed at length the preference points that comprise the college search. Distance from home, curriculum offerings, size, political leanings, and (among others) — yes — The Big One: cost. Of course, there are other more subtle preference points that go into making college choices, but I’d like to focus on cost, which can be deceiving.

Marketing is a powerful tool in selling a college. Higher education, like most other consumer products (yes, Virginia, a college education is a “product”) is couched in a variety of ways in order to appeal to prospective students. When it comes to marketing and advertising (oh, by the way, do you watch Mad Men?), I always recall a story I heard long ago about a company that sold a line of women’s fragrances (that’s the fancy term for “perfumes”). They had put a lot of research and development into producing this one particular perfume, but it wasn’t selling very well. So, the advertising firm that represented this particular line of products held a series of meetings to explore what approach could be taken to raise the appeal of this underperforming product. After a couple weeks of futile brainstorming, one low-level employee from the copywriting department blurted out during yet another frustrating meeting, “Just raise the price!” Well, that’s what they did, and guess what? Sales took off. The women who were the target demographic for the perfume now considered its quality to be superior, even “exclusive,” since the price was now so high. That’s called perceived value.

Now, I’m not suggesting that colleges raise their prices artificially just to make them appear more exclusive (or even (I hesitate to use the word) “prestigious”), but some, maybe many, high schoolers and even their parents equate price with value.

As I mentioned, higher education is a lot like any other consumer product. In many cases, you can get what you pay for. Read the rest of this entry »

You’ve probably heard the answer to the question, “What are the three most important considerations when dealing with real estate?” — Location, location, location.

Sometimes the same goes for college selection. In that situation, the question might be, “What is your most important criterion for picking a college in which to enroll?” Again, the answer might well be, “Location, location, location.”

In dealing with many high school seniors over the years, I have always been surprised about the power of home. Maybe it’s because of Mom’s influence and her reluctance to see her bird fly from the nest. On the other hand, there are also economic considerations, as I have discussed here in the past. It’s not good form to generalize, but there seem to be two polarized mindsets when it comes to high school seniors (and sometimes their families) making their college enrollment decisions. First, for lack of a better phrase, there is the “I can’t wait to get away from home!” crowd. These tend to be the teens who have, for whatever reason, pretty much had it with the strictures of a “disciplined” home life and the associated parental oversight. I’ve actually had high schoolers tell me that “too far” isn’t far enough away from home. Accordingly, these Northeastern college aspirants fill their college candidate lists with schools from the mountain states and Left Coast.

The flip side of that group is what I call the “Homebounders.” These are the young people who give only a perfunctory nod to considering any school more than a 20-minute car ride from their home. In fact, some of these Homebounders are heavily enabled by Mom and or Dad who reinforce a homebound decision with the lure of a high school graduation package that includes a car. In other words, a bribe that begs “Stay close to home!” The negative side effect of homebounding, in my view, is missing out on the chance for developing a sense of independent living. Sooner or later, Mom and Dad won’t be around to tend certain needs, such as laundry, meals, and money. Of course, like most Bell Curve situations, the bulk of high schoolers considering where to go to college are somewhat open to multiple choices, depending on their ability to get into a wider variety of schools. This group comprises most college applicants. Granted, there’s a huge number of candidates from which to choose, assuming that you can gain admission to them. Plus, many in out-of-the-way places go begging for enrollments.

I’ve mentioned College Confidential’s Ask the Dean writer, Sally Rubenstone, in previous articles here. In discussing with her the issue of why applicants choose to enroll at the colleges they do, Sally gave me some Dean-like wisdom about that. I’d like to share her thoughts with you.

Read the rest of this entry »

This information is targeted mainly at high school juniors. Granted, you’re busy right now with school’s year-end requirements. You’re thinking about next month’s Advanced Placement exams, maybe some Subject Tests, and/or another SAT. Maybe you’re also conducting a summer job search, now that school is winding down. If you’re a spring-sport athlete, you’ve got practices and games to contend with, plus you’ve got a life, right? I hope so. Spring weather offers opportunities to get out there with that boy or girl of your dreams and get away from thinking about differential equations and the Laws of Thermodynamics.

Well, let me throw something else onto your pile of important thoughts — college choices. In just a matter of months, you’ll be a high school senior. You’ll be amazed at how fast you can go from spring to fall. Summers are usually a blur, so start thinking ahead now. Maybe you can do some quality thinking during the summer blur, but human nature, being what it is, usually sidetracks advanced planning for teenagers. So, the challenge I’ll issue to you today is to start thinking about which colleges best suit your higher education needs and which ones will see your application roll in.

Of course, if your parents are willing and you have the time (probably not), you may want to squeeze in a couple college vists now before students leave campus. As I’ve said before, visiting a college while the student body is in residence is unquestionably the best time to visit. You’ll feel the energy of the students, experience the atmosphere of a “live” college campus, and maybe even get to sit in on a class or two. Plus, don’t forget those college tours (pictured) where you get to see how accomplished some people can be at walking backward. Okay, here’s a dumb riddle: Why is college-candidate selection like a Christmas song? Read the rest of this entry »

Now that college admissions decisions have been rendered, many high school seniors and some of their parents will be making campus visits to help make another decision — where to go to college. A considerable portion of the cost of running a college or university comes from making the grounds and buildings look beautiful. You can imagine how much the landscaping alone can cost. There’s all that grassy acreage to keep cut and tons of trees, shrubs, and flowers to maintain, not to mention fresh paint on buildings and even clean windows. The labor crew to do all this sometimes looks like a small army, and that’s just for the external views. How about the housekeepers and custodial force needed to keep the students from destroying it all?

Anyway, let’s talk about beautiful campuses (no, I just checked, and I’m using the plural “campuses,” not “campi”). I’ve visited a number of campuses in my day, but the one I’ll never forget is Princeton University. Our son was accepted there back in the ’90s, so Mom, Dad, and son visited, with our son doing an overnight in one of the residence halls. My wife and I refer to Princeton as The Magic Kingdom. The Gothic architecture and pristine grounds can transport you into a completely different world. Adding to the magnificence of the campus during our visit was some of the most perfect spring weather imaginable: deep blue skies, crisp morning air, and brilliant sunshine.

Enough about Dave in The Magic Kingdom. I though that I would write today about what others think about beautiful campuses. Of course, the easiest way to discover where beautiful campuses are is to use your favorite search engine to find “America’s most beautiful colleges campuses.” I just did that and found this page of links on Google. Another great resource is, of course, College Confidential’s discussion forum. Let’s see what posters there have to say. Read the rest of this entry »

D-Day has come and gone. I’m talking about Decision Day for the Ivy League schools. Those applicants holding their breath for their Regular Decision decisions on March 28 this year were sufficiently nervous to cause server slowdowns on the College Confidential discussion forum. That’s a tribute to their anxiety, eagerness, and just plain curiosity. If you have the time and want to see just how competitive admission has become at the Ivies, click through some of the Ivy schools’ “results” postings to discover (or marvel at) how some of these high school seniors were denied admission. Their profiles read like fiction, in the positive sense. Some of the comments are quite moving.

Several days ago, I did an interview with a reporter from Princeton University’s student newspaper, The Daily Princetonian. The thrust of the reporter’s questions centered around the final acceptance rates for all the Ivies this year, not just Princeton’s. The main question was, “Do you think acceptance rates can get any lower?” Well, in light of the results at Princeton this year, I’d have to say, “It’s possible, but seems unlikely.” Take a look at Princeton’s numbers for the Class of 2017 (“SCEA” = Single Choice Early Action” (December notification); “RD” = Regular Decision (April notification)):

Total Applied: 26498 ; Total Accepted: 1931 ; Acceptance Rate: 7.28%
SCEA Applied: 3810 ; SCEA Accepted: 697 ; Acceptance Rate: 18.29%
RD Applied: 22688 ; RD Accepted : 1234 ; Acceptance Rate: 5.54% (last year: 5.90%)

Okay, you can pick yourself up off the floor now.

Going back to my comments for The Daily Princetonian interview, one of the things I mentioned, in regards to the possibility that Ivy acceptance rates could go even lower was that the rates could actually rise. I said,  “The number of applicants may indeed go down this coming year because of the tremendous discouragement that [students] see with a five or seven percent admissions rate.” By this, I mean that prospective Ivy applicants might view applying to the Ivies the same way a high school gymnast and hopeful future Olympian would feel after watching the competition at the Olympics. Yes, getting into the Ivies appears to be something of an Olympian challenge these days. So you want to go to the Ivy League? As Pink Floyd says, “Welcome to the machine.”   Read the rest of this entry »

Now that we’re nearing the end of March, the college admissions process becomes a bit more stressful. Some of you high school seniors may have already gotten decisions for your applications. I hope that the majority of your news has been good. If some has been less than good (denials, waitlistings, or acceptances for other than fall term), you have my condolences and empathy. Many of you also have yet to hear from your colleges. The Ivies will be forthcoming later in March, usually before the end of the month. Of course, there will be the usual full range of emotions attached to that, with acceptances, denials, and waitlistings, and financial aid packages, both good and bad. March can be the cruelest month.

Then comes April, a month of decisions that leads up to May 1, the traditional D-Day: Decision Day for enrollment deposits. Of course there are exceptions to the May 1 enrollment decision deadline, but May Day stands above all the other deadlines. Choosing a school is a huge decision, not only for you, the high school senior, but also for your family, who will be a crucial part of your support team, for financial, practical, and moral support. Between now and then, you’ll no doubt have myriad questions about what to do and how to think. Where can you turn when the answers aren’t easily forthcoming.

Two resources spring to mind. First is College Confidential. There you will find an almost inexhaustible ocean of information on every aspect of the college admissions process, as well as links to valuable information on financial aid. One particularly attractive asset of the College Confidential site is the discussion forum. There are literally millions of posts loaded with college knowledge for you to peruse. Trust me. The time you spend on the CC forum is time exceedingly well spent.

But, as the title of this article proclaims, perhaps the most pertinent place for you high school seniors (and parents) to be spending time at this crucial time of the college process year is in College Confidential’s Ask the Dean department. Why is the Dean so important to you now? Read the rest of this entry »

Oscar Wilde said, “There are only two tragedies in life: one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.” Typical Oscar Wilde.

Well, it’s that time of year again. We’re on the cusp of the big Common Notification Date, which, for the Ivy League, is, “usually in late March or early April, applicants to the Ivy institutions will be notified of admission decisions and financial aid awards, unless they have been notified earlier under Early Decision Plan or Early Action Plan procedures. (Letters are mailed beginning in February for the Schools of Hotel Administration, and Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell, and beginning in February for the School of Nursing at Penn.)” Get all that?

Many non-Ivy colleges have already dispersed their decisions, which denoted acceptance, denial, or waitlisting. If you have already been accepted, congratulations! If you have experienced the first of Wilde’s mentioned tragedies, my condolences. And, if you have been waitlisted, welcome to Purgatory, not a comfortable place to be. However, the point of my message today is to address the psychology of that first tragedy: not getting what we wanted.

For those of you who have been denied, and for those of you who will be denied at your first-choice “dream” schools, I have some wisdom for you, courtesy of my advanced years and lifelong experience. (Feel free to take notes.) It all boils down to a simple statement: The best outcomes of my life eventually came as a result of not getting what I wanted at the time. Trust me on this. The same can very likely happen to you too. So, how should you think about not getting what you wanted? Read the rest of this entry »

Appearances are deceiving. What do think of when you imagine yourself (if you’re a high school junior or senior) or your son or daughter (if you’re the parent of a high schooler) going to college? Maybe your fantasy involves strolling well-manicured lawns that fill the spaces between imposing Gothic-looking buildings. Your visions may also include cheering crowds inside football stadiums on crisp, sunny fall days, or deafening field house throngs urging their basketball stars on to yet another come-from-behind win. Oh, and don’t forget those long, gorgeous, towering-tree-lined sidewalks that connect all those stunning buildings, like a kind of concrete circulatory system. Some picturesque scenarios, eh?

Coming farther down to earth, though, maybe you also imagine what I call The Money Monster, those tuition bills that would visit your mailbox twice a year. Every year, parents all over this land hear the beating of its wings, usually in August and December. Then, on what was a normal trip to get the mail, it’s spotted, perched menacingly atop the mailbox, waiting to be fed with your money!

The sadistically interesting thing about college tuition bills is the due date. Full payment is usually required within two-to-three weeks. Denial doesn’t work. No payment equals no class registration. Quite a simple arrangement. And when the “Amount Due” figure looms in the many thousands, the term “Money Monster” is more easily understood.

But is there more practical and, more importantly, potentially more highly materially rewarding alternative to those lush lawns, Gothic spires, and (how could I have forgotten?) “prestigious” academic reputations, not to mention monsterous mailboxes? Well, according to Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce. there is, and it’s been sitting right under your nose, likely ignored because of its relatively plain-vanilla profile: community college.

According the Georgetown Center’s findings, almost 30% of Americans with associate’s degrees now make more than those with bachelor’s degrees. This is an amazing statistic. Let’s take a closer look and see why this is so amazing. Read the rest of this entry »

In the past, we have discussed the various advantages of Early Action (EA) and Early Decision (ED) here. For those of you who have taken advantage of one of these avenues and received good news in December or even earlier, you no doubt exhaled a large sigh of relief. What could possibly be wrong with having your college process behind you at the halfway point of your senior year? If you went ED and got in, you were accepted at your clear first-choice school. If you went EA and got in, you have at least one solid offer sitting in your basket of possibilities for a May 1 (or earlier) enrollment decision. Nothing wrong with that, right? Well, there could be: Senioritis.

Yes, we have discussed Senioritis before on these pages, but every year this time, I feel duty-bound to raise the warning flag. The sports analogy would be in baseball, where a team reaches the seventh-inning stretch with a six-run lead, looking good for the win. However, if the manager doesn’t remain vigilant and keep the pressure on his players until that final out, strange things can happen. It’s called overconfidence. It’s also called cruising. Resting on ones laurels comes to mind, too.

Need a football analogy? It’s like a running back who breaks into the open on his own 10-yard line and heads for the score without noticing that defensive back angling in from behind. Then, BOOM! He’s either tackled short of the score or, worse yet, fumbles. Fumble. There’s a good word to describe one possible outcome of senioritis. You can easily fumble your admission by thinking that you’re too many runs ahead to lose (to make a marvelously mixed metaphor).

The classic Senioritis Mindset (TM) goes something like this: “Hey, I must be a desirable college applicant! I got into a GREAT school before the New Year. I’m on a roll! I think I have enough momentum to make it to the finish line, no sweat. I’ll just ease back on the throttle a bit and enjoy some stuff that I missed while I was knocking myself out the first half of the year with all that college application stress.” This is textbook “What could possibly go wrong?” thinking.

Well, plenty can go wrong with an attitude like this. Right off the top, if you throttle back enough, your vaunted and cherished admission could be revoked. Don’t believe me? There’s evidence enough of that on the College Confidential (CC) discussion forum. At the very least, the admissions people at the school(s) where you were accepted early could begin an inquisition as to why your mid- or year-end report(s) showed a downturn in your academic performance. That’s not what you need in your busy life right now, is it?

Anyway, the topic of senioritis came up on the CC forum, so I thought I would offer up some samples of the student and parent comments relating to the dangers of taking it easy after being accepted. Here are some samples from that discussion. Read the rest of this entry »

I could have called this “Different Types of Degrees,” but I opted for a quick alliteration. Regardless of how it’s titled, the information here is designed to tell you about some alternatives to the traditional four-year college degree approach to your higher education plans. A traditional four-year degree isn’t the only way to land a good job with a solid salary.

What inspired me to address this topic is a news release touting a new Kiplinger Personal Financial article regarding several options outside of the time-honored four-year degree that provide the education and training needed to land meaningful work. We’re all (well, if you’re a resident of Planet Earth) aware of the skyrocketing costs involved with college over the past decades. There appears to be no relief in sight, unless the the “bubble” bursts, similar to what happened to the so-called “dot-com” bubble back at the beginning of the last decade.

Thus, many, if not most, high schoolers and their families today are looking for the most cost-efficient path between high school and marketable skills in the job world. Passing from high school to that first significant job can be an exciting or frustrating voyage. I have always been the type of person to consider alternative ways of accomplishing my goals. You could call me a duct-tape, paper-clip, chewing-gum kind of guy who knows that in some cases, getting the desired result doesn’t always have to involve a process, technique, or materials one might see on Masterpiece Theater.

Yes, thinking outside the box can yield tangible rewards. For example, did you know about any of the following outside-the- “traditional”-box options?

- Certificates: Professional certification is an affordable way to increase your employment potential once you are on the job; especially in fields that don’t require a bachelor’s degree.

- Associate’s Degrees: Employers are planning on hiring one-third more associate’s degree earners this year than last; far exceeding the increase in demand for bachelor’s degree holders.

- Take two and transfer: Take your prerequisites at a local community college, where tuition and fees are often two-thirds lower, and then transfer to a four-year institution.

- Earn a BA in three: Graduating in three years lets you avoid a fourth year of college costs and you can start earning a salary a year sooner.

- Online Courses: The American Council on Education is evaluating the creditworthiness of MOOCs, or “Massive Open Online Courses” from partners such as Coursera, edX, and Udacity.

If not, you might find the Kiplinger article time well spent. Let’s sample some excerpts from it. Read the rest of this entry »