Kevin McMullin

College admissions advice for students, parents, and counselors

Two upcoming free webinars

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Students, parents, and counselors, we’ve got two excellent free webinars coming up featuring four of our Collegewise counselors who’ve collectively read tens of thousands of applications during their time as admissions officers at Harvard, Stanford, Caltech, University of Chicago, and Colorado College. Click into the links below to register. We hope to see you there. And if you can’t attend but want the information, please register anyway—we’ll share the recording for up to two weeks after the event, but only with those people who register.

How to Make Your Common App a Lot Less Common
Wednesday, September 20, 2017
5 p.m. – 6:30 p.m. (PDT)

The Art of the Short Answer
How to write effective responses to those short-answer prompts on applications
Tuesday, October 17, 2017
5 p.m. – 6:30 p.m. (PDT)

What kind of parent involvement helps?

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In the largest-ever study of its kind, researchers at Duke and UT Austin found that parental involvement in their kids’ educations, such as meeting with teachers and helping kids with homework, not only fails to improve academic performance for their kids, but also can even hinder it.

But the study, which a 2014 issue of The Atlantic profiles here, did reveal that parental involvement can be very effective when helping to make the schools better for all students in attendance, like working to secure new textbooks, better facilities, and programs like art, music, and theater.

Immersing ourselves in our kids’ academic lives is both ineffective and unhealthy (welcome news for busy, working, and overscheduled parents). But if you do have the time and inclination to do more, work to improve the school, the conditions, and learning for everyone. It’s not just more generous—it’s also the most effective way to help your own kids.

Monday morning Q&A: Choosing a private counselor

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Ai asks:

What are the most important qualifications that a family should consider when hiring a college admissions counselor?

I started writing a reply and experienced déjà vu. Sure enough, here’s my answer to this very question written seven years ago.  All of that advice still stands, and I encourage you and any other readers to start there. But here are a few more thoughts gleaned from seven more years of experience (and over 2500 blog posts) since then.

Credentials like admissions or counseling experience, an advanced degree, or a good reputation in town are worth noting because they are, at the very least, the marks of a professional who treats this craft as more than just a hobby. But none of those qualifications alone guarantees that a private counselor will be willing or able to deliver the change you’re hoping they can make for your family. So a good place to start is by answering this question, which might be an uncomfortable exercise for some parents. If you had to be brutally honest, why exactly are you considering hiring a private counselor?

Your brutally honest answer might be purely mechanical, like:

We know there are lots of good colleges, but we need help finding them.

The process seems really complex, and I think it would help to have an expert who could guide us through it.

But for many other parents, the brutal honesty sweeps away the half-truth factual answers and reveals the more emotional reasons that might be uncomfortable admitting to yourself or others, like:

Every parent in my circle has hired a private counselor, and I feel like I’m letting my student down by not doing the same.

I’m scared to death that my kid is going to make a mistake and I’ll feel terrible I didn’t catch it.

I don’t want to fight with my son about this anymore. I’m tired. I want someone else to nag him and explain why this is all so important.

I want my daughter to go to a prestigious college, and I’m willing to pay for an advantage if the right person can give it to me.

I’m not endorsing or rejecting any of these reasons—you get to have them as this is your student’s college process, after all. But whatever your answer is, mechanical, emotional, or somewhere in between, you won’t feel good spending money for help unless that person creates the change you’re looking for. And credentials alone won’t tell you whether or not a potential counselor is willing or able to deliver that outcome for you. You’ll need to have a very real, open conversation about your expectations and what a successful outcome looks like to you. The right counselor for you will understand and appreciate how forthright you are, and they’ll be both honest and specific about whether they can deliver what you’re looking for.

Some parents may resist what feels like a psychological exercise, but you’re not buying a car, a computer, or a new roof for your house—this is guidance for your student’s journey to college. There are stakes and emotions in play here that need to be acknowledged by all parties. The more willing you are to do just that, the more likely you’ll be to make the right choice for you and your student, especially if you follow the advice in that past post referenced above.

Thanks for your question, Ai!

If you’ve got a question, feel free to submit it here. I’ll answer another next week.

Standing out starts at home

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The consistent references to “your child” in Challenge Success’s “Top Ten Back-to-School Tips to Help Your Child Thrive” might cause some high school parents to pass by the advice. But I don’t see a single one that doesn’t apply when you swap out “child” for “teen.”

Parents, remember that you, more than your teen’s school or friends, set the tone for how your family approaches education and the college admissions process. Many other families, particularly those in areas with a pervasive kids-must-get-into-prestigious-colleges mentality, will fly in the face of these tips. They will not resist the urge to fix problems for their kids. They will not prioritize work done with integrity over work that receives an “A.” They will not leave technology behind at dinner time, encourage regular downtime, or encourage passions independently of their (often incorrectly) reported college admissions value.

But that doesn’t mean you must do the same thing in your house. Kids stand out by being the best versions of themselves, not by following what everyone else is doing. And standing out starts at home.

Be a fixer

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Hollywood has given us several shows and movies about “fixers.” Part crisis managers, part publicists, part real-life superheroes, these fictional fixers are in high demand when politicians, celebrities, or even regular folks find themselves in a real jam (or a scandal) and need someone to swoop in and make the problem go away. Their work isn’t always exactly above board (sometimes they’re fixing crime scenes!), but they never seem to be without a high-paying gig.

But what if a group of real-life, responsible, well-intentioned fixers existed at your high school? How much good could they do? And even better, why couldn’t you put that group together?

The school’s pool is being repaired and the swim team needs a place to practice. Bring in the fixers!

The junior prom is about to be cancelled due to lack of interest. Fixers to the rescue!

A disabled student needs a ramp built to make the upstairs classrooms more accessible. The fixers are on the case.

A student who’s bullied daily could use a formidable escort to his morning class. There’s a fixer for that.

The school just pulled the funding for the yearbook and the demoralized staff is out of ideas. The fixers could swoop in and save the day.

I’m not being sarcastic here. What if you pulled together the most talented, resourceful, committed group of students you could find? Each could bring their individual strengths—writing, organization, leadership, computer skills, connections, muscle, etc.—to combine into a virtual army of high school difference-makers.

I’ve never seen it listed on a college application. What a great opportunity to make an impact at your school and to stand out to colleges.

How grandparents can help pay for college

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If you’re fortunate enough to have a generous grandparent who’s willing to help pay for college, please consider Mark Kantrowitz’s advice on the topic here. In fact, failure to do so could result in a considerable hit to your eligibility for financial aid.

Kantrowitz stays true to his form here and isn’t making any recommendation that would teach affluent families how to hide their assets or otherwise avoid paying their fair share. But the mechanics of the financial aid formula are such that some seemingly innocuous decisions, like the type of account you choose, or gifting the money to the student instead of the parent, can have significant impact on the other side of the financial aid formulas. Avoiding those mistakes is just being smart, not deceptive.

How to make calm application progress

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I just might turn this past post built around Patrick O’Connor’s “What to Say When Your Students are Freaked About College Apps” into an annual September share here. O’Connor’s recommendations on how to make continuous application progress without over-planning, or worse, procrastinating, are both simple and sensible. And I can’t imagine any college applicant who follows it faithfully not enjoying both the thrill of application momentum and the wonderful calm that accompanies work done well ahead of deadlines.

When less is best

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More activities

More commitments

More hours

More scheduling

More time, more energy, more drive, etc.

Is it actually leading to better results? Are you finding more success, more enjoyment, and more impact as a result of all this “more?”

If not, what would happen if you did less?

What if you pruned those activities that don’t light you up and doubled down on those that you’re genuinely excited about? How much more would you get out of what you’re doing, and how much more would you have to show for it on your college applications?

More doesn’t necessarily always mean better. In fact, sometimes less really is best.

Update on our Common App Guide

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Common App Guide CoverSince its release just one week ago, over 1300 students, parents, and counselors have downloaded our Collegewise Guide to the Common Application. It’s the most comprehensive instruction you can find, written by a team of our counselors and former admissions officers who’ve collectively evaluated thousands of Common Apps, as well as helped hundreds of their own Collegewise students complete their own.

Students, parents, and counselors–you can get your own free copy here. And here’s a past post with suggestions for how each of those groups can best use it.

Monday morning Q&A: Applying undecided

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Emily asks:

How should students who are applying with an “Undecided” major answer the “Why this college?” essay prompts?

First, Emily, you should know that there’s nothing wrong with applying as an undecided major as long as you apply to colleges that offer it as an option. There are plenty of students who aren’t yet ready to choose a major when they apply, and plenty of colleges that are happy to give them a year or two to decide.

The choice of major is just one reason a student might pick a college. So first, consider the honest reasons the colleges that currently interest you are on your list. Why are you interested in those colleges? Why do you think you could be happy and successful there? You probably have reasons that have nothing to do with majors. In fact, you might be choosing these schools in part because they seem like the right places to explore and find the right major. Whatever those reasons are, share them!

Second, consider what you would like to learn more about. College is school, after all, and most admissions officers will appreciate a sense that you’ve at least considered the academic offerings even if you aren’t yet ready to commit to one. There must be some subjects that you already like, or that intrigue you enough that you’d like to take some classes to explore them in college. Do the schools you’ve selected offer those subjects in addition to the “Undecided” option? There’s a big difference between telling a college “I have no idea what I want to study” and “I’m not ready to commit to a major, but I’ve always really enjoyed my science classes and even wondered what it would be like to learn more about physics every day.” See the difference? The latter answer sounds like an academically engaged student. The former answer does not. I wrote a past post about this here.

And finally, remember that colleges ask every essay question—including the “Why this college?” prompt—to learn more about you. So don’t respond to this prompt with a long list of things that the admissions readers already know about where they work. Tie those programs, offerings, or attributes to you and explain why you think there’s a match. I wrote more about this recently here.

Thanks for your question, Emily!

I’ll answer another question next week. Here’s the form if you’d like to submit one for consideration.