Kevin McMullin

College admissions advice for students, parents, and counselors

For parents: when it’s time to back off

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Bill was a classic type-A dad when he brought his daughter, Katy, to Collegewise. A former Marine, he was relentlessly focused and driven, qualities that had made him quite successful. Katy was a freshman who’d barely had time to memorize her locker combination yet.

Before each of our first three meetings, Bill asked to have a few minutes with me before Katy joined. And every time, he’d explain how much he wanted me to emphasize things he thought were important for Katy to do. Research leadership opportunities on campus. Visit the AP English teacher to ask him how she could prepare for his course (that she wouldn’t take for another three years). Rewrite her notes from the day before turning in each night. Bill had Katy’s four years all mapped out.

He had the best of intentions. And so did Katy. She was smart and talented and wanted big things for herself. But he was taking over the most important part of her path to future success—letting her make her own decisions about what to do and how to do it.

I was honest with Bill. I told him that while I could talk with Katie about those things, I couldn’t make her do them, and frankly, I didn’t think they were as important as he did, especially given how little interest she was showing in any of them.

Bill insisted that he wasn’t pushing his daughter any more than she was pushing herself. Then he said the words, “If you ever think I need to back off, just tell me.”

So I replied, “Bill, you need to back off.”

And in a turn of events that actually shocked me a little, that’s exactly what Bill did.

We never had another pre-meeting chat like those first three. He never told me again what he wanted Katy to be doing, and he let her begin to make her own choices in high school. He started praising her effort over the specific outcomes, made himself available to guide and advise whenever she needed it, and trusted that the smart, likable kid he’d raised would find her own way in high school and in life.

Three years later, she was admitted to her first choice college—West Point. And Bill couldn’t have been prouder.

No good parent wants to appear disengaged from their children’s lives. We’re conditioned to give more to—and do more for—our kids than we ever had given to or done for ourselves. Those are good instincts, and I’ll never criticize a mom or dad for loving their kid too much.

But as kids progress through high school, some parents will double down on their involvement, resolving to handle everything at what feels like such a crucial time. Try to remember that over-involvement, hijacking the process, and otherwise managing your kids’ lives for them sends a message that you don’t trust them (even when that perception is false). And it makes it harder for them to manage their own lives when they eventually leave for college.

Part of loving and supporting them means being willing to back off when it’s time.

What do admissions officers tell their own kids?

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All of the advice in this New York Times article, Advice College Admissions Officers Give Their Own Kids, is worth a read. But there were two that I think are particularly useful, one for parents nearing the end of the college admissions cycle, the other for those who are still progressing through it.

“When a rejection letter arrives, I see parents who can’t even move on because they are so mad at the school. But that is not letting the child move on. Then it is almost like the next school they get admitted to and may attend is a disappointment. Instead, tell your child: ‘It didn’t work, it is their loss, you’re wonderful, now what do we need to do to go forward?’”

Doug Christiansen, vice provost for university enrollment affairs, dean of admissions and financial aid, Vanderbilt University

“My wife and I have tried to give our kids some air and room to breathe growing up. We never checked their homework or felt like their schooling was a family project. It was their life and their work — we provided guidance. In the end, our kids need our love more than they need our direction about college. If that direction gets in the way of the love, it’s not helpful and it’s not worth it.”

Stephen Farmer, vice provost for enrollment and undergraduate admissions, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

An honor or a scam?

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It happens to thousands of families every year.

A student receives a large envelope in the mail with an embossed, gold-sealed certificate of congratulations for being “selected” to attend a reportedly exclusive summer program. The language lauds the student, claiming, “You and your parents should be very proud of this recognition and unique honor.” Then it closes with the kicker—all the family needs to do to fulfill this honor and allow their student to attend the program is to fork over thousands of dollars. (Operators are standing by!)

Before I rant on this, I’m not commenting on these programs’ offerings or their quality. I’m sure there are some students who have attended and return raving about the experience.

But the marketing is an outright scam.

These companies purchase mailing lists of teenagers’ information, then craft their marketing messages to dupe families into believing that this is a selection rather than a sales pitch. There is no unique honor being bestowed. There isn’t even a selection process. It’s just a far more expensive version of those print ads that masquerade as news articles. It purports to be one thing when it is in fact something entirely different. And worst of all, these companies intentionally prey on families’ college admissions anxiety.

I’d hate to think how many families sacrificed thousands of dollars not because their student was genuinely interested in the program, but rather because they were hoping that the “honor” of attending would somehow be recognized during the admissions process.

I’m not against students attending these or any other summer programs. But families deserve to make fully informed choices about what they’re paying for and what they’re getting in return.

Here are a few good reads to help:

A 2009 New York Times article, Congratulations! You Are Nominated. It’s an Honor. (It’s a Sales Pitch.)

A past post cautioning families on paying for recognition.

Another one about whether or not you’ll receive an admissions advantage by attending an expensive program (whether or not that program uses deceitful marketing practices).

And while we’re hard at work updating our free guide to summer programs, you can still find a lot of good advice in last year’s version, available with our other free resources here.

Unnecessary drama

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When describing the seemingly high number of seniors at his daughter’s school who’d received disappointing news from their top choice colleges, a Collegewise father once said to me, “There’s a lot of carnage in the senior class.”

“Carnage” was a troubling word choice, mostly because I knew how many students and parents would likely agree with the description.

The college admissions process is injected with a lot of unnecessary drama. For many families, high school has been a three-year quest to gain admission to a famous college. Along the way, every test taken, every GPA point earned, every hour invested, award won and accolade recorded–it’s all been leading to this fateful day when the news arrives. It’s no wonder that so many kids who don’t get the decision they’d hoped for feel like their hard work was all for nothing, that they’ve failed at college admissions, and that they’ve sealed their fate to be unhappy and unfulfilled at a lesser college.

But good news or bad news, the reality is that the day a college decision arrives is just one day in what will hopefully be a long life full of experience and possibility. It’s difficult for many teenagers to have that perspective, especially if they’re smarting from a recent denial.

Parents, here’s where you come in.

From the day you became a parent, you likely learned quickly that there is no manual issued that tells you what to do. And that can be especially true during the college admissions process. But I can tell you that as decisions arrive, good news or bad news, the way a parent reacts colors their teen’s perception of the experience. And this past post, Parents: avoid these five mistakes when the news arrives, is the closest thing I can give you to a manual. I promise that if you commit to following the advice contained within, you’ll be supporting your senior like nobody else can, doing your most important job exceptionally well, and preventing unnecessary drama from ruining the experience.

 

Success in High School

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Last May, Megan Colford penned a column, A Senior’s Perspective: Success in High School, for her high school paper. She argues very effectively that the way to be successful in high school is not to focus relentlessly on pleasing colleges, but to do things you love, to create stories to tell, and to figure out who and what makes you happy. It has since been republished on the Challenge Success blog, and I hope students and parents will give it a read.

And lest any naysayers write her off as a kid whose approach just shows a lack of ambition, according to Google, Megan is currently in college.

At Georgetown.

The learning at home

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Fans of ABC’s Shark Tank may recognize Chris Sacca as the bearded, cowboy shirt-wearing guest shark who first started appearing this season. As the manager of Lowercase Capital, one of the largest venture funds in the United States, he was an early-stage investor in companies like Twitter, Uber, Instagram, and Kickstarter. He also holds both an undergraduate and a law degree from Georgetown University.

Here’s what Sacca had to say on a recent podcast when asked what he would do if he could start his own school to educate youth.

“What if you started a school that presupposed the goal was happy kids? And I mean happy with a capital ‘H.’ Balanced. Thoughtful. Compassionate. Doers. What if their resume wouldn’t ever matter? Some of you have heard me say before that the only people who care about your GPA are people who you’ve given no other basis to evaluate you. What if instead you wanted to build an education that fostered interesting, understanding, action, experience? I don’t know what that school looks like, but that’s how my wife, Crystal, and I have been approaching raising our three daughters. I’ve yet to see test scores correlate with happiness. I’ve yet to even see test scores correlate with learning with a capital ‘L.'”

I like not only the message, but also the fact that he’s not blaming schools or punting the responsibility to anyone else to teach his kids what he thinks is important. Instead, he’s focusing on what he can control—the learning at home.

You can hear the entire interview here.

Middle school skills translate to high school

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While written for middle school families, high school students and parents will find some good advice in this Washington Post article, Top 10 skills middle school students need to thrive, and how parents can help, by Phyllis L. Fagell.

Two in particular (bold text is the skill students should develop):

3. Manage a student-teacher mismatch. Unless there is abuse or discrimination, don’t bail them out by asking for a teacher change. Tell them they can still learn from a teacher they don’t like. Let them know it’s a chance to practice working with someone they find difficult. Remind them that if they can manage the situation, they won’t feel powerless or helpless the next time. Focus on concrete barriers to success in the class, not the interpersonal conflict. Is it miscommunication? Study skills?

6. Learn to self-advocate. By middle school, they should be learning how to ask teachers for help or clarification. This may be in person or through email. When students bond with teachers, they connect more intimately with the material too. Unless there is no other option, try not to reach out on their behalf.

What is a successful college education?

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Before he became the president of Reed College, John Kroger served in the Marine Corps (which he joined at 17), studied philosophy at Yale, was a federal prosecutor, wrote a bestselling book (Convictions: A Prosecutor’s Battles against Mafia Killers, Drug Kingpins, and Enron Thieves), and was Oregon’s attorney general. For me, that’s more than enough success to qualify him to address the question, what is a successful college education?

Whether or not a student has aspirations of attending a college like Reed, I hope parents and their students will spend five minutes reading—and a lot more time discussing—Kroger’s piece, What is a Successful College Education?

As Kroger writes:

“In the United States, we spend a massive amount of time and energy figuring out where our kids should go to college. We start worrying about it their sophomore year of high school and never really stop until we write the first tuition checks. We read guidebooks, consult counselors, pay for test prep, visit campuses, and even—in extreme cases—hire college search consultants. But after all this effort to find the perfect college, we spend virtually no time talking about what students should do once they get there. We equip them with bows and arrows but identify no targets.”

I agree with all of his assertions within the article. But even if you and your family do not, you almost certainly hope to get some kind of return on your college investment. Why not consider thoughtfully not just what you want your particular return to be, but also what the student can do to maximize it?

Lessons learned in Chicago

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I mentioned earlier this week that I was traveling to Chicago to take a class with Jason Fried, CEO of Basecamp (formerly 37signals), on how they run their company. I’ve always admired and respected the way he approaches everything about work and business. While Fried’s company builds web-based software, which is not at all similar to what we do at Collegewise, he has customers. He has employees. He wants to be proud of his organization and what they produce. And I think his approach has a lot of application not just for companies, but also for students, counselors, and parents who work in groups to get things that they care about done.

Here are a few of the lessons I took away. To be clear, this workshop’s purpose was to reveal their approach, not necessarily to suggest that these are all appropriate for any organization.

Your company should be your best product.
Your company is the product that produces all the others, so you should operate your company with as much love, attention, and care as you put into building products. Whether you run a private college counseling shop, a high school counseling department, a PTA, or a high school club, they’re all like companies. And even if they don’t sell products, they exist to do something as an organization, whether that’s advising students, unifying parents to help better the school, or producing a high school yearbook. And you can’t expect to produce great results without a great organization.

[If you’re not in charge, see this past post about creating a pocket of greatness.]

Share new ideas with only a few people.
If you have an idea you’re excited about, don’t share it with the entire group right away. Instead, share it privately with a few employees, colleagues, or members. New ideas tend to die in big groups. Too many questions about details that don’t matter yet. Too many worries about problems that haven’t happened yet. Too many “Here’s how we’ve always done its.” A big group slows down the progress before an idea even has a chance to develop. Instead, pick a few people to share your idea with. Have an open but focused discussion and really listen to their feedback. If you can’t get these 2-3 people excited, chances are, your idea wouldn’t have found life in the group anyway. But if 2-3 people have a chance to flesh an idea out first, you might be able to present it together, and do so more effectively.

And here’s a Collegewise alternative—if you don’t need the group’s approval, you might consider our “Here’s what I’m doing” strategy.

Approach big projects in six-week cycles.
A project should always have a deadline to ship (complete it). But big projects have lots of little projects within them, things that need to get completed along the way. When you assign specific deadlines to each piece, you’ll fall behind (and lose momentum) before you know it. Instead, try working in six-week cycles. Once a group agrees to take on a big project—a fundraiser, a new marketing plan, a revamping of an existing system, etc.–start with a six-week cycle and decide what to work on during that time.

For example, a senior class might need to plan a prom. There’s a fixed date when that prom is going to happen. But there are lots of things that need to get done in the months that lead up to it: finding a location, deciding on music and decorations, fundraising, promoting it, selling tickets, etc. It’s a lot to consider at once. So start with a six-week cycle. Decide on the most important things to focus on and who will be responsible for what (more on both of those decisions below). Then dive in and get going. At the end of those six weeks, your project won’t be done yet. But you’ll be surprised by how much progress you’ve made in such a short time. Progress creates momentum. And you’ll be fueled by plenty of what Fried calls “Quick wins.”

And here are a few ideas to try during one of those six-week cycles:

Assign pieces of the large project to small teams of 2-3 people.
You might need a lot more than 2-3 people to pull off a senior prom. But 2-3 people can focus on finding the location. Another 2-3 can focus on fundraising, another small group on promotion, and another on ticket sales, etc. Small teams work well together. It’s easier to communicate and harder for dead weight to coast on the others’ work. And best of all, multiple small teams focused on their own important pieces and parts get more done than one large team focusing on the same thing.

Use the inverted pyramid to decide what to work on now.
Journalists use a method called the inverted pyramid when writing a story. The most vital parts of the story come first. Every subsequent paragraph should be less important than the one before it. Start with the big stuff, then get to the details. If an editor needs to shorten a story, she never has to guess which part of an article to cut out. If your small team is in charge of promoting an event, what are the most important things you need to get done (it’s what Fried calls “Starting at the epicenter“)? Deciding on a date, time, and place, maybe? That’s the top of the pyramid. The color of your poster board for signs doesn’t matter at all if you don’t have an event to promote, so it goes towards the bottom of the pyramid.

I’ve also written about how this concept can strengthen your college applications.

Fix time and budget, flex on scope.
Projects are unpredictable. Not everything will go as planned during your six-week cycle. But a small team never gets to demand more money or time. Instead, they can trim parts of the project off, move them to the next cycle, and finish the remaining portions well, on time, and on budget. This is where the inverted pyramid comes in—you’ll know what to clip and punt to the next cycle. Fried calls this “scope hammering.” It helps you focus on the things that matter. It keeps progress moving and prevents the less relevant details from grinding progress to a halt. A small thing done well, on time, and on budget is better than a large thing done late, beyond budget, or poorly.

Separate by scope, not by role.
If you’re producing the high school yearbook, don’t put all the photographers on one team together for six weeks. Sure, they’ll take lots of pictures, but they won’t know or be able to affect how the rest of the yearbook is coming together. Instead, assign the necessary people to the appropriate project piece. For example, the sports section might have one writer, one ad salesperson, and one photographer—that’s a three-person team. They know their job, they know what each member must contribute, and most importantly, they never have any doubt about the status of the project—the sports section itself—as they approach a deadline.

Take a short breather.
At the end of each six-week cycle, take a breather for a week. Not to sit back and do nothing, but to focus on polishing or improving what you’ve just released. Then jump into your next six-week cycle.

If you’d like to learn more, I highly recommend Fried’s books, especially Rework.

The five-year rule

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The stress surrounding the college admissions process causes many families to lose perspective. It can be easy to forget that one grade, test score, or admissions decision alone has never prevented anyone from becoming a happy and successful adult. That’s why I remind parents to bring the long-term perspective, and to help kids develop long-term traits.

To help differentiate between something that you should worry about today and something that won’t matter tomorrow, try the five-year rule.

If it won’t anger, disappoint, or otherwise bother you five years from now, don’t let it negatively affect you today.

Simple? Yes. But effective, and not just with the college admissions process.