Parke Muth’s recent blog entry gives a clear and fascinating explanation about the history of college admissions, particularly the ways in which admissions has become more like a business for colleges.  It should be required reading for newer counselors still learning the admissions ropes but might also be of interest to parents wondering why the process seems so much different than when you applied to college.  Don't be thrown off by the title, "Essays, Editors and Ethics"–the bulk of the article is the historical discussion. 

It’s easy to get stuck in a rut of doing things just because that’s how you’ve always done them.  Maybe your group meets every Tuesday no matter what.  Maybe you give a presentation to your junior families every year when the PSAT scores are posted.  Maybe you run the same employment ad, or provide training to your tour guides, or mail packets of information to families who express interest in your school.

One way to not just improve, but also to make sure you’re doing the right things for the right reasons, is to ask, “What is the desired outcome?”  What exactly are you hoping will happen as a result of whatever it is you’re doing?  And what actions are you taking to achieve that desired outcome?

At Collegewise, we give hundreds of presentations each year at seminars, high schools and conferences.  Depending on the audience, our desired outcomes are usually:

1. To be so good that we get invited back.

2.  To attract families who appreciate and might benefit from our approach to college counseling (they can sign up for our newsletter, read this blog, buy our book, or hire one of our counselors).  

Identifying those two desired outcomes completely shapes the presentation, from what we share, to what examples we use, to what we hand out to audience members at the end.

When I write an employment ad, when our counselors attend regional admissions events, even when we all get together at conferences or for trainings, we always start by asking ourselves what the desired outcome is.  Then we can focus on the process we’ll use to accomplish it.

I’m not suggesting that the end result is the only thing you should care about (In fact, I think the process is often more important than the outcomes).  But starting with your end in mind helps you decide what really matters most and what you have to do to get there.

When I made an in-person donation to a non-profit today, the woman behind the counter didn’t say hello or even look up from her computer screen.  She just motioned to a nearby clothing bin and said, “Do you need a receipt.”  I felt like I was bothering her.

Whether or not I was made to feel warm and fuzzy is not the point.  They’re doing difficult, important work, and I’d donate again because it’s the right thing to do.  But there’s a good lesson here for all of us. 

From which cause to support, to which store to buy groceries, to which college to attend, when people have options, they need to make a choice.  And those choices are made more often by emotions, like how the choice makes them feel, than they are by a rational comparison of features and benefits.  That’s why I often hear students make statements about a college based on whether or not they liked the tour guide.

We’re all in competition with someone.  And when you’re in competition, the little things matter.   It matters whether or not you’re respectful of your teacher.  It matters whether or not your tour guides refrain from bad-mouthing the competition.  And yes, it matters whether or not your business—and even your non-profit—interacts with customers in a way that makes them want to come back.

The little things might be easy to do, but they often make the biggest difference. 

When I started Collegewise in 1999, I began offering free college admissions seminars for pretty much any local group who asked—high schools, PTAs, National Charity League meetings, even AP and honors classes.  It was good for my business, it let me make a small contribution to the community, and it’s always been something I really enjoy doing.   

As Collegewise has grown to offices in six states, we’ve hired counselors who also have the gift of gab and enjoy sharing college admissions advice with their communities.  We have one internal rule that guides us in all of our speaking events—be so good that you get invited back. We’ve been pretty successful by just following that simple rule.  

If you’d like to invite someone from Collegewise to speak to your school or organization, here's some information about our free services for community organizations.  

One of the best college admissions strategies is to apply to a balanced college list, one where the majority of schools are likely to accept you.

As you meet with your counselor to discuss your colleges, divide your schools into three categories:

1. Reach schools

Reach schools are schools where you are not likely to be admitted.  A school can be defined as a “Reach” for you for two reasons:

• The students who are being admitted have grades, test scores, and extra-curricular profiles that are stronger than yours.

• Some schools are reaches for everybody. If you have a 4.6 GPA, and 2350 on the SAT, three thousand hours of community service, and you hold the world record for one-armed push-ups, you still don’t have a good chance of being admitted to Harvard.  It’s not because your grades aren’t high enough or you didn’t do enough push-ups.  When a school admits fewer than ten out of every 100 people who apply, statistically, nobody has a good chance.

There’s nothing wrong with applying to reach schools—most of our Collegewise students apply to between one and three of them.  But don’t play the lottery and apply to a dozen reach schools.  It never works, and worse, you’ll sacrifice time and energy from the applications to schools more likely to say yes. That’s not a smart division of labor.

2. Targets

Target schools are places where the students who get admitted have similar coursework, grades and test scores to yours.  It doesn’t mean that you should pack your bags and buy all the school paraphernalia right now, but you do have a pretty good chance.  The majority of the schools on your list should fit in the “target” section.   

3. Safeties

Safety schools are places where you and your counselor are virtually certain you will be admitted.  More importantly, your safety schools have to be places that you would actually want to go if you got in.  I’ve seen students who haphazardly picked a safety school but in reality would rather be sent to juvenile hall than enroll in that college. A few safeties on your list that you would be happy to attend will take a tremendous amount of pressure off during the college admissions process. 

The advantages of a balanced list: you’ll get more offers of admission, more financial aid, and more opportunities to actually enjoy the process.  And with over 2,000 colleges to choose from, almost everyone can find targets and safeties to keep their list—and their admissions chances—in balance.

No matter how rigorous your high school is, there will always be limitations to what courses you can take.  Maybe your school doesn’t offer AP Calculus.  Maybe they do offer it, but you weren’t able to get into the class.  Maybe it conflicts with another course that you need to take to graduate.   The good news is that your school and its course offerings don't get to decide how intellectual you are. 

Whatever interests you, you can almost certainly find a way to dive in and learn more about it.  Take a course at a local community college.  Take a free online class at Berkeley, Stanford or MIT.  Watch videos at the Khan Academy.  Do outside reading, start an independent study, or enroll in a community education course.

Don’t say things like, "I love math and want to major in engineering, but I couldn't take calculus because my high school didn't offer it."  Intellectuals always find a way to learn.

Yesterday was a good day at Collegewise, as we officially hired Kate Sweeney, executive director of The Princeton Review’s New York office, as our new Collegewise Regional Vice-President of the Northeast.  Her first official day at Collegewise will be April 7, 2014. 

It became clear last year that Paul and I needed more help running and growing Collegewise.  More than just an additional set of leadership hands, we needed somebody who appreciated our vision and wanted to be a part of doing the difficult work to build something great.  We found all of that in Kate.   

Since starting her Princeton Review career as an assistant director of high school programs in the Long Island office, Kate has risen through the ranks to become the executive director of the Princeton Review’s New York City office, where she grew their bottom line from $56,000 to $1.2 million in just two years.  She has been incredibly supportive of Collegewise since we first became a part of Princeton Review.  She even sat through two days of our recent training on the east coast just so she could meet our counselors and learn more about how we do things.  Plus, she'll happily karaoke any song from the Dreamgirls soundtrack.  That combination of substance and flash is exactly the kind of person we want to join the Collegewise family. 

In Kate, Paul and I found exactly who we needed and wanted for this role, and we just couldn’t be happier to have her in our Collegewise ranks.  So everyone, please say hi to Kate and welcome her to Collegewise. 

Telling a college, “I want to go here because it’s a great school,” is like telling someone, “I want to marry you because you’re beautiful.”  They’re both nice sentiments.  But name-brand prestige alone isn’t a good basis for a collegiate match any more than physical appearance is for a long-term relationship.  Like people, you’ve got to get to know your colleges before you love them.

During the college application process, many schools are going to ask you some version of “Why do you want to attend?”  You can’t answer that question effectively by a quick Google search.   That’s why the worst way to find your collegiate soul mate is to pick a list of prestigious schools and then work backwards to figure out what they want.  The better way is to think about what you want and then do a thoughtful college search to find your matches.

Take the time to get to know them before you fall in love.  

We received over 400 applications in 2013 from people wanting to become Collegewise counselors.  We hired just ten.  And none of them actually needed this job. 

Eight of them already had thriving careers someplace else.  One had just moved with his family but had plenty of other prospects.  And one was already working here part-time (we just had the good sense to get her to stay).  

But the overarching theme was fit.  We had plenty of other options, and so did they. But somehow, we found each other.  And both parties agreed that we had the potential to do some remarkable work together.  Finding those fits isn’t easy for either party.  It takes a lot of work to become the kind of compelling organization or employee.  But the reason we do it is summed up perfectly in Seth Godin’s latest blog post.

"When you staff a place with idiosyncratic miracle workers who in fact have plenty of other options, it's a lot harder to fill those jobs, but a lot more likely you'll build something extraordinary once you do."

If you think there might be a professional fit between you and Collegewise, we're hiring and would love to hear from you.  

According to the American Psychological Association’s 2013 Stress in America survey, teenagers are now America’s most stressed out group. On a scale of 1-10, teens rate their stress at 5.8 (adults are 5.1).

For kids, stress can come from lots of things besides college admissions—family issues, economic challenges, environment, etc.  There’s no easy fix for stresses like those. 

But if you’re a student in the United States whose stress comes in part or primarily from worrying about getting into what you think is a good college, it might help to remember you live in the country with the most accessible system of higher education in the world.  We’ve got over 2,000 four-year colleges here and recent statistics have shown that 2/3 of students who apply to college get in.  Your success in life will have a lot more to do with your work ethic and character than it will have to do with the name-brand prestige of your college.  That’s why you’ll never meet an adult who says, “I could have made something of my life if it weren’t for that damn SAT!”

A little stress can be OK; it comes with the hard working territory.  Even the occasional late night is totally normal for hard workers.

But stressing about whether or not an Ivy League school will say yes?  That’s an easy fix.