The College Insider: Admissions Freak-Out Countdown#1: The College Counselor Appointment

I've been right where you're standing, waiting outside the college counselor's office for that first appointment of your child's senior year, trying and failing to balance absolute pride and abject panic. Let me clarify one thing before you get started: From here on in, nothing is as it seems.

Basically, you are about to cede control to people who might as well be speaking an obscure Chinese dialect, for all the success you can expect to have deciphering their message. There's no malice involved; just an agenda that's far more complex than merely figuring out where to send your kid to school next year.

I understood none of this when I started - but I do now, thanks a good deal of hindsight, a journalist's tendency to nag at a question until it yields, and that basic parental drive to spend a great deal of time and money pursuing what sounds like a dream college. In the name of camaraderie, I will translate as best I can.

You'll emerge from this meeting with a list of schools that range from the impossible to the improbable to the possible; in the current climate, anyone who still refers to "safe schools" is delusional. Do not for a moment imagine that these evaluations stem solely from your child's academic profile. A successful college counselor juggles some or all of the following concerns:

1. Yield: For colleges, yield is the percentage of accepted students who actually enroll. For high schools, yield is more about getting kids into prestigious schools. Public schools care about yield to staunch the hemorrhaging of students to private schools. Private schools care about yield because they're competing for next year's incoming middle-schoolers, and prospective parents notice the percentage of graduates who go on to the Ivy League. A senior is a senior, but a senior is also a selling tool.

2. Odds: Your counselor knows something you don't know, which is who else might apply to the schools on your list. Are a senior's chances at Duke bad because of measurable considerations like that lone B- in calculus, or because three other kids with better SAT scores or extreme athletic prowess are applying? Try not to think about whether those other kids really want to go to Duke or just want to rack up acceptances.

3. Cliques: It doesn't devolve into an adult version of mean-girls, but I can provide witnesses who will testify that a particular officer from a particular college bonded with counselors at private school #1 and had no such rapport with the staff at private school #2. School #1 placed almost a dozen seniors at that college. School #2 was lucky to place two - and before you go into denial, yes, the two high schools produced graduates who looked pretty much the same on paper.

Those of you still clinging to the security blanket of process and reason - and I empathize, but tough love is your best hope - can try this: Write down how you think the meeting with the counselor went. Usually, one parent expects rejection everywhere, the other parent anticipates acceptance everywhere, and the senior hears exactly what he or she hoped to hear. Three sane members of the same family, three distinct interpretations of the same information. Even if the college counselor were operating in a vacuum, which is not the case, there's a lot of interpretive wiggle room here.

But you're goal-oriented, I know, so you want to know who's right and what to do about it. There's no way to tell until notification day next spring. The safest thing might be to shave off the top school, shave off the bottom school, and focus on the middle, but if college admissions were about proportion, fewer parents would start every other sentence with "My kid's on the Harvard track."

If it's any consolation, it's good to know what you don't know, now - liberating, really - because the saddest family, come next May, is the one that played by the rules, dotted all the i's, crossed all the t's, filled in the bubble grids with care, strategized like crazy, and still didn't get the desired fat envelope or the equivalent congratulatory email. Take the counselor's advice as advice but not as gospel. Plague him or her with questions, and remember that an answer is not a guarantee. Embrace the rule of almost: Almost anything you hear from almost anyone has almost nothing to do with anything resembling a dependable reality.

There. Now you're ready for what's coming.

Next up: Admissions Freak-out Countdown #2: The SATs, sudoku, your daughter's hormone levels, and test-prep backfire.

Karen Stabiner is the author of the upcoming novel, Getting In. Write to [e-mail] or visit www.karenstabiner.com to find out more.

Comments

[NYCMami]

Ahhhhhhhhh­hhhhhh!!!!­!

[LarryD]

Great piece. Sounds like Ms. Stabiner would be a perfect independent counselor, except that families which can afford hired guns are so focused on their notion of the top 5 colleges (however they define them) for their kid that Stabiner's humanistic reasoning wouldn't be what those kinds of people want (an edge getting Billy or Sally into Harvard or Stanford).

[Strywever]

I'll never forget the high school counselor who actually told my youngest brother that he was not college material (just not bright enough, you see) and should expect to do manual labor his whole life. Understandably, my brother was crushed and struggled in low-level jobs for a few years before realizing he didn't have to prove that counselor right.

Today, more than 15 years later, he works as a director in the office of the CEO at Microsoft.

[Karen Stabiner - Huffpost Blogger]

As this and the next comment show, advice is only right until it isn't. A little gut instinct -- and a little dreaming -- never hurt anybody. September's too early to be talked out of an appealing school.

[Jen0141]

From a recent college grad - If your kid has their heart set on a specific college, apply no matter what the high school counselor says. My counselor told me I shouldn't even apply to the Ivy League school I wanted to go to, because I probably wouldn't get it since I was only 6th in my class.

Well, I applied Early Decision, got my acceptance letter by December, and didn't have to apply anywhere else. I made the Dean's list before I graduated, held leadership positions in my sorority, and met my fiance.

Apply to your dream school regardless of what the counselor says!

[OldSkooler]

Alternately, if you have a highly-motivated kid who knows what s/he wants, stand back and let him/her do it his/her own way. That's what we did and it turned out great.

Our choice was: Do we jump in feet first and play this game, with no guaranteed outcome? Or do we let our kid do his thing and let the chips fall where they may? We opted for the latter and - what do you know - he got in to the one school he wanted, in a program that's perfect for him. He chose it, he did the app, it's his thing, and he owns it.

There are so many great schools out there - non-Ivy League schools. Not everyone should go to an Ivy League school even if they COULD get in. It's ridiculous to treat this process like it's life-but-m­ostly-deat­h. How crazy is that??? Kids can always transfer if things don't work out - it's not the end of the world.

If fewer people willingly played this stupid game, the game would no longer claim so much of our time and energy.

Trust your kid, trust his/her instincts, and don't cede power to people who are only interested in a system that benefits them, not students.

[yorkriver1]

Don't panic. Talented kids will thrive in any reasonably well suited school. Then they can search for a good grad school. A former law firm recruiter told me this past weekend that her prestigious law firm began to search beyond Ivy League grads for new recruits, because the correlation between Ivy League degrees and success was not a given.
This law firm recruited attorneys who had actual jobs between college and law school, those who went to law school at night, former military and anyone who looked ambitious, smart and well rounded.
All life's passages seem to have a well hyped marketing machine to sell us on all the add ons we "must have" or surely we won't measure up. Think about it. Weddings, babies, pre-school all the way thru high school, college, grad school, vacations, retirement, funerals.
Not that we were immune. We bought several college prep. books; several did help. My favorite is: Colleges that Change Lives. Small lesser known schools may actually help your kid develop more than larger, famous ones. Our kid picked one and it's been great.
Focus on your kid's passions, decency and work ethic. Doing activities just to impress colleges will seem hollow in the end.
Don't climb the ladder of success only to find that it's leaning on the wrong wall.....

[Ilana D]

I'm curious how the recession is affecting the admission process. If you're a family that is NOT seeking financial aid, is it easier to get in to most schools?

[Karen Stabiner - Huffpost Blogger]

Stay tuned; we'll be getting to that when it's time to apply for financial aid. The two or three families left in this country who don't need financial aid will find -- in certain instances -- that they are at an advantage. The great majority who do need help will learn that the notion of "need-blind" admissions isn't quite as blind as used to be. Like I said, lots of things go into the mix beyond that senior's academic record.

[DomerDem]

The problem I have with college counselors is they often play politics with the futures of the kids they serve. Too often students and parents accept what they say as the written gospel. Yes they have a little more information than the rest of us but the do now know who is going to get into what school. Myself and my siblings were all told to not apply to Notre Dame because they thought we had a 0% chance of getting in and we were setting our hopes too high. The suggestion of not applying to ND came from 3 different counselors. We were all accepted to ND and have succeeded at ND. I would just say, do you research and apply to your dream schools. I would also say the most important aspect of the application to private schools is the essay. You should find out the focus of the school's social focus and tailor your essay to fit the social focus. Every school differs but they all have students who are surprised they were accepted.

[martiniandabotoxchaser]

College counselor connections are huge. A great counselor has a strong relationship with colleges and is willing to call a college and pitch your child...sound like your child is a bit of a product...he or she is. The flip side of this is if the counselor want a particular child for a particular college and that child is not yours, your child will have a near impossible time getting into the college.

Remember, the college counselor is human and has a preconceived idea of your child. They will present you with a college list based on their impression of your son or daughter. If you don't think the counselor has a good understanding of your child, you and that child better work hard to help the counselor know your son or daughter.

Most importantly, parents must let the student take the lead with the counselor. Most counselors are more than willing to make many meetings with a junior or senior but really only want to hear from parents a few times. If you want a question answered, have your son or daughter ask the question. Also remember not to offend the counselor...they are writing the student's recommendation.