What does student diversity mean to you?

Do you think colleges and universities feel the same way about diversity on campus?

Living on the East Coast, I had never heard of the group called the Future Farmers of America. Might members of that club help add to the “diversity” of the student body at most colleges? Apparently, some colleges consider that “type” of diversity to be too far out of their (political) spectrum to be admitted to their elite, “diverse” institution.

Institutions of higher learning are generally looking (or at least make the claim), to create a heterogeneous study body to enlighten each other by mixing many minds to produce many voices.

Of course, the reality is far from the hype.

In his essay published in the July 12, 2010 edition of Minding the Campus, Dr. Russell Niely writes that, “in practice ‘diversity’ on campus is largely a code word for the presence of a substantial proportion of those in the “underrepresented” racial minority groups.” Niely refers to new study by Princeton sociologist Thomas Espenshade and his colleague Alexandria Radford in writing his essay on how diversity punishes students of certain backgrounds more than others. Take a moment to read his interesting commentary.

I joke about it today but even though my grades and test scores from high school fit the range of the school I applied and was accepted to, I believe I was accepted on “let’s take a kid from Vermont” day when the admissions office was looking to fill some “rural” seats in the freshman class.

If there is only one thing that you take away from this post, it is that you need to understand that college admission is not about you (or your student), but rather about “them” (the particular college or university you’re considering applying to).

If you don’t “fit” what they’re looking for, then you’re barking up the wrong tree. Or worse, you get in, but then don’t get enough financial assistance to make it through all four years and become saddled with an insurmountable amount of student debt.

What a terrible way to start off your young life!

When beginning your college search, find schools that are open to giving you an opportunity to build on your competence and intelligence so that you will become successful in whatever you ultimately decide to do… rather than those entities that demand a certain type of credential before allowing a person to progress.

The Worst College Visit Ever!

“I hated that school,” were the first words that came out of my client’s mouth when I enthusiastically asked her about her recent college visit.

As an independent college counselor, I spend a lot of time coaching high school students on how to have a fun and productive experience on a college campus.

Strangely enough, many colleges do all the wrong things to have a student’s visit be a complete turn-off.  Here is what to do to achieve that result:

1. Make sure that there is no human contact when setting up a visit and/or interview.  Have it be all done on-line with no further communication from the college in terms of confirmation, information about where the admissions office is, where to park, and directions on how to find one’s way around the campus.
2. Make sure that there is no welcome when the family arrives at the admissions office.  Have the secretary be too preoccupied to take the time to be gracious. It’s especially effective if the visitors have the impression that they were unexpected.
3. At the orientation session, make sure that the message is, “This is a very prestigious college, and you’ll be lucky to get in.”  Paint a picture of the typical student as the quintessential overachiever who is so perfect that students in attendance are in awe of their own inadequacies.
4. Don’t have any process for selecting tour guides.  Anyone who qualifies for work study will do.  Guides who are especially uninformed about academic programs, activities, and life on campus are perfect.  Guides who are sarcastic, pretentious, or who have no personality or sense of humor are ideal.
5. As prospective students walk around the campus with their parents, have everyone ignore them.  Don’t smile, nod, or even say, “Hello” (gasp!).
6. When touring the dorms, make sure the tour guide doesn’t have a key to the “showcase dorm room.”  Instead have her offer to show the group her room, complete with hung-over boyfriend in her bed.  This actually happened, much to the delight and surprise of the prospective student’s mother.
7. When touring the dorms, have there be beer flowing down the stairs and empties overflowing trash bins on a Tuesday or Wednesday morning.  Hey, a mid-week party breaks up the monotony of studying!
8. Have the campus look tired and uncared for.  Buildings should be showing signs of wear and be unclean. Outdoor clusters of cigarette butts add a special touch.
9. If a student asks to visit a class, be sure it’s one where the professor is boring and the students are apathetic.
10. Let there be no further contact with the student from the college.  There are so many students who are interested, there just isn’t enough time to stay in touch or encourage them to apply.

An article for families of rising high school juniors and seniors.

How to understand financial aid

What to do when you aren’t eligible for Financial Aid?

I just saved $300 on my car insurance!

Well, not really. I haven’t had that euphoric feeling recently, but I know there are some families who have been shouting for joy in recent weeks, due to the fact that they understood the financial aid process at the higher education institutions in the United States, BEFORE their student was applying.

Their excitement doesn’t come from a savings of ”$300″ but rather from a number that could be closer to $100,000!

Yes, you read that right.

Families that have students heading off to college this coming fall, which prepared a GAMEPlan for their college search, are finding success and happiness in knowing that over the next four years, they will have a financially sound ability to continue to live within their financial parameters. A financial plan that they chose for themselves. Not what the schools have imposed upon them.

High School Juniors (soon to be seniors) – Know this… your “base year” for financial aid began five months ago. You are smack in the middle of what the colleges will see when you apply for financial aid in January 2011. Take advantage of this knowledge and prepare yourselves and your families for the inevitable “sticker shock” that will occur when the acceptance letters and financial aid awards start pouring in next spring.

NOW is the time to start planning for YOUR college success plan. It is important to consider the Money Factor, competitiveness of the Admission process, and the Family Priorities when putting together your college search GAME Plan.

Other material to read: Financial Aid 101: How to Get More.

While this article contains some good information on both short and long-term strategies for saving and paying for college, the underlying point that needs to be repeated over and over is that waiting to figure out how to pay for college AFTER your student has been accepted is WAY TOO LATE! Get yourself prepared and educated on the process when your high school student is finishing up sophomore year! By the time your student is a junior, you’re already “IN” the financial aid “base year.” You’ll thank yourself later!

For Undergraduates & Graduates In Healthcare Studies

We have been contacted recently about this program, and we are happy to share it with our readers. If you know a deserving college undergraduate or graduate student in healthcare studies, please pass the information along.

This is a scholarship opportunity for students who are currently pursuing healthcare-related degrees.

Eligible students must have completed at least one year of undergraduate or graduate course of study in the Spring of 2010.

The TYLENOL® Scholarship Program is generously offering $250,000 in scholarships to students pursuing healthcare-related degrees.

Applications must be received by May 14, 2010.

Check out Tylenol.com/scholarship for more information.

We reprint here some details we received about the program:

TYLENOL® Scholarship Program

Paying for college has never been tougher, so we wanted to be sure to bring this scholarship opportunity to your attention!

The TYLENOL® Scholarship application is available online at Tylenol.com/scholarship.

Scholarships are awarded based on outstanding leadership qualities, as well as academic excellence.

Additional scholarship details:

• Eligible students must be pursuing healthcare-related degrees
• Ten students will be awarded $10,000 scholarships
• Thirty students will receive $5,000 scholarships
• Applications must be received by May 14, 2010. Winners will be selected by July 15, 2010. Scholarships delivered by September of 2010.

Eligible students must have completed at least one year of undergraduate or graduate course of study in the Spring of 2010 at an accredited two or four year college, university or vocational – technical school.

The makers of TYLENOL® care about the future of healthcare and recognize that dedicating yourself to healthcare is no small commitment.

That is why we are proud to offer a scholarship program dedicated to supporting some of the best and the brightest undergraduate and graduate students involved in healthcare-related fields.

Now in its 18th year, the TYLENOL® Scholarship Program supports America’s next generation of healthcare providers.

******************
Please note that College Search GamePLAN has no affiliation with Tylenol or related companies.

Good luck to all who participate.

Happy Now We're Through It All

Juniors are in the midst of the college search process, if they are doing it correctly!

Time To Talk About The Sophomores! Freshmen Too!

“If you are prepared, you will be confident, and will do the job.” ~ Tom Landry

Key Success Factors

1. Students who do well on standardized tests do a lot of reading. Read, read, and read some more!
2. If you don’t like to read, refer to # 1
3. Set your test strategy toward the end of sophomore year
4. Take PSAT in sophomore and junior year. Take PLAN at the end of sophomore year
5. Manage your time. Don’t cram for standardized tests
6. Engage yourself in a challenging high school curriculum
7. Establish a high level of classroom performance in Math, Science, Foreign Language, and History
8. Develop your writing skills over time and get constructive feedback on your writing as often as possible
9. Understand what your candidate colleges will require of you
10. Pay attention to the official record you create! Don’t practice by taking the real test. Use diagnostic tests for practicing

Don’t forget also: “A stitch in time saves nine.”

PS – For those who missed it and are still waiting for or struggling with award letters, here’s a helping hand:
Award Letter Evaluation Tool

Award letters are in and now is the time to analyze the various offers. There can be a lot of information to digest, such as the form and amounts of student financial aid, the total cost of attendance, PLUS Loans, as well as the family’s funding options and budgeting.

The Award Letter Evaluation Tool from Strategies For College (MS Excel) allows you to break down financial aid awards from each college, and help decide which offer best meets your needs.

The spreadsheet includes a tab providing straightforward instructions, covering the following elements:

• Gathering cost information for each school.
• Enter up to 4 schools.
• Cost of Attendance
• Award Package data
• Award Package analysis
• Estimated Family Responsibility

The worksheet then helps you calculate, analyze and compare:

Total Cost Of Attendance (Annual)

• Billed costs by the school (ex. tuition, board, fees)
• Other expenses (ex. books, travel)

Financial Aid

• Gift Aid
• Self Help (loans and work study)

Family Financial Responsibility

• Balance due by the family

Financial Comparisons

Funding Sources to cover remaining balance

Feel free to share the Award Letter Evaluation Tool from Strategies For College with anyone who is in the process of making their final decision on college selection.

And good luck to all!

College - Who Is Going To Pay?

We have spaced a few things out, but there is no content editing.

We invite parents and students to make comments.

And we will follow the same rules for this interesting post. Here we go …

Budgeting In The Fun Stuff

“I’ve decided to use this week to get through some of the controversial issues I see on other blogs. I’m simply going to post my opinions and see what you think.

Today’s topic: Fronting College Costs

My hubby and I don’t have kids, but we remember college. I had some help from my parents and my husband was covered 100%.

I can’t think of anything concrete to base an opinion on. I had a higher GPA than my husband, but I don’t know if money had anything to do with that.

My parents are retired and my husband’s are not, but I’m not sure if his college expenses are what held them back. In short, I’m not sure what is best for your situation, but here’s my opinion.

I’d save for retirement before I’d save for my kid’s college expenses.

My kid can get scholarships, grants, a job, or loans. There is none of that for retired people. I rather not have to depend on others to provide for me in my old age, so I believe in retirement first.

What if you are good for retirement?

Well, that’s trickier. I remember how mature and how selfish I was as a teenager. Yes, I could handle money, but I was sooo manipulative. I don’t believe my grades would have been worse if my parents had covered me, but I might have gotten into more trouble.

What are your kids like? Do you think they will see your help as the miracle it is and earn their keep? Or do you think they will party the nights away since it’s not their money?

If I was a parent and knew I could help, I’d make them this deal.

I have X amount to contribute. If I see them working their butts off to get all the scholarships and grants as possible, I’ll help them cover the rest if I can. If they continue to work their butts off, I’ll continue trying to help. If at any point they decide to take advantage (like fail a class or two or become alcoholics), I’ll pull the plug.

The best idea I’ve heard of was from a lady that left a comment on a blog I read last year.

Her parents agreed to pay for the housing expenses of all 3 of their kids, but the kids had to cover everything else. This motivated her and her siblings to get as much “free” money as possible and work summers to cover the rest. That seemed really helpful and fair.

What do you think? To pay or not to pay, that is the question. Sorry, I couldn’t help myself. ”

Lee Bollinger, President of Columbia University, was rejected by Harvard.

We regret to inform you that you did not make it into a prestigious institution.

His take on that?

‘Don’t let rejections control your life. To “allow other people’s assessment of you to determine your own self-assessment is a very big mistake.”’

Mr. Bollinger was quoted in a recent article in the Wall Street Journal to affirm the obvious:

A bright kid is going to be successful no matter what name is on the sheepskin when they graduate college.

After the rejection by Harvard, he attended the University of Oregon on a scholarship and look at where he is today.

At this time of the year, many high school seniors are experiencing the angst that comes with the college application process, and stories abound of overly stressed students.

And then there are the parents, who may be projecting their own anxiety on their children and creating most of the drama. (The issue of parental ambition is worthy of its own discussion).

Fear Of The Thin Envelope

The “thin envelope” is typically the rejection letter that no student wants to receive.

A degree of nervousness is normal, but let’s put things into perspective:

• Being one of several students from your high school who apply to the same selective college increases the probability of getting waitlisted.
• Each year in the United States, there are almost 300,000 students in the top ten percent of their respective high school classes.
• The “top 50″ (and we have our own opinion about this ranking) national liberal arts colleges and national universities are capable of enrolling only 50-60,000 students each year.

The message that students and parents can take away from these facts:

75% or more of the very best students enroll in quality institutions other than the “top 50” and have very happy and productive college experiences and prosperous lives thereafter.

It’s that simple. So take a break from the undue stress and understand that success in the undergraduate years is driven by the student.

And there is a host of high quality learning institutions outside of the “top 50″ that are ready to welcome a hard working and positive thinking student.

What you do in your academic work is more important than the name of the institution on the diploma.

Our approach?

Work with our clients to establish a plan that results in a selection of four or more schools that provide a “best fit” college environment for the student, and financially viable options for the family.

This can sometimes cut against the grain of the student and/or the parents, who may well be star struck by their “dream college”.

However, our experience tells us that while this successful approach doesn’t eliminate all the nervousness, it certainly reduces the stress.

Like a snowflake, no two are exactly alike. I’m not talking about the weather… I’m talking about twins, of course!

Parents want to be fair to each of their children (if they have more than one). Twins make you even more vigilant – perhaps overly so. In reality, life isn’t fair, so perhaps we shouldn’t try too much teaching them that it is.

I learned this the hard way by trying to make sure that each of my twin boys should get 10 Cheerios each. I soon realized, running around the kitchen to get food in front of them, it’s inevitable that one kids gets 7 and the other gets 11.

Sometimes that’s just the way life is.

Financial Aid Delivers A Tougher Lesson

One of my clients had an even harder lesson. He has twins applying for Fall 2010 admission to college. I wasn’t too surprised to hear that the financial aid award letters each student had received had a difference of over $6,000. You might think a family with two kids going to college at the same time would get the same financial aid package, right?

Wrong!

For many reasons, the twins were not being treated “fairly” or “equally” because in reality, they are two unique individuals who should never expect to be treated the same.

While both have strong academic records in high school, one had slightly higher grades and test scores than the other. Also, the big factor in getting different award letters is that the twins applied to different schools. Had they applied and been accepted at the same college, their aid package might have been equal… but even that’s a big “what if.”

Most families don’t know that every college treats the way they “award” financial aid differently. One college might have institutional funds and the ability to fund 100% of any student’s unmet need. Other colleges with smaller endowments, or public support, don’t have that luxury.

Watching my own twin boys (nearly 2 years old) run around today – one playing basketball with the Little Tikes hoop and the other gingerly placing a baseball on a tee to tap it with a bat – reaffirmed that they are two very different little guys.

Every Student Is Different

Recognize that every perspective student (single, twins, triplets, more?) is assessed by each college based on their individual merits. This helps to understand the disparities in how colleges distribute financial aid (need and merit based).

Learning about this in the Spring of Senior year in high school is too late.

Whether they have one college bound child, or a gaggle of them in the pipeline, parents owe it to themselves to find out how fairly they and their student will be treated by the financial aid system.

And this should be done in the high school Junior year or earlier. This is a potential $230K investment! Almost half a million if you’re talking about twins! You need to be informed.

Some of the tools you can use to bolster your knowledge include:

Collegeboard calculator

Department of Education site for the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA)

Where do I go from here?

A story in KJRH, Tulsa, by Leanna Landsmann recounts just such a tale, in which a reader recounts that her daughter “doesn’t want to go to the colleges she applied to for regular decision” – “She has her heart set on her first choice (early decision).”

Ms. Landsmann provides solid information and advice, and we will take it a step further.

Mitigate this situation with a viable college search plan …

Avoid Unnecessary Pain … Keep an Open Mind

Beware of the strategic difference between being single minded versus tough-minded. Everyone admires the latter. Healthy persistence can achieve many worthwhile goals.

But being obsessively single-minded in the college search and selection process all too often results in self inflicted pain.

This usually occurs when parents or students fail to embrace a goal with a range of potentially successful outcomes. They ascribe abnormal value to a single college or university due to the school’s popularity or reputation for academics, athletics etc.

They allow themselves to obsess on the merits of only one institution due to legend, myth or, even, misinformation. Unfortunately early decision policies foster this mindset.

Students believe they will gain an admissions edge by showing a strong desire to attend early in the game. They also see early decision as a way to bring the whole process to an end. It is indeed very tempting.

Admittedly, if counseled, they will prepare additional applications, but they are just “phantom apps”, because in their hearts they have no intention of attending anywhere but their first choice.

Worse yet, competitive reality is usually ignored.

Any analysis of a college’s admission track record is usually unwanted or, at best, only tolerated during the early stages of the college search and application process.

Look beyond reputation

These applicants and, often, their most trusted advisors do not want to hear about potential obstacles.

Many simply want to know what they can do to guarantee the path to their “dream” college.

Some Hard College Admissions Facts

• Competition for admission in the freshman class at selective and highly selective colleges is grossly underestimated
• The opportunity for significant financial assistance from a “dream” college is grossly overestimated
• The radar screen of a student in the top 10% of their high school class and with 1400 on their SATs does not even sense that they could be only at the mid-range of the applicant pool at these schools

Sad but true …

After twenty years counseling families in public and private high schools as well as in an independent practice that has been active in over a dozen states, I can honestly say this set of circumstances is a real bummer…

It’s like a virus!

And the cruelest cut of all might be the assignment to the infamous waitlist.

It prolongs the agony for everyone with statistically little hope of a favorable change of status.

What Can We Do?

Parents, try to inoculate your family from it from the outset. Recognize that we are blessed in the United States with hundreds if not thousands of excellent post secondary colleges and universities, any one of which can provide a challenging and wholesome educational experience.

Some have even had the good fortune to rise to the surface in popular magazine rankings!

However with that popularity have come tens of thousands of applicants from the USA and all over the world with outrageously competitive credentials. Admissions personnel have an extremely tough set of decisions to make and some very capable students will be denied.

Some College Planning Elements To Help

• Parents, get involved in the college search process early (no later than Sophomore year)
• Approach this as a family team, with parents as coaches and cheerleaders
• Build your college search campaign with a solid foundation
• Assess your student’s competitive position with a thorough look at the available stats for your candidate colleges. This includes:

1. The number of applications
2. The percent of applicants admitted
3. The 25th percentile test scores and high school GPAs of last year’s admitted class tells a lot … not everything, but a lot
4. Include your top choice in your final list but find 4-6 quality alternatives that you evaluate and determine are a good fit
5. Then visit, apply and embrace them if the need occurs

In other sections of this blog, we explain how the college admissions process is largely data driven, certainly from the perspective of the colleges. We encourage students and their families to adopt a similar attitude, while understanding the high levels of emotions that are in play.

We cannot guarantee an emotion/stress free experience with the above approach, but it will give you a strong opportunity to avoid the heartache of the student in Ms. Landsmann’s story.