College Admission and Prom Pranks

Dear soon-to-be high school grads,

You must be super excited about your upcoming graduation and all that lies ahead. You have worked hard and deserve to celebrate!

I know prom is this weekend, and I have had some experience with smart students making dumb choices related to prom. Please remember that colleges can (and often do) revoke your offer of admission if you are caught in a disciplinary or legal infraction. It's not my role to give you a lecture about vandalism, drugs, alcohol, etc. so I certainly won't, but I do advise you to think twice about questionable behaviors. If you would be embarrassed if your mom or grandma saw your actions, then you probably should reconsider.

Have fun, and feel free to email me a prom picture.

Independent College Coaching Metrics

This weekend I have the joy of attending my daughter's college graduation from Olin College of Engineering. She has had an amazing four years there, it was the perfect match school for her, and she is ready for her next adventure.

A while ago the dad of a prospective students asked me what metrics I use for evaluating the success of my college coaching with a student. My answer surprised him because he expected me to say that it was the list of schools the student is admitted to. My response was the following:

• Was the parent/child relationship preserved or enhanced throughout the application process?
• Can your child answer with a fair amount of certainty why he is going to college and what he hopes to get out of the experience?
• Is she truly excited about her chosen school and committed to making the most of her college experience?
• Are his writing skills better than they were when we met?

 Of course the most important metrics are known much later:

• Did she have a satisfying college experience, learn something of value, make friends, graduate in four years (unless otherwise planned in advance), and feel prepared for her next step in life (whether that be work, grad school or a volunteer experience like the Peace Corps)?
• Did he mature into an adult that you would like even if he wasn't your son?

 Those are the metrics I'd like to evaluated against.

Wait List Shenanigans

I am not a fan of college wait lists. Usually, when a student asks me if he/she should stay on a wait list my response is "no". I think wait lists often prevent students from feeling really committed to and getting excited about college. Being in limbo is unsettling for anyone.

Once in while, I do have a student who opts to be on a wait list and try to convince a school to move her into the accepted group. This NY Times article made me smile. Is it a surprise that sending cookies to the admissions officer probably won't do the trick? Remember, college is primarily an academic pursuit. I suspect that carrying on an email conversation with a professor studying something that fascinates you, creating a list of courses you hope to take next fall or letting the college know about the research internship you have for the summer after high school would be more compelling than having a parent call and offer to send the admissions officer two pizzas a week for the entire school year.

Listening to My Own Advice

This week I was trying to make a tough decision and I realized that the advice I posted earlier about making a college choice was equally applicable in my situation--choosing a car.

I knew three months ago that my car was dying and I needed to find an alternative. I tried to convince my husband that we were ready to be a one-car rather than a two-car family, but he was not quite ready for that level of coordination and sharing.

I encourage my students to be careful researchers and use a variety of resources when selecting colleges for their list, and I was similarly thorough in my car hunt. I set a budget, and used impartial data sources to learn about reliability, safety, performance and customer satisfaction (the car equivalents of collegedata and collegenavigator). Then I went on chat websites and read more anecdotal evidence (the car equivalents of collegeconfidential and collegeprowler). Then I took my list of seven potential makes/models and went for test drives (the car equivalent of college campus visits).

The above steps narrowed my list to two options: a used Toyota Camry or a new Honda Fit. Both had pros and cons, and because I was trying to make a rational decision I got stuck in analysis paralysis. It was the first time in many years that I could actually feel the stress my students go through when trying to choose by that May 1 decision deadline.

In the end I needed to follow my own advice. The intellectual-decision making was done at the time I narrowed my list to seven good-fit cars. Now I needed to trust my gut instinct, imagine myself happily driving my two final choices for the next ten years, and pick the car that felt right. See the photo below to discover what I chose.

Jodi and her Honda Fit

Paper Dilemma

I love college viewbooks. The pictures of happy students and sylvan settings make me smile even though I know they are part of a marketing machine.

So here's my dilemma. When I visit colleges (which I do a lot) I bring home literature. It's not a very "green" practice, as I know that trees were sacrificed and some of the ink used in the printing process is environmentally toxic. Then I have to file it, which takes time and space in my office.

Most students are perfectly happy to troll a school website for info and pictures. I doubt any of them will feel sad if I stop collecting viewbooks, college literary magazines and aerial view posters of schools. Yet, I think of the times I pulled something magic out of my cabinet and a student was convinced to add a great fit school she never heard of onto her college list.

Got an opinion? I haven't stuffed my recycling bin yet, so share your thoughts!

A Farewell to Arms v47

When I work with students on college application essays I insist on an easy versioning system. Whatever the student names the initial draft is followed by v1 (which stands for version 1). When I make comments I change it to v2. As we dialogue back and forth the student has the odd numbered versions and I have the even numbered versions.

Last year Simon & Schuster published a new version of "A Farewell to Arms" that contains all 47 alternate endings written by Ernest Hemingway. This caused some controversy, as many people thought that Hemingway had made a reasoned decision about which ending to use and therefore the others should remain private. Other people (like me) were thrilled, as it seemed like a peek into the mind of a brilliant author.

The main reason this stuck with me is because most students I work with are not used to doing a lot of rewrites for school papers--maybe 2 or 3--but certainly not 47. The care Hemingway used to communicate character and content is a great example for college personal statements. How can the student tell a story no one else could tell, in an authentic voice? It may take several revisions.

By the way, students who work with me do usually opt to rewrite their personal statement 47 times.

Judge a Book by its Cover

I smiled when I read The NY Times article about the increase in book sales of F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby" now that an edition with a Hollywood cover has been released. As an ex-marketing executive I love to see how stunning visuals can impact purchasing decisions. Although we tell people, "Don't judge a book by it's cover" they obviously do!

One of the rules in our household when my kids were growing up was that if they wanted to see a movie that was based on a book, they had to read the book first. Although this generated some pre-teen grumbling, it helped turn our kids into avid readers. It also led to great post-film discussions about the differences between any given film and the literature.

There's plenty of research that shows that enthusiastic readers do better in school (and on standardized tests). If it takes a sexy cover shot of Leonardo DiCaprio to entice a teenager to read, I am all for it!