Choosing

Ben Stein of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off fame and from the Comcast commercials is giving advice on colleges now. His advice is actually right on target. His main point is that there is a school for everyone. Don’t get caught up in the elite school hunt, because ultimately is just doesn’t matter. What you do once you’re at school and beyond is the important thing.

College Admissions is such a strange phenomenon. For roughly a year and a half students work hard to jump through all sorts of hoops. This is all done in an attempt to get a college to deem them worthy of attending. Those students submit their applications and nervously await an answer. Once a school has decided you’re accepted, the process screeches to a halt and then abruptly takes a 180 degree turn. The accepted student is now “in the driver’s seat”. I recently had lunch with a Dean of Enrollment at small liberal arts school outside of Boston. It was mid April and he was cautiously optimistic that they would have a good class. He was also very philosophical “We’ll see what happens”, he told me. In the old days colleges were pretty confident in how the game was played. It was an understood science how to make a class. But with our current economy and the common applications, all that has now changed. It used to be colleges would mail out their acceptance letter and wait for your response, but no more. Into today’s climate there is a lot of wooing of accepted students. There are even a few colleges in Minnesota offering to help with the airfare to come visit. So if you’re being

By now the acceptances have been mailed. Hopefully you or your child has gotten into the dream school with a generous package and you’re all set. Sometimes, however, it’s not that easy. Occasionally students are presented with an embarrassment of riches. If the student got into two excellent schools and both have serious advantages, how do you choose? You have until May 1st to make this very important decision.
For an increasing number of people they can’t decide, so they choose to double deposit. Double depositing is accepting the offers of more than one school, putting down the initial payment toward that school indicating you’re going to attend in the fall. In their own minds they think they are just buying a little more time. After all, it’s their money. What’s the harm? (Ok, this is where I dust off my soap box.)
Double depositing is wrong on many fronts. First of all it wreaks havoc for the schools. They have a very limited number of spots: it’s a zero sum game. If they think you’re coming, it means someone else can’t. If you show don’t show up, that spot remains empty. Whatever the tuition, fee, room and board the college counted on receiving, it will not be there. But beyond being simply just wrong, it’s also risky. Schools talk to each other, and increasingly they’re sharing their enrollment data --specifically looking for double depositors. If colleges find a person who is planning on attending two different schools, both schools may withdraw their acceptance of that candidate.
There is a good two part article on the subject below from the Washington Post.

As a junior in High School, or a parent of a junior, you have been mostly off the radar of the counselors. Not that there isn’t a lot you could/should have be doing besides getting good grades. With the start of a new year, most of the seniors’ applications are in and the focus starts to turn to the juniors. There is a great article in US News & World Report on how to get started. The article has 10 tips, and not just the usual tips. This list is much more of a self discovery voyage as to what you should be looking for in a college. With so much pressure and marketing of colleges, it’s easy to decide your goal should be to go to the “best” school that will have you. Finding the right school has a lot more to do with who you are as oppose to what the school is. My favorite piece of advice is not to listen to your friends about where to apply. It seems obvious but still needs to be said. Friends are in the same boat as you. They’re high school kids. Why would they have any meaningful advice on which college YOU should go to? Yet 79% of college freshman admitted to making decisions based on advice from their friends. Among other really good points in the article is to use your High School Counselor team. They are there to help.