College Apps

Applying to college, even to competitive schools like Harvard (pictured), should be simple enough for teens to manage on their own. But in reality, it's a complicated organizational challenge that benefits from adult supervision. (Photo: istockphoto.com/janniswerner)

Unless you have a whole series of college-bound kids, chances are you will figure out the college-admission process right about the time you no longer need to know it.

That’s how it works about lots of milestone undertakings, like throwing a complicated wedding, or paying the right price for a car, or planning for retirement.

But with college admissions, there is an extra emotional whammy to the complexities of the project.

This is your baby. Your almost-but-not-quite-grown baby. Who is leaving home. Who, if you’ve done your job right, won’t need you much longer. (Just a minute. Tissue….)

In truth, some friends and guidance counselors will say your high school senior doesn’t need you to be involved now. Yes, the college-admissions process can be hard, they say, but that’s the point. Let them struggle and grow. Go make a mojito and watch The Walking Dead and let your teens figure it out.

Don’t listen to them. They’re wrong. Sure, they’re right too. But first let me tell you why they are wrong.

Ideally, a high school senior should be able to find out online how to apply to a college: fill out an application, schedule an interview or audition if required, write a creative essay (or two or three), insightfully answer questions that ask, among other things, “Why this college?” send a teacher (or two or three) links to upload recommendations, explain to a mentor or boss how to upload a recommendation too, ask the busy school counselor to send a recommendation and school profile, ask the registrar to send a transcript, create an expanded resume and upload a portfolio in some cases, and pay the application fee.

But that’s for one college.

And that doesn’t include finding and filling out separate housing applications, or private-dorm applications, financial-aid forms like FAFSA or the CSS Profile, or scholarships and honors programs that require their own unique essays.

Multiply that by four or eight or 12, decide the strategy of Early Action vs. Single Choice Early Action vs. Early Decision vs. Regular Decision, factor in different applications for state schools (Apply Texas) vs. private schools (Common or Universal App) vs. schools that have their own unique applications (really, MIT?) and supplementary questions like – I’m not kidding – “Where’s Waldo?” (U of Chicago), and you have a project that is overwhelming.

I’m talking overwhelming to adults who research for a living (i.e., me), let alone to a teenager who already has to keep track of tests and projects for eight high school classes, someone who not that long ago had to be reminded to brush teeth.

Okay. Take a breath.

If you haven’t guessed yet, I’m the first-time mom of a high school senior. In a few months, I will forget that this process ever felt quite so overwhelming for our family. I will be one of those veteran parents telling other newbie parents to relax, that it will all be fine, that somehow it works out as it should. But I’m not there yet.

I’m not alone either.  We parents all pretend to be chill about our kid’s college-app progress in front of other parents because that’s the cool, mature, detached thing to do. But the reality comes out in private, confessional messages:

“Doing CSS [financial aid], and I hate it. Ugh.”

“I am so tired of learning about all this serious future stuff. I am ready for that moment when I can let go.”

“How could a kid manage this alone? So let’s keep at it and get them to college – then it’s their job.”

Even professional college counselors aren’t immune. “It is horrible,” says one. “I feel like I went through labor each time one of my students gets through UT.”

While some high schools use helpful software like Naviance, many parents I know also have created spreadsheets to organize the process. I have one. Two actually. The online one was so wide you couldn’t see it all at once. So I cut a poster board in half and, with ruler and pencil, created a spreadsheet with over 500 boxes.

It’s actually super helpful, although omnipresent and imposing. “Mom, can you move that thing?” my senior’s younger sister requested one day. “It’s stressing me out.”

Even more pressure-filled than the applications, perhaps, are all the decisions that lead up to them. Urban vs. rural? Research university or small college? While some schools don’t require incoming freshmen to know what they want to study, others, including UT, require them to apply to a specific major.

Did you know that bioengineering is not the same as biomedical engineering? Or that there is a field called biophysics? Or data science? Or engineering physics? (I was proud when I discovered a few years ago that there are SAT Subject tests in addition to SAT tests, and that AP tests are something totally different.)

Advice on how to choose the right place varies. Many say visit campuses, and your kid will find the place that feels just right, like Goldilocks. Others say walking past buildings and lawns is a foolish way to choose, that instead they should compare the curriculum and faculty.

And then there’s budget, of course. Just because they can get into a certain school, does that mean it’s worth the debt, especially for an undergraduate? How about a less-competitive school, especially in an unpopular state, that may award more financial aid? Or an affordable local option?

Underlying the process is a complicated mixture of hope and exciting possibilities, mixed with a little sadness and futility. We all want kids who grow into happy, useful adults. We also know that the college they attend has almost nothing to do with whether that will happen.

And even if college – or the college – does matter, admissions are random. College A might want a female swimmer who studies Norwegian, while College B wants an oboe-playing philosophy major from a Midwestern state.

Now that I’ve stressed out and depressed you all, let me say that good things are coming out of this process. Our family now knows most of the universal college buzz words, like “collaborative,” “multicultural,” “individualized,” “focus on undergraduates,” and “low student-to-faculty ratio.” We can predict what questions tour guides will answer, and which ones they’ll deflect.

My kid has taken a crash course in introspection, finance and project organization. He has learned his social security number. He knows more about who he is and where he might like to end up. And in a few months, when admissions responses arrive, he’ll learn where that journey begins.

And Mom has grown up possibly even more. After a year of researching and nagging and, finally, stepping back and letting go, I feel more experienced, less clueless, less naïve and raw, a little more prepared for goodbye. And I know the difference between science and engineering.

Now where’s that mojito and the remote control? And the tissue box.

Tips from an almost-veteran mom

Two years ago, I wrote an article called Affording College for The Buzz. I didn’t have personal experience yet, but I quoted experts who did.

I’m happy to say that when I look back at that story, it remains helpful and valid.

(One difference is that now the FAFSA forms no longer reveal to colleges where else you applied, so you don’t have to worry about how many schools you apply to or to make sure to alphabetize them so the colleges don’t know your first choice.)

Here are a few more tips, from me this time:

• Realize that high school-credit courses often start in eighth grade, or sometimes even seventh. Usually those courses don’t count into the high school GPA, but sometimes they do. And if you take a year of foreign language in eighth grade and don’t want to start over in a first-year class your freshman year, pick a language that your potential high school offers. Planning starts in middle school.

• Instead of looking at high school as freshman through senior year, think of it as “summer before freshman year” through “summer before senior year.” Your kid has about three years, not four, to compile awards, activities and volunteer hours.

• I’m not a pro, but it seems as if it doesn’t really matter what activity your kid does, as long as he or she does something (other than video games and social media) and does it with some intensity. Depth and leadership seems to matter more than the type and amount of activities.           

• Start visiting colleges years before you think you should – stop on road trips. Your kid doesn’t have to make any decisions, but it takes a certain amount of traveling for someone that age, with such limited experience, to be able to compare. Don’t take the boring official tours; just get an overall sense of school size, urban vs. rural, that sort of thing.

• However, don’t talk about college all the time. Your kid will get sick of the subject before arriving close enough to deadline to force action. If you are like me and think it’s actually fun to dream about college choices, don’t assume your kid will too, at least not at your level of focus.

• ­Do help your kid keep a running journal of achievements and activities (hours per week, weeks per year) from summer-before-ninth grade on. If your school uses Naviance, there’s a Journal tab that works well. Or keep an updated resume. The student won’t remember everything. You won’t either.

• Consider online courses if your kid’s school doesn’t offer a needed class. There are tons of places to take them. Make sure the student asks the school counselor for permission and understands exactly if and how it will be counted into the GPA. Also, future NCAA athletes can’t take core classes online, so be careful.

• Help your kid map out a plan to take required standardized tests by June after the junior year, if possible (retake in the fall of senior year if necessary). If she thinks she will apply to a competitive school that requires SAT Subject Tests, find out dates and make sure she is signed up to take them after the end of the corresponding course, when the material is fresh.           

• For the most part, ignore the slick brochures that will fill your family’s mailbox. They all say pretty much the same thing. It’s always a beautiful green season in these brochures, never winter.

• Even if you’re actively involved, never use the word “we” when it comes to your kid applying to college. That’s a definite red-flag no-no – and if you make the mistake, expect a disapproving smirk. Your kid is applying. You’re support staff.

• This is controversial, but if your kid is applying to lots of schools and you can easily afford to hire a private admissions counselor, consider it. The learning curve is steep, and while it shouldn’t require an expert, filing your taxes isn’t always best without a CPA either. You might prefer to spend your kid’s junior and senior year talking about something other than college. Just make sure the counselor is the right fit and makes the process less stressful, not more, and don’t be afraid to switch if not. Also, some HISD schools have hired extra college-admissions advisors, and there are other sources of free help, but your student will need to seek them out.

• Go to all the college-information programs for parents that the high school organizes, to become familiar with the vocabulary and the process.

• Understand the auto-admissions policies for state schools. Students need an in-state safety school that’s achievable and affordable. And if you know they can get into one and they are happy about that choice, then there is no reason to jump through all the other admissions hoops. In the end, they need only one.