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If you know a high school junior starting to think about college….
By
Published: Aug 12, 2018
Category:
Education
My 16-year-old daughter is about to start the 11th grade.
If you are the parent of a kid who has survived the 11th grade, you know the horror that awaits our precious.
And as for you: buckle up. Because if your beloved hopes to enroll in a college that rejects more applicants than it accepts, the 11th grade is the make-it-or-break-it year. It’s the last time colleges can see a full year of grades. It’s the first time the kid takes the SAT or ACT. It’s the year for doing a star turn in sports, activities or causes. It’s when smart kids start visiting colleges. And begin to think about the College Essay. And – how likely is this? — make sure they get enough sleep and stay healthy, because this is not the year to miss a step.
A horror movie. Best not to see it alone. If you’re lucky, your 11th grader goes to a small school with a committed college adviser. That’s my kid’s good fortune. In the big picture, she’s the exception.
I thought, to be useful, I’d do some research to identify services that advise and support kids and their families as they make their way through the hellscape.
You would not believe the cost of some of these services. Let’s say your kid dreams of an Ivy League school. The college advisories that help those kids with essays, applications and test prep are seriously expensive — you could buy a Mercedes instead. If you’re in the 1% and only Harvard/Yale/Princeton will do for your kid, a minute on the Goggle will yield a number of these advisories.
If you have budgeted for a more reasonable level of hope, read on. Are there bargains? If you find one… beware. My research focused on more reasonable services that
1) help kids make smart choices on the colleges they’ll apply to
2) guide kids to their best essay
3) suggest ACT/SAT strategy.
4) And one other, not small service: help kids maintain perspective, sanity and a sense of humor.
My search criteria: a national service, with several levels of consulting and fees. And the human touch — with a new crop of anxious parents each year, these enterprises can easily be factories. You want a counselor who gets the joke: It’s not so much where your kid goes, it’s what he/she does at college and what he/she does with that experience after graduation.
Of the companies that popped up on my radar — and there are many more — I was most taken by Collegewise. Smartly, they offer several levels of services and costs. Correctly, they offer a free consultation.
In the end, I suspect it comes down to the counselor. I’d heard good things about Jennifer Turano, and I liked her description on the Collegewise site:
Jennifer graduated from Cornell University with a degree in psychology and spent many years interviewing New York City applicants for Cornell admission. She knew she wanted to join the Collegewise team after enrolling her daughter in the program and seeing firsthand just how stress-free and successful the college application process can really be. In 2015, Jennifer began helping Collegewise secure speaking engagements at high schools and organizations across New York City, then joined our essay editing team before earning a promotion to the role of full-time Collegewise counselor. A successful sales and marketing executive before turning her passion for working with teens into a full-time career at Collegewise, Jennifer has always had a knack for working with young people both on and off the field. She runs the softball division for her local little league in NYC and has coached teams of all different ages; she’s been deemed ‘Best Coach Ever’ by many of her athletes.
Two testimonials on the Collegewise site encouraged me:
Jennifer was not only so helpful and knowledgeable with logistics, and organizing things for me, but she also was so sweet and comforting, assuring me that I could get all the things done and I would end up where I was meant to be. I actually don’t think I could have done any of what I did without her. In fact, she helped me find and choose the college I’m attending in the fall.
— Kendall Kolenik
Jennifer is phenomenal: everything we needed and more. Her professional, tactical, informational advice, in perfect combination, was exactly what my daughter needed; her endless support and guidance for me as the parent was exactly what I needed. It sounds cliché, but I don’t know how we would have survived or if we would have had such a positive outcome without her.
— Jessica Brown, Parent of Rosa Brown, University of Georgia, Ramsey Scholarship
(Note: The Ramsey scholarship is one of the two most prestigious scholarships at Georgia
So we met. I probed. We had a laugh or three. And although she won’t be working with my daughter, she offered some time/money/sanity-saving suggestions. Not that my name will induce her to give you the codes to hack the ACT/SAT, but if you write to her — jennifert@collegewise.com — please tell her I sent you.
And…. breathe.
ALSO
A NOTE FROM THE EDITOR: As some of you know, I have expanded my editorial services to include helping kids with their essays, ideally, at the end of the 11th grade.
A NOTE FROM ANNE GOODRICH, HEAD BUTLER READER AND COLLEGE CONSULTANT
As a former corporate exec, now college admissions counselor at College Made Clear, let me offer a few thoughts on how to find someone to guide you and your student through the process.
1) Look for experience reading applications. Colleges often hire outside readers; nothing helps a counselor to guide students more effectively than knowing exactly what colleges are looking for.
2) Vet counselors through NACAC, HECA, and/or IECA: these professional organizations require members to hold to ethical standards, participate in continuing education and/or visit a minimum number of colleges yearly to stay current in their field. All offer search engines to find members in your area.
National Association of College Admissions Counselors
Independent Educational Consultants Association
Higher Education Consultants Association
3) The pricey companies offer the same services as those serving your town at more reasonable rates: guidance in choosing high school classes, helping to identify the right major, suggesting a list of colleges that would be a good fit (academically, socially, financially, etc) and herding your student through the application and essay. If you’re paying between $5k and $10k you’re probably in the ballpark; you will recoup some of that if your consultant is providing sound advice on how to pay for college by applying to generous schools.
4) Look for your consultant to have completed some counseling and admissions-related coursework. UCLA and UC Berkeley are the most common. Parents who have been through the process open a practice, thinking they have that necessary experience, but professional training provides guidance on how to handle the variety of challenges he or she might face.
What should you really look for? Competence and chemistry. This is a highly personal relationship. A level of comfort for the student is key. Ask friends for recommendations and then meet him/her in person, with your student.
And don’t wait until junior year. We can be much more effective if we meet in sophomore year. It’s never too late, but earlier is better to allow us to make a positive impact and get to know your kid.
