This high school class should be the largest ever in U.S. history. Thanks to media hype, you’re probably picturing a record-sized horde of wired prepsters jockeying for spots in elite schools.
While you might have dashed off an application to the U in April of your senior year and been accepted, your child is more likely to undertake an exhaustive search process for the right “fit” that some parents find, well, exhausting. With the prevalence of online research and applications – the online Common Application is free and accepted by many colleges across the country – students have access to lots of information about lots of colleges. They’ll also attend college fairs, enroll in SAT prep classes, and generally sweat the process considerably more than you did.
At the same time, the majority of parents and students I know are coming to a saner perspective – that among the nearly 4,000 institutions of higher education in this country, they will certainly find a good fit.
Tom Hedberg of Minneapolis, the father of Brian, a senior at Southwest High School, believes that visiting college campuses is key to making an informed decision about where to apply or where to enroll if accepted. “Visiting gives you a sense of the people you could be spending four years with, and who could be lifelong friends,” Tom says. Although he and his wife Jenny are allowing Brian to “drive the process” of his college search, Tom organized a road trip to visit some upper Midwest campuses and suggested Brian accompany him on a business trip to Colorado to scout colleges there, too.
In fact, Hedberg is so convinced that campus visits are important that his company, Hedberg Maps, Inc., makes maps targeted to the burgeoning college-applicant demographic, including Professor Pathfinder’s U.S. College and University Reference Map locating 1,200 top colleges in the U.S. and Canada; regional college maps; a map of historically black colleges and universities; and more.
“There is simply no substitute for the campus visit,” agrees John Lawlor of Edina, Minn., whose firm, The Lawlor Group, is nationally known for brand management and marketing communications for private colleges and universities. While summer or spring break visits are popular because they’re often easier to schedule, he recommends finding time for an overnight stay while school is in session, at least at the student’s top two choices. Lawlor’s son Garrett, a senior at Benilde-St. Margaret, is applying to colleges this year.
Most students look to their parents to help winnow the prospects, Lawlor says. But where do parents turn? He says Minnesota ranks poorly for the ratio of college counselors to high school students.
Colleges are helping to meet families’ needs for access to information and the application process, said Lawlor, by sponsoring affinity marketing events or special visit programs for targeted groups of students interested in performing arts, the sciences, or honors programs, for example. They’re beefing up websites.
Margaret Shreves and Bill Marshall of Minneapolis hired an independent college counselor to help their daughter, Sarah, investigate the possibilities. The counselor met several times with Sarah and with her parents, then compiled a list of 40 colleges she felt met Sarah’s needs; for example, Sarah has moderate attention deficit disorder and preferred a politically liberal campus. The counselor also kept Sarah on track with test and application deadlines and suggested courses Sarah should take during her senior year.
The family then researched the schools in more detail and set up visits to seven schools in five days on a spring break trip to the East Coast during Sarah’s junior year.
“We set up a binder with a section for each college, maps, hotel reservations, materials. We had that with us on our visits,” said Shreves. “The counselor gave us questions to ask and we would write, write, write! Because when you visit so many [schools] you forget.”
Some students are beginning – and completing – the whole process before their senior year even starts.
Christine Hottinger of St. Paul, now a first-year student at Vassar, knew it was what she wanted as soon as she saw the campus on a tour with her parents the August before her senior year at St. Paul Academy, said her mother, Margaret. Christine applied early decision and was accepted.
Samantha Levering, a senior at Rochester’s Mayo High School, said thanks to “heavy parent motivation,” she’s already finished her applications to St. Cloud State University, the University of Minnesota-Morris, and the University of Wisconsin at Eau Claire and at LaCrosse, before Aug. 21 when band camp and cross country began.
“Get it done early,” advises Samantha. “All my friends are panicking now with all their homework, practice and other activities. It really feels good to not have to worry about that one thing.”
Kris Berggren is so-o-o-o-o glad she went to college in the early 80s when the stakes seemed a little lower–and the tuition certainly was.
