Getting Into College

I was forwarded this article by a friend who was a victim of a costly college admissions counselor. I know you guys really want to get into a top college. However, there are plenty of blogs, internet sites on the web that can guide you without spending thousands of dollars on a counselor. Do your research? I’m not saying don’t pay for any information. I spent a few hundred dollars on books and sample essays when I applied for college, but that’s it. See below.

“A reputable, experienced counselor might, for a few hundred dollars, help a student compile a list of prospective colleges, or brainstorm topics for an essay. But others demand tens of thousands of dollars to oversee the entire application process — tutoring jittery applicants on what classes to take in high school or musical instruments to play, the better, their families are told, to impress the admissions dean.

Never mind that admissions officers say that no outsider can truly predict how a particular applicant might fare. “I guess there are snake oil salesman in every field,” said Amy Gutmann, the president of the University of Pennsylvania, “and they are preying on vulnerable and anxious people.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/19/education/19counselor.html?pagewanted=1

For those of you who are reading this and are a student younger than 13, BRAVO! You have one of the most important skills in getting into a top college: planning and preparation. For parents reading this who have kids under the age of 13, BRAVO to you too. A lot of people tell parents to chill out when it comes to prepping their kid to getting into college at an early age. They scold parents for being too controlling and let their kids just enjoy their childhood. The problem is the children who want to go to the top colleges probably would have appreciated their parents helping them develop a plan prior to their junior/senior year. There’s a really good book out there called What High Schools Don’t Tell You (And Other Parents Don’t Want You to Know): Create a Long-Term Plan for Your 7th to 10th Grader for Getting into the Top Colleges. Yes the title is long. I’m a firm believer that if you start young and plan young, you actually save yourself a lot of stress, heartache, time and money later on in your high school years. Planning early actually makes you find your true passion and excel in that passion, instead of hurriedly finding a passion that might look good on your resume but isn’t something you are good at it or even interested in. And we all know that when you are passionate about something, you are more likely to be successful in that something than something else you were forced to do because it would look good on a resume.

Below are the top 25 ranked colleges in the United States.

1. Harvard University

2. Princeton University

3. Yale University

4. MIT- Massachusetts Institute of Technology

4. Stanford University

6. Caltech

7. University of Pennsylvania

8. Columbia University

8. Duke University

8. University of Chicago

11. Darmouth College

12. Northwestern University

12. Washington University in St. Louis

14. Cornell University

15. Johns Hopkins University

16. Brown University

17. Rice University

18. Emory University

18. University of Notre Dame

18. Vanderbilt University

21. University of California – Berkeley

22. Carnegie Mellon University

23. Georgetown University

23. University of Virginia

25. University of California – Los Angeles

Source: http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/college/national-search

Lots of people think that if they get the best grades, the best SAT score and have a bunch of awards, they are guaranteed a spot to one of the best universities in the country. As you all know, they are missing one important element: the essay. But did you know that the first line of the essay is also just as important. Stanford magazine put out an article a few months ago with their favorite 1st liners. Take a look at the article and you can see a few examples of 1st liners that got these admissions officers hooked.

http://www.stanfordalumni.org/news/magazine/2008/sepoct/features/essays.html