We're here!

I've already sent out a message to all current seniors and their parents in advance of this 'decision season' but I also wanted to make a blog post as we approach the final moments of the waiting game that is the college application process. This time of year is special because for a large chunk of seniors, it is when they go from hoping they will be picked to being the person doing the picking. It is a quite rapid (and sometimes overwhelming) shift, so if it is the position you find yourself or your child in, don't worry, your feelings are natural.

I always start by drawing attention to this gifts and challenges post that I wrote way back when this blog was in its infancy. I point it out every year because I think the message still holds true. This process is long, and can be exhausting, and can be confusing - but in the end, you'll survive it and probably be better for it. Whether you got into your dream school or are faced with fewer choices than you wanted, I'm confident in your success because I believe in you not in the name of the college on your diploma four years from now. Tape that on a post-it on your bathroom mirror if you have to. Repeat it to yourself as a mantra. In the words of Frank Bruni, where you go is not who you'll be.

While not quite over yet, this has appeared to be a year with lots of waitlisting. Schools do this as a way to manage their enrollment and maximize their stats (to ultimately help an obscure magazine sell copies). If you find yourself in this position, remember that you could always only enroll in one place. Twenty years from now, be it if you were placed on one waitlist or eight waitlists, you'll remember the place you ended up enrolling, not the places you didn't. There is usually no way to predict waitlist movement. Every year is unpredictable - that is, after all, why waitlists exist in the first place. A school could unexpectedly over-enroll (and thus not need their waitlist). A school could see deposits with a great gender imbalance, requiring them to fill beds in a dorms in a certain pattern. Instead of pouring energy into knowing if/when you'll get off of a waitlist - put that energy into two tasks. 1) Contact the college where you are waitlisted and give them a brief but sincere summary of your continued interest and any accomplishments that have happened since you've applied. Only do this if you actually are interested in attending that school more than every other place you got in. This isn't a competition for trophy collecting. If you want to stay on a waitlist "just to see if you can get in", even when you know full well you are picking a different college, please seriously reconsider your motivations. You are being unfair to the college and unfair to the other people on the waitlist who would be serious contenders to enroll. 2) Get excited about the places where you were admitted. Somewhere out there wants you. I'm a firm believer that every college can be a place for growth, social happiness, and academic inspiration. Having a negative attitude from the start is a recipe for trouble. This fall I told you you needed to like your likelys. Now is the time to walk that walk.

Yesterday morning, we had an awesome PTA meeting speaker named Sean Grover. While much of his talk was only tangentially related to the college process, I think a few of the things he brought up do connect to this process. First and foremost, parents/guardians please remember that your children notice everything about the messages you explicitly and implicitly send. If you aren't on board with your senior's college options, it will be hard for them to get on board. The train is leaving the station and we need you on it. Repeat in your household how proud you are of your kids. Even if you've said it before, say it again. Use words. Use actions. Use hugs. Let them overhear you telling your friends. You are building memories every day together. Make this final stretch of the college process a time filled with praise and celebration. Your final visits to admitted student days will be over in a blink of an eye. If you catch yourself bickering or feeling tense as a family, press reset and reminder yourself that this is going to be a big transition and both adults and kids need to be there for one another.

In closing, I don't want to fail to mention another elephant in the room. Money. College is designed to be an investment. In fact, it is designed (in a lot of cases) to be a pretty serious investment. As in the cost of an apartment (ok, an apartment in an outer borough, but you get it) kind of serious investment. Would you buy an apartment without seeing it? Would you buy an apartment without comparing it to the other apartments you could be buying? Would you let a person who can't even legally buy alcohol be the sole decision maker in buying an apartment? I say this because every year I see families who make enrollment decisions with total disregard to family finances. They don't even sit down and calculate the net costs for all of their options-- opting instead to just enroll at the 'best' school or 'first choice' school they got into. This is nuts! You filled out the FAFSA. You did the paperwork and the applications. You owe it to yourself to at least make an informed decision about the exact billed costs at each place and the exact amount of discounts (meaning scholarships, grants, or other institutional aid that won't be paid back) that you are being offered. This doesn't mean you have to pick the least expensive school. But, it does mean that you should at least be making an informed decision. If you opt to take out loans in order to go to a more expensive options, at least understand the exact dollar amounts ahead of time. Sacrificing planning for retirement to pay for school is NOT a smart idea. Enrolling at a second or third choice school in exchange for preparing for the future is not cruel. In fact, it might be the most benevolent thing a parent can do for their child.

Congrats to the Class of 2016! We're here!

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Thanks SUNY Oswego!

This morning I attended a breakfast at the SUNY Welcome Center on 42nd Street hosted by SUNY Oswego. I haven't visited Oswego in person, so this was a nice opportunity to learn more about the campus and offerings in a local setting.

Located right on Lake Ontario, SUNY Oswego stands out from the other 63 SUNY schools in a few different ways. With 6,900 students, it is right in that middle range size wise that allows for some degree of anonymity without finding yourself in massive lecture courses (the average class size is in the low 20s). Maybe one of the best things about Oswego though are the facilities. Sometimes SUNY schools can be criticized, not for the quality of their programs, but for the quality of their physical plant. Because of the timing of SUNY's expansion, the architecture and spaces can sometimes feel dated. At Oswego, they have had the luxury of renovating essentially the entire campus so that things feel modern and up to date. To attend a campus for $21,192 per year (with room and board included in that price) and find all the facilities renovated, it is a pretty nice option in terms of bang for your buck.

Speaking of price, Oswego has a very transparent scholarship system that where many ElRo students would qualify for automatic merit scholarships. A 93+ GPA and 1190+ SAT (Reading/Math) will garner students $4,700 per year, renewable for four years. That $21,000 price then drops to only a little over $16,000 and that is without need based grants like TAP or Pell factored in (for those that qualify for need based aid). When we are talking about minimizing debt, these kind of things are not to be overlooked. Oswego also has a room and board price guarantee where rates are locked in based on the student's freshman year. So there will be no increases in housing costs over the course of the four years. These kind of meaningful commitments to affordability are why in-state schools should be on the radar.

Admitted students to Oswego are invited to attend bus trips leaving from New York City. For more information, go to oswego.edu/bustrip. Round trip tickets on the bus include dinner and cost $36 per person.

I'm excited to have SUNY Oswego participating in this year's College Night at Elro (Save the Date: April 21) so if you want to learn more, I encourage you to attend so you can meet their representative in person.

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Thanks SUNY Cobleskill!

 On Friday, I went to one of the more unique college information sessions for guidance counselors that I've attended so far. It was a breakfast hosted at a Brooklyn restaurant by SUNY Cobleskill. The location and format was chosen because a SUNY Cobleskill Culinary Management graduate (and former NYCDOE student) is now the executive chef at the venue and they wanted us to be able to experience, first hand, the work of one of their students. It was a really cool way to connect the presentation to our work. (Not to mention, the food was really delicious).

SUNY Cobleskill is a technical school with 2,500 students located about 3 hours from New York City. SUNY technical schools offer both 2 and 4 year degrees on a residential campus. This has a slightly different feel than a community college (which tend to focus on serving their local county and have many commuter students). Most of the programs focus on hands-on learning (as opposed to, say, a strictly liberal arts college) and some of the degree programs are a little out of the ordinary. For example, Cobleskill offers training in things ranging from Turfgrass Management to getting a certificate to be a Paramedic. They also have traditional college majors like Business Administration and Applied Psychology.

Unique programs of note include:

• Their early assurance pre-med program - allowing students to potentially be admitted early to medical school (SUNY Upstate) after spending part of their undergraduate degree at either Cornell or Siena. For consideration in this program, students must have a 90+ GPA and a minimum of 1200+ on the SAT. 
• SUNY Cobleskill is on the forefront of the movement toward environmentally sustainable, organic, farm to table food production - all things that I think are gaining momentum right now. 
• The Animal Science program is a good fit for pre-vet students and there are on campus facilities to give students hands on access to livestock and large animals (something that is part of all Vet school programs). 
• For students interested in forensics, they offer a 2-year degree in Histotechnology - the science of tissue and forensic science analysis. 

All in all, this just goes to show the huge range of options within SUNY's 64 campuses. For students who learn best by doing, SUNY Cobleskill might just have the right mix of choices. Thank you to SUNY Cobleskill for hosting me!  For students interested in going to visit, they sponsor bus trips from New York City - look here for more information.

About That Redesigned SAT Experiment . . .

About a week ago, I was greeted in my inbox with a rather disappointing email. The College Board cancelled my SAT registration. Citing 'a new test security measure' -- which, by the way, is conveniently not listed in writing on their website and was not included in the email -- I was told that only students taking the test for its 'intended purpose' were allowed to sit for the March test.

I tried getting a hold of someone who could give me more information. I spoke to customer service representatives. I asked to speak to supervisors. I got lots of vague and unhelpful responses including but not limited to:

• The March test was not an "open" administration
• There was a security risk having people who were not looking to apply to an undergraduate institution take the test
• It wasn't about my age, they claimed not all older students had their registrations cancelled. (Considering I'm a college counselor and not a tutor or test prep employee, I find this hard to believe.)
• There will be no Q&A service for the March administration (Mind you, I hadn't paid for the Q&A service, unclear how or why this is relevant)

They told me that I could move my registration to May, but I'm not convinced they won't pull a similar last minute cancellation stunt then. I requested a refund and was then told that would involve going to my bank, which sounded confusing (has anyone reading this ever had to go in person to a bank to be issued a refund from a company?), so I'm still waiting on clarification on how that will work.  They actually never even responded to my appeal, I had to call them back Friday to even verify that my registration was definitely cancelled.

On a practical level, I'm disappointed with the SAT cancellation because I had genuinely been trying to prepare for the past two months for this test. I had been doing Khan Academy lessons diligently and while I certainly wouldn't say I'd been cramming, I had been regularly devoting at least two hours per week to prep and had sat through three practice tests online. I'm a adult who has been out of high school for over 15 years and I was re-teaching myself what a radian was. Trust me, there wasn't much residual fun for me during that process. It is annoying to have done that work for seemingly no benefit.

On a philosophical level, I'm disappointed with the SAT cancellation because I think a consumer who registers and pays money for something should be entitled to that service unless there is evidence to show they have nefarious intent. I also feel the burden of test security is on The College Board and the testing site, not on the test taker. If you felt adults taking the test were a security risk, put us in a separate room or seat us with extra empty desk around us. Or, better yet, considering this redesign was in the works for years, state a clear policy on testing rules well in advance of registration.

On an educational level, I'm disappointed with the SAT cancellation because I did honestly want to go through the motions of taking the test to better connect with  my students. I wanted to feel that same timing pressure. I wanted to toss and turn the night before the test and remind myself of those high school  memories that can be easy for adults to forget. I wanted to log in and see my scores with the same bubble of excitement/fear that I know my students feel. I genuinely wanted to see how much Khan Academy could move the needle on my score.

So, what was The College Board afraid of? Were they nervous that having journalists, educators, bloggers, and test prep tutors in the pool of test takers would make it easier for exam issues to be put out in the media? Did they suspect problems and want to keep only the most vulnerable people in the room to minimize collateral PR damage? I couldn't help but notice they had no problem sharing how much students 'liked' the new test after the school day administration last Wednesday. Were they fearful of outliers skewing the norming process? (If so, I'm not sure why they couldn't just pull our tests from the norming in advanced, considering they were able to identify us for cancellation). Was this always planned as a way to deliver another striking blow to the test prep industry? (David Coleman's original announcement made it clear that The College Board's partnership with Khan Academy was intended to cut off the test prep industry at the knees. Something, I should add, I might actually agree with The College Board about . . . )

One thing is clear: while the exam itself has been redesigned, other aspects of The College Board have not changed. This situation was poorly handled and can be added to the list of concerns I have about The College Board and their practices.