Admissions

While attending college out of state could reap a better financial aid package, just the cost of visiting schools away from home can be burdensome. However, using online services can easily whittle down a list of a dozen schools across the country to just two or three.

Web-based organization connects prospective student-athletes and college coaches

New York, NY – July, 2nd, 2008 – Quiet Ember (www.QuietEmber.com) connects high-school student athletes, parents, and college coaches on a single internet-based platform by packaging the essential tools and resources to smoothly and successfully facilitate and enhance the college recruiting process. Robust web-based technology and a unique “Alumni-Athlete” program empowers student-athletes from all backgrounds to best market themselves while simultaneously offering college coaches unparalleled access to prospective student-athletes through easily navigable resources.

Used to be that parents packed up the station wagon, drove their son or daughter to college, unloaded the boxes, made the bed, shed a few tears and headed home. Today, colleges cater to parents with lengthy orientation programs.
Whether this relatively new phenomenon is a response to "helicopter parent" hovering or not, more information and services seem to be exactly what parents are craving.

For the full article please go to:
http://www.bnd.com/living/health/story/357834.html

A recent study by Helen Janc Malone examined the relationship between parental involvement and students’ plans to attend four-year college.

For the full article please go to:
http://throughcollege.com/blog/parent-involvement-does-make-a-difference...

A choice to attend a postsecondary education is one of the most important decisions adolescents make during their high school career. Institutions, activities, experiences, and individuals can all influence students’ college choice. Parents contribute significantly to that decision. Parents can be a positive influence on students’ college choice by providing support for higher academic achievement and postsecondary trajectory.

For the full article, please go to: http://throughcollege.com/blog/the-role-of-parents-in-students%e2%80%99-...

What is still considered a great high school honor does not carry the weight it once did with colleges, according to a national expert and recently released report. Locally, however, traditional benchmarks of academic excellence like class rank and valedictorian and salutatorian honors remain significant in the admissions process.

http://www.news-sentinel.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080604/NEWS/80...

Colleges and universities, selective or otherwise, should continue using SAT/ACT scores in their admissions process even if it affects campus diversity. Standardized tests are not a perfect measure of a student's ability, but they offer an acceptable method of universal screening that should not be discounted. To eliminate this admissions criterion, as Wake Forest College is planning to do, would be shortsighted and would possibly create a pool of students whose knowledge base makes them ill-prepared for college level courses.

Colleges should have figured out by now that the parents of schooled children are, by necessity, homeschooling college admissions. Parents take an interest, a profound interest, in everything associated with getting their children launched into successful futures, and when public high school counselors are each serving 250 or more students, parents are aware that they need to look out for their child's interests, because if they do not, who will?

For the full article, please go to:

San Francisco Chronicle
Joanne Levy-Prewitt
Sunday, December 2, 2007

College Bound
A weekly guide to higher education

Question: My wife and I are guardians of our grandson, a sophomore in high school. He plays football and, despite several moves and family turmoil in the past few years, gets good grades. An acquaintance told us that to get into college, our grandson must do more, such as do civic volunteer work, be active in our church, or play multiple sports. She suggested he get a job after school, too.

As reported by Susan Hallenbeck:
I gave a presentation (as well as I could, given that I had laryngitis and only about 20% of my voice) at the AACRAO SEM conference this week on the impact of the coming generation of parents on college admissions, customer service, and other topics related to higher education.

According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, NACAC members voted to reverse a policy approved at last year’s meeting that would have prevented colleges from making admissions offers to students before Sept. 15 of their senior year in high school, reports The Chronicle of Higher Education.

The new policy will allow colleges to notify students of acceptance upon receiving a transcript that “reflects completion of the final semester of junior year of high school or the equivalent.”

Today's Wall Street Journal outlines a new trend in corporate America - admissions help for employees' families. The programs include: a help desk to answer questions from employees or their children on such things as the college essay to applying for financial aid, individual counseling sessions and an overview of college admissions tests such as the SAT and ACT.

Read the article

What are the psychological implications of college admission for both parent and child? The college admission process is seen as a testing ground of fears about incomplete or inadequate child rearing, and its impact on parents of separation from their children.
Read the article at ParentsAssociation.com: "College Admissions: Failed Rite of Passage"

If we could harness anxiety as an alternate power source, the lights in the New York Times' auditorium would have been ablaze last week, as hundreds of fretful parents of high schoolers convened for an expert panel on the proximate cause of their angst: the college admissions process. The Times had gathered together two reporters, an editor, and the young winner of the paper's college essay contest, and had quickly sold out the hall to people who clearly hoped for some kind of insider information that would give their seniors an edge.

University Parent Media hosted two lunches during the NACAC Conference in Austin to discuss "Parents in the Admissions Process."

We discussed the following topics:

• What impact do parents have on driving the admissions process?
• How can you encourage parents to play a balanced role in their students' institution selection?
• How can you engage "parents as partners" during admissions events?

This blog is intended to keep the dialogue rolling. Please check back often for further coverage on college parents.