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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I’ve been working at colleges for the past 30 years, and recently put my own kids through college. I think the biggest mistake parents make is taking their kids’ preferences at face value.

Like suppose a mother in the Philadelphia suburbs asks her 16-year-old son about his college preferences. And the kid says he wants to study English at a small private college in the northeast that is near a large city. It’s going to be tempting for parents to start checking out which small private colleges near big cities in the northeast are noted for their English departments.

But I suggest the parents try to dig a little deeper, and try to identify WHY the kid has those preferences. If they do, they might find that the preference for a small college is based on an offhand remark the kid heard from a teacher in 8th grade, something about at bigger colleges “you are just a number.”

Further digging might reveal the preferences for the Northeast and being near a big city are based on a friend’s boring visit to relatives in a rural part of Ohio.
 
And the desire to major in English might be based on a few favorable comments from English teachers in high school.
 
My point is that few teens make decisions based on an exhaustive collecting of information, a thorough analysis of that information, and a logical decision based on that analysis.

Complicating matters further is that most high school students are unfamiliar with many of the variables involved in a college decision. Sure, they all want good food and they all know what kind of weather they prefer. But beyond those, they are usually just guessing about whether they want urban, suburban, or small town. They are often uninformed about different regions of the country. They might have zero awareness of some of the major subjects that are offered in college. And they might not be aware that even at big universities, many of the classes are small, especially in the less-popular subjects.
 
Once the original preferences are explored, it might turn out that the kid who originally wanted to study English at Tufts might be better suited to study philosophy at Indiana U. or journalism at the U of 
Tennessee. 
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+ 1
Most parents overestimate their kids' ability to think objectively. Would you let them go to a showroom and buy any car they want? Kids need guidance and perspective.[/quote]
And that’s why you apply to 10-12 reaches and a mix of private T25; OOS flagships; T10 SLACs….
bc you have no idea where they’re going to get in, what the choices may be at the end of the day, and how the kid may have changed from May of Jr year to April of senior year!! 
[/quote]

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