I’ve been remiss in not updating this section of my blog. It’s been fun posting about a parent’s perspective on my son’s search for the perfect engineering college. However, more importantly, has my advice found within these web pages worked for Erik? Here are our results to date:

• Michigan Tech – accepted
• Olin School of Engineering – awaiting action
• Rose Hulman – accepted
• Valparaiso – accepted
• WPI – awaiting action

So what does this all mean. If one applies early (Erik’s applications were all in by Labor Day), Midwestern schools tend to give quick acceptance decisions. Thus, as a family (not just Erik!) we’ve been thrilled that by early October he already had three acceptances, and some very nice academic scholarship offers. The two East Coast schools should be giving us some idea of Erik’s status in the near future. Olin is different from all the other schools. If one makes it to the next level, candidates for admission are invited to campus for an evaluation weekend.

Regardless, the process has been successful.

You could pay $40,000 to Michele Hernandez who is a fellow Dartmouth grad and a family college consultant, or read my blog for free! Michele was the focus of a recent Business Week cover story (Oct. 22, 2007).  The Business Week article starts with a quote from the college application essay of a high school senior whose family hired Ms. Hernandez:

"As I listened to my 8th period English teacher drone on for the third time about how Finny, a character in A Separate Peace, was indeed the main character although he was not the narrator, it finally dawned on me that this was not the exciting world of high school that I had hoped for."

Why am I such a bargain? Not only is my advice free, but I graduated from Phillips Exeter Academy … the prep school attended by Finny in "A Separate Peace" (not Devon!). Seriously, if you follow this advice … and some common sense, you can work your way through the college admissions process!

As I’m writing this blog post, my wife and youngest son (a high school senior) are driving home from a few days of college visits (Valparaiso and Rose Hulman Institute of Technology). During both visits, Erik received more personalized attention than other students visitors. Why?  Here is our process:

• Junior Year in High School: Make initial college visits. Key aspects of these trips are:
  • Visit different kinds of schools (urban or rural community, religious or not, small or large school, etc). Early in the search process, this is almost more important than the specific schools you visit. Always do your research and contact the admissions director by email or phone. Ask for a private visit. Get business cards of everyone you visit.  Insist that your child email "thanks" to each person with whom they talked. You are establishing a relationship with each school!
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  • If one parent stays home (with the rest of the family), hold a debriefing session immediately when your child returns home from the visits.  My wife and I prefer to meet at a local Applebees. The parent who accompanied your child on the trips and saw the schools also should at first remain silent. The idea is to get your high school child to talk! Based upon this feedback, we were able to point our children in direction of schools which fit their parameters (not ours)! Obviously, as a parent you still have to agree with their choices; this is part of parenting.
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  • Finally, pick your target schools and make some more visits. However, be realistic! If your child is not Harvard material, accept that fact. There are lots of great other schools.
• Summer before Senior Year: Submit all the applications to your target schools by Labor Day. Your high school senior will love you for insisting on this deadline, once he or she realizes it makes senior Fall that much easier! In addition, more scholarship money is available for kids who apply early.
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• Fall of Senior Year in High School: Visit the schools one more time. Contact the folks you previously met from each school. Let them know that your child has ALREADY submitted an application to their school, and that you are coming for another visit.  Ask to meet again.

This basic process has worked extremely well for each of my three children. Erik has already been accepted at two of the five schools to which he applied (nice scholarship offers also). Much to our surprise, at two of the schools we learned that Erik’s application was the very first one received for this year’s class of candidates. This certainly can’t hurt.  You want your child to become known!

Here is one final example of why I believe this process works. Yesterday at Valpo, during one of their college visit weekends, Erik received private tours from engineering faculty while almost all other visitors were given the large "group treatment". You might be wondering at this point whether my son is a whiz kid. No! While his credentials are very good, he is by no means national merit finalist caliber. However, the admissions department and engineering faculty knew Erik was very serious about their school.

If I’ve intrigued you with this post, read my other posts on the college search process. One final comment, we have an agreement with each of our children that unlike the attached graphic, one only takes four years to graduate. The message is: have fun in college, but education is serious. Parental funding ends after four years. The phone just rang; it was my son, Erik. Time to go meet my wife and him for another college debriefing session!.
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On Friday, while driving north to compete in the marathon, I listened to the 800CEOread podcast interview with the author of the book: How Starbucks Saved My Life – A Son of Privilege Learns to Live Like Everyone Else. I found the interview with author Michale Gates Gill interesting for two basic reasons:

1. The author reviews Starbucks leadership / management strategy, and specifically both employees and customers are important at Starbucks. All companies say this is true (i.e. both are important), but Starbucks lives and keeps this faith. If you are a manager, you should listen to this podcast soley for this reason.
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2. As an Ivy League graduate (Dartmouth) who did not come from a privileged background, I was intrigued how the author (a Yale graduate) had had everything handed to him in life, including jobs and promotions.

Expanding upon the second point (i.e. privilege). , Thursday I will take my son to visit Boston area engineering schools. Back in the mid 70’s while at Dartmouth, a young man (i.e. me) actually changed his career goals given his perception of privilege. Although I had planned on a career in government (political science major, math minor), it became obvious that my school friends who were from "connected" East Coast families would get job offers about which I could only dream. While I believed in myself, I also was pragmatic and realized my family’s roots in northern Minnesota and Central Iowa would not open any doors. Instead I used my math and programming skills to refocus my career aspirations where "privilege" did not play as important a role. I’ve enjoyed my technical career immensely, and have no regrets. Thus, Dartmouth gave the naive young man from northern Minnesota more of an education than he had expected.

My question in 2007, have the Ivy League schools changed? I don’t know the answer to this question. The cost of attending these schools is just under $50k per year. Given that a family like my own has trouble getting scholarship money (i.e. middle class), are the Ivies worth the price? If one attends a good school in the Midwest, the annual cost is around $30k. In addition, each of my children have earned academic and music scholarships which brings down the cost considerably below the $30k figure.

Oh well, Erik and I are visiting two engineering schools, including Olin School of Engineering which gives scholarships to every student. Dartmouth’s Thayer School of Engineering is not even on our visit list!
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Perhaps this post should have been … Web 2.0 and the College Admissions Process! Although the five schools to which Erik has already submitted applications are all fine engineering schools, two schools came to be on our list due to the "power of the web":

Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) made the list because Erik learned via the Lego Mindstorms NXT Blog of their new robotics degree. It shows that smart schools get themselves listed on "non traditional web sites"

A freshman from the Olin School of Engineering stumbled upon my first posting in this category,
and emailed me. Erik and I checked out Olin’s web site, and
given our experiences at the "big" schools, Erik eliminated MIT from our visit list and has already applied at Olin. Check out Olin’s student blog. It appears Olin has a unique approach to engineering education.

Finally, here are the five schools to which Erik has applied. This Fall will be filled with additional visits to all of these schools: (compare against initial list)

• Michigan Tech
• Olin School of Engineering
• Rose Hulman
• Valparaiso
• WPI

One common trait is none of these schools are huge. In fact, the personal approach that these schools give the students is amazing. While on trips to Purdue and Iowa State, we were one visitor among hundreds; however, at Valparaiso our experience was dramatically different. Professor Will from the E.E. department spent a significant amount of personal time with us on a tour. We were thrilled with Valparaiso’s virtual reality lab, and the obvious fact that undergraduates actually get access to this kind of stuff. This is in contrast to large universities where the resources were fantastic, but it was debatable that undergrads were the priority. TA’s are very involved in the engineering education process. Thus, our choice of smaller schools is by design … decided by Erik.