Finding the right college can be like finding the right bottle of wine

Last night I was supposed to give this talk to a local PTO, but instead I got Covid and am in isolation. I’m publishing it here for them and any other parent. And since the wine here is only metaphorical wine, anyone is welcome to enjoy.

For at least the next few minutes, go back to the beginning. Pretend you know nothing about colleges or the college admission search. For just a few minutes, feel that overwhelming feeling of knowing nothing. You probably know more than nothing; you may already know a lot. But I’ve found that even ambitious, well-informed high school students are often overwhelmed with the search, and somethimes it just helps to go back to the beginning and make sure you’re thinking it all through.

Depending on how you count, there are four to six thousand colleges and universities in the US. Even if you want to narrow it down to “the best” schools, the US News rankings (which aren’t actually an objective measurement of the best) include over 1,400 schools. There are just a lot of choices, and if you don’t know what you’re really looking for, it’s overwhelming. So as a way to think about that overwhelming range of choices, I’d like you to think about another one, something completely different.

Imagine you’re going to buy some wine at a wine shop. So there you are looking for wine, and you know little about wine. Maybe you know nothing about wine. You certainly don’t know what you like. You know some of those bottles are better suited to your taste than others, but you don’t know which ones.

Say you’re in a hurry. You need to pick up one or two bottles of wine for tonight. You’ve been invited to a dinner party and asked to bring wine. But you don’t know anything about wine. A good wine shop will have hundreds of different wines to choose from. How do you choose? 

Expert advice. You can ask for advice from a store employee and hope it’s good advice. But it’s difficult for them to give you good advice if you can’t tell them anything about what you like. The most you can hope for is that they’ll tell you what some of their more popular wines are, or maybe some wines that are good places for beginners. But they have no real way of helping you find something you’ll like in a hurry. 

Ratings and rankings. There are magazines and websites devoted to giving scores and ratings for wine. Many wine shops will highlight the highly rated wines in their store. If you go with something that was rated highly by the Wine Advocate, then you know you’re getting a wine that somebody likes, though you may end up not liking it. You may have completely different taste than the reviewers.

Pictures. Like a lot of people, you can choose a bottle based on how much you like the label. Wine producers pay a lot of attention to their labels and make them as appealing as possible. You can’t judge a wine by its label any more than you can judge a book by its cover, but both will tell you a little it about what’s inside. But not much. To choose based on the label is essentially to rely on advertising and design, not the wine itself. 

Experience. You can go with what you know, however limited that is, by grabbing a bottle that looks familiar. Maybe you see a bottle that you recognize from a restaurant wine list or a friend’s house, and you go with that. Maybe you had a glass of it once and thought it was ok, so you go with that.  

Proximity. Why go looking through all the bins if you don’t know anything about them? Instead, just pick one that’s featured up front and get out of there.

Any of these methods for choosing a wine may work out. Most people in this situation will use a combination of several. But even choosing a wine with a good score…that the store employee recommends…with a great label…can still end up being something you hate. You’re kind of relying on luck that the bottle you pick, however you pick it, will be one that you enjoy. You haven’t got time to figure it out.

A lot of high school seniors pick a college the same way. For a variety of reasons, they haven’t given college a lot of thought or attention before 12th grade. They haven’t thought about what they want or need, just what’s “good.” And then they only have a few months to go through the application process. Seniors who want to pick colleges to apply to when they haven’t done a lot of research use the same methods as someone buying wine in a hurry without much research. 

Advice. There are plenty of people out there willing to give college advice (including me). But the less they know about you, what you want, and what you need, the less useful that advice can be. 

Ratings and rankings. There’s US News and World Report. And Niche. And Forbes. Or you can Google “Best college for ____” and see what you get. I’m not as anti-ranking as many other college admission advisors, but I know that their use is pretty limited. The ranking site’s criteria are not your criteria.

Pictures. Colleges will send you so many pictures: smiling students wearing backpacks walking across campus; crowds at sporting events; extremely small classes held outside. The schools send these pictures because they know they work—many students make very large, expensive, emotional decisions based in some part on the images that marketers send out.

What they’ve heard of. The reason I hear the most often for a student being interested in a particular college is because “I heard it’s a good school.” They can rarely tell me where they heard it.

Proximity. You can narrow down your choices to ones that are nearby. There’s nothing wrong with that, and there are a number of great universities here in town. But it’s a limitation you would only want to impose for reasons beyond limiting the number of colleges you have to think about.

Like with wine, these methods may work. Or they may not. It takes some luck. But there’s another way.

If you’re not necessarily in a hurry to get wine for immediate use, you have time to learn what you like and what works for you. You’ve got time to find the wines that are good for you, not good for the store employee, the wine magazines, or the label designers. To do this takes time and experimentation. If you’re just beginning, try the mixed case method recommended by wine critic Eric Asimov.

“The best way to start out, once you identify a good shop, is to ask for a mixed case of wine. Tell the merchant your budget and parameters, say, half white, half red, with two sparkling wines, or a few rosés. Or, if a case is too much of an investment, just get a bottle or two at a time. As you drink the wines, note which ones you like and which ones you do not. Keep in mind that you can learn something from every bottle as you begin to identify your personal taste.

When you finish, go back to the merchant with your notes, and ask for another mixed case with selections based on your reactions to the first set. Your learning journey has begun.” 

With time, you can use this method to experiment and refine. You can figure out what works for you, which may not be what you would have predicted before you began paying attention. You can get advice, but the advice based on your preferences and, more important, your actual experience. The mixed-case approach takes time and upfront investment, but it’s going to get you to a point where you know what you want and where to find it. It’s going to get you to a point where when you walk into a wine store you know what to do and how to get good results.

If you’re a high school student now, in the 9th-11th grade, you have time for a similar approach to college. Begin with a (metaphorical) mixed case. Look at some large public universities, some mid-sized research schools, some smaller liberal arts college. Check out some of the more unique and “quirky” colleges that are out there. Pay attention and take notes as you learn about schools that you may not have heard of. Then use that information to find more of what you’re looking for.

This is essentially what I do with the students I work with. After a few casual meetings getting to know them, I recommend a bunch of colleges to check out. It’s a mixed case, but larger—usually 30-50 colleges to begin with. I ask them to take some time—from several weeks to several months to almost a year, depending on their grade—to get to know those schools and to take notes on what they find appealing about them. Then from there we add and subtract more schools based on their research until we get it down to around 12 schools for applications in the fall of their senior year. The list we make is balanced, and it’s tailored to them.

Even before we get to that point, though, we’ll do a “blind tasting.” I will give them a chart with descriptions and lots of stats for four to six colleges, but I don’t tell them the names of the colleges. That way the students can’t be swayed by the reputations of the colleges and need to look at them more objectively. We walk through the charts for each school, and I pay close attention to what kinds of things really stand out to them. Some really pay attention to student-faculty ratio, and others don’t care about that. Some are more interested in student diversity than others. Some want to know that their chosen major is a popular one, and some look for schools with a wide mix of popular majors. This exercise helps me get a sense of what they like and what’s important to them before I begin recommending anything.

Here’s a generic mixed case to begin with. 12 schools total: three big public universities, three private research schools, three small liberal arts colleges, and three quirky schools. For any of these categories, I could easily choose 30 more. But these will work. Spend some time figuring out which ones you like, and why. It’s not important right now if you think you might apply to any of them. The point is to get a sense of what you’re looking for, and why. Use Niche, Big Future, Fiske, and the college websites. Then, start searching for colleges with similar traits that you’re looking for. Also, your research can help you find similar colleges. The Fiske guide lists overlapping schools for any in the guide, and Niche also lists similar colleges.

Colorado State University. Fort Collins, CO

University of Alabama. Tuscaloosa, AL

University of Wisconsin-Madison. Madison, WI

Case Western Reserve University. Cleveland, OH

Duke University. Durham, NC

Rice University. Houston, TX

Occidental College. Los Angeles, CA

Champlain College. Burlington, VT

Knox College. Galesburg, IL

Cooper Union. New York, NY

Colorado College. Colorado Springs, CO

Warren Wilson College. Asheville, NC

Let me give a warning about choosing a college based on your intended major. If you don’t know, don’t make it up. Around a third of college students change their major at least once, so don’t feel too sure of your major unless you’re really, strongly sure. If you’ve got no idea what you might major in, there are schools that are really good for that.

This is just a metaphor, and there are limits to how closely finding the wine you like is similar to finding a good-fit college. You’re not choosing one wine to be THE ONE. You can spend months and years trying many wines and finding a whole range of things you like. Most people, however, will only graduate from one college. That’s why early research is so important.

Also, at a wine shop, the price on the tag is generally the price you will pay. Not so for colleges. You don’t know what you can afford until you apply and are accepted. So while “affordable” has to be one of the final deciding factors, it doesn’t necessarily have to be in your early searches.

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this post, here are three easy things you can do:

1. Share it on your social media feeds so your friends and colleagues can see it too.

2. Read these related posts:

   Three things parents should stop saying to their children

   Two documents all students should understand

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Apply with Sanity doesn’t have ads or annoying pop-ups. It doesn’t share user data, sell user data, or even track personal data. It doesn’t do anything to “monetize” you. You’re nothing but a reader to me, and that means everything to me.

Photo by Angela Elisabeth.

Apply with Sanity is a registered trademark of Apply with Sanity, LLC. All rights reserved.

Expect surprises

In my years teaching high school seniors who were going though college admission, I learned to expect surprises. Several times I had fairly intense conversations in April with a senior trying to choose between two colleges. And on the May 1st deadline I would learn…that they went someplace completely different. I saw seniors celebrate in December their early acceptance to their dream school only to have very different dreams—and enroll at a very different school—in the spring. I learned never to consider a decision final until the student actually committed on paper. Even then, sometimes students will change their minds or do something completely different. When it comes to college admission, which is a very big, complex, and important decision, we should all expect surprises.

As a consultant, I often remind clients to expect surprises and not to be afraid of them. I’ve had clients begin the process in their junior year with a very clear set of goals, only to find themselves with a very different set of goals by the end. I’ve heard a shocking number of times: “I don’t actually know why I applied to that college.”

I had a couple surprises last week as I was checking in on people to see what news they’ve heard so far and what I can do to help them over the next month. One client initially told me that she’s not interested in going to school in the South, except maybe Florida. Still, I wasn’t too surprised when she told me a month ago that she applied to the University of Alabama. And this week she told me she’d been accepted to 11 schools so far, including Ole Miss. I didn’t know she applied to Ole Miss until she’d already been accepted. Surprise!

Another client had a plan. She was going to apply to UT Austin and Texas A&M, where she knew she would be accepted through auto-admission. She was also going to apply to Harvard and Cornell. And that’s it. Four schools: two assured acceptances, two long shots. So was I surprised when she told me this week that she was offered a scholarship at Auburn and is interviewing at Baylor? A little. But I’ve come to expect surprises.

Students, it’s ok to change your mind about things. People do it all the time, and you’re still growing and figuring things out. All that I ask about changing your mind and embracing the surprises is that you’re honest with yourself about your reasons. Self-knowledge is the best knowledge, and understanding your own motivations is honestly more important to your future success than what college you attend.

Take a (relatively) common example: the senior who gets accepted to an exclusive private college, one that they had as their top choice school, but ends up going to the less selective public university that’s much closer to home. They choose less prestige than they might. Why might a student do this? There are plenty of reasons.

A student might realize that they were only applying to the selective school to see if they would be selected, not because they actually want to go there.

A student may have known all along that they were unlikely to afford the private school but wanted to find out for sure. This student is fine with the decision.

Another student may have just assumed that a big scholarship would fall in their lap, and when it didn’t they changed plans and are very not-fine with the decision.

A student may have applied for the selective school with a major in mind, and then changed their mind about their intended major.

They may have visited the selective school and realized that the culture isn’t a good fit and not worth the extra money for them.

They may be experiencing mental or physical health problems that make being near home more practical.

They may be experiencing a major case of poor self-esteem and feel like they don’t deserve to go to the more prestigious school even though they were accepted.

They may change their mind and have no real idea why.

There are so many reasons to change your plan; there are probably overlapping reasons. But be honest with yourself. If what’s happening is that you’re scared of failure and so you’re setting yourself up for something that seems easier, don’t tell yourself that you’re changing your mind because of the dorms. If you’re freaking out because you now understand your family’s financial situation isn’t a stable as you assumed, don't tell yourself that you’re suddenly philosophically against private education. You can’t grow if you’re not honest about what the problems are. That’s really important.

You don’t have to tell everyone your reasons for changing your plan. You can always say of the school you enroll at: “it turned out to be the best academic, financial, and social fit for me.” And leave it that at. But if the reasons for your surprise move are things you need help with, you have to be honest with yourself so you can get that help.

Parents, keep yourself open to possibilities. When I talk to a student who doesn’t know what they want to major in but feel pressure to figure it out by their senior year of high school, it’s always their parents who are doing the pressuring. The reasons for the pressure are completely valid. It is indeed easier to choose a school suited to your field of study if you know what your field of study is. You are more likely to graduate on time if you go in with a plan and a schedule. College is indeed an expensive place to just explore interests. And yet you have to expect surprises. A third of college students change their major at least once. Forcing them to figure it out before applications doesn’t actually make things go more smoothly. When you’re helping your student choose colleges, focus on things other than fields of study and majors, especially if your child seems unsure. I don’t worry about clients who don’t have a major picked out. They’ve got a lot to discover and a lot that can go right. I worry a lot about clients who seem to have the next five years mapped out. They’re in for surprises, and there’s a lot that can go wrong.

Surprises happen, all the time. Those of us who see them over and over again are not that phased by them. Students going through the process for the first time, and especially their families, are often really distressed about it. Many high school students don't know what they want to do, what they want to study, where they want to be in the world. While I could share a bunch of exercises on trying to figure it out, instead I’m going to share the words of Zen Master Seung Sahn: “Good. Keep this ‘don’t know mind.’ It is an open mind, a clear mind.”

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this post, here are three easy things you can do:

1. Share it on your social media feeds so your friends and colleagues can see it too.

2. Read these related posts:

   Making a very important decision in a very difficult time.

   It’s not the choice, it’s how you explain it.

   Getting good advice from your family.

3. Ask a question—or share other resources—in the comments section.

Apply with Sanity doesn’t have ads or annoying pop-ups. It doesn’t share user data, sell user data, or even track personal data. It doesn’t do anything to “monetize” you. You’re nothing but a reader to me, and that means everything to me.

Photo by Zoe Herring.

Apply with Sanity is a registered trademark of Apply with Sanity, LLC. All rights reserved.

It's not the choice you make, it's how you explain it

A question I get often—from students, from parents, from strangers I’ve just met—basically comes down to “should I do A or B? Which is better for college applications?”

I can take AP Chemistry or AP Biology. Which should I take?

Should I take Calculus or Statistics?

I can take this really cool elective course or do one more year of baseball. Which should I do?

My daughter wants to quit the robotics team to be in the school play. Will this look bad to colleges?

My son wants to quit doing schools plays to try out for the robotics team. Will this look bad to colleges?

We’re thinking about moving high schools. How will this affect college acceptances? Does it raise red flags?

Can I take one fewer class my senior year to get more hours at work, or will that ruin my college chances?

My answer to these “A or B” questions is almost always “it doesn’t matter.” If you’re choosing between two good options, then you can’t go wrong. Pick the one that feels right to you and move on.

How can I say that these decisions don’t matter for something so consequential, and daunting, as college admission? For one, there is no secret set of standards and choices that colleges demand. To be clear, they do have standards. Take this example from the University of Oklahoma.

You can see that they require three years of math and recommend four. You can see that calculus and statistics are both things they recommend. You can see that they don’t tell you which one to take. If they really want you to take calculus and not stats, they’d say so. But they don’t.

A lot of our anxiety around college admission is this idea that there are secret expectations and rules. We love the idea of holistic admission. Holistic admission means that we can highlight our positive aspects and get credit for them. Holistic admission means that we’re not penalized for not taking a class that isn’t available at our school. Holistic admission means that our application will be taken within the context of our own life and not just a list of rules and requirements. We love all this…but we don’t always really believe it. Take a deep breath and accept it. There are no secret rules or requirements. You’re going to be accepted to a college—or denied—based on your whole application in context of your school and experience. You’re not going to be accepted—or denied—based on how well you guess what the secret rules are and adhere to them.

“Ok,” some of you may be thinking now, “I accept that there isn’t a secret rule about which option I take. But within my context, which would look better for me in a holistic admission context? Does it make my application look less polished, on the whole, if I switch from robotics to drama, or from debate to drums? What does it say about me?”

That’s a great question. I get it: “it doesn’t matter what you do” is unsatisfactory. Colleges accept some applicants and deny other applicants, so obviously “anything goes, don’t worry about it” is not a complete answer. So I say instead, “it’s not the choice you make, it’s how you explain it.” Because you get to decide what it says about you when you explain what it says about you.

Context matters, so explaining the context helps you out no matter which choice you make. Explaining your choice moves you away from a passive “tell me what to do” attitude and gives you more agency and control. It also highlights your critical thinking and illuminates your personality.

So don’t just focus on the choice, but the reason for the choice.

Even though I know that AP Biology aligns more with my intended major, I didn’t want to pass up an opportunity to take another class from a really great teacher with whom I have a strong relationship. I’ll be taking plenty of biology in college and don’t expect the AP credit to transfer to my college in the first place.

Even though I had to pass up another class with really great teacher with whom I have a strong relationship, I ultimately decided to focus on my intended major and take AP Biology. I can still talk to my chemistry teacher after school, but I can’t get solid biology instruction after school.

It was difficult to let go of a unique elective course to play baseball another year, but I’ve developed into a team leader and didn’t want to let the team down my senior year.

It was difficult to walk away from the baseball team I’d spent three years with, but I know that my future is more academic than athletic, and this elective course was the ideal place to start making that future real.

In all these examples, it’s not the choice that’s really important—it’s the explanation. By explaining your choice, you emphasize personal qualities and priorities. You are showing colleges your decision-making process and your values. Preparing for the future, prioritizing relationships over grades, leadership, and intellectual curiosity are all things that colleges value. All of these explanations, even though for opposing decisions, mark you as having qualities colleges are interested in.

The more the reason for your decision aligns with the qualities you’re trying to emphasize in your overall application, the better. If you write an essay about how personal relationships are the backbone of a successful life, but also explain that you chose the class that aligned with your intended major over the teacher with whom you have a strong relationship, then that does indeed muddy the application. If you explain that you chose the relationship over the curriculum, but then don’t have a letter of recommendation from that teacher, it can be a glaring omission. If you want to emphasize your leadership capabilities in your application but also explain that you walked away from a leadership position to take an elective class, that might raise suspicion. But again, it’s the explanation that raises suspicion, not the decision. Let your defining qualities and priorities guide your decisions, not what you think colleges want you to do. The more you do that, the stronger the application will be.

But where do you get to explain your decisions? In the most basic, literal way, where does that happen? Throughout the application. If it’s a really major and important choice, then it may even become the subject of your essay. More likely it’s going to answer a supplemental question and/or be something you make sure to talk about in an interview. While there probably won’t be a question about “explain why you took one class over another” on an application, there will be places where you have a chance to explain your choice if it needs explaining. Most application supplements even have some version of “is there anything else you want us to know about you?” That can be where you briefly explain a choice you think might need an explanation.

There’s a real possibility, though, that the choice doesn’t even need explaining. Once you’re thinking about your own needs and goals and not just what “looks good to colleges,” you very well may decide you have better things to talk about than being defensive about a single decision. As a basic guiding principle, realize that the bigger and more difficult the decision, the more likely you’ll want to be prepared to explain it. This class over that class, this extracurricular over that one—not a big deal. Moving schools, quitting a team, or drastically changing your workload in either direction will raise questions, though. Be ready to answer them fully and honestly. That really is the best thing, both in terms of college admission and in terms of being the best version of you possible.

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this post, here are three easy things you can do:

1. Share it on your social media feeds so your friends and colleagues can see it too.

2. Check out these related Apply with Sanity posts:

   How do I handle supplemental questions?

   What high school classes should you take?

3. Ask a question in the comments section.

Apply with Sanity doesn’t have ads or annoying pop-ups. It doesn’t share user data, sell user data, or even track personal data. It doesn’t do anything to “monetize” you. You’re nothing but a reader to me, and that means everything to me.

Photo by Angela Elisabeth.

Apply with Sanity is a registered trademark of Apply with Sanity, LLC. All rights reserved.

Seniors, are you still deciding on a college?

The deadline for most seniors to accept or decline most admissions offers is coming up soon--May 1. You may have already made that decision a while ago. If so, congratulations! But if you're still struggling to choose between two schools, or three schools, or seven schools or however many, then you may be looking for some help. 

At this point, I'm assuming that money probably isn't the issue. If you're stuck choosing between two similar schools where one costs wildly more than the other, then you're not really struggling to decide...you're just procrastinating.  Take the more affordable choice; you’ll be glad you did. I'm also guessing that if you're still struggling to decide, then a simple "make a list of pros and cons for each school" is something you've already thought of and found unhelpful.

First, consider all the stats. You’re probably already familiar with their acceptance rate, graduation rate, and basic return-on-investment data. But there are more things to consider:

What is the average daily temperature on September 5, January 10, March 15, and May 30? We all know, in general, that it's colder up north and warmer down south. But you'll want something more specific than that. What is the weather likely to be on your first day of class in fall, the first day of class in the spring, Spring Break, and the last day of class?

How much it will cost to get there and back? How long will it take? If you will be driving from home to college, how long is the drive? Will you need to stop overnight? How much gas is that going to take? (More on gas soon.) If you fly, how long is the flight? Are there non-stops, or do you take multiple flights? How expensive is that? How likely--and possible, even--is it for you to visit home during the year? How important is that to you?

What is the school's sophomore retention rate? That is, how many first-year students come back to the school for a second year? All the schools you're considering probably have similar rates, but any that are significantly higher or lower than the others should get your attention. To get a high retention rate, a school has to do just about everything right: interesting classes, helpful financial aid, and a reputation for being worth the cost and trouble. Take notice of which schools on your list do this better than others.

Is the school on the list of Top Party Schools? Every year Princeton Review ranks the top party schools. They also rank "Stone Cold Sober Schools," which is the opposite. Party sounds fun and positive, but keep in mind the way that these schools are ranked: "Schools on the "Party Schools" list are those at which surveyed students' answers indicated a combination of low personal daily study hours (outside of class), high usages of alcohol and drugs on campus and high popularity on campus for frats/sororities." If they were to re-title the list "schools that attract drunks who don't study" would it sound so fun and exciting?

Compare the size of the campus to the size of its home town. For example, Boston University, University of Southern California, and University of Louisiana at Lafayette have similar numbers of undergrad students. B.U. is in a city of almost 700,000, U.S.C. is in a city of almost 4 million, and Lafayette has around 127,000 people. Those are very different contexts.

How diverse is the school? What's the racial/ethnic breakdown? How much of the student body comes from out of state? How much of it is international? How important is it to you to have a chance to study and learn with people who are different than you and have different backgrounds?

How much is the price of gasoline? If you'll be driving, the amount of money you have to pay to keep your tank full can be quite different depending on where you are. Going to school in an expensive-gas state has a different cost of living than going to a cheap-gas state. Check here to know where the different areas are.

Ok, now that you have more information, here are some strategies for helping you make the final decision.

Go back over your college mission statement carefully. Decide how many separate factors are a part of it, and then see how many of those factors are met by each school. The one that comes closest to meeting all your factors is where you should go. If you haven't yet made a mission statement, it's not too late.

Maybe there's a school that you would like to consider, but it's a little outside your comfort zone. Perhaps it's farther away than you want to be, or larger than you'd want. Maybe it's an all-girls school, or a military school, or will make it your first time being in a minority. Go to that school!! You like it well enough that you applied, and they like you well enough that they accepted you. The fact that it's a little outside the norm for you is exactly why you should go there. This isn't the time to play it safe or delay pushing yourself. 

Practice explaining your final decision. For each of the schools you’re still considering, whether two or 10, write this sentence for each: “I’ve chosen to go to _____, because _____. I was also considering _____, but _____.” And then read those sentences aloud, a lot, to multiple people, and see what resonates.

What will your tie-breaker be? If you just cannot decide between two schools, what will you use to make a decision? Most people would use price, but what if they both cost the same? Will you choose the closer school? The larger school? The one whose basketball team has a better record? Will you flip a coin or ask someone else to make the decision for you? Seriously, thinking now about how to break a tie can help you understand a little better what your priorities are, and that can go a long way.

However you decide, once you've decided, really commit. Don’t look back. Donate all your free college t-shirts you got on visits and college fairs--even of the school you chose. Buy yourself a new t-shirt (or sweatshirt or bumper sticker or keychain) to make the symbol more meaningful. If you're still a member of any discussion boards or online groups for schools other than the one you choose, get off them. Throw away or recycle all the marketing materials you've collected. Delete all the marketing emails. 

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this post, here are three easy things you can do:

1. Share it on your social media feeds so your friends and colleagues can see it too.

2. Check out these related Apply with Sanity posts:

   What to do when you get waitlisted.

   Don’t pass up a full ride.

   Asking for more financial aid.

3. Ask a question in the comments section.

Apply with Sanity doesn’t have ads or annoying pop-ups. It doesn’t share user data, sell user data, or even track personal data. It doesn’t do anything to “monetize” you. You’re nothing but a reader to me, and that means everything to me.

Photo by Zoe Herring.

Apply with Sanity is a registered trademark of Apply with Sanity, LLC. All rights reserved.

Are AP classes really a scam?

Monday’s post had to do with choosing your high school classes with an eye to college applications, so I thought today I would re-share a post from a few years ago about Advanced Placement classes. Enjoy!

If you are a teacher—especially an AP teacher—or a high school counselor I’d love to hear your reactions and understand what I may be missing.

It's not too difficult to find people telling you that AP classes are a scam. That's usually the word they use, too: scam. Look here, and here, and here.

So, let's ask: are AP courses a scam?

In a word, no. 

Scam is a little overblown. Scam implies fraud and malice, that the College Board is knowingly selling something worthless just to make a buck. And that's not true. But if the critics were to change the headline to "AP programs are a lot more complicated than they're often made out to be," they would be right (even if it made for a boring headline).

Let's look at the main arguments brought against Advanced Placement and the College Board, and let's think about what they mean for you, the college-bound high school student.

1. You don't know what you're really getting. The College Board is pretty careful not to promise you that a 3 on an AP Exam will automatically earn you college credit, but that caution doesn't always make it down to the counselors and teachers at individual schools. Plenty of students are promised more than might actually be delivered.

Each college decides for itself what to give students for high AP exam scores. Some will indeed give you college credit for a 3 or higher; some will give you credit only for a 4 or 5, and some only award credit for a 5; some don't give credit, but will let you use the exam to meet course requirements; some give you absolutely nothing.

So imagine two students at the same high school, who take the same 10 AP courses over three years, get the same grades in those courses, and get 3s on all those exams. One might start college with 30 hours of credit and graduate a year early, while the other may see no change in college. What's really frustrating for a lot of high school students that the critics rarely take into account is that you have to take the courses and sign up for the exams before you know what college you're going to and what they'll give you for good scores. While I don't think that's part of the College Board's plan and a scam, it definitely sucks.

2. AP classes aren't as good as they're made out to be. This is often true, for a number of reasons. Perhaps the teacher is new or just isn't that good. Maybe the students are a lot more interested in making their transcript look good than they are in actually doing college-level work. Maybe the students aren't prepared to do college-level work. Perhaps the school set up an AP class without committing the extra resources to make it a good AP class. I've heard of schools that actually labeled classes as "AP" without instituting AP curriculum just to use loopholes in the state "no pass no play" rules for athletes. The College Board is aware of these problems, and has been trying over the years to address them. Teachers are supposed to submit syllabi for an "AP Audit" to make sure they're up to standards (although the College Board can't really check to make sure the syllabus is followed). The College Board also has systems to let colleges know if your high school actually has students pass AP exams or just labels classes as AP.

Pretty much everyone whole-heartedly agrees that an AP class, even a good one, doesn't actually replicate a good college course. But most people will also begrudgingly admit that a really good AP class can be a lot better than a mediocre or remedial college class. For example, for two years I taught AP English Language using the exact same syllabus I used to teach freshman comp at the university where I went to grad school. Same reading, same essay assignments. But I had almost twice the amount of time with students per week, and much more dedicated students. (Plus, we had time to read The Great Gatsby on top of the rhetoric curriculum, and Gatsby is always a good thing.)

There's also no denying that AP courses--especially math and science courses--cover too much breadth to allow for much depth. This makes AP teachers feel a lot of pressure to keep going and make it through all the topics rather than slow down for good discussion and time-hogging projects that could help student understanding.

3. There are opportunity cost for high schools. AP classes generally cost high schools more money than regular classes. Even if the schools make students pay all the costs for tests, the training for teachers and time spent dealing with the audit paperwork and compliance means that schools have to pay more. AP classes often have much smaller student/teacher ratios than regular classes. The extra money and desks have to come from somewhere, and they usually come from regular classes. So AP classes take resources away from students who may need more help graduating high school and give them to students trying to get college credit. Add to that the disparity between upper-income and lower-income students in most AP classes, and the whole AP program can look pretty unfair and backwards.

4. The College Board makes money. The College Board regularly makes more money than it spends, and non-profit organizations are really not, by definition, supposed to make a profit. They also pay their executives a lot of money--the CEO makes around $1.3 million a year. These are valid and important concerns, but here's the thing: they have nothing to do with you as a high school student. "The company really ought to be taxed as a regular corporation instead of a 501(c)3" isn't the same as "AP is a scam." If their tax status changed, their exams would not. But what about all the money you pay for tests? Shouldn't the tests be cheaper instead of paying the executives a fat-cat salary? There were almost 4.5 million AP exams given in 2015. If all the executives gave back all their salaries and worked for free, just because it's the right thing to do...it might save you a buck on your exam. The non-profit status of the College Board is an interesting problem for policy-makers and consumer advocates, but it really doesn't affect you as a high school student.

There are other points that critics make about the AP program, and this quick summary obviously lacks the nuance and detail of the whole argument. But this is the gist of it. And based on these very real problems, many people conclude that AP is a scam. So how should you feel about that?

Let's think about something completely different for a moment: cars. Cars make a good analogy.

Cars are dangerous. Around 35,000 Americans die each year in car crashes, and that's just the deaths. When you add major injuries and property destruction to the figures, you see that driving cars is one one of the most destructive , dangerous, risky things people do. And yet there are over 250 million cars in the United States. You can legally drive years before you can legally drink alcohol or even vote! Car companies advertise their products everywhere, all the time, and (usually) make a lot of money.

Are cars a scam? Of course not.

While driving is indeed very risky, it's worth the risk for most people. It's pretty hard to imagine modern life working without cars. Chances are that you've already been in at least one car trip today. The trick, of course, is to get the full advantage of cars while minimizing the risks. You have to drive safely.

For high school students, AP courses are similar. While not a scam, they come with risks, and you have to be smart about them. The sky is not falling, but you're not guaranteed safety either. There are things you can do to get the most out of an AP program without feeling like you got scammed.

1. Understand why you're taking AP courses, and be ready to explain yourself. There are plenty of reasons to take an AP course. If your reasons are more in the range of "it's a strong class at my school in a subject I care deeply about," then you're great. If your reasons are in the realm of "because someone said I should" or "it looks good to colleges, right?" then you need to do some more reflective thinking.  Explain to yourself and be prepared to explain to others why you are taking a specific course or not. If you elect not to take an AP course that's available, then you will need to be ready to explain that choice to college admissions. If it's a good reason that you can explain well, then you run very little risk of it "looking bad" to colleges.

If your reason for taking or passing over an AP course includes the word "just," stop and think through what's going on.

If your reason for taking an AP class is because you think it will make you seem more worthy, then stop and think through what's going on.

Going back to the car analogy: it would be pretty silly to choose a car based only on the fact that a magazine called it "car of the year." It would also be really expensive to decide that, because you don't know exactly what kind of driving you'll be doing over the next five years, you'll go ahead and buy a sports car...and a minivan...and a pickup truck...and a motorcycle. Be thoughtful and realistic about your choices, in cars and classes.

(Sometimes you have to take an AP class you don't want to take, or cannot take an AP class you want to take, for reasons out of your control. It happens, and it stinks. Everyone understands, if you'll explain the situation and make the best out of it.)

2. Consider the risks. What I consider the two biggest risks to balance when deciding on how many AP courses to take are these:

  *  for most AP exams in most years, about 40% of students only get a 1 or 2. Only 10-20% get a 5 (foreign-language exams have higher rates). Taking an AP course does not come close to ensuring you get anything for it from colleges. 

  * there are colleges who will not give you credit for AP scores, but who still expect you to take AP courses in high school. They do this not because they believe the AP course is a good substitute for a college course (obviously), but because they see AP courses as "the most rigorous" classes available, and they want to see that you avail yourself of the most rigorous. If I were going to point fingers at the scammers, it would be these schools more than the College Board, but that's for a different post.

3. Think about opportunity cost. For every AP course you choose to take, spend some time brainstorming about the opportunity costs. If not for the more demanding class with more studying, what would you be doing with the time and energy? If it's something productive that helps you achieve your academic goals, then you may well choose to skip the AP class. If there's a good chance you'd waste the time in whatever manner you waste time, then don't sell yourself short by missing out on the better class.

4. Don't be a part of the problem. The critics are right: in most schools, advanced classes get better-trained teachers with smaller student loads than regular or remedial classes. While there are sound arguments for why this is ok, there are also sound arguments for why this is unacceptable. If you're getting the most from an AP class and can be a more valuable and productive citizen over time, you can feel fine about yourself. But if you're taking up resources just to goof off, knowing you're not going to take the exam seriously, you're contributing to the problem. Sure, it's the system that makes it easy for you to take advantage of inequity; you didn't set up the system. But you're still a part of the inequity if you don't take your AP classes at least as seriously as your school does.

Schedule, study, and drive safely!

**Advanced Placement, Pre-AP, AP, and College Board are trademarks owned by the College Board, which is not affiliated with, and which does not endorse, Apply with Sanity.

**Full disclosure: over the years, I taught Pre-AP English 1 and 2, AP English Language and Composition, AP English Literature and Composition, and AP Art History. I've taken many many hours of AP training. I was a reader for the AP Art History exam three times, which means I was technically an employee of Educational Testing Service. 

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this post, here are three easy things you can do:

1. Share it on your social media feeds so your friends and colleagues can see it too.

2. Check out these related Apply with Sanity posts: Don’t just get into college, finish it. What are good test scores?

3. Ask a question in the comments section.

Apply with Sanity doesn’t have ads or annoying pop-ups. It doesn’t share user data, sell user data, or even track personal data. It doesn’t do anything to “monetize” you. You’re nothing but a reader to me, and that means everything to me.

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What high school classes should you take?

It’s only the beginning of March, but it must already be the time when high schools are asking students to choose their classes for next year. I say this because I’ve already fielded several questions this week about class choices. Which of these two AP classes should I take? Which of these electives is better? Which classes are better for my college applications? What makes these conversations fun for me—but really frustrating for the students—is that there’s usually no clear answer. They’re choosing between two high-quality classes, and which one is “better” is really down to their own preferences or the nuances of the classes; there’s not an objectively correct answer about which one will help their college applications more.

The general rule to follow is that you should take the most rigorous classes available to you. But that’s awfully general. It doesn’t necessarily mean you should take five AP course per year, and it doesn’t exactly answer “should I take AP Calculus or AP Statistics?” Assuming you’re already on board with the general rule, let’s give some more guidelines to help you choose the classes that are right for your path to college, but also choose classes that are right for your present situation.

The first guideline: choose your classes for doing well in college, not just getting into college. I know it’s obvious, but it’s also really easy to forget: getting accepted to college is the beginning, not the end. If your high school strategy is just to get accepted to college without thinking about what you’ll do when you get there and how you’ll do it, you’re really setting yourself up for a rough time. You’ve got to think about the bigger picture and your longer-term goals and aspirations.

One big way students fail to plan for finishing college and only focus on getting in is by playing The GPA Game. I’m sure you’re familiar with that concept, but I’ll give a specific example of what I mean. For a few years I was in the position of teaching two classes of English III for juniors and a single section of AP English Language & Composition for juniors. I also had two sections of Honors English III, which had the same curriculum as regular English III, but also included more reading and usually an extra project or two. The Honors class had the same grade point boost as the AP class; it was a five point class, while the regular class was a four point class. Sometimes I’d ask “why are you in this class instead of the AP class?” I’d get answers like “I’m in all honors classes, and I also have band practice for two hours a day, and I also have a job. I don’t have time for the extra homework that comes with the AP class.” That’s reasonable. I’d also get “I’m going to take Dual Credit English next year, which I know transfers to Texas A&M, but I don’t know what I’ll get from A&M for my AP exam score or if I’ll do well enough.” That’s reasonable. But I’d also hear “Why would I take the harder class when I get the same extra points for this one?” That’s The GPA Game, and it’s not as clever as it seems.

First, anyone looking at your transcript can see that you took the lower-level class when a higher level was available, and they’ll keep that in mind when assessing your GPA. Admissions offices don’t fall for that trick. Second, the honors class wasn’t nearly as strong for college preparation as the AP class. (I know this for sure, because I taught both.) And finally, we are what we continually do, and continually playing games and trying to be sneaky doesn’t make you into the person you want to be. If you’re planning on college and have the capacity for the more rigorous course, then take it. Even if it risks lowering your GPA. Even if you can coast along in a less rigorous class. Don’t play The GPA Game.

Remember, though, that there are completely appropriate reasons for taking the less rigorous course. It’s ok to think about your personal development and not just your GPA. It’s ok to think about your long-term mental health and not just your GPA. It’s ok to take classes that are interesting and/or useful to you, not just classes to maintain your GPA. If you start college burned out because you pushed yourself too hard to take too many rigorous classes, then you haven’t done yourself any favors. Likewise if you begin college filled with shame and self-doubt because you cheated and took shortcuts to keep up your GPA. If you begin college with an impressive resume but no social skills because all you did was study alone, college isn’t going to be easy. This is why you have to choose your classes for more than just looking good to college admissions offices. You have to think about how you’ll be successful as a college student, not just a college applicant. It’s far better to graduate from your safety school than drop out of your dream school.

The second guideline: choose the higher quality class. Here I want to distinguish between rigor and quality. When we talk about rigor in high school classes, that usually has to do with classifications. AP classes are considered more rigorous than regular classes. High Level IB course are more rigorous than Standard Level. Core classes are more rigorous than elective classes. Those have to do with general classification, but they say nothing about the actual quality of an individual class. Quality has to do with preparing you for college and life beyond. Quality has to do with the experience of being in the class, which differs from school to school, teacher to teacher, year to year. There may be a lower-rigor elective that will actually provide much more knowledge and wisdom than a more rigorous core course. Which class is higher quality is often only known at the specific school level. You know which classes are higher quality, and you have to trust yourself (within reason) to choose those classes.

At your high school, does being on the yearbook staff provide useful training in publishing and leadership, or does it provide a free period where you mostly drop someone else’s photos into pre-made templates? At your high school, is AP Physics a place to explore the workings of the universe with interesting discussions and labs, or is it a place to do endless multiple-choice practice while being berated for not having enough natural talent? Let the quality of the courses guide you, not just the rigor labels.

Thinking about quality classes is especially useful when choosing between different courses within the same rigor classification. For example, I got an email last week from a client asking if she should take AP Biology or AP Environmental Science. She said she might have room for both, but the scheduling would probably work out so that she could only take one. She’s hoping to go to vet school after college, or possibly into agricultural policy, so this is an important decision. Which is better? I didn’t have a clear answer. I said:

If all else is equal, then I would recommend Bio as the priority, and adding Environmental Science if you really think it's feasible to do both. However, if there are circumstances that make you think Environmental Science may be a better choice for you, then trust that instinct. For example, if you know that the AP ES teacher is good about lots of hands-on field work, while the AP Bio teacher is just focused on drilling for test prep, then definitely take the higher-quality class. Or if taking both means letting go of one of your extracurriculars that you're passionate about, then AP ES probably isn't worth it.

It wasn’t a clear-cut answer, but it was the right answer. She almost immediately replied that she would

go with AP Environmental Sciences, because the teacher facilitates more learning. The AP Biology teacher is notoriously cruel and generally bad, she doesn't have many kids pass the AP test. Unfortunately I can't do both, I have to take Economics as well.

Once I asked her to think about quality and not just what would look best on an application, she knew exactly what to do.

The third guideline: how you explain your choice is at least as important as the choice. You will have opportunities in your college applications to explain class choices you made or grades on your transcript. A lot of people only think about this defensively—if they had a low grade or got put into a class that they didn’t really want or think was good enough, then they can plead their case. But it doesn’t have to be that way. If you made a choice that you think might raise eyebrows, in either a good or bad way, then feel free to explain yourself. Let the colleges know how you think about things, not just the list of your choices. For any time when you had to pause to decide which was the better class to pick, be prepared to explain that decision.

Especially for the choices where there isn’t an objectively correct answer, the explanation will carry a lot of weight. Say you’re having a hard time choosing between one more year of soccer or taking a history elective that isn’t an AP class. “Even though I knew the history course is more academic than soccer, I decided to stick with my team for senior year because on the field is where I get to practice skills like self-discipline and teamwork that jut don’t happen as often as regularly in the classroom.” That’s compelling. “It was hard to say goodbye to my teammates, but I knew that if I was serious about going to college I needed to spend that time on more upper-level academic classes.” That’s also compelling. Either of those makes sense. “I’m good at soccer and get a lot out of it, but my counselor said it would look better to colleges if I take a history class I don’t care about, so I did.” That’s….not compelling. The explanation is a lot more important than the choice, and many times simply explaining your options to yourself will help make the choice much easier.

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this post, here are three easy things you can do:

1. Share it on your social media feeds so your friends and colleagues can see it too.

2. Check out these related Apply with Sanity posts: Don’t just get into college, finish it. Are Advanced Placement classes a scam? Questions from students.

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Apply with Sanity doesn’t have ads or annoying pop-ups. It doesn’t share user data, sell user data, or even track personal data. It doesn’t do anything to “monetize” you. You’re nothing but a reader to me, and that means everything to me.

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So NOW where do I want my kids to go to college?

About four years ago, I wrote a blog post about where I hoped my own two kids would go to college. I named three schools—Deep Springs College, St. John’s College, and Olin College of Engineering—but the main idea was that I picked those schools based on my own aspirations and prejudices, not anything to do with my kids. I warned students and parents to watch out for getting student goals too mixed up with parent goals. They often overlap, but they’re absolutely not the same thing.

My oldest is now a high school sophomore, so the “where do you want your kids to go to college?” question is a lot less abstract, and the consequences for my expressing too much of an opinion—or too little—can be much greater. So…where do I want my sophomore to go to college in two years?

The list is longer than three; there are around 25 colleges that would make me super excited to send my high schooler. And there are easily another few hundred that would make me happy. But now the list is based a lot less on my desires and lot more on my kid’s. They want a good school to major in mathematics, a low student-faculty ratio, and a small student population. Deep Springs, St. John’s, and Olin are all small schools with a great faculty ratio, but not as “math-y” as my kid wants. So my “dream school” for my kid has changed based on what they want to more closely align with their “dream school.”

That being said, I still have my own desires and blind spots I have to watch out for. For example, I don’t want them to go to Rice, because we live in Houston and I want them to go farther away from home. I also prefer a school with a strong humanities curriculum. I can say as much as I want that has to do with wanting a well-rounded experience for my kid, but we all know it’s because I’m a former English major and English teacher who wants my kid to take a lot more literature and art classes than they probably want to take. My kid’s probably going to be a full-pay student. I’m not necessarily looking for the least expensive option, but I’m going to make a big deal out of getting the most value for the money…even though I’m the first to admit that value is difficult to define.

There’s also a long-standing joke in our house that the kids can go wherever they want for college, as long it’s in a place their parents will enjoy visiting for a vacation. It’s just a joke—I won’t insist on California, the Rockies, or the New York City area. But man, I still hope they don’t end up in the rural Midwest.

I think I’ll be able to set my prejudices and aspirations aside and help my child choose the best option for them, but I know it’s going to take effort on my part. I have a lot of knowledge about colleges, and I have a lot of knowledge about my children. It would be irresponsible not to help guide them. But I also have my own interests that are separate from theirs, and that’s hard to let go of. It’s tricky work, and virtually every parent has to help their kid go through the same tricky work.

So what should families do?

Talk openly about the places where what the student wants differs from what that parents want. Make everyone aware of their own and each other’s dreams and blind spots. When it comes time to make difficult decisions, you can all keep each other honest and rational.

Identify dealbreakers for both parents and students. If parents have any “we will absolutely not support you going to _____ kind of college,” then they should state that as early as possible. For example, I worked with a student whose parents told her upfront that, although they could afford just about any school in the country, they were not willing to pay more than $40,000 per year. Nor would they support her applying for loans. So the student knew that she was welcome to apply to expensive private universities, but she would have to get scholarships to cover anything over $40,000. (She’s now at the much less than $40K University of Texas.) I understand that there are very few parents able to pay $160,000 cash for college, but it’s an example of parents making their dealbreakers known ahead of time.

I’ve learned over time that many students don’t have a strong geographic preference, but the ones that do don’t back down from those preferences. Students who say “I want to go to a small school” often end up at large schools. Students who say “I want to major in STEM” often end up with a humanities degree. But students who say “I don’t want to go to school in the South” don’t go to school in the South. If students have dealbreakers, they should make those clear.

Talk about money and understand what’s affordable. Every family has a line between “affordable” and “unaffordable.” The sooner you all know where that line is, the better. Affordability is likely to be the main factor for your final decision on where you go. So get the whole family used to that reality. But also make sure everyone in the family understands—really understands—the difference between list price and what you’re likely to pay. An admissions dean at a small liberal arts college once told me that they had students whose families could probably afford to buy the whole school, and they had students who literally couldn’t afford to go to the school if the school didn’t give them a full ride and pay for the bus fare to get there. The dean said it was important to have both kinds, and everything in between, for their mission. No student should decide not to apply to a college just because they don’t think they can afford it. But at the same time, no student should assume that a college will provide them with all the aid they need. You’ve got to spread a wide net.

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this post, here are three easy things you can do:

1. Share it on your social media feeds so your friends and colleagues can see it too.

2. Check out these related Apply with Sanity posts: Where do I want my kids to go to college? Three things parents should stop saying to their children, A good example of a family doing it right.

3. Ask a question in the comments section.

Apply with Sanity doesn’t have ads or annoying pop-ups. It doesn’t share user data, sell user data, or even track personal data. It doesn’t do anything to “monetize” you. You’re nothing but a reader to me, and that means everything to me.

Photo by Angela Elisabeth.

Apply with Sanity is a registered trademark of Apply with Sanity, LLC. All rights reserved.