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Less Stress, More Success: A New Approach to Guiding Your Teen Through College Admissions and Beyond
Is your teen stressing over college admittance? Are you? Cowritten by a former top college admissions dean and a leading pediatrician, this first-of-its-kind book delivers strategies for surviving the admissions process while strengthening parent-child relationships, managing the stress of applying to college, and building resilience to meet challenges today and in the future.
Less Stress, More Success is just what parents and teens need to thrive during this important rite of passage into adulthood.
For Parents
•How to encourage true high achievement, rather than perfectionism
•Important dos and don’ts about the admissions process and how you can most effectively help your child
•Why and when some forms of “helping” undermine your teenager’s self-confidence and chances of admission
•How to turn deadlines into opportunities to learn time-management and organization skills
•How you can encourage positive strategies for handling stress and building resilience
For Teens
•How to evaluate campus culture to find the right fit for you
•Ways to manage your parents and your friends
•Tips for the college interview
•Letting your true, authentic self come through in your admissions essay
•How your body handles stress…and what you can do to feel better and stay healthy
Includes a Personalized Stress Management Plan for teens!
Less Stress, More Success is just what parents and teens need to thrive during this important rite of passage into adulthood.
For Parents
•How to encourage true high achievement, rather than perfectionism
•Important dos and don’ts about the admissions process and how you can most effectively help your child
•Why and when some forms of “helping” undermine your teenager’s self-confidence and chances of admission
•How to turn deadlines into opportunities to learn time-management and organization skills
•How you can encourage positive strategies for handling stress and building resilience
For Teens
•How to evaluate campus culture to find the right fit for you
•Ways to manage your parents and your friends
•Tips for the college interview
•Letting your true, authentic self come through in your admissions essay
•How your body handles stress…and what you can do to feel better and stay healthy
Includes a Personalized Stress Management Plan for teens!
250 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2006
1 person is currently reading
17 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
August 15, 2008
Say what you will about Marilee Jones - this is a great book. As an admission officer I have a natural interest in the subject, but I think anyone with even casual understanding of the high-stakes college admission world would find this book fascinating. Jones offers great advice for students about to embark on the college admission journey, as well as some ground rules for increasingly over-involved parents. An important read for anyone wanting to understand the psychological effects of the admission process on kids, as well as what we can do to take the stress level down a notch. Glad I read it!
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June 23, 2020For April book club (I'm only an hour late in posting it!), I read Less Stress, More Success: A New Approach to Guiding Your Teen Through College Admissions and Beyond. I decided to read this book because I am working with college-bound teens, and I figured it would be helpful to get a better handle on how I can help them, while also providing me with the perspective that their parents might have. I also wanted to see if there might be any ideas that would be useful in a class for next years' CTEP members (e.g. a class on using the CommonApp online college application form).
The book's core message is for parents to not become too overinvolved with their child's admission process (which, now that I think about it, is probably the right message for the sort of parent that would be motivated to pick up a book on how to "guide your teen through college admissions"). Not only might this hurt their admissions chances and make them ill-prepared for college, but also could stress out the teen to the point of causing health problems.
The book does a good job explaining why these concerns might seem like the right thing to do. For instance, it points out that parents have made unanimous decisions about where their children should attend primary school and perhaps secondary school, so it is understandable that they might also want to be hands on with college. It also addresses in detail the issue of living through your child. Indeed, much of the stress that is in the title of the book seems to stem from a parents desire to take the lead for their child in the admissions process.
The solutions presented in the book are to equip the teen to handle the admissions process on their own, while still being a resource if they request it. One of the big recommendations is to encourage teens to make lifestyle changes and not overcommit themselves or strive for extracurriculars "just because it looks good on an application," but instead encourage them to experiment with their own interests in their own time. There's also a big encouragement to help them get enough sleep and otherwise take care of their bodies.
There is also a section at the end designed explicitly for teens, whcih includes a personal stress management plan. I'm sure if my parents had given something like that to me, I'd probably scoff at it on principle, but it does do a good job of summarizing the points of the book in order to facilitate a two-way conversation with the parents.
Although the perspectives in this book were useful, especially in understanding the views of parents, this book is less relevant to my service experience than I had initially expected. Many of the presented root causes of college admissions stress among teens, and solutions to them, are lifestyle choices that I as an AmeriCorps volunteer have little control over. I think I would only recommend this book if any AmeriCorps volunteers wind up working with both teens and parents involved with college admissions, but otherwise there are better resources that can be read.
The book's core message is for parents to not become too overinvolved with their child's admission process (which, now that I think about it, is probably the right message for the sort of parent that would be motivated to pick up a book on how to "guide your teen through college admissions"). Not only might this hurt their admissions chances and make them ill-prepared for college, but also could stress out the teen to the point of causing health problems.
The book does a good job explaining why these concerns might seem like the right thing to do. For instance, it points out that parents have made unanimous decisions about where their children should attend primary school and perhaps secondary school, so it is understandable that they might also want to be hands on with college. It also addresses in detail the issue of living through your child. Indeed, much of the stress that is in the title of the book seems to stem from a parents desire to take the lead for their child in the admissions process.
The solutions presented in the book are to equip the teen to handle the admissions process on their own, while still being a resource if they request it. One of the big recommendations is to encourage teens to make lifestyle changes and not overcommit themselves or strive for extracurriculars "just because it looks good on an application," but instead encourage them to experiment with their own interests in their own time. There's also a big encouragement to help them get enough sleep and otherwise take care of their bodies.
There is also a section at the end designed explicitly for teens, whcih includes a personal stress management plan. I'm sure if my parents had given something like that to me, I'd probably scoff at it on principle, but it does do a good job of summarizing the points of the book in order to facilitate a two-way conversation with the parents.
Although the perspectives in this book were useful, especially in understanding the views of parents, this book is less relevant to my service experience than I had initially expected. Many of the presented root causes of college admissions stress among teens, and solutions to them, are lifestyle choices that I as an AmeriCorps volunteer have little control over. I think I would only recommend this book if any AmeriCorps volunteers wind up working with both teens and parents involved with college admissions, but otherwise there are better resources that can be read.
March 14, 2014
This book is published by the American Academy of Pediatrics, and as such is meant to guide parents through the admissions process in a holistic, thoughtful manner. Much of it is common sense- support your teens, make sure they get enough sleep, respect their needs, help reduce their stress, etc.- that you won’t find in other “how to apply to college” books.
If you're looking for insight into the college admissions process, this book is not for you. “Less Stress, More Success” is meant to help guide parents through the PARENTING PROCESS of the college search, and the authors do a good job with it.
As an aside, Marilee Jones is a terrific, engaging speaker. If you ever have a chance to see her give a talk or read anything else that she has written about the college process, I’d highly recommend it.
© 2014 Kristin N.P. Rappe
If you're looking for insight into the college admissions process, this book is not for you. “Less Stress, More Success” is meant to help guide parents through the PARENTING PROCESS of the college search, and the authors do a good job with it.
As an aside, Marilee Jones is a terrific, engaging speaker. If you ever have a chance to see her give a talk or read anything else that she has written about the college process, I’d highly recommend it.
© 2014 Kristin N.P. Rappe
January 10, 2009
Glad I read this BEFORE going on a college visit with my daughter. #1 advice taken -- it's about the STUDENT, not the parent, no matter how curious the parent may be. That, and how extremely fortunate I am NOT to be in the must go to top name college swirl so many others are in.
March 19, 2014
Really emphasizes the fundamental truth, college is for the student not the parent. Perhaps, too much so. Very repetitive.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews