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25 College Search and Application Mistakes Our Family Made That You Don’t Have To
I’m the father of two boys, one in college and one still in high school. This book started as an email message I sent to myself after our older son had chosen a college, listing things I wanted to remember to do differently when our younger son got to that stage. We - my wife, myself, and our older son - made a lot of mistakes during the college search and application process, some big, some little, and I didn’t want to repeat them all the next time.
In spite of the mistakes, in the end our older son was accepted at a number of good schools, and he had good choices. But getting there was stressful for our whole family, and it was also more expensive than we expected. It was expensive and stressful partly because we didn’t have a good grasp of the steps involved in finding and applying to colleges, and as a result, we often found ourselves scrambling to catch up and recover from yet another mistake we’d made or deadline we’d missed. But even if we had understood the process better, there were many gotchas along the way that would have been nice to avoid.
This book is designed to help parents and students avoid those mistakes and gotchas, by telling the story of how each one happened to us. This book is not an all-encompassing or step-by-step guide to the college search and application process, although it will give you a good picture of that process. This book is also not a list of 25 abstract do’s and don’ts; the lessons we learned are explained in the context of how we goofed, or did something right, and the effect that had on our son’s college search and application process, and on our family. I’ll explain the impact of each mistake, and point you toward resources that will help you avoid making those mistakes yourself. I also cover eight mistakes that we managed to avoid, and that you’ll want to avoid, too.
In spite of the mistakes, in the end our older son was accepted at a number of good schools, and he had good choices. But getting there was stressful for our whole family, and it was also more expensive than we expected. It was expensive and stressful partly because we didn’t have a good grasp of the steps involved in finding and applying to colleges, and as a result, we often found ourselves scrambling to catch up and recover from yet another mistake we’d made or deadline we’d missed. But even if we had understood the process better, there were many gotchas along the way that would have been nice to avoid.
This book is designed to help parents and students avoid those mistakes and gotchas, by telling the story of how each one happened to us. This book is not an all-encompassing or step-by-step guide to the college search and application process, although it will give you a good picture of that process. This book is also not a list of 25 abstract do’s and don’ts; the lessons we learned are explained in the context of how we goofed, or did something right, and the effect that had on our son’s college search and application process, and on our family. I’ll explain the impact of each mistake, and point you toward resources that will help you avoid making those mistakes yourself. I also cover eight mistakes that we managed to avoid, and that you’ll want to avoid, too.
58 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 27, 2014
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
May 3, 2016
Informative but it stressed me out just reading it
I found the section on test prep and timing, plus the section on college search most useful. The websites given throughout the book will definitely come in handy. Additionally, the methods outlined for figuring out the elusive EFC are appreciated.
I found the section on test prep and timing, plus the section on college search most useful. The websites given throughout the book will definitely come in handy. Additionally, the methods outlined for figuring out the elusive EFC are appreciated.
Displaying 1 of 1 review