College Admission Help

College Admission Forum: Rethinking College Prep Costs in Tough Times

By ALINA TUGEND
New York Times

WATCHING our sons’ college funds dwindle to almost nothing, I am grateful that my older son is on his way to high school, not a university, this fall. Otherwise, we would not only be facing a staggering tuition bill, but we would also have to pay for what has become the obligatory precollege marathon.
Perhaps nothing, except the anxiety before the birth of a first baby, can match the concern parents feel about prepping for college. There is the same desire to control the process and fear that making a mistake can ruin a child’s future.
So I can understand the inclination to buy every product and service possible to cover all bases.
But if anything good comes from these stressful economic times, it may be that parents will be forced to rethink the idea that more is always better. Countless test preparation courses and dozens of visits to college campuses are not only expensive but can unnecessarily add to the frenzy already surrounding the process.
Providing good guidance is one thing, “but I think the amount of money people think they need to spend is out of control,” said Bob Sweeney, a counselor at our local school, Mamaroneck High School, in suburban New York.
Take my friend Edie, whose son is a college sophomore. She estimates she spent more than $10,000 before he even started college.
There was about $2,800 for a private college counselor, $150-an-hour SAT prep once a week in math and English (that’s $300 weekly) over about five months and visits to about 10 campuses.
“This is a rich man’s business,” she said.
My friends and I smugly tell one another that all we needed to be prepared for the SAT in the late 1970s were two sharpened No. 2 pencils. And campus tours? The first time I visited the University of California, Berkeley — one of two universities I applied to — was when I moved there.
But that was about three decades ago. I know that we will offer our older son more than a few pencils and a pat on the head, but I also know that we don’t have to indulge in every option in the quest to get him safely ensconced on a college campus somewhere.
I tried to figure out what we might spend. First are the essentials: college application fees (averaging $60 per institution) and fees for the SAT ($45) and ACT ( $31). Financial aid is available to cover these fees, if necessary. The best way to get more information is to ask your child’s school counselor or visit collegeboard.com for the SATs or act.org for the ACT.
So if our child applies to 10 universities — which seems unlikely but is apparently average in my part of the world — and takes the admissions tests a few times, we’re already up to nearly $1,000.
And that is not counting add-ons.
Parents and counselors I spoke with agreed that students should take at least one course to prepare for the SAT, if only to give them a sense of what the test is about and to alleviate anxiety.
National companies like Kaplan Test Prep and Admissions, the Princeton Review, Sylvan Learning and TutorVista.com, offer a variety of offline and online tutoring options at a wide range of prices.
For free help, check out Number2.com and the SAT and ACT Web sites.
Mr. Sweeney, who has been a school counselor for 21 years, said that parents should think rationally about why they are paying for test preparation courses.
“I’m not against prep tests — they can help give kids a certain confidence,” he said. “But I don’t see the need for students who are already scoring high. It’s like repolishing the apple. If your kid is getting close to 700, why spend thousands to get a few points higher?” The top grade for each section of the SAT is 800.
Then there are the campus visits, which can cost thousands of dollars if the colleges are across the country.
Tons of information is available online, including virtual tours, from the universities themselves and independent Web sites, like unigo.com, where students write reviews.
But parents, students and counselors agree that, if at all possible, it is important to visit a few colleges to get a sense of the culture that you can only get by being there.
There is another reason to visit: It shows interest, and colleges like to see that. It means you’re probably not frivolously applying with no real intention of attending if accepted.
But lots of people do not have the time or money to visit a wide range of schools. In that case, try to attach a campus visit to a vacation, experts say. Or visit after being accepted to decide where to go.
Now what about private college counselors? A lot of parents I know use them, even though they acknowledge that they could probably get the same information themselves or through school counselors.
But they like the security.
“The reality is, this is our first child, and it’s a comfort,” my friend Nancy said. “We’re trying not to get too stressed, but we want to do the best that we can for her.”
Alex Weiner, the owner and head counselor of Collegewise, a college counseling company that has branches on the East and West Coasts, said his counselors offer hourly assistance or a $2,995 package to do everything, including helping to narrow a list of colleges, staging mock interviews and helping to select clothes for interviews.
“We brainstorm ideas for the essays and spend time talking about what to write about — what makes their eyes light up, not what they think the college wants to know,” he said. Then Collegewise counselors edit (not write, he specified) the essays.
Parents who use private counselors also like the idea that someone else plays the role of police officer, urging their child to rework essays and submit applications on time.

College Admission Forum: Rethinking College Prep Costs in Tough Times