Second-Guessing On College Admissions

There are no fundamental truths behind the college application process when the prospective freshman is your own child.

By Anne Macleod Weeks

After more than 20 years teaching Advanced Placement courses, being a college guidance counselor, and supervising standardized college testing, you'd think I'd have all the right answers for questions about college admissions. Yet, as I start out on the process of exploring college options and filing applications with my own son, now a high school junior, I find myself second-guessing everything I have come to know and trust as fundamental truths. Here, for example, are just a few:

So when my son mentioned, once again, that all his friends were getting prep work, I relented. And even though my logical side told me that spending an extra $13 to receive his December SAT scores over the phone was a waste of money and I was just buying in to the hype, I found my finger dialing that number and my anxiety building as I waited for the automated voice to confirm my greatest hopes or worst fears. Yes, the scores were good, but with a little extra work, maybe they could be stellar?

How can my son make his strengths stand out and look unique? Should I push him into courses that may not be appropriate or of interest to him, just to gain that edge on the transcript? Of course, I know the answer to this question. But then, how do I explain to the relatives that he'd rather take photojournalism than AP statistics, thus probably taking him out of the running for a highly competitive college? I am almost embarrassed to admit that I had...