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- Hello everyone, I'm Dr. Steven Mercer.
I'm an independent educational consultant,
helping students and families apply to college.
And I'm also an instructor
with the University of California,
San Diego extension college counseling certificate program.
So today I'm here to talk to families
and parents of students applying to college
to give them some advice on ways to support students.
Parents play an important role in this process.
But as I mentioned in a previous video
on some other ways that you can help support,
it's important to find the fine line
between support and taking over.
And it's important to recognize
that for students applying to college,
whether the coming directly from high school
or from a community college,
that the process of applying to college itself
from the very beginning stages
is part of the educational process.
So, my hope is that students have family members
who are there to support and let them lead.
To that end, I wanna talk about a few things
that family members should avoid
and should not do when thinking about
how they might support their student
when applying to college, these are some things to avoid.
One is obvious, but it's worth mentioning.
And that is, family members of any sort
should never write the college application essay,
should never fill out the application for the student,
should never contact the college
as though they are the student.
This may be obvious 'cause it's really just unethical.
But here's the thing I know,
as a former admission officer and as someone
who has talk with admission officers
over the years quite a bit,
I happen to know the admission officers are pretty smart.
And the bottom line is, when students have essays
that are not written by the student itself,
or when parents get in too involved
in filling out the application for the student,
the truth is as college admission officers know.
Now how do they know?
Well, they don't know for sure, but there are signs
and there are signals in an essay,
there are words, there are turns of phrase
that people use in a college application
that often signal to an admission office,
this was not something that filled out
by a high school or community college student.
And if that happens, if the college admission office
has even a doubt as to whether or not
the essay or the application itself
was authored by the student 100%, there's no turning back.
That application is likely going to face
a very hard time being successful.
So it's both unethical,
it sends the wrong message to your student,
and also it can backfire at the end of the day.
So I encourage folks, never, never,
never fill out applications and never write essays.
Another thing to avoid for families
who have a student living at home,
who are applying to college,
is to avoid constantly talking
about the college admission process.
There's one thing I know about adolescents is that
sometimes they feel that this parents bombard them
with questions every day
and they're overdoing the questions.
I find that students come home from school
and they have a parent member everyday asking them,
is your application done?
Where have you got accepted?
Have you been submitted?
What have you heard about colleges?
You know, this really kind of eats away at students
and it makes it more difficult
to have open and honest conversation.
So, a solution to this is to schedule a time,
perhaps weekly and make it a short period of time,
maybe 10, 15 minutes at home,
every weekday evening on a Monday for example,
and have that be college application time.
And what I say to students and families that do this is
during that scheduled time as a family,
all questions are on the table, family members, parents,
you can ask anything you want.
You can ask to see the essays.
You can ask to see the applications.
You can really get clear
and in a way demand the answers, right.
But outside of that 10 to 15 minutes, it's out of bounds.
Let the week go by, let the student focus
on getting their work done in school
and be social in their activities,
but save your questions for that short period of time.
And it lets the student know
that they're not gonna be bombarded.
They're not gonna be hijacked.
They're not gonna get caught unaware
with questions that put them in a tough spot.
And yet they'll also be prepared for that scheduled time
and be ready to answer their questions.
It's a nice way to give it some structure
and also make everyone feel comfortable.
Another thing to avoid in the process
is to avoid referring to the college application process
as we are applying, or we are taking the SAT
or we got accepted, avoid using the word we.
The reason for this is that
the student needs to lead this process.
The truth is you may be helping and I hope you are.
But you, the family member, the parent,
you are not applying to college.
By saying we are applying that starts to suggest
that the student is not in the control.
They're not in the driver's seat and to the extent that
the student can be, they should be.
So please let the student lead.
And by just a simple change of language
by not using the word that we are doing these things,
it starts to bring the focus appropriately on the student.
The final thing to avoid that I suggest
is family members should avoid assigning judgements
to college choices that the student has made.
And so what I mean by that is,
don't outright say, this is a bad college,
and this is a good college.
The reason I'm suggesting that is,
too often when people assign that label to a college,
what they're actually referring to
is a very limited judgment.
It has some merit, but it's very limited.
And that is in my experience,
that means it's not a prestigious college, right.
And that alone should not be the measure
of whether a college is a good college
for a student to apply to.
Rather the focus should be,
is this a good college for the student?
Or is this not such a good college for the student?
And as a family member,
you know your student better than anyone,
and you can provide good insight into the choices
that they might be considering.
If you have a judgment of a college
and you think it's not a good college for them,
say why you think it's not a good college for them,
but outright judging a college
and just saying it's bad or good only based on prestige
and not bringing it down to a specific reason
why you think for your student,
maybe they don't have a particular major,
or maybe it's a certain type of social environment
that you know your student doesn't thrive in.
They might want something a little bit quieter
or a little bit bigger.
And if you know something about them
and their college choice doesn't fit it,
then that's something to speak up about specifically
rather than a blanket judgment,
which takes the focus away from finding a good fit
for that individual student.
So those are my simple suggestions for things to avoid
in helping do our student apply to college.
I hope this was helpful, bye now.
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