College Admissions Cracked: Saving Your Kid (and Yourself) from the Madness

by Jill Margaret Shulman

Overview

How to help your kid navigate the college admissions process — from scheduling standardized tests to writing essays — month by month, girlfriend's-guide style.

So, your child is a high school junior. You've heard other parents with kids older than yours whisper the word "college" like it was a terminal disease. You've seen their taut, maniacal grins as they try to hold it together. The process of weathering and conquering the college admissions process with a teenager is a daunting affair for many. Advice will pour in through friends, your child's guidance counselor, and your mother's neighbor's cousin.



Thankfully, Jill Margaret Shulman, a college admissions coach, application evaluator, college writing instructor, essayist, author, and empathetic parent, is here to be your fiercest ally. She'll guide you through the entire crazy ritual that college admissions has become, month by month, breath by deep, cleansing breath, until you drop your kid off at college where she will ignore your phone calls and texts.


Come as you are — whether chill or roiling with anxiety — and Shulman, along with a platoon of experts and fellow parents, will help you maintain your strength and sense of self-worth, so easily lost somewhere between your teenager's screaming, "I hate you! You're ruining my life!" and typing your credit card number into the College Board's website for the twentieth time.


You've got college admissions cracked, and now, this book has got your back.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780316420525
Publisher:	Little, Brown and Company
Publication date:	08/06/2019
Pages:	320
Sales rank:	1,039,826
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Jill Margaret Shulman is the founder of In Other Words, a college essay coaching service. She has spent nearly a decade shepherding high school students and their parents through the college admissions process and reading and evaluating applications at Amherst College and Williams College. Jill has also taught writing at The New School and City University of New York and written for the New York Times, Family Circle, Parents, Good Housekeeping, and O, The Oprah Magazine, among others. She lives with her husband and two children (whenever they are home from college) in the higher education mecca of Amherst, Massachusetts.

Table of Contents

In(tro)duction 3

Welcome to Anyone Navigating the College Admissions Process (Now or Ever)

I Fall of Junior Year: Five Things You Really Need to Hear Right Now

Chapter 1 The College Search Prequel 7

Survival (Whether or Not You're Feeling the Fittest)

Appropriate vs. Inappropriate Parent Involvement: Reality Checks

Broaching the "College Shopping" Topic with Your Teen

Becoming an Educated Consumer

Considering Outside Intervention: Options from Flyweight to Heavyweight

Translating Your Kid's High School Life So Far into College Admissions Data

To-Do List

II Winter of Junior Year: Five Helpful Mantras for the Winter of Our Discontent

Chapter 2 January 39

Everything My Clients Ever Wanted to Know (Though Perhaps More Than You Ever Wanted to Know) About Standardized Testing

SAT vs. ACT

The Ins and Outs of Athletic Recruiting

To-Do List

Chapter 3 February 65

Planning When and Where to Visit

How to Visit: Dos and Don'ts

Signing Up for Senior Classes: Rigor vs. Grades

To-Do List

III Spring of Junior Year: Five Fantasy Responses to "Where's Your Kid Applying to College?"

Chapter 4 March 93

March Winds Blow

Type-A Parents, This Is Your Moment to Organize!

Guesstimating Your Kid's Chances

Spring Meetings: When College Talk Is Released into the Open Air

To-Do List

Chapter 5 April 111

Surviving April Showers of Constant Interrogations

The Spring Break College Tour Extravaganza

Interview Tips for Introverts, Extroverts, and Everyone in Between

The Skinny on Recommendations

To-Do List

Chapter 6 May 132

Your Junior's Spring Fever and Stressors

Who Will Help My Kid with the Infamous College Essay and Everything Else?

Summer Activities That Look Impressive vs. Just Doing Life

To-Do List

IV Summer Vacation: Five Ways to Sneak in College Visits Without Letting Them Consume Your Summer

Chapter 7 June and July 143

Summer Campus Visits: A Cautionary Tale

Testing Your Patience

Time to Write (or Plan to Write, or Think About Writing) the Personal Essay

A Gap Year, or No Gap Year? That Is the Question

To-Do List

Chapter 8 August 161

Application Intel

Answers to My Clients' FAQs About the Common Application

Summer's End

To-Do List

V Fall of Senior Year: Five Dinner Table Topics Other Than College

Chapter 9 September 185

'Tis the Application Season

ED or EA or RD, Oh My!

Fall Meetings

Fall College Visit and Revisit FAQs

Finalizing the College List

To-Do List

Chapter 10 October 205

Submitting Applications

Facing the Dark Side: The Financial Aid Forms

To-Do List

Chapter 11 November 220

The Thanksgiving Challenge

To-Do List

Chapter 12 December 223

Early Notifications Coming In

Submitting RD Applications

To-Do List

VI Second Semester Senior Year and Beyond: Five Necessities for Your Kick-to-the-Finish Survival Kit

Chapter 13 Winter of Senior Year 241

And So We Wait

FAQs About What the *%$! Is Going On in Admissions Offices

To-Do List

Chapter 14 Spring of Senior Year 253

The Wait Is Over: RD Notifications Arrive

Making the Decision

To-Do List

Chapter 15 Graduation Through College Drop-Off Day 267

Emotional Pyrotechnics

And Then They're Off

To-Do List

Epilogue 278

Five Lessons from the College Admissions Process to Apply to Your Life

The Chill Parents' Revolution

To-Do List

Resources 281

Acknowledgments 287

Glossary of College Admissions-Related Terms You Can Never Un-Know 289

Index 299

Editorial Reviews

07/15/2019

Readers with children will find a good deal of useful information, along with a potentially irritating type-A parenting philosophy, in this primer to preparing teenagers for higher education from Shulman, the founder of a college essay coaching company. Readers will encounter discussions of SAT versus ACT tests, what a good score in either actually means, and how to reduce test anxiety. Ready to visit colleges? Shulman provides a helpful comparison of campuses, big and small, urban and rural, along with “dos and don’ts” for visits. Each chapter features mostly helpful “to-do” lists and other useful lists, such as the “Thank-you Note Checklist for Students” and “Strategies for Motivating Your Kid to Just Write the Thing” (i.e., personal essays). Some of the advice seems geared more to a second grader than a soon-to-be-college freshman (“When she’s not working, let her play”). On the other hand, “What to Expect on Drop-Off Day” will be good prep for parents used to thinking of that day as a long way off. Depending on where readers fall on the helicopter parenting issue, this book will seem either an invaluable guide to prepping teens for college, or a surefire way of making them eagerly anticipate leaving the nest. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly

"As a fun, practical, and, best of all, panic-free guide to a common rite of passage, Jill Margaret Shulman's College Admissions Cracked could not be more timely. Why our society insists on taking what should be just another step on the road to adulthood and turning it into an agonizing gauntlet is perhaps a question for another time. For now, take heart: if it is possible for a book to be a chill pill, pep talk, and roadmap all in one, this lively work certainly fills the bill."—Madeleine Blais, Pulitzer-prize winning journalist and author of In These Girls, Hope Is a Muscle

"Into the breach of the college admissions mania steps Jill Margaret Shulman with a game-changing guide to navigating and surviving the process. It packs the insights and strategies some pay a consultant thousands for into an all-encompassing, easy-to-follow plan. As comforting as it is comprehensive, it's the closest thing to a support group you will find. A must-read for parents wanting to help their college-bound student, while not losing their minds!"—Julie Lythcott-Haims, author of How to Raise an Adult

"Shulman's book is an invaluable resource for the parents and guardians of college-bound kids. In addition to practical, step-by-step considerations of the research, application, and financial aid processes, she offers a sanctuary of sanity in the often chaotic and stressful ethos of the world of college admission. Readers will benefit from her strategic tools, clarity, and good humor as they work to successfully support their children's best fit for college. It is the one book every parent embarking on the college journey with their child'should read."—Katie Fretwell, Former Dean of Admission and Financial Aid, Amherst College

"Sharp, wise, and witty, College Admissions Cracked is the crystal clear roadmap through chaos that you have been looking for and the welcome relief that you didn't realize was possible. If you have a kid who's on the path to college, this book is indispensable."—Daniel Lerner, coauthor of U Thrive

From the Publisher

Author and college admissions expert Jill Margaret Shulman, who narrates her audiobook, invites parents of college applicants to take a deep breath while talking them down from the ledge of the anxiety-filled process of getting into college. Offering well-detailed instructions for every step of the way, Shulman energetically instructs while attempting to inject a bit of humor and perspective into the proceedings. Though some listeners may be able to do with less of the "it will be okay, just breathe" tone (initially reassuring, eventually repetitious), Shulman offers sound advice, lists of useful resources, and a helpful timeline to keep parents and students on track. Often genuinely funny and never condescending, this listen will help parents stay grounded through the grueling trek of college admissions. J.C.G. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine

NOVEMBER 2019 - AudioFile

Author and college admissions expert Jill Margaret Shulman, who narrates her audiobook, invites parents of college applicants to take a deep breath while talking them down from the ledge of the anxiety-filled process of getting into college. Offering well-detailed instructions for every step of the way, Shulman energetically instructs while attempting to inject a bit of humor and perspective into the proceedings. Though some listeners may be able to do with less of the "it will be okay, just breathe" tone (initially reassuring, eventually repetitious), Shulman offers sound advice, lists of useful resources, and a helpful timeline to keep parents and students on track. Often genuinely funny and never condescending, this listen will help parents stay grounded through the grueling trek of college admissions. J.C.G. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine

NOVEMBER 2019 - AudioFile