The One Problem: Evelyn Jerome Alexander, Magellan College Counseling

Today, on The One Problem Interview, my guest, Evelyn Jerome Alexander is going to talk to you about College Admissions.

Hello. My name is Avil Beckford, and I started The One Problem interview. It's something that's near and dear to my heart. My guests come on and present you with one problem. We all know that there are many problems in the world, but they're just going to tackle one problem and it's a way for us to learn from each other. Now, today's special guest is Evelyn Jerome-Alexander. I met her last week on Lunchclub. It's a fairly new platform, and they connect people together. Now, Evelyn is the founder of Magellan College Counseling. I'm going to turn it over to you, Evelyn.

Evelyn Jerome-Alexander

Super, thank you, Avil. There are, as you said, a lot of problems in the world and there are a lot of problems related to college admissions. So it's going to be difficult. But I'm going to talk about one. And the problem is the student who doesn't get in anywhere, and I get a lot of calls in March and April every year from parents who decided to help their children go through their college admission process on their own, which is fine.

But they made mistakes which resulted in the student getting the not happy letters. And so the only problem with this problem is I can't solve it. Once we're there, I have to prevent it. And so I'm going to give you some tips to prevent the problem. And that means you have to start earlier than you think you want to start. And the reason that to me this is such a bad problem is when you get to the point where your child gets a whole bunch of rejection letters, college rejection letters, you're dealing with a very, very disappointed teenager.

And they're disappointed in themselves. And they feel like, and I've heard these words come out of people's mouth, they feel like all of that hard work I do in high school was for nothing. And the worst part of it is they feel like they've disappointed you, their parent. So in order to prevent that, I'm going to give you some steps that will hopefully result in getting better results. So the first piece of advice is you really need to build a balanced list [of colleges to apply to].

The One Problem Interview: Evelyn Jerome-Alexander,

Founder, Magellan College Counseling

Evelyn Jerome-Alexander

You hear a lot about reach, target and safe or safety or likely schools. Right. You really have to understand what we mean when we talk about that. And it's hard because if your child is a superstar, and this phenomenon happens mostly to people whose kids get top grades and top test scores, you have to understand that any college that admits fewer than twenty five percent of its applicants is a reach for everyone. No matter what grades you get, no matter what test scores you have, less than twenty five percent admit rate is a reach for everyone.

So that might change how you feel about your list already, right? If you have 10 reach schools on your list, that's basically like going to Las Vegas and gambling. So in order to balance your list, you need to use all the resources that are out there and you really have to broaden your view and realize that there are 2,200 four-year colleges out there. Now, where do you find them? There's a lot of resources you might want to use.

The FISKE Guide. It's this thick, it's kind of heavy. You can buy it used because guess what? Most people only need it for one year. Every school you look up in the FISKE Guide, there's a list of the overlap schools. So if I'm applying to Vanderbilt, where else might I be interested in applying? It'll give you some other schools to take a look at. The College Board has a college search feature called Big Future, and you can type in what your major is, what areas of the country you're interested in, what size of school you're interested in.

Evelyn Jerome-Alexander

You can basically just narrow down by that, and you will have many more schools to consider than you think you will have. The biggest piece of advice, to be honest with you, is start early, start in the spring of your junior year. I start working with students in the spring, in the fall of their junior year. Right. We start meeting monthly. And what we do is we take an inventory. I help the teenager introspect and really think about what kind of educational and social environment would make me happy and successful.

That's really what we're looking for. And as a parent, another piece of advice would be, don't assume that what you wanted when you went to college is what your child will want. So a lot of times we deal with parents where they say, well, my kid's going to apply to these schools because this is where I applied or this is where I went and this is where Dad went. So don't make that assumption. Have a conversation with your teenager about what they're really looking for.

Where will they be happy and successful? You have to keep in mind it's not all about ranking. I could go forty-five minutes, I promise you I won't Avil, but I could go forty-five minutes on why ranking is not the way to search for a college. You really want a picture like you're going to the supermarket, make a shopping list. Think about what your student, take a look at what they're really looking for and then go shopping for those things among colleges.

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Evelyn Jerome-Alexander

You might be surprised at what your child will prioritize for their college experience. Instead of looking at the overall ranking of the college, look at the department and the faculty. You will be shocked. I do this all the time, dig, dig, dig into colleges, if you want to be a biology major, dig into the biology department, look at the individual faculty and look at where they got their degrees from. You have Ivy League graduates teaching all over the country.

You have top twenty-five graduates teaching at schools you've never heard of. And so you have to start with a clean slate and realize that just because you haven't heard of it doesn't mean it's not a good school. The last piece of advice I want to give you is to just go in with realistic expectations just to understand how competitive the environment is these days. Again, even if your student is a superstar, a top student, be realistic about that list and finally celebrate all acceptances when that first acceptance letter comes.

It may not be from the school where your child will end up going, but you should throw a party that day because your child has been admitted to college. Celebrate every single one. I hope this is helpful. This is my advice for solving the I didn't get in anywhere problem. And I will throw it back to you.

Avil Beckford

Well, thank you so much, because you made me think of stuff I wouldn't think about, like digging deeper into the department and having, you know, I guess professors who are rock stars, and that makes such a difference. So that's some food for thought and I know that people will appreciate it. Thank you so much, Evelyn.

Evelyn Jerome-Alexander

Thank you.

College Admission Books for US

Fiske Guide to Colleges 2022
Fiske Guide to Getting Into the Right College
Fiske Countdown to College: 41 To-Do Lists and a Plan for Every Year of High School

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