2 days ago
How To Help Your Teen Apply To College
Applying for college is hard. There's navigating financial aid, the common app, preparing for the SATs, alumni interviews, and plenty more hoops to jump through. It's no wonder wealthy parents are willing to shell out thousands to help their kids get into the top schools.
Unfortunately, most Americans don't have the resources to hire private tutors and consultants. And the high school counselors in charge of helping them are completely overtaxed: On average, for every counselor at a public high school, there are a whopping 376 students.
To level the playing field, Jon Carson started the College Guidance Network (CGN). The company partners with higher education pros and leverages AI to help students and parents every step of the way and help them make the best decision — whether that leads to a university, a trade school, or a gap year.
'Our mission is to democratize expertise,' he tells us.
We spoke to Carson about what parents can do to support their kids through this important stage of life, why fewer teens are opting to head straight to a four-year university, and more.
Carson: I ran the largest college advising company in the country, so I'm familiar with the space. About 6 percent of the U.S. market uses advisors, and they're quite expensive, but aren't often good. What we've built is guidance in a box: I think of it as Masterclass meets AI for college planning. We create a personalized roadmap: You tell us a little about yourself and your goals and interests, and we assemble checklists and detailed project plans tailored specifically to your needs. We also have over 375 nationally recognized experts to help parents navigate the ins and outs of the application process, how to afford paying for college, and thinking about ROI — which is becoming ever more important as AI starts to eat into entry-level jobs.
The ROI equation used to be highly skewed toward the investment piece. People were concerned about how much it'd cost and the loans they'd have to take out, but it was kind of a risk-free decision; all escalators went up. Now that's not really the case. It's become a much riskier decision. The percentage of high schoolers considering a four-year college is 45 percent — down 7 percent since the Covid era. A lot are going to community colleges, a bunch are doing gap years, the military's becoming more appealing.
The first thing — and it's completely understandable — is that parents get too anxious. They can be overbearing or just not quite their best selves. So, the first thing I'd say is that you have to calm down because it'll help you make the best decision. The second thing is that they need to be more inquisitive about how an institution will help their kid in career placement. I think too often parents place too much importance on prestige. You've got to pull away and think about this like a financial decision — and don't get caught up in the other things.
The earlier you get started, the better. We start our roadmaps in the ninth grade, and help kids start thinking about their summer jobs, how it'll reflect on their applications and things like that.
I'd also tell parents that they should have monthly meetings to have a space to talk about this. We did ours on the first Saturday of every month at 11 a.m. What that did was deescalate conflict, because it made them feel like I wasn't nagging them all the time, and we had a designated space for those conversations. The other thing is that parents and students should really think of themselves as a team. This is a journey that they're taking together.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
The post How To Help Your Teen Apply To College appeared first on Katie Couric Media.
