“Bump, Set, Spike: Hitting the Target When Making a College Choice” 

Good afternoon. My name is Tom Kleese, and I’m a former college professor, high school teacher and coach, and Division II athlete. I now work as an educational consultant, which is somewhat like being a coach or personal trainer in that I help high school students (athletes and non-athletes, girls and boys) and their families successfully make the transition from high school to selecting the “RIGHT FIT” for college, including financial aid counseling, college selections and admissions process and admissions test preparation.  

The key benefits I provide are:

• saving TIME;
• saving MONEY;
• and providing FOCUS.

There are over 4000 colleges in the United States, but not all colleges are created equal. With more options available and skyrocketing costs, having an expert who can provide FOCUS into the RIGHT FIT is more essential than ever.

My goal for today is to use volleyball (the reason we’re all here today) as an analogy and give you some easy to remember takeaways that you can put to good use in discussing what lies ahead with your students. So here are my three steps for hitting the target…

STEP #1: The BUMP = Getting Ready for What’s Coming at You

For most families college is “something we need to start thinking about sometime”. Like taxes, root canals and other painful procedures, it easily gets put off until a time “when we’re ready” which almost never happens or is avoided until the pain is so bad you can’t stand it. And like that root canal, you try to minimize the pain and get it over with quickly…which is exactly the wrong approach.

But what you need to start doing now (if you haven’t started already) is put yourself in a position to better react to what’s coming at you. In volleyball that means a fast-moving object and in terms of college planning, well, there are no projectiles headed toward your face, but things such as the ACT and applications for admission tend to come at an alarming pace.

The best way to be in position is to understand the top-four strengths and experiences colleges look for:

1.      A rigorous high school curriculum that challenges the student and may include AP (Advanced Placement) classes;

2.      Grades that represent strong effort and an upward trend;

3.      Solid scores on standardized tests (SAT, ACT);

4.      Passionate involvement in a few activities, demonstrating leadership and initiative. Depth, not breadth, of experience is most important.

This last one is great news for all of you, because even if your daughter chooses not to play volleyball in college, an admission board will still love the fact that she has poured herself into something which she enjoys. That hard work is exactly what they want to see because it will transfer over into other areas of her collegiate experience.

Let’s recap the top-four strengths and experiences:

1.      Challenging courses;

2.      Good grades;

3.      Solid scores;

4.      Passionate involvement.

Preparing earlier just means you need to do less scrambling which will result in fewer bruised knees and elbows. And shouting matches.

STEP #2: The SET = Begin active planning now.

You don’t score with a set, but you can’t easily score without it. One of the services I provide early in the college planning process is developing a STARTER LIST of 5-7 colleges. This list is not about “colleges I like” – it’s a matrix of schools by institution type, size, location, academic programs, environment and extracurricular options. I work with the student to determine which of these variations contribute to or detract from the best possible college experience.  

TRUE or FALSE? The price you pay for a year of college is posted on the college’s website.  

FALSE! Colleges post tuition, room and board, and something called “Cost of Attendance” (COA) – but the price you pay is determined on a case-by-case basis and only after you’ve been accepted. Therefore, it’s best to keep all options on the table and not base your decision solely on sticker price.  

After you’ve done your homework and determined which of the schools on your STARTER LIST most interest you, then it’s time to expand – not narrow – the list to 15-20 schools, a.k.a. the BIG LIST. If you don’t like schools A, B and C, but do like D, E and F, then it’s my job to find D1, D2, D3…E1, E2, etc. In other words, schools that line up with your preferences but may offer you even more options and an ever better set of possible choices. Finding those is not easy.  

Now let me say something that is perhaps as important as anything I’ll ever say: Creating the RIGHT LIST involves hard-work, cooperation between student and parent(s), lots of research and a good deal of self-examination.

The WRONG LIST is easy and common, composed with such motives as:

• “My dad went there.”
• “My high school friend’s going there.”
• “It’s the closest.”
• “It’s the cheapest.”
• “I had a friend who went there and she said it was pretty good.”

“Pretty good”? For what you’ll pay I think we want more than “pretty good”.

STEP #3: The SPIKE = ?

Unfortunately here’s where the volleyball/college planning analogy ends, because there is no quick kill or easy score. Instead what you’ll face are more deadlines, more decisions to make, more things to research and plan – but when you’ve all done your homework and made the right choice, you’ll know it. It won’t feel anything like a snap decision or simply gut instinct.

Because I’m dedicated to helping families involved in this great organization, I’m offering a free one-hour College Prep Training Workshop to conduct a preliminary individual assessment and get you started down the right path toward the right list and ultimately the right school. This is done in your home and once again let me remind you…it’s free.

Parents, if you’ve been putting off this discussion – or if you’ve been trying to get traction but haven’t gotten the response you hoped for -- now is a perfect time to ignite the discussion. Thank you for your time and best wishes in the challenges that await you.