Online Tools for the College Bound

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Ten Fantastic College Values Too Many People Probably Overlook

Beginning early last summer, our family embarked upon a labor of love to help Philip find a great value to study biomedical engineering. In the process, we came across some great values worth sharing with our broader readership. While you should certainly look at your state’s university system as well as prestigious private colleges that offer generous need-based and merit scholarship, here are some hidden gems that are also worth investigating.

A Landmine in the College Application Process

During the summer, Philip and I researched schools offering Biomedical Engineering programs and Philip likewise worked on his college essay. Going into the school year we felt like Philip was ahead of the curve with a short list of schools from long-shot to safety and everything thing else in between. We were on schedule to apply “early decision” to his Ingram University, as well as “early action” at Evans Tech when we were blind-sided by an unexpected obstacle.

What We Can Read While Washing our Hands

Philip and I arrived two hours early in Oxford Hills for a Sunday evening admissions presentation by Ingram University, which was quickly becoming Philip’s first choice and long-shot school. I had brought a book; Philip had brought Ingram’s large glossy brochure as well as an SAT Preparation guide. We ate a fast food dinner and then Philip asked if there was somewhere more comfortable we could wait. I selected the Oxford Inn which was just three miles from the upcoming presentation.

Nine Ways the Best Colleges Resemble Hogwarts

Despite the very silly-sounding name, J.K. Rowling’s Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry pulls at the heart-strings of Western culture and perhaps even taps into a deep primal longing. While Hermes High School will always hold a special place in Philip’s heart, my hope is that his undergraduate experience will prove to be the best part of his late adolescence. In short, I not only want him to earn an education that will launch him into a successful adult professional life, I also want him to spend four years at a place that resembles Rowling’s Hogwarts.

Selecting and Targeting the College Long-Shot

Less than two weeks remain of Philip’s junior year at Hermes High School. We now have the scores from his first attempt at the SATs and finals will quickly establish his grades and grade point average going into any early notification college application process.

While Philip is correctly focused on the home stretch of his junior year, I have been quietly compiling data on colleges. Amelia and I are pleased to see that Philip’s SAT scores came in high enough that he can be reasonably certain about getting into Sierra State University, so long as he does not screw up and delivers a well-assembled application early in the admissions cycle.

Important but Not Central

With Philip, a whole bunch of things are happening at once. In addition to his junior year of high school being filled with all sorts of important near-year-end tests and assignments, he needs to think about his lacrosse team, Prom, his driving test, the SATs, visiting colleges and completing the volunteer hours he will need to officially log with the school in order to graduate.

On College and College Visit Road Trips

A year ago, during Philip’s sophomore year, I took Philip on a tour of the local state university that is less than a half hour’s drive from our home. It has a beautiful campus, and has a respected biotechnology program which is Philip’s intended field of study. But the visit had only a small impact. This month, we have taken Philip to visit two schools a more substantial drive away. Between age and distance, we observed a much greater impact.

Two Very Different Honor Students

It was Philip’s first college fair. The Honors Advisor at Hermes High School had encouraged the Honor students in the Junior Class to attend. I took Philip and volunteered to give other students a ride. In the end, Philip was joined by just one of his peers: Evan.

I met Evan and his mother at Hermes High School the morning of the college fair. The contrast between Philip and Evan was immediate in their appearance alone. Philip was handsomely dressed in a new pair of jeans, an ironed but un-tucked button-up grey shirt and a semi-formal black jacket. He had showered with shampoo and conditioner plus and had combed his hair to perfection. Philip completed his look with a pair of dark plastic sunglasses. Meanwhile, Evan’s pewter-brown hair looked like it was washed only rarely with hand soap. His black t-shirt and tan cargo pants contrasted. His socks matched each other but not anything else in his attire. Philip’s clothing shocked Evan. “Oh … my dad told me I just had to wear something clean.”

Parents and Teachers Surf the Social Networks Too

The other evening I indulged Chloe by watching Easy A with her. In it, the movie’s protagonist, Olive, a high school senior girl who is perpetuating a false image that she is promiscuous, is shocked to learn that her favorite teacher Mr. Griffith not only knows about all the rumors circulating about her, but also knows just how pervasive those rumors are. How does Mr. Griffith know so much? Mr. Griffith tells Olive he reads his students’ Facebook posts.

Today, parents and teachers tend to fall into one of two very distinct tribes when it comes to the social networking revolution. There are the cyber-reactive and there are the cyber-proactive. The first group observes little more about their teens and their world than previous generations. The second group observes at least a hundred times more, albeit through a distorted lens. Likewise, teens fall into two very distinct tribes. There are the cyber-dabblers and there are the cyber-broadcasters. And there are many more cyber-broadcasters (especially among teen girls) than one might expect.

In his famous work 1984, George Orwell envisioned that hierarchical totalitarian governments would leverage emerging recording, networking and communications technology to forcibly pull very private details about individuals online for an elite few to observe. Orwell never would have guessed that this technology once mature would actually have the converse effect. Private information is pushed not pulled and the pushing is voluntary not forced. Cyber-broadcasters quickly and efficiently promulgate both gossip and their own very private information. Online, a parent or teacher can easily monitor the pulse of the goings-on among high school students thanks to these cyber-broadcasters.

Orwell’s Big Brother government was clearly doing something unethical because it was observing people’s private lives against their will. In contrast, there has historically never been anything unethical about observing what was broadcast in the public domain. But given how much seemingly private information and gossip one can now observe on social networking sites like Facebook and Formspring, are teachers like the fictional Mr. Griffith and parents like me violating an emerging ethic by proactively observing?

I recently struggled with this question. To be fair, I think there are many teens at Hermes High School who would be as shocked and disturbed as the protagonist in Easy A to discover just how much I have observed about them by simply browsing what they and their peers have disclosed online where I can easily see it. If their parents would object to these teens putting this private information online (as many do) would they likewise object to teachers and other parents reading this private information once it appears in the public domain? A recent interaction made me ask myself these very questions.

There were perhaps fifteen parents including me sitting at a large table at a Hermes High School event for parents of students entering the honors program. We were discussing the social networking revolution, how it was affecting our teens and what we were doing about it. One mother said she permitted her daughter to use social networking sites but required her to friend her mother. Another mother said she required her daughter to give her mother her password. And a third mother told the group she knows and uses her daughter’s passwords without her daughter knowing it. When the topic of Formspring and cyber-bullying came up, yet a fourth mother told the group she did not permit her daughter Oleta to use Formsping.

Yikes, I thought. Whether Oleta’s mother knew it or not, Oleta was a serious cyber-broadcaster who had a very active Formspring account that I browsed from time to time. I discovered Oleta’s Formspring account roughly eight months earlier. The chatter about Erica losing her virginity had just started to die down when Erica worked her way back into the center of online and offline gossip by hooking up with two separate senior guys at the same party. While Erica’s hookups on that evening were tame enough to be filmed for a PG-13 movie, they brought Erica a new wave of notoriety. And with that wave, more detail about that evening’s shenanigans emerged. The same two senior guys also hooked up with a second freshman girl: Oleta. And if that wasn’t enough fuel for gossip to embarrass Erica and Oleta, the scope of the girls’ bad judgment was highlighted further when one of those two senior guys was arrested for a felony just two weeks later.

Erica and Oleta’s Formspring pages lit up with cyber-bullying. Erica shut down her Formspring account for months. But Oleta decided to stay online and fight back. And I was extremely impressed with how Oleta fought back with tenacity, courage and grace. She admitted to exercising bad judgment but also made clear her recreational exploits that evening—though wrong—had been quite tame. Oleta further posted that she believed she had learned a valuable lesson from her own error and hoped others would learn from her mistakes. She seemed to never tire answering each anonymous and signed post to her Formspring account from the most judgmental to the most supportive. And over time Oleta’s efforts seemed to pay off because the supportive posts began to far out-shine the judgmental ones.

I expect it was around a month after the actual hookups when Oleta’s mother saw the posts, experienced her own Yikes moment, learned a little bit about Formspring and then forbid Oleta from using Formspring. But Oleta never actually shut down her Formspring account. Instead she simply went silent for a few weeks. Once she got back on, Oleta resumed her cyber-broadcasting lifestyle. I’ve particularly enjoyed reading Oleta’s posts on Formspring because she’s displayed an unusually high level of depth and insight, and she’s proven in my eyes that it isn’t just in made-for-television movies that a victim of cyber-bullying can emerge stronger and more confident. When chatting with her mother, I could see further evidence of her daughter’s admirable qualities for stepping forward to participate in the honors program.

Oleta and others like her are the reason cyber-proactive parents like me and teachers like the fictional Mr. Griffith see one hundred times more (albeit through a distorted lens) than today’s cyber-reactive and all previous generations. While I wouldn’t advise a teenager to gossip or disclose so much private information online, a lot of it was already out in the open in the traditional gossip-laden public domain of High School. Formspring provided Oleta a way to gain some editorial control of the gossip in a venue where she could defend herself on a level playing field and emerge triumphant.

Since thinking, Yikes and hoping my expression did not give me away at the parent meeting, I’ve come to the conclusion that I am not violating any emerging code of ethics associated with the social networking revolution. If it is online, associated in some way with Hermes High School or my son’s peers and I can get to it by clicking hyperlinks, I will probably read it. If it is relevant or interesting, I will probably remember it. And if it provides an excellent illustrative story to reflect on teen life at this moment in history, I might even publish an anonymous blog post that includes it. On the other side of the equation, I’m teaching Philip and Chloe to be very cautious about what the post online or even text to a friend, because I know I can’t be the only cyber-proactive person out there.

With all that said, not everyone agrees with me. Some would violently disagree. While Oleta’s mother is developing into a very good friend to me and proving she is a great parent to her daughter, I don’t plan to tell Oleta’s cyber-reactive mother that I read her daughter’s online posts any time soon.

When Teen Life Intersects Adult Life

Teresa has been a good friend to Philip. I first saw Teresa at an off-season lacrosse game under the lights in Oxford Hills during November of Philip’s freshman year. While Amelia and I watched the game, Chloe paired off with Teresa’s younger sister to keep one another company. As it turned out, Teresa had a “new” boyfriend named Steven and he was playing Goalie on Philip’s off-season team. Even though she was there for her boyfriend, Teresa still made sure to spend some of her time after the game chatting with Philip.

His First Summer Internship

Philip did not earn any money this past summer. But he did work. During his Spring Break from Hermes High School, he interviewed for a summer internship with an online advertising agency and was offered the position. As it turned out, the real value for Philip working as the lowest man on the proverbial totem pole was found in the simple day-to-day experience.

It started with his alarm clock going off in the morning and the need to be dressed and out of the house on time to catch the County Bus. His bus trip lasted more than forty-five minutes and included a layover at the County’s central bus station in both the morning and afternoon rides home.

Once at the office, Philip went to his cubicle a few feet away from the office where his boss worked. The cubicle included an office chair and desktop computer with an internet and network printer connection. There was also a phone at the desk, but it was never switched on. The only other item of note was a slightly used cork board. Philip’s primary job was to search the internet for information of interest and provide that information back to his boss or whoever requested the research.

The internet research was pure “intern” grunt work. But Philip’s boss also gave a more long-term and interesting assignment. His boss wanted Philip to create a blog on which Philip could place affiliate advertising. At first Philip had no idea what kind of blog to create. In fact, other than reading this blog, Philip had no absolutely no experience with blogs. As a result, Philip struggled. Unlike school, Philip’s summer internship had no teacher to show him how to do his assignment. But eventually Philip decided to blog on a topic he knew well: PC Games. There were plenty of PC Games out there and new games as well as updates were constantly being churned out. While he didn’t buy or even play many of them, he had access to no shortage of people who could give their opinion and provide Philip insight from their experience. With PC Games as a topic, Philip at least had a plan.

Probably the most interesting thing Philip did over the summer was renegotiate his hours. After four weeks of sitting at his desk from 8:30am to 5:00pm doing only three to five hours of research work, Philip decided that he would like to arrive at 9:30 or 10:00am and leave at 1:30pm unless there was specific work to perform. Philip wanted to visit the beach and enjoy his summer a little more. So after discussing the matter with me and Amelia, Philip brought up the subject with his boss. As one might expect, his boss was already aware that he and his colleagues were only able to hand so much work to Philip, so the new hours worked out for all parties. For half of July and his remaining weeks in August, Philip worked just a half day at the advertising agency.

At the end of August with the new school year close at hand, Philip had rough drafts for two blog posts but had not actually created his blog. At home with Amelia, Philip reviewed the rough drafts with his mother. I as a reasonably experienced blogger worked with Philip on issues like color, font and style. Philip decided on using the Hermes High School colors for his blog and selected a font that worked for him. With Amelia, he decided to keep his posts between five hundred and eight hundred words. On the Wednesday of his final week with the advertising agency, Philip published his first blog post. And on Thursday, he deployed Google’s key-word advertising service onto his blog. And thus, Philip completed his 1most interesting assignment.

Friday August 20th was the final day of Philip’s internship. He wrote his boss a kind good-bye note and provided a link to the newly deployed blog. His boss replied with an equally kind note and an offer to serve as a reference. While the internship was nothing particularly amazing, Philip gained a taste of the working world. As for his blog and future posts, only time will tell if Philip will stick with it, or end the blog after only a small number of posts. This blog, however, will continue with at least three posts per month for the foreseeable future.

Great Outcome, But Did I Over-Parent?

Perhaps this is a normal part of parenting a teen. But it seems like more and more often, I am finding myself undecided as to whether I am over-parenting. I still question whether or not I should have taken Philip to see his first R-Rated movie at age fourteen. I still question the degree to which I intervened in how Philip carried out his relationship and eventual breakup with Layla. And now, I question how much I intervened helping Philip to nail down his first summer job.

Summer is difficult for fifteen-year-olds. Fifteen-year-olds are too old for traditional summer camp, but not old enough for most jobs. And it is already difficult for teens to nail down gainful summer employment. Back when I was fifteen, I worked for minimum wage as a weekend pool attendant. That was a frustrating summer. I didn’t even work every weekend. The following summer when I was sixteen was even more frustrating because I was unemployed. I was hoping Philip would enjoy something better.

Philip had one huge advantage. He did not need any more income. He already commanded a high hourly wage refereeing. That meant he could work for free as an intern somewhere. Rather than going through the usual channels like the vocations office at Hermes High School, I decided to get creative. I thought about Philip’s actual skills and abilities and how he could actually deliver value in a business context.

I found my creative solution in the heart of leading-edge business creativity: An online advertising agency. The advertising agency was conveniently located a short walk from one of the city bus stops in Santa Carla. I knew the CEO but could not say I was on the best terms with him. This was going to be interesting, and it was going to be fun.

I first pitched the idea to Philip. In exchange for the chance to do interesting and relevant work during the summer, he would be willing to work for free or at most a modest stipend. The idea was simple. He would research, identify and at least partially qualify relevant youth-oriented websites for the agency’s clients to potentially place online advertisements. Philip liked the idea. But the hard part was ahead.

Next I contacted the CEO. Since the CEO was an avid user of online tools, I was able to contact him via instant messenger. “Hi Ken. Do you have a minute? I have a business idea that might have huge appeal.” When he responded favorably, I continued with my pitch. “My son is an honors student at Hermes High School. He earns $15 - $25 per hour refereeing, so he doesn’t need to earn any additional money this summer. He’s willing to work for free or for only a modest stipend in order to gain meaningful experience in a summer internship. We were thinking he could assist your advertising executives by doing research on the internet to identify high-traffic, youth-oriented sites on which to place advertisements for your clients.”

“Hmmm,” Ken typed back to me on the instant messenger. “Let me think about it as well as run the idea by a couple of my account managers. Give me until next Tuesday. Then message me again.” We had passed the first screen. When Tuesday came along, Ken agreed to schedule an interview for Philip. We scheduled it during a business day when Philip was on his Spring break. Philip dressed in the jacket, oxford cloth shirt, dress pants and dress shoes we had bought for him to wear for dances just three and a half months earlier. The pants were already so tight he could barely button them around his waist. I had shown Philip the advertising agency’s website and had explained how to handle an interview.

The agency was doing better than it had been the last time I had visited. They were in a new office that sported bright wall paint in the company’s color on the North and South facing walls. There were high ceilings and fifteen to twenty, seven foot trees in boulder-sized pots. Most of the staff members were in their twenties or early-thirties. The exceptions were Ken and CFO. In short, the place was hip – or whatever word Philip would use to mean hip. A recently hired account executive had been scheduled to practice his corporate presentation to his manager. Ken had Philip sit in on the presentation to determine whether or not Philip could grasp the company’s business model.

Philip passed their final screen and was offered an internship. It was a big score in his mind and in my mind. I expect Philip will have fun and will learn a lot. He’ll also get up to take up to two weeks off, so that his summer won’t be all work. Philip will need to regularly referee on weekends in order to maintain his desired teen lifestyle. But as a package it looks good. Still, I wonder if I over-parented. The internship was my brain-child, not his. I hope I modeled going off the beaten path rather than simply doing it for him. Time will tell. At this point in Philip’s life, when it comes to his success in life I am going to err in the direction of over-parenting.

No Summertime Blues

Besides babysitting, younger teenagers have little opportunity to earn money. This is especially true for boys, since most parents want a girl to do the sitting. Philip actually has a babysitting job. Rita, our friend down the street, pays him thirty dollars every other Thursday night when the kids are not with her ex-husband and she has her certification class. On a normal Thursday, Philip works from 5:00pm to just after 9:30pm to earn his thirty dollars. That works out to about $6.65 per hour. That is less than the $10 per hour most girls earn babysitting in Hernes. But given Rita’s kids are older (at ages nine and ten, respectively) he generally can do all his homework at the same time and once everyone’s homework is done watch TV that is age-appropriate for the nine-year-old, bur still reasonably appealing to him. And finally, Rita is a good cause.

For those who remember Rita from last Thanksgiving, her finances have improved as a result of some government-sponsored programs and taking a roommate, but she is not out of the proverbial woods just yet. This certification program will go a long way toward helping her attain a viable single mom’s income.

While babysitting has been a nice source of income for Philip, his truly lucrative job is refereeing. At twenty dollars per game to start, Philip is earning roughly fifteen dollars per hour. Like babysitting, refereeing is one of the few jobs available to younger teenagers. But it is not an easy job to secure. Officially, one can begin refereeing for pay at age thirteen. But the job requires certification, and the final certification exam is not easy. In Philip’s class, all the other fourteen year olds were taking the exam after failing it the prior year. Even some adults did not earn a passing grade. In Philip’s case, he barely passed. But barely passing was all it took.

Philip has taken on working for pay cautiously. In theory he could referee at ten games each weekend if he worked full days Saturday and Sunday. Gaining the experience would qualify him to referee in higher paying scenarios. But instead he chooses to only referee at one or two games each weekend. For Philip at fourteen, he leisure time is very valuable to him. His bank account is fat enough as far as he is concerned.

I am reminded of an old song called Summertime Blues about a teenager who cannot find a healthy balance between his job and his leisure time. In Philip’s case, he has no Summertime Blues.

A Special Evening

Thanks to the magic of social networking, I recently connected with a high school peer, Brad, who attended the U.S. Air Force Academy. Now he pilots unmanned aircraft over Iraq and Afghanistan remotely from a States-side Air Force facility. Brad has earned the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in the U.S. Air Force. His story is fascinating for all sorts of reasons.

And as it turned out, Brad was staying just an hour-long drive from Hermes this past week doing work on an advanced degree. The two of us agreed to meet briefly if possible during the week he was close by and we managed to make that get-together happen the other night. I brought my son Philip and his friend Joshua along.

With no shortage of digital flight simulators creating appeal for the life of a military pilot among today’s teens, both Philip and Joshua were curious to meet Brad, hear Brad’s story, and learn about careers in the military and the educational options available—especially the Service Academies. Philip’s career interest is engineering, and the engineering programs at all of the Service Academies are top-rated. The chance to be a military pilot would be gravy for Philip. In contrast, Joshua with his physical prowess and black belt is most interested in a long-term military career.

Riding for an hour with two fourteen-year-old boys was an experience all its own. They’d created a game for themselves called Stupid Americans. The game was simple. Each tried to outdo the other with a humorous one-liner about the silly things Americans think, say and do. Each one-liner was delivered with a mock-accent and always began with the words “Stupid Americans …” It didn’t take me long to catch on.

Philip was ready to make us all laugh, “Stupid Americans! They cut down the rain forests in order to get cheap cow meat!”

Then Joshua quipped, “Stupid Americans! They think black and white movies are ‘classics’!”

So I entered the fray from the driver’s seat, “Stupid Americans! They pay forty cents per minute once they’ve used up all the time on their cell phone plans!”

They laughed sincerely at my one-liner. But then I got serious, “Alright guys. This game is funny. But once we’re with Brad, no more using our country as the basis of jokes. Brad almost certainly knows people who have died for our country and has certainly risked his own life in service to this country. We’re about fifteen minutes out. Spend some time thinking about what kind of questions you’d like to ask him.”

Our evening proved better than I’d hoped. To begin with, Brad took us to a military pub that served especially good greasy spoon. Philip and Joshua each devoured their fish-and-chips. But the real value was delivered as Brad began to explain to the boys about careers in the military, about the military academies, what the boys could do to gain admittance into the military academies and the alternative path of the ROTC programs. He also explained the benefits of enlisting directly out of high school. (Brad felt some of the very best officers were the ones who began their military careers as enlisted men.)

It was an evening to remember, if for no other reason than the fact that I got to see someone I had not seen in twenty-five years. We took pictures of the boys with Brad and then me with Brad. And then it was time to go home. We dropped Brad off at his hotel and headed back to Hermes.

On the ride home, did the boys talk about all the interesting things they’d learned from Brad? Of course not! They went right back to their game of Stupid Americans.