The complexity of college admissions

When I practiced law in a large Washington, DC firm in the 1990s, I worked with a brilliant tax attorney who solved intricate tax issues for large international corporations. Yet, he hired someone to do his own taxes. “Too complicated,” he said, half-seriously because we both knew he could figure out how to do his taxes. What he really meant was that it took too much time to do correctly. “I let the guys who do this for a living take care of it, “ he continued. “I would take 20 hours and then suffer about whether I did it right.”

So it is with college applications. Filling out college applications is not nearly as challenging as filling out taxes. But it does require a great deal of specific knowledge and since the consequences are significant, a significant amount of suffering.  For that reason, The Learning Consultants started College Counseling Connecticut.

One of our first clients, strangely enough, was a college admissions official from an elite college in Connecticut. But she noted that she was so steeped in the nuances of her particular college that she was worried that she would mess up the applications for her son’s other college applications She felt embarrassed. Then I told her my tax attorney story and she laughed.

So it is with the highly competent parent group in Fairfield County, Connecticut.  Most all have the capacity to master the college admissions process.  But the details and the importance in the process likely means it is best left to professionals.