Subscribe to my newsletter to hear about my latest projects, life updates, strategy tips, and other trends I'm closely watching. I'll try and keep it brief.

Newsletter Updates

Posts

If you like what you see here and want to support my work, please leave a donation.

Buy Me a Coffee

LinkedIn

Twitter

Substack

Young Creators Studio

Dashcam Festival

Instagram

Links

Events

We'll get some exercise and get the blood flowing with a stroll starting at Clark Park near Lane Tech. We will also have a special guest who will be taking your burning questions about college for 2022.  Spots are limited, so RSVP now! In case of inclement weather, we will meet at a nearby indoor venue.

College Q&A

Let's take a short hike and get to know each other better. Remote attendees can join via app.

Walk and Talk beta

This event will be hosted on Twitter Spaces live audio platform. Please follow the event creator for notification when the Space goes live on the 27th. The event will be a panel discussion with IL computer science educators and leaders to discuss the future of CS in Illinois and beyond.

Computer Science Education in Illinois and Beyond

Special limited networking event for independent professional creators. Let’s chat about our individual goals, frank discussion of platforms, and opportunities to collaborate. Join details will be sent on the day of the event.

Professional Creator Network

On the heels of Lane’s college planning workshop on March 24th, I wanted to convene a follow-up to our first event a few weeks ago. The video and notes from that event are archived here: 

Hopefully by the time we meet again, families will have had a chance to absorb a lot of pertinent information, so come prepared to share! We’ll use Zoom’s breakout rooms feature to join you with a smaller group of parents to chat about your own tips and strategies.

Also, Spring Break will be upon us - the start of college visits and tours. Going anywhere interesting?

College Search Pt. 2

Join us on Friday at noon ET, 11AM CT, for a lively discussion about social audio. Clubhouse, Twitter Spaces, Firechat...what's next for this fast growing new sector? Your hosts Helen Todd from Sociality Squared and Mark Smithivas will weigh in on what they've seen so far, and talk strategies for brands and businesses. Drop in - look for the purple glow in the Fleets bar of your Twitter app. Or register below and receive a direct link when the show goes LIVE.

Social Audio Playbook

Hello Lane parents! Let's meet and hear some tips from parents who have just been through the college application process. No matter where you are at in the process, we can learn from and support each other through this socially distanced time. Please come with questions and most of all, take a deep breath, pour a virtual drink, and have some fun along the way.

Lane Tech Juniors College FAQ

Let's talk Voice as a Service Marketing Strategy

the room at the end of the hallway

Kindergarten Construction

Join us on Zoom for an open discussion about the current pandemic. We want to hear from you on how you're coping, and any tips or suggestions for other drivers during the crisis. We will also have a special guest, Bryant Greening, an attorney with Legal Rideshare.

Sponsored by Gig Workers Matter - www.gigworkersmatter.com

Gig Workers Matter Monthly Meeting 

Mark Smithivas

The spring event will be held on April 6, 2022 at 7PM. Many of you on this list are Lane Tech parents. As parents of a now senior, we've learned a lot since beginning this college search journey a year ago. Now, we hope to pass whatever nuggets of wisdom to parents in the junior class and earlier.
Between now and April 6th, I'd love to have a few volunteers to help me plan the event, and share your stories and lessons learned. So far, I've been fortunate to interview a parent whose son went to Brown University, another parent whose daughter went to college in Canada, and a young woman who charted a different path to end up in a PhD program at the University of Chicago.
If you'd like to help out, please reply to this message or e-mail me: msmithivas@gmail.com or 773-220-7460. I'll be in touch!
Mark

<div class="mirror-content">​The <a href="https://www.friendsoflane.org/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">spring event</a> will be held on April 6, 2022 at 7PM. Many of you on this list are Lane Tech parents. As parents of a now senior, we&#x27;ve learned a lot since beginning this college search journey a year ago. Now, we hope to pass whatever nuggets of wisdom to parents in the junior class and earlier.​Between now and April 6th, I&#x27;d love to have a few volunteers to help me plan the event, and share your stories and lessons learned. So far, I&#x27;ve been fortunate to interview a parent whose <a href="https://lu.ma/p/PMD3nE0qaEcVevn/Parent-Interview-Brown-University" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">son went to Brown University</a>, another parent whose daughter went to college in Canada, and a <a href="https://lu.ma/p/ciHri6WVvDqDVA9/Podcast-Interview-Yunuen-Rodriguez" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">young woman </a>who charted a different path to end up in a PhD program at the University of Chicago.​If you&#x27;d like to help out, please reply to this message or e-mail me: <a href="mailto:msmithivas@gmail.com" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">msmithivas@gmail.com</a> or 773-220-7460. I&#x27;ll be in touch!​Mark</div>

 will be held on April 6, 2022 at 7PM. Many of you on this list are Lane Tech parents. As parents of a now senior, we've learned a lot since beginning this college search journey a year ago. Now, we hope to pass whatever nuggets of wisdom to parents in the junior class and earlier.

Between now and April 6th, I'd love to have a few volunteers to help me plan the event, and share your stories and lessons learned. So far, I've been fortunate to interview a parent whose 

, another parent whose daughter went to college in Canada, and a 

who charted a different path to end up in a PhD program at the University of Chicago.

If you'd like to help out, please reply to this message or e-mail me: 

2022 Lane Tech College Parent Panel

Tomorrow: Saturday, December 4th, 3PM
For Lane Tech senior class parents only: join in on a live audio chatroom to check-in on how your senior's college applications are going. Some schools have already begun sending admissions letters and merit scholarship offers. What are your concerns going into the winter break?
Tune in by using your Facebook app on your smartphone. The audio room will go live at 3PM CT in the Lane Tech Class of 2022 private group. This is a new feature rolling out so not all users may have access to the feature. 
Happy Holidays!

<div class="mirror-content" data-reactroot=""><h1>​Tomorrow: Saturday, December 4th, 3PM</h1>​For Lane Tech senior class parents only: join in on a live audio chatroom to check-in on how your senior&#x27;s college applications are going. Some schools have already begun sending admissions letters and merit scholarship offers. What are your concerns going into the winter break?​Tune in by using your Facebook app on your smartphone. The audio room will go live at 3PM CT in the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/LaneTechClassof2022Parents" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">Lane Tech Class of 2022 private group</a>. This is a new feature rolling out so not all users may have access to the feature. ​Happy Holidays!</div>

For Lane Tech senior class parents only: join in on a live audio chatroom to check-in on how your senior's college applications are going. Some schools have already begun sending admissions letters and merit scholarship offers. What are your concerns going into the winter break?

Tune in by using your Facebook app on your smartphone. The audio room will go live at 3PM CT in the 

. This is a new feature rolling out so not all users may have access to the feature. 

Facebook Live Audio Event Reminder

Good afternoon and happy almost December!
Time has flown by quickly since my last update. I hope everyone had a safe and restorative Thanksgiving with friends and family. On the college front, November 1st early action and early admissions deadlines came and went by fast. I hope your son or daughter got their applications in for schools that offered those options if that was part of your plans.
We've begun to get letters of acceptance in our own household (Yay!) but now the real waiting game begins as we await those schools with later admissions decisions dates, and those with pending financial aid offers. Weighing one versus another has created some honest and candid dialogue in our household. How about yours?
This past month, I was also honored to have interviewed Yunuen Rodriguez. Yunuen is currently a first-year doctoral student at University of Chicago. She shared her journey as a first-generation college student, Latina, and undocumented student to one of the top schools in the country. And her younger sister is now a freshman at Lane Tech. Please give it a listen - her story is inspiring!
I'd love the opportunity to interview more parents, students, and others whose journey to college and beyond might help others do the same. Please reach out!
Best,
Mark

<div class="mirror-content" data-reactroot="">​Good afternoon and happy almost December!​Time has flown by quickly since my last update. I hope everyone had a safe and restorative Thanksgiving with friends and family. On the college front, November 1st early action and early admissions deadlines came and went by fast. I hope your son or daughter got their applications in for schools that offered those options if that was part of your plans.​We&#x27;ve begun to get letters of acceptance in our own household (Yay!) but now the real waiting game begins as we await those schools with later admissions decisions dates, and those with pending financial aid offers. Weighing one versus another has created some honest and candid dialogue in our household. How about yours?​This past month, I was also honored to have <a href="https://pod.co/mark-smithivas-personal/yunuen-rodriguez" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">interviewed Yunuen Rodriguez</a>. Yunuen is currently a first-year doctoral student at University of Chicago. She shared her journey as a first-generation college student, Latina, and undocumented student to one of the top schools in the country. And her younger sister is now a freshman at Lane Tech. Please <a href="https://pod.co/mark-smithivas-personal/yunuen-rodriguez" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">give it a listen </a>- her story is inspiring!​I&#x27;d love the opportunity to interview more parents, students, and others whose journey to college and beyond might help others do the same. <a href="https://calendly.com/msmithivas" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">Please reach out!</a>​Best,​Mark</div>

Good afternoon and happy almost December!

Time has flown by quickly since my last update. I hope everyone had a safe and restorative Thanksgiving with friends and family. On the college front, November 1st early action and early admissions deadlines came and went by fast. I hope your son or daughter got their applications in for schools that offered those options if that was part of your plans.

We've begun to get letters of acceptance in our own household (Yay!) but now the real waiting game begins as we await those schools with later admissions decisions dates, and those with pending financial aid offers. Weighing one versus another has created some honest and candid dialogue in our household. How about yours?

This past month, I was also honored to have 

. Yunuen is currently a first-year doctoral student at University of Chicago. She shared her journey as a first-generation college student, Latina, and undocumented student to one of the top schools in the country. And her younger sister is now a freshman at Lane Tech. Please 

I'd love the opportunity to interview more parents, students, and others whose journey to college and beyond might help others do the same. 

Podcast Interview: Yunuen Rodriguez

Wednesday, October 13
Hello everyone,
I hope your Seniors have begun the application process for college, or wherever their journey will take them. October 1st was the beginning of FAFSA filing season, the Free Application for Federal Student Aid. The online form qualifies students for potential need-based financial aid and is used by colleges to determine tuition and other awards, so please complete the form if you haven't already. For those who do not qualify, such as Dreamers or other undocumented students, there are alternative forms to complete. Please talk to a school counselor for more details.
Below is a transcript of the first of what I hope to be ongoing interviews with parents about colleges. First up: Lane parent Betsy Koch talks about her son's journey to Brown University. Going forward, these will be stored in our online community library. You can join that for free by clicking the button below.
You can read the  full interview in Google Docs  or pasted below. 
In a future update, we'll delve into the  Common App essay questions for 2021 . 
Enjoy!
-Mark
Betsy Koch interview: Brown University
Mark:  Hello everybody. My name is Mark Smithivas, and I am the parent college network volunteer at Lane Tech. I am here on this Saturday afternoon with Betsy Koch. Betsy is a mom whose son, Robert, recently graduated from Lane Tech. And this is something new that I'm trying. I'm hoping that by connecting with parents, we can share some information and knowledge and help us all get through what can be a very stressful time for all of us senior parents. So we are talking on Saturday, October 2. Yesterday, October 1, the FAFSA recently relaunched for the fall. My wife and daughter worked on it this morning. Unfortunately, they didn't finish it because there was some computer glitch, and they got kicked out. So I know a lot of parents this weekend are logging in, and the website is I think under a lot of stress right now. We are all under a lot of stress right now! We're very anxious about what's ahead for our kids. So I thought I would spend a few minutes with you Betsy because you've gone through the process with your son, Robert, and he is now a sophomore at Brown University.
Betsy:  Yes, he is.
Mark:  Great. How has he been doing with the start of the fall school year?
Betsy:  He's doing fine. He’s a sophomore now so he thinks he really knows the ropes. He's absolutely doing fine - he loves the academic breadth available to him at Brown. That was a lot of the reason that he was interested in going there. Brown has what they call an open curriculum, so he's able to take a wide variety of courses - he happens to be a computer science major well prepared by Lane. I think many parents will find that Lane has an amazing Computer Science program, so he's been really comfortable in computer science there. At the same time, he also really loves history, social studies, and political science, so he's taking computer science and math but also history, archaeology, and Asian Studies, so he's just getting a wonderful blend. So he's great and socially doing fine - very happy with his roommates and his friends.
Mark:  Congratulations. Brown is definitely a top tier University. So I'm glad to hear that he's doing well. You mentioned earlier when we spoke about being an empty nester - how does it feel just personally as a parent to have your child be across the country?
Betsy:  I think it's a lot harder on me than it is on him. I think he's absolutely fine. He's the kind of kid who wanted to explore another part of the country. I think one of the fundamental questions as we go through this discussion is, how do you decide where to apply, and for him one of the fundamental questions was, do you want to be close to home or do you want to be someplace far away? He wanted to be far away. I come from the northeast and have family there, so he was very comfortable there. It was comfortable for me because I have family around him in case things happen. I think it's harder on me than it is on him. He's doing absolutely fine. He’s a pretty independent kid.
Mark:  I can relate because my daughter, she's an art school major, and we're looking nationwide and some of the schools on her list are California, New York City, and Rhode Island. Personally as a parent, I'd love for her to stick closer to the Midwest.
About the FAFSA, any thoughts? I know you said you're not an expert but when you went through it was it pretty straightforward for you?
Betsy:  Well, I'm not sure the FAFSA is straightforward for anybody! I found it fairly complicated. I would definitely refer people to some of the resources that Lane did a great job of bringing in…I think we just tried to make our way through it and follow the directions,  There is that automated link where you can pull in your your tax information automatically, and we did that to make it as simple as possible. I think it's just something that you have to get through and it took us several tries - we couldn't do it in one sitting.  It wasn't a computer glitch, it was more our own glitch, and the whole FSA ID issue took me a little while to figure out. 
Mark:  I was already hearing on day one some parents who started first thing at 6am and they were done in 20 minutes. Other parents got kicked out, or said the website froze on them. 
I want to switch now to talking about your plan or strategy. You mentioned that Brown was his number one choice and you decided to go early decision? 
Betsy:  Yes, we did - he did. I shouldn't say we did. I really left the decision up to him. I think one of the most important pieces of advice that I got during this process was (and it came from another parent at Lane) don't have a "dream school". That was probably the most important advice we got because you think that if a child is applying early decision that the school must necessarily be his or her dream school.
However, I think it's important to feel as though you have a number of schools that your child could be happy at. That's really the approach that we tried to take. My son ultimately decided to apply early decision, but he viewed it as sort of "going for it" - that was the way he put it - I think this is where I want to go, and I think I'm just going to go for it.
We were fully prepared for him not to get in. He applied to other schools because he assumed he was probably not going to get in. I said okay, if you don't get in, you're going to have other choices. I can't stress enough that it's important not to have a dream school, but rather to have a set of schools where the child thinks he or she can be happy.
Mark:  With early decision, what was the deadline for application? Did you recall?
Betsy:  I'm quite sure it was November 1.
Mark:  And then how soon after that, did he get an answer?
Betsy:  Oh, I think it was December 12. That was the day we remember.
Mark:  Were you notified by letter in the mail or an email?
Betsy:  It was an email.
Mark:  And why Brown over other colleges?
Betsy:  I think a lot of it was about, as I mentioned earlier, Brown's open curriculum, so he's able to have a real liberal arts experience.  He is taking courses across the breadth of computer science, math, history, social studies, poli-sci, all these things that he might not otherwise be able to do as a computer science major.  He wanted a true liberal arts experience. 
We also paid close attention to - I’m not sure exactly what it's called - the happiness index. We looked for that kind of information, because I really think that how happy the kids are at a school is an important indicator.  Brown did very well among the Ivy’s. Brown is known to be a school where kids are really content. He also looked for school cultures that encouraged moderation around competitiveness. He wanted a more collaborative environment where kids were not cutthroat. I have a family member whose son went to a school like that, and he was very unhappy.
Mark:  And because you went early decision, I imagine it was very stressful, because there were some deadlines. I mentioned FAFSA opens in October, so you basically have a month to get all your materials in, including the essay. What was that month like for you?
Betsy:  It was very intense. We really tried to encourage him to start early. Robert had some rough ideas for essay topics in early September.   He was working with a college counselor outside of Lane, and that person was very helpful to us. He established a schedule. It was very, very helpful to have that counselor involved. 
The last week was probably the most intense.   One of your questions is, what would you do differently, and I think the main thing is we should have started earlier, and we should have had earlier drafts of essays. We were down to the last few days. He had some applications that he finished a few days ahead of time, but he was working on the Brown application right until the end. 
I would highly recommend starting as early as you can, and writing early drafts, and then doing repeated editing with a couple of trusted people.
Mark:  Any last words of advice?
Betsy:  I would say brainstorm a lot of topics, because you're going to need supplemental essays. I think it's good to show the breadth of your interests. If you're a computer science kid, don't write all your essays about computer science. You want to show the broad interest that you have - take the opportunity to do that in the supplemental essays. You want to tell a story. Make it as realistically compelling to the reader as you can, while still sounding like yourself. It really has to be in your own voice. I think that's incredibly important. And make sure you're answering the question. On the personal essay, it's such an open ended question that it doesn't really matter, but on the supplemental essays, make sure you're answering the question, while also highlighting parts of yourself that you want to come through.  
Mark:  Does Brown use the Common App? I assume Brown had supplemental essays specific to them?
Betsy:  Yes, they did. As long as you have some core essays, you can pull pieces from other essays, from other schools.  
Mark:  Finally, how much did mom review and edit his essays?
Betsy:   I did edit, but I felt very strongly that it needed to be his work and his writing.  If I read something in the essays and it just didn't ring true for me as sounding like him, I said, it's not going to come through well. So I absolutely did not write the essays in any way, shape, or form; I was very adamant about that. I was there to help him and support him and do what I would call "fine tuning". But it needed to be his work. It needed to be him coming through. I feel very strongly that there are many situations where we as parents become too involved. I think it's important to be a supportive presence for the child without imposing yourself.
Mark:  I know because I'm a writer, and it's hard sometimes to distance yourself like that. And you have to realize they are 17 year olds, right? They don't have the benefit of decades of a life lived to answer questions like, “Who am I? What do I want to be?” Betsy, thank you so much for making the time to speak with me and share your story.
Betsy:  Yep, happy to do it.

Join Community

<div class="mirror-content" data-reactroot="">​Wednesday, October 13​Hello everyone,​I hope your Seniors have begun the application process for college, or wherever their journey will take them. October 1st was the beginning of FAFSA filing season, the Free Application for Federal Student Aid. The online form qualifies students for potential need-based financial aid and is used by colleges to determine tuition and other awards, so please complete the form if you haven&#x27;t already. For those who do not qualify, such as Dreamers or other undocumented students, there are alternative forms to complete. Please talk to a school counselor for more details.​Below is a transcript of the first of what I hope to be ongoing interviews with parents about colleges. First up: Lane parent Betsy Koch talks about her son&#x27;s journey to Brown University. Going forward, these will be stored in our online community library. You can join that for free by clicking the button below.​You can read the <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1DzosRskO5m-ITvFJu0YG61cQ_0yp6XKA0qeneSmwnRs/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">full interview in Google Docs</a> or pasted below. ​In a future update, we&#x27;ll delve into the <a href="https://www.commonapp.org/apply/essay-prompts" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">Common App essay questions for 2021</a>. ​Enjoy!​-Mark<h2>​Betsy Koch interview: Brown University</h2>​Mark: Hello everybody. My name is Mark Smithivas, and I am the parent college network volunteer at Lane Tech. I am here on this Saturday afternoon with Betsy Koch. Betsy is a mom whose son, Robert, recently graduated from Lane Tech. And this is something new that I&#x27;m trying. I&#x27;m hoping that by connecting with parents, we can share some information and knowledge and help us all get through what can be a very stressful time for all of us senior parents. So we are talking on Saturday, October 2. Yesterday, October 1, the FAFSA recently relaunched for the fall. My wife and daughter worked on it this morning. Unfortunately, they didn&#x27;t finish it because there was some computer glitch, and they got kicked out. So I know a lot of parents this weekend are logging in, and the website is I think under a lot of stress right now. We are all under a lot of stress right now! We&#x27;re very anxious about what&#x27;s ahead for our kids. So I thought I would spend a few minutes with you Betsy because you&#x27;ve gone through the process with your son, Robert, and he is now a sophomore at Brown University.​Betsy: Yes, he is.​Mark: Great. How has he been doing with the start of the fall school year?​Betsy: He&#x27;s doing fine. He’s a sophomore now so he thinks he really knows the ropes. He&#x27;s absolutely doing fine - he loves the academic breadth available to him at Brown. That was a lot of the reason that he was interested in going there. Brown has what they call an open curriculum, so he&#x27;s able to take a wide variety of courses - he happens to be a computer science major well prepared by Lane. I think many parents will find that Lane has an amazing Computer Science program, so he&#x27;s been really comfortable in computer science there. At the same time, he also really loves history, social studies, and political science, so he&#x27;s taking computer science and math but also history, archaeology, and Asian Studies, so he&#x27;s just getting a wonderful blend. So he&#x27;s great and socially doing fine - very happy with his roommates and his friends.​Mark: Congratulations. Brown is definitely a top tier University. So I&#x27;m glad to hear that he&#x27;s doing well. You mentioned earlier when we spoke about being an empty nester - how does it feel just personally as a parent to have your child be across the country?​Betsy: I think it&#x27;s a lot harder on me than it is on him. I think he&#x27;s absolutely fine. He&#x27;s the kind of kid who wanted to explore another part of the country. I think one of the fundamental questions as we go through this discussion is, how do you decide where to apply, and for him one of the fundamental questions was, do you want to be close to home or do you want to be someplace far away? He wanted to be far away. I come from the northeast and have family there, so he was very comfortable there. It was comfortable for me because I have family around him in case things happen. I think it&#x27;s harder on me than it is on him. He&#x27;s doing absolutely fine. He’s a pretty independent kid.​Mark: I can relate because my daughter, she&#x27;s an art school major, and we&#x27;re looking nationwide and some of the schools on her list are California, New York City, and Rhode Island. Personally as a parent, I&#x27;d love for her to stick closer to the Midwest.​About the FAFSA, any thoughts? I know you said you&#x27;re not an expert but when you went through it was it pretty straightforward for you?​Betsy: Well, I&#x27;m not sure the FAFSA is straightforward for anybody! I found it fairly complicated. I would definitely refer people to some of the resources that Lane did a great job of bringing in…I think we just tried to make our way through it and follow the directions,  There is that automated link where you can pull in your your tax information automatically, and we did that to make it as simple as possible. I think it&#x27;s just something that you have to get through and it took us several tries - we couldn&#x27;t do it in one sitting.  It wasn&#x27;t a computer glitch, it was more our own glitch, and the whole FSA ID issue took me a little while to figure out. ​Mark: I was already hearing on day one some parents who started first thing at 6am and they were done in 20 minutes. Other parents got kicked out, or said the website froze on them. ​I want to switch now to talking about your plan or strategy. You mentioned that Brown was his number one choice and you decided to go early decision? ​Betsy: Yes, we did - he did. I shouldn&#x27;t say we did. I really left the decision up to him. I think one of the most important pieces of advice that I got during this process was (and it came from another parent at Lane) don&#x27;t have a &quot;dream school&quot;. That was probably the most important advice we got because you think that if a child is applying early decision that the school must necessarily be his or her dream school.​However, I think it&#x27;s important to feel as though you have a number of schools that your child could be happy at. That&#x27;s really the approach that we tried to take. My son ultimately decided to apply early decision, but he viewed it as sort of &quot;going for it&quot; - that was the way he put it - I think this is where I want to go, and I think I&#x27;m just going to go for it.​We were fully prepared for him not to get in. He applied to other schools because he assumed he was probably not going to get in. I said okay, if you don&#x27;t get in, you&#x27;re going to have other choices. I can&#x27;t stress enough that it&#x27;s important not to have a dream school, but rather to have a set of schools where the child thinks he or she can be happy.​Mark: With early decision, what was the deadline for application? Did you recall?​Betsy: I&#x27;m quite sure it was November 1.​Mark: And then how soon after that, did he get an answer?​Betsy: Oh, I think it was December 12. That was the day we remember.​Mark: Were you notified by letter in the mail or an email?​Betsy: It was an email.​Mark: And why Brown over other colleges?​Betsy: I think a lot of it was about, as I mentioned earlier, Brown&#x27;s open curriculum, so he&#x27;s able to have a real liberal arts experience.  He is taking courses across the breadth of computer science, math, history, social studies, poli-sci, all these things that he might not otherwise be able to do as a computer science major.  He wanted a true liberal arts experience. ​We also paid close attention to - I’m not sure exactly what it&#x27;s called - the happiness index. We looked for that kind of information, because I really think that how happy the kids are at a school is an important indicator.  Brown did very well among the Ivy’s. Brown is known to be a school where kids are really content. He also looked for school cultures that encouraged moderation around competitiveness. He wanted a more collaborative environment where kids were not cutthroat. I have a family member whose son went to a school like that, and he was very unhappy.​Mark: And because you went early decision, I imagine it was very stressful, because there were some deadlines. I mentioned FAFSA opens in October, so you basically have a month to get all your materials in, including the essay. What was that month like for you?​Betsy: It was very intense. We really tried to encourage him to start early. Robert had some rough ideas for essay topics in early September.   He was working with a college counselor outside of Lane, and that person was very helpful to us. He established a schedule. It was very, very helpful to have that counselor involved. ​The last week was probably the most intense.   One of your questions is, what would you do differently, and I think the main thing is we should have started earlier, and we should have had earlier drafts of essays. We were down to the last few days. He had some applications that he finished a few days ahead of time, but he was working on the Brown application right until the end. ​I would highly recommend starting as early as you can, and writing early drafts, and then doing repeated editing with a couple of trusted people.​Mark: Any last words of advice?​Betsy: I would say brainstorm a lot of topics, because you&#x27;re going to need supplemental essays. I think it&#x27;s good to show the breadth of your interests. If you&#x27;re a computer science kid, don&#x27;t write all your essays about computer science. You want to show the broad interest that you have - take the opportunity to do that in the supplemental essays. You want to tell a story. Make it as realistically compelling to the reader as you can, while still sounding like yourself. It really has to be in your own voice. I think that&#x27;s incredibly important. And make sure you&#x27;re answering the question. On the personal essay, it&#x27;s such an open ended question that it doesn&#x27;t really matter, but on the supplemental essays, make sure you&#x27;re answering the question, while also highlighting parts of yourself that you want to come through.  ​Mark: Does Brown use the Common App? I assume Brown had supplemental essays specific to them?​Betsy: Yes, they did. As long as you have some core essays, you can pull pieces from other essays, from other schools.  ​Mark: Finally, how much did mom review and edit his essays?​Betsy:  I did edit, but I felt very strongly that it needed to be his work and his writing.  If I read something in the essays and it just didn&#x27;t ring true for me as sounding like him, I said, it&#x27;s not going to come through well. So I absolutely did not write the essays in any way, shape, or form; I was very adamant about that. I was there to help him and support him and do what I would call &quot;fine tuning&quot;. But it needed to be his work. It needed to be him coming through. I feel very strongly that there are many situations where we as parents become too involved. I think it&#x27;s important to be a supportive presence for the child without imposing yourself.​Mark: I know because I&#x27;m a writer, and it&#x27;s hard sometimes to distance yourself like that. And you have to realize they are 17 year olds, right? They don&#x27;t have the benefit of decades of a life lived to answer questions like, “Who am I? What do I want to be?” Betsy, thank you so much for making the time to speak with me and share your story.​Betsy: Yep, happy to do it.​<div style="text-align:center;margin-bottom:1rem"><a href="https://lu.ma/thecollegesearch" class="btn" style="background-color:#de3163;color:#ffffff;border:1px solid transparent;padding:0.75rem 1.5rem;border-radius:8px;font-size:1rem !important;line-height:1 !important;word-break:break-word;display:inline-block;text-align:center;font-weight:bold;text-decoration:none !important" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">Join Community</a></div></div>

I hope your Seniors have begun the application process for college, or wherever their journey will take them. October 1st was the beginning of FAFSA filing season, the Free Application for Federal Student Aid. The online form qualifies students for potential need-based financial aid and is used by colleges to determine tuition and other awards, so please complete the form if you haven't already. For those who do not qualify, such as Dreamers or other undocumented students, there are alternative forms to complete. Please talk to a school counselor for more details.

Below is a transcript of the first of what I hope to be ongoing interviews with parents about colleges. First up: Lane parent Betsy Koch talks about her son's journey to Brown University. Going forward, these will be stored in our online community library. You can join that for free by clicking the button below.

In a future update, we'll delve into the 

 Hello everybody. My name is Mark Smithivas, and I am the parent college network volunteer at Lane Tech. I am here on this Saturday afternoon with Betsy Koch. Betsy is a mom whose son, Robert, recently graduated from Lane Tech. And this is something new that I'm trying. I'm hoping that by connecting with parents, we can share some information and knowledge and help us all get through what can be a very stressful time for all of us senior parents. So we are talking on Saturday, October 2. Yesterday, October 1, the FAFSA recently relaunched for the fall. My wife and daughter worked on it this morning. Unfortunately, they didn't finish it because there was some computer glitch, and they got kicked out. So I know a lot of parents this weekend are logging in, and the website is I think under a lot of stress right now. We are all under a lot of stress right now! We're very anxious about what's ahead for our kids. So I thought I would spend a few minutes with you Betsy because you've gone through the process with your son, Robert, and he is now a sophomore at Brown University.

 Great. How has he been doing with the start of the fall school year?

 He's doing fine. He’s a sophomore now so he thinks he really knows the ropes. He's absolutely doing fine - he loves the academic breadth available to him at Brown. That was a lot of the reason that he was interested in going there. Brown has what they call an open curriculum, so he's able to take a wide variety of courses - he happens to be a computer science major well prepared by Lane. I think many parents will find that Lane has an amazing Computer Science program, so he's been really comfortable in computer science there. At the same time, he also really loves history, social studies, and political science, so he's taking computer science and math but also history, archaeology, and Asian Studies, so he's just getting a wonderful blend. So he's great and socially doing fine - very happy with his roommates and his friends.

 Congratulations. Brown is definitely a top tier University. So I'm glad to hear that he's doing well. You mentioned earlier when we spoke about being an empty nester - how does it feel just personally as a parent to have your child be across the country?

 I think it's a lot harder on me than it is on him. I think he's absolutely fine. He's the kind of kid who wanted to explore another part of the country. I think one of the fundamental questions as we go through this discussion is, how do you decide where to apply, and for him one of the fundamental questions was, do you want to be close to home or do you want to be someplace far away? He wanted to be far away. I come from the northeast and have family there, so he was very comfortable there. It was comfortable for me because I have family around him in case things happen. I think it's harder on me than it is on him. He's doing absolutely fine. He’s a pretty independent kid.

 I can relate because my daughter, she's an art school major, and we're looking nationwide and some of the schools on her list are California, New York City, and Rhode Island. Personally as a parent, I'd love for her to stick closer to the Midwest.

About the FAFSA, any thoughts? I know you said you're not an expert but when you went through it was it pretty straightforward for you?

 Well, I'm not sure the FAFSA is straightforward for anybody! I found it fairly complicated. I would definitely refer people to some of the resources that Lane did a great job of bringing in…I think we just tried to make our way through it and follow the directions,  There is that automated link where you can pull in your your tax information automatically, and we did that to make it as simple as possible. I think it's just something that you have to get through and it took us several tries - we couldn't do it in one sitting.  It wasn't a computer glitch, it was more our own glitch, and the whole FSA ID issue took me a little while to figure out. 

 I was already hearing on day one some parents who started first thing at 6am and they were done in 20 minutes. Other parents got kicked out, or said the website froze on them. 

I want to switch now to talking about your plan or strategy. You mentioned that Brown was his number one choice and you decided to go early decision? 

 Yes, we did - he did. I shouldn't say we did. I really left the decision up to him. I think one of the most important pieces of advice that I got during this process was (and it came from another parent at Lane) don't have a "dream school". That was probably the most important advice we got because you think that if a child is applying early decision that the school must necessarily be his or her dream school.

However, I think it's important to feel as though you have a number of schools that your child could be happy at. That's really the approach that we tried to take. My son ultimately decided to apply early decision, but he viewed it as sort of "going for it" - that was the way he put it - I think this is where I want to go, and I think I'm just going to go for it.

We were fully prepared for him not to get in. He applied to other schools because he assumed he was probably not going to get in. I said okay, if you don't get in, you're going to have other choices. I can't stress enough that it's important not to have a dream school, but rather to have a set of schools where the child thinks he or she can be happy.

 With early decision, what was the deadline for application? Did you recall?

 And then how soon after that, did he get an answer?

 Oh, I think it was December 12. That was the day we remember.

 Were you notified by letter in the mail or an email?

 I think a lot of it was about, as I mentioned earlier, Brown's open curriculum, so he's able to have a real liberal arts experience.  He is taking courses across the breadth of computer science, math, history, social studies, poli-sci, all these things that he might not otherwise be able to do as a computer science major.  He wanted a true liberal arts experience. 

We also paid close attention to - I’m not sure exactly what it's called - the happiness index. We looked for that kind of information, because I really think that how happy the kids are at a school is an important indicator.  Brown did very well among the Ivy’s. Brown is known to be a school where kids are really content. He also looked for school cultures that encouraged moderation around competitiveness. He wanted a more collaborative environment where kids were not cutthroat. I have a family member whose son went to a school like that, and he was very unhappy.

 And because you went early decision, I imagine it was very stressful, because there were some deadlines. I mentioned FAFSA opens in October, so you basically have a month to get all your materials in, including the essay. What was that month like for you?

 It was very intense. We really tried to encourage him to start early. Robert had some rough ideas for essay topics in early September.   He was working with a college counselor outside of Lane, and that person was very helpful to us. He established a schedule. It was very, very helpful to have that counselor involved. 

The last week was probably the most intense.   One of your questions is, what would you do differently, and I think the main thing is we should have started earlier, and we should have had earlier drafts of essays. We were down to the last few days. He had some applications that he finished a few days ahead of time, but he was working on the Brown application right until the end. 

I would highly recommend starting as early as you can, and writing early drafts, and then doing repeated editing with a couple of trusted people.

 I would say brainstorm a lot of topics, because you're going to need supplemental essays. I think it's good to show the breadth of your interests. If you're a computer science kid, don't write all your essays about computer science. You want to show the broad interest that you have - take the opportunity to do that in the supplemental essays. You want to tell a story. Make it as realistically compelling to the reader as you can, while still sounding like yourself. It really has to be in your own voice. I think that's incredibly important. And make sure you're answering the question. On the personal essay, it's such an open ended question that it doesn't really matter, but on the supplemental essays, make sure you're answering the question, while also highlighting parts of yourself that you want to come through.  

 Does Brown use the Common App? I assume Brown had supplemental essays specific to them?

 Yes, they did. As long as you have some core essays, you can pull pieces from other essays, from other schools.  

 Finally, how much did mom review and edit his essays?

  I did edit, but I felt very strongly that it needed to be his work and his writing.  If I read something in the essays and it just didn't ring true for me as sounding like him, I said, it's not going to come through well. So I absolutely did not write the essays in any way, shape, or form; I was very adamant about that. I was there to help him and support him and do what I would call "fine tuning". But it needed to be his work. It needed to be him coming through. I feel very strongly that there are many situations where we as parents become too involved. I think it's important to be a supportive presence for the child without imposing yourself.

I know because I'm a writer, and it's hard sometimes to distance yourself like that. And you have to realize they are 17 year olds, right? They don't have the benefit of decades of a life lived to answer questions like, “Who am I? What do I want to be?” Betsy, thank you so much for making the time to speak with me and share your story.

Parent Interview: Brown University

Friday, October 1
Yes, it's now officially that time of year. FAFSA Season! The Free Application for Federal Student Aid form for 2022 is now open for you to fill out!  NPR actually had a story  about it this morning.
And if you're looking at a variety of schools and don't know how to pick and choose, here's a good  overview  of the financial considerations written by Jeff Selingo, a noted author on the subject of higher education. In short, don't put all your eggs into the highly selective schools. Try and find good value schools, which are often overlooked and can sometimes offer a better financial aid package than the elite schools.
Here in Illinois, a  new non-profit  led by former CPS CEO Janice Jackson, aims to raise money for college scholarships from businesses.

Finally, if you love spreadsheets or seeing all your college data quantified, I've put a template you can download and use on our new online community. You can join by clicking the button below. 
I'd love to hear your feedback - was the FAFSA easy to complete? What questions do you still have in the weeks ahead? How many schools are you applying to? I'll try and compile the responses next week.
Join Community

<div class="mirror-content" data-reactroot="">​Friday, October 1​Yes, it&#x27;s now officially that time of year. FAFSA Season! The Free Application for Federal Student Aid form for 2022 is now open for you to fill out! <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/10/20/925739424/fafsa-college-financial-aid-help" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">NPR actually had a story</a> about it this morning.​And if you&#x27;re looking at a variety of schools and don&#x27;t know how to pick and choose, here&#x27;s a good <a href="https://www.marketwatch.com/story/this-is-the-strategy-high-school-seniors-and-their-parents-should-adopt-with-college-applications-2020-10-06?utm_source=pocket_mylist" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">overview</a> of the financial considerations written by Jeff Selingo, a noted author on the subject of higher education. In short, don&#x27;t put all your eggs into the highly selective schools. Try and find good value schools, which are often overlooked and can sometimes offer a better financial aid package than the elite schools.​Here in Illinois, a <a href="https://www.chicagobusiness.com/education/janice-jackson-and-pete-kadens-team-education-nonprofit-0?utm_source=pocket_mylist" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">new non-profit </a>led by former CPS CEO Janice Jackson, aims to raise money for college scholarships from businesses.<img width="300" src="https://cdn.lu.ma/cdn-cgi/image/format=auto,dpr=2,quality=85,width=300/editor-images/lz/e04517ea-f618-4d51-998f-ac42bef07767" style="display:block;max-width:100%;max-height:100%;margin:24px auto"/>​Finally, if you love spreadsheets or seeing all your college data quantified, I&#x27;ve put a template you can download and use on our new online community. You can join by clicking the button below. ​I&#x27;d love to hear your feedback - was the FAFSA easy to complete? What questions do you still have in the weeks ahead? How many schools are you applying to? I&#x27;ll try and compile the responses next week.<div style="text-align:center;margin-bottom:1rem"><a href="https://lu.ma/thecollegesearch" class="btn" style="background-color:#de3163;color:#ffffff;border:1px solid transparent;padding:0.75rem 1.5rem;border-radius:8px;font-size:1rem !important;line-height:1 !important;word-break:break-word;display:inline-block;text-align:center;font-weight:bold;text-decoration:none !important" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">Join Community</a></div></div>

Yes, it's now officially that time of year. FAFSA Season! The Free Application for Federal Student Aid form for 2022 is now open for you to fill out! 

And if you're looking at a variety of schools and don't know how to pick and choose, here's a good 

 of the financial considerations written by Jeff Selingo, a noted author on the subject of higher education. In short, don't put all your eggs into the highly selective schools. Try and find good value schools, which are often overlooked and can sometimes offer a better financial aid package than the elite schools.

led by former CPS CEO Janice Jackson, aims to raise money for college scholarships from businesses.

Finally, if you love spreadsheets or seeing all your college data quantified, I've put a template you can download and use on our new online community. You can join by clicking the button below. 

I'd love to hear your feedback - was the FAFSA easy to complete? What questions do you still have in the weeks ahead? How many schools are you applying to? I'll try and compile the responses next week.

FAFSA Season

Hello parents and advocates!
Fall has begun in earnest. Welcome back. College Application season is in full swing!

 Tonight is the Senior Parent Virtual Presentation by Lane Tech counseling staff via Zoom. Information will be shared about how to apply with the Common App, how to fill out the FAFSA, and other topics of interest. I'll post the link to the recording afterwards if you can't attend.
I also took on a new role as the Parent College Network Committee Chair for Lane Tech. If you are not a Lane parent, it's one of the biggest high schools in Illinois, with over 4000 students enrolled. There are many ways to volunteer and get involved. Let me know if you're interested! 

UPCOMING

 On Friday, October 1st at noon, I'm launching a  live audio chat on Clubhouse . It will be an informal opportunity to network and chat via audio with educators, parents, and others about college applications. Clubhouse is an audio app which allows you to listen in and participate around topics of interest. Why October 1st? That is when the FAFSA application goes live for seniors. Hope you can tune in!

Join the Community!

 I've created a new online community where parents and advocates can join to share tips and resources. Click the button above. It's free to join!

<div class="mirror-content" data-reactroot="">​Hello parents and advocates!​Fall has begun in earnest. Welcome back. College Application season is in full swing!​ Tonight is the Senior Parent Virtual Presentation by Lane Tech counseling staff via Zoom. Information will be shared about how to apply with the Common App, how to fill out the FAFSA, and other topics of interest. I&#x27;ll post the link to the recording afterwards if you can&#x27;t attend.​I also took on a new role as the Parent College Network Committee Chair for Lane Tech. If you are not a Lane parent, it&#x27;s one of the biggest high schools in Illinois, with over 4000 students enrolled. There are many ways to volunteer and get involved. Let me know if you&#x27;re interested! ​UPCOMING​ On Friday, October 1st at noon, I&#x27;m launching a <a href="https://twitter.com/1god/status/1440066923870359555?s=20" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">live audio chat on Clubhouse</a>. It will be an informal opportunity to network and chat via audio with educators, parents, and others about college applications. Clubhouse is an audio app which allows you to listen in and participate around topics of interest. Why October 1st? That is when the FAFSA application goes live for seniors. Hope you can tune in!​<div style="text-align:center;margin-bottom:1rem"><a href="https://lu.ma/thecollegesearch" class="btn" style="background-color:#de3163;color:#ffffff;border:1px solid transparent;padding:0.75rem 1.5rem;border-radius:8px;font-size:1rem !important;line-height:1 !important;word-break:break-word;display:inline-block;text-align:center;font-weight:bold;text-decoration:none !important" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">Join the Community!</a></div>​ I&#x27;ve created a new online community where parents and advocates can join to share tips and resources. Click the button above. It&#x27;s free to join!</div>

Fall has begun in earnest. Welcome back. College Application season is in full swing!

Tonight is the Senior Parent Virtual Presentation by Lane Tech counseling staff via Zoom. Information will be shared about how to apply with the Common App, how to fill out the FAFSA, and other topics of interest. I'll post the link to the recording afterwards if you can't attend.

I also took on a new role as the Parent College Network Committee Chair for Lane Tech. If you are not a Lane parent, it's one of the biggest high schools in Illinois, with over 4000 students enrolled. There are many ways to volunteer and get involved. Let me know if you're interested!

On Friday, October 1st at noon, I'm launching a 

. It will be an informal opportunity to network and chat via audio with educators, parents, and others about college applications. Clubhouse is an audio app which allows you to listen in and participate around topics of interest. Why October 1st? That is when the FAFSA application goes live for seniors. Hope you can tune in!

I've created a new online community where parents and advocates can join to share tips and resources. Click the button above. It's free to join!

Fall College Update

The Blue Bridge in Grand Rapids, Michigan
Just a few more days until we head west on our road trip to the Grand Canyon. This will probably be the last newsletter for several weeks while we're away on vacation. As I mentioned in the last update, we went and visited Kendall College of Art & Design in Grand Rapids, and that turned out to be well worth a visit. I put together a visual collage of photos, audio, and a brief summary of our quick tour there. Hope you enjoy it!

A visit to Kendall College School of Art and Design There were some things about KCAD we didn't know until we took the campus tour. The biggest learning was the incoming students  don't  need to live on the campus of Ferris State, 45 minutes… Go to this Sway
Data, Data, Data
A few links to sites which allow you to take quantitative deep dives. The first one, College Scorecard, is free and part of the U.S. Department of Education. The other ones have limited free versions but some are easier to use than others. I signed up for the U.S. News' College Compass service and will be writing more about that in future updates.
College Scorecard
College Insight
U.S. News College Compass
Road2College
Only one month until school begins!
Enjoy what you're reading? Help support this independent project by clicking the button below and buying me a coffee while on the road. Thanks!
Buy Me a Coffee

<div class="mirror-content" data-reactroot="">​<img width="408" src="https://cdn.lu.ma/cdn-cgi/image/format=auto,dpr=2,quality=85,width=408/editor-images/7j/e30ea398-2c20-4d3f-96b9-0e28b7768abf"/>​ The Blue Bridge in Grand Rapids, Michigan​Just a few more days until we head west on our road trip to the Grand Canyon. This will probably be the last newsletter for several weeks while we&#x27;re away on vacation. As I mentioned in the last update, we went and visited Kendall College of Art &amp; Design in Grand Rapids, and that turned out to be well worth a visit. I put together a visual collage of photos, audio, and a brief summary of our quick tour there. Hope you enjoy it!<img src="https://eus-www.sway-cdn.com//sway/v1.0/KXmIQ6H3cTcsUBQj/thumbnailImage?imageId=aGMYJV9x7uZR4m&amp;width=600&amp;height=180&amp;isPreview=false"/>​<a href="https://sway.office.com/KXmIQ6H3cTcsUBQj?ref=email" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">A visit to Kendall College School of Art and Design</a>There were some things about KCAD we didn&#x27;t know until we took the campus tour. The biggest learning was the incoming students don&#x27;t need to live on the campus of Ferris State, 45 minutes…<a href="https://sway.office.com/KXmIQ6H3cTcsUBQj?ref=email" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">Go to this Sway</a><h1>​Data, Data, Data</h1>​A few links to sites which allow you to take quantitative deep dives. The first one, College Scorecard, is free and part of the U.S. Department of Education. The other ones have limited free versions but some are easier to use than others. I signed up for the U.S. News&#x27; College Compass service and will be writing more about that in future updates.​<a href="https://collegescorecard.ed.gov" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">College Scorecard</a>​<a href="https://college-insight.org" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">College Insight</a>​<a href="https://www.usnews.com/usnews/store/college_compass" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">U.S. News College Compass</a>​<a href="https://collegeinsights.road2college.com" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">Road2College</a><h2>​Only one month until school begins!</h2>​Enjoy what you&#x27;re reading? Help support this independent project by clicking the button below and buying me a coffee while on the road. Thanks!<div style="text-align:center;margin-bottom:1rem"><a href="https://ko-fi.com/msmithivas" class="btn" style="background-color:#f68291;color:#ffffff;border:1px solid transparent;padding:0.375rem 0.75rem;border-radius:4px;font-size:1rem !important;line-height:1.5 !important;word-break:break-word;display:inline-block;text-align:center;font-weight:bold;text-decoration:none !important" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">Buy Me a Coffee</a></div>​</div>

The Blue Bridge in Grand Rapids, Michigan

Just a few more days until we head west on our road trip to the Grand Canyon. This will probably be the last newsletter for several weeks while we're away on vacation. As I mentioned in the last update, we went and visited Kendall College of Art & Design in Grand Rapids, and that turned out to be well worth a visit. I put together a visual collage of photos, audio, and a brief summary of our quick tour there. Hope you enjoy it!

A visit to Kendall College School of Art and Design

There were some things about KCAD we didn't know until we took the campus tour. The biggest learning was the incoming students 

 need to live on the campus of Ferris State, 45 minutes…

A few links to sites which allow you to take quantitative deep dives. The first one, College Scorecard, is free and part of the U.S. Department of Education. The other ones have limited free versions but some are easier to use than others. I signed up for the U.S. News' College Compass service and will be writing more about that in future updates.

Enjoy what you're reading? Help support this independent project by clicking the button below and buying me a coffee while on the road. Thanks!

Westward Bound

We're off to Grand Rapids! Our next college visit will be to Kendall College of Art and Design (KCAD) at Ferris State University. This will be the third college we've visited to date, following the University of Iowa and the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design (MIAD). Summer break has been a busy time for us, and in a few weeks we'll be heading west on a long-planned trip out to see the Grand Canyon, Zion National Park, and Taos, New Mexico. No college visits planned during that journey, but you never know!
August is right around the corner, and with it comes the first opportunity submit your Common App applications. If you're not familiar, it's the universal application form used by a growing number of colleges and universities. With it comes the reminder that early decision and early action schools and strategies are also quickly arriving. Ack! Where's the wine cooler when you need one?
I have also begun to do more data exploring, having learned about the Common Data Set, and how that trove of information holds clues as to how much merit aid a particular school might give out. Slicing and dicing numbers is what I'll be focusing on in more detail in future posts. Tell me where you're headed, and the criteria and numbers you'll be tossing around on a napkin or spreadsheet to help make sense of The Decision.


 Finally, this evening I happened to run into a young man who graduated Lane Tech two years ago  and just finished his Freshman year at Knox College. He remembered me from the nascent Podcast Club I helped launch back then. It made me realize that one aspect to all this is hearing from students AFTER they've made the decision where to attend and how they currently felt about their choice.  He recalled applying to about 13 schools, but didn't remember all the ones that accepted him.  Now he was thinking of transferring to a different school for next year.  I'd love to interview any other students who made their pick and then had second thoughts. It might illuminate the choice ahead for us.

<div class="mirror-content" data-reactroot="">​We&#x27;re off to Grand Rapids! Our next college visit will be to Kendall College of Art and Design (KCAD) at Ferris State University. This will be the third college we&#x27;ve visited to date, following the University of Iowa and the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design (MIAD). Summer break has been a busy time for us, and in a few weeks we&#x27;ll be heading west on a long-planned trip out to see the Grand Canyon, Zion National Park, and Taos, New Mexico. No college visits planned during that journey, but you never know!​August is right around the corner, and with it comes the first opportunity submit your Common App applications. If you&#x27;re not familiar, it&#x27;s the universal application form used by a growing number of colleges and universities. With it comes the reminder that early decision and early action schools and strategies are also quickly arriving. Ack! Where&#x27;s the wine cooler when you need one?​I have also begun to do more data exploring, having learned about the Common Data Set, and how that trove of information holds clues as to how much merit aid a particular school might give out. Slicing and dicing numbers is what I&#x27;ll be focusing on in more detail in future posts. Tell me where you&#x27;re headed, and the criteria and numbers you&#x27;ll be tossing around on a napkin or spreadsheet to help make sense of The Decision.<img src="https://cdn.lu.ma/cdn-cgi/image/format=auto,dpr=2,quality=85,width=800/editor-images/3m/ffeebee0-7e28-446a-9d85-a5b7eb9c822e"/>​ Finally, this evening I happened to run into a young man who graduated Lane Tech two years ago and just finished his Freshman year at Knox College. He remembered me from the nascent Podcast Club I helped launch back then. It made me realize that one aspect to all this is hearing from students AFTER they&#x27;ve made the decision where to attend and how they currently felt about their choice. He recalled applying to about 13 schools, but didn&#x27;t remember all the ones that accepted him. Now he was thinking of transferring to a different school for next year. I&#x27;d love to interview any other students who made their pick and then had second thoughts. It might illuminate the choice ahead for us. </div>

We're off to Grand Rapids! Our next college visit will be to Kendall College of Art and Design (KCAD) at Ferris State University. This will be the third college we've visited to date, following the University of Iowa and the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design (MIAD). Summer break has been a busy time for us, and in a few weeks we'll be heading west on a long-planned trip out to see the Grand Canyon, Zion National Park, and Taos, New Mexico. No college visits planned during that journey, but you never know!

August is right around the corner, and with it comes the first opportunity submit your Common App applications. If you're not familiar, it's the universal application form used by a growing number of colleges and universities. With it comes the reminder that early decision and early action schools and strategies are also quickly arriving. Ack! Where's the wine cooler when you need one?

I have also begun to do more data exploring, having learned about the Common Data Set, and how that trove of information holds clues as to how much merit aid a particular school might give out. Slicing and dicing numbers is what I'll be focusing on in more detail in future posts. Tell me where you're headed, and the criteria and numbers you'll be tossing around on a napkin or spreadsheet to help make sense of The Decision.

Finally, this evening I happened to run into a young man who graduated Lane Tech two years ago  and just finished his Freshman year at Knox College. He remembered me from the nascent Podcast Club I helped launch back then. It made me realize that one aspect to all this is hearing from students AFTER they've made the decision where to attend and how they currently felt about their choice.  He recalled applying to about 13 schools, but didn't remember all the ones that accepted him.  Now he was thinking of transferring to a different school for next year.  I'd love to interview any other students who made their pick and then had second thoughts. It might illuminate the choice ahead for us.

Headed to Michigan

July 8, 2021
Today's Tribune has an  article  on the ending of Illinois' college student exchange program.

In other news, the deluge of mailings from colleges has begun in earnest.
I am also trying to get through  two audiobooks  on tips for navigating the college search.
And last month, we headed up north for a  quick campus visit  to the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design.
Where are you headed this summer for college visits? I'm hoping to schedule an in-person opportunity this month for those interested to get together and compare notes. My goal is to wrangle some quantitative data into a spreadsheet and begin doing some comparisons of the schools on our short list. I should have a time and place picked out by the next update!
Happy Summer,
Mark
P.S. Also going to host an informal chat with a few computer science educators at month end so stay tuned for details on that very soon!

<div class="mirror-content" data-reactroot="">​July 8, 2021​Today&#x27;s Tribune has an <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/breaking/ct-state-midwest-student-exchange-program-inactive-20210708-i6ltzaq2ibbexndhb6cle5lnfy-story.html" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">article</a> on the ending of Illinois&#x27; college student exchange program.<img width="300" src="https://cdn.lu.ma/cdn-cgi/image/format=auto,dpr=2,quality=85,width=300/editor-images/yt/5cf7546e-55a9-493c-96c3-41560232077e"/>​In other news, the deluge of mailings from colleges has begun in earnest.​I am also trying to get through <a href="https://www.getrevue.co/profile/msmithivas/issues/unredacted-issue-20-college-is-it-worth-it-in-2021-661863" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">two audiobooks</a> on tips for navigating the college search.​And last month, we headed up north for a <a href="https://www.getrevue.co/profile/msmithivas/issues/unredacted-issue-19-milwaukee-657153" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">quick campus visit </a>to the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design.​Where are you headed this summer for college visits? I&#x27;m hoping to schedule an in-person opportunity this month for those interested to get together and compare notes. My goal is to wrangle some quantitative data into a spreadsheet and begin doing some comparisons of the schools on our short list. I should have a time and place picked out by the next update!​Happy Summer,​Mark​P.S. Also going to host an informal chat with a few computer science educators at month end so stay tuned for details on that very soon!​</div>

 on the ending of Illinois' college student exchange program.

In other news, the deluge of mailings from colleges has begun in earnest.

 on tips for navigating the college search.

And last month, we headed up north for a 

to the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design.

Where are you headed this summer for college visits? I'm hoping to schedule an in-person opportunity this month for those interested to get together and compare notes. My goal is to wrangle some quantitative data into a spreadsheet and begin doing some comparisons of the schools on our short list. I should have a time and place picked out by the next update!

P.S. Also going to host an informal chat with a few computer science educators at month end so stay tuned for details on that very soon!

The College Search: July Update

Two official days left of school as I write this update. It’s been a long year. Hopefully you and your family are on the path to full vaccination. As the city springs back to life this summer, college visits are on my family’s radar. We have visited two so far since spring break: the University of Iowa and the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design. I wrote a quick re-cap of the latter  here . 
For those with seniors graduating this year,  congratulations!  I’d love to know where your son or daughter is headed to in the fall, or if college isn’t in the plans, what will they be doing instead? We are also starting to plow into the beast that is the FAFSA.  It’s too bad there isn’t a TurboTax out there to step you through it. Also over the summer we plan to try out a few of the college search sites like  College Scorecard , and the U.S. News & World Report site. Do you have a favorite to share?
Finally, I’d love to meet up with a few of you over the summer, preferably over a frozen cocktail or an iced coffee. Sharing tips and strategies to get through the college search process has always been my goal, so it would be nice to attach a name and an unmasked face in a manner that doesn’t involve a Zoom call. :)
Happy Summer and Safe Travels! 🍹
Mark
Follow me on Twitter  for the latest updates!

<div class="mirror-content" data-reactroot="">​<img src="https://cdn.lu.ma/editor-images/2x/2501c776-f43c-4a48-9e0b-49316b491cac"/>​​Two official days left of school as I write this update. It’s been a long year. Hopefully you and your family are on the path to full vaccination. As the city springs back to life this summer, college visits are on my family’s radar. We have visited two so far since spring break: the University of Iowa and the Milwaukee Institute of Art &amp; Design. I wrote a quick re-cap of the latter <a href="https://sway.office.com/m33u6TY43IDs2t8N?ref=Link&amp;loc=mysways" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">here</a>. ​For those with seniors graduating this year, congratulations! I’d love to know where your son or daughter is headed to in the fall, or if college isn’t in the plans, what will they be doing instead? We are also starting to plow into the beast that is the FAFSA. It’s too bad there isn’t a TurboTax out there to step you through it. Also over the summer we plan to try out a few of the college search sites like <a href="https://collegescorecard.ed.gov" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">College Scorecard</a>, and the U.S. News &amp; World Report site. Do you have a favorite to share?​Finally, I’d love to meet up with a few of you over the summer, preferably over a frozen cocktail or an iced coffee. Sharing tips and strategies to get through the college search process has always been my goal, so it would be nice to attach a name and an unmasked face in a manner that doesn’t involve a Zoom call. :)​Happy Summer and Safe Travels! 🍹​Mark​<a href="https://twitter.com/1god" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">Follow me on Twitter</a> for the latest updates!</div>

Two official days left of school as I write this update. It’s been a long year. Hopefully you and your family are on the path to full vaccination. As the city springs back to life this summer, college visits are on my family’s radar. We have visited two so far since spring break: the University of Iowa and the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design. I wrote a quick re-cap of the latter 

For those with seniors graduating this year, 

 I’d love to know where your son or daughter is headed to in the fall, or if college isn’t in the plans, what will they be doing instead? We are also starting to plow into the beast that is the FAFSA.  It’s too bad there isn’t a TurboTax out there to step you through it. Also over the summer we plan to try out a few of the college search sites like 

, and the U.S. News & World Report site. Do you have a favorite to share?

Finally, I’d love to meet up with a few of you over the summer, preferably over a frozen cocktail or an iced coffee. Sharing tips and strategies to get through the college search process has always been my goal, so it would be nice to attach a name and an unmasked face in a manner that doesn’t involve a Zoom call. :)

Almost summer...

Dear Parents and other interested parties,
Hi - thank you again for your interest in college-related updates. It’s been a month since my last hosted Zoom gathering. Hopefully many of you attended Lane’s last community event on April 7th. A lot of information was shared by both parent volunteers and external consultants. The school has not yet posted a recording of the night but hopefully will soon.
For seniors, National Decision Day is quickly approaching on May 1st. May all the graduating senior and families receive positive news. If that is you, please share where you’ll be headed in the fall!
I wanted to take a moment and ask for your input on a preferred day/time for a next event. Weeknights? Weekends? The goal and scope is to convene a smaller group of interested families willing to share how they’re doing along the college search journey, and any lessons learned to date. Lane’s next public event is set for May 5th, with the topic being the Common Application. To prepare for that discussion, I thought we could discuss “Building your child’s target list of schools”. What schools are on your short list? Reach schools? Safety schools? Our family visited the University of Iowa over spring break. 


I’m hoping we can gather again soon for a spirited dialogue (and yes, wine is an option!) Bring your lists and opinions.
Cheers,
Mark
P.S. A very timely  article  from the Lane Champion on parents and Facebook groups. Enjoy!

<div class="mirror-content" data-reactroot="">​Dear Parents and other interested parties,​Hi - thank you again for your interest in college-related updates. It’s been a month since my last hosted Zoom gathering. Hopefully many of you attended Lane’s last community event on April 7th. A lot of information was shared by both parent volunteers and external consultants. The school has not yet posted a recording of the night but hopefully will soon.​For seniors, National Decision Day is quickly approaching on May 1st. May all the graduating senior and families receive positive news. If that is you, please share where you’ll be headed in the fall!​I wanted to take a moment and ask for your input on a preferred day/time for a next event. Weeknights? Weekends? The goal and scope is to convene a smaller group of interested families willing to share how they’re doing along the college search journey, and any lessons learned to date. Lane’s next public event is set for May 5th, with the topic being the Common Application. To prepare for that discussion, I thought we could discuss “Building your child’s target list of schools”. What schools are on your short list? Reach schools? Safety schools? Our family visited the University of Iowa over spring break. ​<img src="https://cdn.lu.ma/editor-images/7l/19be6236-dd0e-47c4-b782-e8515a46725e"/>​I’m hoping we can gather again soon for a spirited dialogue (and yes, wine is an option!) Bring your lists and opinions.​Cheers,​Mark​P.S. A very timely <a href="https://lanetechchampion.org/11000/opinion/parent-facebook-groups/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">article</a> from the Lane Champion on parents and Facebook groups. Enjoy!</div>

Dear Parents and other interested parties,

Hi - thank you again for your interest in college-related updates. It’s been a month since my last hosted Zoom gathering. Hopefully many of you attended Lane’s last community event on April 7th. A lot of information was shared by both parent volunteers and external consultants. The school has not yet posted a recording of the night but hopefully will soon.

For seniors, National Decision Day is quickly approaching on May 1st. May all the graduating senior and families receive positive news. If that is you, please share where you’ll be headed in the fall!

I wanted to take a moment and ask for your input on a preferred day/time for a next event. Weeknights? Weekends? The goal and scope is to convene a smaller group of interested families willing to share how they’re doing along the college search journey, and any lessons learned to date. Lane’s next public event is set for May 5th, with the topic being the Common Application. To prepare for that discussion, I thought we could discuss “Building your child’s target list of schools”. What schools are on your short list? Reach schools? Safety schools? Our family visited the University of Iowa over spring break. 

I’m hoping we can gather again soon for a spirited dialogue (and yes, wine is an option!) Bring your lists and opinions.

 from the Lane Champion on parents and Facebook groups. Enjoy!