College Counseling at St. Margaret's

This post was written by one of our new college counselors, Dr. Scott Nelson.

Greetings! My name is Scott Nelson, and I’m a new member of the college-counseling team at St. Margaret’s (I also teach AP U.S. History). Reading is a passion of mine, and one of my favorite subjects is higher education in the United States. I plan to make occasional posts on this blog in which I share interesting and informative lessons from the literature on college admissions.

One book I thoroughly enjoyed reading this summer was Bill Mayher’s The College Admissions Mystique. Quite simply, parents of upper-school SMES students should read this book! Mayher (who retired in 2009) worked as a college counselor at high-pressure private schools in Boston, New York, and London, and he shares a wealth of knowledge accumulated over a thirty-plus-year career.

Mayher organizes the text with three separate audiences in mind: parents, students, and college counselors. Helpfully, the book is divided in to seven parts so that readers can easily locate their respective topics of interest (full disclosure: I found all seven parts fascinating). While much of this books could be described as a thoughtful and easy-to-read “How to” guide to college applications, Mayher intersperses his narrative with illuminating anecdotes that breathe welcome life and levity in to what is for many a stress-inducing subject. Along the way, the author debunks an array of myths and faulty assumptions associated with colleges and the application process.

Personally, my favorite sections dealt with how colleges manufacture scarcity (i.e., low admit rates) and the excellent section on the art of writing college essays. As a parent myself, I also found the sections on “Who Gets in and Why” and “Making the System Work for You” particularly valuable. There is even a section entitled “Using Your College Counselor Effectively,” which should be required reading for all SMES students!
In sum, if you are a St. Margaret’s parent or student and want a quick and insightful education on how the college-admissions process works, you would do well to check this book out. It is available for about $10 over the Internet. Given the cost of a four-year college, this would be money well spent.