A Tale of Two Students

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness…” wrote Charles Dickens over a century and a half ago.

Some things don’t change.

I’m an ACT/SAT tutor. I work mainly with high school students. I help them get into college.

I’ll be honest – some students are smart, and some students aren’t, and I’m not talking about their grades or test scores. Let me explain.

Let’s start with the most basic of questions for any student planning to attend college.

“Why are you going to college?”

Do you know why you’re going? Do you have a plan? 

The Path of the Foolish Student

Unfortunately, many students don’t think enough about why they’re headed to college, seeing it more as a rite of passage or a necessary means to their amorphous ideal of “getting a good job.” This is a problem. It doesn’t matter if you have a 4.0 and a 1450 on the SAT. If this is you, you are a foolish student.

Unclear and undefined goals rarely lead to focused effort. College, for a lot of students, ends up being a waste of time, either because they change majors and take longer to graduate, or never get to the finish line at all.

Besides, if making money is the end goal, there are other ways to go about achieving this. Spending four years and tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of dollars to take a bunch of classes for a piece of paper to show prospective employers that you’re a good hire seems fairly risky from a business perspective. 

Add to that the fact that the market is flooded with people who have done just that. Colleges are handing out diplomas in record numbers. The market is saturated with college grads. So how are you to really differentiate yourself from the crowd by doing the exact same thing?

Getting vocational training or being apprenticed to learn a specific trade can be just as lucrative. It might even give you more freedom and control over your work in the long run.

I know this is an oversimplification. But my point remains: you have options and you need to think clearly and carefully about them.

This is what a smart or wise student does. Don’t simply choose to go to college because that’s what everyone else is doing, or because that is what is expected of you.

The Reality of College

Now you might be a smart student. You might be the type of student who has thought about it. You might know what you want to study, and what kind of career you want to pursue afterwards, taking into account your interests, skills, disposition, personality, and so forth. And you might have already come to the conclusion that getting a college degree is the right next step.

If that’s you, then listen carefully.

You have to keep in mind that college is a business. Colleges nowadays exist mainly to keep themselves in existence. Their primary motive is not your education but their self-perpetuation.

Let’s be honest, though. Your decision to go to college is also about self-perpetuation. You need to survive after all. You need to make money. They know that, and they are simply making money off of your need to make money.

This is a business transaction no matter what they herald on the front page of their websites.

Think about it. Colleges may say that they care most about the quality of your education and the community of scholars they cultivate, but we all know that colleges admit students based on a variety of factors, some having nothing to do with academic achievement. 

Kids of wealthy parents who’ve donated large sums to the school get in. Athletes with subpar grades, but who can bring success to the school’s sports programs, get in. Legacy kids get in. Other kids with lower scores than you get in because they are part of some minority group, and the school is committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion, unless of course you are a part of that minority group. 

So the whole process of getting into college isn’t all that fair, because, again, it’s a business. 

The more popular the school, the better the reputation, the higher the ranking, the more successful the sports programs, the more enrollment they’ll enjoy and the higher they’ll charge for the experience. It’s no surprise that the cost of a college education has risen astronomically in the past few decades.

What they want from the average student is his or her tuition money. What they want from athletes is to bolster the school’s name recognition. For example, look up data on a school’s NCAA Final Four appearance during March Madness and the increase in the number of applicants to the school the following year. You’ll definitely see a correlation, and what I would argue, causation. What they want from wealthy families is their donations. What they want from their alumni is loyalty and continued support.

Notice, it’s all about money. This is a business. They are a brand. They sell that brand to you. You consume that brand. And their hope is that the brand becomes a part of your identity, so that, in the end, you give back by giving them more of your money once you’re successful, saving up money so you can send your kids to the same school, buying their school paraphernalia and becoming a walking billboard for the school, and so on.

The Path of the Wise Student

So where does that leave you? 

Well, if you’re going to be smart, you’ll need to see it as a business transaction, as they do. 

If you overpay, they win. If you underpay, you win. It’s as simple as that. 

So if you’re planning on a college education, you need to be thinking about scholarships. A college education without scholarships is the path of the foolish student. 

Now, this may sound harsh, but it’s the same advice I give to my own children. I don’t push college on any of them as my parents and their generation did on me and my peers. I know many people who are successful without a college degree. I know my children can be successful without one as well.

But if they do choose to go to college, I’ve told them that they’ll have to pay for it themselves, which means they’ll need scholarships.

This is where standardized test scores are important. To be eligible for scholarships, you need certain test scores. And getting those scores, because they can potentially save you tens of thousands of dollars, is a worthy investment.

This is what I help students achieve. In fact, this is the main reason I do what I do.

My goal is to help students make good choices for their future.

ACT Prep Course for the June 2024 ACT

So if you know why you want to go to college, and you have a plan, and you want to be smart about it, I’d like to help you.

I’ve made a living helping students like you score high on the ACT and receive scholarships.

I am mostly a one-on-one private tutor. My rates are on the higher side. Still, people gladly pay because I help them save thousands of dollars in college tuition. 

But I’m holding a 6-week Prep Course (online live class) for the June ACT that’s a fraction of the cost of private tutoring. It’s also discounted over 30% of what I’d normally charge.

It begins on April 30. Click here for more information or to sign up.

If you’re interested in private tutoring, schedule a free consultation.

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