I wrote this piece on the college application process three years ago, based on my experience helping my son and daughter, as well as thirty students I have mentored. As we head into the new school year, it seems timely to remind everyone of the many stresses that high school seniors face…

The race is about to begin. Over the next few weeks, high school seniors will start the laborious process that will determine the next four years of their lives and have a profound effect on their long-term futures: applying to college. Most of them will spend the next eight months with knots in their stomachs, anticipating the paper work and the uncertainness ahead.

Some will be lucky and get accepted into the top school of their choice. Many others won’t fare as well or won’t be able to afford the schools that they want to attend. Even worse, many more will not even have made it to this stage. Somewhere along the line, they will have given up on their college dreams, because they became overwhelmed by the overly-complicated college application process – a process many students are forced to navigate by themselves, due to a lack of sufficient support and guidance from the adults in their lives, at home or at school.

The saddest part of it all is that most of the kids that give up are likely from disadvantaged families. They’re the ones that need and deserve the chance for success that a college education can provide.

While there is no easy answer to solve this problem: there is a hidden resource available to every high school in the country, a group of people with years of education and experience who have hours of free time available to work with these kids to help them sort through mountains of forms and applications, shape their essays, hone their interviewing skills and decide which schools they should apply to. Best of all, these folks will do all of this work free of charge. I know because I am one of them. We’re called retirees.

Since I retired twelve years ago, I have had the privilege of working with a number of fine young men and women from our local high school in Bay Shore, Long Island.

Through my alma mater, Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass., I started a special scholarship program for underprivileged kids from the area to attend the prep school’s prestigious and rigorous five-week summer school program, attended by students from more than thirty countries. Our goal was to help broaden their horizons and better their chances to get accepted at competitive universities. To date, twenty-two eager youngsters have attended, twenty of them receiving $110,000 plus in scholarships provided by Andover. [As of 2010, the number has risen to thirty students and $150,000 in scholarship aid.]

Among the schools they now attend or have graduated from: Yale, Harvard, Cornell, Dartmouth, Columbia, Northwestern, Boston College, Swarthmore, MIT, Fordham and Northeastern.

While this experience has been very gratifying, I wanted to do more. (Plus, as a restless retiree, I must admit my wife wanted me to do more… to do anything, frankly, other than sit in front of the TV).

Several years ago, along with my daughter Jenny, we became aware of a wonderfully talented young lady, then a 7th grader, thanks to the efforts of a dynamic community leader who started and runs an after-school program at the local community center. We began to track her progress and made a commitment to mentor her. She was determined to go to college, but needed guidance, as she would be the first in her family to pursue a higher education.

The young woman was an exceptional student, but her PSAT and SAT scores presented a problem, math was the culprit. She attended Phillips Academy’s Summer Session after her freshman year, which was a big help, but she wanted to work on her skills further.

This is when retirees in a community can really help. Through a relative, I learned that Mt. Holyoke had a highly regarded summer math program. We did some research and made some calls. The young lady attended the next year on a scholarship, receiving glowing reports. We also worked with the local high school to ensure she received the best SAT preparation. She improved her scores by 190 points.

Then the real work began.

It started one cold autumn Saturday morning four years ago, sitting at a local diner. Piles of college applications covered the table, burying the menus and cutlery. Our young friend did her best to sort through them, while I pulled out an Xcel spreadsheet my daughter and I had created that listed potential colleges, their advantages and disadvantages, average SAT scores for acceptance, deadline dates, potential alumni we knew who could write references, and, most importantly, the likelihood that the school would provide enough financial aid for the young woman to attend.

Since I had more free time on my hands then our young friend and my daughter, I was able to call the schools in ensuing months to clarify our questions about student aid and application requirements as they arose. It seemed like such a simple task, but it made a big difference. Our young student had no access to a phone while she was at school and would have had a very hard time tracking down the information she needed otherwise. In addition to a challenging course load, she participated actively in many after school activities and worked twenty to twenty-five hours a week in a retail shoe store.

The weeks went by, and our protege worked her way through dozens of forms and required essays. Throughout the process, my daughter and I were there to give advice, act as sounding boards and provide often much-needed words of encouragement. The day that all of the applications were finally completed, my wife, my daughter and I cheered.

That night, I stayed up late and jotted down some notes about the experience. I wrote about how getting into college today is so much more complicated than I ever imagined, especially if the applicants have no resources, no connections, no legacy leg-up’s and no one else in their immediate family who had gone to college to give them advice. It is a painfully uneven playing field, giving privileged kids an ever-increasing advantage. Their parents can afford professional college admissions coaches, special tutoring and one-on-one SAT prep and have the time and knowledge of the system to stand up for their kids, which can influence placement in A.P. courses, as well as class and teacher selection.

In addition, pressure on school districts to perform competitively and the zeal with which administrators, board members and parents must pursue rankings and “bragging rights” creates an atmosphere where the individual student can become a statistic.

The last lines that I wrote down before I went to bed that night still haunt me, how many gifted young people don’t get the support they need? How many kids get left behind?

The stars lined up for our young lady. She received 12 scholarship offers and was admitted to her first choice, Northwestern. She is doing very well.

Her tenacity and many talents made it happen, aided by an enthusiastic guidance counselor. I’d like to think that having a committed mentor with the time to listen and provide support helped along the way.

It doesn’t take much to help launch these deserving young people. They just need a chance and a champion. Providing a few words of advice, a connection to a certain school or just a broader perspective can make a world of difference.

In return, these kids will make a world of difference to you. Helping kids has been my dividend, their letters and phone calls to me a treasure more valuable than all of the Christmas bonuses I earned during my 35 years on Wall Street.

If you are retired or about to retire, think about getting involved. Your local school and the kids you help will welcome you with open arms. And your family will finally stop worrying that you’re turning into a couch potato. There is no substitute for one-on-one participation!

George S.K. Rider
10/31/07