The New Definition of Royalty

If you haven’t read the article published in the Washington Examiner on February 13, 2018, (http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/exorbitant-admissions-consultant-fees-highlight-a-college-obsessed-society/article/2648956) you should. It doesn’t matter whether you have a child in college, getting ready for college or no child at all. The article speaks to how far some wealthy parents are willing to go to insure their children are set apart from, “all those other people”.

The family and unfortunately, an exorbitantly priced college admissions consultant are involved in a law suit. I will not even mention the amount of money they are fighting over because the amount is so ridiculous that I can’t believe consultant actually asked for it and that any parent would listen one second longer to them after hearing it. This kind of thing I would expect to see in The Onion but not the Washington Examiner.

This is just another example of how crazy the race to “get in” has become. My job depends on parents wanting the best for their children and helping them get an edge on their competition. But, if a parent came to me inquiring about exclusive prep schools and only ivy colleges, my first response would be to ask why. I begin with all my clients by developing an understanding of where the student would like to be when the education is done and they are gainfully employed. Once we are all on the same page about the goal, appropriate steps can begin being made to achieve it.

Would I like for families to pay me enough so that I could work with only three students to see that they made all the right choices about planning for college? Sure, but only touching three lives with the gift of knowledge that I have been able to gather over the last 40 years is not my idea of giving back or leaving this world better than I found it.

How many students from lower income families who have the ability to be captains of industry and agents of change in our society might get lift behind because the price of good information was too high? I know what that looks like. It is not always the best filter to use when making shrewd business decisions, but there are rewards other than those of monetary gain. The subjects of this article are as far remove from me as the characters in the science fiction novels I read. I hope they are for you and your family too.