I'm a customer, too.

In a previous blog, I described how our office is often engaged simultaneously in work connected with several points in the admissions cycle. This year, I find myself in multiple completely different admissions cycles. While my professional life is focused on graduate admissions, I am also the parent of a 17-year-old who has recently started his college search, and a 13-year-old, who will soon need to choose a high school.

Fortunately, the high school search looks like it will be simple – over time we have decided that our town’s public school will be just the right match for my daughter. Phew! One task checked off the to-do list, though there will be visits and schedule selection, among other pre-enrollment tasks.

As for the college search, I have a long way to go before I can check it off the list. Not long ago, the pile of college viewbooks and catalogs that arrived for my son included one from a college whose admissions director described how she was enlightened by her own child’s college search. I already feel the same way.

For several years, I have shared professional information with high school students and teachers. Now, the undergraduate college search process is providing me with insights that I can take back to work. I feel lucky, that having seen many admissions pools and the student body that results, I can sit back and relax (as much as any mother ever relaxes about these things) about which college my son ultimately goes to. The evidence: Fletcher has students from around the world, and around the world’s education systems. Among our students are those from large public universities and the smallest private colleges, from technical colleges, undergraduate law programs, and “great books” programs. The critical fact is that they have all emerged with focus, direction, and passion. I can’t think of anything I would want more for my own children.

We’ve already taken a few college tours and we’ll take a few more later this summer. Throughout the year, I look forward to sharing my observations, insofar as they relate to Fletcher admissions.