How to Give Your Kid the Ultimate, Almost Unfair Edge in College Admissions...

Glen Head
Thursday, 9:35 a.m.

Dear fellow parent,

You might not like what I'm about to say, but you won't hear it from your guidance counselor. Let’s put the skunk on the table.

Getting into a top college is now a real-life version of ‘Survivor," but with more essays.

It’s not enough to have straight A’s. Or perfect test scores.

Or a well-rounded resume with three parts "leadership," a dollop of "passion project" (UGGH) and a sprinkle of community service.

Because guess what? So does everyone else.

• ✔Acceptance rates are at historic lows
• ✔Admissions officers reject thousands of applicants who “did everything right”
• ✔Kids at every high school get deferred and waitlisted by so-called Safety Schools that they and their guidance counselors thought were "slam dunks."

Meanwhile, you’re stuck wondering:

• 🚨Is MY child doing enough?
• 🚨Should we be playing the admissions game differently? (It feels rigged!)
• 🚨If we get this wrong, will it cost them their future?

It’s a bloodbath out there. But sitting back and merely hoping for the best?

Highly NOT recommended. Hope is not a strategy.

That’s why select, smart families -- who refuse to settle, who want to give their children the best and have the means to do so -- work with Lockwood College Prep.

Because we don’t just help students beat the odds and “get in.” We help them WIN. At life.

However, our approach to college planning is different, and not right for everyone. We're a small shop that works with a handful of motivated, "coachable" clients.

We're choosier than you might think about whom we accept as clients, because we know from experience who is a good fit and who's not (Helicopter Parents, Snowplow Parents, actors named Lori or Felicity or anybody who would lie, bribe or photoshop their kids playing water polo in order to get into college. Or the "un-fun" and Energy Vampires in general.)

How We Give Our Students an (Almost) Unfair Advantage in College Admissions

We’ve spent more than 20 years perfecting The P4 System, our proprietary method that helps students:

• ✔Craft a clear, strategic application that compels admissions committees at elite schools to say YES
• ✔Stand out in a Sea of Sameness among thousands of other “perfect” candidates
• ✔Get into top schools—with minimal chaos, drama or anxiety

Put another way, we help engineer applications so compelling that...

Admissions officers will want to put YOUR kid’s essay on THEIR fridge!

We're not in the business of assisting another “well-rounded,” National Honor Society student to get lost in the pile of applications.

Families sign on with us to ensure that their children become standout, too-good-to-ignore "Incomparable Applicants."

And for well-to-do families who don’t qualify for financial aid?

This isn't politically correct, but you might be surprised to learn that colleges allocate more money to upper-echelon earners, compared to low income families.

No, they're not taking any money away from lesser-resourced families -- it's part of their business model. Our affluent clients regularly receive multiple five-figure merit scholarship awards. Frequently, these offers are negotiable, too.

If you're a high income business owner, there are 153 provisions in the tax code that could help you unlock cash buried in your business, to use to pay for college instead of needlessly forking it over to the IRS.

No matter how you slice it, there's no reason to overpay for college. Our motto:

You have to pay tuition, but you don’t need to leave a tip!

So yes—we help students get into top-tier schools, and families pay "wholesale" prices. But that’s actually not the most important part of our program.

The Self-Sabotaging, Catastrophic Mistake That Even Smart Families Make About College

Are you OK if I lay out a little harsh truth here? Most parents, guidance counselors (if you’ve met with yours yet) and 99% of college consultants focus on one thing only:

🏆 Getting into the most prestigious college possible.

So what's so wrong about that?

It depends. Here are a few potential problems that come to mind:

• 🚨Far too many students graduate without a clue what to do next (which was easier to do back when you and I applied to college, but not in today's turbulent times)
• 🚨Even Ivy League grads struggle to launch into the real world -- an increasing amount of employers are explicitly staying away from nepo babies and the coddled classes
• 🚨Thousands of families fork over $300K+ on a degree at their kid’s Dream School—only to watch their kid move back home, jobless and aimless

Because this short-term, "Get into the best school possible and you'll just figure it out" plan neglects the much more important, and complex, Long Game.

Getting into college is not the finish line. It’s the BEGINNING.

The real question is..

How can you make sure college actually pays off?

Don't get me wrong. For the right student, getting Into an Ivy or other prestigious "Rear Window Sticker College" unlocks opportunities that can turn into lifetime advantages.

For many others, not so much. Harvard isn't right for everyone.

How to Avoid the College Admissions Trap and Set Your Kid Up for Success

The first step in our P4 System is backward planning. In other words, getting a College Return on College Investment.

When we start coaching a new student, we won't utter a word about the college list, applications, etc., for several days. The initial part of our process is about something different, and more important: Helping your child to discover...

• ✔How they’re wired—so they don’t waste years switching majors two-three times and taking two extra years to graduate
• ✔Which "best fit," high-satisfaction careers match their strengths and interests, so work feels like “play” -- and they can make a living
• ✔How to choose a college that sets them up for REAL success, post-college. It’s about the 40 years, not the four.

Then, and ONLY then, do we map out a college admissions strategy that makes sense.

Because it’s not about just getting in -- it’s about getting in, then GETTING OUT, and GETTING SET UP for a career and successful life they actually love.

Our job is to help your kid launch, using the best fit college as a means to an end, meaning...

• ✔No Six Year Plan
• ✔No graduating with a useless degree.
• ✔No outlay of $300K plus only to lead to a career of making unpronounceable coffee drinks or rolling burritos

This is how smart families pull off the seemingly impossible and win the College Game.