Most parents -- and kids for that matter -- make one grave, mistaken assumption about how the college admissions process works:

They think it's supposed to be "fair."

It's not.

Colleges are businesses. They have their own various and sundry agendas.  Those agendas frequently, but don't always, overlap yours and your child's.

Take, for example, last year's Supreme Court cases about the use of affirmative action in college admissions at UNC Chapel Hill and Harvard.  A chunk of Harvard's internal admissions officers' guide was entered into evidence, listing the criteria that Harvard deemed worthy of a special "tag" (boost) in the admissions process:

Underrepresented minorities, of course.  But also recruited athletes and children of alumni.

To those favored categories, I'd add international students, children of professors and staff and applicants from "feeder" high schools.

In other words, if you're not in one of these categories, it's harder to get in. That was the...