Alison, Klinger, College Consultant

Think about the last major purchase you made. A car. A home renovation. You probably didn’t walk into the dealership and take the salesperson’s word for it. You compared. You questioned. You looked for sources you could trust before making a big decision. You were, in other words, a critical consumer.

Now think about the college admissions process. For many families, the same instincts that serve them so well in other high-stakes decisions quietly disappear when it comes to college planning. It makes sense why this happens- there has never been more noise out there about college admissions. 

Instagram. TikTok. Reddit. Facebook parent groups with thousands of members. The volume has gone up… dramatically. And with it, so has the confusion.

Let me be clear: not all of this is negative!  There is something genuinely comforting about finding your people in those spaces. Parents navigating the same anxious season you are; students swapping stories about essays or waitlists. But comfort and accuracy are not the same thing. 

Unfortunately this is not just loud background static you can tune out. It can actually change how a student applies to college. We have seen students completely rewrite essays based on a TikTok, abandoning their genuine voice for something they believed admission officers wanted to hear. We have seen families eliminate perfectly matched schools from a list because another parent called them a “safety.” We have seen students pursue activities they had no interest in and reshape their narratives because the noise told them to.

So how do you separate signal from noise? You act as a critical consumer. 

Signal, in this process, comes from a few reliable places. It comes from data you can verify:  the Common Data Set, admission offices, direct communication from the college or university. It comes from people with firsthand, professional experience in admissions. 

We know that for parents, the noise isn’t just about essays and acceptance rates. Parent concerns run deeper, and they are entirely valid.

When it comes to the safety of your child, for example, the internet has a particular talent for amplifying isolated incidents into sweeping narratives. We encourage parents to go beyond the anecdote. Look at the actual data colleges are required to report. Ask specific questions on campus visits. Evaluate mental health resources and campus communication systems.

When it comes to career outcomes, the noise is equally loud. What matters is not the headline but the specifics: Where are graduates from this school headed? In what fields? How quickly? Through what pathways? 

The noise is not going anywhere! Trust sources that can be verified. Start with the McNeal Sams team: professionals who have done this work, know this landscape from both an admissions and a counseling perspective, and care only about the right outcome for your student. That’s why we’re here: to help you be a critical consumer.