November 14, 2004

Families hire expert help in quest for elite colleges

By Grace Rauh, The Argus

FREMONT -- They've known about it for weeks, months, even years. Yet, like clockwork, high school seniors scramble to finish college applications each fall -- writing essays late into the night, begging teachers for last-minute letters of recommendation and devoting precious holiday weekends to chronicling every extracurricular activity they have participated in since birth.

It seems no matter how much advance notice students receive from school counselors and parents, it's the same story for many.

They get it done at the last minute.

"We've been procrastinating since summer," said Melissa Lee, a senior at Mission San Jose High School, standing with friends in the campus parking lot after school last week.

"I'm going to have fun and do it on the very last day," she said.

Applications for University of California and many Cal State schools are due Nov. 30. Lee plans to apply to schools in both systems.

Some Tri-City area seniors likely will mirror Lee and wait until the last minute to complete applications. Others said they hoped to finish most of their work this weekend -- a long one for Fremont students who had no school Thursday and Friday.

According to DeAnne Andrews, a counselor at Mission San Jose, the real application frenzy doesn't occur until Thanksgiving week -- when students are really down to the wire.

"We always forewarn them, 'Don't wait until that week,'" she said.

Occasionally, students have difficulty submitting their online applications then because university computer servers are so swamped, she said.

Andrews hears stories from seniors who have slept for two hours or pulled an all-nighter to finish the work, she said.

"The application process is overwhelming. It's like adding another class or two," she said. "Some of them are so over-focused that they are not even sleeping."

Steven Ma, co-founder of ThinkTank Learning Inc., expects to hear from stressed-out students during the next two weeks, he said.

"It is crunch-time month for both the students and us," he said. "They basically call and say, 'Do you have any service to help me to alleviate my pain in the college process?'"

ThinkTank Learning, which began in Cupertino three years ago, opened a Fremont office in March. It offers tutoring, classes and private consulting for college applications.

Its top-shelf college package costs $2,000 and includes seven sessions with a counselor devoted to one application. But with only a little more than a dozen Fremont seniors using ThinkTank, it's clear most students are slogging through applications on their own.

Victoria Tang, a senior at Irvington High School, said she plans to finish most of her applications this weekend. "If you just take the time to do it and not procrastinate, then you'll get it done," she said. "I wouldn't say it's as rigorous as an entire class."

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