Finding the Right Fit, Financial Aid Tips, and Student-Centered Admissions with Teege Mettille

Hello parents, and welcome to another show of Parents, Is Your Teen College Ready? Today I have a wonderful, wonderful guest that I cannot wait to share with you. Tej Mittal, welcome to the show.

Oh, Shellee, thank you. I'm so happy to be here. I jumped at the opportunity.

Outstanding. So for my listeners, can you give them a little bit of your background or why they may want to listen to our show?

Yeah, I sure can. So my name's Tej Mathila. I've been working in college admissions for, oh gosh, going on 18, 19 years now, depending on how you count it. You know, started as a traditional admissions counselor, then became director, dean, vice president at a wide variety of small liberal arts institutions in the Midwest. Since then, a couple years ago, I launched Leading Colleges, which is a consortium of student-centered institutions that you may not have heard of, but are really doing great work by the students that they serve. And we're kind of a launching pad to celebrate not just them as well as our National Awards Program colleges that just are focused so well on students and the student experience that these are institutions I think families should take a look at. Wow.

So now I'm super curious, parents. I hope you're leaning in and you're like, wow, OK, this is going to be good. Let's start with a question that I think is important for families in this time, and that is, did you know that you were going to be doing this job when you were in high school?

Absolutely not. I was absolutely set on becoming an accountant when I was in high school. So no is the short answer.

I love that one because I think I've only had one guest in all these years that said yes. I did know that I wanted to be a school teacher.

Okay.

Yeah, just one. So this is going to be so much fun. Let's start out with a little bit about what life was like on the admissions side of things so we can kind of take a step back, because parents think that the admissions people are mean and harsh and they don't, they don't want their child to succeed, or what it may be. So maybe talk a little bit about what that felt like.

Sure, well, I do have a list of the mean and harsh admissions people. I can read from it now if you'd like their names. No, I'm kidding. So here's the thing about admissions counselors. By and large, and Shellee, I'm sure you've experienced this in your interactions with counselors too, they are drawn to this work because they really want to help students. They're not motivated to, you know, increase tuition revenue for the institution or drive down the admit rate. They really want to feel like they're having a positive impact on the lives of students. And in their mind, the way they could do that is to help the right students find their way to their institution. So when an admissions counselor gets involved in the profession, their goal is not to say no, they're trying to find all the reasons they can to say yes. And I think for families, for parents who are listening, so often, you know, the news articles are focused on highly reject colleges, and it's so easy to get spun out into that fear of like, oh, we're not going to get in. But as I'm sure you've covered on the show before, most colleges admit most of their students. Many colleges are admitting almost all of their applicants, right? It's not the getting in that is quite as challenging. Now, getting into a particular place, that could be a challenge, right? Like if you have your heart set on one of the big name colleges, then you really need to kind of put together a compelling application. Getting into a college is not as challenging as finding your place. That's where I think our work really comes in, is helping students, helping families find the perfect place for them.

Yeah, that— I already feel better just knowing that because so many students and parents are feeling overwhelmed and frustrated. They read social media and it doesn't sound very promising. And last year, you know, our students earned over $9 million in scholarships. Yeah, I think that's an important thing for families to realize. There is lots of money available. There's lots of openings in some great universities. So let's talk about what got you fired up or left admissions and started in the work that you're doing now.

Yeah, you know, I had been in my, in my past life, a member of a couple different consortiums of institutions working together to like, lift the voice, the collective voices of themselves. And that's really where the concept of Leading Colleges came from, which is there's all these great institutions, often below the radar, right? Some of the colleges on the list, and you can go to leadingcolleges.org to find them, you wouldn't have heard of them out if you're not in that state, but they're doing such great work with the students that they serve and the families that are really relying on them to help propel the student post-high school into whatever comes next. So for me, the draw was if I'm not gonna be on a college campus right now, which I'm currently not, I still wanna feel like I'm making an impact and making a difference. And while now I'm one or two steps removed from the direct conversation with students, I really do feel like by identifying these institutions, bringing them out, giving them some, you know, brand building awareness and publicity that I, I really still think I'm helping students and families uncover some potentials that they, they might not have considered.

So the, the question that came to mind as a mother of 4 was, are these going— these unknown schools, are they going to set the student up as well as some of the more known schools?

Yes. You know, that's a, it's an interesting question because some of the more known schools, and I am reading the room to not name them, but we know who they are, right? We can think, all right, an institution that is bringing through, however you're gonna define these words, like high-powered students with just a ton of social capital before they even arrive on the college campus. Often that's how they arrive on those college campuses. And they turn out graduates that are high-powered and connected and using their social capital after the fact. I'm not so sure that the colleges have changed those students' trajectories so much as enabled and empowered. And that's still important as well. But some of these institutions, my goodness, when you really get in and understand who they're working with and how they're helping them, are they churning out 4 out of 9 Supreme Court justices? Maybe not, right? Like, that might not be what's happening, but are they taking students who, um, were on one life trajectory and elevating them up and helping with the social mobility challenges in our, um, currently in our society? I, I think they're doing some great work on that regard.

Oh, that is such a great way to look at it. We often, when we build our college lists, we help students understand, right, reach, comfort, and safety, but also academic fit, social fit, and financial fit. Collegehood is very focused on the financial fit, the return on investment of an education. And sometimes these smaller, less known liberal arts schools have been very generous.

Can you— Oh yes, they have.

—tell me why that is?

Yeah, you know, if I can— if I could just tell a little story here in Wisconsin. So I'm based in Milwaukee right now, and almost all of my higher ed career has been small liberal arts colleges in Wisconsin. There were a couple years, uh, just after the 2008 housing market crash where the actual cost to attend a small private college— and I should say a private college in Wisconsin, they're not all small— went down while the public systems were going up. And for many students, depending on the situations, the private colleges are sometimes less expensive than the public options. I was working with my niece who's going through this process and they're looking at some of the public flagships under the impression that they'd be cheaper. And the in-state flagship is cheaper. And then I did the net price calculator for them and compared some of the out-of-state flagship prices where there's not as much financial aid available because they're dealing with tax dollars and state legislators and compared it with some of the really well-known private colleges, which we're not mentioning, but we know what they are. And it was gonna be significantly cheaper for that particular student to attend the private colleges. But I think this is what I've always said to families looking at the private colleges. I get that the sticker price is scary. It scares me too, to be frank. It scared me away from my ideal college when I was a student, right? And this is part of why I'm so passionate about this. If you apply to a handful of the small private colleges, not necessarily 10 to 12, although I apologize, I don't know how many you're encouraging your students to apply to, Shellee. But if you apply to a handful of small private colleges, 4 or 5, it's safe to assume 1 or 2 of them will come up with an aid package that works for your family. But it is not safe to assume that they all will, or that the one you really want to go to is going to be able to do it, right? So, for students, if they're looking at colleges like that are on Leading Colleges, if you go into the financial aid season, whenever that happens in any given year, fairly open-minded and feeling good about a couple different options, this is good. The story is going to end well 9 times out of 10.

Yeah, I think going into it is important to have that conversation before you apply. I think that's really the, the, the elephant in the room is the student's looking for a social fit and the parents are looking for a good financial fit and we're going to college for an academic fit. So if we don't have that initial conversation, how will you know if that's a good deal or not?

You know, Shellee, I think families, whatever point they start talking to their students about the cost of college, do it earlier, right? Just earlier. There's no other major purchase where we would turn to a 17-year-old and say, you know, honey, I love you so much. Whatever makes your heart sing, pick whatever car you want. We'll make it work, right? We would never do that. And it's reasonable to have financial limitations on college tuition. And I don't think students will react negatively to it when it's kind of laid out upfront. So when I work with, you know, with my niece, for example, or a couple other folks, students I've worked with, I teach them early how to do the net price calculator. And I tell the parents, give them a number, give them a number, They can go fill out the net price calculator at the colleges that catch their eye. And if they need to rule it out, let them do it early. Don't let them fall in love with that college. So, you know, I informally worked with, I won't give any revealing details, but a family who they told their daughter, "Honey, wherever you want to go, your dad and I will make it work." And I said, "Don't say that. Like, that's the worst thing you can say." But they felt it, they meant it. And she picked a place that really overextended the parents. And she was the first of 5 children, right? And so they had to have a whole different conversation with the next set of children coming through. And again, you wouldn't say to your student, like, you know, it's back to school shopping, honey, here's the credit card, just whatever you need, whatever you need, just make sure your heart sings. But for some reason, we feel the need to do that about college. And I think the sooner parents can tell students, what the financial limitations are going to be, then you don't have to tell them no about a specific financial aid package 'cause they already know.

And it's so hard to pick a college list when you don't know, is this school generous or not? Have they given money in the past or not? I mean, there's no list because it changes by student. So there's no real way. We have, you know, I've been at this 17 years and when my son got a full ride to USC and Harvard matched it, I didn't even know that was possible. So helping parents understand that just like buying a home, right? You don't go and you pick up the flyer and you're like, okay, I guess this is what we're going to pay. And yeah. And then you find yourself not being able to afford the mortgage and now you're looking for scholarships. It is better to start having that conversation early. Let's take a pivot a bit. I want to talk about what is Leading Colleges. Help me understand.

Yeah, so Leading Colleges, it's a consortium currently now of 14 colleges. We have a few new about to be announced. We're waiting for back to school, but these are a group of colleges that have been evaluated and validated as building their policies, their procedures, their practices around students first. So we measure these, they're small liberal arts colleges, we measure the small liberal arts colleges along 4 criteria. Are they student-centered in their recruitment practices? So essentially, are they being fair and transparent? Their retention efforts, which is, are they focused and putting their kind of their time and effort into student success? We're looking for colleges that have strong outcomes that demonstrate the value of a college degree. And the fourth criteria, which often gets a lot of questions, is social justice, which is a measure of, is the college paying attention to their role as a change agent in society? Now, that does not mean Shellee Howard, Oberlin, right? Like, and I, maybe I should define that a little more for your audience. Oberlin, recognized as a super like social justice warrior campus. I hope that's fair to say, but I'll own that statement to not put it on you, Shellee. But it doesn't necessarily mean politically liberal. There's a lot of really conservative colleges that are meeting that criteria, which is we're mindful of our role in society. And Gen Z has demonstrated over and over again that they want their institutions to be mindful. So those are the four criteria that we have. So the colleges on the list are all kind of validated. Families that look at that can be confident that, like, all right, these colleges, they're doing it right. We can move on from there.

So are you saying that the opposite of that would be US News and World Report?

Yes. Yes. That's an easy question. You know, US News— and it's not that US News doesn't carry value. It does. It's measuring something. I think the popular culture assessment of US News interprets it to be measuring something different than it is. That's fine. We're not after, we're not kind of rank ordering student or institutions, and we're not saying this handful that we have are the only ones doing great work for students. We're just saying these are the ones we're working with. We'd love to tell you about 'em and to go from there.

So important. And for parents who don't know, college is a business. And I talk about it all the time. They need your student. I know it feels like you need them more than they need you, but I want you to remember, without your student, there is no college. So when we are talking about these different situations and scenarios, sometimes we may be smiling or we may be, you know, uh, making light of something, but it's just to help you to understand. It's similar to this. If you own a business and I come to you and I don't have a resume and I said, I really want a job, you're going to say, well, if I bring you on, you may get minimum wage. Same goes for if I come to you and I have an outstanding resume and I am passionate and I am— I want to show you how amazing I can help build your business. You are going to say yes and give me more money. So when we talk about college as a business, I love that you're looking at colleges also, um, unique at each school in how they bring on students, on how they treat students, on the retention of students. So again, it just kind of dissects that information because it's no longer a GPA and a test score. So maybe you can talk a little bit about that. What are you seeing at these smaller schools that students may not know about?

Yeah, so the— what, what I am tending to find, one, you're correct, these are institutions that generally are looking to find ways to get students and not keep them out. And in the application process, I find that they're much more likely to move students through quickly and begin dialogue and an engagement at that point, right? So students apply and then the counselor really does want to get to know them and their family situation and get an understanding of why are you interested in this institution, not so that I can make a yes/no decision on if you're coming, but so that I can make sure you have all the information you need about why this is or is not a great fit for you. It's different than some of the institutions where, it's competitive to get in. For most institutions in the country, including many of those on Leading Colleges, it's a buyer's market, right? I think that's kind of what you were getting at, Shellee Howard, right? Like, it's a buyer's market. There's more available seats than there are students to fill them. That's why the scholarships are so generous. That's why the institutions are spending, I think it's close to $10 billion a year in recruitment efforts of recruiting college students, right? It's a real significant, financial investment. And it's because we're looking— these colleges are looking for students to come join their community. They're not looking for reasons to say no.

That's exactly what I wanted to know. So why does this organization exist?

Can you speak on that? Yeah, so, you know, families can go to leadingcolleges.org, get some great information, but by and large, it is meant to connect these institutions with school counselors and independent educational consultants who need to know more about them. So, you know, Shellee Howard, as an independent educational consultant, right, like I know how much you know about all the colleges in the country. And I also know you're most aware of obviously the big name ones that the parents regularly ask about, but also the ones that are regionally located. And what we're trying to do is to introduce Colleges maybe that you haven't heard of, but are, that you can kind of conceptualize like, oh, they're similar to this other institution, right? So, you know, we have, you know, in Wisconsin there's Ripon College. You may or may not have heard of Ripon. That's great. And in Massachusetts we have Dean College. You may or may not have heard of Dean. Dean College does not need our help generating awareness with school counselors in Massachusetts. But Ripon does. And by pairing them together, it's kind of a rising tide lifts all boats, and counselors get more informed about the institutions that are available to students so that when they're working with students directly, they, they have a wider range of institutions that they can refer them to.

That makes so much sense. And, you know, having the opportunity over the years to place students all over the United States and even globally, I think that sometimes the small list does get missed because students are not asking for them. And if you live in Texas, the chances of you knowing about a Kentucky small college, yeah, probably not going to be there. So I think this is a valuable, very valuable asset. Now tell me, what are the awards about?

Yes. Okay. I love the awards. I have a whole new batch that I have to mail out to colleges next week. So it's, it's very exciting. Although I don't— Shellee Howard, I don't know when this episode drops actually, but it's next week as of today when we're recording this on August 7th. But the awards, we take the 4 criteria: recruitment, retention, outcomes, and social justice, and we open up to a nominating process. We reach out to school counselors, independent educational consultants, community-based organizations, and the colleges themselves to nominate and say, here's a college that's doing really great work on this particular criteria, one of the 4. And then we have a selections committee that reviews those. In some cases, we add our own context to it. To be frank, actually, Shellee Howard, there's an institution that is receiving a Recruitment Award because of things I've heard from admissions podcasts. So in the admissions podcast, I learned what Creighton University was doing, and I was like, we're gonna call, wrap that up and bring them in. But so there's about 100 total institutions separate from the consortium. That either this year or last year have received one of those awards. And again, it's just another way that we're trying to elevate and kind of raise the game of like practices that are relentlessly devoted to students. And so we're trying to find more opportunities to, to celebrate when that happens.

So I'm trying to put my mindset on of a listener who's a mom and there, you know, I would be thinking, so how does this apply to me? How do I use this information to make an informed, knowledgeable decision for my child?

Yeah, that's a great question. And my first recommendation would be talk to a counselor, right? Like, I always think there's, there's such a role for independent consultants or school counselors, um, etc., to, to help validate or kind of sort through. Absent that, which is perfectly fine as well, I would say what leading colleges can do, what these awards categories can do, and you can— the— we have a profile book of all of them available on Amazon. It publishes next week, but also I can send anyone a free copy of the ebook. It's going to be right on the website, so it's all there. We're not trying to gatekeep any information, but once you can identify one or two colleges nearby or that might be in your awareness that are kind of the tucked under the radar type. What this do is like, it's a volume amplifier that almost like, oh, if you like, if you are familiar with Prescott College in Arizona, these colleges are doing similar things. So you can kind of expand out. So the intention, the thought process is build on what you know, and let this guide you to the next round of colleges to look into.

That makes so much sense. I'm, I'm thinking, um, the awareness and the knowledge is so important, and that's why I wanted you to be on this show, because so many students are picking colleges based on a D1 football team or, you know, a brand name or something of that nature. And as they're amazing, I'm not saying don't consider those, But we like to speak of and consider those and because for, you know, every student is unique in this process. Some students need a very small intimate setting and some students want a big massive social setting. So I love the fact that you're doing this work. Now if somebody wanted to learn more about this, how might they be able to find you or the book or the information? They can just go to leadingcolleges.org.

I would say that's the, that's the launching point. We have profiles on the 11 colleges, more coming as we roll them out, and all the information is on that site.

Is there one bit of last advice that you could give a parent of a teenager navigating this process?

Yes, the advice— two, can I give two? You can give two. Talk about money right now. The sooner you talk about money, the better, right? So there's, there's the one thing. The other advice I've always given students is whenever you start to think about colleges, which I recommend junior year, maybe the end of sophomore year, look at the colleges around you, go visit a few different types of colleges right within driving distance. Visit a small private, visit a large public, visit a regional, Even if those particular colleges aren't of interest to you, let the student explore a small private college and see how that feels so they can know whether or not they want to go down that road or not. Same with the large publics. We all have this vision in mind, your students, I should say, have this vision in mind of what college is like, and it's because of the mass media focuses on the larger institutions. Let them explore, let them see, and they will quickly identify what feels right for them. And then they can start their research from there.

So well said. Thank you so much for being on the show today. Parents, is your teen college ready? Because if not, we're here to support you. Thank you very much.