From an education strategist who has spent 20 years and hundreds of students, learning what actually works.
I have spent more than two decades in education — as a strategist, a former tutoring and test-prep business owner, and the author of Power to the Parent. In that time I have sat across the table from hundreds of students, one at a time, and walked alongside their families through every version of the same question: how do I set my child up to succeed?
Parents are asking me that in a season that has never been more intense. Application volume is up more than 40% since 2019, according to the Common App, with the average student now submitting six or seven applications instead of five. And the pressure lands on the kids. In a 2025 survey from the Art & Science Group, 89% of graduating seniors reported moderate-to-high anxiety during the college process — and the students carrying the most were often first-generation and lower-income, the ones with the least room for a wrong turn.
So here is my best advice, earned the long way, for parents who want their child to thrive — not just get in.
1. Start with who your child is, not where you want them to go.
Most families start with a school and work backwards to the child. I do the opposite. Before we ever talk about a college list, a course load, or a testing plan, I want to know who this child actually is — how they think, what they are wired for, where they get stuck, what lights them up. That is what clarity means. When you build from the real child instead of the version that looks good on an application, every decision after it gets easier. You stop guessing.
2. Fit beats prestige — and the research is on your side.
The name on the diploma matters less than we have been told. When economists Mountjoy and Hickman studied long-term earnings in 2025, they found that attending an elite college does not meaningfully raise earnings for most students once you account for who that student already was — echoing the landmark Dale–Krueger findings from years earlier. So what does predict a thriving life? Engagement. A 2024 Gallup–Strada study found that graduates who were deeply engaged in their studies — at any school, prestigious or not — were more than three times as likely to be thriving in their careers. The goal is not the most impressive school. It is the right fit, where your child will actually show up and grow.
3. Personalize the plan. There is no template.
I owned and operated a tutoring and test-prep business, and the single biggest thing it taught me is that no two students are the same. Same grade, same neighborhood, sometimes the same family — and completely different in how they learn, what motivates them, and what they need. The results that made my jaw drop never came from a one-size-fits-all program. They came from a plan built around the specific child in front of me. Personalization is not a luxury. It is the whole game.
4. Play the long game. Consistency wins.
I will be honest with you: there is no quick fix, no hack, no shortcut you can buy. If your child is off track, or simply unclear, it is absolutely fixable — but it takes time, a targeted plan, and consistency. That is not only my experience; it is what the evidence shows. A 2024 analysis of more than 260 controlled studies of tutoring found the biggest gains come from the least glamorous formula: intensive, personalized support delivered consistently over time. Done right, that kind of focused work has been shown to double or even triple what a student learns in a single year. Not a sprint. A system.
The bottom line
The families who come out ahead are not the ones who found the shortcut. They are the ones who got clear early, built a plan that fit their child, and stayed consistent long enough for it to work.
That is the reason I wrote Power to the Parent and built my practice the way I did — to put that roadmap in parents’ hands. If you want to start with clarity about your own child, that is the work I do. And it begins with understanding your child — not the college.
— Wendy Richard
Sources
- Art & Science Group, Who’s Feelin’ It? The Real Faces of College Admissions Anxiety (2025), reported by BestColleges — https://www.bestcolleges.com/news/low-income-students-more-stressed-over-college-admissions/
- Common App application-volume trend, via Applerouth analysis (2026) — https://www.applerouth.com/blog/what-does-prestige-actually-mean-in-college-admissions
- Mountjoy & Hickman (2025) on college selectivity and earnings, summarized by Research.com (2026) — https://research.com/universities-colleges/does-it-matter-where-you-go-to-college
- Gallup–Strada (2024), engagement and career thriving
- Dale & Krueger, landmark study on college selectivity and earnings
- Kraft et al. (2024) meta-analysis of high-dosage tutoring (265 RCTs), summarized by the American Institute for Boys and Men — https://aibm.org/research/the-strong-positive-effects-of-high-dose-tutoring-for-boys-and-girls/
- University of Chicago Education Lab, high-dosage tutoring outcomes (2024) — https://educationlab.uchicago.edu/2024/03/national-study-finds-in-school-tutoring-programs-are-successfully-accelerating-student-learning-reversing-pandemic-era-learning-loss/
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