For anyone who has lived through the process of supporting their son or daughter in the search for a college, it is a truly exciting, perplexing and tiring endeavor.  It’s also an opportunity to watch values in action at the various institutions as well as with your own child as they wrestle with what is to them a monumental choice.

First, a word about my son.  I have no qualms highlighting my parental pride as I’ve watched him arm-wrestle peer pressure to the ground during this process.  Many of his friends are escaping across state lines to “Party U” and their exuberance over staying together and their encouragement for him to join the herd has reached the point where it now annoys him.

This is a great test of character and while he has excellent grades and good test scores and has some options, he is looking at this decision from a very mature perspective.  Oh, and just to add some real-world context for his decision, like most of us, he faces some parameters that complicate the decision-making process.

The Parameters:

  • In the absence of a clear-cut academic or professional goal, we will support him for in-state tuition, or he can take it upon himself to make up the difference between in-state and out-of-state tuition.  He is also welcome to move out of state, work for a year and gain residency before starting college. 
  • If he chooses to complete his general education requirements at the community college, and if he has a clear academic and professional goal at the end of two years, we will support him for the institution of his choice.
  • He must work during vacations to contribute to his books and living expenses.
  • Four years only and Mom and Dad are done.

He’s in the process of working through the choices, and is considering two very different institutions and the community college route.  We are trying hard to not hinder or complicate the process for him.  If asked, we offer our thoughts, mostly in the form of questions.  We’ve also suggested various frameworks for decision-making, but we are trying hard to not influence his choice.  I know what I would do given the opportunity, but the extra 30 years of life experience tends to help simplify the choices.  To an 18 hear-old, it seems like the weight of the world is on your shoulders.  Stay tuned.

The Values and Performance Commitment of the Institutions:

I have a hard time not letting my sensitivity to values and my quest for performance excellence interfere with my opinion about different academic institutions.  In the case of universities, I believe that you learn a lot by how the organizations conduct themselves during student open house events. 

The formula is pretty much the same everywhere you go.  The visiting parents and prospective students meet in a big auditorium, watch a video or two, listen to the Director of Admissions and hear from a panel of over-achieving students.  After a general session, you break out into a College Fair, take a campus tour that ends up with a visit to a typical dorm room (yikes!). 

At noon, you grab a quick lunch and then hustle across campus to hear from the academic area that your son or daughter is most interested in.  You ask questions, walk around a bit more, and cap off the visit by buying a t-shirt at the bookstore and then embarking on the long trip home.

The formula is OK, and you can learn a lot if you pay attention, ask questions and immerse yourself in the experience.  If your son or daughter has strong interests in a particular area of study, these are great opportunities to compare schools.  However, for the undecided masses, after you do this three or four times, they all tend to blend together.

Finding Gold in the Corn:

While all of the institutions that we’ve looked at have some great positives to offer, one stands out head and shoulders above the rest.  Surprisingly (to me), it is Western Illinois University.  This relatively small (by state school standards) institution in the middle of who knows where, IL, definitely has it going on.

Attend an open house at WIU, and you’ll meet and hear from University President, Al Goldfarb and the top executives.  Most other organizations roll out the Director of Admissions, but at WIU, the entire management team thinks enough of you to attend, talk and mingle.  Mr. Goldfarb stresses values, treats and talks to the students and parents like they are customers and goes so far to offer his personal e-mail address and an invitation to use it.

While one might be able to dismiss the President’s good sounding rhetoric, as you meet and talk with the executives of the institution, you hear the same messages about values and personal care and students as customers over and over again.  The cynic in me thinks, “Hmmm, OK, Al runs a tight ship and has his managers singing out of the same song book.”

Start meeting with the instructors and administrators, and the same encouraging messages come through.  People talk like they believe this stuff.

Fast forward a few months and bump into a group of purple-clad people in the airport and introduce yourself to realize that you are meeting Al’s entire management group on their way to California.  Try as I might to penetrate their P.R. message defense, I can’t.  These people are genuine in how they view the world.  They are like the old Avis commercial…”They Try Harder,” because they have to. 

Our oldest son decided to attend WIU a few years ago,  and as we mingled in a room of hundreds at the new student orientation session the Summer before he started I was shocked when one of the university employees walked up to me, looked at my name badge and said, “Mr. Petty, you must be “son’s” father.” 

It turns out this was his counselor.  Talk about an impression.  My memory is fuzzy, but I believe that I went through four years at a remarkable institution, the University of Illinois, and never met a counselor, much less someone that knew my Dad’s name. 

At every turn, we’ve been impressed with this lesser known school in the cornfields of Macomb, IL.  The other very good institutions just seem to fail in comparison.  The passion, the customer-focus and the strong sense of values-based management come through loud and clear at WIU and are missing in the presentations of the other programs.  At WIU, you begin to establish context for the people behind the bricks and mortar and at least for a parent, this is palpable. 

Our youngest son may or may not attend WIU, the choice is his, but I do know a group of people focused on performance excellence when I see it.  Kudos to the team at Western Illinois University.  He could do much, much worse.