Interview 18: Brennan Barnard on “Mistakes Parents Make in the College Process”


Brennan Barnard is a prolific writer, writing for the Washington Post, Forbes and the Huffington post, but Brennan also serves as the Director of College Counseling at the Derryfield school in New Hampshire. Brennan is also the co-author of The Truth about College Admission: A Family Guide to Getting In and Staying Together. Mark and Brennan worked together at the Westtown School from 2001-2004. Mark and Brennan worked for months on coming up with a list of 20 common mistakes that parents make in the college process. Mark and Brennan acknowledge the many strengths of parents and we could easily have a list of 20 important contributions parents make, but in this interview we discuss six mistakes that involve “Inappropriate Parent Involvement”, five mistakes parents make that involve “not validating your child’s self-worth” and we discuss nine mistakes parents make as a result of poor financial planning. (Length 23:50)