Profile: Professor Cheryl Paradis Advises Parents to Look Beyond Brand Name When Helping Their Child Find the Right College

(New York, NY) Cheryl Paradis, associate professor of psychology at Marymount Manhattan College, co-wrote a book that helps parents partner effectively and successfully with their college bound teens to find their “right fit” college. In Tackling College Admissions: Sanity + Strategy = Success, Professors Cheryl Paradis and Faren Siminoff show parents how they can become effective coaches for their children by discarding destructive myths about college admissions, understanding their personal parenting style and assessing their teen’s strengths, challenges and needs. Paradis and Siminoff utilize their dual perspectives as professors and parents in the book, which was released in July.

Throughout Tackling College Admissions, Paradis advises parents that a good match rather than a brand name college or university provides a better basis for a successful college career and the key to a fulfilling life. “With millions of parents and teens entering the college race each year, we need a little sanity and common sense,” says co-author Cheryl Paradis. “Our book can guide parents to help their teens win that race by finding the college that is the right fit.”

Paradis and Siminoff do not only help parents of “always-focused” teens, or AFTs, who have great grades, near-perfect test scores and long lists of extracurriculars. They also informt parents of “not-always-focused” teens, or NAFs, who may not have stellar grades or SAT scores. While parents often have their sights set on the Ivy League, which are reach schools for everyone, Paradis’ and Siminoff’s book helps parents put the Ivy craze into perspective and find quality schools that might be even better fits for their AFTs. 

Dr. Paradis teaches courses in child development and abnormal psychology at MMC. She has extensive experience administering psychodiagnostic tests to children and adolescents with problems such as learning disabilities and a need for test accommodations. She has counseled teens and parents for psychological, family and school-related issues. Paradis recently completed the second of two successful college application processes with her children.

Faren Siminoff is an attorney, a historian, an associate professor of American history at Nassau Community College, as well as a mother of a teen who is attending the college of his choice.

For more information about the book, please click hereTackling College Admissions: Sanity + Strategy = Success is published by Rowman & Littlefield.

Published: July 22, 2008