I've spent 20 years in college admissions.
Here’s what they don’t want you to know.
Andy Johnson · Independent Educational Consultant
About
Opening
I’m not going to tell you I’m passionate about helping families. What I am is annoyed — on your behalf — at an industry that profits from keeping this process confusing.
For 20 years I worked in college admissions: Director and Vice President roles at institutions in California, Kansas, and Arkansas. I sat on the committee side of the desk. I know how financial aid models get built, what signals actually move scholarship decisions, and which parts of this process are complicated because they have to be and which parts are complicated because it’s better for the institution if you stay confused.
The Other 95 exists because most families are working hard at the wrong things, with advice designed for someone else’s situation.
Credentials
The short version: I spent nearly a decade as a Director of Admissions at Fresno Pacific University in California. Then I became Vice President for Admissions at Bethel College in Kansas, where we enrolled the largest incoming class in 33 years. I moved to Vice President of Enrollment Management at Friends University in Wichita. In between, I led admissions at the University of Arkansas – Fort Smith, where transfer enrollment grew 24% in a year by making sure students knew what they were actually eligible for.
I’ve restructured scholarship programs at multiple institutions with the specific goal of getting underserved and first-generation students' real access — not the version of access that looks good in a press release.
I currently work full-time in higher education, and I run The Other 95 alongside that role. Capacity is limited by design.
What I Believe
Colleges are not neutral parties in this process. Their job is to enroll a class that meets their goals. Knowing that changes how you should interpret everything they send you.
First-generation families deserve the same quality of guidance that wealthy families have always had access to. The real thing, not a watered-down version.
The price on the website is almost never what you’ll pay. Families who understand this build better lists and make smarter decisions.
The right list — 10 to 14 schools where your student genuinely fits and is in your price range is worth more than a prestigious-looking list of 20.
The Human Part
Before I got into higher education, I was a newspaper reporter in Kansas and Oklahoma. That’s where I learned to ask a direct question and then actually listen to the answer. It still informs how I run sessions.
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Here’s a moment that does too. A few years ago, a dad came in to talk about his son’s school list. He’d done his research. He pointed to a university with a 50% graduation rate and said he was worried — that those odds weren’t good enough for his son.
He was right to be worried. He was wrong about what the number meant.
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A 6-year graduation rate doesn’t tell you anything about your student’s odds of graduating. It tells you about that institution’s student population, its financial aid model, and how many students ran out of money — or chose to leave — before they finished. A selective school with a 95% rate isn’t better at getting students to graduation — it selects students who were already going to graduate.
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This dad had done everything right. He’d found the data, read the data, and drawn a completely logical conclusion from it. The problem was nobody had ever told him what the number actually measures.
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That’s the whole job in one example. The information exists. The interpretation is what families are missing.
Resources
Start with a Clarity Session
90 minutes. You’ll leave with a realistic picture of where your student stands, a starting school list, and the financial picture based on your actual situation — not the sticker price. Next steps in writing within 48 hours. The $175 credits toward any package within 30 days.