There's a question your kid has to answer on every college application.

It isn't on the Common App. It isn't in any supplement. No college will ever say it out loud. That's why I call it the invisible question.

Here it is.

Why should we take you instead of the 50,000 other kids who look exactly like you on paper?

I have this conversation with kids several times a week, most weeks of the year, and it's an uncomfortable one. I tell them: I know you're special. I know your mom and dad think you hung the moon. But to this college, right now, you are a dime a dozen.

That's not an insult. It's a description of the pile. Thousands of applications, similar grades, similar scores, similar activities lists. I call it the sea of sameness.

Getting out of it is not about deserving it more. It's marketing.

Let me tell you where I learned that.

Years ago, long before I did this for a living, I bartended at the Four Seasons in Boston. The retired founder of Avis used to come in about once a week. Even...