Prospective students and their families participate in a campus tour at Skidmore College in New York. Oliver Parini/The Hechinger Report hide caption

Oliver Parini/The Hechinger Report

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SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. — Overwhelming.

That's how 17-year-old high school senior Alex Zaret described the college admissions process, during a tour of the Skidmore College campus — the fourth school Zaret had visited, with another half-dozen to go.

"It is kind of a full-time job," Zaret's father, Owen, said.

He wasn't joking. With research to do, visits to make and applications and financial forms to fill out, "it's a lot, and it's a lot on top of two full-time-employed parents and a very engaged high school student," Owen Zaret said.

But even in the year or so that the family has been doing this, the Zarets have detected a subtle shift.

At first, the process seemed to be what Owen Zaret called an ivory tower approach.…