College Strategy Discussion with a Former Admissions Officer

Former AO Kate speaks with Liz and Leonora, sharing tips for identifying fit, making your narrative stand out, crafting your activity list, making use of the additional information session, and more!

If you have questions or topics you'd like us to discuss, email us at hello@seeingbeyondadmissions.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:12

Hi, welcome to Shaping Your Narrative, the podcast that's all college admissions advice. I'm here with my co-founder, Liz, and uh one of our most treasured colleagues, Kate Milani. Kate has spent 15 years in admissions and recruitment on all sides of the college admissions process. She's worked as an undergraduate admissions officer at the University of South Carolina and Stanford before trying her hand at graduate admissions at George Washington University. She served as an enrollment expert and director of research advisory services at EAB, a company that advises universities on enrollment, student success, and more. Kate now works as a college advisor, helping each student from those who are quiet leaders and eccentric artists to D1 athletes and outspoken activists apply to both top and right fit colleges and universities. Thank you so much for joining us, Kate.

SPEAKER_00 1:05

Happy to be here.

SPEAKER_02 1:06

So we're really excited to get your perspective as a strategist in college admissions. And my first question for you is maybe a little bit of a big one. But as a former admissions officer, I think you have a unique perspective on the application process. So, what are some of the things that you think students should know when they're approaching the college application process?

SPEAKER_00 1:32

So it depends on the school because not every school admits the exact same way. Some schools have something called an index model where they're just looking at your test scores and your GPA and saying, are you above this line? Are you below this line? And for bubble candidates, then they read your essays and they try to see, gosh, is this person compelling enough to be in our class or is there a reason we should pull them in? Meanwhile, other institutions read completely holistically all of the different parts of the college application. Um, and that is where you have to be both competitive and compelling across the whole. Oftentimes, if you're applying to say a top school, um, like an Ivy or an Ivy Plus type realm, we would say that it's a self-selecting pool, right? So 80% of the students that are applying to us have the great grades and have the test scores. So you can't just assume that if you have that, that's what's going to leverage you into these classes. How they get from the 80% that are admissible and might do well on campus to the 4% that they actually admit is where the sausage is made, so to speak, right? Like that is where you guys come in with the beautiful essays, but it's also what other people say about them and the recommendation letters and how their resume speaks volumes about what they want to study and authenticates the strategy that we might deploy depending on the majors that you choose. So there's a lot of that that goes into this, and so many factors that are actually outside the applicant's control too, which we can kind of get into today as well.

SPEAKER_02 3:00

And so for students who are assessing what kind of schools, like I guess from the student perspective, if they don't know kind of which schools are which, is there a way for a student who doesn't have the resources to hire a counselor to evaluate what kind of school they're applying to, whether it's the data-driven or the holistic type of application?

SPEAKER_00 3:22

Most schools will say it on their admissions website if they evaluate holistically or not. Um, you know, and some schools will feign it because, again, they're evaluating their bubble candidates, the candidates that might not have quite been at that level, but they're certainly not below a certain point, too. And those are typically the schools that just don't have the resources. So think about the large state schools that have more applicants than they have people to actually be able to evaluate. For the more schools that are wealthy schools that are pretty well endowed, uh have a lot of extra cash on hand. Think big private schools with name brands that people say, gosh, this is my dream school, so to speak. Now, dream schools can be different for everybody, but um, these are the types of schools that hire actually outside readers to supplement their admissions office. At the schools that are in the IB Plus domain, they hire them every single year and train them just like not just like admission officers. They don't participate in committee by and large, but they certainly are other readers that help with the mass amounts of applications these schools get. So I would say that it kind of will sometimes fall on the public-private divide. You can you can say that much. Um and then, you know, also on how I guess elevated or national the name brand is when you hear things about selective institutions or national universities. I think um niche or other uh like sites that might qualify these uh or like um gosh, US News and World Report, they'll say like top 50 national universities, it's in that ranking, or top 100. I would say you can it's pretty standard that the top 50 um might be those holistic ones, but as you reach 100 and below, you're likely to see that those are sometimes more often than not those index schools.

SPEAKER_01 5:13

Got it. You know, speaking of sort of like this like massive amount of essays and like the way that it needs to be really narrowed down in big ways, were there any overall green or red flags that you would keep your eyes out for when you're reading, um, yeah, when you're doing more of that holistic evaluation?

SPEAKER_00 5:34

Yeah, so a couple of things. One, I'll say that this is pretty much a college counseling rule across the board. Um, no matter who I've spoken to throughout the industry, who've been admission officers at many different schools, um, you never want to write about your own mental health. Um, you'll find that some schools will bristle or wonder if they can take care of you once on campus. And so that is certainly something that I usually say stay away from. Um, not that I believe in that, because I know that everybody post-pandemic, we've all struggled with our mental health in one form or fashion. It's just that the colleges sometimes can feel or be stuck in archaic ways and thought process about it. It's best to leave mental health out of it, unless you are president of your mental health club at school and you're helping others, you're bringing others through. Um, just I wouldn't necessarily disclose your own challenges. The second thing is that I remember feeling this way. If I read another sports essay, I wanted to pick up my laptop and throw it against the wall. Like we have read so many of them. I truly, like, I it's great that you overcame a broken leg and scored the winning goal, but you and like 20 other people's sister, right? So, like, not exactly going to make you stand out. My rule of thumb is if you can drop your essay on the floor of your high school and someone were to pick it up and they could have said that 30 other people in your graduating class could have written this, you did it wrong. Um, but if somebody would pick it up and say, this could only be one person, this could only be so-and-so, or pick it up and been like, wow, this is clearly really deep and dark and vulnerable. Well, I guess not dark, but like very vulnerable. And I actually don't know who this is, but it could only be one person, that's fair too. Um, because so many things like I don't want to have that blanket statement where if you were to drop it on the floor of your high school and say you are part of the LGBTQ community community, but you're not out yet. I don't want somebody to say that, like, gosh, I wouldn't know that that was you. But sometimes that vulnerability, however, is rewarded in the admissions process. I mean, people are in admissions because they want to help shape the next generation, often of the college that they attended. And so if you think about it, you know, I vulnerability actually leads to better essays. We are narrative beings as admission officers. That is what drives us. So once you've hit that competitiveness, it's all about showing your heart and who you are and how you'll contribute on campus. That I really will sing. You don't want to end up an applicant that has a story that anyone else could have written. What is unique about you is the green flag.

SPEAKER_01 8:01

I love that narrative beings. I think that that's such a great sort of way to sum up the way that the joy that we that you know really can take an essay over the top, right? Like we want to read a good story, even if we think we're reading for what classes are you going to take, we still want to be interchange, you know. We want to feel passion and excitement as we read it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:23

That's exactly right. I mean, there are often times where I'll say things like, or I've heard colleagues say, you know, they have perfect test scores and perfect grades, but they were flat. And flat just means their essays aren't jumping off the page. They're not, um, they're not sparkly. And it's not because you're not a sparkly person. I actually had a student this year who I absolutely adore. She's one of my favorites ever. And she felt like she was, had a story so often told. She was very commonplace, straight A student, captain of a dance team, like there wasn't anything like really different about her as how she felt at least. And after interviewing her and talking to her more, I found out she had all of these like very strange quirks, these weird collections of things that she had with her grandmother, things that like no 17-year-old should be collecting, like glass chickens. And I was like, Yeah, you, yes, you are like a stereotype, but no one, no admission officer is gonna read your resume and then read your essay and say, I would have ever thought that this girl is as weird as she is. And I said, We have to leave it for weird, right? Um, and so it's sometimes seeing saying like recognizing where you're at, but then also saying, like, I if I'm going to, if I'm weirder than I am, let's be weird. And if I'm funny, let's be funny. But if you're not funny and you try to be funny, oof, that's also a red flag.

SPEAKER_03 9:41

So not good, not good.

SPEAKER_01 9:44

If it's a red flag in real life, it's a red flag in the essay, you know.

SPEAKER_02 9:49

Well, this gets us to like an interesting kind of uh tricky part of this, which is like you talked a little bit about vulnerability, um, which I think is a dance. Like you want some vulnerability, but you're also selling yourself, right? So you don't want to reveal like the weaknesses about yourself. You want to reveal sort of like struggles that are relatable, but also show yourself as someone who's overcoming struggles, right? And I think for like that, that if you're trying to be, if if you're not funny, don't try to be funny. Um, is uh an interesting thing that I get to the, I think gets to this idea of authenticity that I think is often misinterpreted as being overly vulnerable. Um, can you tell us, talk to us a little bit about like how you think about authenticity and like the difference between authenticity and then getting yourself into a red flag territory?

SPEAKER_00 10:50

Yeah, I think, okay, so this is obviously pretty interesting because so often students are like, I want to write it so that they hear what they want to hear. And I'm like, you have zero idea what we want to hear, honey, right? Like it exactly exactly what you think we want to hear is what we don't want to hear. That's how you end up flat, and that's where these red flags end up popping. It's about being absolutely true to yourself at the end of the day. And what people also forget is that that personal statement has to be both a personal story and an argument for your admission to college. So oftentimes, like, how do I make that go one in the same? I think about this one story that I still it was one of the best personal statements I've ever worked on with a student who had a stutter when she was growing up. Um and that stutter, while it made her quieter with her friends, and and honestly, like it helped us understand why someone might have felt like she was introverted. Well, that stutter, although it made her feel like she had to clam up or people would tell her to shut up, um, no one told her that she had to put her pencil down. And now she's a prolific writer, and no one takes that away from her, right? And so it's one of those like, here is my struggle, but out of it, here's my grit, and this is how my passions have been formed out of this.

SPEAKER_02 12:17

I got goosebumps.

SPEAKER_00 12:18

Yeah. She's she's kicking butt. Um, and I I love those types of stories. I mean, I've had an you know, a stutter, I don't want to diminish that. It it's it's definitely something that like I sure affected her on a great level when she's you know in those developmental stages as a kindergartner. Um, and it's not something she she deals with now, but I've had I've had students that have had like selective mutism um or a cancer scare or um gosh, like uh students that um have had physical deformities. And granted, like we not everyone's going to have that. In fact, the student I was telling you about with a glass chickens, like, she's like, Kate, I've I've never had anything like this. And I'm like, I'm glad. I don't want people to have had gone through these types of um these these struggles, but um, that doesn't mean that you can't end up having a winning essay by being you. So if you have something like that, being vulnerable and sharing your condition or something you've gone through, I always think is a winning narrative because you're showing that you have grit that and a depth that maybe some of your peers haven't highlighted or didn't feel comfortable highlighting. And again, admission officers were narrative beings. We're in this because we're reading your stories and we're trying to choose who's going to excel. And if I see that you started from a place where you were in a deficit as compared to your peers in some form or fashion, and you have like shined through that, just imagine what you'll do once you get on our campus with your the resources that we have. So that's where I lean.

SPEAKER_02 13:50

It's interesting how we're kind of naturally going in the direction that I had envisioned for the next question, which is um, you know, there's the students that worry about not having uh something that stands out, right? And and for some students it's um they worry about like not having the like traumatic event, right? They interpret this like idea that they need to have some sort of major trauma to write a good personal statement. But there's also the students that worry that they're just too ordinary and that they're not impressive enough, um, which I think they're kind of two sides of the same coin, right? They they think that either they need to have like had a cancer scare, right? Or cure cancer. Yeah, there's like no room for students in between in the college process. Um, and so when you have a student like that, what do you say to them to help them kind of feel more comfortable through this process? Or what would you say to a student who has that concern?

SPEAKER_00 14:54

So what I tell most of my students is that your lived experience is the norm to you. Okay? It's norm. It's your normal. And so you don't think that there's anything sparkly or different about you as compared to any one of your peers. But when I ask you these questions and I learn more about you, I find that there are certainly things that are extraordinary. And it's a matter of like getting yourself up and out of your context to say, gosh, what with somebody different than me who's likely going to be different than you, who's reading your application, what might they find interesting about my life or different about my life? Um, this might be that you have grandparents abroad or you're a first-generation student. And I had a student that I worked with this year whose parents were immigrants from Mexico and had never gone to college. Um, and I talked to him about that experience, and I he wanted to be an engineer. And as it turns out, there's also this catastrophic thing that happened in our area. I'm I'm in Charlotte, North Carolina. We had Hurricane Helene a year or so ago come out and come through, um, wash out large parts of the state. And so he got to, he saw that. And so now civil and environmental engineering, particularly in immigrant areas, which is low-lying climate vulnerable areas, that's his lived experience. He just he just lives in those places or knows people that are like, you know, extensions of his community. So that's the normal to him. But from the outside, the reader who hears this about him and hears how he thinks about these immigrant and low-lying climate vulnerable areas, um, and he wants to change that for the future and change for that for people in his lived context, like that's extraordinary. But again, it's just his normal. He grew up like this. Why would why would that be special? Um, but it is. It is. So yeah, I mean, sometimes it just takes you finding an adult that believes in you and them like asking them, what do you think is special about me? So those people exist in a lot of places. There's CBOs out there, um, there are there's your teacher at school. I guarantee no matter what, that teacher did not go into this because they wanted to make a lot of money. They wanted to change the world. And if you're a good student in their class, asking for their advice is huge. Um, that's that's why they're doing what they're doing. So lean on the adults that you trust because they'll find something. They will, even if you don't see it.

SPEAKER_01 17:23

That ties in so well. I wanted something that we think about, I think about personally a lot as a mom and also someone who like really had a fraught relationship with I had a fraught relationship with my mom when I was in the college admissions process, right? You know, it's like, how can parents support, right? Because sometimes parents, I know in my experience as a you know, a support person um through the essays of the admissions process, I find that sometimes parents have the perfect key, right? Where they know, I I say like figure out what your parents would like to brag about, like what do they want to say about like how amazing you are. And it might make you cringe, it might make you feel awful, but like give me some of that if the if the students feeling shy and can't quite give me, you know, some of the depth of their experience or some hint at like like that great collection that you were talking about, right? Like the the porcelain chickens, right? Like um, you know, so maybe like ask your parents what they want, what they want to see, right? But like that can sound that's that can be sound simpler than it is, because it is a very close relationship through a distressful process. So if you were to give tips to parents about how they can help their kid, how they can also be helpful when talking to you, you know, any of this when when assembling the strategy, what would, what would you say?

SPEAKER_00 18:42

Yeah, I that's that's fair. Um, because I know that half the time people like us are engaged because they wanted to preserve the relationship with their kids during the process. Um and like we don't have those fancy letters after our names to be like psychiatrists through this to, but like oftentimes like this is a a way of like it's it's cathartic and it's therapy and it's it's like finding and getting to know yourself more than you already did, um, and having to share with complete and total strangers, which is wild that we make students do this. But for parents, I often say, like, can you tell me a funny story from their childhood or something that happened that like you're like, of course they did that, because now look at who they've turned into, right? Like that is the hinge. Um, and you know, I sometimes will say, like, if you don't know what to write about, I mean, I always lean on your communities. Like, is there a community that you're a part of that's really meaningful to you? Um, or a part of your identity that's really meaningful to you because usually those were are where the nuggets are too. Um, but I often even think about like, do you have do you have what is your glass chicken, right? Is is there something that is like strange or tells a story about you that you can then um write your essay out of? I mean, I sometimes will share with my students, particularly when I'm talking, I I talk to, I uh mentioned this to you all earlier. I talk to a lot of military kids because I grew up a military kid. I moved 11 times before I was 18. I didn't have a stand like a standing adult that like led me through the admissions process um or even like you know, like knew me. Um, and so I I my way of giving back, I work with military kids to help them understand their stories. And I often share my own personal statement. I don't have it anymore, but I can tell you the essence of it, um, is it was about strawberries. And no one would think, like, gosh, strawberries are what I should write about. Like, how does that get me into college? But as the story goes, my mom went to the commissary, which was the grocery store on uh on base, that's what we call it, and she had bought strawberries that day. And I went to the fridge and I wanted to get them out. I wanted to eat them. They're my favorite fruit. She said, No, you have to wait. Um, so the story goes on, and eventually there's a knock at the door, and she says, Why don't you go get it? And I go to the door, I answer it, and it's my dad. And he has just come home from war. He's been gone for six months to a year. Um, I haven't seen him. And strawberries and I like were the fruit that we would share. It was our our common favorite food. And so I look back at my mom and she says, Now you can have your strawberries. And so the story isn't about strawberries at all. In fact, it is about my community, it's about my identity as a military brat. Like, this is it's all about me, but it's told through the lens of something so mundane as a strawberry. So it's like, what is your strawberry? If you feel like you have nothing else or nothing in your life, uh like that is it, it's kids like to call it trauma dumping. Like you don't have like something traumatic that has happened to you. Is there something that is like an object or a food that couches something like so personal to you? And can you write about that per 650 words? Um, and it tells like a story of your life somehow. I've had a student that has written about Russian nesting dolls. Right? Like there are so many, like I think that sometimes the item stories are really interesting and um can, I don't know, like give us that narrative, like be as admission officers, we'll be satiated not only by strawberries, but other forms of objects for the stories too. So I don't even remember what you had asked me, but I hope that helps uh answering the question.

SPEAKER_01 22:30

Yeah, so with the parents sort of like giving, yeah, like like giving those sort of like kernels um and helping the kid. I think something that is great. Anyone who can break um a student out of the perspective of like what what is capital I impressive about me. So it sounds that's how I'm interpreting your answers that it's parents can help with that if we, you know, to give the family context to give that feeling of um right specifics, right?

SPEAKER_00 22:56

Right, right. I mean, I think about like when I was a little girl, I used to put down uh together dance routines. If I wanted to be a dance uh major in college, gosh, how funny would that have been for my parents to tell that story to whoever was helping me with my applications or you were writing this on your own? Like, what is something that you used to do when you were little that totally screams, like of course you turned into who you are today? Parents are really, really helpful in that. Um, and you know, it's always good when you can in a way tie it to what you might want to study in college. So, again, the the dance-to-dance major, the a prolific writer to comparative literature, right? Like, what are what are some things that are kind of analogous or like you see that come through? Or again, in the way of the glass chickens um or the strawberry, like, is there a way to show who you are and your personal qualities throughout it? But like intellectualize a little bit so that they can see, gosh, this person is not only can tell a good story, but like is intellectual to enough for whatever ex-college that you're trying to apply to.

SPEAKER_01 24:04

Maybe this is a little bit just as a quick follow-up, um, to take it away from essays in terms of like it can become difficult for sort of like you know, um, child and parent to align on the college list. Is there anything in that for that sort of area of like the more strategy um side that you would give, you know, advice that you give? I famously talk about, or not famously, I will tell anyone who wants to listen about how I um purposefully lapsed a couple of deadlines on applications because I didn't want to, I thought I would get in and feel parental pressure to go to a specific school. Um, you know, like that's maybe maybe not that that could be good advice or terrible advice, depending on the context, right? So what would be better advice?

SPEAKER_00 24:54

Yeah, that's fair because then you shrunk your prospect field. And if your parents are like, yes, you can only apply to 14 or 15 or whatever. I think back in the day I applied to like five or six. Um, and I know a decade before that people were applying to just three. The average now is 15. So alas, um, but that's fair. Uh so parents. Um, when I was applying, my parents said only public schools because there's this perception that public schools are more affordable. Um, that's not always the case, actually. A lot of small regional private institutions, um, while their sticker price is quite high, the overall aid that is provided, the net price, um, is actually far lower. Um, and so, and oftentimes will match the local public schools too. So that's my first piece of advice is like don't rule out private just because you think it's going to cost more. Like, in all likelihood, there's more aid to be given at those schools because they're trying to compete with the public institutions in the area. So you'll see that there's like price matching guarantees out there, there's opportunities for um you to actually like negotiate your financial aid, which is not something that I knew when I was going to college. Um, so parents, one thing is I would just say like don't limit your student. Um, the other thing I tell parents is that like at least when you're your kid's a sophomore and you're starting to think about college, you don't have to spend all of your resources and go on planes, trains, and automobiles to go to the like the schools that everyone talks about. I say first and foremost, go to the schools and driving distance. Like, you know, whatever, whenever you have a free day or a weekend, like go see them. Even if these are brand names that your child would never ever go to, or you for some reason don't want them going to either, it's more at that time about the characteristics because we don't know that if your child's going to thrive at one of those big public institutions, or if a smaller setting is going to be better for them, or if they absolutely detest brutalist buildings from the 70s and like we need to get away from those types of campuses. That was me, right? So, like, you know, do we want the rolling grass and the brick buildings? Do we want the more gothic architecture? Weirdly, like kids now care about they really care about what it looks like, and schools spend a lot of money to make that the case. Um, so yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:17

It reminds me of there are two colleges at Yale that are just these like, I think they must have been built in the 60s or 770s, and they're like just these like blocks. It's just like a high-rise block, and everybody just hated how they looked.

SPEAKER_01 27:34

It was like, oh, the ugly building college. Every campus has them. They were like the engineering and like STEM STEM uh buildings sometimes. Like at Berkeley, the big engineering building had that vibe, and it was just like, man, it was like give the people who like don't go outside ever, the most depressing building because they're working so hard. It's just like, and the architecture building was the other one. Those were also the other like hardest workers on campus at the time. Just being like, give them a little flower somewhere, you guys. Like they're going through it.

SPEAKER_00 28:06

I always was like, because we had one smack dab in the middle of Chapel Hill's campus, and I was like, that looks like a prison. Speaking of commissaries um and whatnot, like that looked like a prison. So I yeah, I don't know what that's about, but there are schools that are really intentional about what they look like, and sometimes that does matter. So, you know, before we get again on planes, trains, and automobiles, and you're spending money to that you don't want to spend to go across the country, look for characteristics first because you actually might be surprised yourself at the schools that you end up liking versus the ones that you don't, and then how you see your child fitting at them. Um, so that is that's a lot of my like upfront advice is like just go to the local schools first, and then you'll have your eyes opened alongside having their eyes opened. And oftentimes watching them get excited about a school might change your perception about the school too. Um, and also building the list, like everyone knows what their dream school is, everyone knows what is at the top of the list. If whenever I talk to families, they're struggling as to what are their safeties and target schools. And the reality is that, like, for the most part, no one wants to go to their safety schools. That's why they're there at safety schools. And that is not how we want to look at this, right? Because the game of admissions, the colleges are playing games, we're playing games, right? Like, we don't know how this is going to end up for us. So we want to make sure that we fall in love with every type of school down the food chain, and starting with characteristics can be really, really helpful to in building those things out. The other thing I'll say on this is that you might have a perception of what a target school is, but the game has changed since you've gone to college or you've applied if you did go to college. Um, and a lot of target schools are now no longer that because they play the enrollment game. So you might see, you might hear that um a school has a really low admit rate. But schools are ranked not only on their low admit rates, how few students that they admit, but how many of those students that they admit say yes back to them. That's the yield rate. And so schools, Northeastern's a really good example of this, have done a really good job at packing their class with those binding agreements of early decision. Um, and so for Northeastern, a school 15 years ago when I started in this field was not hard to get into. Well, they've flexed their ED to an extent where the majority of their class comes in ED, and their admit rate for regular decision, the non-binding option, 3%. Harder to get into than Harvard. So that school that you would have thought was a target or a safety 15 years ago, no longer the case. There's a lot of mental gymnastics that goes into that. Um, so redefining what a target school is something that I think parents need to educate themselves on because the games change. That said, early decision is something that's going through the courts right now in terms of antitrust issues, which I've actually been clocking for about five years now. I've I've because it limits choice, it limits competition through financial aid. Um, so there's there's uh a large uh chance that in the next few years students will no longer be able to apply via binding agreements.

SPEAKER_02 31:19

Wow. Interesting. Yeah, that would be a completely toxic term. Yeah. In terms of determining fit, are there any kind of I guess like main categories that you consider in terms of like, you know, I mean, I think we're all familiar with like school size and um, you know, urban versus rural or in-between um kind of locations, but are there like main categories of things that you recommend that families think about when they're trying to figure out what would be a good type of school for their student?

SPEAKER_00 31:55

Yeah, I mean, uh so there's a number of things. Um I often ask I often ask kids actually, how far away from your parents do you want to be? Um I wanted to be just far enough from my parents aware they would have to announce that they were coming to visit me, but close enough where I could go have my mom do my laundry on the weekends. So like that's you don't have to announce that they do. Yes, that was my triangulation of this. But like for some kids, they're like, get me on get me to California from the East Coast. Or they're like, I and there's actually some populations that research shows that won't leave an 100-mile radius. Um, and schools know that and often will admit more of that population because they feel like they'll yield them. They'll actually say yes back to them because of how close in proximity they are. You're actually way more likely to end up at a school close to you than far away. And so you'll see that in like the population maps for schools when they're looking at like their analytics. Um so yeah, I I mean I often small, medium, large, distance from home. Um interestingly, like the majority of schools all offer the same things, right? Um, you know, you can be a Spanish major at any school, you can be a history major at any school. Um not all schools, however, offer research opportunities. So if your student is super like interested in taking on graduate level research as an undergrad, they should not be going to a small liberal arts school. Those they don't have master's or PhD students there. Um similarly, like if you want to be a scientist, well, going to a smaller school might not have the labs or the facilities available to you that you would have at larger institutions. So that's something that you kind of have to weigh. Meanwhile, there are schools like that. I actually was just talking to a student about Harvey Mud. Um, their school counselor had, you know, put that on their list. And I was like, Do you know about Harvey Mud? It's very strange. They only have like six majors and so and they're all science. Um and I said, How do you feel not just about what you like, but going to school with everyone else that likes the exact same thing that you do? Like, do you want breath in your student body or do you not? Um, other things that I've had students uh like have their decisions made and break broken on are if Greek life exists, big sports exist, are those things is is culture important to you? Like there are people out there that love Emery, die hard for Emery, but if they don't have a football team, are you going to miss that on the weekends? So you miss that kind of culture, and a Michigan might be be better for you. So, like these types of things um are certainly ones that I I ask students, and um something that I've noticed this year is I've had a lot of students say to me, I want impressive but not intimidating. And so I think that we are kind of seeing uh like uh uh obviously there's always going to be the populations that are going for the tippy tippy top schools, but a lot of students are feeling pretty burnt out from high school these days, and they want to feel like they have gone somewhere that they can be proud of, but they don't want to be in a competitive environment. They they don't want to be intimidated, they want to have a good four years of fun. Um, and I understand that too. That's the American college culture. Um, so what is it about your student that drives them? I think is the first thing to ask. And like, do you think that they would thrive being a big fish in a small pond? Or being a little fish in a big pond, is that where they would thrive? You know your kid the best.

SPEAKER_01 35:33

I love that self-awareness of needing to not just sort of continue to go at the that like top highest level of effort, right? For another four years. Um, especially because I know lots of students, I find that like an interesting conversation to plan to have with families when you sort of I've noticed students who might be, you know, really aiming for all aggressively competitive schools, um, and not just competitive at the application moment, like competitive once you land and you you are a part of them. And it's a student who is, of course, bright, but I see maybe benefits from nurturing that they're receiving at their high school level. Yeah. And I wonder if a big school where they have to fight to be heard is the best fit, you know. Um, yeah, and where you can find that level of academic rigor, but with the nurturing aspect intact. It's true.

SPEAKER_00 36:32

And beyond that, something else that I wanted to make sure I mentioned is that I am seeing in my students more and more neurodivergence. Um, everyone, uh not everyone, 50% of my kids have diagnoses. Um, and some schools are doing a great job with this, and others aren't. So you know your child, you know what they are, like what helps them, what has hurt them in the past. Um, and schools like American University are ones that I recommend all the time if I have a neurodivergent student because they have support systems on campus that other schools just cannot compete with. Um, so thinking about that too, like what are the other needs, and will your student be supported once there? And the reality is I also have a student that has aspirations of med school. And you know, sure they wanted to shoot Ivy League, but is that going to be better for them than Tulane in the long run? Probably not, because you're probably going to have that better GPA to take to med school admissions from Tulane than you would a Brown or Yale or, you know, you name it. Um, so thinking about that is also helpful in the process. I will say, however, research shows that students on average in America change their major seven times. So they might think they want to be a doctor now. That's probably not going to be the case. Now that that statistic is heavily skewed towards the many, many folks that move from one community college to another. There's lots of transferring in there. But even at the top school, students are uh adding a major, uh, picking up a minor at least once or twice. Um, and because you just don't know what you don't know yet. And you don't know about majors that there's so many majors I'm talking right now, there's so many majors that freshmen in high school right now, they don't exist for them yet, but they will once they get to college. The world's moving so fast. So it's it's hard to say, like, plan out for a med school for so to speak, but that is a consideration to take into um in terms of like what GPA do you think you'll end up with at a school if you want that graduate education later.

SPEAKER_02 38:32

Yeah, and I mean there are so many disciplines that high schoolers don't even know exist. Right. Many I speak to so many high schoolers who are definitely sociology majors. Yeah. They don't know it. They don't know what sociology is. And when I speak to them, I know that this is what they would be interested in, but they don't know that because they've had it as, you know, kind of a side a side section of their history class, or they've taken social studies and they don't really, you know, which kind of combines so many things that they don't really know that that's where their interests lie.

SPEAKER_00 39:06

I mean, all of the 16-year-olds I talk to think anthropology is a clothing store and not a major. And I'm like, yeah, but that is why you should apply for it because no one else is. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 39:17

So yeah. So that gets us to the application strategy. Just for our families who have never thought about major strategy. I mean, I'm I especially on TikTok right now, I'm seeing students that these bummer, like I didn't get into my first choice school uh videos of, you know, they they do this online now, they show everyone their reaction, and the reaction is so devastating. And they applied biomedical engineering. Like, no. Right? So can you talk to us a little bit about like application strategy and majors? Like what what is the what are the kind of general do's and don'ts guidelines?

SPEAKER_00 39:53

Yeah, so this entire generation is terrified of not getting a job one day. And because of that, they vote with their feet into majors that are directly correlated with the labor market. This is business, computer science, engineering, anything STEM, pre-med, honestly, even like political science is there right now. Um, particularly in the climate that we're in, people see these things and say, like, I can directly see myself getting this job or that job after by way of what my my major has that. No one knows what an English major is going to do. No one knows what a history major is going to do. Um, my uh my cousins uh wanted to be an art major, and my uncle was like, no, and I said, no, let her for right now. Like, let's get her into college, not let's not worry about the career after just yet, because you'll find that you can leverage yourself into a more selective college um just by way of having a major that's less popular than you would have if you had gone in this oversaturated channel of a business major or a biomedical engineering. Um, and actually, I saw this in my work at EAB a lot. So there's I I worked not only in enrollment but also in academic affairs. And um there was a presentation I used to give that was called Making the Academy Market Smart. And what's really funny is that like so often schools are still tenuring their professors. I know tenure is something that is obviously in the news right now, and it's it's for better or for worse, what it is for those who are listening that don't know what it is, is that there are people that are our age that have jobs for the next 50 years and actually know when to teach because it's they're self-selecting groups, right? These all these kids are applying for majors that might not be the art histories or the linguistics or the language majors or insert regional study major. Um and schools are on the hook from their bottom line to keep these people paid because they have offered them tenure. Um, and so they are more likely and more willing to reach deeper into their applicant pool to pull in the kid that has B's or a less than favorable test score because they think that that student's going to take that major and help fill that seat and pay for that seat in an otherwise unpopular, under enrolled area. Um, and those are the areas where you want to exploit. Um, schools are playing this game with you. You should play the game back. If you have interests in writing, or if you're taking a language, or maybe your family speaks another language at home, if you add that or incorporate that into what you want to do, then fantastic. Like I said, I worked with a student this year who wanted engineering, and I understood that. We see a lot of students that um are lower income, particularly in families that um feel like, gosh, this route, engineering or business, is something that is going to land them a better life than they have now. And I understand that pressure. Um, my parents wanted me to be an engineer. I applied everywhere for engineering. Like I grew up in the military, you know, in government housing and um whatnot. So like I get it. Um, but the reality is that these language majors or regional studies majors, call it European studies, near Eastern studies, Latin American studies, African studies, like those majors are also underenrolled. So if you happen to have an interest in a culture or be part of a culture and you speak a language at home in that, those majors coupled with it could be really interesting. My student, like I said, the immigrant uh he had the two parents that were immigrants from Mexico. We coupled his engineering with Latin American studies and discussed how those things overlap, right? The low-lying immigrant uh communities that were typically in those vulnerable, client vulnerable areas, how he wanted to construct new ways of living, housing, like environmental and civil engineering so that the communities that he hails from were lifted up by the skills he had in engineering.

SPEAKER_02 43:57

Thank you. That's fantastic. Yeah. So but that's that's creating a narrative too that is uh I think you're identifying a student one that's that's an outlier student in terms of demographic, right? So it's not it, you know, they they have that to their story, right? It's not the majority of the people that are applying engineering, and it's also an amazing why. That's not I always liked to build things I used to take my car apart when I was a little kid, which every engineering student, I mean, you know, how many times have you heard that stories, right?

SPEAKER_01 44:31

All the yeah, no Legos, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 44:35

But there's your red flag found it.

SPEAKER_00 44:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 44:39

No Legos, don't talk about Legos. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:42

So, but I mean, because I I don't ever want if a student is really adamant about a major and they're very excited about it, I don't want to take that away from them. But I do want to find the secondary and tertiary interest that makes it more dynamic, right? So you're not just another Lego story, right? Right. It has it has teeth to it. Um so I think about it as like if engineering or business is one of your circles of your Venn diagram, what is something else that is like culturally appropriate or interesting? Um, what's another major if it's sociology or anthropology? Is something that is a little less popular. So survey your friends if you don't know what they are, right? Like, what are things that your friends haven't told you that they want to major in? Those are the ones we know we want to strategize around.

SPEAKER_03 45:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:23

And then take those two circles and figure out where they overlap and exploit that because that is where the money is made here in college admission or the the wins are made in college admissions. Um, finding that and being more dynamic than just another engineering major.

SPEAKER_01 45:41

That's great. Um, well, I guess this is sort of um this to to go in a little bit deeper on one one specific thing that's not the essays. Um, when and it kind of it also applies to this idea of like the Venn diagram and how the whole narrative is coming together, the different sides of an applicant's experience. Um, how do you think about approaching the activities list? You know, like how to frame them and and what activities to highlight versus ones you might let fall off, right? Yeah. Or exclude.

SPEAKER_00 46:12

Yeah, so on the Common App, you only have 10 spots, 10 activities. So a lot of parents have this urge these days to overschedule their kids and put them in like 30 different things. The reality is that you only can list 10, unless you're applying to the UCs where you get 20 spots, but um, for the majority of schools out there, you can only list 10. And so I actually, when I talk to my students, I like to use like the Jack Welch method. Um, I read his book in grad school and it one of his books, um, and it was about how he takes his companies and after every year, he cuts the bottom 10% and reinvests into the upper 90. And for for how that how that makes sense for college admissions and for what you do on your activities list, is that over your years in high school, I want you to try a lot of things, but the things that aren't serving you, cut them and reinvest that time into the things that are serving you and are interesting to you. So by the end of it, yeah, you've you've cut down on your activities. You probably found some things that align with the academic narrative that you want to tell them for admissions. We'll put those towards the top. Um, but ultimately, like you've hopefully spent time in high school with things that have like lit your soul on fire and not things that you have just done for college. Um, because that doesn't make anyone happy. And honestly, like that's where you fall flat most times is you have activities that like are contrived or they feel like, oh, I'm just doing this for college.

SPEAKER_02 47:38

No, just getting your community service hours. You don't care about it, but you showed up every week.

SPEAKER_00 47:45

Yeah, and honestly, like think about what you're doing, right? So I have some students that are like, I work at an ice cream shop. And I'm like, but you want to be a film studies major, go work at the movie theater, right? Like at the end of the day, I just say, like, look, make it make sense for me. All of the things that you do, like, make it make sense. And if you can make it make sense, great, golden. It's actually like way, uh, way easier than probably like what you've like your own mental gymnastics you put yourself through and trying to figure out what initial officers want to see, right? Like, do things that align with what you're you're excited about or you like. Um, you know, if for instance, if it is engineering, like go and you don't have a lot of connections, like go work with a contractor, right? Like go go work um, you know, on it on anything that you can get your hands like dirty with, right? So like whether that's like your dad's painting company or you know, uh the contractors that worked on a house next door, ask them, right? Like there are ways to like kind of build around that. I had a student also this year who his dad had gotten sick and he had to help support the family, and he started his own lawn care. Um, and turns out he had a really big re like interest in Native American or Native Indigenous Studies as well. And so we said, like, not only does he have this business where he's like in the environment and environmental studies feels important to him, but indigenous farming practices he did a research project on and kind of like tied that in, right? So I would say anything that ends up aligning with the majors that you're telling the admissions officers that you want to be in, put those towards the top. There's also kind of like a part art and part science to this. I like to see something at the top that you've done for at least three or four years, something in the middle that you've done for at least three or four years, and then something at the bottom that you've done for three or four years because it tricks the admissions officer's eye in terms of seeing like, oh, there is like pops of commitment here where they've been in something longer. I usually say if you're not a recruited athlete, put your sports at the bottom, but that can serve as your longer tail of something, right? You've probably done that for three or four years. Um, if there's a club you've been really excited about since freshman year, you can put that towards the top. And then you'll want to have like your little research project that you did or an internship that aligns with what you're telling me you want to study like next up, but you've probably only done that one or two years. So it doesn't show the commitment that some of these other activities do. Because you want admission officers want people that can stay committed to certain things, but it doesn't have to be that you did all 10, all four years.

SPEAKER_02 50:14

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, uh one of the I think least understood things about from the student perspective about what a college admissions officer is looking for is like your ability to get through something hard, because getting through college is hard. Right? Like you gotta like to stick it out for the they don't want people who are gonna drop out after and in year three when it's tough and it feels like the end is so far, right? And part of what you're showing is that you're gonna stick it out when it's tough. Um what about students who don't have so many activities? Are there things that you find that students might overlook in terms of like kind of I guess like patterns like consistently overlook in terms of something that you might think about that you don't think is an activity, but actually could go in that activities list?

SPEAKER_00 51:02

Yeah, particularly like lower and middle income families, you're helping your family, whether that's a job or babysitting your younger siblings, or helping out with your elderly grandmother, those things matter and they count, and admission officers want to know about them. They don't want and they they understand that like you might have more hardships than somebody who's got a billion dollars, right? So, like you, what does that look like? And how are you helping support the overall family unit? You can take credit for that. This whole this process is about taking credit for the things that you've done. And just like I mentioned earlier, if you are living this like very normal life to you, that's not normal to the admissions officers. They they see you taking care of your siblings while your parents are working a couple jobs as extraordinary. So make sure you mention that and you take credit for it as well. So any any way that you're helping your family. Um, I've had students who have to translate for their parents because they don't speak English. So if there's an opportunity there to list yourself as a the family translator, you can do that. So take liberties where they're going to serve you because it will serve you. That's different, that makes you different than your peers.

SPEAKER_01 52:14

Yeah, fantastic. I love that so much. That sort of like an activity is not defined as a school-sanctioned after-school club, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 52:25

Correct. You can step out of that, you can create your own positions. Like I said, if you've done outside research, uh, then great. I had a kid this year who I feel like he's like 80 years old. He's a coin collector, right? Like, and so he joined the numest numit pneumatist, pneumatist, uh, whatever. It's one of the words. Yes, yeah.

unknown 52:45

The hard words.

SPEAKER_00 52:46

He joined that society, and that is one of his activities. It's not at school. No one else's age collects coins like that. Um, and he's like out in the neighborhood with his metal detector, right? Like it's it's different, it makes you different, right? So like lean into yes, yes, definitely.

SPEAKER_01 53:05

So that is so cute. I love that so much. Yeah, my um my five-year-old is like obsessed with early engineers of the British Railway, and so we were playing at a library on a road trip, um, a random library with a kid, and you know, this nice mom asked somebody wanted to be, and he was like, I'm gonna be an engineer, you know, like Brunel, no big deal, just somebody like Brunel. And he was like, did like a little cute, he's like trying to be sassy and walked off. And I was like, Brunel like helped create the British Well Railway in like the early 19th century. So funny. Love my son, no one knows who Brunel is. He's so it's like everyone must know, he's so important, you know.

SPEAKER_00 53:48

That is his future admission essay.

SPEAKER_01 53:50

Yes, exactly. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 53:52

My my my two-year-old, since Halloween, so she's like one and a half, she's been carrying around a pink skeleton as tall as she is. I'm like, this feels like something I need to file away for later. This is weird and we're gonna run with it. So yeah, like, you know, there's you gotta you gotta play to your strengths. What what makes you weird, what makes you unique, what makes you different? That's what you should write about.

SPEAKER_02 54:15

Okay, so to wrap this up, I'm gonna, I'm gonna bundle my last two questions into one question, which is two sections that I think are often overlooked in terms of how useful they can be in your college application. So how what do you what are some tips, things that you like to do with the additional info section? And for letters of recommendation, how do you suggest that students think about who to ask? Okay, apart from just someone who knows you well.

unknown 54:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 54:47

Okay. Um let me start with the recs first. Okay. So you would be surprised how many letters of recommendation I have read in my career that weren't actually recommending the student.

unknown 55:02

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 55:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 55:05

So when you go to ask anyone, whoever that might be, please ask them for a favorable letter of wreck and put them their feet to the hot seat, basically, and say like favorable, because by asking them that, they will hopefully tell you whether or not they can provide you a favorable letter of wreck. Um, the rule of thumb also here is that most schools ask for two, though a lot of schools are seeing how this um is not necessarily fair or equitable across um applicants. So they are dropping to one or none. Um, and so I could see that being a trend in the future. But for now, most schools ask for two, and these should be core letters of record core teachers. So English, math, science, social sciences, and foreign language. Um, usually your school will say they will either do one of two things. They will either stipulate that one has to be STEM, so science, math, or the and the other one needs to be humanities, or they don't care. Um, as an admission officer, I never cared. I actually I wanted to hear from somebody that was akin to what you're telling me you want to study in college. So if you're telling me you want to be a comparative literature teacher, I'd feel like it was weird if I didn't hear from your English teacher. Or sorry, if you wanted to be a comparative literature major, very weird if I didn't see a letter from your English teacher.

SPEAKER_03 56:27

Right.

SPEAKER_00 56:27

Similarly, like if you're telling me you want to be an engineer, I would love to see your science teacher, right?

SPEAKER_02 56:33

Like make it make sense. Yes, physics or capitalists or something along those lines.

SPEAKER_00 56:38

Yes, like make it make sense. Again, ask yourself, does this make sense? I feel like it is. I mean, again, I've been in this for 15 years, so maybe I can't see the forest through the trees, but like if you just ask yourself, like, does this make sense for what I'm telling them I'm interested in? No, okay, then maybe we should take an alternative route. Something else I want to note is that there's also something called the optional letter of recommendation that many schools allow you to send in another one that is from somebody that is not a teacher. So think like pastor or rabbi or manager at your local dairy queen or supervisor of if you had a research project, right, or an internship. Um coach, sure. I don't usually like to hear from coaches. Again, we're trying to like figure out who you're going to be as a student. If you're an athlete and you're being recruited, like, trust me, your coaches have already been talked to. But if you know you were you're trying to sell yourself on as a student and a future professional, I want to kind of hear in that space of like, who are you? Or like even a contributor, because like you can't really show how professional you are at your church, but like you might hear how you contribute to a community there. Um, so you can pick another trusted adult that can really sing your praises. And ultimately, for for most schools, a good letter of rec is a good letter of rec. If you're applying really, really high, I want one of those recommendations to sound like this. Usually it's at the end of the first paragraph. It says, in all of my years of teaching, so and so is the best student I've ever had. Or in the last year, this has been my best student, or the last five years, this has been my best student. And maybe it's not the best, but maybe it's this is the kindest student I've ever taught in my entire career. Or this is the most thoughtful student. So, like some sort of superlative, if you can be that for that teacher, that's the teacher I want you recommending. And again, like that might be your science teacher, but you still might be applying comparative literature. So you get two, right? So, like, if you have one teacher that's obsessed with you and loves you and thinks you hung the moon and they're not aligned with your narrative, that's okay. Just make sure the other rec is, if that makes sense. Um so those are the three recs. The other thing is that um there's an option for your counselor at school to write a rec for you as well. Sometimes they'll pull in other perspectives of adults. So if you are on sports teams, they might ask your coach. They, if you're like really tight with your principal, your principal might put something in there. But for the most part, for the majority of kids in our country, they're at big public schools with, you know, 500 to a thousand kids a class, you're not gonna get a counselor letter. So um, usually it's a form and how you rank kind of against other students, and then that's it. Um, so really focus on your two core teacher recommendations and an outside letter. Um in terms of the additional information section, this is where you can explain that bad grade or that test score, right? So, like, hey, I got a C in math that year because actually I broke my leg and the math classroom was on the other side of the school. So I was always 15 minutes late. I couldn't get to class, so I would miss parts of it. That's why I didn't do that well in that year. Um, or hey, my freshman year, I have a couple of B's. I was transitioning from a different school that was specialized for dyslexia, and now I was in a mainstream school, right? So, like, whatever your context is, if you struggled somewhere, if there is a reason for it, and not just because we were being lazy or you know, that's what I hear that sometimes. Um, but if there is an actual reason, don't be afraid. Don't shy away from it. Actually run at it because they're going to have those questions, and if you can address it, then you might be able to get over the hump. Meanwhile, if you leave it as a question mark for them, they're they're going to assume maybe there was a laziness or maybe you cut up in class or don't let them fill that script for you. Help yourself out. Um, if you don't have anything like that, say you're a seller student, you've got all A's. Um, this section can also be used for that extra activity that didn't make it on the 10 because you had so me that you were doing. Or if you did do a research project, put an abridged um summary of your research project in there. Um, what it should not be, however, is another essay. I have heard colleagues over the years say if we wanted another essay from you, we would have asked for it. Don't be that kid, right? So, like, give them additional information. If it's additional information, do not give them another essay.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:07

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:07

So there you have it.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:10

Amazing. Kate, this has been so informative. Thank you so much. I know people are gonna just love this. Um, thank you for sharing all of your expertise. I just love talking to you. I hate to let you go. Um, really appreciate your time. Um I can be no doubt that our listeners will find this extraordinarily helpful. Um, and uh this has been another episode of Shaping Your Narrative. Um we are so happy that you joined us. If you have any questions or specific topics that you'd like us to discuss in the future, please let us know. You can reach us at hello at cnbeyondadmissions.com and we'll have that in the description notes as well. Um take care. Thank you again, Kate. Have a great one, everyone.