Beer, pizza and college admissions
September 29, 2010 by Kevin McMullin
Tomorrow, I'm heading to the nation's largest annual college admissions conference where I'll get to spend some time with admissions officers I've had the pleasure of getting to know in the last several years. And based on past experiences, here are some things that various members of the group might do.
Some will go out for a beer or two when the sessions conclude. Some will skip a workshop if their beloved Dallas Cowboys or Chicago White Sox or New Orleans Saints are being televised. Some will go out of their way to find what's reported to be the best pizza in town. Some will talk about looking for love on match.com, or why Lost is the best television show ever created, or how they've wasted $60 a month for the last two years on a gym membership they've never used. They'll talk about what they love–and what drives them crazy–about their jobs. And they'll do some gossiping about who's dating whom from their offices.
I mention all of this because some students have an impression of an admissions officer that couldn't be further from the truth–cold, emotionless professionals who are moved only by high grades and test scores.
These are real people. They're just like everyone else. It's important for students to understand that when you apply to college, one of these real people reads your application, a person who might like Glee just as much as you do, who may have many of the same songs on their Ipods that you do, who may love baseball or musicals or reading People magazine just as much as you do. And just about all of them are good people who work hard and want to do right by kids. Even those who work at schools that have to reject most of the applicants would much rather admit a kid than deny him.
So when you apply to college, don't try too hard to sell yourself. Don't be too self-conscious to admit what you aren't good at. Just be confident enough to tell the truth and be yourself. They don't expect you to be perfect. They just expect you to be a 17 year-old who's happy, confident and excited about college.
Cloning is still for sheep
A couple pieces of great advice I came across on these colleges' websites today:
When making curriculum choices, always seek out courses that will enrich and challenge you, rather than thinking about how they will look to a college application reader—every college reads applications differently, so it's difficult to predict what will look "good" to every college.
Our hope is that your curriculum will inspire you to develop your intellectual passions, not suffer from unnecessary stress. The students who thrive at Stanford are those who are genuinely excited about learning, not necessarily those who take every single AP, Honors, or Accelerated class just because it has that name.
Some applicants struggle to turn themselves into clones of the "ideal" MIT student – you know, the one who gets triple 800s on the SAT. Fortunately, cloning is still for sheep. What we really want to see on your application is you being you – pursuing the things you love, growing, changing, taking risks, learning from your mistakes, all in your own distinctive way. College is not a costume party; you're not supposed to come dressed as someone else. Instead, college is an intense, irreplaceable four-year opportunity to become more yourself than you've ever been. What you need to show us is that you're ready to try.
This process of preparing for college can be equal parts fun and frustration. Try to focus on the former.
Filed Under: Advice for specific colleges, What colleges look for
Don't blame other people–find a way to make it work
When you're explaining any type of academic under-performance, be careful blaming other people.
Sometimes your academic performance suffers for a legitimate reason. Maybe you were ill and had to miss several weeks of school. Maybe you were only recently diagnosed with a learning disability. Maybe you had to help take care of your sister when your parents could no longer send her to daycare. You shouldn't hesitate to explain those circumstances that really were beyond your control.
But blaming other people sounds like this:
"I got a 'C' because of a personality conflict with the teacher."
"I didn't do well in Spanish, but the language department at my school is terrible."
"I was just 3 points away from 'A,' but my teacher refused to raise the grade."
When you make excuses like those that blame other people, the colleges inevitably think,
"Well, another kid in that class still got an 'A'."
I don't deny that those excuses may be legitimate in some cases. But sometimes, you get a bad teacher. It could happen in college, too. And after college, you might have a bad boss. Or a bad landlord. Or a bad mother-in-law. When that happens, you won't always be able to just resign yourself and blame someone else. Sometimes you're stuck and you have to figure out a way to make it work.
High school is a great training ground for this. If you really do have a personality conflict with a teacher, what are the other students doing differently that you are (or are not) doing? If the language department at your school really is terrible, what steps could you take to improve your own learning experience? And if you really were just 3 points away from an A, remind yourself that lots of things, from Olympic gold medals to sales awards at big companies are based on systems where the highest numbers win.
Colleges–and future employers–aren't looking for the students who blame other people. They want the students who find a way to make it work.
Balance rigor with reality
Some students can take the hardest available classes and still do well, have fun, and sleep regularly. But everyone has different abilities. Part of being successful in high school means pushing towards, but not past, your own academic limits.
You should enjoy your activities. You should get enough sleep. You should see your friends, have fun and occasionally do things that have nothing to do with college admissions or improving yourself.
There is nothing wrong with a course schedule that demands hard work. Some stress and the occasional late night are OK, too. But no college in the world would want you to make yourself unhappy or unhealthy because of your classes. Even the highest achievers still need to be happy and well-adjusted teenagers.
If you're hoping to go to one of those schools that rejects most of the people who apply, you're going to need to take the most demanding courses offered at your school and you'll need to get A's in just about all of them. But most of the over 2000 colleges don't demand that kind of perfection from their applicants.
Work hard and take classes that challenge your academic limits. But balance that rigor with reality so you can be a happy and well-rested teenager, too.
Interests make you interesting
My friend's husband owns a bar. Last month, I had a fascinating conversation with him about how he runs it.
This guy was raised in Ireland and has a vision for how an Irish pub should be run. He knows exactly what kind of feel the bar should have. He knows how to adjust the volumes of the orders he places to stock the bar based on the seasons and how much business he can expect to see. He knows what type of customer they want to serve and how to make those patrons happy. And most importantly, he knows how he wants the Guinness poured.
As he explained it to me, any legitimate Irish bartender knows that Guinness needs to be poured a certain way. The glass needs to be held a particular angle. The pour should be stopped halfway through and restarted again to help create the perfect head on top of the beer. When a customer complains that he wants his beer faster, he'll remind the customer that he ordered a Guinness, not a Bud Light. And nothing drives him crazier than seeing one of his bartenders rush a pour. As he put it,
"If you're going to pour it, pour it right."
This isn't a guy who takes over a conversation by talking only about himself. He only kept sharing more because I kept asking him questions about it. I was totally fascinated by it.
I don't own a bar. I have no interest in owning a bar. And I don't even enjoy Guinness. But the fact that he feels so passionately about what he does makes for great conversation. It's interesting to learn about something from a person who knows so much more about it than I do.
That's what you want to do in your college applications.
If you're a basketball player, there's a good chance the person reading your application wasn't. If you're a guitarist, an artist, a stamp collector, an EMT, a dancer or a Civil War buff, chances are that your reader won't know as much about it as you do.
So don't hide how much you know or how passionate you are about the things you do. Show the colleges that you care about your interests like this guy cares about his Guinness. Your interests make you interesting. They make the colleges want to meet you so they can know more. And when a college wants to meet you, that gets you a lot closer to being admitted.
Filed Under: College applications, What colleges look for
How great students are like Academy Award winners
September 9, 2010 by Kevin McMullin
Great students who get noticed by colleges don't just have high GPAs. They deliver great learning performances.
Lots of actors have great careers. But the few who win an Academy Award are recognized for one particularly great performance when
the movie and the role and the script seemed to match perfectly with their abilities. They're not necessarily better actors than those who don't win. And they aren't necessarily great in all of their movies. But they work hard in every film, and when that one perfect role came along, they made sure to deliver their best performance.
That's a lot like how great students approach learning.
Yes, you should work hard in all your classes. But the best students, the ones who love to learn and who will stand out to colleges are always on the lookout for their chance to shine in a subject. They do more than just get an "A;" they actually turn the experience into an award-winning opportunity.
If you have a history teacher whose class you can't wait to attend every day, jump in and deliver an award-winning student performance. Put your hand up in class. Participate in the discussion. Tell the teacher how much you're enjoying the class, and be specific about what you find interesting. Play the role of an engaged and enthusiastic learner, not just the kid who wants to get an "A."
If you're taking a video production class at school and you love it, find a way to deliver an award-winning performance and get really good at video production. Read how-to guides about it. Take a class outside of school at a college or community college. Put what you've learned to use by producing great videos of water polo games, or the school musicals, or the graduation ceremony.
If you love Spanish, don't stop at AP Spanish. Go to Spain over the summer and come back fluent. Volunteer as a translator or language tutor for recent immigrants. Get a part-time job where your Spanish can be put to use.
And don't do these things just because they'll help you get into college. That's like an actor taking roles he doesn't want to do just because he thinks they might earn him an award. That doesn't work in acting, and it doesn't work in college admissions.
Award-winning performances come from someone doing what you love and flourishing at something you really enjoy. That's why it's not realistic to be an award-winner in every class. You've got to take the learning to new levels when the role is right.
Yes, it's good to earn a high GPA. That's like an actor who always gets good reviews for his films. But if you want to stand out to colleges, find the teacher, class and/or subject you enjoy the most and deliver an award-winning performance.
With activities, don't follow the crowd
I've met a lot of kids who have volunteered at hospitals. But I've only ever met one who worked as an emergency medical technician. She wrote her essay about her first night on the job when she did chest compressions in the back of a speeding ambulance on a 19 year-old motorcycle accident victim who had just gone into full cardiac arrest.
Volunteering at a hospital is a popular choice for high school kids. But I'll bet she was the only kid working for that ambulance company.
Lots of kids go to expensive summer programs at colleges. But I've only ever met one who spent his summers taking history classes at his local community colleges for $20 per unit. He got to know one of the professors, and she shared the reading assignments for her upper division course on George Washington. He didn't care whether any college would look favorably on it–that's not what it was about for him. He was just obsessed with history and wanted to know more.
Lots of kids play an instrument in the high school jazz band. But I've only ever met one who also played trumpet in a real mariachi band. He wasn't doing it to put it on his college applications–he just liked playing good music (and wearing the authentic mariachi outfit).
The problem with popular activities is that they're crowded. It's much harder to make an impact and stand out if lots of other students are doing exactly the same thing you are. And the truth is that if you really care about what you're doing, if you're really interested and you're not doing it just to put it on your college applications, the popular choices won't be appealing to you.
If you really want to help people, you probably won't be satisfied volunteering at a hospital doing exactly the same thing the other 30 student volunteers are doing. Why not work at an ambulance company? Or better yet, volunteer at a mobile health clinic that travels to the poorest parts of town. Or find a doctor who focuses on under-served populations and offer to help her for free.
If you really want to learn more about history, don't pay thousands of dollars to go to a famous college's summer program where lots of other students are just paying to play. Go after your knowledge and take a local class with only 12 students, one where you can really get to know the professor. Or read as many books as you can about the period that interests you. Or email a professor at a local college and ask if you can meet him during his office hours so he could recommend the best ways for you to learn more about the Civil War.
If you really love to play music, you probably won't be satisfied just playing in the jazz band. You'll find a mariachi band, or a dixieland band that plays at retirement homes, or a slot at a local coffee shop where you can play on Sundays.
The students who have the most rewarding experiences in their activities, who ultimately stand out from the crowd when they apply to college, are the students who care a lot more about following their interests then they do about following the crowd.
When trying too hard is a bad thing
Being impressive is a good thing. But trying too hard to be impressive usually isn't.
Imagine you were on a first date with someone and he blurted out, "I've done over 200 hours of community service at the hospital. In fact, I won an award for my hard work and dedication." Sure, that's impressive. But you'd also probably feel like he's trying too hard.
Confident, self-assured people don't try to wedge their accomplishments into casual conversation. Nobody likes someone who can't wait to tell you how great he is.
But if your date had just said, "I volunteer at the hospital and get to work with some pretty great kids," you'd want to know more. You'd ask him to tell you more about the kids, what kind of work he does with them, and even how many hours a week he volunteers. Then he wouldn't seem too full of himself when he revealed how many hours he's spent there–after all, you asked. You'd probably be even more impressed because you'd have a better a sense of how much this work really means to him, more so than you would have if he had just shared the impressive statistics.
Filling out your college applications (and writing the essays) works the same way.
When a college asks you to list your awards or to tally up how many hours you spent doing an activity, that's the equivalent of a date asking you, "Have you ever won any awards?" Don't be bashful. Answer the question, and be proud–you deserve it.
But when you wedge hours and awards and accomplishments into the other parts of the application, it sounds like you're trying too hard.
When a college asks which of your activities has had the most meaning for you and you list all your awards, you're trying too hard.
When you write an essay that's all about how your time in the Model United Nations taught you many important life lessons about hard work and commitment, you're trying too hard.
And if you complete community service hours, secure leadership positions, and live your high school life based on what you think will look good on your resume, you're trying too hard.
The most impressive students are the quietly confident ones. These are the students who want to learn, who commit themselves to activities they really care about, and who know that their hard work will pay off no matter where they go to college.
How your free time can make you more interesting to colleges
How you answer this question says a lot about how interesting you'll be to colleges.
Imagine that all of your obligations–school, homework, soccer practice, anything that fills your schedule–magically disappeared for the next month (and you were somehow guaranteed that their disappearance would in no way negatively affect you or your college future). What would you do with that time?
Interesting students have interesting answers that question, like..
Try to see one baseball game in every single major league park in America.
Take some Italian cooking classes.
Adopt a guide dog for the blind and train it.
Travel to Europe and backpack for a month.
Make more of my jewelry and sell it on Etsy
Surf every day and maybe take some fishing trips with my friends.
Run a marathon.
Relax, write in my journal, and read whatever I wanted.
Take all the cool classes my gym offers that I never have time to take, like yoga and hip-hop dance.
Draw a lot. Maybe do some painting, too.
Play pick-up basketball games with my friends.
Here's the thing about interesting people–they have interests. Not things they're doing just to help them get into college, but real interests, things they enjoy and want to spend more time doing, or new things they'd like to explore. That's why interesting students love this scenario.
Less interesting kids say things like:
Sleep a lot and hang out with my friends.
Study for the SAT.
Get more community service hours at the local homeless shelter.
There's nothing wrong with those answers. It's not bad to work at a homeless shelter. It's just sad that the kid's doing it just to pad his service hours. How much better would it be for him and for the people he's helping if he volunteered somewhere he really cared about? Answers like these aren't indicators of real interests. They indicate either a lack of interests, or a focus on doing things just to get you into college.
lot of high school students fill their schedules with so many
obligations, so many scheduled activities that they believe will make
them "look good to colleges," that they don't have any genuine interests of
their own. Working hard and committing yourself to your college future is a good thing, but you're still allowed to have free time to pursue real interests. In fact, the colleges will reward you for doing it.
What love of learning looks like
There's often a difference between having a high GPA and being a real learner.
After a workshop at a high school last spring, a student asked me if he should write an essay explaining why he hadn't taken harder classes. His explanation was that his high school "wouldn't let him" for a variety of reasons. After he gave me a little more information, I told him the truth–I didn't think it was a good idea. It would only draw more attention to something he wasn't proud of. And it would sound like he was making excuses.
Colleges believe that the true learners always find a way to learn what interests them. If a class isn't offered at their high school, they'll find another way to get the information because they want to know it, like this kid…
Our counselor Allison received the following email today from one of her students (shared with the student's permission):
Subject: Registration is evil
Hi Allison,
So, I had to drop AP Statistics. Did I want to? No. I'm actually really frustrated about it because that is the class that I was most looking foreword to taking. But it conflicts with dance and AP English. I emailed the stats teacher to see if there was any way I could take the class as an independent study, which would be perfect if he says yes. If he says no, I already checked all the math classes at my local community college, but they're are full (and they all started today for fall semester). I guess I could take it next spring if worst comes to worst. I wish the high school scheduling didn't keep me from learning what I want to learn.
She's not writing that because we prompted her or told her that colleges like students who enjoy learning. I also appreciated that she's not asking, "Will Stanford still accept me without AP stats?" It's not about that for her. She wants to learn statistics. She was excited about it. And when she found out her school wouldn't let her take it, she didn't give up. She started taking action to find a way to learn it. That's what a true learner does.