Slow Down!

I have this friend; we’ll call her Cindy.  Without question, she is one of the most competitive people I know. In fact, she may be the most competitive person I know.  A gifted athlete, Cindy likes to win, and she likes to win at everything – sports, cards, you name it.  A few weeks ago she was excited to know that her advisory was the first to finish the PSAT test.  Cindy is that kind of person.

I, on the other hand, am not very competitive.  Oh, I like my football and baseball teams to win, but personally speaking, I don’t have to be the first to board the plane or the first to get tickets to a show.  It works for me, just like it works for Cindy.

I see a little of Cindy in some of my students going through the college application process.  They want to be the first to submit their applications, the first to “get it over with," and there are some problems with that.  First (see, I did want to be first!), you don’t get any brownie points for submitting your application before everyone else.  Let’s say you applied to Georgia Tech by their October 15th deadline.  You beat the deadline by a week and then you spent the next week panicking because your transcript wasn’t submitted until the actual deadline.  You know what? That’s okay.  It’s okay, because Tech didn’t start reading your application the day it arrived. They had thousands of documents – transcripts, recommendations, test scores – that all had to be matched before they could begin.  And then they started reading.

It’s hard, I know.  Waiting until the deadline might bring problems. What is the server goes down? What if your counselor gets sick.  Well, in Tech’s case, they actually give your counselor and teachers a grace period for submitting materials.  Lots of schools do that.  As the Director of Admission at UGA recently tweeted, “your” deadline is the 15^th. The rest of your materials don’t have to be in for another week or two, and if it will make you feel better, we always have a backup plan in case something does happen.

That said, we always submit the supplemental materials by your deadline.  We think that’s the right thing to do, but sometimes materials don't get submitted until the deadline.  Writing recommendations takes time.  Every year I ask my students if they want to turn in the first draft of their essay, and the answer is always “No!”  That’s how we feel too.  The first draft of your letter may not be the best version of your story.  So sometimes we write, let it sit for a while, talk to a few more teachers or coaches, re-write, and then let it sit some more.  We’re trying to write the very best recommendation for you that we can, and that may mean its deadline day before we’re absolutely, positively sure it’s ready to go.  I don’t have to be first, I but I do want to do it right.

There’s a bigger problem with having to be first however.  The college process should be a time of self-reflection. It’s an opportunity for you to really think about the future. It’s an opportunity to seriously consider what kind of environment will help you become the best version of yourself.  It’s an opportunity to explore what kind of person you are and what kind of person you want to be.  If you’re in hurry to get it over with, are you giving yourself the necessary time to investigate all the wonderful college opportunities that exist?  Trust me, I’ve been fortunate to visit hundreds of college campuses, and each time I go, I discover something wonderful, something that might be a wonderful fit for one of my students.

If you’re always racing to get somewhere, to be first, to be the winner, are you giving yourself enough time to enjoy the journey? In recent years I've heard college people lament the fact that students are in such a hurry to "get high school and college over with," they're not stopping to actually engage with the people and places that surround them.  Before you find yourself walking across the stage at graduation, take a minute to appreciate what you have right now.  You won't be able to get those moments back.

What I Learned Last Week

Imagine being in a room with 8,000 of your closest friends! That’s what attending a college counseling conference feels like, and this year’s NACAC conference in Salt Lake City was no exception.  Of course, I don’t really know all the attendees, but for three days, college admissions reps and high school counselors are all willing to share ideas and learn about the world of college admission from each other, and by the end, you really do make a lot of new friends!

So now that I’m back, what did I learn that might benefit students this year? For starters, I learned that most people don’t really understand the concept of holistic admissions (we’ll start working on that). In the meantime, here’s a simple version of what that means. 

            Many, but not all, colleges, evaluate their applicants holistically. We believe that’s a good thing, because it means they will consider more that your GPA and test scores. Schools will look at other things you bring to the table like geographic diversity, special talents and interests, a strong interview or essay, the type of school you attend, your family background – the list is varied.  They’re considering the whole person, not just the numbers, and for most students, that’s not a bad thing. It’s why being able to tell your story beyond the numbers is so important.

I also learned that last year, 60% of colleges and universities reported they did not meet their freshmen enrollment goals. Why should that matter to you? Because despite what you read about record low admit rates (and yes, there are a handful), there are SO many schools that are still seeking students, you might want to expand your horizons.  

To my surprise, I learned that colleges are concerned about the AP arms race.  They believe students are passing up some pretty cool educational opportunities for one more AP class, and they wish you wouldn’t.  Yes, I know, the more selective a college is, the more they probably will consider your strength of schedule, but perhaps, just perhaps, they might really consider that given your interest in human rights, taking Social Justice in Action (and developing an app) might be okay. 

“You’re waitlisted.” That’s one of the most frustrating admissions decisions a student can receive, because you didn’t quite make the cut. So they dangle a spot on the wait list: if enough students turn them down, the college might take you off the waiting list. What did I learn? Don’t hold your breath.  15% of colleges said they hadn’t admitted anyone off the waitlist in the last few years, and 68% said they admitted a few, but it was less than 5%.  With that in mind, perhaps you should let that wait list school go and focus all your love on the schools that did admit you. Like I’ve always said and will continue to say, sometimes Plan B (or C, D, E) end up being the best options for you.

Lastly, Ms. Mann heard a comment at the conference that she shared with me, and I loved it, so I want to share it with you.

”You are valuable and you do have context.  You are a person. It is incumbent on us (the college) to find value and context in each person." You can convey who you are in your essay 

and application and can articulate what your dreams are and what they can bring to the table.

You have a beautiful story to share, and in the end, that's all that really matters.

Tell me a story - through your college application

I love stories. I always have.  From Make Way for Ducklings to Blueberries for Sal to The Trolley Car Family, I have always been enthralled with books. I dreamt about life in colonial Boston with Johnny Tremain, and I’ve walked the moors with Jane Eyre. I almost majored in political science because of Advise and Consent, the first of Allen Drury’s political thrillers, and I loved the real-life drama found in biographies of Kit Carson and Catherine Graham. Stories, both real and fictional, make people come to life and help me see them in ways that often exceed my imagination (both good and bad).

A college application is itself a story, only it is the story of you.  Though some applications don’t require much more than name, address, and school name, many of them offer students a chance to connect with a reader on a different level.  At their best, college applications provide insight into who you are, what you value, what you might imagine your future to look like. It lets you color in the blank spaces that your transcript and test scores cannot communicate.  Yet telling your story, especially to total strangers (like an admissions rep), is difficult, because a good story also asks you to open up, to be vulnerable. 

Now, I’m not suggesting you tell colleges your deepest, darkest secrets, but there are several ways you can convey your story in an application.

Many colleges ask “why do you want to attend this college?” or something similar. A well-crafted answer can illustrate how much you know about the school, but it also allows you the opportunity to show the wide variety of your academic interests, or it lets you connect your quirkier side to a student group on campus.  You can describe how excited you were to sit in on a Politics of Global Immigration class during your visit junior year, or you can discuss how you would take advantage of their entrepreneurship program.  You can mention your immediate connection to your tour guide, or you can talk about people watching at the popular coffee shop just off campus. Perhaps you have already heard about the music professor that you must have before you graduate, or you can describe how overwhelmed you were the first time you attended Lessons and Carols in the college chapel. Tell a story about your visit, make it personal, make it authentic. One word of caution: if you can substitute any college name in your answer, then you’re not trying very hard, and this is not the place to tell them how good you look in their school colors.

“Describe one of your activities” is another common application question, and again, it is a chance to reveal something about yourself.  Yes, you take AP art, but do colleges know that about your passion for Tromp Loy, a style of pottery that means to fool the eye in French, and that this art form is what helped you learn to do everything with purpose?  Do they know how your afternoons at the local recreation center have taught you more about the value of community and shared space than any classroom lesson ever could?

Of course, your college essay is perhaps the ultimate opportunity to tell your story - the exact moment when you understood why you have been called to be a nurse, the conversation that showed you why your stubbornness wasn’t the positive attribute you thought it was, the relationship that taught you what it really meant to be lonely or afraid.  The college essay requires you to dig deep, to look past the obvious, to take risks, to examine what happened and why. Too many students lament that nothing has ever happened to them, but I’ve read moving essays on what it’s like to be the last one picked for a softball team or how it felt to realize for the first time that you did not share your parent’s political convictions.  I’ve read beautiful essays on the mystical connection between a student and a violin, the joys of backbreaking work in a garden, and a girl’s obsession with pajamas.  These were not life-altering events, but they were moments in time that had meaning.

We all have a story to tell, and more often than not, it is the little things, the everyday moments, that yield the best results. That’s the part of life we all recognize, and those are the stories that can make our hearts laugh or cry. And at the end of a good story, we’ve learned something about the writer and even perhaps ourselves.

So, what is your story? Whatever it is, don’t be afraid to tell it.  If it’s real, it will be good enough.