Strategy Session

Sa all right. Hopefully people can hear me in my working a little bit of technology issues, but I think that we're working. Okay. If everybody can hear me, welcome. Happy New Year's. We're still setting up a little bit here this morning. Make sure everything is working okay. We got a number of things that we're going to cover today that are really important. For those that don't know me, I'm Jeb White. I'm the founder of CollegeAdmissions.com and the author of the best selling book Breaking Into College. And we are right now preparing a video presentation that goes out to our legacy classes are students who are. Who have paid to be part of our community. And I thought if I'm going to be recording this, might as well let you guys come in and join us and see behind the scenes how we go about doing this. Now. The amazing thing is that people are able to clean up this video production of it and actually make it look good, make me look halfway decent. I actually end up looking like Fabio when it's all done. And there's a lot of information that I wanted to give you today and a lot of stuff in here is extremely, extremely timely and relevant for people that are juniors in high school, but certainly freshmen and sophomore and even eighth graders that you're going to find this information to be very, very useful. So what I'm going to do is going to be a little awkward for you, okay. Because what I'm doing again is I am recording a session that we then sell later on, but I'm giving you behind the scenes access. So from time to time it's going to look like I'm not talking to you because I'm not really talking to you. But I'll interject at points of emphasis for you guys on the live session so that you can understand why I'm saying what I'm saying and why it's important for you at this particular moment. And I have a cold, so bear with me. I'm pushing through. I stole some candy canes from my children's Christmas stash and I have a huge thing of water here. So I believe my voice is going to hold out. This should last less than two hours, but I'm going to give you a lot of information in that two hours. It's going to be soup to nuts. College mission so that you are in a position to really take off on your college admissions process. Parents and students. And parents, if your students aren't able to join us today, please take notes. I'm giving you everything that's in my book, everything that I talk about with my private students. And I'm giving it two hours. So it's a lot of information, but it's going to show you how your student can stand out from the rest of the herd, the rest of the flock. I'm going to cover a lot of that in my material today. As you can see, a lot of news. I've distilled as much as I can down to two hours. It's going to feel like drinking from a fire hose, but I hope you get a lot out of it. All right, we are going to go ahead and get started. I believe we're ready. Ready. If you have questions. If you have questions, feel free to email us@supportollegemissions.com if I don't bake in the answers to your questions in today's presentation, I'll email you after the presentation and let you know the answers to your questions. I'm trying to address as many questions as possible. I received a bunch from you guys when I announced this live session and I baked them into my presentation. But I know that, that when I go through this, a lot of questions are going to pop up. It's a fun anxiety producing time for parents and students and I try to do my best to make sure that we reduce a lot of that stress for you. So let me get one more drink and then we'll get started. All right. Again, it's going to seem a little awkward because we're recording, but this is for you guys too. So listen in and I hope you get a lot out of it. Well, hello, I'm Jeb White, founder of CollegeAdmissions.com and the author of the book, best selling book Breaking Into College, the Underground Playbook for College Admissions. I'm so glad you're able to join us on this special strategy session. There's a lot of information I'm going to cover today that's very, very relevant for 8th graders all the way up to those in senior year to try to think through their college application to make sure that they stand out above the crowd. And we're going to cover everything that I possibly can in about a two hour time slot. So take notes, turn off Facebook, turn off your phone and please focus in on what I'm saying today because it really makes a huge difference, as you probably saw on, on Facebook and maybe by talking with some of your peers. We just came off a great season in which students got into colleges across the country many times from that high school to go to some of these selective colleges. And the reason is because they did things differently, right? There's 45,000 high schools in America today, which means there's 45,000 captains of the football, 45,000 valedictorians, 45,000 of X in every single in this country. And there's only 20,000 spots in the Ivy League, right. And there's only a certain number of spots colleges. So we have a lot of students vying for a select number of spots and they're doing what everybody else is doing, and they end up getting what everybody else gets, which is a declination letter. So to get different, you must do different. We talk about in our programs how you go about structuring your application and telling your story, making yourself come alive so that colleges say, we want that student here on our campus. Okay? It's new here from school counselors. If you do what everybody else is doing, you're following the flock and you're not going to stand out. It's just purely a numbers game. So we try to make sure that you know how to approach this in a way that's going to make yourself stand out in the college admissions process. Otherwise, you're going to be a situation where you're competing with everybody else. And it's hard to stand out when you do what everybody else is doing. So we're going to cover a lot today. We're going to cover everything that you can possibly think of, including essays and teacher recommendations, SATs, ACTs, the actual application process, timelines, all of that is covered. And I'm going to give it to you in a fire hose, right? It's going to come at you very, very fast. Please try to take good notes and absorb it as much as you can. Okay? As you know, we cover a lot of this stuff in the legacy class where we meet every single Sunday at 8 o'. Clock. If you have questions, I answer them every single week. I tell you where you should be in process right now. Every single week. I tell you this is where you need to be. Right? And for those in my live session, this should be edited out. In my live session, if you click the button below, I'm actually giving you a free month access to that. And after that is seven bucks. Okay? And I'm going to ship you a free copy of my book just for joining us. Okay, In a minute. Back to story. All right, so before we get into the nitty gritty nuts and bolts of the college application process, I always start with success habits of Students who actually succeed on the back end. Right. So I've worked with students all across the country from different backgrounds, going to different colleges. And there are certain things I've identified and to stand out in the college admissions process. These are success habits and mindsets that really makes them stand out and really succeed both in school and out of school and in life. Okay, so bears, then I'm going to get into the part, the meat potatoes of college admissions. But I think it's important that when you approach the application process that you do it with the right mindset in understanding about how you can get from point A to B. I'm going to provide you the roadmap, but you need to have the right mental engine to get you there. And there's five habits and two mindsets that I've identified. The first one, the first one is plan. Students who succeed in the college admissions process have a plan, have a roadmap. And if I'm going to go from Los Angeles to New York City, I don't randomly take a right, randomly take a left. I have a roadmap or a GPS or a guide who can get me from point A to point B. And we see the same thing in students in the college admissions process. These are students who come into the game with a plan, a playbook, knowing how they're going to get there. Okay, we provide that here. But a lot of students outside of our programs, they're just willy nilly reaching out to help from school counselors or parents and friends without a concrete plan to get them where they want to be. The students succeed who succeed come into the process with a plan. The second thing we see is urgency. Urgency so they don't put off to today, tomorrow what they could do today. Right. These are students who attack their day to make sure that they get done what they need to get done. So they have a plan and then they don't procrastinate on it. Right. They do it day and day and day and day again. Right. So it's an urgency that they don't push off, which gets to the next one. Consistency. They show up every day. So we structure our program that we talk about in the legacy class every Sunday, 8 o'. Clock. I tell you, this is where you need to be, right? This is what you need to do for the next week so that you can approach your plan with consistency. Consistency. The way to get from point A to point B is to take a few little steps every single week that you hear from students who are stressed out in Their senior year when they're trying to take AP exams that are leaders in the, in the school at that point and they're thinking about school applications and they're doing 18 million different things and the parents are adding stress to the whole thing. Right. We try to encourage our students to do it differently by approaching it consistently over a period of months so that it becomes more manageable. And actually for some students it becomes the F word. Fun. The next one we see energy. They have a high level of energy. They come at this with a level of enthusiasm to get. This is a time of self reflection but also an opportunity to really change the trajectory of their life if they do it the right way. So we hear from students that they really do feel this sense of enthusiasm or energy when they approach the college admissions process, especially when we break it down in a way that makes sense for them and is really something that they can manage, which leads to the next one. Expectancy. And I hope people can read my handwriting. I try not to write too much on the board here. So they expect to succeed. They expect that and they do it with a sense of urgency and they do it consistently and they have a high level of energy. They expect to succeed. They expect to arrive at the desired location. And that expectancy means that they're not sitting around scoreboard watching or worrying about things that they just know and they trust the process will get them where they want to go. Two mindsets that we see. The first one is grit. And there's been a lot of recent point or the NFL. The people who succeed are those that have this fire in the belly, stick to it. This. That really differentiates them from other people. People. And that is very, very true when it comes to the college admissions process and high achieving students. And what that means is that they are willing to stick with it over obstacles. That obstacles don't get them in the way. Okay. And the last thing that we identified, and we've seen it in studies done over the years, most recently identified by a professor out of Stanford, Carol Dweck, is this growth mindset that she said that there's reality. Right now people fall into two categories. Those with a fixed mindset and those with a growth mindset. A fixed mindset that says I am who I am and I can't change it. You hear this when people say I'm just not good at math or I'm just not a good test taker. Conversely, people with a growth mindset say things like I'm not good at math now or I'M not good yet. They live in this world of yet that they can improve through their efforts. And we hear this from our students who succeed. The students who have this growth mindset believe through their own efforts they can ultimately win on the back end that they can succeed on their SATs, ACTs, teacher recommendations. They can write the essay that actually gets noticed by working with their efforts. They're not defined as a bad writer. They become good writers. Okay, so growth mindset. So again, students, students and parents adopt these five strategies and two mindsets. Have a plan. Approach it with focused on a growth mindset and grit that you're going to push through all obstacles to get to where you want to go. All right, how are my life people? We doing okay, just to rehash, I'm recording this and they're going to edit out some of this that I'm talking to you right now. But I wanted you guys to see behind the scenes how we do some of this, some of these sessions. Also wanted you the best way to do it right now because I don't have my teleprompter of questions popping up over here is to email us@supportollegemissions.com and if you want to join us going forward on Sunday for the next month, you join the link below and I'll send you a copy of my book. All right, we're going to move into the next part here. Hope you guys can read my screen. My board back here. All right, and we're going to go back into recording session now. All right, now I'm going to talk to you about how you go about structuring your goals to get to where you want to go. In particular, how to get to the college where you want to be. Okay, so I'm going to tell you a little bit of my story and probably some of you know that story. But for years I was climbing the legal profession ladder. I was climbing the mountain of the law profession. I had gotten to the point where I was representing clients before the United States Supreme Court, had clients all over the country and I was traveling quite often and I have two young children. And one day my seven year old son Finnegan asked if I would pick him up from school early so that we could play. I was actually home a rare Friday and I did. I picked him up and we went out to the front yard and he was playing soccer at the time and I decided I was going to help help him practice. So the cool thing about soccer, unlike a baseball or football, you don't actually have to look at the person that you're playing with and you can do other and do other things. So I thought it was father of the year material because I had my notebook out and I had my phone kind of put up to my ear like this as I'm taking notes, talking on a conference call. And as the call ended, I put the phone down and my son Finnegan came up to me and said, dad, Dad, I gotta tell you what happened at school today. And about that time a phone rang and I looked down and I realized it was a call from a client. And I said, finnegan, hold on one second. I got to take this call. It's on my schedule. And I put the phone up to my ear and I kicked the ball back in his general direction. And after a while I realized that the ball never came back to me. And I looked over at him and I could tell that his eyes were welling up with tears. And I said, hold on one second, put the phone down. And I hit him. I said, fingan, what's wrong? And he looked up at me and this time tears were streaking down his face. And he said, dad, how do I get on your schedule? Every parent can probably identify with that story, right? This fear that you are spending so much time outside of the family, that your family is missing out on you. And that was my wake up call that I was perhaps spending all my time climbing my career mountain and. And all of my family concerns and priorities were on an entirely different mountain. And over the next couple of years I decided to change how I was approaching life. And I try to think about different exercises that I could offer to people that would prevent them from making that same mistake and help them identify which mountain is important for them and ultimate seed in climbing that mountain. Mountain. So in talking through this program, one of the things I encourage students every single Sunday when we meet with them is to try to find where they have a passion, where they feel like they can make an impact, and where they really feel like they maybe even have a calling. And when they identify that without any outside pressures of the should do's right, that you should do this or that because your older brother or sister did this, or somebody in your school is telling you must do this, when you take out all of that noise, what in your heart are you really calling yourself to do? And this is where I encourage people that once you've identified that connection, that interlap between passion and impact, that you then figure out how you're going to succeed in that world. And this is when I came up with the mountain exercise. I was not an art major, but that is my drawing of a mountain. There's a great quote, it's actually in my book by Vince Lombardi that said that the man at the top of the mountain did not fall there. Right? Meaning the man who gets to the top or the woman who gets to the top has to find his or her way to the top. You actually have to put forward intention to get to the top of the mountain. So when I work with students, even a lot of parents, I ask them, why? What mountain do you want to climb? And then important, why? Why do you want to climb this mountain? For me, when I was on the legal mountain and working with lawyers, lawyers and clients before the Supreme Court and testified before Congress and did all these things that I thought was significant at the time, I recognized that I was doing it for the wrong reasons. Right? And then when I talk to some students who are doing some activities, they feel like they have to do particular activities and they're not doing others that they really feel a passion for. So always you're doing, why did you pick this particular mountain? And then I asked them, all right, if this really is the mountain you want to climb, and you feel like you really do have good intrinsic reasons why you want to climb this particular mountain. How. How do you reach the summit? Okay, if your goal is to reach the top, how are you going to get. Get to the top? And then I asked them, what is the summit of this particular mountain? How do you define success? Otherwise, you're just going to find yourself climbing and climbing forever with no end goal. Right? Goals need to be defined. Success. So when I work with students, I say, this is the mountain you want to climb, understand why you want to climb it, and understand that there's a particular summit. Let's define that summit for you. And then I want to know, where are you today? In order to know your path forward, you first have to start with where you are today. So taking a very honest look, where are you today? And then identify what particular obstacles are in the way that potentially could slow down or hinder your ability to climb to the top of the mountain. The other thing I want to try to figure out, and students should do this too, are what are the mile markers, the milestones? Okay, so one of my goals is to climb Mount Everest and talk to people. They talk about these base camps that you get to a certain level and you stay there, and you go to the next level, and you stay there as your body Acclimates. These are base camps. So as students are thinking about their mountain they want to climb, I try to encourage them to not focus on the entire mountain, but to focus on specific base camps that they can focus on. These are smaller mini goals that ultimately, if they reach them in succession, they're going to find their way to the top of the mountain. I then ask, you know, what are the daily steps that you could take, if you do it consistently, will ultimately reach you to the top of the next milestone? Okay, so when I. Last year, right? When I wrote this book last year, which most of you guys have read, there's 12 chapters, 10 chapters. Whoa, 10 chapters. I didn't focus on the entire book. I focused on a chapter, got that chapter done, Base camp, went to the next chapter, got that chapter done, went to the next one, right? So it wasn't a matter of thinking about the book in its entirety, but thinking about each chapter in and then working my way through that. So for me, my daily steps were not to write a chapter and certainly not to write a book, but was to write a certain number of words each day. And once I got there, I would stop, and sometimes in the middle of a sentence. So think about, in your particular case, the mountain you want to climb and the milestones you need to reach. What are some of the particular daily steps that you could take that if you do them consistently, you ultimately will reach your goal? And then I always try to think of who can help me, who has been to the top of the mountain, who can guide me forward, maybe identify some of these obstacles, tell me the mile markers, and shorten my learning curve so that I can increase my chances of succeeding. And then the last, once I reach the top of the mountain, who can I help? Who can I help? Right. There's a quote that opens my book by Will Rose that says that success is not measured by your success, but by how many people you have pulled up with you. So when you get to the top, you want to think about contribution and certainly at different points here, when you're here and your younger brother is below you, providing assistance below is a huge help. You don't have to reach the ultimate goal in order to help people who are below you. You just need to be a little further along. So this mountain exercise comes down to a question of who are you and who do you want to be? And for a lot of students right now, they're thinking where they want to go to college, which mountain they want to climb. Ask yourself why you want to climb that particular mountain. Is there anybody who has been there before you, who can help you? What are some of the mile markers and milestones that you need to do? This program, of course, helps you identify all of those things. You just have to work through it consistently. Now, what are the right reasons and wrong reasons to apply to particular colleges? Okay, so when I work with a student, I want to know why, as I mentioned, why they want to go to a particular college? What is the driving force behind them? And there's a lot of wrong reasons that pop up time and time again. In the moment, they may feel like the right reasons, but in the long run, we hear from students who have gone wrong reasons, and sometimes they become transfer students. So I'll tell you my story is maybe an illustration of some of the wrong reasons. So when I was growing up in rural Kentucky, I had this dream of going to Yale University. I don't know why, other than I think I watched a movie once and the person went there, and I went there during reading days. And anybody who's ever gone to college knows that reading days is a miserable time on a college campus. Students are studying for final examinations, and to add to the misery, it was snowy, ice and cold. I'm from Kentucky. It was miserable. And when I got there, it was rainy and snowy and ice. And people were upset because they were studying for final examinations. My guide, my college guide, who walked me around the campus, I guess, was miserable, miserable because she should have been studying. And while I was there, a student was killed on campus, came out later that the student had some kind of relationship with a professor. But at the moment, all I knew was Yale was a miserable place. And it sounded kind of dangerous to me at the time. And then months later, I ended up going to the University of Pennsylvania. And the day I was there was the day that the new president was being inaugurated. And there were marching bands, there was free food, there was birds were chirping. It was right before spring break, so students were happy, looking forward to spring break. And I ended up going to the University of Pennsylvania and not Yale University. And in large part, it was due to the snapshots that I got from the two schools, right? I was there for a day at each school. And my snapshot of Yale was one way and my snapshot of Penn was the other way. And the reactions that I saw in people's faces did not match the catalog I got from Yale, and it matched the catalog I got from Penn. Right? The caution here is not to judge a book or a university on One day that SNAP did not capture what happens on that school's campus day in and day out, but it drove my decision on where to go to college. Ultimately, things turned out fine, but for me, it was a distorted look at a college based on a one day visit. My encouragement to students and certainly our students that go through our program know this and they get this is you have to do your homework and you can't make your decisions based on SNAP judgments or a brochure or even a day visit to a campus. You have to do your homework and dig deeper. Some of the wrong reasons that we hear from students much later is that a lot of times students will chase the significance. They chase the sweatshirt, the name on the sweatshirt, or the sticker that goes on the back of the car. They are chasing the ranking in the U.S. news & World Report without doing a thinking deep diving about whether or not the school is a right fit for them, that when you chase significance instead of match, the students end up miserable. So when I work with students, when I truly really try to drill down and ask why they're interested in particular colleges, I'm always concerned when I hear well, because it's Harvard or Yale or it's ranked in the top 10 in the US news and world Report, I want to understand intrinsically for them what is the motivation to apply to a particular college. Another wrong reason moms and dads bear with me is undue pressure put on by mom and dad and grandma. Pressure put on by family can sometimes drive a student to go to a college where they're going to be miserable. And students listen to the advice and wisdom. Your parents, but parents and students recognize the students are the ones who are going to have to live on that campus for the next four years. So listen to your students and be careful not to put undue pressure to steer them to a college that might be a good fit for you, but not a good fit for your student. The other one that we hear a lot are you choose a college based on a significant other or friends, you make new friends, you make new significant others, and oftentimes relationships grow apart. Or you evolve as a relationship changes. And the interests that your friends may have in a particular college may not match your interests, right? The particular career goals they have may not match yours. So set it as just being one factor. Don't let it be the driving factor. Because too many times we, we get those phone calls from students who have made a decision based on their friends and not based upon their real desires the other one Are counselors all meaning but a lot of them are advising sometimes 100 to 200, 300 students. And their knowledge, their knowledge of universities may be very limited to just the schools in the geographic area where you live. They may not outside of your area or they may not know really what's happening in other colleges that are not regularly attended by students who come from your school. Recognize school counselors can be a big help. But sometimes their knowledge is very, very limited. And you might, you may find yourself getting pushed to a particular school in part because counselors are pushing you, maybe not intentionally, but encouraging you to go to a school that they know. But their knowledge is just quite limited. The last one is price tag price tag. A lot of students make their list and then they start marking them off based on the price tag of the school. We'll talk about this today. And you guys know about from our financial aid programs that we offer throughout the year. The price tag should not be your determining factor. Should not be your determining factor that if you do it right the way we talk about in our sessions, your application should draw money. You, you should be a coveted asset by the university that's going to draw attention and substantial financial aid packages that do not burden you with student loans. So do the program, as we say, don't schools based solely upon the price tag. The price tag is only paid by a few and not by the many. So the questions when it applies to college, wrong reasons, what matters to you? And if it falls on some of these wrong things, you may want to reconsider those as being determinative factors for you. So what are some of the right reasons for you? I'm going to tell you a story of a student I worked with last year, wonderful person who from the age of birth was encouraged to go to Penn State University, a very large school in Pennsylvania. Very, very strong football, strong alumni base. She came home from the hospital in a onesie that said future Penn State alumni. The problem was as she started looking at school, she realized that she didn't really have an interest in going to a large university. She really wanted to go to a smaller liberal arts college. And when she had visited some of the smaller liberal arts colleges, she recognized that she really enjoyed learning collaboratively, working in small group sessions. And when she visited Penn State, she had a hard time finding that match for her. And when I was talking to her the week leading up to May 1, which is the decision day in which you have to tell colleges where you're going, she was telling me to stay And I remember saying, is that where you want to go? And she broke down crying, and she says, I have to go there. And I remember saying, well, I know you got accepted by a number of different colleges. Why do you have to go there? And she explained to me that this is where she was supposed to go because that's where everybody in her family goes. And she told me what I just told you about her going to some of the small liberal arts colleges. And I said, you know what? As a parent, I can tell you this. Your parents just want you to be parents. They need you to be happy. Right? And as much as they may have loved for you to go to Penn State, they want you to be happy even more. So do me a favor and yourself a favor and tell your parents what you just told me. Tell them and then report back to me how it goes. The next day, I got a text from her saying that she is no longer going to Penn State and that she's going to one of the liberal arts colleges where she really felt at home is. So for students, the right reasons are your intrinsic values and where you truly see yourself thriving. So the questions come down to where do you want to go? Why do you want to go there? And then what we help you with is how to get there. So once you've identified your mountain and you feel like it really is for the right reason, we go full gangbusters to make sure you get in, and we show you how you structure your application in a way that's going to increase your chances. Now, some of the right reasons, beyond just that gut feeling, some schools have a strong area where they really focus in on. Right. Their academic interest. They're known for a particular area. If that matches up with your interest, that certainly is a positive factor. Same thing with career interests, right? If you're. If you have a desire to become a marine biologist, the University of Nebraska may not be the best school for you. Right. You also want to think about how do you learn best? Like I talked about with Karish, she said that she learns best in a small group setting. Is that the best fit for you? Or do you prefer to work in a large lecture hall where you can really just focus in on your studies without working with other students? Do you have certain religious or cultural or social considerations that really are important for you? Is it important that the students are involved in the neighboring community? Right. Some schools are known as having a very strong community outreach program. And if so, is that important for you? Certainly that's a positive factor for you the diversity of the campus. Some campuses are not diverse. Others are extremely diverse, pulling from students from all over the country. So if that's important for you, make sure that the campus truly reflects what this stated in the brochures. And then the big four Weather, Distance, size and setting. Weather. Distance, size and setting. Weather is important for a lot of people, right? If you grow up in San Diego, going to Ithaca to go to Cornell may not be an option for you if you do not like snow. Conversely, if you really enjoy Joy the snow, going to San Diego State University maybe should be on your list if that really, truly is a driving important factor for you. Distance is important too. A lot of students want to get away from home. Others want to stay close to home. Others like to be far away, enough away that the parents don't just surprise them and stop by. Hallelujah. Size. Size is important. We talked about the care who wanted to go to a smaller school. Other students want to go to big schools. Setting urban versus rural or suburban. Some schools are right in the middle of school of a city, right? Think of NYU or Columbia, where other schools kind of sit out in the countryside. Dartmouth and Brown. Dartmouth is a good example. Brown, of course, is in Providence. Other schools are kind of in the middle Grinnells in kind of a rural area as well. So think about how the campus is, where it's located, the setting, and what is important for you. Do you want to be in a vibrant city or would you prefer to be in a more tranquil setting? Those are things that are important. These are questions you have to answer, right? Parents can help you think through some of these things, but again, you need to think about that. The question comes down to what life do you want to live for the next four years? And some of these questions will help you zero in. Now, again, all these are questions that we work through on our matrix in the legacy class for seniors in the legacy class and rising seniors who are in the summer of their senior year. This is where we get that matrix going for you and really identify the colleges that are the best fit for you. So if you're not there yet, it's coming. Make sure you tune in every Sunday. In our legacy classes as we get closer to, we have very specific exercises that are important for that. Speaking of exercise, there is one that I wanted to share with you right now. It's called the extended bench test. And the important thing, like I said, is you need to go to the school. You need to actually get to the school. And I call it the Extended bench test, where you actually find a bench and you sit down and you observe and you watch and you look at the students, you watch the interaction that's happening there, and you try to say, do I picture myself attending the school? Are these the kind of people that I really feel like I could be friends with? And this could be my home? And the only way to do that, or at least the best way, is by going there. And when you get there, you're going to hear the canned speech from the college guides, right? Walking around telling you about how wonderful things are. Spend some time off the path, walking up to current students and asking them that you're considering going there. But you really want to understand, what do they not like about the school. You're going to get an honest opinion, more likely from these students than you will from the admissions office. So going there is a huge benefit. That was true for me. I. And I won't mention the name of the college, but I've heard the story from many, many other people. There was a college that they had in mind after my visit to Yale that I said, you know what? This is where I want to go. This is where I'm going to go. I read about it. I saw the numbers. The Internet really wasn't around then, so I saw some pictures in the catalog, I guess, and I said, that's where I'm going to go. And my college guidance counselor strongly encouraged that I go there. And I went there and it just wasn't a match. Something about the student body just didn't match. Just didn't feel like home for me. When I came back, he asked me about my visit and I said, I don't think it's the right place for me. And he said, well, their social environment ranks below the service academies. It's actually dead last by most surveys. So you're a very social person. I'm guessing that was how it's going to turn out for you. So you recognize going there sometimes you'll get a little better view of what's actually happening, what may be important for you. There's also other resources. Big Future is one of them. Collegeboard.org College navigators put out by the Department of Education. These are all things you can Google and find. And of course, we provide these resources for you. During Sunday's class, you want to actually go to the college website, spend a lot of time there digging on them and seeing what they're putting out. The big books, right. The Fisk School Guide of Colleges has a lot of information out there, your school counselor can supply some information about area colleges. Talked about current college students, especially students who are from your high school, who you may know, who are a couple years older than you. The last four are important for another reason. I'll talk about that in a second. And they are college reps that visit your school online, virtual college tours, and of course, the actual college tours, those are important because the schools themselves are tracking whether or not you are attending those things. And that's important because of demonstrated interest. You'll hear this phrase, demonstrated interest. And what that means is that you have demonstrated your interest in actually going there. And it's important because the US News and World Report rankings and other rankings too, rank the colleges in part based upon their yield rate, which means the number of students or percentage of students that accept their acceptance letters. Right. They want to know that if they accept you, that you're actually going to show up in the fall. They want a high yield rate. They want a high percentage of the students accepting their acceptance letters. Okay. And the one way they do that is by trying to figure out whether or not you really are interested in them. Okay. When I was thinking about proposing to my wife, I wanted to see if she really was going to say yes. Colleges, when they send out acceptance letters, they want to make sure they send it to the people who are actually going to say yes. And if you demonstrate that interest early on the front end, they will give you certain rankings that will increase your chances of getting an acceptance. And. And those include a lot of things. I've talked to a lot of school counselor deans of admissions over the last year, and it's amazing, slash scary, the level of tracking that they do. And this includes emails they want to see are you opening their emails? And if you're opening their emails, are you clicking through, are you clicking through on the links and going to their website, they want to see are you truly interested or are you just applying to them? And that's one way they're doing it. The other way they do it, they track to see who's coming to meet with college counselors or the representatives that go to the different schools. Who's going to the college fairs, when they have them in your community, they track your name, your email interaction that you have with the school. Same thing with virtual college fairs. Are you actually attending those? And then lastly, are you going to their school? And I know for a lot of students the finances of actually going to a school are just prohibitive, Right? It's very expensive to fly There go to hotel and all that. So they try to offer up other programs so you can signal your interest but also get information about that school. So the question comes down to where are you a match? And the exercise is called the extended bench program. All right, my life, folks, I'm going to take a 32nd break to get something to drink and I'll be right back so my voice doesn't die. All right, Hope everybody had a wonderful New Year's. My voice is good so far and I really appreciate you guys joining in on this. We weren't quite sure how this was going to work out. You know, this is. But we're letting you guys join in live so you can see how we do it and we're letting you join in for free. So I hope it's a tremendous value for you. Again, if you guys have questions, supportollegemission.com that goes to my team and then I try to answer those too. That's the best way to email us if you want to join us right now. For those people that are joining us, if you click the button below, you can actually join us for the next month for free. Free. And then after that it's seven bucks and I ship you a copy of my, my book Breaking into College. Every Sunday we meet. If you're able to join us, great. If not, we keep the replays available for you. And it's a great community so you get to meet people from all over the world. So hope it interests you. If you're interested in that, just click the link the button below to open up a new window for you so you can continue listening on. All right, we're going to get started. One second. All right, and we're back. So passions, problems we talked about not just doing what everybody else is doing, but actually doing what you have a passion for and where you can feel like you can make an impact. And I talked to so many parents who are saying, you know, my child is so busy doing many different things. Extracurricular activities, volunteer work, studying hours and hours and hours, the SAT act, and they're trying to apply to colleges and you want them to do something where they make an impact. How are they possibly going to do that given their schedule? Right. What I encourage students to do is to do things differently. Okay. So I worked with one student recently named Paul. I'll change his name. Who was a serial joiner. Right. He was so busy doing 19 different activities and he was doing all these things because he felt like that's what he had to do. His parents were telling him that's what you had to do. His school counselor was telling him that this is what you have to do. And he was mentally, and was mentally heading in a really bad direction. And I started working with him in his junior year and I said, look, you know, you're about to burn out and you're doing the same activities that everybody else is doing and it's not really going to help you on the college admissions process. So if you're killing yourself through all these activities for the sake of standing out, you're not doing it. Less is more. Less is more when the less is something that makes an impact. So I talked to him, I said, a passion for all the million different activities you're doing, which one really resonates with you? And he says, well, you know, I'm working with these after school kids right now and we're playing like pick up basketball games and stuff like that, but I have a passion for technology. And he goes, if I can marry the two, somehow I feel like that could really make a difference. And he came up with this idea called Tech Kids where he taught them coding after school at the Boys Club. So he continued working with kids after school, but doing something he felt a real passion for. And he got rid of, of other activities that were really diverting his attention from doing something where he could make a real impact. So his application, instead of saying he was the president of all these different clubs, was really focused on something and he was able to point to something tangible. Tangible. An initiative that he started from the ground up that build over the next two years into something that was covered by the new local news station. Right. Which one is going to make a bigger impact? Community or in your school? It's the power of asking the right questions instead of just answering the questions that everybody else asks you. The questions are, you know, where do you feel that passion, that drawing, that calling that you feel like you really could make an impact? Whether it's something that you really can transcend. Titles and we talk about students who apply to colleges and their brag sheet includes a bunch of different leadership positions. And they're just, there's nothing going to be in a position either with a title, without a title. So that when you apply to college, you have something very, very specific objectively that you can point to to say that this happened because of me, this impact happened because of me, and that we're thinking about contribution, giving back to other people. Right. And for some students, they're so busy doing other things, are so busy with their schoolwork that they can't really make that impact. So I encourage students to get rid of the cliche high school activities and to come up with their own initiative that's going to make them stand out. Okay. Their own initiative that's going to stand out to do different. What everybody else is doing is they're following the flock and doing all the cliche high school activities. You need to think about what's passion for you, what draws you, and what very specific concrete area where you can plant your flag and say, this is going to be my domain where I'm going to make a difference and an impact during my time in high school. Okay? It's a different way of thinking, and I give you a ton of examples. Of course, every Sunday we highlight some of. They've done some of the areas where they've made a big impact. And then we talk to those students and we bring them together. And you guys have had this. Have this community that's really growing right now. It's very, very cool. So, you know, keep that going in the legacy class. Right? It's our chance to shine a light on what's working in one part of the country and then bringing it to your high school. It's all about quality over quantity. Where can you have a quality impact? And for some students, you know, you're working, you come from a single family, a single parent family, and your mom's working two jobs and you're having to work to help out with financial problems, right? We've all been there. So my encouragement for you is to not make your impact at work. We've seen tremendous recommendation letters from employers who sing the praises of high school students who are working 20, 30 hours a week and balancing a tremendous workload at school. They're not involved in extracurricular activities, but their extracurricular activity is doing this work, this meaningful work is helping put food on the table at home. So the question for you is not what can you start doing? What can you stop doing? So many students feel like they just need to add and add and add. And what they're doing is they're diluting, diluting their application with things that are meaningless. So spend time thinking what you can stop doing so that you can free up time to start doing what you really want to do. So the difference maker exercise is the one that always talk about here. It's trying to think about where you can show initiative, where you can start something that's going to make an impact in the immediate term because you Have a very short window, right? A few months, maybe a couple years to really make a difference that's going to be noticeable on your college application. So a student I worked with recently, his name's Paul, and he goes to a. Went to a very rural high school where the Internet was quite slow in the high school even, and he felt like there was a need for a club for business entrepreneurs who were interested in online, like online entrepreneurship. And he went to his high school principal and he said, look, that's a great idea. We barely have bandwidth here to run our programs. Whatever you could do, that's great. So Paul went to all the local businesses and got together funding to bring a T1 line, I think that's how you call it, into the school to increase the speed into the computer lab so that they can meet there and get things going on this new club. Now, Paul came to me this summer of his senior year and he told me that he had an interest in computer science. And when I'm looking at his application and his brag sheet and his course selection over the last three years, the word computer appeared nowhere. But he was trying to tell me this real passion for computers. And I encouraged him to go forward with this dream of trying to start this club with the idea that it shows initiative, that the club may be just starting in his senior first all semester of senior year, but the initiative of getting it going, you don't have to show the end product to colleges, is starting something new, right? The rocket ship, when it takes off. That initiative is the part you're showing that you bring initiative to a problem and you try to solve it. There's this contribution beyond yourself. And for him, just to finish the story for him, he ended up getting into Johns Hopkins University and is now in charge of a program there for entrepreneurship involving online programs. And what he did was in his application. Sorry, one second, guys, we got to edit that part. Sorry. So what he did was he basically said, look, Johns Hopkins universe didn't really have a program like he was picturing a club that he was picturing. And he future casted himself into that spot through his application, in particular his essay. And when we work with you on your essays, that's one of the things we do. We talk about how you can put yourself into the shoes of the student that you're going to be when you show up on their campus, that you want the school to say, wow, this is the person for us. Because he's going to fill this particular role for us. And how do we know that because he did it at his high school, okay, you're trying to tell that story, and you're going to do that by showing a process or opportunity at your high school and that you problem on some level could be just starting out, right? Initiative, and that it made an impact or difference to others. It's not just about you, but it's a difference for others, right? So for him at his school, it was an impact for the club that he left behind. His footprint was quite large in that community because of that initiative. So the question for students shouldn't be what is the score that you're going to score, the points you're going to put up on the board or some other minor activity that you're going to move an inch. You're trying to think about problems, problems and opportunities that you can seize, however small, that you can make your own, that, say, one was solved because of that person. And it could be small, right? And it could be large. But you want to make sure that it's something that you feel a passion for that's going to drive your attention and, and it's going to make a big difference to other people's lives. So think about that. Students now, seniors, juniors and seniors who are running out of time. Remember Paul's story. Remember, sometimes it's the initiative. Starting something. Starting something gets a lot of weight on your college application. So what can you possibly start if you're running short on time? Let's talk about academics for a second. You know, a lot of questions about GPAs, a lot of questions about course selection, a lot of questions about thresholds, academic thresholds. For certain, Stuart, for certain schools, there's going to be a de facto academic threshold. It's just the reality, okay? The U.S. news and World Report ranking matters to some schools, a lot of schools, and if your GPA is going to bring down their average gpa, they're not going to be your biggest fan. If your SAT or ACT score is below their average score, they're not going to be your biggest fan. You want them to be your biggest fan. And one of the things we know is that there is a de facto academic threshold that you need to clear for gpa, SAT or ACT at some of these schools. And if you really are looking at some of the more selective colleges, you need to think about, do you clear some of these academic thresholds? Everything we talk about in our legacy class every single Sunday is for students who are, who have cleared that academic threshold at their particular college. We can make a huge difference. Huge Difference. Assuming your GPA in SAT or ACT are above the baseline thresholds at those schools. So how do you know those? There's different ways to figure them out. But one of the things that we try to figure out is what is the average sat, act, and GPA for the admitted student profile from the last year? The admitted student profile. Colleges will brag about this. They'll put it in their press release. It'll show up in the Fisk College Guide. You want to look and see what the average for the admitted student profile is, and are you above that line? Okay. And do you have any admissions hooks at all? Okay. Did your parents go there? Can they write a big check for a donation? Are you a star athlete? If not, then you need to bump it up even more. You want to clear that line by a substantial number. Okay. If you're talking about where those numbers need to be here in a second. And we work with you in the legacy class to make sure that it's important where those lines are for you. Now, as far as your course selection, once you figure out your grades, I get a lot of questions about, you know, should I take another AP or should I take an honors course? Is a B in AP class better than an A in an honors class? All these things come to come down to a question of what is the GPA threshold for a particular school? More important than your gpa, though, is the storyline that you want to tell. The storyline that you want to tell. So I'm a lawyer by training, right? So when I testify or get in front of a jury, we'll talk about the opening statement here in a second. But I want to tell a story that's consistent, and your course selection should be consistent with that. When I talked about Paul, one of my concerns was that he didn't take any of the computer science class offered at the school. But he wanted to tell the colleges he had this passion for computer science. Right. So what is the story that you want to tell? So picking the classes that are consistent with that story means more than getting another AP Calculus class. So we have students, Calculus ab. They want to take BC because they feel like they have to instead of taking a course that's more consistent in their area of focus. An AP Computer science class. Right. For example. So thinking through those things is important when you align your grades and your course selection towards a consistent storyline. So what academic hurdles do you need to clear at the schools that you are considering? Can we take 30 seconds on that in one second, guys? All right. I think we're back. Bear with us. Going live here. Okay, so the other it goes to in tandem, right? People ask about grades and then they ask about the dreaded sat, act, PSAT and plan. I worked. The student a few years ago named Alex originally booked herself in her bedroom for three days during a three day weekend and had not come out at all. Oh my. Because she was studying for her sat, that she wanted to increase her SAT by a few more points. She this was late in her junior year. And I said, you know, is this a common thing for her? And she goes, she's been obsessed about the SAT for years, for years. And that she's been focusing in on the sat, verbal in particular, that she spends hours and hours and hours of every day focused on the sat and that she was worried about her daughter Alex. And I said, you know, has there been any impact on the rest of her life? And she said, there is no other life. This is her life. She gets home and she studies for the sat. And I had an opportunity to speak with Alex and I and I mentioned, you know, some of the concerns. And I said, you know, I understand that you're looking to get a higher SAT score. You already have a good score. I'm understanding you're wanting looking for a higher one. I wonder why, why? And she goes, well, of course I want a higher one. I want to get into this particular selective college. And I said, well, let me tell you, based on my experience in working with students and talking to deans of admission, some of which come from this very college, you're actually hurting your chances. And she looked at me in disbelief. What do you mean I'm hurting my chances? And I said, you're spending so much studying for this SAT that you're not opening up your schedule to do other things to make your application stand out. When it comes to colleges, what they want is they want a student who's going to show up and contribute to the campus, right? They don't want a student who's going to show up and lock themselves in a room and study. That adds nothing to the community. So I encourage students to recognize that sats and acts while important, they should not derail your plan that we talked about earlier. The plan that we put forward in our legacy class works because you do the plan and not get hyper focused on one area of it. Now, the SAT and ACT are important, but they're less important as time has gone on because universities have recognized that there is a disparity in large part based upon the income of the Family that families who of certain means can afford private tutors and Princelyn and all these things that actually make an impact for some students on their SAT and ACT scores. So they recognize that it is a skewed test. But I know many, many students who I've worked with who have scored very well, including some perfect scores, who do not come from the means to afford a Kaplan or a private tutor. They have this growth mindset that we talked about to the detriment of the rest of their lives. But they make it in bite sized pieces so that at the end of the study period they're very, very ready to crush the SAT or act. Now, the Kaplan and the Princeton Review courses are good, but a lot of their courses and trips and tactics really work on the edges. The bulk of what you need to know to do and the ACT can be covered through self study. And a number of resources are available online for free. Khan Academy K H A N teamed up with the College Board recently to offer up free SAT tips and strategies and tactics that are just as good, sometimes better than what you'll get at a Kaplan or a Princeton Review. It's about focusing in on the things that are going to get you the biggest return. 20% that gives you the 80%, the Pareto principle. And those things are covered in a Khan Academy online program. The SAT and the act, both of those have actual exams that are put out. The College Board puts out actual exams. Princeton Review and Kaplan takes those and tweaks those. But the actual old exams are sent out to the world for you to look at and to take into practice and to understand which ones you got right, which ones you got wrong. And then to understand exactly why you got something right and why you got something wrong wrong. The PSAT and the plan are important too from the purposes of scholarship. But more importantly, it gives you an opportunity to see basically about how you would perform on the SAT under time conditions. No school is going to reject you because of a low PSAT score, okay? It's going to give you an opportunity to see how you would perform on that test. Now what Kaplan Review, a Kaplan and prison Review are good for is that they offer free free practice tests. On most Saturdays. You can go to a center and they will give you a test and then you'll practice it under time condition. You can see how you would perform on the test. Now they're going to try to upsell you to a program and all this other stuff. But more importantly than that, for free, you get to see how you're going to perform. And what I want you to do is you're going to see that one of the two tests you're going to perform better on. You're going to do better on the SAT or the act. And when you identify which one you did better on, I then want you to forget about the other one. Students will naturally do better on one or the other. So, for example, if you see that your SAT score outshines your ACT score, focus your study going forward on the satisfaction. Parents, SAT and ACT are now weighed the same by colleges. Was not true when we went through. Right. It's true today. So recognize that if your student says, I did really well in the act, I'm not even going to take the sat. It's a beautiful thing because that means they can now focus their time on the nuances of that test and not worry about the other one. Now, students, some of you come and say, I'm just not a good test taker and your test scores are not doing well. As I mentioned, a lot of colleges have recognized that the testes are skewed and they really don't reflect how you're going to perform in college. So they have signed on with fairtest.org f a I r t e s t.org fairtest.org lists the colleges that allow you to submit applications without scores, SAT and ACT scores, and they do not penalize you for it. These are schools that have recognized that there's little value in these tests. So if you don't score well, so be it. Look at the list of those colleges and you're going to find that there's a number of colleges on there that may be a perfect fit for you. And the test that you do not do well on does not matter. All right? So take a look at that website. Most importantly, don't become an Alex on me. Don't obsess about the SAT or act. Set aside the time, study it, and then move on. So we say there's a lot more area where we can get traction on the rest of your application that other people ignore and neglect. That's going to make you stand out instead of getting an extra 20 points on your SAT. Okay, don't obsess. Viability exercise. We talked about academic thresholds earlier about that there's certain de facto stress or levels that this that some schools are looking for. Here's the problem. When you ignore those thresholds, you may end up getting into zero schools and a half. Student. A couple years ago, Brian, who came to me after he received 14 rejection letters. And the problem with that is that he applied to 14 colleges. And when I asked to see his list, I realized he applied to basically 14 at the same school. They all had the same academic thresholds and his GPA was way below that threshold. So he just got rejected by every single school because he didn't have a mixed portfolio of reach, safety and target schools. So we have, we encourage our students to come up with a college list and we work with you guys every single week on this to identify schools where you're going to have a chance to get into schools on there. And more importantly, you would be happy, you would be happy to go to any of those schools. No school makes it on your list that you wouldn't be happy at. And importantly, it has to pass the viability test that no school goes on your list that would not pass this viability test, meaning that you would have at least a shot of getting in to those schools. We don't want any Brian to end up an involuntary gap year where they have to take a year off to reapply because they didn't apply to enough schools that would allow them to get in. So the academic profile, we talked about this earlier, that there's a admitted student profile that you want to look at to see the gpa, SAT and ACT scores for the average for the admitted student profile and to see where you fall. And we say that you want to look and see, based on your GPA, SAT or ACT, would you have been in the top 15%, better than 85% of the students who were admitted last spring? If so, that school is going to be a safety school for you. Now, if you look and you see that you would have been in the top 25, we viewed that school as being a target school. And if you look and see that you would have been in the top 50%, we view this as being a reach school for you. Now, if the school is one of the most selective colleges, the top 20 most selective colleges in America, we view all of those colleges as being reaches for everybody. It's just a numbers game, right? It's just a pure number game. So by the numbers, all of those schools are going to be reaches, which means you can have them on your list. But we encourage you strongly to, to also have schools that are not on that list that are in the reach, target and safety schools for you. Now, the SAT ACT people ask, I got a really high SAT or ACT score. When you look at, to see where you fall on that target list, use the higher of the scores to figure out where you would fall in your SAT list. Explaining some of the discrepancies. Some people cut the GPA that's very high. But you see that there's a blip and we'll talk about how to deal with that in a second. A blip. So it lowers your GPA if you're able to explain that away through because there was some discrepancy and maybe you can do that through a teacher recommendation. It allows you to think about your GPA being a little bit higher when figuring out your list. But you want to make sure that you're challenging yourself, that you're doing in an area of interest, that you're doing everything so that it matches up with the storyline that you're trying to tell people. So where are you applying now? The question about timing is important. We started off this program talking about the time allocation. Doing it consistency consistently, urgently and with a plan allows you to enjoy your high school years. Otherwise you're going to hate your senior year and your going to be miserable and the results on the back end are going to be less than satisfactory. And that was the story of two students that I worked with. I worked with a student, Jess, who followed the plan and loved her senior year, and another student, Jackson, who did his applications on Chris May. Oh my. And he really did not enjoy life. And that's why we provide you with the school matrix and our program to make sure you identify schools early on and we help you through that process every single Sunday. So what I do is I, when I think about the opera, when I'm thinking about schools, and when I'm thinking about how I'm going to position myself to schools. I'm a lawyer by training, as I said, right? So when I present to a jury, I say, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, this case is about. And I'm going to prove to you about that's called an opening statement. And the same thing, same exercise should happen with you. You should think about your case for admission as a case before a jury. And your jury is the admissions committee. They're going to come back with a verdict either up, down or maybe right. They're going to accept deny or wait list or defer you. And you want to make sure that your case for admission is strong, consistent and corroborates your view of yourself. Okay? So thinking about your opening statement, how you want them to view you, you then think about, all right, what are the. That are important for me? And thinking about that, you then look at the school, the schools that are on your list, and you say, do these schools have the potential to foster in me growth in these areas? Are there opportunities in those areas that are important for me? And if so, do I clear the academic hurdles that we talked about? And if so, that college goes on your list? If we get through that funnel and there's a no, that school needs to drop off because you're going to apply and going to get in and be miserable. You're going to get in or not get in, you're going to be miserable, Right? So we try to do our homework throughout the process so that we end up with a school, a list where we apply, that we ultimately feel like we can really be happy. Now, early senior year is our goal. Early senior year, we try to come away with a list that you feel comfortable with so that when you start your senior year, you have the list done. And for our students who've gone through our program, you have your essay done and it's good. And you see your classmates stressing out about essays, and they end up writing horrible essays because they're stressed out. So junior year, my juniors listen in. Join us. Join us. Talking to my live people. If you have a junior in high school, click the button for the next month, you get it free. Let's give you my book. This is just a service project that we do for you guys. Okay? So juniors, join us. All right, Edit that out. Okay? So when you come away with your list, you have application that's very consistent that you feel good about, and it allows you to do important things. The timing here is important. We want our students to apply early. We want our students to apply early because they get a huge benefit. Some counselors are going to tell you this incorrectly. The reality is, when you apply early, your chances of getting into that school go up substantially. Substantially. Okay? Setting aside that you're getting patient in front of a rested, rested admissions committee, if you apply regular, that admissions committee has already reviewed thousands, thousands of applications, read thousands. If anything, your eyes get tired, your brain gets tired, and your brain gets confused. It says no psychological studies on this. Okay? So you want your application to hit a rested admissions committee. And also, when you apply early, you are demonstrating to the school and the strongest, strongest terms possible that you're interested in going there. You're demonstrating your interest as strongly as possible when you apply early. So what are the three kinds? So you. You can apply regular, right? Most schools, it's January 1st or January 15th, they let you know in March. You have to tell them by May 1st you can apply. Rolling admissions. These are usually your large public universities. They you apply and within four to eight weeks you find out if you got in. Let them know by May 1st if you're going there. The other one is early acceptance. And there's two kinds. Early action, early decision. Early action is non binding, meaning if they let you in, you don't have to go there. You can apply regular and see where the other schools come in and let them know by May 1, early decision is binding. It's binding if they let you in now. Early action, early decision, you apply by November 1st and November 15th. Here are those dates, November 1st or November 15th. And you find out in December where you're going, which means your student will enjoy their holiday break, which means that they can actually enjoy more of their senior year. And more importantly, by applying early decision, it's binding. By applying early decision, they double or triple their chances of getting into that college. Very, very important. Our students apply early and they get in at higher numbers than other students because they faction. They factor in all of these considerations. They get their stuff done early and they get it done well and they shine in the early decision and early action process. Now, early action is not binding, but it still is going to increase your chances of getting into the college. Some schools do not offer early binding early decision. They only offer early action. Caveat. Only apply early decision if you do. Okay, stop laughing. There are some students like that. Or if you're applying to a school that offers financial aid packages that do not include student loans, there are a number of them, 80 something schools, they're mainly the most selective colleges in America saying that if you get into our college, we're going to give you a financial aid package in the form of grant money that's not going to have student loans. We're going to cover your need through grant money, meaning if you go to that college, you're going to graduate with no student loan debt. No student loan debt. We cover all this, right? But for today, just keep that in mind. If you're looking to apply early decision, only apply early decision if you don't need financial aid. Or it's one of those schools that offers student financial aid packages that are only that only include grants, there's no student loans included. And then the last one is, if you have a clear number one, you clear the academic hurdles there. Okay? Early decision is a bullet. It's your shot, your rifle shot. You want to use it on a school that is your true number one. And you have a realistic chance of getting in there. Okay? So if you have a 2.7 GPA and you're spending that early decision shot on Harvard University, bad move. You could have spent it on something else and gotten a better chance of getting into a school that you really would have been happy in. Right? So all this calculus, I said the C word calculus comes into play, figuring out where to play early. And we're going to work with you on making sure that happens correctly. Now, we talked about jury deliberation, right? So you submit your application. Regular rolling, early action, early decision. It all works its way to the admissions committee. The admissions committee looks at your application and then they come back with that verdict, right? The verdict says up, down, or maybe right? In, out, or. Let's think about it a little bit longer, okay? What you need to recognize is the matrix that we work with you on. And identifying the colleges you're going to apply to has a lot of homework involved in it, but it allows you to really think through what's important to you. And it also allows you in the spring of your senior year to go back to that list and to see if everything is still true for you today. So I worked with a student, Sarah, who really was interested in marine biology, but only got an interest in this late in her senior. All of her applications were in. So she started hearing back from colleges. And fortunately, fortunately, one of the schools she applied to had a strong marine biology program. But that interest evolved in her senior year. You're going to evolve, grow tremendously in your senior year of high school, right, parents? I mean, just the experiences you're going to go through is going to push you to become a different person. So in the spring of your senior year, going back over that list through the lens of an accepted student is going to allow you to rethink about where you're going to go to school. So looking at your list, looking at the opening statement we talked about earlier saying, is this opening statement still true for me today? Does this really define who I am today and the kind of student I want to be going forward? And if not, you got to re examine that list of accepted schools, schools that accepted you, and see which of those schools best reflects the kind of student you want to be going forward. And in some circumstances, some students say, you know what? None of them do. I'm going to take a gap year. I'm going to go forward with my passions, and I'm going to reapply to different schools. 99.999% of the students are going to find that their views are consistent enough that they're going to jump on one of those schools that accepted them. Okay, now if you're accepted, that'll do that. Exercise the school. The tables are now turned. The schools are now approaching you according to you. They want you to come to their school, right? And they're going to start sending you things, going to start inviting you to their campus for accepted student hangouts, to invite you to come sleep on their campus, to come to receptions that they're going to have. They're going to woo you and they're also going to send you financial aid packages. If you do it the way we talk about the financial aid packages, be substantial. The schools are going to want to make sure that you say yes to their yes talked about yield rate. They want you to show up. They want you to show up. Now, if they denied you, talk about that in a second. But if they waitlisted you or they deferred you from the early acceptance pool to the regular pool, that means the jury is still deliberating. So many students just sit and wait. Don't our students jump on this opportunity? The jury is still deliberating. If you get wait listed or if you get deferred. It's your opportunity to submit additional evidence to show who what kind of student you in your year and to let them know what kind of student you'll be going forward. You demonstrate your interest to a school where you've been waitlisted or deferred by submitting additional evidence to say, I really am interested in going here. And if accepted, this is where I'll go. And look what I have done. Look what I've done. Remember that project I mentioned in my essay that I started? This is what's happened with that since then, right? Here's some awards that I've got. You want to submit additional evidence to the admissions committee so that they take you away from the maybe pile and put you on the accepted pile. Your classmates are not going to do that. So many students just sit and wait and don't do anything or they'll jump on another school. But this school really is one of the schools you're interested in and they wait listed or defer you. It's your opportunity to step forward and shine when other students are stepping back. You step forward with evidence to show that you're the kind of student who's going to make an impact on their campus. Okay? Now denials happens to everybody. Just happens. It's a numbers game. We talk about it. And your application that's viewed for a few minutes is not a valuation on you. It isn't. I worked on a case last Supreme Court with lawyers that went to law schools and undergrads that you've never heard of. Where you go to college does not define you as a person. Okay? And it seems funny coming for me, given that's what I dedicate my life to now, to helping people get into college. But the reality is, in the long run, it's not about getting into the college. It's about understanding who you are today and the kind of person you want to be. And no college is going to define that for you. No college is going to define you, and no college is going to evaluate you through a denial letter. Okay? My grandmother, when I told her I asked out a girl to prom and she said no, my grandmother said, you know what, Jim? You're just too good for her. You're just too good for her. And I want you to remember that if you get denied by a college, you're just too good for them. They didn't realize what they were missing out on. And you're going to go to another college that's a great fit for you, and you're going to do all awesome, okay? So remember that no denial defines you beyond the numbers. So I got a phone call from a very dear friend three years ago about her daughter. And she started off by saying, you know, Jeb, she's just a B student. And I stopped her right there, and I said, no, she's not just a B. Someone who has an amazing story that we got to bring alive. Got to bring alive. And that her story really was this amazing story that she came here from another country, didn't know English her freshman year of high school, and she was just a B plus student because she had to struggle to learn the language. And by her senior year, she ended up with a great gpa. But that story. The story wasn't encapsulated in her being just a B plus student. We have to think beyond the numbers because the colleges think beyond the numbers. Everybody thinks it's all about having the highest GPA and the problem, perfect SAT score. But we know that our students have gotten into colleges from across the country with grades that are well beyond below that. So a lot of you know my story, right? So I ended up getting into the University of Pennsylvania. And after my freshman year, I had a 1.7 GPA. Yes. So the D. There's two. Dean's list, right? Dean's list. For people with good grades and a dean's list for students who are getting kicked out of college. And I was on the latter one, right? So I was expelled from the University of Pennsylvania because I had a 1.7 GPA. And I remember going to Dr. Dean Burnham and sitting in her waiting room and her secretary saying, she's not available today. And I said, no, no, no, that's okay. I just want to meet with her and maybe when she goes to the restroom, I can meet her down the walk. I just want to explain to her what happened and how I'm going to change going forward. And I sat there for a long, long time. And eventually she came out and finally she got frustrated that I've been sitting there for hours. And she said, I'll give you five minutes. Five minutes. So I went in her office and for five minutes I told the story of the kind of student that I'm going to be going forward, forward. And that the 1.7 GPA did not define me as a person and that the impact I was going to make was going to be unit that I had been so far. And I remember her saying, jeb, this college doesn't need you. And I said, no, no, I appreciate that, but I feel like I can make a difference here if you just give me another chance. And she ended up giving me another chance, right? And it's because I had her think beyond the numbers. And as parents and as students, we have to think beyond the number to think about what is the story that we want to tell the case for admissions that's going to make people want to pull for you? In the story of David versus Goliath, we always pull for the David. So what is the story that you're going to tell? And we'll talk about essays here in a second. What you need to do is you need to let them know that you're filling a particular need or role for them on that campus. When we went to college, right, parents, we heard about the well rounded student, the student who could do ballet and could do calculus with blindfolded and won a gold medal in the Olympics, right? But colleges are not looking for well rounded students now. They're looking for well rounded student community building. They're looking for specific roles and needs from within the applicant pool. They're saying, this is, these are our needs right now in this applicant pool. Who can fit those needs? Every role needs to be filled from that applicant pool. You have to identify that need and then identify yourself as the person who can fill that Need. Okay. We spent a lot of time helping you identify the particular needs and roles at colleges, looking at their websites, looking at their press releases, understanding by talking to deans of admissions, what are the roles and needs they need filling, unique roles that they need filling. And then how can you position yourself, sanctioning yourself so that your passion, your interest matches the need of a college where you're going to be happy? And that's what we help you do. So we want you to think about what role, what role do you want to fill when you go to college and how can you make it apparent based on your past that you can do that going forward? Now, we're going to talk about dollars and cents now because financial aid questions come up all of this time, usually to that live people real quick. If you're interested in that, click the link. You're going to get it for free because it's going to be covering up soon, right? So within the next month, you get it for free. After that is seven bucks a month. And you get to meet with every Sunday, meet with us every Sunday. We go through all this stuff. All right, so aid questions come up all the time. The key here is that we talked about earlier. Colleges want to accept people who are going to show up on their campus, and they make sure that people show up by giving them financial aid that covers their demonstrated need. And the key here is you want to be the coveted asset for that school. So, for example, schools that offer financial aid packages that do not include student loans are going to make sure that you come there and money is not going to be a determinant, deterrent for you. Other schools that do not fall on that list are going to make sure that the student loan packages are as little as possible that you at their college. How do you do that? You do that by making sure you are a coveted asset, that you're filling a role or a need at that college, and that you are boosting increasing their gpa, SAT and ACT scores. Okay, so if you're looking, you're saying, all right, I don't really think that I'm going to be in the running for some of these schools that offer financial aid packages that do not have student loans in them. Look, of those schools, what particular roles and needs are out there that match your skill set where you are substantially higher than their admitted student profile, gpa, SAT and ACT scores. And when you fill yourself in that role, the financial aid packages come back in the form of grant money and reduced price tags for you. And we see it all the time. One family right next to another family living in the same house. They work the same jobs, drive the same cars, their financial situations are nearly identical. And the financial aid packages will be drastically different from the same colleges. And I get phone calls, how can this be? The reality is the college wanted one student more than the other and they speak through their dollars. Their financial aid packages will encourage certain students to show up on their campuses and you make sure that happens, filling the particular needs and roles of that college. Okay, when the tables are turned and they come back and you get acceptance letters from two schools that are equivalent and the financial aid package from one school is greater, meaning that the amount of debt you're going to receive is lower, you can then go to the other college and say, can you match this? All right, you're in a point of leverage and it's absolutely acceptable for you to do that, especially when the schools view that other school as being equivalent. Right? So you can't go to one school that's viewed as being substantially greater than the other school and say, can you match the financial aid package of the other school? But certainly there's a lot of schools out there that they don't want to see you go somewhere else based purely on dollars and cents that they'll look at the financial aid package and you'll be amazed how much more money even matching that you'll receive. So when it comes to dollars and cents, focus on showing up in the classroom. Do not spend your hours, your very limited hours looking through private scholarship funds. Parents, very important. You hear this. Private scholarship funds. The schools oftentimes will reduce the grant money that they were going to give your student. They are renewable. You have to go back and reapply. And the amount of money you get back is not worth the time is better spent following their passion, making a contribution than spending time going through and applying private scholarships. The stats just bear it out. And I see way too much time spent on looking for private scholarships. Okay, now what is your major? What is the area that you're interested in? Get that question. Freshmen get it, sophomores in college get it, even seniors get it in high school. You know, what are you going to major in? And when I talk to students, I encourage them to go to college with an open mind. If they're not really sure what they want to study in, go with an open mind. When I was a freshman in college, I had a radio show on Friday night at 10 o' clock as people went out and my co host was my roommate. I was from rural Kentucky. I enjoyed country music. He was from Brick, New Jersey, and he enjoyed hip hop music. In our radio show, we played country music and hip hop music and we made jokes and laughed and had a great time. That person is now my roommate. My best friend from college is now a professor at UCLA teaching classes about hip hop culture. And he came to college to be pre med. I tell that story because nobody knows where the path is going to take you. That this idea that you're going to know what you're going to do with the rest of your life is laughable now because you're now studying for careers that have not been invented yet. And in college, you're going to be exposed to majors and courses that you don't know. So going to college with an open mind is perhaps the most important advice I can give you because if you go there with a closed buying, you're going to shut yourself out from perhaps finding your true passion. One second. All right, our voice is hanging up for the legacy class on our sheet. If you sign up today, guys, we have. I'll send you the book Breaking into College so that you'll have that probably within the next week. And it covers a lot of the stuff that I'm talking about. Today is becoming the workbook that a lot of students use. It's hit number one on Amazon and it's being bought by school counselors. Now. We actually send out a bunch. Okay, my voice is still alive. So here we go. So the idea is that you go to college, you don't pigeonhole yourself in a career path that you believe that you have to be on because your parents or a school counselor or yourself told yourself that's what you had to do without first exploring things. So what that means for college selection is that you don't want to close the door on some things you may be interested in, that if you pick a college based on a career choice that you have today and you end up going to a college that's so focused on that area, you may shut off the opportunities of pursuing something else. So keeping that in mind, I talk about all the different things that go into picking a college on your application list, keeping in mind that you don't want to come so hyper focused that you close off opportunities that are available. And we talk about trying to do this through the mountain exercise that we discussed earlier and that trying to figure out where is the mountain for you, why that particular mountain? And then we talk to you about how to get to the top of the Mountain. But. But those two initial questions about which mountain and why can really drive your decision going forward. And trying to figure out a college that can allow you to grow will allow you to view other opportunities that may be close to you. All right, teacher recommendations and recommendations. In general, we talk about the college application as being a case for admission that you're submitting to a jury. The admissions committee recommendations. Teacher recommendations are witnesses. They're witnesses taking the stand on your behalf. And you want them to corroborate your case for admission. You're saying you're a particular kind of student. You want the teacher or the recommender to take the witness stand. Indeed, he is that kind of person or she is that kind of person. And here are some very specific examples that back that up. And it's very hard to figure out who that person's going to be. I told you my story earlier. My 1.7 GPA and I ended up getting into Harvard Law School, Georgetown Law School, all the top law schools ended up going to Georgetown law with a 1.7 GPA my freshman year. How did that happen? Dean Burnham, the person who kicked me out of school and then later gave me five minutes to beg my way back in, wrote my recommendation letter. She took the witness stand on my behalf to law schools to say that the student that showed up with the 1.7 GPA, that person no longer exists. The person who exists is the person who's applying to you today with much recommendation or recommendation letter. You want people who can express themselves well written, who can talk about very specific events that corroborate the story that you want to tell about yourself. You want people who can supply details, who have witnessed something about you. And these may not be the people, the teachers that gave you the best grades. They may be the teachers that watched you struggle and push through a course and ultimately succeed at some level. Right? Also, you want to think about who can talk about who you are today. So teachers from your freshman year could talk about the person you were. But teachers from your junior year and the first part of your senior year know who you are today. So you want recent witnesses. Teachers from your junior year are the best. They saw you for an entire year. They know you the best. They know who you are today, the best senior year. They know you for a few, few weeks. Right? Junior year teachers know you the best. Caveat. This is the storyline for a lot of students, right? This was me, actually. That was me. I started out at the bottom. 1.7 GPA. Dean Burnham was able to Testify in a recommendation letter about my growth. Okay. She knew me freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior year of college. She could talk about the growth. So we encourage students to reach out to junior year and senior year teachers. Caveat being, if you went down a path like I did, you want somebody who can talk about the growth from this point up. Now, there's other GPA schedules and trajectories that are a little more concerning. This is the student who's doing well did all of a sudden takes a nosedive in the junior year or senior year. Right. Senioritis. They may be kicked in a little bit early. And you have the student that started low and went high. This is the story that we'll talk about here in a little bit. But where there's some blip in your transcript, there's one bad grade. Recommenders can fill that hole for you better than you can in your essays. It's more credible to hear from somebody else what happened here. And you don't want to spend your essay highlighting a problem. Recommenders can do a good job of that. They can fill the holes and highlight a discrepancy and explain it away. But. But you want to make sure that it really is a discrepancy in a problem. I've seen a lot of students that want to try to explain away a B plus when they have a 4.0 and there's a B plus and they want to spend a teacher recommendation letter on that B plus. That teacher recommendation can be better spent explaining and defining and explaining some detailed events that corroborate the student that you are. Instead of going down this rabbit hole and highlighting a discrepancy in your gpa. Okay, so the question about your teacher recommendations comes down to who has your back? Who has your back that can take the standard and tell a compelling story with details and a very specific event that corroborates the case for a mission that you want to make. Essays. Oh, everyone's getting nervous now. Essays. We spend a tremendous amount of time on essays in our programs because the essay is where you can make the biggest difference and stand out from your gpa, your sat, even your teacher recommendations. Your essay is where you can make a big difference because that's what you have control over in your senior year of high school. When I went to college, I talked about the leadership capabilities of Papa Smurf and that if I could spend the time a dinner with anybody, live or dead, fictional or non fictional, it would be Papa Smurf. And I wrote it in a way that was Memorable to the point. When I showed up on campus, I was walking down Locust Walk, the main walk on campus, and a gentleman approached me and goes, are you Papa Smurf from Kentucky? He remembered it and he had some kind of impact on him. After reviewing thousands and thousands of essays, he remembered that essay. Our essays written by our students are remembered. They are remembered because they look different than everybody else. They are remembered because they tell a story that people can get behind. People want to pull for this student and the story of David versus Goliath. We pull for David. We put our students in the position of being David's that people are inspired to pull for. And this is your chance to take the stand. And it shouldn't be anxiety producing if you do it the right way. It should be a time for self exploration. And it should be an essay that you're proud of, that at the end of the day you're saying, this story really kind of tells my life in a very, very, very fine way. And it's a different style than you've ever written. All through high school, you've been writing term papers and research paper. All of a sudden, the most important paper you'll ever write in your high school career, you have to write a personal essay. And a lot of students don't have the experience writing the essay the way that they should. So this is the storyline that we tell people to focus on. First, let's do an exercise. Close your eyes with me. Picture some event over the last two years where you were in triumph. I'm picturing the cross country runner who's running across the finish line, raising his arms in triumph as he wins the district championship. His mother and father are running out onto the course and picking him up and saying, you did it, you won't. That would make a horrible essay. And that is the essay that so many people write. They write the essay of the triumph, the success, catching the ball, doing the project and winning. Those are the essays that do not get read. Instead of writing about the triumph, the top, I want you to think about the bottom, I want you to flip the script. I want you to think about the moment where you drew a line in the sand and you decided that your life was going to be different, that you're going to do something different, you're going to take on a project. There was some point of possible indecision where you decided to make a decision and your life went in a different path, or you decided to spend your time on something that was different than in the past. I Want you to thin slice that moment to a 30 second snippet in your head. So, for example, the boy who finished cross the finish line across country meet. I was thinking about a story about a young man I helped a couple years ago who had problems with his feet, had problems with his feet. And they came to try out for the cross country team and all the people were telling him that he shouldn't do it, that he wouldn't keep up with people. But that moment of decision for him, this point of struggle became the topic of his essay that got him into the college where he wanted to go. I started off by telling you my story about Finnegan, right? Where he said to me, how do I get on your schedule? That I was spending all my time busy working and working and talking to clients and conference calls. And there is my son with tears in his eyes looking at me going, how do I get on your schedule? I told you that story is a thin slice, maybe a 32nd part of my life. But for me it was that point, right? That was an essay that I could have written for colleges, right? It's an essay that I tell you a narrative, a personal story that perhaps drew you in and made you relate to my path, right? Because it was a story that we all go through of trying to balance the life, work and meaning. And I hope that you can find that. You know, we go through our exercises, seniors, I pull you away from the rest of the group in the summer and we spend time identifying that story for you. And I talk to students who say, but Jeb, I was burdened with a boring life. I don't have this story. You do. And we help you find that story and we bring it out and we make it come alive. And your story gets remembered by the admissions committee. And the admissions committee, made up of people, will pull for you. When everybody else is telling the story of triumph and the admissions committee is rolling their eyes, they're going to read your story and say, this is the kind of person that we want to be here. This is the kind of person who is a striver, lives a life with intention, who's going to make an impact here and who's going to make a consequence here of positivity that we need here year. That's the story you need to tell. We'll show you how to do that. Seniors, don't worry about it. Now, we'll work with you going into your senior year. Now, one of the points you need to think about when it comes to your essay is you working through Your opening statement, the statement that you want to make your case for admission, making sure that essay is consistent with that opening statement so that your case for admissions is consistent. We work with you and make sure that happens. Now, there's four areas that I highlight. These aren't four areas you should not write about, but they're four areas that take special care. You want to make sure that you truly have worked through the process yourself before you write about these, and these are death drugs. To make sure you really have worked through these in your own mind before you tackle those four areas. And we talk about how to do that. The personal story wins the most personal story wins the essays that they read. Oftentimes looks like somebody took a list of SAT vocab words and threw them together with a few verbs and a few commas. Right? Don't write that you're writing a personal story written by an 18 year old or a 17 year old. And parents, I encourage you to step back, let the story your child, your student wants to write, let them write that. And if you over edit over influence and it comes out being written by a 40 something year old or a 50 something year old, and that's not the essay that your student's going to need to write. The personal story wins my live, folks, you're getting my dying voice here. I apologize. I'm trying to keep it going for you. We're almost done. Okay. And we're back. All right. You don't hash your resume. A lot of students bake everything in there and all of a sudden it's like a recitation of their resume in narrative form. Don't do that. You want to ask yourself, will you be remembered? Will your story be remembered? You want it to be remembered, and you want to be remembered for a good reason, right? Okay. The father who was very concerned about his daughter's applications that were being submitted this week, and he was thinking that maybe they would wait until next year, that she should take a gap year. And I said, you know, I don't understand why. What's your thought process there? He said, well, she hasn't volunteered in a lab yet, and I think she should take a gap year to work in a lab and then apply. I said, she didn't work in a lab. He said, no, she hasn't worked in a lab. So, you know, we really need to take this year off and work. She needs to work in a lab. And when I dug into it, I realized somebody somewhere or some book or magazine told them that college, she needs to Work in a lab. You have lab experience. There are no prerequisites when it comes to extracurricular activities. Her application is amazing. She has an amazing story to tell. She's done an amazing job in making the impact in her area of interest and her interest has nothing to do with the lab. I encouraged him to step back and let her go forward with her applications. I'm sure everything will be fine. Your extracurricular activities is like character evidence. You're showing the colleges what your interest is, where your focus is, where your moral compass is focused on the activities. You vote with, your activities. You're showing how you show up every day by how you spend your hours. And what you're doing is you're telling the colleges, that's what I'll do when I come to your college. This is the kind of person I'm a person of action, impact and contribution. And the activities that you pick need to reflect that going forward. One of the things we do, we talked about climbing the mountain earlier and that you want to try to find somebody who's been to the top of the mountain before you. Same thing applies for your extracurricular activities. Try to find somebody who has solved the problem you're trying to solve, who has addressed the opportunity you're trying to address and ask them how they did it and then it will shorten your learning curve and make your impact in the short window that you have. That is everything that I have for you today. I gave you a lot of information, a short period of time and my voice held out. I hope people got a lot out of this. I see that we got some questions. I'm going to try to answer those via email. I try to bake in some of those for you today. Again, if this was of help to you. We meet every Sunday at 8 o' clock Eastern Time and your questions come to me and I answer them and then I tell you where you should be in the application process at each week along the way so that you're not finding yourself in your senior year of college scrambling to get things done and to make some kind of contribution that's happened on the front end. And you make yourself stand out by doing things differently. To get different, you must do different. And that's what we do in our program. And if you're interested, we'd love to have you. All you have to do is click the button below and for the next month you get to join us for free. After that it's $7 and I'm going to send you my best selling book. This just My service projects the way I'm giving back. I hope that it adds some value to you. If so, feel free to share with your friends and neighbors. We love to have you join us. Hope you have a wonderful New Year's Day. Hope to see the next building. Go out there every single day and seize your legacy.