Get your Ducks in a Row

In today's episode, we revisit an insightful webinar on the college application process and the crucial importance of early preparation. Plus, I introduce my “match pyramid” framework to help students align their academics, values, and unique qualities with college priorities. Tune in for practical resources and tools to empower both parents and students on this exciting journey!

Discover the Secret Formula to Your Child's College Admissions Success: Visit Signet’s What Really Matters in College Admissions Course Today!

Access the Recording of the “Get Your Ducks in a Row” Webinar Here!

Access free resources and learn more about Sheila and her team at Signet Education at signeteducation.com or on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/sheilaakbar/.

Transcript

Sheila Akbar: 0:00

And the college application is really not that different, right? It's about helping your child figure out who they are, doing that at the best level that they can, and finding colleges that really will resonate with what they already have to offer. Hey folks, welcome back to the podcast. It is Halloween, October 31 and I like to make the very lame joke that tonight is not just scary because it's Halloween, it's because it's the night before early application deadlines. I know a lot of kids are really stressed. Their parents are also really stressed, and that stress is, of course, legitimate and real and valid, and no matter when these folks started working on college applications, whether they started in, you know, the beginning of ninth grade or they just started two weeks ago, regardless of when they started, there would still be stress around this deadline, because it feels like so much is riding on these applications. So I don't want to minimize that stress, and I don't want to place any blame on people who may be feeling like, oh, I started too late, or, you know, any of those shame that starts to spiral right that doesn't actually help us get the thing done, it just makes us feel bad about ourselves. So with that said, Today, I do want to talk about getting an earlier start and getting yourself organized so that hopefully it's not so stressful the night before deadlines, because you've got a plan. Things are done well in advance. You know who to rely on when you need help, and all of that. So today, I'm sharing with you bits and pieces of a talk that I gave last month on getting your ducks in a row for the college process. I'll let you tune in now. Today we're going to talk about what to think about with your younger children as they start to approach the end of high school and really starting to get into the nuts and bolts of the college process. There's a lot that you can do ahead of time to make that process less stressful, a little simpler, and to just feel more confident moving through it. I know that there are just a ton of questions about this, and you're hearing a lot of, you know, rumors, and there's misinformation, and then there are sensational headlines, and it can get really easy to get caught up in that and not be able to see where your child is going to fit in in that narrative, right? If they're not, you know, some genius that is destined for Harvard or Stanford, well, what are our other choices? What does that process look like? Or maybe they're just not interested, or you're not interested in having them go to a super competitive, rigorous like burnout trap of, you know, the the super selective colleges, and that's great, but what does that mean you should focus on? And how do you stay focused on the right things for your child based on their goals, and not just do everything that everybody else is doing when they may have totally different goals from you? The main thing that I want to be able to give you today is a framework for understanding what really matters and what you should be focused on. Like, how is, how are these decisions being made of who gets in and why, so that you can sort of rely on that at those moments where you're feeling like, oh gosh, the Rumors are swirling. I don't know who to believe, come back to this framework, and it'll help you stay grounded on what is actually going to make the difference for your child. So we call this, get your ducks in a row for college. There are a lot of ducks, and they're going in all different ways, and we don't really know which way we should be going. But part of this metaphor that I really liked is, you know, Mama, ducks, gotta lead with some confidence. And if you are feeling like, I don't know what matters, I don't think I can help you. I didn't go to college, or I didn't go to that kind of college, or the process has changed so much since any of us applied. It is hard to lead with confidence. And you know, your children, they don't always want to listen to parents, and they definitely don't want to listen to a parent that doesn't sound like they know what's going on, right? So I want to give you some of that confidence today so that you can lead your ducks in the right direction. You know, I talk to parents all day long, and usually they fall into one of these categories, or or multiple of them. When we're talking about the college process, either they feel like they're sure that they miss something, there's something everybody else is doing and they never got the memo, or they're behind. They're starting too late, and that means that their kid is not going to have all the opportunities that they could have. A lot of people are like, I don't even know what to do. Like, what is the college process these days? And then, how do we focus our attention? You know, on the right things at the right level. Like, are we doing too much athletics? Is that the. Right thing to emphasize, or are there too many extracurriculars or not enough? I have a lot of parents who are like, I don't know what matters. So we're gonna head to our bets and do everything, and the kids are totally over scheduled. We're going to 15 different extracurriculars. They're taking the hardest classes. They've got all the tutors. Everything is happening at a very high level, and we're really at risk for burning out, and there's a lot of stress in the relationship. And a lot of these parents are like, Why does it start to be so hard? Why are we doing this to our teenagers? I don't remember it being like this when I applied to college 20 years ago or however long ago. It was another reason I do this is to let you all know, like you're not alone. Everybody in this room feels one of these things, or one or more of these things, and the college process can be one of those places where we isolate ourselves because we're worried that everybody's our competition, where we feel some sort of shame that maybe we don't know, and we're worried about our ability to parent through this process, and we don't want other people to know that, but I promise you, your friends, your peers, your colleagues, are all feeling this way, and I think the more open we can be about that, the better supported we can all be, right? So I really want to have that sense of community about this. It's part of our mission at Signet, is to make this a less isolating process. Because if you're feeling isolated, just imagine how your kids are feeling. A lot of them feel like their best friend might be their biggest competition, and that creates a really difficult friendship dynamic, and you can model for them that this doesn't have to be a zero sum game, and we're not all fighting for, you know, the same thing. And one person's success doesn't mean your failure or vice versa, right? And this is a really great opportunity to teach them that lesson. I'll get off my soapbox. Okay, so let's get down to brass tacks. Here is an overview of what goes in to a US college application. You need to have a college list and know where you're applying. You will have to fill out application forms that include information about your demographics, some financial aid forms, your activity list or your work experience. Sometimes, this is in our resume form. You'll have essays, you'll have a personal essay, you may also have supplemental essays. Not every college requires them, but many selected colleges do, and these are more specific to each school. Many schools ask for recommendations. These would be letters from your teachers talking about what kind of a student you are. And then some schools, very few schools require test scores. Most of them are test optional, but test scores may play a role in your college application, your transcript, which is the classes you chose to take, and the grades you earned in those classes. And then some colleges, fewer and fewer nowadays, have interview processes as well. Some are moving more towards record us a video and submit it with your application, so we get a sense of the of the person here. So the seniors who are filing their applications tomorrow, or maybe this week, have put all of this information together in a nice, neat package, and they're sending it off. But the challenge of the college application is not just the documentation, it's building this entire portfolio. So some of these things you'll need to think about before you get to senior year, namely the college list, the classes that you're taking, the grades that you're earning, what you do outside of school as extracurriculars or work or family responsibilities. Those recommendations come from having a relationship with teachers, and if you're submitting test scores, you know that's going to come through a process of prepping and taking a test as well. So it's not like all of this is stuff that just gets done in senior year, but it is also true that not all of this stuff is relevant for a freshman or a sophomore or even a junior to be thinking about some of this needs to be left for senior year. So that's what we're going to talk about today. When do you do what? And how can you approach this with less stress and more success? The thing that I really want you to understand here is that college admissions is selective, not competitive. Our instinct is to maximize every item that we're going to submit, we're going to submit the highest test scores and the best grades, and we're going to take the hardest curriculum. We're going to the best recommendations. But every year, you hear about students who have all that and they still didn't get in to whatever college, right? And I know that that's a very destabilizing thing to hear. It's very confusing, like, well, what could they possibly want? If this isn't enough, how much more could any student do right? And our teenagers are hearing that, and they're thinking, well, college may not be for me, if they want more than that kid had right, and this may be a kid in their high school. It may be in the headlines that happens. Every single March, we get these headlines of so and so had a 1550 and started his own company and still didn't get in to this college. And I am very mad at the media for that, but they need a sensational headline, but it has a very real impact on parents and their students who are approaching this process. But the thing we want to remember is that these colleges can fill their classes several times over with valedictorians, with, you know, those kinds of students. This difference between selective and competitive means that when someone like, you know, these amazing students didn't get in, it's not that it wasn't enough. It's just that it wasn't a match. I'm gonna say that again, because that bears some repeating. It's not about being enough, right? Getting into college is not about being good enough or smart enough or hard working enough. It's not about any of those things. There are students who have amazing things to offer that still don't get in, and other people who may have less impressive grades, but may be a very impressive artistic portfolio, or they did something really meaningful in their community, and they're just such a community builder. That's the thing that the College wants, right? They're selecting based on what is a match for their priorities and their institution. This is what I call the match pyramid. This is our framework at Signet, academics are the bottom layer of this pyramid. I don't mean to indicate that they're not important in countless surveys from very many different institutions, academics are the number one factor that colleges rely on to make their decisions. And when I say academics, I mean the overall GPA, the rigor of the curriculum, the test scores, if a college is going to look at that, that's an academic measure, and executive function skills. And I want to spend a minute on executive function, because I think as a society, we're becoming more aware of what that is. And so you probably hear that all the time when you're talking about your teenager, but also, after COVID, there's a real, sort of measurable setback that we've seen in students being able to develop their executive function skills. So that's something that I encourage every parent to take stock of and understand, that there are ways to help a student strengthen their executive functions through practice and skill building. So that's all part of the academic layer, and it's basically table stakes. When we're looking at very selective colleges, that's just, you know, the price of entry here. You need to have strong academics. This doesn't mean push your kid who is really a B student to try to be an A student, right? You want them working hard and challenging themselves, but not every student is going to be the straight A student, and that's fine. There are plenty of colleges that will be very happy about that. You want to calibrate the level of academics to what their goals are in life and also in, you know, the colleges that they're looking at, but the academics is table stakes. Once we've sort of established they can handle the academic rigor at this college, they will be successful at this college as a student. Colleges are really looking for their values as a match for the college, right? And some colleges will use the language of character. I mentioned these surveys that different industry organizations do, character is quickly becoming the second most important factor, after all, the academic factors, they're looking for positive character attributes. And so these are things like, you know, the pro social values of community, building, communication, kindness, caring, collaboration, a lot of those sorts of things. But values can be anywhere from like a very high work ethic and discipline habits to a sense of integrity to a sense of loyalty, right? Every student has different values, and it is absolutely crucial for them to figure out what they are in order to know well what colleges are a match for me. What stories should I be telling those colleges in my essay, and then beyond the college admissions process, I really believe this is the thing that can act as an internal compass for your student as they move through high school, as they move through college and start thinking about careers or thinking about relationships. Knowing your own values is super important, right? But colleges are looking for that values match. And then there's something that I call the remarkable factor, which is sort of sometimes like overlaps with the value. But this is the thing that is just so special about your kid. And of course, we all think our kids are very special, but oftentimes there's like, this one thing that they really love or that just totally lights them up, or this is the role they play in their friend group or in their school community. They're just so internally motivated around this thing, because it is so integral to who they are. I had a I had a mom that I was talking to about this, and she was like, you know, I always got written up on my report cards for talking too much, but it was because I was helping other people and. With their schoolwork or whatever, and she was like, that's how I knew I should become an educator. And it was, you know, the thing that was really remarkable about her, and it wasn't something that she went out and had to develop. It was something that was just so core to her being that it really stood out. And the challenge with the remarkable factor is our teenagers, number one, compare themselves to other people a lot. I mean, we all do right? But especially in the age of social media, they think like super extraordinary things are what make people remarkable when there are normal, everyday things that they're already doing, that they already care about, you know, ways they show up in the world that are really remarkable. And it is hard when they are that close to their own life to step back and see what that is. It is hard for a parent to know What is remarkable about their kid. I get a lot of parents who are like, Oh, they played at Carnegie Hall once. And I'm like, I mean, that's an amazing accomplishment, but I don't think that that is your kid's remarkable factor, right? Remarkable is not an achievement. So this is where having relationships with other adult mentors, sports coaches, teachers in your school, a college coach you know like me or the people on my team can be very helpful. Even older sibling or relative might see this in your kid before you do or before they do. But it's really important to identify because if you can identify it, you can make sure the colleges see it, and then we can, you know, work out this match. Now, the other thing to remember here is that this is not something that you create out of whole cloth, right? Of course, they're teenagers. They're going to need encouragement. They might need a little bit of pushing, but you're not trying to make them into something they're not. This is really about helping them tune in to who they already are and lean into that further right? It's not. Let's find a new interest that you actually are not interested in. Let's take a nugget of interest and see how far you can push that. That's the kind of mode you want to be in. Your teenagers are going to appreciate it more. They're not going to feel so puppeted around. And it's going to help them grow as people, because at the end of this process, you are sending them away to maybe a far off city to live an independent life and start their own kind of journey into adulthood, and so you really do want to make sure they're prepared with a sense of self and ability to talk about what matters to them, to you know, other people and adults, and ability to create relationships based on shared values. So these things that are so integral to the way we approach the college process, I believe, are really integral to helping our kids grow into the wonderful people that they're going to be. And I see so many people who, you know, stress out. They're doing everything, they're taking all the hard classes. They're really, really involved extra curricularly, and their kids are either burnt out or on the edge of burnout, right? And studies show that burnout is happening at younger and younger ages than ever before, and I believe this is part of why the hoops that we make people jump through, the ways we make them disconnect from their true values and who they are, the ways we make people live out of alignment to quote, unquote, succeed in our society is planting the seeds of burnout, and it often starts in high school with thinking about college. So instead of going down that route of you have to fit this box, let's figure out what actually matters to this kid. Help them develop a sense of themselves so that they can do that. I got back on my soapbox. I told you I was going to get off, but I got gone. I'm sorry. And if you want to know, you know more of the sort of data behind why this works and the evidence that colleges are selecting for these things, and more about how these things are measured and what you can do to help your kids start to develop a sense of these things. I've put together a course. It's called what really matters in college admissions. I'll take you through the application forms and a lot of data, so you'll really understand how to assess whether a college is a match on the values, is a match on the remarkable factor, and how to really position your student for any of those colleges that they're aiming for. Okay, let's now talk a little bit about timeline. There's a lot to do here, and I know you're hearing a lot about it, but I want you to think about taking it in phases. I don't recommend you show this whole thing to your kid and explain you gotta do this. You gotta do that. It's gonna overwhelm them. They might shut down. They're gonna resent it. So piecemeal it out to them. You know, we do a little bread crumbing this semester. We're focusing on this, or this year, this should be our overall priority. And you can kind of hold this timeline elsewhere. So the first phase, I think of as Canada. Development, and a lot of this is happening in ninth and 10th grade, but it absolutely continues into 11th and even 12th, when they're starting to write some of their essays. That's when they're really like learning the language to describe their values. But it starts with a lot of internal exploration, self reflection, that sort of thing. We really want to get a sense of values and strengths, their learning preferences. So when they tell you gotta hate this teacher, don't just be like, don't hate your teacher, you know, dig in a little bit and really try to understand, like, what is it that you don't like about this person? Is it that they don't take you seriously? They are not invested in you? The way they teach is somehow confusing to you, or they use, you know, they make you read a textbook and then come into class, or is it all like a PowerPoint slide that they're reading off of and it's super boring. Really try to understand what they like and what they don't like about their teachers, because that's going to help you eventually choose classes for next year, but also choose colleges right there. There are things we know about the academic philosophy of different colleges, and you can line that up for your kids, so you know, you're putting them in a great learning environment for them. Interests, you know, exploring through extracurriculars, their skills. So this includes the executive functioning skills, but also academic skills, like learning how to manage a reading load, or how do you prepare for a chemistry test. How do you study? How do you keep your materials organized? You know, all of those sorts of things I think of as academic skills. Relationship Building is super important. The earlier you can get mentors that you trust in place with your child, the better off that they're going to be. I mentioned reflection and then and those sort of goals. You know, a lot of kids don't respond well to when you say, What? What are your goals? They're like, I don't I don't know what that means. Why do I have to have goals? But sometimes we use the language of vision. You know, if you could wave a magic wand, what would you be doing after school? How long would homework take you? What would your room look like? How much time would you have for hanging out with your friends or just being on your phone and get them to sort of vision what they want their life to look like? And you can pull some goals out of that. And it does take time, and this is where a mentor can be really helpful. The next phase is planning an organization. For me, most of this happens between the end of sophomore year and the end of junior year. Junior year is a really tough year that's like their hardest year academically. That is the year their GPA matters a lot in college admissions. They may be taking the SAT or the ACT, and this is where you gotta really get your ducks in a row. You're starting to build your college list through a research process. You may be visiting colleges, and by the end of that process of researching your colleges, you should be thinking about, okay, these are the colleges we're applying to. What stories can my student tell to help this college see what a great fit they are, right? So we're thinking about application strategy, narrative strategy. This would include, are we applying early or are we applying regular decision? And they're like a whole bunch of nuances within there, but all of that should be happening before the end of junior year. And then we move into application writing, which I really start with my students, June of junior year. And we're continuing. We're in the busy season right now. We've got some early deadlines coming up November 1. So all my kids are scrambling to get, you know, the final polish done, but that's really when you're going to start filling out the application forms, writing the essays, compiling your extracurriculars onto either a resume or an activity list, depending on what the application form requires, and then that positioning for those particular colleges, and then all of the Polish and proofreading that that needs to go into it. So you can totally separate these things out. You can't do them out of order. The planning and organization really depends on candidacy development. The application writing depends on the organization and the candidacy development, right? So they build upon each other. So you do want to take this in phases, and I'm going to give you a tool that has when I recommend you do what, with some more resources in just a second, if any of you have climbed a mountain, you probably know this, or run a marathon, it's not like you just start you you have to prepare for months ahead of time. The the training, the physical training, the getting the right equipment, you know, plotting your course, all of that is really important to having a successful marathon or climb or whatever it is. And it's no different in the college process, it would be a lot easier and a lot less stressful if you started some of this ninth, 10th, even 11th grade is valuable to put some of that work in and get your ducks in a row so that you can move through this with with less stress and more success. Some guiding principles here just keep your priorities straight. Right? Your priority should be your child's well being over what college they go to or what grades they get. I need to remind people of. Sometimes. So keep your priorities straight. Your child's well being is number one. After that, you may have different priorities for different years. You will have different priorities for different kids, and that's all fine. Just know what your priorities are before you let your fear, your anxiety, the rumors, guide your decision making, right? We know you can't make a smart decision if you're operating from a place of fear or defensiveness or anxiety, right? You really need to stay grounded and see the bigger picture before you make your decision. And we want to impart some of that calm decision making to our children, and this is a place where you can model that we want to inform them of what they need to know. You know right now, maybe within the next six weeks, maybe within the next three months, but they don't need to understand all the intricacies of this process, because they're going to get overwhelmed by that. Now, the exception to this is if they're in an environment where everybody is talking about all of the intricacies of this process. Sometimes it can be helpful to show them something like this match pyramid, or take them through that course where they can see the data and hear from an expert, because even if you're saying the same thing, I know they just listen to me differently than they're going to listen to you. You control what you can control today, and so that means you should be selective about what you're talking to them about and when you're talking to them. And I encourage you to free up space in your brain, right? You don't need to hold on to all of this information on a scrap of paper or just in your memory. Even better, bring in an expert like you have a resource in your high school that is supposed to be doing this with you, depending on how big your high school is or how well resourced it is, they may be able to do only so much. You know, some schools get some students get more support from their counselors than others. But there are also community based organizations. There are resources online. There are very reasonably priced services that you can sign up for that you know, have a video library of information that you can access when you need it, when you have questions. Or there are people like me and my team where former admissions officers, and the way I usually like to work with students is we scope out a project, and I say, Alright, I'm going to tell you when we need to meet and what we need to be talking about, and I'm going to be working on strategy in the background. And what I want from you today is, you know, tell me about this extracurricular and why you love it. And we keep it really simple for kids, and we're always there for the parents to to help them, you know, manage their own overwhelm and all of their questions and, you know, all of the nuances of the strategy. So bringing in an expert is something that you can absolutely do. And because the college application is really a portfolio, I want to leave you with some thoughts about this. The application is a very two dimensional representation of who your student is, right? But if you've ever prepared a portfolio of marketing assets that you worked on, or, you know, even your resume is sort of a portfolio of like, your biggest accomplishments at previous companies. When you are putting that together, you're not thinking, Oh, this company does these things. I'm gonna try to be all of the things for them. You instead, really focus on what you have actually done, what is actually meaningful to you, and then you position it for that company, right? If you know they've got this challenge, and you've actually solved that challenge two jobs ago, that's probably going to have like, a really beefy bullet point on your resume, or you're going to call it out in your cover letter, you're going to make sure you talk about it in the interview, right? And the college application is really not that different, right? It's about helping your child figure out who they are, doing that at the best level that they can, and finding colleges that really will resonate with what they already have to offer. So I'm ending the recording right there, because not only is that where we pivoted and started going into the questions from the audience, but that is also really the main point of everything I'm always saying. This is about helping your child figure out who they are, and letting that decide what colleges are you applying to and what stories are you telling them. And I just cannot stress that enough that if you do it that way, you are going to be able to achieve two really important goals at this time in your child's life. One is you're going to help them have a clearer sense of self and a clearer understanding of how they want to move through the world, and the other is you're going to help them get into the right college for them who could ask for more. So I hope that this was helpful. I hope that you are in a good position to get your ducks in a row, and that this process goes so easily for you, and if you want more help around this, I mentioned. I have a course, and we'll link that in the show notes. But the other thing that might be helpful for you is the actual recording of this session, where you can look at the slides as well, as you know, get some of the tools that I gave to the folks who came to that talk. So to find that, you want to go to Signet education.com/events, and that will also be in the show notes. So please check it out, and I hope that this is all helpful for you, and we'll see you next time. Thanks, everybody.