Your College Admissions Roadmap: Plan Ahead Now to Position Your Kid for Success

Feeling overwhelmed by the college admissions process? In this episode, I walk through a clear, grade-by-grade roadmap to help families plan ahead, lower stress, and keep the parent-teen relationship strong. From early high school habits to senior-year strategy, this is your guide to making thoughtful, values-driven choices every step of the way. Tune in to learn how to stay ahead—and support your teen with confidence. 

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

Can you comment them with, like, your hair on fire, and we gotta do 15 things all at once, and we only have two weeks, they're going to be like, Oh my God, no way I'm out right. Or I don't want to deal with this. I'm going to avoid it, or I'm going to procrastinate, right? But if you can sort of plan ahead, understand that timeline, and keep your priorities straight about what to do when it's going to be a lot more manageable for them and for you. Hi folks, welcome back to the podcast. Today I'm sharing with you a replay of a master class I gave back in July about the overall college process and how that differs from the actual college application. And really, my goal in this episode is to help all of you understand, yeah, there's a whole lot to do, but we're not doing it all at once. There is a right time for each of these parts, and if, as parents or counselors, you can kind of piecemeal out the thing to focus on to the teenager in smaller chunks, in ways that they really understand the why and how this fits into all of the larger process. We can have an opportunity to have more buy in less stress and better outcomes. So I'll send you right to that replay, and then I'll see you on the other side. Today, I'm going to talk to you about, like, kind of the bigger picture, right? And technically, it is an admissions topic. But of course, college admissions is made up of all the wonderful things your kids are going to do in high school. So we might touch on some of these other things that we're going to talk about testing a little bit we're going to talk about executive functions. So I just want you to kind of know we're talking about it all today, in the hopes that it gives you a sense of what is this process and when should you do what? And more importantly, why? Right? Because getting your teen on board often involves having a really good why not just, not just a what? Right? Fully aware of that usually they listen to me better than they listen to you guys, but sometimes I'm still doing a lot of that. Like, well, here's why, and let me explain this to you and convince you to do it the way I want you to do it. Here we are talk about your college admissions roadmap. It's important to plan ahead to position your kid for success. Now that's not to say success is not possible without planning ahead, but it is a lot less stressful, right? And that's really one of my goals. Of course, I want your kids to go to an amazing college where they're going to thrive and have the experience that they want and go on to live you know their fantastic life that I know is ahead of them, but I also want to help you not damage the relationship that you have with them in their last few years at home with you. I want to help you experience less stress. Help you be a confident leader through this process of your child. So I'm gonna kind of take you through a number of aspects of this process that will hopefully help you do that. I talk to a lot of families where a parent calls me and they're so stressed and so anxious, and they have a million questions, and they say it's because, oh, my kid is so stressed out. And then I talk to the student, and they're like, Yeah, my mom is really stressed out about this. I'm trying to calm her down by, like, asking you some questions, right? And of course, we never want our kids to manage our emotions for us. So just a little bit of reflection here. What's the two way street here? Because it always is a two way street, right? And the thing I want to point out is, wherever your kid is at any given moment, you are the grown up. You are the parent. Here, you are forced to be in a place of leadership. Even though we know they're teenagers, they don't want to listen to you, right? But there are things that you can do to inspire their confidence in you, and one is by having a clear timeline. I'm glad you're here because I'm going to give you one clear priorities. We're also going to go through those today, communication strategies that actually work for your teenager, and you know them best. So I'm going to give you a bunch, and you get to try things out and decide what what might work and what wouldn't work, and then be clear on what support you need, so that you can be in your best head space around all of this stuff, right, so that your questions are answered and that you are not having to take on too much you already have so much on your plate, right? Having to also be the guidance counselor and the college advisor and the essay editor is probably not ideal for you, right? So think about what support you need, and we're going to this is basically our agenda for today. Hopefully it will result for you in calm, confident leadership through the admissions process. Okay, that's our goal. I want to start by reminding you that. The application itself is not the same as the process. The application is documentation of how they have spent their time in high school, what classes did they take and what grades did they earn, what did they do in their extracurriculars? How do they show up in the classroom and in the school? What do they care about? You know, all of these things are things that they have to kind of live life and go through the experience of high school to really understand about themselves and to have something to show on the application. Right? So we don't want you to think that the college process starts in 12th grade. In fact, it starts the very first day of ninth grade. And for many people, they like to start even earlier, thinking about, well, what are the skills and talents we're really going to invest in building? You know, I don't really recommend that. I think it's much better to have sort of a free range childhood until you start to get to high school, where you can still explore. But we want to kind of collect the data and reflect on what those experiences were, so that we can kind of shape all right? You liked this thing, let's do more of it, or let's do something else like it. Or you really had a bad reaction to this. Maybe we got to go in another direction. Or maybe there's some skills that we need to build underneath that so that you feel more confident in this area, right? So it's not so much as you need a strategy the first day of ninth grade, and you need to like, abide by it so you can tell a specific story by the time you get to 12th grade, it's more like, let's start paying attention to what they like, what they don't like, what lights them up, what they're good at, what they struggle with. So that you can make any interventions, necessarily, you can support them the way they want to, or you can help them focus on those things that are their strengths and their passions and help them relax a little bit on the other stuff, of course, fulfilling whatever requirements they need to fulfill. So application does not equal the process. So let's talk about what that process looks like, and this is my best recommendation for you. So like I said, Some people start before ninth grade, so I did make the first phase eighth to 10th grade, but this is perfectly fine to start whenever in high school. And in fact, it doesn't stop in 10th I just think that should be your focus in those early years of high school, really honing in on what your values are, understanding your interest, building skills, getting better at building and maintaining relationships. These are lifelong pursuits, and one of the things that we're we're trying to do here at Signet is help students take advantage of this college process to set themselves up for the life that they want to have, right and that involves understanding those skills and interests and their values and building great relationships and learning how to reflect and set goals for themselves, right? So in terms of what you need to do in the college process, terms of actual milestones or tasks that you need to finish in those early years of high school, but those are such valuable years for doing a lot of the foundational work on personal development, right? And it will come into play later in the process, but planting those seeds early is really, really great. So that might look like encouraging your student to try a bunch of different clubs and extracurriculars so they can learn what kind of people they want to spend their time with, or what social issues they care about, or if they're involved in some sort of academic or skill based club, like the robotics club or the math League, or whatever they can really see. Oh, do I want to do more of this? Do I want to engage in this topic more deeply and again, having them reflect and collect the data about that experience is really the key to making those early years as valuable as possible to them. And a lot of comments from parents being like, well, what are you really doing when you're working with a kid in ninth and 10th grade? And the answer is, I'm just talking to them about what they care about. I'm talking to them about what teachers they seem to lack, what material they find interesting, or what books they've read, and helping them name those interests that they are actually demonstrating. So I'm not telling them, oh, I think you should be interested in X. I'm saying based on what you just told me, it sounds like you really like genetics. Maybe you want to take an online course or watch a TED talk, or, I don't know if there are any TED talks about genetics, but, you know, look at this person's biography. I think that might really resonate with you. And if it doesn't, that also tells us something, right? But it's sort of about having a bias to action, to trying things out, and then sort of keeping mental track of what resonated and what did it right. And in those early years of high school as well, it's really important to help your student get their feet underneath them, academically, learning the independence that is required in high school, learning to manage their workload, learning. To communicate on their own behalf with teachers and other people in the school. These are really important things for them to get better at and feel more confident around in the early years of high school. It's going to set them up for success later in high school, which we know, of course, leads to a stronger college application. But it's also, like I said, one of those life skills when you're in a new environment, you got to figure it out. You got to learn the system and learn the rhythms and build the skills that are going to help you thrive there. So that's the first phase. So a little more kind of soft skilly. Then we get into 10th and 11th grade. And I say this is planning and organization. This is where you might actually be checking off some of those milestones, of the things you need to be able to submit with your college application, right? And I say this starts in 10th grade, really, kind of starts latter half of 10th grade, maybe even summer after 10th grade, where we start with understanding what's your testing strategy. And of course, the majority of colleges in the United States are test optional. I think it's over 80% right now, but there are some very selective schools that do want to see tests, and some schools that are not all that selective, they still want to see tests as well. And this is not to say everybody needs to test. It's about understanding what your testing strategy is, right? So I did a presentation on this, I believe last month. The short version of that is, let's take some practice tests. Let's see how you respond to the SAT, to the A, C, T, how did it feel in terms of the content? How did it feel in terms of the pacing and your endurance and all of these things? And let's see if you're already sort of naturally scoring at a level that would make us feel like a test score could be very helpful in your application, right? Or you could score high enough that you know these schools that require tests that are very selective, yeah, those, those, those could be in range for you. It will also help you decide, do we do the SAT, or do we do the A, C, T, every four year? College in the United States accepts both without bias. It can also help you understand all right, if we're going to test, what do we need to study? What do we need to work on? When should we take the test? Right? So they're all these kind of questions around testing that you just want to get answers for. It doesn't mean you have to start prepping for the test, or even register for a test date or or commit to testing. It's just about understanding where your student is, where they might end up, and what that means for the larger college process. And at the same time, ideally, you're starting the college research project process, excuse me, so what that might look like in the early stages is, oh, you're on vacation somewhere, and there's a college in that town, let's just go stroll around campus and see what that's about, right? Not to say your kid might want to go to that school, but you'll get a sense for what does a 7000 student open campus look like in the suburbs of a major city, right? And that might mean you don't have to do college visits later if you're looking at a 7000 student Open Campus college in the suburbs of a major city. You kind of know what that looks like, right? So you could be doing just sort of light informational visits. You could have your student be looking on websites of colleges that, for whatever reason they may be interested in, maybe it's where you went to school, or some family member went to school and they've developed an interest in that school, or it's, you know, their favorite sports team, and they always dreamed of going to that school and rooting on that team. Have them start doing some research, and it could be around, you know, what majors does the school offer? What does campus life look like? Are students happy there? What do they go on to do, and what do their academics look like? You know, the average admitted student, what is their average GPA or average test score, so they can start to understand, is that place actually a fit for who I am and what I want to study and the kind of people I want to be around and the way I want to learn, right? And then as you round the corner into the fall of 11th grade, we're really going to switch modes from just sort of like, let me check some things out and see how I feel, to let me start actually building a list, right? And that list building process, again, I had a whole actually, I think I have a webinar on every one of these bullet points in this particular stage. So you can go to our YouTube page and find all of those. But building a list is a whole process in itself, where we start with like naming some preferences. And it's a lot easier to name preferences if your student has seen a couple of different kinds of campuses before, right? So we name some preferences, we try to understand, all right, what is it that you might want to study? Not to say you have to commit to a major, but wherever you go to school, we want to make sure there are things there that you want to study, right? So we look at kind of, what are the offerings? You know, I have a lot of students who play, you know, a sport in high school, very seriously, but they don't. Want to be a student athlete and play on the, you know, the school team, the college team, or go through the athletic recruiting process, but at the same time, you know, field hockey has been a really big part of their life, and they would still like to be able to play. So they want to make sure there's a club field hockey team that they can join, right? So we want to look for those things like, you know, obviously the needs and the lots and then these little preferences of, yeah, I prefer to be at a place where I could row, or I prefer to be at a place where there are a lot of internships available in the surrounding city, right in the industry that maybe I'm interested in, or there's a lot of research opportunities available because I want to go into the sciences. So whatever those preferences, needs and laws are, we want to name them, and then we want to do the research to find the schools that fit our criteria. And then we want to look more deeply into those schools to say, okay, is this really a fit for me? Is the vibe right, right? Is it realistic that I would get in? What kind of student really goes there, and what do they do in their free time? Is that the kind of student I am, and this is a long process. It's not something that's going to happen in a month. I usually spend six to nine months going through this process with my students, because a lot of them will come in and say, Oh, I'm only applying to these Ivy League schools. And when I start asking why, and we start peeling back the layers and really understanding what each school is about. They're like, Oh, wait, Columbia is not a fit for me, or brown is not a fit for me, and Columbia really is. But once they sort of understand the character of each of these schools and how that might fit with what they want from their college experience or what they want to do after, right? So that's a long process, and part of that process is doing visits, right? So I mentioned those sort of casual, informational visits that you might do early on in this stage, but at some point you actually want to do the official tour for the schools you're most interested in. Some of these schools are going to track whether you've come to see them, but more importantly, most of these schools will also ask, Why do you want to go here? And those visits are just chock full of information. Because you're going to meet your tour guide who happens to major in the thing you want to major, and they can tell you so much about what life is like there. You're going to see it, you're going to meet other people. You might try the food, and you might talk to a professor, or sit in a class, and then you have really specific information to talk about in those essays. You also have that confidence, that gut feeling, yes, this is a place where my child will thrive, and I can see them here, and I can see them finding their tribe here and and really, really taking advantage of all these wonderful opportunities, right? So you're going to do kind of more serious visits, and then that all feeds into our application strategy and narrative. And by now we are in the spring of 11th grade, right? A lot of people like to save visits for spring break. Some schools do a February break. Those are all great times. And then once you've kind of crystallized that list. Now you have a set of schools that you know you're going to be speaking to. Right? The best writing connects with its audience. And the same thing goes for what your application is trying to communicate. Right? You need to know your audience, and so this is not to say you're just going to tell them what they want to hear what you think they want to hear. This is what do I have to offer a school like them, right? And how can I demonstrate that to them throughout the whole application? It's not just planning essay topics. It is also what order do I list my activities in? What do I say about those activities. Who do I ask for recommendations that I know experience this quality of mine that I really want to demonstrate to the school? So there are all kinds of ways to communicate across the different elements of the application that I just flashed on the screen a little bit earlier, the essays, the recommendations, the activity list, even the courses that you're choosing, communicate something to the school, right? So we kind of want to get that bigger picture of okay, these are the schools I like. This is why I like them. This is what I like about them. Now, what do I what do I have, sort of in my closet that I can show them, that is going to demonstrate to them that I'm a great fit for their school, and I'm going to be able to bring a lot of really interesting things and contribute to their community. And I like to do that in spring of 11th grade, when college is really on the mind of the student, and we're about to turn the corner into actually writing the application. And so I recommend this is started the summer after 11th grade, where we're like, just filling out the forms. It's very tedious, and we're actually working on the essays. And it's fine if you want to collect essay ideas over the course of high school, it's not really helpful for them to start writing those. Things until they get to that point, until they've had the experiences, until they've developed as a writer, until you know the audience that they're talking to. Right when all of those kind of click into place, now is the time we can start saying, Okay, this is the story we want to tell them, and this is how we're going to do it. I mentioned the activity list. What are we what are what order are we saying these activities and what are we saying about them in the common app right now, there's space for 10 activities. Some students end up having more than that or less than that, and that's totally fine, but for those students who have more than that, they're going to have to decide which are the 10 most meaningful. Which 10 say the thing about me that I really want to communicate in this piece of the application, and maybe, can I use other parts of the application to talk about this experience I had, or or this other thing that I'm not going to be able to list on the activity list, the positioning is what I call like, what are we doing for early action or early decision versus regular decision? Are we going to do an early decision too? Right? This is like a real layer of strategy over this whole thing that can be very nuanced. I'm not going to go into a ton of detail here, but before committing, you know, to a particular school with an early application, you really want to make sure, what does this mean for the rest of your list, and what does it mean for the stories you're telling? And then, of course, we need to polish everything right. And this doesn't mean we're running through chatgpt, or have you know your cousin who is a literature major, correct your writing for you. It's just really making sure that, like there are no egregious errors or typos, that you're using language correctly, that you're demonstrating your actual ability to communicate, and that you're putting your best foot forward across the whole application, and sometimes having an outside perspective of somebody who didn't work on the application with you or maybe doesn't know you that well, their Eyes are fresher, and they can be very, very helpful to bring someone in at that point in the process. At Signet, we really like to think about this as a journey. The early stages here are really about getting to know yourself and your own interests and practicing articulating that. And then we start, you know, making our plans, building our lists, and then we write our story, and you know, we're we're preparing for interviews, we're doing all our polishes. And then, you know, it doesn't really end at college, right? We need to prepare for the college transition. Everything comes after that, but along this climb, so to speak, they've learned a lot about themselves. They've built a lot of skills, including project management and organization skills, and they're going to go off to college with all that sort of in their backpack, and they're going to be ready to tackle whatever life throws at them after this, right? That's the goal, right? We want to launch them and feel confident that they're going to do all the great things that they're meant to do, that they're not going to trip up, that they are going to take advantage of the opportunities in front of them, that they're going to be okay, right? And so I don't want you to forget that, yes, this is the process of applying somewhere, but this is also a really important milestone in your parenting journey, right? So I don't want you to reduce the college process to just Okay, check, check, check, check, we did all those things and we submitted the essays. It's really a process for personal growth and for your relationship with your student to start to change. Right as they get further along in high school, hopefully they're gaining a little more independence. They're building your confidence in them to be able to handle certain things, and you're letting go of the reins a little bit so that they can watch successfully, right? So it's a journey for everybody. Now, beyond just knowing the timeline and what you need to do, we really need to get real about priorities, and this is one of the most important things perspectives that a parent can hold for their child, right? Sometimes you see a list of things and you're like, Okay, I gotta do all of them. I gotta do them all at once. But that's just not smart, and it's also not true. You know, chances are, if you try to do everything all at once, you're not going to do any of it very well, right? And in the college process, in high school, not everything matters the way you think it does, and not everything matters the same. There are things that matter a lot more than other things, right? So we've gotta keep these priorities straight, and that can also help your child engage in this process with you, right? Because if you come at them with like, your hair on fire, and we gotta do 15 things all at once, and we only have two weeks, they're going to be like, Oh my God, no way I'm out right. Or I don't want to deal with this. I'm going to avoid it, or I'm going to procrastinate, right? But if you can sort of plan ahead, understand that timeline, and keep your priorities straight about. What to do when it's going to be a lot more manageable for them and for you. And I'm going to go through what really matters, but I want to remind you that colleges are actually selective, not competitive, and to unpack that, what that means is it's not about being the best in every category, or every thing that you submit in the application has to be maximized in some way. Colleges get enough applications that they can fill their class several times over, and the most selective colleges several times over with, you know, valedictorians, people who have 99th percentile test scores, who have done research at a, you know, real college level lab, there are lots of kids like that these days, especially, right? And what colleges are trying to do is select the student that are going to create the culture and maintain the culture that they want at their school, right? The academic aspects, the, I don't know, maybe school spirit or athletic aspects, the social aspects of their school. And so they're really selecting for students who are a fit with their mission, with their values, with their level of academic rigor, you know, with their opportunities. And so it's really important for students to understand their actual strengths, and lead with those to the right colleges that are going to respond to those strengths. They can't turn themselves into something that they're not. So it's much better for them to have a real sense of what those strengths are and be able to use them in this process. And then by understanding these priorities, you're going to know what's going to have a greater impact, right? You can think about all right, the opportunity cost, or the ROI of doing the test a third time versus getting an earlier start on the essays, right? Or should we go to this expensive program on a college campus? Or should they continue their their work at this camp that is really meaningful to them, right? You can start to understand, oh, this is going to matter more. So we should focus here and not try to do everything right? So you can release that pressure and help them focus. Because beyond what they're hearing from you, they're hearing a ton of stuff from their peers, from social media, from the you know, regular media like news stories about some kid who had a perfect score and did all things and still didn't get into some school. So they're gonna think they have no possible chance, right? They're hearing a lot of stuff that is really freaking them out. So when you can say no, it's clear this is the thing that matters most. We should focus here. They're going to believe you and be relieved they don't have to do everything. They can do this one thing really well for the next three weeks, right? And so I want to show you how we can tell what matters. Now. This is from a report that the National Association for college admissions counseling puts out every year, it's called factors in the admissions decision. It's publicly available. You can Google it and get the latest update right. And so what it does is survey of several 100 colleges and asks them to rank in order of importance these different things that go along or are reported on the college application, right? And the numbers I'm showing you here is the percentage of schools said. 76% of the schools surveyed said high school grades and college prep courses was of considerable importance. Which is the highest importance category? Right? Then 74% said total high school grades, meaning, like the overall GPA, then 63% said the strength of the curriculum was really, really important, right? I'll point out these are all academic factors, so academics matter more than anything else, right? The grades in the courses, how hard those courses were, then it moves into character, right? And then the essays, which is really a reflection of character, how much a student is interested in going to that school, right? Can they tell this? This student mentioned some other college in their essay because they just copied and pasted it. Well, they don't really want to go here, right? You know, this is called demonstrated interest in some schools track it, and some schools don't, then we go down to counselor recommendation, right? It's moderate importance teacher recommendations, right? Those are pretty important in the face extracurriculars, right? So you can kind of see how this goes. Now, this is aggregate data. You can see college level data, right? And I'm going to show you this. This is overall, right, a wide selection of, you know, pretty selective and non selective schools, but if we look at specific colleges, and I just grabbed the Ivy League, because everybody's obsessed with the Ivy League, I grabbed from their common data set, which the government collects this data and. Every year from every school that takes federal funding. And yes, the whole thing is in turmoil right now, but we're just going to pretend that's not happening while we're having this conversation. You can Google this common data set in the name of the institution. You will find their institutional reporting for several years. I mean, some of these go back, you know, 3040, years of records you could look at. So I grabbed the information for the Ivy Leagues, and I tried to color code it so we could see very easily. Now, Harvard is unique in that it doesn't want to tell us anything. They just say whether it's considered or not considered, but all these other schools will tell us, is it very important? That's the VI. Is it important? That's the I. Is it? Just consider they look at it, maybe not that important, or not considered. They don't care, right? And so we kind of get a sense of the trend here, what's really important, and it's very much in line with that other total, like National Survey of schools, academics and the rigor are the most important. Then we go to character, the personal qualities, the recommendations, and then the essays. And, you know, depending on the school, the extracurriculars might be very important, right? Scores, it depends on the policy of the school, which, of course, we had a lot of changes in the last couple of years. Special talents and abilities are often considered at these schools, and then you can see, you know, all the the rest of this stuff here. So I encourage you, as you're building your school list, don't do this from the outset, but as you have, you know, a more narrow list of maybe 15 to 20 schools, go and look at their common data set to see what matters the most. So you can assess, okay, yeah, my kids. GPA is really great so that we have that covered, right? But what else do they think is really important that maybe we don't have covered yet, right? And that can help you maybe plan out, what do they do over the summer? What do we want to emphasize in the essays? Who do we want to ask for recommendations, right? So you can use this to inform kind of your strategy and even the development of your student over several years. So I hope that's helpful. That's how we know what matters. I'm not just making this up, but there's actual data, and the way I like to frame it to people is in this match pyramid, and the base of it is the academics. We know that's most important. Then I put values and then the remarkable factor. And I like this as just a really easy visual to understand what's foundational, but what also actually gets you selected at a particular school. So to move through this a little bit more quickly and give you those details, under academics, we have the GPA and the rigor, as we've already discussed, test scores, if they are required or considered, are going to be a reflection of academic ability, but the thing that most people don't understand also plays a role. Here are executive functions. So I want to draw your attention to that, especially if your child is earlier in high school, they probably have some executive function work to do, whether or not they're neuro diverse, everybody has executive function work to do, and we can strengthen these things through practice, through accommodating strategies, through tools, through routines. There are lots of things you can do, but if this is a challenge for your student and to define executive functions, it's like all the things we need to know how to do in order to get things done. Organization, you know, I put note taking emotional regulation is actually part of this, the impulse control, setting a goal and moving towards it, even just getting started with something or remembering the final step of turning that thing in, right? These are really foundational to their ability to get good grades, to take harder classes, to earn a good test score, right? These are foundational, so don't sleep on it. Make sure you're addressing this. Okay? And they will also come into play in the major or complicated project of putting the whole application together, right? They need to be able to write a whole essay, or several essays. They need to keep these requirements straight, right? They need to finish things by a deadline. So executive functions are never something I say don't invest in. So definitely address that. If that is an issue for your child, then the middle layer of that pyramid I showed you is values. This is where all that character positive character attributes show up, right? And on the application that's going to be reflected in their teacher recommendations. How does this kid show up in the classroom? How do they treat their peers? How do they treat their teachers? They're literally questions on the form that your teachers will have to fill out that ask about those things. They're extracurriculars. Also see no values, right? Do they care about collaborating with other people to accomplish, I don't know, environmental goals, right? Are they a dedicated artist? Are they part of the sports team? Maybe there are some social causes or volunteer causes that they you. Dedicate a lot of time to, and that says something about what they care about, right? So that's one of the things we're thinking about as we look through a student's extracurricular list. What values are being communicated here, and that's why I always say don't do something just because you think it's going to look good on your college application. It's telling a story about you, right? If you love it, but you don't really know why or how it fits in with everything else. That's fun. Do the things that you love, right? We'll figure out what's the connection between this thing and that thing, or why does this light you up? Might be really interesting essay to show the college, especially if it seems like an outlier right among all of your other things. Which brings me to the essays. This is the place where a student can most explicitly articulate what they care about, what kind of person they are, and why and what they're going to bring to the campus, right? So I'm not saying every student needs to write an essay about you know, my values are that that would be pretty boring. But really the stories that they're telling, at least on American applications, very different if you're applying to colleges outside the United States, but on us applications, what they really want to understand is what kind of person are. You tell us a story about personal growth and how you got to be this way, or how your interests developed, and that is also really saying something about what kind of person they are and what their values are, and then the very top of that pyramid is what I call the remarkable factor, and it's going to be different for every student. So I can't tell you it's always a special talent, or it's always a passion, or it's also always just something that you know they're randomly curious about. I've met so many students over our years of doing this, we we just calculated this something like 13,000 students we've we've served since we started. That is just a mind boggling number, because we only do one on one work, and we're not a huge team. So we've worked with a lot of people over our 18 years here, and every student is different. Every student is remarkable. This is not something you have to go out of your way to develop in your student. It's more about observing them, paying attention. What's the thing that they're gravitating to? What's the common thread among their friendships? What really lights them up, or what can't they help themselves from doing? And this excludes like being on their phone or playing video games, right? Like, what is the thing that they just, like, can't stop obsessing about, right? I had a student once who was obsessed with a certain specific South Asian dish, and, like, he would just eat it wherever he went, and as we explored it, you know, it really represented a lot of things for him, and he was searching for something in trying it had another student who actually made a spreadsheet of how he spent every day of his life, another student who loves doing people's nails because she gets to talk to them about what's going on in their life, and they can find in her things that you wouldn't normally confide to someone you barely know, right? And it's helped her really understand people. It's helped her communication skills. It's helped her build relationships. Another student I'll tell you about, and then we'll move on, has a part time job as a pharmacy. And you know, that might sound boring for a high school student. He doesn't want to be a pharmacist or go into, you know, health services or anything like that, but he says he meets people from all walks of life, in a very vulnerable state, like you have to go get medicine for maybe some embarrassing condition, and you have to talk to the person at that desk. And so he sees people at their most vulnerable, and he's developed some really interesting observations just about, you know, humanity, and I think that's really remarkable to see in a teenager, especially a teenage boy, right? And as we're planning the applications, we want to make sure that remarkable factor is relevant to those colleges. Now that's not to say you pick a remarkable factor that fits some college. It should be obvious, because you've chosen the right colleges that are the right fit for your student, that this remarkable factor is really going to impress that college. It's going to be what they're looking for, right? That student, I said, who was obsessed with that dish, it really represented all kinds of community for him. And he applied early and got into a college that really cares about community, right? And when I showed him that, I was like, you know, like, there's this whole community thing in here, kind of underneath this obsession. And you know this school, one of their top values is community. And he's like, Wow, what a coincidence. And I was like, it's not a coincidence at all. Our research led us to this school, your preferences, your strengths, your remarkable factor, led us to this school that is the perfect fit for you, right? And there may be more than one school. There's not just one perfect fit, but that should be something that resonates with those colleges that you are applying to. I want to give you some advice, because I'm sure this all sounds great. Okay, you have some clarity, but like, what do you do with it? How do you get it across to your kid, and how do you bring them all. With you, right? I want to remind you that this big picture strategy is so important, but most of the time, I would say 99% of the time, it's too overwhelming for your teenager. They don't need to hear all of it. They don't want to hear all of it. They're not going to understand all of it. So you kind of have to hold that in mind and then, like, piecemeal it out to them as they need to understand some things, right? And that's why you setting those priorities and understanding that timeline can be so important, because you'll know when, okay, we're about to start this next focus. And these are the things you need to understand about why this is important and how this is going to build. And you don't really need to worry about all this other stuff that you know, maybe your friends are talking about and we want to as much as possible, really give them specific, small actions or tasks to do, and especially if they're just starting this process or, you know, you know your kids best, the lower the stakes, the better, right? And it might be just spend 15 minutes rambling into your voice recorder about this thing that you say is so interesting and meaningful to you, right? We are not writing an essay. We're not showing it to anybody. We just want you, the student, to go and record yourself talking about it. Some realization is going to come out of that, right? And maybe at some point they transcribe what they recorded and it becomes the basis of some essay. But that's a very small, low stakes action. Or if you're trying to get them to work with the tutor, you know, just talk to them for 15 minutes. You don't have to start working with them, but, like, just meet them, see what happens, right? And in most cases, they meet the tutor. They like the tutor. They realize, oh, this person can really help me. You know, I want to do it right, instead of just saying, Here's your tutor. You know, those sorts of things. If you're putting too much on them or asking a lot of them, they're just going to resist you, whether the thing makes sense or not, right? It feels too big. And, you know, our teenagers likes to like to resist us. That's just what what they're designed for at this moment in time. I'll also say one of the things that parents can do is just help them clear the space for the priorities that you've set right. I know that students often think they have to do all the things. I had a student sign up for, like six different summer programs. And I'm like, when are you going to have time to think over the summer or rest or recover from the school year? She's got essays to write, right? When? When are you going to do that? Right? If you're taking on all of these different opportunities, which, yes, they are great. If you're taking them all on, when are you going to do this other stuff that actually needs to get done right now? Or maybe there are a lot of family trips or events that are happening, and maybe your student doesn't have to go to all of them, so that you can help them clear some time and space to do this important work. You should also just consider what mentors would be helpful to your kid. I had a conversation with a mom recently who was like, you know, my kids test scores aren't lining up with their academics, how they do in school. And, you know, I just it's not like a test prep situation. It's more like confidence. It's more like keeping the test in perspective. It's kind of all these bigger picture things. And I was like, I think they just need a mentor who can help them keep that perspective and maybe offer them a little bit of advice, but, like, empower them, right? Help them feel more confident in the face of this test that kind of scares them. So she was like, Oh yeah, they have a cousin who is a third year at this college. Maybe, you know, that would be a really great opportunity for them to kind of talk about this sort of thing, right? So it doesn't always have to be a tutor or an admissions consultant. There are lots of people who serve that role in your student's life. It might be a teacher or a sports coach or somebody who leads a club or someone at your church, or you know someone in your community. But there are also professionals who can help your student through, you know, these specific tasks of building, you know, a college list or writing an essay, because, you know, there's just a lot of emotional baggage when a parent tells you to do something, right? I'm I'm 45 and I still feel that way. When my parents asked me to do something, I'm like, No, I don't want to do it. So maybe it'll go away someday, but working with a third party, hearing that advice from somebody else, it's going to land better, right? And then, as I mentioned at the beginning of our presentation here, what do you need? Not just what is your kidney, but what do you need to help you, you know, get through all this, keep the priorities straight, make sure your kids on tasks right. Get your little random questions answered. So having someone who can serve as a project manager, even a go between a sounding board, a facilitator, you know, maybe a therapist, you know, one, depending on what you need. But parents play such an important role in this process, so it's important for you to be able to show up the way you want to in this process for your kid, and that might mean you need a little extra help, and that's. Time, because we all need a little extra help. All right, I really hope that that was helpful. I mean, this is a lot of information, and if you do want to see the slides that I have for this, please check out the Signet education YouTube channel, and you will find a full recording of that, along with some audience questions that were really great. We got into the weeds. So I hope you do check that out. I'm about to head off to the annual NACA conference, that's the National Association for college admissions counselors, and I know I'll have a bunch to report back on there and a lot of fun people to connect with. So I'm looking forward to that and future episodes to share that great wisdom with all of you. All right, that's it for today. Take care, everybody, and we'll see you next time.