Don't Force It: How to Get into College without Losing Yourself in the Process
For all the stressed-out parents trying to help their teenagers navigate the complicated world of college admissions.
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Don't Force It: How to Get into College without Losing Yourself in the Process
How can students stay organized during application season?
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Organization is the secret to reducing so much of the stress of college applications! Tune in to hear what I recommend.
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I really strongly suggest that students set aside time to understand all of those things that they're going to have to do, and all the pieces of the process and the little details and whatever, and then build that into whatever organizational system they're going to use.
SPEAKER_02Hi folks, welcome back. This week, as we start getting into the busy season of applications, we're talking about how students should stay organized. Take a listen.
SPEAKER_00This week's question is a big one. Um there are many layers to this. Oh boy. So I'm excited to dig in. Um but the hot topic of this week is how do students stay organized during application season?
SPEAKER_01How do they, or how should they? Um, so I've definitely seen a variety of things. Um a lot of students use um some kind of tool like uh like an AI tool to build themselves an organizer. I've seen people build their own spreadsheets. I've seen people have like a long Google Doc or they put it in their planner or their phone, the Notes app on their phone. Really? Is where they keep a lot of stuff. Yeah. Which is interesting. Very interesting to me. Um but I think uh whatever system of organization they're using, it should serve a couple of purposes. Uh one is at a glance to be able to know where you are, what's coming up next, what your priorities are, right? Um and two, second goal it should satisfy is that it's should be comprehensive. You don't want to be thinking you're done and then realize, oh my gosh, there are like three more essays, or I didn't do this thing, I didn't request that, or whatever, right? So a lot of people think that the college application process is really just essays, but obviously there's so much more that goes along with the application. Um, the essay may be the piece of it that the student is focused on right before senior year begins, or you know, this time of year as deadlines are are approaching. Um, but you know, there's transcripts, there's recommendations, there's even choosing which colleges you want to apply to. Um, you might be sending test scores, you might not be sending test scores. Um, and there are a lot of other questions that the application is gonna ask you to respond to beyond just the essay questions. Um, so I I really strongly suggest that students set aside time to understand all of those things that they're gonna have to do and all the pieces of the process and the little details and whatever, and then build that into whatever organizational system they're gonna use. Right. Um, you know, and I'll I'll I start there because really the organization system that is best is the one that the student is actually going to use, right? Um I can describe my perfect system, but if you know a student's just never gonna do that, then well, that's not gonna help them, right? I want them to use something, even if it's not, you know, what I recommend. But what I do recommend is a spreadsheet. Um, I love a Google Sheet for this because you are always looking at the most updated version and you can access old history. You can share it with people who may have input or may be able to help you with some of this, like a parent or an older sibling or your high school counselor, or if you have a you know private admissions consultant, like having all the people who can help you or have input onto you know what colleges you're choosing, or or you know, the other pieces of the application, um, having it shared with all of them is really a helpful tool to keep everybody on the same page. And extra bonus, if you share this with your parents, your parents won't keep asking you where is this thing and do you know about them? They'll be like, okay, it's here, it's on the spreadsheet. I see where they are. You know, they're not gonna have to nag you about it, right? So that's a that's an extra bonus of having a shared organizational tool. Um, that spreadsheet for me begins with the college list. The college list is really the roadmap for the whole endeavor. Um, and it takes research to figure out what colleges go on that list. I'm sure there'll be questions about that that we'll answer on the podcast at some point in the future. So I won't go into that. But building your college list there on the very organizer spreadsheet uh is gonna give you a lot of efficiencies and be a very helpful reference as you go through the process because you can be tracking like what programs you like at each of those schools, what uh you know, professors maybe you've talked to or you know students at that school, like little facts that you um remember from your tour or whatever. Keep it on the research tab, right? As you build, you know, your finalized college list and you narrow it down. And then you can add in the supplemental essays for those schools, how many recommendations they need. Are you sending scores? Are you not sending scores? Do you need to send official scores with your application? Or will you send the official scores after you get admitted? You know, do you need to schedule a tour or an interview? Like you can have all of that information right on the spreadsheet next to your college list. Um, and it can help you see when we get to supplements, for example, what questions are sort of overlapping and how you can kind of build one response off of another response, right? Uh so it can help you see strategic efficiencies. It can also help you create that list of priorities, right? So um many students are gonna be applying early somewhere. First, we need to decide where that is. Is it early action? Is it early decision? Is it gonna be regular decision or an early decision too? Um, and you know, we just did an episode about this, what, two weeks ago? So if you don't know what those things are, go back to that one. Um, but uh once you figure out what each school offers and you decide, you know, really how you want to prioritize your list, you can also prioritize your spreadsheet and the list of essays that you have to work through in that order, right? So I um always want to start with my ED school because that's the one we're gonna put the most work into, right? That's the one we're really, really um gunning for. Um, but I create kind of phases for all the schools. So we know which ones we're doing early and which ones we're doing regular. What are we gonna worry about now? What are we gonna worry about later? Knowing which schools are on our early list can help us think about well, I've got these other schools on my regular list, and they ask similar questions as my early list. So I will write the early schools and then I will reuse that material in some way to work on the regular schools, right? So there are also strategic um kind of planning efficiencies that come out of that too. Um, I've been rambling for a long time, but as you can see, like this is a big spreadsheet. I even put a tab in there for the activity list because um there's such a tiny little word count for the descriptions, and it matters what order you list them in. And, you know, we got to get everything out, capture everything that has been done over the course of high school before you can figure out what's at the top of my list, what's at the bottom of my list, what what doesn't even belong on my list. You know, what am I trying to say about these things that would maybe echo something else I'm trying to communicate in the application? So I've got a tab for the activities. It's big.
SPEAKER_00There's a lot to recognize like a very big spreadsheet. Yeah. Um question for the activity list, and I know you mentioned you keep the supplemental essay prompts there too. Are your students doing any writing in that spreadsheet for those two things? Or are they writing on a Google Doc instead that's linked to the sheet?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's a it's a that's a great question. For the activity list, I'm having them write directly on the template. Um, and we'll we'll start with like, you know, a big rambly description of like why they started joining or why they joined the swim team and what they love about it and how they grew and you know, special memories and awards or whatever. Like it's just way too big. And then we'll narrow it down once we decide what are the top 10 that we're gonna represent on the application. So I want them to write all of that, write directly on the spreadsheet. When it comes to essays, writing on a spreadsheet is like the worst thing you could do. So don't do that. But sometimes we do a little brainstorming and I keep um like a shorthand note of which story they want to tell for each supplement. Um, so for example, a lot of colleges ask similar questions. There's one that's gonna be about your academic interests, or one about your favorite extracurricular, or an impact you've had to the community. And so I'll shorthand that as like community impact volunteering at the soup kitchen. And then I'll list that next to the prompt for the school. And then I'll list that again when that story comes up, you know, in other schools, right? So we kind of have a key of what stories are we telling where and where are we reusing them? Um, but then I will also have a column that actually links to the Google Doc. And here's another question that you didn't ask, but I'll answer anyway. Um, is it should we have a separate Google Doc or a separate document for every essay for every school, or should they all be on the same Google Doc, right? So as you can tell, I do a lot in Google Docs because of the shared nature, the ease of suggesting edits and comments and always being able to access a version history because maybe we make a decision, we think we don't need that story, but actually, no, we do. Let's go get it back. Version history is wonderful. Um, I have come to liking to see all of the supplements and all of the schools on one single writing document. So we might have a document for the personal statement. Sometimes that's even on the same document. All of their writing is on one document. Um, but if they're separating it, then all of the schools in their own tab on one Google Docs. So this is like a new feature, I think, within the last years where you can add tabs to a word processor document. Um, and so we just have a tab for each school. We label like Duke, E D. And then we've got University of Vermont, EA, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, EA. Like it's like each tab is labeled with the deadline as well. Um, and that way, number one, we don't have to go searching for a bunch of documents and not knowing what we called it. That's one thing, right? Very easy to find. Second thing is because some of those essays are gonna overlap, it's helpful. They're all on one document, right? If I know I'm gonna reuse the academic part of the academic interest essay from one school for another, well, then I can just go get it and I don't have to open another document to find it. Um, I find it really, really helpful also for when we're feeling a little stuck about how do we respond to this question. We can just click through and see, well, how what else what else have we told other schools that we haven't had a chance to tell this school? Right? So all the content is one place. Um, but I will link that document that has all the writing with the appropriate tab. Uh you because you can get a link to a specific tab. I will link that in the spreadsheet where we have, you know, all of the the uh essay prompts and the college lists and all that stuff. So it's a very interdependent system.
SPEAKER_00But the spreadsheet acts as the source of truth, you know, the place where you can go to find everything that will redirect you.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. Um, I've also taken to adding what I'm calling a project plan to the first tab of that spreadsheet. So the students' like main priorities are always clear. Here are the things that need to get done by next week. Um, and then there's like a checklist of everything else that needs to get done, what they need to ask their counselor about, what they need to ask their parents about. Like, you know, it's just very clear. Um so that is also very helpful for parents to see, like, oh, I can see what they need to be doing. I can help them with that thing, or here's all the stuff we've already done. I see where we are in the process.
SPEAKER_00That's really helpful.
SPEAKER_01Some students are terrified of it, I will say. Like some students just they just want to know, like, what do I need to do this week? I don't want to think about anything else. I'm like, great, that's fine, I'll hold that and you just focus on this. But some students want to know there's a whole plan, you know, for the rest of the process. So it depends, it depends on the student.
SPEAKER_00Right. In terms of organizing uh different priorities, is there a typical way or order that you work through everything that needs to be done on the college application? Like, do you tackle essays first and then the activity list?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Again, that's gonna depend on the student and whether the student is working. I mean, you're asking me how I work with the student, right? But like I imagine there are a lot of listeners out there that don't have a consultant that's working with their student or they're they've got limited resources. Even their high school counselor can't do a lot with them, right? So I kind of want to answer both how I do it and then what I recommend for um people who are trying to do this on their own. So how I do it is I like to start with the activities. That's a place where I feel like students can tell me what they do in a typical week, and they mostly remember some of the activities from earlier in high school as well. But it's an opportunity to start a conversation about why did you do it? How did you grow? Is there someone you met through this that is just like a really important person in your life, whether a mentor or a best friend or a kid that you mentor, right? Um so I like to start with the activities. Uh, just you know, treat it as a working document. We're making a rough list of what you do outside of school, what you remember having done since ninth grade forward. And I'm just gonna ask you a bunch of questions about it. And in a way, we're uh feeding two birds with one scone. We are um getting the start of an activity list, but I'm also sort of brainstorming, oh, these could be really great stories that they could tell later on in the application. So I start there uh because it's very, it feels easy, right? And then I go from there to, you know, what are the essays that we're gonna need to respond to? What are the things? Actually, I skipped a step. One of the my favorite things to do with the student is after we've gone through the activity list, and everybody's getting a little bonus exercise here. Um, after we've gone through the activity list, I say, okay, you just told me why you did all of these things. Now I want you to pretend this is somebody else's list. You don't know this kid from Adam. Like total stranger. All you know is this is what they do in their free time. What do you think this person cares about? And then they start telling me, oh, they seem really competitive because they do all these like sports things, or maybe they're on a lot of like competition teams, science Olympia, and math team, whatever, right? Um, or oh, they they really care about their community. Look at how much community service is on this list. Um sometimes I hear heartbreaking things like oh, this is a kid who just does what their parents tell them to do. This is the student that I'm working with right now. She's like, I don't think there's any real passion here. And of course, that's that's her judgment of the there's nothing that says that on her list, but I'm like, oh, okay, we're gonna have to work through that. Started with me at the beginning of 10th grade. That's what we're gonna work on first. Is like, how do we make this feel like you, an expression of what you care about, right? But what I'm after there is like a sense of their values, what are their drivers, and helping them realize that the walk they're walking is going to shape the talk that they're going to talk to the colleges, right? Like, what do you care about is reflected, what you care about is reflected in how you spend your free time. Nobody is forcing you to do any of those things. We all have limited time. So when you choose to do something over and over again every week for years, that must matter to you. And if it doesn't matter to you, it's time to make some adjustments, right? Or if there is something you really care about, but it doesn't show up in how you spend your time, that's something to think about. How can we get that thing to show up more in your daily life? Um, it doesn't have to be a club you do for four hours a week every week, but like if you care about it, you should spend some time doing it, right? Let's match the action with the desire. So that exercise is really a bridge between the activity list and the essays because we're getting them to name some of their values, essentially, or move towards demonstrating their values. Um, and at the end of the day, that's like the thing that we're actually matching is students' values and the college's values, right? And it's never just like a one-to-one, right? Everybody's using different language and it shows up in different ways. But once we can start to understand those, you know, motivations and drivers and values, then we can really start to say, okay, if you, you know, you care about community impact in all of these ways, this university is talking about uh graduating citizens of the world that solve the world's biggest problems. Like that's about impact, right? Now we can connect the dots and tell a story about how you've been making an impact in your local community and how you are really motivated by this and you want to go to a place where you're surrounded by people who are also motivated by this, and how that's gonna launch you to, you know, whatever your future vision is of having impact in the world. Um, also a really long-winded way of me saying, I start with activities and then I bridge it to essays that that really are gonna serve the purpose that that we're after. Um, that's what I do. I think if you're doing it on your own or the student is just doing it on their own, they could try to do that as well. It's difficult, I think, to reflect like that if you've never done that kind of reflection before, um, without sort of external prompts. Um, but my advice to students doing this on their own is to start whatever with whatever feels easiest. What can you tackle right now? Start there. That's fine. Even if it's the end of an essay, you know how you want it to end. You don't know how it's gonna begin. That's fine. Start there, right? Let's just get something on the page. Great. If you feel like you want to start with a list of your activities, that's you know, productive too. And then maybe you can bridge it to an essay. Um, so I'm not gonna say it has to start in one place or another. Um, I do like for students to look through the supplemental essays that they're gonna have to respond to before committing to a personal statement topic because these things can't overlap. And sometimes their best idea for a personal statement is actually gonna be a better fit for a supplement. So, like, let's kind of brainstorm a little bit, map out the supplements before you then commit to starting on your personal statement. It doesn't mean you have to write all the supplements first, just think about them first and then choose your topic for the personal statement.
SPEAKER_00There are just so many moving pieces and I don't know. When I read this question, I was like, are they asking about how they organize their time, the materials themselves, the materials they're working on, their recommendations? Like there are so many, right? So many layers. I can understand why students are overwhelmed when they get to this part of the year.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Well, you bring up a really good point that like organization involves time, content, ideas, requirement. Like it is all of these things, right? And not everybody is uh naturally organized around all of those things, right? We have to learn those skills. Um, so I really feel for students um uh going through this uh without some support, right? So hopefully you build a spreadsheet and that gives you something, right? But um around the question of time, I think it might be helpful to think about, yeah, how do we organize our time around this? So if if they're writing applications right now because they're a senior and the deadlines are in a couple of months, um, my best advice is to do a little bit each day, like a half an hour each day. Do something, whatever feels like you can do it, do that thing because the line. The longer you put off, you know, filling out the tedious details of your parents' education or your school contact information or whatever, the more that's just piling up on you that you've got to do later, right? So just do some stuff, clear it out, clear out the easy stuff, and then spend a half an hour a day like thinking about this essay or that essay, writing one or two sentences. Like it doesn't have to be you write the whole essay in one fell swoop. That's usually not how something creative happens, right? And and we know that this is uh, these are essays that you're gonna revise a couple of times and you might want to show it to a teacher and get their input and then revise it again, you know? So um you've got to just keep doing a little bit at a time. Also, don't feel like you have to do things in a sequence. Like I can't start this thing until this other thing is done. You should really be working on everything in parallel. And I also feel like that just gives you more options, right? Like if you're feeling stuck on your personal statement, don't just beat your head against the wall. Start a supplement or write your activity list, right? You're still moving forward, and doing that other thing might help you resolve the block in the first thing, right? So you can go back to it, right? So time is uh is important to manage because that deadline is not moving. No, right? So you're gonna have to face the music there. Um, if they're not actually applying this year, well, you're lucky because now you have all this advice about how to organize your time. But um, I like to start uh mapping out as much as I can in the spring of junior year. So even starting January of junior year, you can fill out, you can create your Common App account, you can start filling things out. It will roll over on August 1st, but that information should still be in there, right? So you're not wasting time by doing that. Yeah. Glitches are possible, but the way they've set it up is that like your information will roll over. Like I keep a dummy common app account so that I can see exactly what my students are seeing. I created this account like seven years ago and it it rolls over every year.
SPEAKER_00Still has both.
SPEAKER_01You know, whatever, right? Um so it'll roll over for you. So you can start filling that out and get some of that tedious stuff out of the way, right? You can start making a list of your activities. You can start your college list research if you haven't already started that. Like you could start collecting those requirements, you can start looking at, you know, this year's supplements. And you don't have to write all of them and finalize them, but like that'll give you an idea of what they're gonna be asking. Those questions don't change all that much. So you could start brainstorming and collecting stories for your kind of content bank that when the prompts are actually finalized, then you can be like, oh yeah, I know what story I'm gonna tell for this. You're not starting from the brainstorming point, right? Um your personal statement, you are you, no matter when you start that essay. And the prompts haven't really changed that much in the last several years. And there is always one prompt that says, write about whatever you want. So you can start writing your personal statement or at least brainstorming it before um we get into crunch time of application season, which is like fall of senior year. Um, and I really recommend getting ahead of a lot of those things.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, especially because once school starts, senior year starts. I feel like the time just it disappears. Flies by and you're wanting to dedicate your time to other things, you know, your final year on your sports team or your last your last year as a president of this club and you're gonna be able to do that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Right? Like, let's have some fun, really. That's important too. Um, and so if you can, if you can plan ahead, um, you'll you will have less stress and more time to do those sorts of things. I have a lot to say about organization. Um, there's something I said on a recent masterclass that we did, which was like, I know when it feels like this is super urgent and everything's on fire and you just gotta go, go, go. It feels like you just want to dive in to whatever's in front of you. But taking maybe two hours to make a strategic, intentional plan to get organized, all of that stuff, is gonna actually help you go so much more quickly. And you won't have to hold so much in your head. So the stress will be less and you'll do better, right? Um, and you know, the this is what AI is for, honestly. Like you can just, I don't know, word vomit into Claude and be like, okay, I'm applying to all of these schools. I know I have to think about all of these things. Can you create for me an organization tool and a timeline plan for doing this? And it's not gonna be perfect, and you know, Claude doesn't know your procrastination habits. So, like, you know, the deadlines that it sets up for you might not be accurate or or might not be realistic, but like that's a that's a thing that can help you support you in that planning and organization process. And I think it's a perfect use of AI, right? Not don't use it on your essays, use it to get set up to write your essays, right?