Ep.1/ Admissions
the admissions process can be complicated, in this episode we break down what to focus on, what is most important, and how to find the right people to help.
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It can be a confusing and terrifying process to apply to colleges, and this podcast is designed to help parents and prospective students work through it together. Your host, Thomas, will go through a year of admissions, what parents and applicants need to know about, and what it takes to be successful in your educational journey.
Most of our friends and family who give us admissions advice have such a small sample set of experience, so a lot of misinformation gets around. Thomas aims to share his extensive knowledge of the process with more people who would otherwise be unaware.
This is an exciting time in your life and if you work hard, research, and prepare, you'll find the right school. Stay tuned to this podcast to dive deeper into each of these topics and learn to present yourself to schools in the best possible light.
Key Highlights
Thomas' background and path to Admittedly
Preparing yourself for the college application process
What you can expect to learn on this podcast
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Hello, and welcome to this inaugural episode of the admittedly podcast. My name is Thomas Caleel. And I can't wait to talk to you about admissions, admissions is perhaps one of the most confounding, confusing, terrifying processes on Earth.
It's been described as an enigma, wrapped in a riddle locked inside a box of mystery. And for the most part, that's true. I wish that I could tell you I have all the answers. I wish I could tell you that I've cracked the algorithm. But the reality is that this process is very unique. It's very individual, there is no right answer. Now, for some people, that's a terrifying thought. Please just tell me what to do, that's all they want. Just tell me what to do. And I can do it. For others. It's an incredible challenge. It's an exciting challenge, because it's their opportunity to really talk about themselves, show themselves really lay out what they've been able to accomplish over the past years of their life.
Now, I'm a parent. I'm an alumnus, and I'm a former admissions professional. And in general, my audience for this podcast is going to be parents, I'm going to talk to you because I know how involved you are in most aspects of your children's lives. And I'm going to focus really on the steps that we need to take together all of us to be successful in the admissions process. I would invite you to listen to these podcasts and learn and then invite your children to listen as well invite the applicants to listen as well, maybe that's together, maybe that's on their own. But really, all of us are going to take this journey together. And each of you is going to take something different from these individual episodes.
The way that we're going to structure the admittedly podcast is we're going to go through a year of admissions, we're going to talk about things at different points of the year that families need to think about that applicants need to prepare for, we're going to have guests on talking about test preparation, about accommodations, mental health, essay, writing, extracurricular activities, all of the things that go into a very successful educational career, and admissions process. My goal and one of the things that I love to do is help students really become the best version of themselves to really step into their potential in all the ways admissions is not just about excelling on one metric.
It's not about getting the best grades or being the best athlete or doing the most interesting extracurricular activities. It's really all of the things that make you your own whole person. Right, understanding what those are being comfortable with that crafting your story, and then finding the right school for you. And finally putting together a compelling application that really shows self awareness, introspection, and an ability to thrive in that schools particular atmosphere.
Now, let's talk about me, who am I? Why should you listen to me? I'm a parent and an alumnus. I graduated from the TAF school for high school, went on to the University of Pennsylvania, and received my bachelor's in international relations. From there, I went on to a career overseas, I lived and worked in Geneva, Switzerland, Moscow, Russia. And I've been, quite frankly, an entrepreneur. My whole life after Moscow went on to Denver. I'd started companies in the financial services, agriculture, health and wellness, skincare, beauty, spaces, sporting goods. And at a certain point, about seven years after I graduated, decided to step away and go back to school. I got my MBA from the Wharton School majoring in Finance in 2003. And moved out to Silicon Valley, took a run at venture capital learned about investing, building growing companies. And several years after graduation, I was approached by the Wharton School, asking me if I would come back and serve my alma mater as director of MBA admissions and financial aid now, admissions is something that has always been very near and dear to my heart at Taft and Penn. I had been involved as a tour guide, a student ambassador, a an alumni interviewer. It's something that always spoke to me and it was always fun meeting these bright these bright motivated young applicants and students and families. When I went to Wharton, I was a tour guide. And then my second year, I was one of about 50 second year students selected to be a member of the MBA Admissions Committee, we would do all of the on campus interviews, we did all the first reads of applications, we would write out the case sheets. And it was something that really taught me the nuts and bolts of admissions. And it was something that, for me was a very powerful and transformative experience.
When I left, two years later, I was asked to come back and run admissions. And it was something that for me, I'd always said, Oh, I'll get I'll do this when I retire. I'll do it later. And so in a way, it was calling my bluff. And after thinking very carefully about it, I realized that this was a once in a lifetime opportunity. And I jumped in with both feet, I had the privilege of working with an incredible team of amidst, admissions professionals, students, alumni, university, officials, professors, really just helping to craft the best possible class every year for the MBA program. The other thing that that experience did for me was it really helped me understand what I wanted to do with my life. And I realized that educating people helping people achieve their goals was my calling, and was something that I really enjoyed on a cellular cellular level. And it was something that when I left Wharton after three years, I wanted to continue.
And so I started a company global education opportunities and built that company into a global admissions consulting firm. We work with families from all over the world, many different backgrounds, many different countries. And we work with them on their admissions goals to every single level of school from grade school, high school, university, and graduate school. And it's been one of the most fulfilling things that I have ever done. Professionally, it's something exciting, we do a lot of pro bono work as well, with underserved groups and economically disadvantaged groups of students from the US and from all over the world. And watching them really step into their future and seeing how bright that future is, is so energizing to me.
So, that's my path to admittedly, but what, what are we doing here? Why am I doing this, I could very easily continue to run my company. Just sit back, enjoy that success and watch the students I work with thrive. But the problem is, is that to do admissions, advising, right, it really is an intense one on one process. This is not just about editing essays, and picking school lists, the way that I work with students is really almost life coaching. And in most cases, I work with the entire family. I'm helping the parents on their journey, I'm helping the students with their relationships with school, with their parents, with their extracurricular activities with their goals. And so it's something that I've found takes a tremendous amount of personal investment, time investment. And so it's very limiting, right, a counselor really should be working with maybe five to eight active students per year. Because it's a lot, it's a lot of deadline driven work. And you need to really dig in and help the students along the path in order to be successful. Is that always the case? No. But what I find is that a good partnership with a family yields tremendous results.
So as I'm looking at this, and as I'm realizing that a, my service is very time consuming, and limiting, and also very expensive. One of the things I wanted to do was share my knowledge with a much broader audience, really make it available to people who otherwise would not have the opportunity to work with me. And it's something I really, really, really love talking to groups of students about the admissions process, about what they need to be doing educating parents, educating families, and demystifying this process because most of what families think of when they think of admissions is either what the parents went through, right, and I'm guilty of this. I have children, I've helped them apply to schools, you know, and and my reference point is over 30 years old, at this point, and times have changed. Schools have changed the admissions process has evolved or they're listening to other parents, or students or peers, and there's so much misinformation, that gets disseminated, and it grows. And it festers and it accelerates. And I think in most cases, people really mean well in sharing information, but their dataset is extremely small
And so people will make judgments based on what's happened in their school, or what their neighbor did, or what their brother or sisters children did. And that's a very, very small sample set, especially when you're looking at large universities that might have anywhere from 4050 to 60,000 applications for maybe 1500 or 2000 seats, you can see that there's a tremendous winnowing process. And if you're only basing your actions on maybe the 10, or 20, or 30 students that you know, in your orbit, that's a very dangerous perspective. So what I hope to do here is, look at all the aspects of the admissions process. We're going to talk about school selection, we're going to talk about extracurricular activities, we're going to talk about developing your thesis. Who are you? How do you present yourself, we're going to talk about what happens when things don't go according to plan. We're going to talk about what you should be doing after school. During the summers, we're gonna talk about all of these things so that we can help you step into your truth, for lack of a better term, we're really going to help you present yourself in the best possible light for you. Because it's very important to remember that when schools are evaluating you, they have their own perspective, they have their own criteria. And so as we are constructing an application, we need to make sure we're looking at that application, not from our point of view, right, not from our perspective, but rather from what the school is looking for. What is their perspective? Now, what schools look for, both stays constant and changes year to year, and we'll talk about that a little bit more in another episode, but really, the important thing is you're not trying to guess what the school wants. You're asking yourself, when the school looks at me, what does it see? Compounding this problem is the fact that most schools only give you 250 or 500 words, to articulate yourself. And as Mark Twain once said, I would have written you a shorter letter, but I didn't have the time. These applications are difficult, right? These applications challenge you. And the best part of that is that we hope during the process, that you learn something about yourself, because this is not a race about who's the best. This is not about you pounding your chest and waving your arms and saying, Look at me, look at me. I'm so great. Aren't I great? Right, that's a big misperception. This process is about you really laying out. This is what I've done to date. This is what matters to me. This is why I've done the things I've done. This is what I think I want to accomplish. And this is why your school is the best place to help me achieve that. Will you always be successful? No. And sometimes you will think that a school is perfect for you, and they will think otherwise. And that's sometimes very difficult to process. But I think if you do your research, if you do your work, if you're realistic about your expectations, you will find that you can have a tremendous outcome and an outcome. Sometimes it will surprise you how well a school fits you. So what do I promise, I promise that we are going to work very hard together, that I'm going to challenge you that I'm going to push you we are going to invite some of our listeners on to share their statistics to share their background to share their essays. We're going to work with them in real time in the hopes that you can learn from them and learn from our discussions. We are going to take a very holistic approach to this. We are not going to focus on just the outcome we are going to look at how we build ourselves as people as humans and how we get there. Most important thing again, there is no one path. There is no right answer. Everybody is coming with a different set of advantages, challenges, opportunities. And our goal is to really give you an understanding of why that diversity is important, how we highlight it, and then how we make that relevant to the school so that the school can read this application. And your your admissions officer feels like they have to advocate for you in committee because you are truly unique, you have gotten their attention, and you will add something meaningful, interesting and unique to the university. So having said that, let's get started. I really, really look forward to working with you over the coming months and weeks. I really, really look forward to working with you in the weeks, months and years ahead. Thank you
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