S3E2: How to Prepare for College Admissions During Junior Year of High School
Today's question of the week- "How do I prepare for college applications during Junior year?"
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Today's question of the week- "How do I prepare for college applications during Junior year?"
In today's episode, Thomas encourages Juniors to take proactive steps, engage with counselors and recommenders, strategically plan their courses, and use the summer to pursue meaningful experiences. By approaching the process with intentionality and reflection, juniors can set themselves up for success in their college journey.
Have your own question you want answered? Leave us a comment on social media @admittedlypodcast for a chance to get featured.
About Thomas
Thomas is a parent and alumnus of the University of Pennsylvania. After earning his MBA at the Wharton School in 2003, he moved to Silicon Valley. For three years, he was director of admissions and financial aid at Wharton School. He worked closely with admissions professionals, students, alumni, and professors to create the best possible MBA class.
Thomas has been an entrepreneur his entire life in the fields of finance, agriculture, wellness, and sporting goods. As the founder of Global Education Opportunities, he works with diverse and underserved communities to help them become successful college students. Thomas started the podcast Admittedly because he is passionate about demystifying the application process for parents and applicants.
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Welcome to the admittedly podcast. I'm your host, Thomas Caleel. Welcome to the second episode of our third season. Today we're going to be talking to juniors. IV Day is coming up, seniors are looking a little bit frantic and juniors, you are just starting the college process. Many of you have heard from your college advisors as they transition from the senior class to you. Maybe your parents have met with them, maybe you've met with them, maybe you've been given a worksheet to fill out. And these are all very important steps in the beginning of, kind of this culmination of your high school journey. We're going to talk today about what you should be doing, what you should be thinking about as we head into the summer, and then really, kind of digging in on next fall. I know that seems like a lot. I know you have your hands full right now, many of you are finalizing your course list for next year. So let's kind of back up for a minute and talk about the college counselors; really depends on your school. Some schools will have a very high ratio of counselors to students, others will have a low ratio of counselors to students. Some of them may have been there for many years, some counselors may be brand new. I think it's very important to remember that this process is heavily dependent on you. You need to take ownership of this process. So don't get too caught up in who your counselor is. Did you get a good counselor? Did you get a not-good counselor? I think anybody who works in college counseling cares about what they do, and you want to use them as a resource. They are going to write a recommendation for you, a student evaluation as part of your application, so we want to get ahead of that. We definitely do not want an antagonistic relationship with the counselors; we really want to approach this with open hearts and open minds. Now, some of you may be sent a worksheet. Parents often get a worksheet; students often get a worksheet and it's really the college counselor trying to get to know you. Even if you've had this person, as a teacher, for example, or a coach, they really want to know kind of on all the levels, right? Because they may know you just in one particular context. Maybe they are the faculty advisor to a club that you're leading. Maybe they were your English teacher, maybe they were your coach, but they don't know you in all the levels. And so because they have to write this counselor analysis and recommendation for the Common Application, it's very, very important that you provide them with everything that they need, and you do it in a timely manner and you really kind of go above and beyond. So don't just sit down and dash this off the night before it's due, take your time. What you will find in this process is that you don't remember off the top of your head, everything that you've done and accomplished, right? Nobody does. That's the way memory works. We don't have everything immediately accessible, our brain puts things off to the side, if it deems it not critical for what we're doing at the moment. And so I'd like you to start off by reading through those worksheets, right. And if your counselor didn't give you one, I would suggest going on Google, finding one as a template that you can fill out and give to them because they most likely will appreciate that. But start to think about the entirety of your high school career, right? What classes have you taken? What classes have you enjoyed? What do you think you might want to study at college? What clubs, activities, sports have you been involved in? For how long? What was your role? What was your responsibility? Do you have leadership potential for that, you know, are you potentially going to be president or vice president or Treasury/treasurer or secretary or whatever it is, of a particular club, captain of a team; and start to write that down and kind of go back to it. Ask your parents, "Hey, Mom, Hey, Dad, you know, may whoever, you know, help me, what am I missing from this list?" Right? And usually between a couple of people (you, your friends, parents, siblings), you really can kind of get that full picture of all the things that you've done and all that you've accomplished the last few years. For parents, this is a good time to be reflective and honest with how you see your student right? No student is perfect. Don't try and sell a "ra-ra" version of your child to the counselor. Because you know, we do need to think about areas of improvement, strengths, weaknesses, things like that. Any university, any college reading a file that is just glowing on all levels, that's very, very, very rare and it does raise some red flags. So talk about your child, we hope in a loving way, in a caring way but also in as honest a way as you possibly can be as it relates to the college process. Something else that a lot of juniors are now starting to do is formulate their classes for next year and I think it's very important. Next year, we really want to step up the academic rigor. We really kind of want to dial in now on those classes that we think, you know, tie to our intended major in college, right? So if you have an extra elective, you want to be a history major, or pre law in college, if you can layer in an extra honors history seminar, or an independent study in history, do that. Or in art, if you're going to be a fine arts major, right? We really want to start to show depth of intellectual curiosity. This is not necessarily a race to take as many APs as you can. Although if your school offers APs, certainly that is something that universities are going to look and see whether you took advantage of that or not. If your school does not offer APs, that is, it's a fact of life, it's fine, they're going to know that. Colleges will know that, you can address that in the application. But really, you want to look at rigor, you want to look at building this academic arc that you can talk about in the application. So you can say, look, here's my interest, here's how I've demonstrated it outside the classroom, here are the classes that I've taken, that really helped me demonstrate it inside the classroom. So that is going to be a very important part of what you're doing. A small side note, for those of you heading into IB, technically not juniors, you have some very important decisions to make as well. Why? Because you're setting the courses you're going to take for the next two years and what you take HL, what you take SL really, really impacts your ability to kind of go after a particular major when you're applying to universities. So if you want to be, for example, a computer science major, then you better be taking quantitative courses, right? High level maths, high level physics, high level computer science or economics or things that show your, demonstrate your quantitative abilities, right? You really want to step up and demonstrate within the curriculum. Okay, "I've studied this for two years at a high level, because it's really where my passion is." All too often we see students, unfortunately, who kind of miss balanced their IB curriculum, and then they're stuck for two years and then we really have to kind of do some gymnastics to tell a story, right? And get them to where they want to be. So you do want to challenge yourself. Yes, you know, the question I always get, and this applies to IB, it applies to AP, it applies anything, "should I take a harder class and get a B, or take the you know, should I take the honors class or the HL class and get a B, or take the standard level or regular class and get an A?" and I always disappoint a lot of people and upset them because I say you should take the high level or honors or AP class and get an A do what you need to do. Get the tutoring, go to Khan Academy, talk to your teachers. Do the extra work, form a study group, reach out to other students. It's imperative that you show that you are working as hard as possible. Now, if you get a B, is it the end of your academic career and college hopes and dreams? Absolutely not. For example, you might get a B in AP Physics, and actually have your AP Physics teacher write a recommendation that said, “Listen, Susan here is one of the hardest working students I've ever seen. She really got tripped up on this one module, and it dragged her grade down. But I think she's just exceptional. She holds exceptional promise and I've no doubt that in the second half of this course, she's going to come back strong within an A". Right? That's a very effective and meaningful narrative around that physics grade, right? But in general, do the work dig in, you're in for, you know, a painful couple months ahead of you. I won't sugarcoat it. But all of this is leading to our college journey. Some of you with your college counselors at the school may also be asked for initial school lists. We want to be respectful of your school's timeline and deadlines, but also don't get rushed into things. Okay, and also don't get caught in what I call "the Naviance trap". And "the Naviance trap" is where you're sitting there looking at, you know, other students and what their stats are and how they did. If you've been listening to the podcast, you know that there are so many data points and so many considerations that schools have. So yes, if you're a solid B student from a upper-middle class background, not a lot of activities or sports, you just kind of coasted through high school. You're probably not going to Yale, right? I can find an exception for every rule. But just in general, let's be realistic. But let's also be thorough in our diligence. Let's really go out there. Now's the time to start being honest with yourself, if you haven't already. What do I like to study? What kind of environment do I want to study in?Large school, small school, urban rural. I know a lot of you are using your spring break to go out and look at schools. I think that's great if you have the ability to do that. I have talked about in the past, let's say that your parents might not be able to get time off of work, you might not be financially in a position to fly around the country and look at schools. Try then, to identify schools close to you, if possible, right? And that are analogous to schools that you want to go see, and go visit them, right? "I'm thinking about a state school". Great, go drive to the nearest campus of your State School State University. Get a feel for what it's like. Is it going to be exactly like the school that you want to apply to? Maybe not, but it will give you a sense of do I like a big school? Do I like this much activity going on? You know, if there is a private liberal arts school near you, go look at that. If there is a religious based college or university, go look at that, if that's of interest to you. So I think it's very important to do what you can; really start to go online. And I get it. I know, once you go online, a lot of these schools, they use the same words, they look very much the same, quite frankly. Start to go in and pull that apart. Look at the major you want to major in, okay. What professors do they have? What are their backgrounds? What are their areas of focus, of interest? What are they publishing? Are they just teaching? You know, how deep is that? Are there conferences that they're affiliated with? Does the school host conferences? You know, so, really get a sense of like, "what would my academic journey be like there?" Then look at things like, are you interested in sports? Are you interested in Greek life? What is the social life like, right? Are you a social, active person that likes parties? Are you somebody who does not like parties? And so then what does that look like for you? Right? What is the living situation? Where do students live? How do they live? What is dorm life like? Start to pull that apart. Start to, whatever you want to do: take notes, build a spreadsheet, all of these things, because the schools will start to blur into one another and it's very important for you to keep your thoughts as clear as possible so that as you're building these lists, you have something to refer back to. One thing that you will find a lot of times, I hear this from a lot of families, is that the school counselors will definitely sandbag your college list, right? They want you invested in a list that is attainable, right? Maybe one or two reaches, but then when you don't get into those, you get something on the list. And they can say, look, see you got into the schools on the list. Now. I don't blame them at all. But I think it's important for you to balance, kind of realism with aspiration and curate a list. That gives you an opportunity to stretch, but also has some more realistic options as well. But don't just consign yourself to schools that you have a high chance of getting into, right, because I think that that leads to a sense of disappointment. Ultimately, you know, so as you're building that list, be thoughtful. Be thoughtful about where you want to go to school, right? Now, obviously, a lot of people are going to have input on that list, a lot of people are going to have opinions. But at the end of the day, and I've talked about this before, you are the one who is spending four years at that school and don't feel rushed or pressured to come up with that list. I know the schools will push, push, push, but try to step back, try to be thoughtful, try to be strategic in how you are building that list. For juniors, a lot of times also, your counselors may say to you, okay, I need you to go talk to your teachers that you think you want to get recommendations for. Alright, give them a heads up. I think it's very good to start thinking about academic recommendations right now. It's proactive, it allows you to go out and speak with those teachers and get a sense of what they're looking for. Some of them may have their own intake sheets, where they talk, ask you about the class, ask you about why you particularly want them to write the recommendation, what you liked most about the class, what you liked least about the class. It's very important to slow down and take the time to do these right. They're asking those questions for a reason. It's because they want to help you; they want to invest their time and effort and energy into helping you. And so give them everything that they need, right? If you can schedule a meeting with them, sit them down, talk about what you want to do, why you want to do this for them. And even if you know them very well, take the time invest the time into really being thoughtful in your responses, if they don't have a worksheet for you, again, go download one, and put it together, I think it shows just that you're proactive that you care about them, and that you want to make their job easier. I would also point out, I've said this repeatedly, this is not a knock on your school college counselors, but look, they work for your school. They do not work for you; their job, their goal is to make the school look good, and to preserve positive relationships with the colleges and universities. So you have to always keep that in mind. You have to advocate for yourself. You have to look ahead and see where they are helping you, where they are maybe not helping you as much as you want them to. This becomes particularly important as you're building your kind of "reach" school list for early action, early decision. If they're just pushing back and saying, "Listen, no, no, no, no, you can't apply to that school, you can't apply to school", ask questions around that, right? Try and figure out what's going on. Is it that they have other students in the class that are kind of ahead of you, for whatever reason, in that stack? These are very, very important because you're going to lose a head to head fight with your high school, generally. But if you can, you know, try to understand the underlying causes of that resistance, then there definitely are meaningful opportunities there for you to expand your list a little bit. We also need to talk about Junior summer, we're going to talk about this more. But really what we want to think about right now is "How does what I do this summer impact what I'm talking about in my application, this fall. And that's very, very, very important, right? If you are talking about your passion for something, your love for something, this summer is really your chance to dig in and do it to the best of your ability. Now, some of you might be saying, "Oh, that's great and that's super privileged, because guess what, Thomas, I need to work over the summer". Good for you. That's fantastic and you know what, absolutely great to write about in the application, as we've discussed. If possible, try to get a job that is at least tangentially related to what you want to study. Okay? If you can't, that's fine. If it's really a question of "I need to make money so I can afford my car or afford my tuition, or contribute to the family", that's absolutely fine and I would encourage you to do that. Or if you have to take care of a family member, or if both of your parents or your one parent works, and you need to be responsible for your siblings. Absolutely fine, right. All of these things are valid things to do over the summer. But if you have a choice in the matter, really. And I go back to for example, I had a student from Florida, she was very interested in fashion; wanted to apply to the Wharton School for fashion. And, you know, she was very upset because she had been working retail for the last few years because she said, "Look, you know, I need to make money. I need to contribute to the household. It's just my dad and I and, you know, I need to do this. I haven't been able to have fancy internships at magazines and unpaid internships at designers. I don't have those kinds of relationships. And I said, "Okay, great, but you're working retail and fashion, right?" Yes. Okay. Well, you're determining the merchandise mix. You're dealing with customers, you're dealing with vendors, managing inventory. And as we kind of sat there and looked at it, she was like, "Oh, you're right." Now, she could have worked anyplace, right? But she loved fashion. She worked in fashion, she ended up being successful in her application and just absolutely crushed her experience at Wharton, was just dynamite there. So if you can try to work in an area if you have to work that's related to what you want to do so that we have a nice continuing story. I'm going to continue to dig in and tell you not to spend 10s of 1000s of dollars on summer academic programs. I don't like them. I don't find them meaningful. Colleges don't find them particularly meaningful. I know there will be a chorus of people telling me I don't know what I'm talking about. But the reality is that they are, you know, economically segregated. Yes, they offer a few scholarships here and there. But the reality is that if you have the financial ability, you're at a great advantage to go and it doesn't show a whole lot of uniqueness. Those schools are cranking out, you know, class after class, summer after summer. There are a few like SETI and some, like super highly selective programs that are top of their field (MIT has a few) that certainly are meaningful. But just your general run of the mill writing workshop at UCLA, or, you know, even something like the Stanford Summer Institute. They're great. Certainly being selected is very prestigious, and you meet really interesting people there. But for your junior summer, that's not the way that I'd recommend spending this last summer. I really recommend you dig in and do something meaningful, and find a way to really kind of demonstrate your interest in something. In terms of the summer, we'll talk about this more, do not get ahead of yourself on the essays, okay? Until the common application opens on August 1, you don't know what it's going to look like. You can, you know, you can go on the websites, and some schools will release their application essays in advance, in which case you can kind of start thinking about that. But really, we want to integrate your summer activities and learning into your essays. So you know, every year I get students who’ve told me, "Oh, I'm done with my essays in June or July." They're not usually very successful in the process, right? Because they're not able to reflect on what they're doing that summer. I've had students that are so proud of themselves that they wrote all their essays by July, the Common Application drops August 1. They go in and they realize that the schools have changed all their supplement essays and they now have to redo everything and that's a terrible feeling. It's not a good place to be. So let's focus on first-steps. First, let's get in good with our college counselor at our school. Let's make sure they have all the information they need to do their job and be effective when they are writing their evaluations for you. Let's start thinking about and or reaching out to our faculty recommenders. You can also start thinking about additional recommenders you might want to reach out to: coaches, clergy, bosses, things like that. And let's be sure that we have a clear academic plan and course schedule for the next year. There's a lot coming at you. We've got a lot to do over the next few months. I look forward to working with you. Encourage you to ask questions. Interact with us on Instagram, Tik Tok, the admittedly podcast and really look forward to taking this journey with you. Thank you.
