This is Episode #44 and you’ll hear us talk about helping students develop Executive Functioning skills in today’s technology & social media world with author and academic advisor Ana Homayoun. Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and your other favorite podcast spots – follow and leave a 5-star review if you’re enjoying the show!

• Episode Summary & Player
• Show Notes
• Learn more about the College Bound Mentor podcast
• Transcript

College Bound Mentor Podcast Episode #44: Getting In Is Not Enough: Skills That Matter with Ana Homayoun

What makes the difference between students who struggle and those who find success in school & life? There are many essential skills that go into it. In this episode, we welcome on Ana Homayoun, a noted author, academic advisor, and early career development strategist whose work focuses on helping students develop Executive Functioning skills in today’s technology & social media world. Her new book is Getting In Is Not Enough: The New Blueprint for Success Beyond Grades, Test Scores, and College Admission. Hear why adaptability is so crucial for students, how to know when to step in and help as a parent, the core skills students need to succeed in school & life, how to help your student break down that panic state, and the systems students & parents can start trying out right away. Here’s a small sample of what you’ll hear in this episode:

• What Executive Functioning actually is
• Why straight-A rule-followers sometimes struggle most in the workforce
• How to identify what pulls a student down the rabbit hole
• How executive function skills support friendship and belonging
• What to say when students or parents push back on building systems

Connect with Ana at AnaHomayoun.com, GreenIvyEd.com, her new book, and on LinkedIn, and Subscribe to College Bound Mentor on your favorite podcast platform and learn more at CollegeBoundMentor.com.

Check out the episode and show notes below for much more detail.

Show Notes

• Getting In Is Not Enough: Skills That Matter with Ana Homayoun
  • [00:19] Welcome to the College Bound Mentor
  • [00:49] Anna‘s background and what drove her to write Getting In Is Not Enough
  • [02:15] The Instagram acceptance video culture vs. the students who don’t get in
  • [03:11] What Ana learned from tracking students 15 years later
  • [04:04] What Executive Functioning actually is
  • [05:27] Why habits matter more than grades and what’s changed since 2001
  • [07:14] How Anna bridged Executive Functioning work with college advising
  • [09:05] Breaking down the five focus areas with real application examples
  • [10:26] Why straight-A rule-followers sometimes struggle most in the workforce
  • [12:46] Parent modeling and how adult reactions shape student resilience
  • [15:30] How parents can ask questions without taking over
  • [17:21] Why stress impacts Executive Function development and why boys lag behind
  • [19:19] The danger of transactional thinking: doing things to get somewhere vs. genuine curiosity
  • [20:44] What people who love their careers have in common
  • [23:00] How to identify what pulls a student down the rabbit hole
  • [25:47] Fnding wins outside the classroom
  • [28:38] Why transferable skills matter more in a changing workforce than pure academic achievement
  • [31:21] How to break a panic state: name it to tame it, redirect, co-regulate
  • [33:36] Lauren’s story: breaking down nine applications into manageable priority buckets
  • [37:31] Andrew’s story: routines built in high school that still work 15 years later
  • [40:15] Finding the system that actually works for each student
  • [42:38] A simple weekly system to start with: organize, plan, manage distractions
  • [45:28] What to say when students or parents push back on building systems
  • [47:43] One thing parents can do tomorrow: create a weekly regroup time
  • [48:37] One thing students can try this week: clean out the backpack + protect rest time
  • [50:29] Executive Functioning isn’t just an ADHD issue
  • [51:52] How Executive Function skills support friendship and belonging
  • [54:15] Connect with Ana at AnaHomayoun.com, GreenIvyEd.com, her new book, and on LinkedIn
  • Theme Song: “Happy Optimistic Americana” by BDKSonic

What is the College Bound Mentor podcast?

Lisa, Abby, and Stefanie know college. They also know students. With over 30 years combined experience mentoring young people, they’ll show you why understanding yourself is the key to finding the right college. Each episode, hear trends, case studies, and interviews with students who have gone through it all – giving you valuable insight to survive the college application process and beyond. Hosted by Lisa Bleich, Abby Power, and Stefanie Forman, Partners of College Bound Mentor.

Transcript

Please note: this transcript is not 100% accurate.

00:01
The people that loved their jobs the most, hands down, it started out as something they liked to do in middle school and high school.

00:19
Hey, CBMers, welcome back to College Bound Mentor, where we help you survive the college application process and beyond. We’re your co-hosts, Lisa. And Stephanie. And on today’s episode, we are very excited to chat with Ana Homayoun. Ana is a noted author, academic advisor, and early career development strategist. Her work focuses on helping students develop executive functioning skills in today’s technology and social media world, and on helping workplaces support staff members for retention and growth. Her latest book,

00:48
Getting in is not enough. The new blueprint for success beyond grades, test scores, and college admission offers a timely and essential framework for parents, educators, and students navigating this critical moment. So are you trying to tell us that all of our seniors who just committed on May 1st, it’s not enough. They have to do more? Well, thanks so much for having me. And the whole goal of the book and the approach is actually to be confidence building, not fear inducing.

01:16
But what we found was that a lot of people are so focused on this acceptance, even from like younger and younger ages, that the idea of what are the skills that students need once they get into college almost seems irrelevant. And so many times I hear parents say, but they got into college, so they’re clearly ready. And we work with students that that is not always the case. And so I really wanna help parents and also help students reshift the framework around how we talk about this.

01:46
Right. And you open your book, like scrolling through Instagram videos and watching those college reaction videos, which we’ve all seen and they are very exciting to watch. But what was the moment that you realized that something was off, like this needs to be a book? Right. Well, there are two things. One was with those Instagram videos where I’m scrolling through, I see all these different acceptance videos. But I also know that there are students like Lauren at the beginning of my book who was not getting an acceptance, was deferred.

02:15
and was really upset about it. And so it’s one thing to experience rejection, which is a normal part of life or a deferral or disappointment, right? That’s normal, but it’s another to now have it sort of shove down your face 47 different ways all the time. So that was the first thing. And honestly, I said in the book, I felt like I was being trolled because my own friends were posting them of their kids and I was excited for their kids. But I also was like, I work with teenagers, so I see a different picture.

02:44
But the second thing, I think is really important is that one of the young men in the book, Henry, who was in my first book, That Crumpled Paper, was due last week. Henry’s mom had emailed me and said, know, Henry’s now like, was 27, 28 at the time. He’s thriving in his career. And he says it’s all based on things he learned in your office. And I thought it was really interesting because Henry, when he came into my office, I talk about in That Crumpled Paper was due last week.

03:11
was really a struggling student in a lot of different ways and also didn’t have confidence in his abilities. So the whole point of getting in is not enough is to go back. I interviewed my students from 15 years ago to hear their stories. What were those key skills? And then, know, mix that in with the research and what we see and then what my own experiences over 25 years of working with teenagers. Right. And I love the line in your book where you say, focus on the habits, not the grades or the scores.

03:40
And I think that’s so important because if you can build good habits early on, then the rest will follow. And so how does that change the narrative? And can you just walk us through for our listeners what executive functioning actually is and why it matters so much more than people realize? Yeah. Well, for the first part, executive functioning are those key skills that help us. And I talk about in the book.

04:04
Organize, plan, prioritize, start and complete tasks and be adaptable when things don’t go as planned. There’s a lot of different like workings within that, but that’s the framework I use in the book because from an academic standpoint, it’s the best way to think of that as a parent who has an academic student. But the other piece to think about, and this is how I work with students, is that if we can focus on the habits rather than the grades, I feel like the grades are lagging indicators, but the habits are things we can control every day.

04:34
Our routines are things that we have autonomy around. So my whole goal in my work is to help build intrinsic motivation. So the research around intrinsic motivation, we know that when you have a sense of control or autonomy, it helps build that. Well, when you can focus on the habits that you have control of, that helps. And it helps to build your sense of competence. Well, you might not be able to control the fact that the test average was a 54 or that everyone got

05:02
You know, the highest grade was a B in a class, but you can control how you slept, how you studied, how you reviewed material, um what you did day in and day out. And then finally, that also, we hope, builds a sense of belonging because when you are feeling that you have control and you’re competent to make good choices, then it builds a sense of relatedness within your school and greater community. So the reason that I focus on…

05:27
these underlying skills is that from the very beginning, I have seen it make a remarkable difference. So when I first started working with students in 2001, there was no Gmail, there was no Instagram, there were no, these things. All these distractions that get in the way. True, and my students who had dyslexia would drive to get cassette tapes from the reading center for the blind and dyslexic. So this whole…

05:55
scenario has changed over the last 20 years, but what’s remained the same is that I saw that students who had daily habits and routines that enabled them to manage distractions, to get started on work, to complete tasks, were able to do far better in school than the kids that, you know, their parents would call me and say, he’s so smart, you know, he’s so intelligent. get his work done, right? He just, yeah, he just doesn’t try, right, right.

06:20
And I saw for those kids though, it really reduced their confidence when they weren’t seeing the outcomes. And then that translated into not taking the next class that they might’ve been intellectually qualified for. So it’s a whole conversation about how do we help students become the best versions of themselves in a way that builds their confidence and reduces the anxiety and fear. No, I think that’s so true. And I’m also just wondering, like, how did you get into this work? Cause you said you started in 2000 and once at 25 years ago.

06:50
And were you originally helping people with executive function skills and then you led into helping them get into college or were you helping them get into college and realize that there was a gap in executive function skills that was preventing them from finishing through those tasks? Yeah. So from the very beginning, I started with executive functioning skills, but my own college, the director of college advising at my own high school.

07:14
the one who encouraged me to really go back and get my master’s in counseling and become a college advisor, which I did pretty early on because I was helping students navigate school and then they would get to this college application process. And there’s a lot of pieces that involve, you know, all of the executive functions we talk about, working memory, you know, inhibitory control, emotional regulation.

07:39
all the things that you all know, because you work with students every day, that if you don’t have them, it’s going to be very hard to apply to college, much less, you know, see the results that you might want or find the right school for you. So very early on, I started working with students on executive functioning skills because I saw this gap. I was working with students that had significant learning differences that were doing really well in school because they had habits and routines. And then I was working with students who their grades really didn’t reflect their abilities.

08:09
And I saw this gap. so that’s, I developed my own curriculum around this um and we’ve refined it and we bring this work through our nonprofit into schools. So this has been my life’s work and the applying to college, feel like is a very key time in a student’s journey, as you know, and it’s a great time to hone in, develop and uh highlight those executive functioning skills. Right. And they come out if they’re not there.

08:38
they definitely come out when they’re not there, because we see them. I’m sure we could go back and forth so many stories. Yes, we could. Yes, we could. I just, mentioned uh a little while ago the five focus points, and you do such a great job of honing that in, right? To organizing, planning, prioritizing, starting and completing tasks, and adaptable thinking. And can you just review that for our listeners and maybe an example of how that

09:05
could apply to a student going through a process or going through the college application process? Sure. So organizing is all about being able to figure out all the pieces that you need and create a system for them. And we can see, we all have seen that child with color coded binders and all the things, but then might struggle with prioritizing, right? They might not realize what’s urgent versus important. And then they become overwhelmed and then just step back.

09:34
and just like not start anything. So that’s the organizing and then the prioritizing. And when it comes to college applications, we know all the time the student who’s like doing all the little things like filling out the common app or doing the activities, but you’re like, that personal statement, where is that? We’re working on it. We’re working on it. And we’re like in October. And then starting and completing tasks is really about, sometimes I see students who really

10:03
struggle to get started. So they might need a body double. They might need a designated time. They might need structured support. But once they get started, they can finish pretty easily. And then we see students who, once they get started, they then like, you know, go here or they’re cleaning out their closet. And then they, you know, those are people who should probably not do work in their room. It’s most of us, right? Our rooms are very distracting.

10:26
And then we talked about this adaptable thinking. Now this is really interesting for me as a researcher and also someone who works with early career development because one of the things I found was students who are hyper organized and even could prioritize and get things done. If they were not adaptable, once they joined the workforce, it was very hard. So they were straight A students in high school.

10:52
they followed all the rules because it gave them a structured system. But if they went into an office setting where the boss was like, hey, you know what, this project, we’re going to pivot on this. you know, I know I said that that was due two weeks from now, but actually we have a change. They fall apart in a lot of ways. And I saw how that was a really direct correlation with this idea of getting in is not enough, that when kids can be adaptable and adaptability can also be around how do you navigate disappointment?

11:22
Maybe you got deferred, maybe your first choice or what you thought was your first choice isn’t what happens. What I found, and I’m curious for your experience, a lot of times I find that kids are more adaptable sometimes than their parents or the adults in room. I that’s true. okay, they didn’t let me in, I’m cool. Like, we’re gonna follow, I got other choices. And then the parent is the person I really need to sit with and help them process that the vision has changed.

11:50
Right. Like what happened? What went wrong? Why, you what did we, what did, you know, what could we have done differently? And, and you’re right. And then the kid is like, yeah, I’m happy with it. And it’s so interesting if you talk about the adaptability, because when you see a student like, you know, this year, I was thinking about certain students that, didn’t get into their early decision choice, but then they had a lot of different options, you know, and they were very open and flexible to where it going to be the best fit.

12:17
and how they were going to find their way. And they didn’t ever take it personally, they just kind of moved forward and they were open and excited about the opportunities. And then there were other kids that got very fixated if they didn’t get into where they wanted and they took it very personally and they weren’t as open. And finally they got open to it once they went back and visited the schools. But it was a very interesting that adaptability I think is a really good point. Yeah, and I think that parent modeling here is really helpful.

12:46
And parents, know, I’m really empathetic because I think so much of parents’ own stuff comes up in middle school and high school and definitely through the college application process. And so many parents have been so open with me and generous with how they are feeling. And it is this moment where you sort of have to catch yourself because how you model disappointment or moving on from disappointment. And I use the example of my own parents really well. Like what I talk about in the book is that I got rejected early decision in my senior year.

13:16
And I was really bummed and I was really upset with my parents because it was like, I followed all the rules. I got all the grades. I did all the activities. I did everything everyone said. And my mom gave me really a day to like mope and pout and do all the things. And I also did what I tell kids never to do, which is like, I’m going to wait to see where I get an early decision. And then I’m going to do the rest of my applications. Don’t ever do that, children. I don’t let anyone do that. But so here we are December 22nd. I have eight applications to finish and we have to postmark them, right?

13:45
So my mom gives me about a day to mope and then she says, pull it together. She was like, this is not the end. Like, my mom is like the immigrant resourcefulness. Like get it together, get it together. I’ll give you 24 hours to 48 hours to mope, but then we got to get this party started. And, you know, and I say this, like I in January had this interview that went so well for my, the college that I ultimately went to that I,

14:12
really knew it was the place for me. was like, I came home from it and I was just like, and it all worked out and it wouldn’t have worked out and that wouldn’t have, you know, like adaptability, like you get to be disappointed. So I’m not telling people not to process disappointment or, just experience it because that’s a normal part of getting through something. And one of the things I talk about is how much time and energy does it take you to get to the other side? Like, you know, every minor major, it was like, so life altering, it’s gonna be really exhausting. So

14:41
How do we process disappointment in a healthy way? One of my favorite lines I heard Oprah say was, feel the feels and then take the wheel. Yeah. Oh, I love that. That’s so true. I say that all the time. Like, feel the feels and then take the wheel. Like, kind of move on. I feel like that’s so true for a college application. And all of this time in high school anyways. Yeah. So going back, yeah. Oh, we could talk about Oprah lines for a bit.

15:07
So some kids, right, they naturally figure out how to organize and plan, but they just can’t prioritize. I have a lot of empathy with them on that. So how do you know, or how does the parent know, you know, we need to step in, I need to help my student figure this out or help my child figure this out? Well, a couple things to think about. I am a big.

15:30
believer of doing things in parallel, not for them. And I think this comes out for a lot of parents where they don’t know how to do things in parallel. And it’s all about asking open-ended questions without judgment, first of all, so that you’re not saying, I think you should do this first. So it’s more like walk me through what you’ve got to do. What do you think is the priority? And then just be curious. And it’s really about talent. But the second part, and this is where all of our jobs come in, is that I always tell parents,

15:58
this might not be the role for you. Like college brings up a lot of emotions. And so prioritizing, you need, your job as a parent is to make sure that your child has a trusted adult that you trust. And that might not be you for this process. Because we don’t want in junior and senior and whatever years that every conversation turns into college. Like, or dead ends into college or the application or what are you doing?

16:25
And so the idea of prioritizing and when parents should step in is also knowing what are the appropriate resources for my child so that we maintain our relationship and that we, you know, they get where they want to go that’s appropriate for them. And so, you know, and I always say, you know, maybe it’s a family friend, maybe it’s somebody else taking the wheel for certain things, and maybe it’s working with an independent counselor. As long as you find the right set of resources so that your relationship is really

16:54
because these are the last two years that sometimes they’ll be at home for the most amount of time. That’s really helpful. And at the same point, I think we underestimate also post pandemic, also the students that I see right now, how stress really impacts the development of our executive functioning skills. And we know that boys are around two to three years behind girls in terms of brain development and our executive functions are impacted by that difference in brain development.

17:21
So sometimes we’ll say, you know, they’ve heard the messaging, you should just let your kid fail or figure it out. We wouldn’t do that. You know, we want to give them the right support and resources so that they have structured support. So I feel like identifying what resources are appropriate for your child and what’s working and what’s not is a question that you have to ask yourself. And there’s no one size fits all solution there. Yeah, I love that. I think that’s so important to hear for parents to have that awareness.

17:50
and to that reflection and to be honest with yourself, like, you know what, our relationship is first. And if this doesn’t work for that process, like outsource and that outsource doesn’t mean hiring someone that outsource can be that family friend that they trust or a friend that they trust or yeah, I love that. So thank you for saying that. It’s so important. watching friends and neighbors? Have you been watching that show on? No. I’m in the first season. Oh, okay. Well, in the second season, the daughter like,

18:19
spoiler alert, she gets into Princeton and that’s where both of parents go. You know, it’s John Ham and- Oh yeah, their visit to there. Yeah. Yeah. Amanda Pete plays the mom. I forget her name. Oh, okay. But then the daughter just, she’s a tennis player and she has this like crazy interview where you’re like, that would never happen. She basically tells off the interview guy, but she gets in and then she declines and Amanda Pete, the mom is like going absolutely bananas and insane. And she’s trying to use her contacts to get her back, you know, to like get her-

18:49
decline revoked. And so it’s this whole like battle. I’m going to have to watch that. So you all you talk a lot about learning the process of learning. So do you think we have lost that lesson along the way? Because I kind of think we have. So, you know, and how do we get back to that? I love that you say this because it is so something I worry about the transactional nature of how students go through school today.

19:19
And I worry about it for a number of reasons. One, my office is located in the heart of the Silicon Valley. I grew up here. It’s the weirdest place to be a kid. I say that all the time. And I grew up here, which is why my office is here, because I’m like, I feel a sense of obligation to these students, because I get it. But what’s happened is it’s like, OK, these are the things transactionally I need to do to get to this next place. And that includes like, this is not just academics. This is social. This is, what are you curious about?

19:48
And I go back all the time to what Lisa Belkin, who’s New York Times, longtime New York Times journalist. She used to write a lot about people’s careers. I interviewed, I met with her right after my first book came out. And I actually, I write about it in this book as well, because it stuck with me for so long, like 15 years. And she said, you the most interesting thing that I found in my research of women, careers, people in general in their careers,

20:15
is that the people that loved their jobs the most, hands down, it started out as something they liked to do in middle school and high school. And part of what is so important to me is that with executive functioning skills and teaching these skills is that we want kids to have more time to still be curious, to be learning, to not look at things so transactionally. And I am afraid that a lot of times that’s what happens. And then you have kids who come out of

20:43
school and join the workforce, young adults. And they’re like, wait a second, I did all this for this. Yeah, really like when’s my vacation, right? They’ve never connected what they like to do with that. There are many opportunities. And I don’t know if you’ve taken a look, but I highly recommend Jody Cantor’s new book, How to Start. It’s short. I think every high school student. Yeah, Just came out a couple of weeks ago. How to Start. Yeah. And it just came out. Oh my gosh, I have it here. Not that I’m

21:11
Dodie doesn’t know this, like I, so it’s like hundred pages. Okay. I read it in one sitting and she really talks about something that’s very core for me, which is you can do, there’s so many ways you can have a job. There’s so many ways you can work. I thought about this when I came out of college in 2001 and nine 11 happened. All my friends got laid off. I got like, everything happened at once. Right. But I knew I wanted to work with kids. That was my,

21:39
my craft and I found this need. And I think that what gets lost in this AI conversation or uncertainty about work today is that we’re losing that curiosity that leads to our pleasure, that leads to you can figure out your own path, your own blueprint, uh rather than borrowing someone else’s. And that’s the core of this work is that these four pillars that I talk about in the book, the key idea here is we can support kids in figuring out

22:09
what their path is. And when we do it that way, like we don’t know what the jobs that are going to exist in 10 to 15 years are going to be, but we do know those underlying skills that you’re going to need no matter what. And they keep, keep coming back and people say, you know, these are the AI proof, you know, skills you’re needing. And it’s really a lot of the stuff that I’ve been talking about. So back to your question, which is, think is an important one is have we lost this like love for learning and understanding for learning? I think in some ways, yes.

22:37
And then the other thing I’ll say though is no, because when have you ever worked with a teenager who wants to figure something out and will go on YouTube and will do all the things. So that gives me hope. I feel like we wanna encourage that and the resources that exist now and understand that it’s just changed and then get away from that transactional, like what do I need to do to get an A?

23:00
Right. And that’s hard to do, but it is true when you see the kids go down that rabbit hole of YouTube. And that’s always a great question when we say, where do you go down the rabbit hole? Exactly. What’s that that takes you down there? And then that’s when you really get at the intellectual curiosity. And it’s so interesting that you say about middle schools. I’ll tell a funny middle school story. was like I was in ninth grade because in California, ninth grade was still in. Oh, yeah. Yeah, Malibu Park Junior High. And I was in uh a chemistry course. I’m terrible at chemistry. Well, I don’t know if I’m

23:29
was terrible at chemistry, probably still am. And we had this final exam, which was called the sludge test. And basically you had to, and my best friend and I, who also is terrible at chemistry, we were partners, which was a disaster. And so we got this unidentifiable sludge and we had to do all these series of tests to figure out what it was. And so long story short, we got all the data.

23:57
But then we broke it. Like we took it back to my house. We like didn’t have time and we were using like a fondue pot as our bunsen burner. And then at one point I like broke it and then like we lose, we lost all of the stuff. So what, so what do we do? We called all of our friends, you know, cause we were very friendly and social. So we called all of our friends and we kind of interviewed them and we asked them, what’d find when you did this? And we knew a little bit enough just to kind of make it sound like we had done it as well.

24:24
And we gathered all of the information, we synthesized it all together, we wrote it up, and we got the best grade in the class. And so those are the core skills that I still use today, which is interviewing, talking to people, figuring out how to sort of synthesize that. And she’s a lawyer. And so we joke about that, that class, we didn’t learn anything about chemistry, but we learned those core skills. Core skills. And one of the things that come, a lot of times people don’t also realize what comes easy to them doesn’t come easy to everyone. I find this with a lot of my students.

24:51
I’ve been thinking a lot about one of the students in my, in the book who is, who is incredibly successful now, but was an incredibly challenged student in many ways. And, but he had the sales ability that like charismatic and you just, whatever he was selling, you would figure out how to buy. Literally he is the head of sales at some global organization now. And I, I sit back cause I got this LinkedIn update and I was like, yeah, that’d be that. didn’t want this kid to lose.

25:20
his confidence in high school because he was constantly getting told, no, you’re doing it wrong. So, but yes, when you were able to see those skills in yourself and to him it was like, oh, I do this easily. Like, I’m like, yeah, but that’s not easy for everyone. So that’s one of the good things about seeing what you’re good at. No, I think that’s very true. And in fact, in the example of Joseph, you described this gaining confidence outside of the classroom and that that could build skills that can be transferable later.

25:47
So I love the line when you say, acceptance builds confidence by allowing kids to develop a sense of competence. So can you talk a little bit about what you meant by that and how you thought about that and some examples about that? Yeah, so, well, Joseph was a student who struggled academically in school. He had a learning difference, but also like his executive functioning skills were, you know, there was a lot of room for growth. And that’s typical of a lot of students in high school who may struggle in school. But

26:16
If you gave him a task outside of the classroom, like if you had him try and entrepreneurially, his brain was working, like he’s got car wash business, he’s got his friends, he’s organizing the things, and he gets excited about it. And he’s one of those personalities that gets other people excited about everything. So you, that’s just a skill that not everybody has. And so one of the things I often say is so important for every child, but particularly those that may not be finding the wins in the classroom.

26:43
is that they find the wins outside of the classroom. So, so many times they’ll get a summer job that’s like working with the general public where they really thrive um or they’re getting something where they’re organizing an event and that’s a skill for them. And they just, you know, they’re a great MC or they’re a great person that, a host that puts people at ease. So it’s really up to parents to step back and our trusted adults in our network to say, you’re really good at this. Have you ever thought about this?

27:13
Because when I say that to kids all the time, sometimes they’ll say, I never really thought of that or gosh, that’s just like second nature. So the way that we can help students find wins outside the classroom really also, and that doesn’t even have to be outside the school community. So back to Henry, Henry who was diagnosed with ADHD. He still has his morning and evening routines. He’s now in his early thirties. You know, one of the things for him was that he was a drummer and the

27:42
school asked him to play the drums in front of the entire school, which is like 1500 people. And then he got known to be a drummer and like, you know, this whole other identity and persona that was outside of the classroom, but still in the school community really helped define his sense of self. So again, it’s all about us as trusted adults helping to suggest and encourage and navigate and say, I see this in you. And I think the key in that is also for parents to accept.

28:12
because if parents have a very, they see their kids in one way and then if they’re not fitting within that mold, it’s hard to sometimes not minimize, they can minimize those skills and not realize that they’re actually super important for them. Absolutely, and especially when we think of the working world and the working world changing so much, so many of the skills that we need to get straight A’s.

28:38
aren’t necessarily the exact same that what we need to navigate a workforce that’s changing with uncertainty. Now, I’m not saying that you don’t want both, but I’m also saying like, we wanna help students navigate a space that’s ever changing in a way that builds their confidence. Like, oh, I have transferable skills and I’m gonna build these things that I’m good at. I also wanna say one thing about what you said, which I think is really important about parents who really focus on one sense of success or one,

29:08
One of the things I talk about in the book, the third pillar is perspective and expanding our perspective of what success looks like. And one of the things I’ve found in so many communities that I visited around the country is that there’s just a very narrow definition of success that happens in very resourced and affluent communities that there’s like one narrow definition. But then if we talk to people whose kids are 20 years out of college, like I have a lot of friends who are retired or in their seventies and eighties, have grandkids and they’re

29:38
you know, you ask them, did your kids like find their way? It was totally different than what they would have thought. And the earlier parents can get to this expanded perspective, it just also reduces their own stress around feeling like there’s one pathway forward. And I think, I think in the last few years, people have, especially post pandemic, people have expanded the notions because things just changed. But I do think that

30:04
It’s really important for us to keep reminding ourselves. And last thing I’ll say about that, I work with some families that have four kids and I joke with them. was like, you have four all very different kids because you’ve been so good at letting each kid be exactly who they are. And I give them credit, they’re like, it’s kind of exhausting. But yeah, that’s one of the things that we want to make sure every child is able to do. And usually when you have four kids, you’re usually different with the fourth kid than you are with the first kid. you have, as a parent, I have three kids and so my oldest will say, oh, you were very demanding.

30:33
And my young would like, oh, you just let me do whatever I wanted. it’s like a very, so. Sounds about right. Let’s go back to Lauren. So you mentioned her briefly and sort of this very capable senior who got deferred from her dream school. And then suddenly, and you know, it’s December, you were saying like, you don’t want that to happen. We never want that to happen with our students.

30:54
But it does happen, right? You have all of a sudden it’s like December and they’ve got nine applications and then usually at that point they add more applications because they’re freaking out. And so how do you help someone break down that panic state? Like I’ve got to get all this stuff done. You know, we can be like your mom and just be like, got a day, get it together and then move forward. But how do you help? What does it practically look like when you break the application process into manageable pieces?

31:21
It’s such a great question and I know you all are so good at doing this as well. uh Well, the first thing is, you know, name it to tame it, like name what they’re feeling, helping them name what they’re feeling. And the research out of UCLA shows that when we do that, it actually takes our brain out of panic mode. So it seems like you feel really overwhelmed right now, is that right? And just naming it in a very calm way can be helpful. The second though around this is really just taking the time.

31:47
to redirect, like get some movement in. Don’t try and when they’re in this upset and panic state to try and say, okay, we need to finish these seven applications. You even take the rest of the day off. I remember, I always talk about the time when I was in college and I had my first chemistry midterm and I did poorly on it. And I called my dad and I said, you know, I don’t think I was supposed to be here. And he was like, you need to take the rest of the day off and go to office. was so calm. Which brings me my third point is that this idea of

32:14
deescalating and co-regulating. And that’s really where parents come in. It’s like your reaction as a regulated, calm adult calms the teenager down. And there’s all this research about this, around this. So, how you react is all about, if you need to be upset, go be upset. And be calm and be able to say,

32:41
hey, we’re gonna have this moment. And so Lauren’s parents had that moment with me. So I actually didn’t work with Lauren on the college application process as I talk about. I’m the family friend that came in at the 11th hour. I usually take the last two weeks of December off. And I was like, great, this is gonna be a chapter in my book. I did not think that. what happened was Lauren was, she reminded me a lot of myself. She had done all the things and it was just kind of a break that didn’t work out.

33:08
Honestly, like, let’s go to the end. She actually got in and went to the school and she graduated from there. like crazy story. It’s fine. worked out. You still had to do all the work. I mean, you still had to do all the work because she didn’t know that at the time. Exactly. So what we did when we did this is first of all, just had our first time together. I just let her bench because there’s always the venting that needs to happen as the processing of like, you know, but this person got or whatever vent, vent away.

33:36
And then I said, well, let’s come up with a plan and let’s break it down into priority buckets. So we didn’t say, oh, you need to do nine applications at once. Let’s focus on the first three together and let’s break this down into really minute tasks and then also create time blocks and then also create time blocks where you’re just going to go outside or relax. She lived in New York City, so it was cold, but I made her walk around the block because was like, fresh air is good for you. uh

34:05
The key idea was to take out of like overwhelm and to keep it into very manageable tasks that also took it out of the emotion of like, oh my gosh, I have so much to do. And we do three, we three schools at a time. So when you’re in a situation like that, which I hope nobody is because you should do the applications before regardless of whether you get your applying early decision, but you want to break it down into like a very man. And with that, you,

34:34
I mean, as you know, you all are experts in this. You want to sit with a student and figure out who’s in front of you. Like what makes it manageable for this person? So they’re like, the goal is at the end of the conversation, they say, oh oh, I guess this doesn’t seem bad at all. I’m like, okay, then we’re at a good place. And then sometimes, you know, body doubling really helps. So that’s an ADHD term, but sometimes parents or a trusted adult just sitting next to them.

35:00
working on their own work, maybe Sunday afternoon is college application time. So they have a devoted time that they say each week that either they’re working on applications or they’re just talking about the process. And then when I tell parents sometimes is this is kind of off track, but, related, there’s, there are the parents that are kind of run anxious. And so they always have questions about college. was like, start a Google doc, write all your questions during the week on that Google doc.

35:27
talk with your child once a week and address all the questions. Because by Sunday, five of those are going to go away and no longer relevant. But you would have started a college conversation that’s unnecessary. Do you tell them to do that for you as well? Yeah. mean, yes, typically. It depends on the situation. But you know, think my whole goal is that they don’t, for them too, that this doesn’t become. Yeah, can become all consuming. Yeah.

35:52
But all consuming. mean, I have people that I know in higher ed to talk to me about this who say I have never until my friends were kids were applying to college. I have never understood the all encompassing nature of this for some people. And and I have again, I have empathy around it and I want to keep everybody, you know, feeling open throughout the process. No, it is is stressful. And even like for graduate school, my my youngest daughter is uh

36:17
You know, she’s deciding. mean, she decided, but she but like just the decision of like which school to go to and all, you know, and then it gets more complicated when there’s other factors that go into it when you’re, you know, when you’re a little bit older. So, yeah, absolutely. I think Lisa, yeah, we should adopt the the Google Doc rule. That’s right. We can have parents put all of their questions down on the Google Doc. That’s actually a good idea.

36:42
Actually, one of our students suggested that we should have that like an ongoing Google Docs so that in between meetings, they could just put all of their questions down because they might forget it. then that way we can. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We’ll have to put that in. think that’s a great idea. The constant texting. OK, so I have all these systems in place that you probably wouldn’t. We don’t do texting in our office. I don’t do texting either. I don’t do texting either. I don’t want a 24-7. Same.

37:10
I’m ready. Yeah. Yeah. So we, um, we have like, and every benefits everybody, but yeah, the Google doc has been really helpful for also reducing anxiety. Cause once it’s out of your head and on paper, you’re like, haven’t, I’m not gonna forget about that. Yeah. No, that’s true. Exactly. And then you just couldn’t sleep and do all those other things. Yeah.

37:31
So conversely, going back to Lauren, so conversely on the flip side, there’s Andrew who you write about, the student. He’s built those routines so early, like 15 years later, he’s still using a version of your weekend study schedule as a strategy consultant, which is insanely impressive to me. So what did high school Andrew actually do that paid off so far down the road? He used the blank piece of paper to write down what he wanted to accomplish.

37:59
How has this changed now that everything is electronic and AI is so prevalent and this new world that we have to embrace? That’s a really great question because it’s something we deal with at our office every day because so many students, everything they have is online and yet not a lot of the online. mean, some of the online tools are helpful, but then some of them just create more distractions for the students. So it’s really a matter of figuring out what works well for each.

38:27
child in front of us and each adult. And there are plenty of adults that are tech CEOs that use pen and paper to do their to-do lists. And some of very biggest ones that all talk about productivity, they’re like, I come up with my three key ideas and I write them down for the day. So the key for me is really understanding what works for each child. Now, Andrew, back to your question.

38:50
was the over scheduled procrastinator. I was thinking about this when I read your question. He in high school had so many activities that he was just busy. He was like, you know, he was captain of this, president of this, very social in a positive way. Like everybody knew who he was and he was a really lovely young person. He’s now in his mid thirties. He lives with somebody that he knew since sixth grade. He, his, you know, friend group.

39:18
is just still, it’s like people joined along the way, whether they joined in college or high school or whatever. Piper, he kind of brought people along. Yeah, but he just is one of those people. But back to his situation, it actually was that he needed to take all the distractions out. So he’s also the kind of person that he’ll go into his company and sign out a conference room and just like get work done, fully focused, fully quiet.

39:46
Everybody works differently. Like I know people that need to be in a coffee shop or somebody somewhere with ambient noise. So part of it is really figuring out what works for him. But I will say there’s two things to think about now that everything is electronic and AI is so prevalent that people are going back to basics and it isn’t just an either or it’s what works for you. And so, so some of my students, my college students specifically have gone back to using a written planner.

40:15
uh They find that it’s a good catch-all for writing their to-dos and all of their other things. And then they’ll keep a Google calendar for their appointments and then put the most important things down. It’s all about figuring out a system. And one of the key things I say is, can you find, from an organizational standpoint, can you find any document, physical or digital, that you need in under a minute? So do you have a system that makes it that easy to do that? And that is one way of thinking about it. And then when you think about your planning,

40:44
Also like, is it working for you that it is a good catch all? So again, it’s become a lot more individualized than when I started 20 years ago, even 15 years ago. So it’s one of those things that we’re constantly refining. And I try and use all the new tools that come out to try them out and see what it would feel like for a middle school or high school kids and figure out how can we help each student figure a system that works for them.

41:12
Yeah, I’m glad you said that before I did this. I used to be an English teacher and right there’s prescribed ways of writing and at a certain point and I was like, maybe this is creating more work for myself. I was like, do whatever works for you. Like I was like, don’t write the outline if the outline doesn’t work or do the brainstorm or do this. know, Lisa and I and our and our other colleague, Abby, who’s not here. I think we all do that. We do what works for you, but it’s right. hard that it takes us some time to get to that.

41:41
place where it has to be it doesn’t work any other be at our best. So it t there. Yeah. And it’s also buy in like if a small sh like, okay, this is going versus I’m not even going to makes all the difference in so that’s where um yeah,

42:09
Do you have like a simple, you were gonna tell someone to start or there like, it’s like a simple version of a weekly system that a high school student could start with this week, for example, or? Yeah, the first thing, there’s a couple of things that I always say when people wanna start around executive functioning and organization. The first is really organizing your stuff. So we start with going through everybody’s pieces of paper and their backpack or on their iPad or their home screen or their Chromebook.

42:38
and figuring out a system that works for them. So that either putting things in folders online, again, the goal is that you’re able to find any document, physical or digital in under a minute. And then the second thing is really figuring out your planning system. Where do you write down your to-dos? And the biggest piece I say there is not thinking about the online system that your school gives the LMS, the learning management system is your like homework. Right? Like that’s the backup.

43:06
That’s so true because I’ll be like, oh, I didn’t see it there or I didn’t know where it was or they there’s definitely something for you taking the control yourself and knowing where everything is. Right. And also not just your assignments or your tests, but also you have a dentist appointment or you have uh piano practice or you have a sport or an activity capturing all of that. So then you can start to think about where are you able to do your work so that you’re getting to bed at a decent hour and you’re getting enough sleep.

43:35
So the second thing is the planner. So what is your planning system? I prefer written planner, especially when someone’s starting, but I also know that might not work for everyone. So some people will use blocks in their calendar and then figure out what they’re doing there. Other people will find that really overwhelming because they’re like, oh my gosh, there’s so many blocks, there’s so much to do. So figuring out what works for you is important. And then the third thing is really managing distractions so that you’re able to start in complete tasks.

44:01
By that, mean, you our goal for every child is that they monotask. So they’re focused on one task at a time. That’s really hard in a world where most people have 80 tabs open on their computer. So I also come from a place of what can we get you to do start? mean, Pomodoro Method says 25 minutes on with a five minute break, which I love. I will say that a lot of high school students can’t make it to 25 minutes when they start or middle school students. So I’m like 15, 15.

44:30
And then 20 and then 25. really helping students also create barriers where they can or like create navigation points where they feel like they can succeed. Because if you told someone to go run 10 miles the first day running, you’re not going to work. organizing your stuff, figuring out your planner and to-do list, and then really how do you manage distractions and where do you get your work done? And so the number one thing I say is most people’s room is probably their most distracting place to get work done.

45:00
So if they have a local library, a school library, a dining room table, a kitchen table, finding that place with headphones maybe if they have siblings or other distractions, but also figuring out, do you need silence? Do you need ambient noise? I mean, these are good questions. That’s how I would start like that first week. Do you ever get pushback from students or parents that they’ll go, can’t do it. We’ve got too much going on or he’s so busy or that sort of stuff.

45:28
Well, usually if they find their way to my office, there’s a reason, right? There’s a reason. Yeah. All right. So typically they’re looking for help. Kids love coming to our office. That is the one thing that most people that are uh new staff members or even parents sitting on the waiting list, they’re like, the kids are happy to be here because we make it all about them. We’re trying to find you an extra seven to 10 hours of free time per week. This is all about you. The pushback sometimes we’ll get is if a student says, I have a system.

45:54
And then my question is, how well is it working for you? If it’s working, great, but if it’s not, let’s talk about it. And then from parents, you know, and not as much anymore. I really think there’s a lot of been a lot of education around executive functioning and it’s important. We’re certainly not where I’d like to be nationwide on this issue, but that’s another story. But I do feel like parents in my early days, and this is how early it was, it’s like I was on the soccer field for my nephew and.

46:21
my former client who’s now a grandparent whose kids on my nephew’s soccer team was in the stand. And I’ll remember that he said, that dad said to me, cause I remember this all these years later, but he said, we really don’t care about the binders. He needs to get an A in chemistry. And I was like, I get that. But we also need to like be able to have a system and like, I’m giving you the foundation for this to work. And I remember that because I don’t get a lot of that pushback anymore because

46:49
people see foundationally this is so key and the parents have become more educated. But I do remember that occasionally in the beginning for sure I’d be like, they’re like, how far away are we from the A? And I’m like, that’s not. Focus on the process, focus on the If you focus on the habits, the grades is what I like to say. So if a parent

47:15
Hi parents, listen to this episode tonight and wants to do one thing differently tomorrow. And then a student, hi students, I hope you’re listening too, and they wanna try one thing different this week. What would you tell each of them? What would you tell the parent and what would you tell the student? That’s a great question that I love it because it’s all about creating simple steps. And the first thing that a parent can do is create a weekly regroup time in their house, like on a Sunday afternoon.

47:43
um where they set aside time where everyone comes and they bring their purse, their bag, their computer, and like for 30 minutes, people clean out their files, set up their week, write down all their to-dos, map out their week, and then also talk about it, right? Like I have a soccer game on Wednesday that’s 45 minutes away, but then I have two tests on Thursday. Like just have them talk about it in a non…

48:08
threatening like just a low key way because once you start talking about it, you start to come up with solutions. So I think parents when they create that safe space and time because they often say, but my kids can do that on their own. No, they’re not like even well intentioned kid is not going to do it. I always say to my people, I’m like, look, I would love to tell you that I do Pilates exercises on my own, but I go to a class. Exactly. not doing it on my own. do those exercises. So same thing, create that structure. And then for kids,

48:37
There’s two things. One, I would say set a timer for 20 minutes, go through your backpack, go through and clean things out. That’s one. But two, make sure you’re getting enough sleep and rest. So it’s not just the sleep that’s really important, which is very important, but also that you’re resting so that you have time, even 10 minutes, you turn off your phone, you just have, know, sit there and just draw or listen to music for just even 10 minutes a day.

49:04
uh It really does change your mind frame. And given our world where I feel like so many kids feel like they’re going from one thing to another from seven, six AM or seven AM to eight PM, you asked about what pushback I get. The biggest thing I say sometimes to parents is like, I can’t create more hours in the day. You’re kids playing two club sports and doing all APs. Like there’s not a world in which getting more organized is going to allow them.

49:32
to get more sleep, it’s just not gonna happen. So other things have to shift. So I’m really realistic with that kind of stuff. I think that’s such a good point because sometimes you’ll go through, we’ll go through with students and we’ll map out like all the things that they’re doing and we’ll ask them questions trying to figure out like, what are the things you really enjoy? What are the things where you add value or you’re creating value for other people? Like that’s how you wanna think about the things that you’re doing rather than just ticking off boxes. And sometimes parents say, well, what else?

50:00
Can they do it? And sometimes I’ll just look at a kid’s schedule and say, well, I don’t see any other time in your week for you to do anything else. So it’s really more a matter of paring back and being more intentional about the things that you are doing and that you really enjoy or you’re creating value for yourself or others than adding more things, right? And I think that’s a really good point that you bring up. Sleep is super important. And also that mindfulness, like having that time to just take your,

50:29
not think about anything or just let your creativity run wild at that. What do you think are some myths or truths? We always like to ask that about executive function or just about teens today. I think one of the biggest myths is that executive functioning skills are just needed for students with ADHD. Like executive functioning support is like an ADHD issue. It’s not, we all need them. You one of the things as I get older, I’m also realizing is, you know, we’re working so hard to get teenagers.

50:56
their executive functions. And then as adults, we need to maintain them as we get older. This is true. This is very true. Yes. Yeah, it’s real. And so in our emotional regulation, I think one of the biggest myths is that also executive functioning is really just focused on academics. And one of the biggest things I want people to understand is that this is very key for connecting. And we know that we have a loneliness epidemic. We know all the research around this.

51:23
And being able to connect with others, especially across differences is another thing that’s really important for kids going away to college. Especially if they’ve been in a community where they’ve been with the same kids for four, eight, 10 years, 12 years, that they now have to be in a new community where they may need to introduce themselves or make new friends or what does that look like? And how does executive functioning? So your working memory, remembering things about people, remembering details, but also your emotional regulation.

51:52
How do you react when somebody cancels on you last minute or something doesn’t go as planned? How do you express how you’re feeling without, you know, going into a situation where it could impact your ability to make and maintain friendships? I think that is one of the key pieces that we overlook, that we are worried about kids being able to connect with others and have authentic connections. And we don’t necessarily realize that our executive functions are a key part of that. Yeah, I think that’s such a good point. And you even bring it up in the book about how

52:21
it’s so important to have students across boundaries and perspectives and really socioeconomic across socioeconomic barriers as well, that it’s important to have those interactions and colleges. Those are questions that are specifically asked now by colleges when you’ve had experiences doing that. Well, one of the biggest things I saw going, I just went back for my 25th reunion and there were people that really could connect with anyone in the room across differences. And then there were people that really just came back to see the six people they still

52:51
in touch with. And I do have to say, like, as somebody who really has a lot of people that I know from a lot of different backgrounds and very comfortable speaking with, I felt like my experience is that much richer because of that. oh Because I just feel like I can walk into a room, I’m very comfortable, and I’m genuinely curious. don’t have, you know, and that just makes things more fun, especially as you get older. And everyone has something really interesting to say. And I think

53:18
Creating that expanded perspective is important and connection. No, I think that’s really true. I was with a classmate of mine from business school and he said he ran into another classmate who was in my section. And I was like, oh, I didn’t even realize it because we weren’t in the same section. was like, I didn’t realize you were friends. He said, you know what? I just like to talk to different people. And he actually was doing all this genealogy and he had this whole history about his family. And it was just super interesting. So I was like, yeah, you’re right. I you could always find interesting things. And that’s what.

53:46
That’s what we love about this work is that you get to meet with so many different people with different backgrounds and really understand so much about their culture and what’s interesting to them and what’s motivating to them and how they see the world. So it’s a really cool thing. Yeah, that’s good. Well, so last one, where can listeners find your book? It’s coming out June 9th, right? Yeah, so it’ll it’ll will have come out already by the time this gets out there. So are there any how do they find your book, your work, any tools or worksheets?

54:15
that you’ll make available for families navigating this season. Sure. Well, they can visit my website, AnnaHomayun.com or GreenIVEd.com. There’s worksheets and resources in both places around executive functioning and organizing, planning, prioritizing. That’s bulk of what we do. uh yeah, getting in is not enough. The new blueprint for success beyond grades, test scores and college admission really is…

54:41
this in many ways a love letter to 25 years of doing this work and working with students around the world. So sharing their stories of students who are now in their early 30s is also hopefully calming and reassuring for that parent who is really worried. I mean, I had a number of friends who’ve read the book and said, I’m really glad I read this when my kid was younger. And I didn’t realize that at time, like they have like an eight, 10, 12 year old because

55:08
it gave them things to think about and reframing before they get to the college admissions process. And um so that’s really, really helpful. But yeah, visit our website. There’s lots of, and there’s gonna be, there’s a reader’s guide that’s free on there to help start that conversation with parents and kids. Great. And we’ll definitely have links to it also on our podcast. So thank you, CVMers for tuning in. Thank you, Anna, for being such an insightful and informative conversationalist.

55:35
To catch more episodes of College Bell Mentor, make sure to follow or subscribe on your favorite podcast platform and tell a fellow parent or student about the podcast. To learn more, visit collegebellmentor.com. Until next time, you got this.

The post Getting In Is Not Enough: Skills That Matter with Ana Homayoun – College Bound Mentor #44 appeared first on College Bound Mentor.

Founded originally as an all-women’s college, Royal Holloway is steeped in history and culture. This uni bridges the gap between the traditional humanities and technical innovation and has evolved into a diverse research hub defined by its “low-key but high-impact” atmosphere. 

Visit highlights include the sheer beauty of the campus, which we all stopped to admire many times, taking photographs whenever we could. Most notably, the Founder’s Building, the school’s picturesque centerpiece, is a stunning example of French-Renaissance architecture. We also loved walking through the Holloway forest, which connected different parts of campus and made us feel like characters in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Another stand out was the Picture Gallery in the Founder’s Building, which houses 77 Victorian paintings purchased between 1880 and 1883. Here, we were welcomed by gifted student musicians playing the piano and flute. This concert was one of our favorite moments during our week in London.

Academics: From Classical Foundations to Virtual Frontiers

The academic journey at Royal Holloway is characterized by a transition from broad foundational knowledge to deep, niche specialization. Classes range from larger lectures (200 students) to smaller seminars (12 students). Like other universities in London, students benefit from a unique schedule, including the entire month of April off for independent study before exams begin in May.

• Arts and Humanities Dominance: The college is a UK leader in the arts, ranking 2nd in the UK for Creative Writing. Its strengths extend across history, classics, music, and drama, supported by a unique partnership within the University of London consortium, granting students access to intercollegiate resources across the capital. As we mentioned earlier, we were in awe of our student concert. Their renowned music program is also highly ranked and attracts student musicians from all over the world.
• Social Sciences: Psychology and business are the largest departments. They offer a unique two-year accelerated Business and Management degree. We loved being part of an interactive lecture about “Detecting Deception in Forensic Investigations.” The professor used the UK version of Traitors to help us spot a “traitor,” and all of us were hooked.
• The Computer Science & AI Legacy: Founded in 1968, this is one of the world’s oldest CS departments. It is a powerhouse of fundamental research, with faculty having pioneered support vector machines, Q-Learning, and conformal prediction. Currently, ranked #8 in Computer Science, the department remains at the forefront of machine learning and mobile technology. We enjoyed a taste of this with a very engaging lecture, “Create Magic” taught by Dr. Khuong An Nguyen. He had us laughing and learning.
• The Virtual Production Edge: A £5 million Media Arts facility puts students at the center of the future of film. The curriculum focuses on Virtual Production, 3D Filming, and Motion Capture, with a cinematography-led approach that allows students to build entire digital worlds from scratch. This features an advanced LED panel array for real-time visual effects, allowing actors to see digital environments (and their reflections) while performing.

• The CoSTAR National Lab (Convergent Screen Technologies and Performance in Realtime), is the UK’s first national research and development lab dedicated to advanced creative technologies. It is also closely connected to industry hubs such as Pinewood Studios.
  • A key dimension of CoSTAR is its integration of education with production technologies. Students in film, TV, and digital production, particularly cinematography-focused courses, are trained in camera, lighting, and virtual production workflows. 
  • The Lab also reflects a major industry shift: the convergence of video game technology and film production, since techniques from video game development, especially environment creation and real-time rendering, are now central to filmmaking. Hence, students who traditionally design game environments can directly contribute to film and television production. Virtual production pipelines allow creators to move fluidly between gaming, film, and immersive media industries. This creates a new creative workforce skilled in both cinematic storytelling and interactive environment design.
• The “Industry-Ready” Curriculum: Across departments like psychology, business, and CS, the focus is on employability. This includes a two-year accelerated business degree and a “Year in Industry” option where the university office actively helps students secure professional placements.

Support & Innovation: An Inclusive Ecosystem

Royal Holloway distinguishes itself through a progressive approach to student success and wellbeing.

• Neurodiversity & Accessibility: The university offers a streamlined support system where students do not require a neuropsych evaluation to receive accommodations—a major differentiator in accessibility.
• Engagement: Faculty are noted for being highly engaging and accessible, with office hours acting as a core component of the student’s academic development.
• Safety Infrastructure: The campus is designed for 24/7 security, featuring “fully lit” pathways, dedicated safety numbers, and the “Ask for Angela” protocol to ensure a secure environment for all. The school also offers drink-spiking prevention kits (toppers/stickers)

The Student Body: Global, Liberal, and Collaborative

The community of 13,500 students is defined by its stylish, diverse, and supportive vibe.

• Demographics: A 60:40 women-to-men ratio and a significant international population (including 300 US undergraduates) create a globalized campus feel.
• Social Architecture: The “Pub Culture” is a central “third space” for social interaction, but it is not drinking-dependent with a mix of “cozy” homebody culture. Extracurricular life is vibrant and inclusive.
• Living: First-years enjoy a campus-centric life (with a food plan or a shared kitchen), while upperclassmen move into shared housing in the nearby town Egham (15- minute walk), fostering a close-knit, independent community just a short walk from campus. Windsor is about a 15-minute drive (where our tour guide preferred doing her produce food shopping), and London is 45 minutes away.

Outcomes: High-Impact Returns

Royal Holloway is a top-tier choice for students focused on long-term professional value.

• Employment: 92% of graduates enter the workforce within 15 months.
• The “CS Premium”: Computer Science students at RHUL see the highest estimated return (99.7%) in England by age 29.
• Strategic Proximity: The campus is minutes away from global tech leaders like Samsung (11 mins) and Cisco (18 mins), with alumni frequently landing roles at Amazon and Google.
• Year in Industry: Students can opt for a placement year. The university helps identify jobs, and students pay a reduced tuition fee (approx. £3,000) for that year.

Admissions and Financial Aid: Flexible and Holistic

While selective, Royal Holloway offers a more flexible entry path for high-achieving US students compared to the rigid data-driven requirements of central London schools.

• The Profile: Admissions typically look for 2–3 AP exams (Scores of 4+). They will also weigh Honors and College-level courses alongside SAT (1100+) or ACT scores.
• Financials: Tuition ranges from £20k–£30k, and the university actively recruits international talent with scholarships ranging from £2,000 to full tuition.

Key Takeaways:

• Leaders in “Future” Tech and Creative Excellence: While the campus looks traditional, Royal Holloway is on the cutting edge of science and media with one of the oldest CS departments in the world; a highly ranked AI program; a virtual production hub that uses the same tech as productions like The Mandalorian; and ranked 2nd in the UK for creative writing.
• Superior Return on Investment: CS graduates have a 99.7% estimated return on investment by age 29—the highest in England for the sector; located in the M4 tech corridor, and for a reduced fee (approx. £3,000), students can take a placement year with direct help from a dedicated university office to secure a job.
• Progressive Student Support & Inclusion: RHUL offers a more personalized and flexible environment compared to the rigid structures of central London universities.
• Unique Lifestyle & Geography: The “Egham Bubble” provides a quintessential British campus experience with easy access to urban centers. The social scene is “cozy” and collaborative rather than purely party-driven. Pub culture exists as a “third space” for chatting and decompressing.
• Accessible Admissions for North Americans: Unlike “data-driven” schools like Imperial, RHUL takes a more holistic view of US and Canadian applicants.

Summary:

Royal Holloway is for students who value a close-knit, supportive community over the fast-paced massive city school. They are often “niche” thinkers, curious about ideas ranging from the future of AI to period dramas to renewable energy law, and want a beautiful, safe campus where professors know their names. This student thrives in a “cozy-liberal” environment where a perfect Friday night is just as likely to be a movie night in their campus flat as it is a train ride into London or a pint at a local pub in Egham.

The post Royal Holloway, University of London: The Creative & Technical Powerhouse of Egham appeared first on College Bound Mentor.

Ever dreamed of studying in the true heart of London? King’s College London (KCL) might be your perfect match. With its main campus overlooking the Thames and a history dating back to 1829, King’s offers a quintessential British experience with a global, fast-paced edge. Here’s a rundown of what I learned on my recent visit:

Academics with a Global Pulse

King’s isn’t just a university; it’s a powerhouse. It’s part of the prestigious “Golden Triangle” (alongside Oxford, Cambridge, LSE, UCL, and Imperial), meaning the academic rigor is high, but the vibe is distinctly urban and forward-thinking. In fact, it’s currently ranked 6th in the UK for research quality—so you aren’t just learning; you’re also creating new knowledge.

• The Digital Media & Business Edge: Whether you are looking at the Digital Media & Culture BA or a degree within the King’s Business School, you are entering programs at the “inflection point” of technology.
  • The AI Inflection Point: Unlike many programs that focus on production or simple management, King’s approaches tech from a sociological point of view. You’ll examine AI’s impact on creative industries and even online campaigning (like analyzing the digital strategies of the Trump vs. Harris campaigns).
  • Look out for the new BSc Sociology (led by Professor Sarah Hodges) and the Environmental Science BS/MSci starting in 2027. They are focusing heavily on creating “adaptable, creative thinkers” for industries like EdTech and FinTech.
• The Strand Experience & Bush House: The Business School is headquartered in the iconic Bush House (formerly the BBC headquarters). It’s a space where media history meets modern corporate strategy, perfectly reflecting the school’s blend of legacy and innovation.
• London as Your Lab: Professors here are industry-connected. One student shared how their professor helped them land an internship because they knew about the student’s independent podcast. Pro-tip: Put your podcast on everything! If you’re doing digital media or business, your personal projects are your best currency.

The “Big City” Social Life

Forget the enclosed quads of a rural campus. At King’s, the city of London is your student union.

• Student Leadership is “Real World”: Unlike many universities in Europe where societies are rare, King’s has over 300 student-led groups. In the UK, these are more than just “hobbies.”
  • Committee Life: If you’re on a committee, you’re running a small business. Students manage their own society bank accounts and make real executive decisions. You find your community through these groups; there is a website for everything, and a link for every niche interest.
  • First Year Guaranteed Housing: KCL guarantees housing for first-year students across 14 residences in London, hosting about 6,000 students. After that, you’re usually living in Zone 1 within a 40-minute perimeter of campus.
• The Maughan Library: It looks like something out of Harry Potter (the Round Reading Room is often compared to Dumbledore’s office). It’s a stunning place to study, but it’s also where you’ll see the serious side of King’s students during exam season.

Student life at King’s College London is characterized by a global, cosmopolitan atmosphere where the city of London serves as an extension of the campus. Here are the key aspects of the student experience:

A Global Community

The student body is exceptionally diverse, representing 110 to 120 different nationalities. In some departments, international students make up more than 50% of the population. Students often report that they learn as much from their interactions with peers from every continent as they do from their formal studies. This inclusive and friendly environment is a core part of the “King’s identity”.

Societies and Activities

There is a vibrant extracurricular scene with societies catering to almost any hobby or interest:

• Student-Led Organizations: Many societies are entirely run by students.
• National Societies: These are very popular, with the Indian Society being the largest on campus.
• Hobbies and Sports: Options range from the board game society, where students play all day, to club and intramural sports.
• Wednesday Afternoons: This time is specifically reserved for sports and various student activities.

Social Life and Pub Culture

The campus is described as “very social,” with a prevailing pub culture. It is common for students to visit local pubs after (or sometimes before) class to relax with a pint. Pub quizzes are a frequent evening staple for both groups and individuals. For more formal occasions, students participate in events like the Black Tie Ball.

Living in London

• Residences: King’s has 14 residences across London, housing approximately 6,000 students, with accommodation guaranteed for first-year students.
• The City as a Playground: Located in Zone 1, the campus is within a five-minute walk of major attractions like the Thames, Westminster, and various museums. After their first year, most students move into neighboring apartments within a 40-minute perimeter of the university.
• Student Perks: The student card provides discounts across the country, helping students navigate the costs of living in a major city.

Support and Engagement

• Personalized Academic Care: Every student is assigned a personal tutor from the faculty who acts as an academic advisor, meeting with them during their first week and several times each term.
• Active Contribution: The university encourages students to be “contributors” rather than just learners. Through initiatives like the “I lead” business incubator or student representative roles on advisory councils, students have a direct say in their educational experience.
• Career Preparation: Student life also includes heavy engagement with professional development, including access to 500 employer events on campus annually and support for CVs and LinkedIn profiles.

Who Goes Here?

• The International Mix: In departments like Digital Media and Business, the international population frequently soars above 50%. You’re building a global network from day one.
• Independent and Driven: There is no hand-holding. This is for the student who wants to set up their own leadership opportunities and isn’t afraid to seek funding and support to get their projects off the ground.
• Key Student Descriptors: Ambitious, cosmopolitan, ethically-minded, and ready to lead.

The Admissions Angle

• It’s Highly Selective: KCL receives roughly 12,000 applications for only 650 places (a 26% acceptance rate). For US students, they look closely at AP scores (usually 5s in relevant subjects) and ACT/SAT results.
  • The Math Requirement (Crucial): Business students must have a 5 in AP Calculus BC to be admitted. King’s will NOT consider students without BC Calculus for Business or other STEM-related subjects. 90% of US applicant rejections for Business are due to missing this requirement.
  • Common Year One: Many Science and Medicine programs share a “Common Year One,” allowing students to swap tracks at the end of their first year if their research interests align elsewhere.
• Financial Aid Surprise: Unlike many UK universities, King’s offers financial aid to international students whose families make less than £42,000 (~$53,000 USD) a year to help cover room and board.

Key Takeaways

• Proven ROI: While students are passionate, the career support is top-tier (500 employer events a year). Graduates see a 43% rise in salary within five years.
• Alumni Power: 58% of UK CEOs studied the Humanities—proving the KCL “liberal arts” approach pays off.
• Career Support: You get dedicated career support for two years after you graduate.

Is King’s for you? If you’re an independent go-getter and love the fast-paced energy of a campus in the heart of heart of a global city, King’s College London is calling!

Kings College London Information & Location

Kings College London

+44 (0)20 7836 5454

King’s College London Strand London WC2R 2LS United Kingdom

The post King’s College London: Is London Calling You? appeared first on College Bound Mentor.

Imperial College London stands as a world-leading institution dedicated exclusively to STEMB (Science, Technology, Engineering, Medicine, and Business), think the MIT of England. Operating under the mission of “Science for Humanity,” the college focuses on the translation of academic research into tangible products and entrepreneurial ventures. For the student who is certain of their path in the sciences, business or engineering, Imperial offers an environment of unrivaled depth and rigor.

Academics: Depth, Research, and the “I-Explore” Edge

The academic experience at Imperial is defined by immediate specialization and high levels of independence. Most students choose between three-year BSc degrees or four-year integrated masters programs, including ten distinct engineering tracks.  

We had a chance to meet professors from the bioengineering department. Professors manage the whole curriculum and make all the material relevant to the students.  

• Research-Led Learning: Research is a massive component of the undergraduate journey through programs like UROP and IROP. Second-year bioengineering students participate in a 20-week hands-on lab class focusing on cell cultures and writing research reports suitable for professional publication.
• Curriculum Innovation: While the focus is specialized, the I-Explore initiative provides a unique opportunity for students to take elective classes outside of their primary major to broaden their perspectives.
• New Horizons: The college continues to evolve with its curriculum, recently launching a new major in Economics, Finance, and Data Science.
• Self-Directed Environment: Students are treated as adults; attendance is rarely recorded except for mandatory labs, and all lectures are recorded for independent review. However, international students must attend class to maintain their visas. Be prepared for a relentless pace, as exams often occur immediately after holidays, meaning students “never get a break”.

The Entrepreneurial Ecosystem: The Enterprise Lab

Imperial is a powerhouse for innovation, the Enterprise Lab serves as a central hub, supporting students from the initial spark of an idea through prototyping and into commercialization.

• Student Impact: One in eight students works with the lab, which provides access to a network of 900 interested investors and over 80 world-class mentors.
• Notable Ventures: The lab has birthed successful startups like Jelly Drops (hydrating sweets for dementia patients) and Notpla (biodegradable seaweed packaging).
• Inclusive Innovation: Initiatives like WE Innovate specifically support female entrepreneurs, having helped launch over 60 startups to date.

Student Body: Collaborative, STEM-Inclined, and Global

The community at Imperial is composed of 11,500 undergraduates, representing 150 nationalities. Students describe the vibe as uniquely STEM-focused, using adjectives like nerdy, sporty, collaborative, supportive, and hardworking.

I had the opportunity to watch a student production of The Importance of Being Ernest. The cast and crew was made up of undergraduate and graduate students, and the audience was super supportive. It was a balmy Friday night, and we walked through the outdoor pub where students were enjoying a pint or two. Inside, students were dancing and playing quiz games.  Overall they looked happy and were having a blast. 

• Social Life: Extracurricular life is vibrant, with 370 different student societies. These range from Imperial Hockey and rock climbing to a non-audition, just-for-fun wind band.
• Traditions: Students often bond through departmental dinners or random social events, such as a Friday black-tie boat party specifically for engineers.
• Living in London: First-year students typically live in Imperial housing, which is generally a 20–30 minute walk from campus. In subsequent years, most move into private flats further away, often with friends.
• Wednesday afternoon sports matches. Consistent with all UK schools, there are no classes on Wednesday afternoons to allow for students to compete in sports. 

Surrounding Area: Museum Row and Hyde Park Adjacent 

Imperial college is surrounded by museums: The Victoria and Albert is across the street and The National History Museum and The Science Museum are down the block.  It’s an easy walk to Hyde Park as well. We loved exploring the restaurants, pubs and shops in the area. Don’t miss Ceru or Brother Marcus for Mediterranean food.

Admissions: A Data-Driven Approach 

Admission to Imperial is highly selective and focuses almost entirely on academic potential and subject interest.

• The Numbers: US applicants typically need a minimum of 4-5 AP exams with scores of 5. Specific subjects are mandatory; for example, AP Calculus BC is required for engineering and business degrees.
• The Personal Statement: Admissions tutors look for 85–90% academic focus. This should highlight “super-curricular” activities—such as academic reading, podcasts, research projects, or summer schools—that demonstrate a deep understanding of the chosen subject beyond the standard school curriculum.
• Testing and Interviews: Many majors require subject-specific tests like the ESAT or TMUA. If invited for an interview, it may range from a traditional conversation to a technical assessment conducted by a professor and a student.

Summary 

Imperial College London is a match for the brilliant, curious, and self-motivated student who lives and breathes STEMB. It is a place for those who want to be at the center of a global innovation hub and are ready to take full ownership of their academic and professional future.

The post Imperial College London: The MIT of England appeared first on College Bound Mentor.

This weekend, I listened to an outstanding panel from Johns Hopkins called Engineering Skills that Matter and then saw Project Hail Mary. The timing was uncanny. While top STEM coursework is expected at selective universities, both the panel and the movie made clear: it’s the non-STEM skills that matter most for engineering admissions.

Interpersonal and “Inner-personal” Skills

Engineering means solving problems. This ranges from something as simple as stopping animals from raiding your trash to the unimaginably complex challenge of capturing an alien-resistant microbe called “taumoeba” to save the sun (yes, that’s Project Hail Mary). Either way, these two skills are essential.

Interpersonal: You need to communicate your ideas and work with others. Grace and Rocky, the protagonists in Project Hail Mary, had to literally learn each other’s language to save their respective worlds.

Inner-personal: A term I picked up from the Johns Hopkins panel: the ability to accept your shortcomings, put your ego aside, and stay open to other perspectives. Be okay with being wrong. That’s how you grow. Once Grace accepted that everything on Erid, Rocky’s planet, worked in reverse of what he assumed, he cracked the code.

Communication in All Forms

Good engineers communicate with colleagues, clients, and stakeholders, and they can write technical specs and sketch ideas so others can see their vision. This is why art and writing classes (not using an LLM!) matter more than students expect.

Collaboration is Critical

• Listen. To yourself and others. Grace and Rocky succeeded because each brought a completely different perspective.
• Know your audience. Engineers collaborate with non-engineers too.
• Sketch it out. Draw what’s in your head so others can build on it with you.

Get Your Hands Dirty

Get into a shop. Learn to weld, work with wood, or 3D print. Work with a carpenter — the way they think is practical in ways that make you a better engineer. What you build matters less than that you build. Clothing, model airplanes, drones, all fair game.

1. Explore many interests and look at everything through an engineering eye.
2. Go deep on one thing and build portfolio pieces.
3. Take advanced math and science.

The panelists specifically called out: sewing, theater tech design, microcontrollers, and construction work. All of it counts.

When I think about my most successful engineering applicants, they were problem solvers by nature: one built an automated Christmas tree watering system, another designed all her school’s stage sets, and another outsmarted deer with a custom garden cover. Each one built things out of genuine love for solving problems.

How to Build These Skills in High School

Start early. The Johns Hopkins panelists had great advice:

• Take music, art, and chess; they train you to think ahead.
• Get comfortable with uncertainty. There’s rarely one right answer.
• Tutor others. Explaining ideas deepens your own understanding.
• Look for ways to make someone’s life easier? Start small and humble. Can you practice engineering in the context of constraints: Timeline, budget, client, shared vision. Find ways to do things in your life right now!!
• Ask yourself: How does this work? Get curious about everyday design.
• Force yourself to come up with 3–4 original ideas before looking for answers. Your brain needs the workout.
• Take a drawing class to learn how to show your ideas to others.
• Keep your integrity. Ask for help and don’t oversell.

Here is a great guide to analyzing a pre-college program. 

Let’s hope we never need to capture an alien-resistant microbe — but the world needs problem solvers. So get your hands dirty.

The post Essential Non-STEM Skills for Future Engineers: Johns Hopkins and Project Hail Mary Insights appeared first on College Bound Mentor.

Below are the top ten differences

Highly focused majors from day one with no ability to transfer. Professors teach subject matter that is all relevant to your course of study. For example, if you are studying chemical engineering, the maths corresponds with how you would apply it to your discipline. 

Supercurriculars not Extracurriculars. UK admissions officers want to know what you are intellectually curious about: What podcasts do you listen to? What articles do you read? What documentaries do you watch? What summer programs did you participate in? What research did you do that corresponds to your area of interest? 

Testing matters—a lot! For the most competitive UK schools, it’s all about the tests, tests, tests. They want students to demonstrate mastery in their subject matters before accepting them. The most selective unis and programs, e.g. business and STEM, require a 5 in AP Calculus BC and corresponding sciences. Less than a 5 in APs need not apply to the most selective schools like Imperial College or King’s College.

International is the norm in London schools. We saw students represented from 150+ countries. Each country has a separate society with the Indian societies often the largest. Students have opportunities to interact and make friends with a truly global community.

Independence required; collaboration expected. While students seem to have a lot of free time, they have to be comfortable managing their work load over time. Students also collaborate across the board for various projects and assignments. 

Expect to cook in a community kitchen and find accommodations (housing) off campus by year 2. Most schools guarantee housing for the first year and only a few offer “catering” or dining options. The majority of students cook in a shared kitchen among 5-10 students.  

Pub culture, societies, and sports drive social life. Students seemed very social and engaged. Every day is pub day, but it really comes alive on the weekend. On a Friday night at Imperial College, we saw students gathering outside with pints of beer, dancing inside the pub, playing quiz games, or attending a student run performance of The Importance of Being Ernest.  

Sports participation is big! Almost all the students we met participated in some sport from rock climbing to paddle to badminton to field hockey. The built in Wednesday afternoons for matches makes it easy for students to compete against other schools because there are no classes during that time.

Research is encouraged and taught. Students learn how to research and have many opportunities to participate. Many courses have research methods as one of the modules. For example, Imperial College offers a 20-week module on how to perform cell culture for its Bioengineering students.

Faculty make learning engaging and relevant. All the faculty we met were passionate about their subject matter and found engaging ways to convey their information. They teach processes and how to turn theory into practice. We met a professor of chemical engineering at Imperial College who showed us how students learn to read a blueprint and work in a carbon chemical processing plant. A computer science professor walked us through how programming appears like magic while a creative writing professor described the step-by-step way they turn students into writers. Since the courses are so specialized, everyone wants to be there and learn the material. 

More Photos from Our Visit:

The post Top Ten Differences between American and UK Colleges appeared first on College Bound Mentor.

This is Episode #43 and you’ll hear us talk about supporting students with ADHD and Executive Functioning challenges with Debbie White, Founder of Life Stormer. Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and your other favorite podcast spots – follow and leave a 5-star review if you’re enjoying the show!

• Episode Summary & Player
• Show Notes
• Learn more about the College Bound Mentor podcast
• Transcript

College Bound Mentor Podcast Episode #43: The ADHD Effect with ADHD & Executive Functioning Coach Debbie White

How do you help your student transition to college if they have ADHD or struggle with Executive Functioning? In this episode, we welcome on Debbie White, an ADHD & Executive Functioning Coach who’s the Founder of Life Stormer. Here’s a small sample of what you’ll hear in this episode:

• The difference between ADHD & Executive Functioning
• How to know if your student needs more support
• What happens when a student with ADHD or Executive Functioning concerns ends up at the wrong college
• How to prepare your student for college without compromising their independence
• And how to leverage ADHD or Executive Functioning skills as a gift and superpower

Subscribe to College Bound Mentor on your favorite podcast platform and learn more at CollegeBoundMentor.com.

Check out the episode and show notes below for much more detail.

Show Notes

• The ADHD Effect with ADHD & Executive Functioning Coach Debbie White
  • [00:19] Welcome to the College Bound Mentor
  • [00:49] Debbie’s background and why she shifted from corporate leadership to coaching
  • [02:31] ADHD vs. executive function: neurodivergence vs. the brain’s “management system”
  • [03:53] Why executive dysfunction is often misread as laziness, not a skills gap
  • [04:24] Executive function skills can be taught, but behavior change takes consistency
  • [05:22] Why habit-building can feel harder for neurodivergent brains
  • [08:06] What to watch for: inconsistency, overwhelm, and needing repeated adult support
  • [09:02] Why challenges spike at transition points when expectations increase
  • [10:57] How ADHD can present differently in girls and be harder to identify
  • [16:23] Causes of executive dysfunction
  • [18:35] The “wrong school” problem and how poor fit can amplify struggles
  • [20:44] Transition advice: remove scaffolding gradually and shift from manager to coach
  • [22:35] Tools that help: calendar/planner use and offloading working memory
  • [23:33] Preparing for college schedules with “anchors” and routine
  • [25:18] College accommodations and why disability services access matters
  • [28:03] Example of a student thriving after reducing over-support and finding the right fit
  • [37:52] “Eat the Frog” and other prioritization tools for planning the day
  • [39:46] Accountability strategies: body doubling and the Pomodoro Technique
  • [42:37] Social media tradeoffs: dopamine, distraction, and healthier boundaries with timers
  • [46:22] Myths and truths: intelligence isn’t executive function, it’s not a character flaw, and it can persist
  • [47:44] Wrap-up and where to find more episodes and resources
  • Theme Song: “Happy Optimistic Americana” by BDKSonic

What is the College Bound Mentor podcast?

Lisa, Abby, and Stefanie know college. They also know students. With over 30 years combined experience mentoring young people, they’ll show you why understanding yourself is the key to finding the right college. Each episode, hear trends, case studies, and interviews with students who have gone through it all – giving you valuable insight to survive the college application process and beyond. Hosted by Lisa Bleich, Abby Power, and Stefanie Forman, Partners of College Bound Mentor.

Transcript

Please note: this transcript is not 100% accurate.

00:04
Removing the scaffolding little by little is the best thing that a parent can do.

00:19
Hey, CBMers, welcome back to College Bound Mentor, where we help you survive the college application process and beyond. We’re your co-hosts, Lisa, Abby, and Stefanie. And on today’s episode, we are excited to chat with Debbie White. Debbie White is an ADHD Executive Function career and executive coach who pivoted to coaching after 25 years in a successful corporate career. Her journey to coaching was born out of years of parenting a son with ADHD and learning about her diagnosis alongside his.

00:49
It’s this lived experience that’s fueled a deep empathy for the challenges and strengths of ADHD. Debbie supports clients as young as 14 years old to adulthood and partners with them to set goals to enable them to live lives that are more focused, manageable, and fulfilling. Her approach is grounded in self-awareness, no judgment, and actionable support. Debbie and I met at one of my author events actually at the JCCC, I think it was last month.

01:16
And we started chatting and we were just sort of talking about what we did. And when I found out what she was working with a lot of the ADHD executive functioning population, I thought that would make a great guest on our podcast. So thank you for agreeing to be on it. And so welcome. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Yeah.

01:35
Well, you we have a lot of students that we work with that have ADHD. Some people have executive functioning challenges. Some people have ADHD and don’t have executive functioning challenges. And we’ve also seen that ADHD is something that impacts people differently. know, some people, it can be a real superpower where they can hyper-focus. And then sometimes we find that it’s really challenging for kids to focus. And sometimes a lot of times getting their ideas out from their heads onto paper.

02:03
So we find that also be a challenge. And a lot of people don’t know they have ADHD, particularly among girls. Like Steph didn’t know she, I mean, she went to college and then that’s when she realized that she had ADHD. So can you talk a little bit about breaking down the difference between ADHD, executive functioning, and how they often show up together? ADHD basically is a neurodivergence. And that is, um the brain is,

02:31
processes differently than um a neurotypical brain. Executive function is the brain’s management system. Some people think of it as an air traffic controller or an orchestra conductor. Executive function are really the skills that allow us to plan, to focus, to problem solve, to remember to do things, to manage our time, control our impulses.

02:58
um or adjust and be flexible when things don’t go according to plan. So you can imagine an airport without an air traffic controller. Unfortunately, I think we’ve seen that. I think we can imagine that, So without these strong executive function skills, even really intelligent people can struggle with day-to-day um skills and life and work and school.

03:23
not because they don’t know what to do, but they don’t know how to manage doing it. So really it’s like executive function are those skills, whereas ADHD is that neurodivergence and how the brain processes differently and can impact executive function and social emotional wellbeing. Right. And it’s so interesting because I hear, we hear often, and I’m sure you guys do with clients, it’s like, like they just don’t,

03:53
like we either people think they’re lazy or people think that they’re not trying. And so often it’s not necessarily that they’re not trying. It’s just that they don’t have the executive function skills to do it. And the intentions are always there, but they’re just not able to execute on them. Totally. I’ve taken a couple of neurobiology classes about ADHD and one of the favorite, my favorite things that my professor said that really crystallized it for me is ADHD isn’t a condition of knowing, it’s a condition of doing.

04:24
And so it is not that people don’t have the ability. It’s sort of like you might be a good chef and you could come up with a recipe on your own without even using a cookbook. But I don’t have that creativity and I may not know where to start because I don’t have that skill. And is it something that they can learn? Is it something that you’re able to impart and have people learn? Is it a learn skill? Absolutely. So executive function skills.

04:54
can absolutely be taught with two caveats. One, a willingness to be able to accept that there’s something that’s not serving you and you want it to be fixed. And two, it takes a lot of behavior change. So neurotypicals, when you are starting a routine, so I am also, I consider myself to be neuro, I identify as being neurodivergent with ADHD. So neurotypicals,

05:22
especially this time of year, new year, new you, with people setting their intentions for the year and setting new year’s resolutions, we’ve all read that building um a new habit takes 30 days, right? Everyone’s read that before. That’s actually not true. That is true for people who are neurotypical. For people who are neurodivergent, even though it becomes like, all right, I’m getting this, I’m going to the gym.

05:51
The habit does not become automatic. It still becomes a choice that I make every single day if I’m going to do something or not. So it is like pushing water up a hill, but it can be done by building new neural pathways and creating that behavior change that’s going to stick. I think that could be done two ways. One, doing a little bit at a time.

06:16
because we’re not broken, we don’t need to be fixed, we just have habits that don’t serve us. Two, the way you build new neural pathways is by uh having an open mind, by harnessing your creativity, by learning new things, it allows the mind to be more flexible to create those new pathways. It can be done for a lifetime.

06:45
It just becomes harder as we get older, but I am living proof as somebody who switched careers at 52 that it can be done and it can be done successfully. Yeah, I love too that you’re so open about your own journey and what you’ve learned through. I know you’ll get to it, I’m sure, this podcast and like what you have learned and how you’ve become so successful with what you learned from your experience with your son.

07:09
We had a lunch last week and I shared it with a seven-year-old daughter and she has ADHD and I’ve been very open about it. I see it as a gift and I think it will continue to be a gift for how she sees the world. But understandably so, sometimes you hear neurodivergent or you hear disability and that’s scary and it’s worrisome. And I think sometimes when we see our kids struggling, we are scared.

07:37
of the negativity that can be associated with that. So, you know, how do you know if your child needs help? Because it’s a scary thing to admit that. And what are some clear signs that this is not just a seven-year-old, a 14-year-old, an adult, a college student floundering, that there needs to be some support or some interventions put in place? All resonates. All land on me.

08:06
totally get it, you know, particularly having a younger child with you having a younger child. um Hearing these labels can be upsetting, but that’s all they are. Really. The first thing I’ll say is it’s a label. You know, you don’t know what size my shirt is. You don’t know what brand it is, but it gives me information so that I know that I can put the right size shirt on. um It doesn’t have to be anything. So that’s the first thing is like.

08:34
I think of as a label and I encourage people to think about it as just data. But it is upsetting, particularly when your child is young. In terms of looking at signs, I don’t think that there’s any one particular sign, but there are definitely clues. I think the biggest clue can be inconsistency. So when you see that your child knows what the expectations are, but they don’t consistently know how to follow through,

09:02
or do without adult support, or they’re overwhelmed. That is one key clue, I think, that you could look at at any age. Executive challenges really become more obvious when there are transition points, so when the expectations are getting higher. So whether it’s early childhood, keeping track of things, keeping their room clean, like for me, I lost a shoe on the way to school.

09:30
So tell me how many people without executive function deficits have lost a shoe on early school? I would say probably zero. Then there’s during uh early elementary school, there’s more assignments, there’s more expectations. And then again, particularly in adolescence, when there’s more of an expectation of independence um and those self-management demands increase. So one little caveat there is that

09:58
It’s not always so cut and dry, like not every kid loses a shoe on the way to school because the mind is really adaptable and we’re able to compensate and develop ways to cope. So those coping things can be like whether you’re working really hard to mask or deflecting attention away from the weaknesses um or your kid is copying their peers, you know, task or social oriented behaviors.

10:27
One other way is when there’s a lot of scaffolding from the parent, it might not be so apparent. So I would say just keep an eye on the child as we are all doing already. But if they’re really disorganized or they’re really struggling, that might be one clue. So that’s probably what the executive functioning skills. But I feel like with ADHD, particularly among girls is what I’ve seen, is that it’s the inattentive kind.

10:57
and they’re really smart, they can mask it for a really long time. And it’s hard to identify. Like one of my kids said, oh, I think that happened. I was like, no, you don’t. Like I work with kids that have ADHD all the time. And like you turn in your assignments, you’re very motivated, you get everything done, you have good grades. And it was still something that she, until she went to college is when she realized that it was more the inattentive type of ADHD.

11:26
And she always did incredibly well. There was never any of the executive function skills that were at hand. So I think that’s also something to just keep in mind that it manifests itself differently in different types of students. That is a good point because you can see a duck swimming along the water and it looks so graceful and beautiful, but they’re like flapping like crazy and they’re exhausted. um So that’s amazing self-awareness of your daughter to recognize that.

11:55
And it is a spectrum. Like you can have ADHD without having executive function challenges and you can, but it’s not as likely that you have executive function challenges without having ADHD. I’ve seen from clients, especially boys being diagnosed in high school because similar to what Lisa was saying, just because they were smart.

12:20
They could manage it in elementary middle school and then when they got to high school for different for five different periods different teachers just a lot more to manage and organize they just sort of fall apart. I’ve definitely seen that a bunch and then just with my own clients what i would say is what i see is the parents look at ninth grade where they haven’t done as well as they were in middle school and they’re like oh it’s just a hard transition.

12:46
And then it’s like in the middle of 10th grade, they’re like, whoa, whoa, whoa, we have a problem and they get them diagnosed. So I’ve, I’ve had that a bunch, especially with boys. In my experience, I feel like it’s more.

12:59
It’s harder to uh notice in girls because of the point that you made, Lisa, like with your daughter, because depending on maturity levels, and that’s another thing, ADHD, people tend to be 30 % younger than their chronological age in terms of maturity. So there can be a lag. So, you know, with girls who sometimes are, you know, tend to be very conscientious where some boys are and some boys aren’t,

13:28
as they mature.

13:32
with girls finding that lag between what their potential, like that disconnect might be smaller in a girl than in a boy, because they are more conscientious. Can I say that? I think so. I’m a parent of boys. I don’t know anyone who would argue with that, by the way. I’m a small sample size. had no idea.

13:58
And even in college, I didn’t know that I had it. was more like my mom picking up patterns or teachers along the way saying some things to me. But I understand, Abby, what you’re saying about the precipice, like being so significant from eighth grade to ninth grade and then like, let’s wait and see. But I think girls have a harder time because they are working so hard and they are reaching their potential, but they are flapping like a duck. Yeah, they’re working really hard.

14:27
and they don’t realize how it shouldn’t have to be quite as hard as other people. And so they don’t really know why that is. In fact, my husband, had just closing everything, but after then we realized, oh, you have it. He’s had it his whole life. He’s a professor of medicine. He’s highly accomplished person. But he would always say, in college, in med school, was like he had to work so hard to learn the material. And he’d hyper-focus, and he’d learn it, and he would do really well.

14:55
it was so much harder for him and he never, he just thought that was just what it was. And it really was like the last, I would say year or two, like, oh, you want me to eat she, that’s what it is. That makes so much sense now. I totally see it. Cause he’s always telling the story in this circuitous way, but he gets hyper focused on things and he’s super successful. So it’s almost his secret sauce in a way as well. He’s like a dog with a bone. mean, if he’s on something, he is not going to let go until he accomplishes it. And I admire that so much about him, whereas I’d be like, all right,

15:26
that’s I’m giving up on that. And he’s like, no, I’m going to keep at this. And he’s super creative and has all these wonderful ideas. But you just see the way the brain works when he’s telling a story. I’m like, OK, get to the point. Where are we going with this? And that’s not his like, he’s not being circuitous because he wants to be. That’s how his baby is. Yeah, that’s how he sees it. Yeah. And I think I said to you guys, my husband’s a TV news producer and he has a journalism background.

15:54
he talks in the inverted pyramid. It’s always like, tell me the headline. And I’m like, I have to give every little step along the way. And so I just won’t tell a long story in front of him anymore because. But it is. You kind of just before we we spoke about that, you kind of touched on this, but can someone struggle? And I think you answered this first part, but can someone struggle with executive functioning and not be neurodivergent or have a learning disability?

16:23
Let’s, for example, in today’s society, there are endless distractions, not just for students, for all of us. And the challenge to silence social media or silence the noise or silence whatever is going on in the world, um it’s so hard. So that challenge to do that and to not be distracted and to procrastinate.

16:49
Can that be mistaken for something else? Cause right, it’s hard to navigate in today’s society sometimes. It is, it absolutely is. You can have an executive function disorder and not be considered neurodivergent. Or you can have executive dysfunction without a learning disability. So they’re like, if you think of a Venn diagram, like they could be together, they don’t have to be together. There’s like a lot of…

17:19
overlap and mutual exclusive desk from there. But executive dysfunction can occur for a bunch of different reasons. One of them could be anxiety. So the working memory is reduced and the mental energy is spent on worry. So like what we met, we were talking about the fact, think of working memory as a sticky note for your brain. And so if your brain is busy worrying, or being anxious, it might not be able to organize you or process.

17:47
um Or if you’re depressed and have low energy or slow thinking or um difficulty planning and follow through, chronic stress or trauma, there’s a lot of different things. And I’m sure as moms, you guys can all identify with this one, sleep deprivation.

18:07
Sustained sleep deprivation over time really can impact all of these things. Your attention, your working memory, your emotional regulation. Like I can remember when my kids were little and they’d have a tantrum. Like it was all I could do to not lay on the floor and like dang my hands and feet. Cause I was so dysregulated from being exhausted. And then also like a developmental lag, like I was talking about before, some kids are just more immature than other kids and develop later.

18:35
Finally, an environmental mismatch. If you are at the wrong school and you have executive functioning deficit or ADHD and you’re a square peg in a round hole, that can cause like tremendous instability and variability. Well, I saw that with one of my own sons who was at the wrong school and how much stress.

19:00
You we switched him when he was going into eighth grade, but I see that with clients all the time. It’s hard to switch schools, but I think that people underestimate how big a stress on the whole system that can be. Yeah, and I worked with a lot of college students and a lot of high school students, and I always get permission from the parents before I give this message. And you guys know this probably better than anybody in the world.

19:25
I believe when the kids are looking at colleges, they have to look at the fit for themselves too. It’s not just about the college accepting you, but it also has to be about you accepting the college and what they’re willing to offer you. And it depends on the client. Some parents, not every parent thinks that way, but you want to set them up for success. mean, every parent wants to set their kids up for success.

19:51
But that is definitely one thing with executive function and with ADHD, you want to make sure it’s a good fit. You’re not in, if you’re emotionally dysregulated and you’re in a high boilerplate, you know, situation, that’s obviously not going to be the right fit for the kid. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, that’s definitely how we approach it. academic, social, cultural fit, the most important. I mean, they have to be set up for success and they don’t sort of leading into my next question. They don’t have the support system.

20:20
that they have in high school even to kind of get through that. as we were just talking about, we’re working with kids who are about to make their way to college. So do you have any advice for us on what tips can you give our parents and kids and clients to focus on before they leave for college to prepare themselves the best they can?

20:44
um And how might you talk about the difference between the kind of support they’ll have while they’re at home and in high school and what the college environment is going to look like for them? Yeah, that’s such a good question. Removing the scaffolding little by little is the best thing that a parent can do. And I think it’s very um generational. I’m a Gen X and I was raised

21:11
to be resourceful and to do things myself and to hustle. And I think that um a lot of parents today think that giving their kids the latitude is doing them a disservice and they want to help it and make it easier for them. But that’s actually the worst thing in my opinion that a parent can do. Because we want, you the saying, if you teach a man to fish,

21:40
If you give a man officially to me and if you teach a man officially for a lifetime. So I think that applies really well with executive functioning. So to just really. Support them and shift gradually away from doing for them to coaching. And the sooner these shifts happen, the better they’ll be prepared to go away. So when I say shifting from manager to coach in middle school.

22:09
You think about parents reminding their kids about doing their homework and they’re checking their grades and they’re helping them organize their materials. So in high school, um it helps if you’re asking reflective questions instead of giving the answers. Like, what’s your plan to get this project done? uh Hardest thing to do, but letting those natural consequences happen within safe limits and not micromanaging. So you can see.

22:35
What happens? Is it a maturity? Is it an ability? Do they need support? And it depends on each kid. um I think probably my biggest piece of advice would be having the kids use tools at reliably and consistency. So things like a planner or a digital calendar. So some kids work better with paper. Some people work better online. Most kids are online.

23:04
But I always tell my clients, you know what system works best? And they’re like, what? The one that works for you and the one that you stick to, rely on. Also not relying on that working memory. Like when we’re young, we can remember 15 things until you stop sleeping. And so, you know, why make it harder than it has to be? So why rely on that working memory?

23:33
Use that sticky note, use that external source. Think another one, time management. Just when kids are in high school, they have so much scheduled time. And in college, they’re not. So helping them imagine what a day might look like in college. And I always talk about putting anchors in your day. So make sure you’re getting up at a reasonable time, at least one day on the weekend. ah

24:02
you know, going to bed, like making sure that they’re establishing those routines. And then also really helping them with problem solving. You know, I didn’t turn to my homework, what should I do? Well, what do you think you should do? You know, how can you approach this? So helping them not realize that they should know how to do it, but it’s a tool that they have to build. The last one I would say is emotional regulation, which people don’t always.

24:30
considered to be an executive function, but it is a huge one. What do you do when you get overwhelmed? What are your deficits? And helping them work through those things. Because I think like we didn’t talk about this when we were growing up, but our kids are so well-versed in speaking about, you some kids, a lot of kids are well-versed in speaking about their feelings. So.

24:54
What are their tools and what are the tools that they can lean on when they’re overwhelmed or they’re stressed or they’re anxious or depressed or whatever the things are. Debbie, those are great ideas for how a parent can help transition to college. But I think it’s also important to note just what do you do to get accommodations in college? Because that’s also a really big thing that we get a lot of questions from. So what we typically tell students is that and families is that

25:18
First of all, you have to have a WASC-IV, which is an adult assessment. It’s a neuropsych exam to demonstrate that you have a need for accommodations and that’s something that you’ve been able to use in high school to be more successful in your academics. So, and that has to happen once a student is 16. So that’s something that is important to note if you’re thinking about getting accommodations, you want to make sure that your last neuropsych exam has been a WASC-IV and when you’re 16.

25:46
And then when looking at colleges, we recommend that you often visit the Office of Disabilities because that will give you an idea of how comfortable you are as a student going in there, getting help, meeting with various advisors to help you. Many instances, they can help you manage your schedule, manage your assignments, help you break things down, really work on those executive functioning skills.

26:13
So the way to think about it is there’s three levels of services that are offered at colleges. There are services, which is just that they offer services and you have to request them. There are coordinated services, which is sort of like the middle range. And then there’s support programs. And those are programs that have special offices dedicated to helping students with learning differences, students with executive function. There typically is a chart, an additional charge. Sometimes I get a school like Marist.

26:42
You have to actually be admitted into the program. But often it’s really a matter of helping students typically that first year manage the transition and go through learning executive function skills, how they can manage their time. It’s really more about the executive functioning skills rather than the academics. So that’s an important thing to just note. And the other thing that’s different between high school and colleges

27:07
is that in high schools you’ll have a 504 or you’ll have an IEP and a dependent educational plan. In colleges you don’t really have that. But it is good if you’ve had that support in high school to have it documented so that when you go to colleges you can request to get either extended time on tests, to get distraction free rooms, sometimes you can get note takers. There’s a lot of different things you can get if there’s a reading situation and you need help.

27:34
with reading there’s a Kurzweil which will read now that we don’t really have textbooks that much anymore, but can read things for you. It’s a lot easier now with all the adaptive tools. But those are some of the accommodations that you can get that the college itself will provide. It reminds me, Abby, of one of those twins that we worked with, remember? And at the time, we were working with two twins and one of them had ADHD, executive function problems, and he was in the wrong school for sure. He was in the wrong high school. It was good for his…

28:03
twin brother but not for him. And he had a ton of support. He was constantly having to go in and meet with the, you know, the student support person and he pretty much had everything regulated for him. He was a super creative kid, really artistic, and I saw that right away. And he actually wrote his essay about how he got rid of all of the support. And when he started taking back his own life and started making the choices for himself,

28:33
he just soared. I mean, he did incredibly well, and he ended up going to Syracuse and doing incredibly well there and was now working in a creative field. So he just wasn’t in the right place, but he knew what he needed to do. So just as you were talking about that, it reminded me of that essay and that student. uh Sorry, I got chills in my whole body, and I would love to interview him for my son. I’d ask him because he is, I keep up with him and

29:01
He is soaring. He’s four years post-college or three years, three and a half years post-college now, uh still soaring. Yeah. Once he got in the right place, he just soared. I love that. That’s amazing. And it’s so hopeful. I think it’s so tough for these kids when they’re going through it. But when they work so hard for it and they see that payoff, it’s beautiful.

29:30
It seems like it’s a matter, I like a lot of what you said about, what everyone said about stigma because I have two brothers and two sons. I know nothing about girls, literally, even though I have some female clients. I’m a boy, mom, a boy person, but this road can be really rough for them because they, think boys are very uncomfortable when they don’t have control. I think that’s just a natural thing.

29:55
uh, you know, speaking not as an expert, but just anecdotally across all the, all the people that I dealt with. And when, and I would, I would say that, um, applied to the young man that Lisa’s talking about too. He saw himself once he couldn’t control everything because he got overwhelmed in high school. He thought he was, he was in the wrong high school, by the way, also something else that you said Debbie, but aside from that, he probably could have navigated his way through if he’d figured out this, that he was a creative. He had no idea by the way.

30:23
That he was a creative I mean he had absolutely no idea he thought he was supposed to be doing like math and science whatever so if he had somehow realized that he might have been able to navigate that high school but he was in the wrong place but um you know he just felt like a failure it’s so hard to get it out of that and so sort of talking about this openly but also talking about hopeful stories. Where.

30:46
people become hyper successful, I think is just really helpful to kids who are starting to go through this. Cause I feel like those boys who realize this is their issue when they get to high school, they’d rather sabotage themselves. Sometimes they avoid it. Yeah. They avoid doing the work cause they’re afraid that they’re not going to be successful. So it’s easier for them to do that. Yeah, I think so. So anyway, I think this is all super helpful to kind of get out in the open with specific examples of kids who’ve really thrived even more than they would have, you know, like

31:14
Lisa was saying with her husband, know, if they hadn’t, it’s a gift. You know? Yeah. Well, I think it’s interesting because I’ve had a number of kids write about having ADHD in positive way, not in the, know, sometimes it’s the, know, I didn’t know I had it and this is why I didn’t do well. And then I figured it out. But a lot of times it’s like, this has been my superpower. Like this is how I’m super creative. This is how I can really focus in and hyper-focus on a certain area. And in fact, I remember reading a book

31:40
blog post from one of my clients, he graduated a bit ago, probably in 2019, I want to say graduated from college, he went to Yale. So was a super talented young man, musician, and he ended up working in social media. And he just was able to harness all of his creative juices and all of his superpowers of hyper-focus. And he said, like, I love to go from task to task to task to task, and this is what I do at work.

32:09
So it’s once you get out of the school where you’re so narrow-minded in terms of what you have to do and you could really unleash it, then it does become a superpower. So just interesting. I love that. And I do think with work, everybody can be a success story. Yeah. I agree. I would go back to Mad Men. mean, when you watch Mad Men, right? It’s like now you have people, now you have whatever. You have AI companions that will dictate what you’re saying. But in the old days,

32:38
you had somebody, all of these people that probably had ADHD, had secretaries or assistants, and they would just spitball all of the stuff. And then that assistant would take that information and type it up and make sense of it. And, you know, not having that anymore. If you look at Mad Men, I’m sure all those people had ADHD. Totally. No, totally. And I think with regard to this stigma comment, everybody in today’s day and age has something.

33:07
It’s always my approach to be very open because you never know what someone else is going through. And it’s like, it’s just a thing. It’s like, you have diabetes, you treat it, have ADHD, you treat it, have anxiety, depression, whatever it is. So I think it’s very common. And Lisa, I love your point about, Abby, like, maybe using your strengths to harness your power.

33:36
Like for me, switching from a corporate executive and I did really well in my career, but I have impulsivity. So for me to work at a company like American Express and be very much a, you know, a corporate person was not the right fit for me, even though I was really successful at my job. So like I’m a perfect example of, you know, talk about wanting to go from thing to thing, you know, one hour is business development. Another hour it’s coaching, another hour it’s doing a podcast. So.

34:05
I think in today’s day and age with there being so many opportunities, it’s just about being resourceful to find what works for your client. Agreed. And being lucky enough to have somebody’s support, whether it’s a teacher or a parent or someone to give you the confidence to chase what you know is right, might know what is right for you. But I think it’s hard to just, yeah. Yeah. I think that’s huge is to have someone

34:32
in your corner at least one and then what that turns into for you is huge. Yeah. Going back to the kids who are going to college, what would you say to parents about what the best way to support their kids who have executive functioning issues? How can they best support them from afar without compromising their independence? Yeah. And that’s a great question.

35:01
because these pitfalls happen when there’s so much independence. You they’re going from like we were saying before, being over scheduled to having all the time in the world. So helping their kids stick to a routine, not getting their days and nights mixed up, committing to the gym a certain number of times a week. I think helping them slot in their calendar what they need to do. So then what they want to do becomes the dessert.

35:30
and not the shiny object. I think also just keeping an open dialogue with their child about how they’re doing, what’s going well, what can be improved, and helping the kid. Like you can be there as a sounding board, but letting them drive the solutions to help foster that independence themselves. think one other thing is uh encouraging the child to check into the resources that the college provides.

35:57
most colleges do have an office of disability support or like academic success centers that the kids could access. And when I was doing my research for this, I was shocked to find very few kids actually use these resources. Yeah, they’re all available. I mean, I think when I first started doing this, actually, Stephanie’s mom used to work with me and she was the LD support to work with students who had

36:25
needed learning support. So we had all this information on it and now it’s really blossomed. mean every college does have support and they do have accommodations for students but it’s really a matter of accessing those. So what do you do? So as a parent you’re going to provide advice or you’re going to and even if you do it in a very mentor-y way rather than a directive way but then you know they get off to college right and then everything can fall apart.

36:54
So what do you see as some of the biggest challenges? Because we see kids who come to us who hit the screen when they got to college and then they need to regroup and try to transfer. What are some of the pitfalls that you see for kids when they go off to college? And how do you think we can either anticipate or help manage them? I think it’s really just learning how to be their own life manager. Proper nutrition, adequate sleep.

37:23
enough hydration, being proactive, staying on top of things. So really just like fostering that before they go and then continuing it as they go. At our lunch, I wanna bring up something that I really liked. We were asking you, or you mentioned that sometimes they don’t, and you’ve said this too, that they don’t know the supports that are available to them. But one specific support that you brought up, the frog example,

37:52
which we really loved. So can you describe that, not just the frog example, but what are some other effective tools that you give students to help them? So the Eat the Frog is a prioritization tool. So it’s based on a quote from Mark Twain, which is, if it’s your job to eat a frog, it’s best to do it first thing in the morning. If it’s your job to eat two frogs, it’s best to eat the biggest frog of all. So

38:19
Basically, the frog is your aid priority. So if you imagine breaking up a sheet into four sections, you have your aid priority, your frog, that’s your must do. And then you have a should do, a nice to do, and a not necessary. Another one is the Eisenhower matrix. And in addition to being executive function coach, I’m also an executive and career coach. I work with C-suite executives who are like, I don’t know how to break down my day if I’m not scheduled meeting to meeting.

38:49
And these very, very successful people. So the Eisenhower matrix is a two by two grid that’s broken up. The anchor points are importance and urgency. And the four points in the grid are due schedule, delegate, and delete. And so like, before I go to bed, I look at my day the next day and I plan, okay, prep for webinar. That was my frog this morning.

39:18
or whatever the thing is, if I don’t do today, my day is going to fail. And so then it becomes very objective. These are my plans, and this is what I have to do today. And I wouldn’t say put a million things on there, but what are the things that I’m actually going to get done? So a prioritization tool, I think, is really important. Other tools. So one area you asked before about

39:46
where I see pitfalls when people go to college, accountability. know, kids are so, I think like because of COVID and because of life, there’s less accountability on kids today than there was historically in my observation. And so one good tool is body doubling. So that’s where you work with a friend, like you might go to the library for an hour together and you can sit side by side at a carol, do they still have carols at libraries?

40:14
I do. In the drags, I think in the basement, right? So you sit side by side, you don’t have to be working on the same thing. But it is like we are going to go to the library and we are going to work for two hours. And what you can do to keep yourself like to keep that energy sustained is something called the Pomodoro technique. And that’s work for 25 minutes, you take a five minute break and you do that four times and then you take a 20 minute break.

40:43
So the benefit of that is that you’re able to build stamina. You can be focused in short bursts and you use timers and hold yourself accountable to follow through and restart after each break. That’s the tricky part. But ah there are all these other little things. mean, there are websites that you can sign up for, like Focusmate, where you can body double with somebody. And I’ve done it before with clients and I was very frankly like,

41:12
annoyed that I had to take the time to do it. But then I actually ended up being really, um it works, like it works really well. And, you know, I just went on mute and I turned off my camera and I set the timer for 25 minutes, I will take me back, I asked my client how it gone. And now I do it occasionally with clients, or I do with friends who come over and will body double except no talking. And we focus.

41:41
My daughter did that when she had to study for the MCATS. There was a site where you could just go on and it was just a random person. She doesn’t have ADHD, but she just wanted somebody to be accountable. So it didn’t feel so arduous to be studying for such a big test. That’s amazing. Was that a formal thing that was set up? It’s a formal thing. I don’t know. It was just a website. You just go on and there’s somebody sitting there on the screen and they’re just in the background and then you’re doing your work. They’re doing their work. You don’t really talk to them. It was just, you knew that.

42:09
Like you had company when you were trying to do something that was challenging. It also holds accountable to like actually sit there for two hours if you sign up for a slot. Right, so if someone’s there and you know that they’re there and that was kind of what it was, yeah. OK, that’s a genius use of technology, right? Sometimes, sometimes technology is the worst, but that is totally genius. Yeah. And speaking of technology, I feel like we have to talk about social media for a second.

42:37
um at least, although social media is sort of the bane of my existence. But anyway, so what do you see as the connections between executive functioning and social media? Like, do you see it as something that gets in the way of kids’ focus and students’ focus? Or are there ways that you see it as a positive thing in a student’s life? I think both. I think for someone with executive function deficits and ADHD, technology can be a big struggle.

43:07
because it takes attention away from the important to the interesting. can also like, I think that a lot of kids use it as a pacifier. If I’m bored or I’m stretched or I’m challenged, I’m uncomfortable, I’m going to take a break and put in my pacifier and go on social media and

43:31
like guilty, I do it too. It’s hard because there’s also that novelty and people with ADHD are always seeking dopamine. And so that’s like to go scroll, it’s a big draw. So for someone with executive functioning skills, it can be like being on a diet and going to an all you can eat buffet, which can be a challenge, but there are some benefits that come from it.

44:00
and that is cognitive flexibility. executive function, one executive function challenge amongst some people is uh inflexibility and uh the perspective that their way is the right way. So by watching videos and seeing somebody who has a different opinion, you might learn to be more flexible or uh change your perspective or

44:28
Another benefit is like if you’re using it to learn and, you know, learn some hacks about what did your favorite influencer do when they had executive function check or not feel so alone. So there are some good things to exercise regulation and to really, you know, set a timer to prevent yourself from doom scrolling. So it’s both, but I do think it weighs heavier on being more of a distraction than a benefit.

44:59
Sounds like timers are a big thing for people with executive functions. Setting the timers so that you know exactly what you need to do, when you need to do it, and it doesn’t seem… Now we actually tell students, just all of our students, so we get into the crunch time of getting all of their essays to set a timer or just to spend 30 minutes, commit to 30 minutes a day, every day, to work on their essays and just undistracted. I don’t know how many people listen, but I do think those that do, they get a lot more done because then it’s not this like, oh, I have to write.

45:27
I need three hours to write all these essays. Just like spend a little bit of time each day and you’ll chip away at it. And I think that’s a really. And it’s like, and for neurotypicals when they get in that habit, it sticks. It really helps build stamina. It helps them focus. I like that one a lot. Like I tell my clients if they’re trying to organize themselves to set a timer for like 25 minutes, do one room. And then if you’re still excited to do more,

45:56
set a timer for another 20 minutes. Sometimes it’s just getting started. I I know when I, I I my book, was a while, it was like 10 years ago, maybe longer than, but I just, said, okay, I’m going to spend, I think it was an hour a day. And then it just like forced me to just sit down and do it. And then I did it. It was like, it wasn’t that hard. was just getting started was always the hardest part of it. 100%.

46:22
So what are some, we always like to end or start with myths and truths. So what are some myths and truths about ADHD, EF, or executive functioning? I think my favorite one is that strong intelligence doesn’t mean strong executive function and low intelligence doesn’t mean weak executive function. Intelligence doesn’t predict EF performance. I can both struggle with the organization while

46:51
people with the lower IQ might have amazing executive function skills. So I think that that’s a big one. Another one you hit on before that executive function, the myth is executive dysfunction is laziness or character flaw. And that couldn’t be further from the truth. It stems from differences in brain development of function um and it affects our ability to manage tasks. It’s not a lack of effort. Last one.

47:21
that it’s a childhood issue, it’s only a childhood issue, ah unfortunately. It can persist into adulthood, but like we said, with work and building those neural pathways, you can turn it into a spring. Absolutely, yeah. All right, well, thank you. Thank you, Debbie, for being here and thank you, CBMers for tuning in.

47:44
You gave us a lot to think about, a lot to process. So we really appreciate you taking the time to speak with us. um You could um catch more episodes of CBM, of College Bound Mentor, make sure to follow or subscribe on your favorite podcast and tell a fellow parent or student about the podcast. If you like what you hear, please give a review because that will help us get it out to more people. And to learn more, visit CollegeBoundMentor.com. Until next time, you got this!

The post The ADHD Effect with ADHD & Executive Functioning Coach Debbie White – College Bound Mentor Podcast #43 appeared first on College Bound Mentor.

This is Episode #42 and you’ll hear us talk about uncovering student aptitudes and aligning them with majors and careers with Betsy Wills and Alex Ellison, authors of Your Hidden Genius. Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and your other favorite podcast spots – follow and leave a 5-star review if you’re enjoying the show!

• Episode Summary & Player
• Show Notes
• Learn more about the College Bound Mentor podcast
• Transcript

College Bound Mentor Podcast Episode #42: Your Hidden Genius with Betsy Wills & Alex Ellison

How can your student figure out what they want to major in? How about what they want to do in life? It might be time to find their hidden genius. In this episode, we welcome on Betsy Wills & Alex Ellison, Authors of Your Hidden Genius: The Science-Backed Strategy to Uncovering and Harnessing Your Innate Talents. Betsy is the Co-Founder of YouScience and Alex is the Founder of Throughline Guidance. Here’s a small sample of what you’ll hear in this episode:

• How to find your aptitudes
• How to use your aptitudes to align with your major or career
• How important it is to go into college confident in your major or career
• How to turn a student away from a particular field – gracefully
• And how parents can help students find their hidden genius

Subscribe to College Bound Mentor on your favorite podcast platform and learn more at CollegeBoundMentor.com.

Check out the episode and show notes below for much more detail.

Show Notes

• Your Hidden Genius with Betsy Wills & Alex Ellison
  • [00:19] Welcome to the College Bound Mentor
  • [00:49] Betsy’s background and founding YouScience
  • [01:14] Alex’s work in guidance counseling and career readiness
  • [02:10] Why the hosts use YouScience and what the book adds
  • [02:39] How Betsy and Alex met and why they wrote Your Hidden Genius
  • [04:04] The origin of YouScience and making aptitude testing accessible
  • [06:46] The “core four” aptitudes and what they measure
  • [08:10] Idea generation styles and why opposites work well together
  • [10:58] How YouScience combines core aptitudes with additional “amplifiers”
  • [15:23] Numerical reasoning vs. “being good at math,” and why students self-select out
  • [22:45] Using career matches as patterns as jobs evolve quickly
  • [25:20] How to use aptitude results differently by age and revisit them over time
  • [29:56] YourHiddenGenius.com resources and ways to apply results
  • [31:50] Going into college with direction and curiosity
  • [43:27] Using O*NET to understand what careers actually involve day to day
  • [46:40] Finding fulfillment beyond one job through hobbies and other outlets
  • [49:02] Wrap-up and where to find more episodes and resources
  • Theme Song: “Happy Optimistic Americana” by BDKSonic

What is the College Bound Mentor podcast?

Lisa, Abby, and Stefanie know college. They also know students. With over 30 years combined experience mentoring young people, they’ll show you why understanding yourself is the key to finding the right college. Each episode, hear trends, case studies, and interviews with students who have gone through it all – giving you valuable insight to survive the college application process and beyond. Hosted by Lisa Bleich, Abby Power, and Stefanie Forman, Partners of College Bound Mentor.

Transcript

Please note: this transcript is not 100% accurate.

00:00
I think it’s very important to go in with some idea, but it’s also important to go in with a sense of curiosity.

00:19
Hey, CBMers, welcome back to College Bound Mentor, where we help you survive the college application process and beyond. We’re your co-hosts, Lisa, Abby, and Stefanie. And on today’s episode, we are super excited to chat with Betsy Wills and Alex Ellison, authors of the book, Your Hidden Genius, the science-backed strategy to uncovering and harnessing your innate tapas. And I have book right here. There was actually a very long waiting list at the library to get this book, so I had to uh put my time in.

00:49
uh So Betsy, just to give you a little background about our guest, Betsy Wills is the co-founder of YouScience and National Online-based Education and Career Platform, headquartered in American Fork, Utah. She is a regular guest lecturer at Vanderbilt University and New York University Stern School of Business and has been featured speaker for TEDx Women. Formerly, she was a director of marketing and branding at Diversity Trusts and a wealth management firm. She serves on the advisory board.

01:14
of the Peggy Gung Hei Museum in Venice and the Music City Center Authority in Nashville, Tennessee. Betsy is a graduate of Vanderbilt University and holds a Master’s of Education in Human Resource Development from Peabody College. Alex Ellison is an educational consultant with a private guidance counseling practice, which has enabled her to work with schools, nonprofits, and families across the country. She writes and lectures extensively on the subject of careers and college readiness and has been a feature speaker on South by Southwest and TEDx.

01:42
She is the author of Go Your Own Way, Seven Student-Centered Paths for the Best College Experience, and the creator of Go Your Own Way Student Archetyped Quiz, used in schools and by individuals to jumpstart their college search. holds a degree in German and business from Northwestern University and a master’s in public policy from the University of Nevada. So welcome. Thank you so much for having It’s like the podcast is over now. I know. I know. We’ve got so much information, which is great.

02:10
But I have to say that we have used you science, you with our clients for many years. And I was really excited to read your book, as I said when I reached out to you, because I think that, you know, we always go over it with them, but just to understand the nuances of how really to interpret the data at a much more granular level, I found it really fascinating and really interesting. And so when I read it, I thought, hey, I Betsy and Alex would make a great guest on our pod. And of course, you guys are great. So we were super happy to do that.

02:39
So why don’t you just start us off, tell us a little bit of how you guys met and what prompted you guys to write this book. We met during the famous COVID days uh because both of us were thinking, you what could we do here? And uh I had wanted to write a book about new science to add, like you said, more information about the nuances behind the results. I think there was a crying need for that. And so I found Alex because she had already written a book.

03:07
that included information about you science. And so she was the perfect candidate to discuss this with plus the fact that she is 30 years younger than me. And so I really was so excited. think that’s right. I think I know not that much younger than 20 years. I don’t know a lot. Generations. Once I get past certain point, it’s enough, right? But Betsy’s biological age is like 22. maybe, but I mean,

03:36
We really did want to bring two generations of voices because as you know, your aptitudes don’t change throughout your life. And so uh it was great because we wanted to speak to people of all ages about what their results meant. And so that’s how we got together. Amazing. So backing up even a little further, Betsy, how did you come up with the idea and the sort of execution of the U Science platform?

04:04
Well, it really all started because when I was 32, I had been home with my children, fortunate enough to stay home with my young children, and I was ready to go back to work. And so a good friend recommended I go to Johnson O’Connor and have my aptitudes assessed. And as most people do not know, it’s very expensive to do that. It’s about a thousand dollars. It takes two days. was, I was very lucky to get to go and it was a game changer for me.

04:33
And that’s when I started noodling over the fact that why doesn’t everybody have this information? It wasn’t a plot, that it was simply the fact that technology didn’t allow us to give objective assessments online at scale. And so once that that opportunity came up really around 2010, when computing power allowed us to do that, we saw the opportunity, myself and the other co-founders to bring this very expensive assessment online and make it affordable for everybody.

05:03
That’s pretty amazing. I love the idea of the accessibility, which is a problem all over education. really democratized it. mean, so when I started my practice in 2013, I searched like many consultants and advisors do, searched high and low for like a really valid tool that was comprehensive, that didn’t look like a Buzzfeed quiz, you know? And so, and I love all the assessments. Like I was a fan of Enneagram and Myers-Briggs and all the things, but I wanted something that was really

05:32
scientifically grounded to help students take a more objective look at themselves, right? And so that’s when I started using you science right from the beginning. And so it became just such an indispensable tool in my practice. it’s the very first thing I have everybody do. I couldn’t see it any other way. Interesting. Yeah, we have kids do it as usually like their sophomore or junior year.

05:58
And it just gives them a really good insight into who they are and what their aptitudes are. And that’s why we like it so much for the same reason. Alex, we just found we wanted something we were using some of the other things as well, like your strengths finder and various versions of Myers-Briggs. But we just found this was such a great tool that was science-backed and also very clear. And we liked the way that you could go in and find careers that match, et cetera.

06:25
And that’s why I the book was so helpful because it did help you understand those nuances. But let’s just take a step back for people who aren’t familiar with youth science and let’s talk about like the core four, right? You have the core four. How did you come up with those four? And so let’s just want to say what they are and then how you came up with them.

06:46
Okay, so the core four, and again, this is not an assessment you science even made up. This has been so researched for since the 1940s, really. But the core four are the four aptitudes that really give us the most information about where we’re gonna find the most satisfaction in our jobs and life. So those are spatial ability, which most people do not know whether where they fall on that continuum, inductive reasoning, which is our ability to take

07:15
a lot of ambiguous information and draw a conclusion under time pressure. Some people can do that really fast and some people they need more time. Neither one is bad or good. The third one is sequential reasoning, which is effectively how we uh create order, whether we do that in our head or we use tools to do that. Some people just create logic and order in their head and other people

07:41
They really do rely on calendars and organizational tools to do it more often. And then the last one is idea rate. And we love talking about this because uh Alex and I are so different when we on the score of idea rate. And I’ll let you explain what that means, Alex. Yeah, this was the one when I first took you science, I was 25. I saw my result here and I was like for idea generation and I score is what’s called a concentrated focuser.

08:10
And I thought to myself that meant that I didn’t have good ideas and I was very offended and I was like, what is, what? I have great ideas. And then when I was talking to Betsy about this, you know, was about, I think 2018, 2019, when we first started talking about this, it became clear to me that I want to pull my hair out when I’m in meetings that are going on and on and on with just a lot of brainstorming and no action, right? So.

08:37
implementation has been a driving force in my life. You know, I’m like, okay, I get an idea. I’m going to go with it. I pretty much bought the first wedding dress I tried on, you know, like I don’t like to sit and ruminate for very long with a lot of ideas. And so there’s good and bad that comes with that, right? Just like all of these, have to be managed. Betsy is the opposite. She’s what’s called a brainstormer. And she’s a bit like a blender where the top has just flown off and like

09:05
ideas are just going all over the place, which can be super exciting, but you also have to be able to then like gather and collect the splattering of ideas, right? And then execute and implement. So that push and pull between the two extremes actually is very frustrating sometimes, but does lead to a better product in the end. And in our case, it was a book, but it can be stressful, but it was such a great example of how sometimes

09:34
actually most of the time you do want to work with your opposite when it comes to these aptitudes. That push and pull leads to a better outcome and pushes you to grow and evolve too. Well, that was actually something I was thinking about when you break down those, the core into more and we’ll talk about a little later. But have you used this at all with companies for team building? Because when I used to be the director of recruitment for City Search, to come out to online City Search,

10:00
And so they wanted an assessment. This was not available at the time when I was doing this. And so we brought in predictive index. I’m not sure if you’re familiar with that, but it was a similar type of assessment. And we would look at that for various roles and then teams and how you would put people together. Have you found that corporate use? We have, we have. On our website, actually, there’s lots of resources for corporate teams to use this or families to use it. Lots of different applications.

10:29
I even had a boyfriend and girlfriend couple come up to me and ask me if I could help them talk through their aptitudes. Tell them, talk if you become a marriage counselor. Yeah, full disclosure, I’m not a marriage counselor, but it was really insightful, you know? Yeah, aptitudes affect everything. They really do. But I mean, back to sort of the core four, again, inductive reasoning, spatial visualization, sequential reasoning, and then idea generation. Those four really give us a lot of information about where we’re going to be most satisfied.

10:58
and really successful in our lives. So that’s why we really emphasize those. There are actually 52 different aptitudes you could measure. Most people don’t realize that. Thank goodness we don’t measure all 52 in the science because we’d be there forever. But what we the way you science is built is we chose the 14 that really affect us most. And those core four being the foundational piece and then the others being the icing on the cake.

11:27
that give us additional information. That’s so interesting to hear the origins of it. And Alex, you made me think about something because I also bought the second dress. Well, not the first dress, but the second wedding dress I bought, it was in the same setting. So now I’m going to in a deep dive about what that means. I would love if you could tell us how your book has informed the use of you science.

11:54
Well, I think, you know, for definitely in the counseling community and, you know, I, as a counselor, I would talk to a lot of colleagues who would say, I love you science. I feel like I understand it and I see its power, but I’m struggling in like communicating it through anecdotes and examples and other language with the students and clients I work with. And so that was one of our highest goals, right? With this book was.

12:20
so that it could be a tool to give you that language, that vocabulary, and these really rich anecdotes to use to help you understand your aptitudes, but also to help those you’re working with or to help uh your team understand their results as well. And so we really put a ton of time into just even building a matrix of folks who we wanted to interview for this book to make sure there was a really

12:48
really big swath of the population so that everyone could see themselves, every reader could see themselves in at least one of these stories. So that was really important to us. And actually, so let’s talk about some of those examples that you break out, you you break out the core into then three segments, which I always find interesting because sometimes, and you’re very careful to say like, one is not better than the other. These are just the ways that you approach things because sometimes people think,

13:13
Oh, I got the, you know, I got the top one. So that means that it’s better, but it’s really clear that it’s not a matter of better or worse. And I think that’s a really good point that you always make. But you gave the example of was a Betsy, I think it was you Betsy. It was you and your husband planning a trip and how each of you approach it.

13:27
with different results. I guess your husband is more of the investigator and you’re more of the diagnostic problem solver. Was that good? Yeah, no, it’s terrible. But yeah, so again, it’s counterintuitive for people to understand that aptitudes are not good or bad in and of themselves or the, know, so we use that uh in the book. We talk about that one inductive reasoning there. I am a diagnostic problem solver, which means I love to make a decision under time pressure.

13:56
And if there’s not time pressure, boy, I might even create some like a crisis just for the thrill. It’s that person who’s going to put off starting the paper to the night before because they quote unquote do their best work. That’s, know, kind of, we have those kids, we have a lot of those. And that comes in huge handy if you’re going to be in an emergency room position, a physician or an EMT, a lot of jobs really take advantage of that.

14:26
but it’s not so helpful if you’re misusing it. And so that’s, you we always talk about the challenges of wherever you fall, there’s going to be advantages and challenges. So in the book, I’m someone who loves to make that decision, the snap decision, and we were on a trip. My husband will labor a decision over and over. He’ll check every fact. And at one point I was just tired of it because I said, you know, we’re going on this trip. We need to be more carefree. Let me plan the Paris part of this.

14:56
anniversary trip. And so I just went on the internet and I found some hotels like boom, I’m just picking it and we got there. And of course, it was it should have been, you know, condemned actually, this one hotel. And he said that article you read that he was like 20 years old that was posted and I didn’t check that we’ve learned, you know, from each other quite a bit uh when I should make use of that attitude and other times to let him have the ball.

15:23
I think we had a particular interest in amplifiers because we have a lot of clients. I mean, I hear this, especially from young women. I hate to stereotype, but unfortunately I think the whole system is sort of directs young women away from analytical STEM and all that. But so it was particularly fascinating to read about this idea of numerical reasoning and

15:50
We loved how you showed how people who don’t always think of themselves as math people can actually score high on that aptitude. And there was one particular example, DJ, I think it was. Patel. And he had thought of himself as being terrible at math. We hear that all the time. I’m bad at math. can’t be math. I have to say, had a client, this is a long time ago. She graduated about five years ago. um

16:16
She went to Berkeley as a Sanskrit and English major, Sanskrit, like the ancient yoga language, whatever you know. Told me she hated math. She ended up being a data science and math major. I just couldn’t, my mind was blown. We see so many of those. Yeah, I think what we need to parse for people is the difference between applied math, which is like statistics, data analysis, trend analysis, that’s applied math.

16:43
which is what we assess in the uh assessment. It’s called well, numerical reasoning. People are often surprised because they do so well at that and they think of themselves and usually they’ve had a poor math teacher or they’re doing math. That’s you know, it’s theoretical math more like algebra calculus, which is wonderful too. If you can do that, but it doesn’t preclude you from jobs that are uh using science and data. My gosh. And that’s the exact

17:13
economy we’re entering now. we find, you know, new science is over seven and a half million people that they’ve assessed. So we’ve got a lot of data and what we know um studies at universities have looked at the data and animal animalized data. Is that the right word? And it’s not individual data. Yeah. Yeah. And what they find that women tend to express interest in traditional roles on huge amounts.

17:43
but they actually have more aptitude for a lot of these computer science jobs than men. And so- to hear that. Yeah, so you really need to change the conversation, which is one of the big goals of the book and new science is to encourage people to rethink by seeing their own data and their own results of what their possibilities are. Because women tend to leave a lot on the table, honestly.

18:09
And they’re self-assessing themselves out of occupations that they’re actually very well suited for. And I agree with you, Abby, I saw this so many times anecdotally in my practice, mostly with girls who would come in with this big stamp on their forehead that they’d put on there that said, suck at math. And I was just like, this is, and my favorite thing was to then give them youth science, have it inevitably debunk their,

18:39
personal judgment and just kind of see what their faces did and see the change on their face and see the change then and what they chose to what they would then choose to go into what classes they then felt confident to take what majors they then felt confident to pursue. I mean it could really change the course of your life, know and DJ Patel. know he was the first data that we talked about him in the book. He was the first chief data scientist under Barack Obama.

19:05
And it was so funny, he was talking about in high school, he just was so not interested in math. Like, and this is a guy who ended up getting a PhD in like mathematics. So I’m becoming the chief data scientist, you know, so it just is such a great example of how our self judgments can be so wrong. And we can really, our own biases can really work against ourselves. Yeah. Now I really wish that I’d thought about doing that with these young, I am for sure. 100 % for certain doing it the next time.

19:34
Please do. But I’ve had five young women over the last, you know, call it 10 years where, I mean, I hated doing this, but they weren’t going to make it to calculus by senior year, which is critical to go to highly selective schools. I’ve had to have them take pre calc over the summer, which is like the last thing you want to make a kid do. But you also don’t want them to get left behind for no good reason. And they’re mapped apart. You know, they just were.

20:01
convinced that you have to really be serious about math. But I never, never had a boy counseled out of calculus, not once. That’s interesting. Yeah, no, it’s a shame really. think we have, if we can push that problem. I had a girl come into my office actually, I worked in a financial firm as well. And she had taken new science 10 years ago in high school.

20:27
and she bounced into the office. She’s absolutely in finance now and said, you’re the reason this, this assessment was the reason 10 years ago, I went into accounting, which changed my life forever. So, um, I hope people take their scores to heart. Now you may not have an interest, you know, that’s real. You know, sometimes we have aptitudes for things, but really we can’t even develop an interest. So that’s, you know, that’s going to happen as well, but it’s what we are not giving our chance.

20:56
ourselves the chance to explore. It is so important about your results. Yeah, okay. Definite note to self. Now I have a solve for my problem. Well, I was gonna say just following up on that. And then I think Steph wants you to walk through how to actually do this. But my youngest daughter was took youth science in high school, but didn’t really take it seriously. And then she had graduated from college and she was working like in an

21:24
her entry level job, you know, for a year or so and really was unhappy. And so I said, why don’t you take you science? And she did it very seriously and she looked at it. And then we get the results back and the results were not anything that we ever expected. And we kind of dismissed them. We’re like, okay, this is the first time it doesn’t make sense. So she got, she should be an engineer or she should be a doctor. My middle daughter is a doctor. She got that as you science that make total sense, but not for my youngest daughter.

21:50
and that she was also good for counseling and for coaching. Those were kind of the things that came up as her top things. And at the time she was a film and media studies major marketing. She was good in math. I mean, she wasn’t bad in math, but it wasn’t like engineering math, right? And so fast forward, she ends up getting another job. And I said, you know, why don’t we lean into this? You know, maybe get uh a certificate in data analytics because that seems to be oh a skill that you’re gonna need no matter what you end up doing.

22:17
And then now she’s been the she got a new job and then she’s been at for about a year and a half. And what she’s gravitated towards is data like strategy and operations. And so she’s very good at looking at patterns and analyzing the things that are going to make her customers more successful and also kind of how the operations work within her team. So even though it’s not engineering, it’s still that systems and that stuff. So now we’re kind of going back and saying, oh, I see there was a

22:45
There was not so our fetch. I think since you’re all practitioners, I do think it’s important just from the inside baseball to to tell you that even your science is having trouble keeping up with all the jobs of the future because it’s changing so quickly. So I would just urge anybody who is a counselor who’s listening, you know, take those career suggestions as a pattern.

23:10
not necessarily as a specific because there are so many uh new jobs coming on board that the analysis really hasn’t been done by the O-net database yet. And so that matching can’t happen. It’s still very useful. And engineering is one of the top things that’ll come up if you’re spatial and you’ve got some of this numerical reasoning skills as suggestions. But really, I’d say it’s think about a technical role in a company. It could be in marketing and data analysis.

23:40
That is engineering numbers and marketing data after all, in a way. She’s in a fintech company and customer success. uh She’s in the right zone, for sure. She’s in the right zone. But when we first saw her, like, okay, forget it. Now it still looks good. Yeah. Looking for common denominators, I agree, is what you want to do. And it’s sometimes also

24:03
students will feel overwhelmed, especially younger clients will feel overwhelmed sometimes when they see those career recommendations or they’ll feel totally lost, like they don’t know what these jobs are, they’ve never seen them before. And to kind of help that overwhelm, I think it is helpful to say we’re just looking for patterns, common denominators, hang tight. Things are changing. It’s so important too, because like what everyone said, just piggybacking off of

24:28
You guys, it’s just we have, we’re so rigid sometimes in the way we see ourselves and what we’re good at. And it’s so hard for us to go outside that unless we see the patterns or we do something like you science or someone tells us, you know, anyway, but I would love if you could walk us through how someone could use their aptitudes to align with the potential career or major. Like so many, I think it’s okay if you don’t know what you want to do or.

24:56
if you’re 41 like me and well, I know what I wanna do, but if you’re my age and don’t know what you want to do, but so many times students come to us, parents come to us, even when they’re freshmen in high school, like I have no idea what I’m supposed to do, my aptitudes, et cetera. So yeah, I think it’d be really helpful if you could walk us through that. Well, I’ll just start by saying, it depends on.

25:20
the age, you know, and it’s kind of like, you know, that book, The Little Prince, it lands on you differently at different stages in your life. That’s how I feel about aptitude results is you see something and interpret something different every at different stages of your life. So I love, love, love revisiting you science results with someone who I haven’t seen in a few years. Maybe they took it when they were 17 and now they’re thinking about their first job out of college and the results haven’t changed.

25:49
but their perception and their experience and their context has. And so I think for the younger uh students that people work with, going through youth science needs to feel relevant to them right now. We definitely have some kids who you guys know are like very future focused and very excited about the long-term and they’re excited to start talking about their future career in 10 years. But other students will find that very overwhelming. And so to try to show them…

26:14
how do your aptitudes show up for you now? And I like to ask, have you seen this yet? And if they say, no, I’ve never seen my three-dimensional visualization aptitude come into my daily life, let’s figure out ways for you to exercise that now through hobbies, through extracurricular activities, through that first part-time summer job, right? So making it more relevant today, because otherwise I’ve found that this will just go right over their heads if it’s not made.

26:44
contextual right now. So that’s one of the first things I like to do. But yeah, Betsy, did you want to add to that? No, I think this is great. Keep going. That’s perfect. I like what you’re about to say about revisiting. I want to hear about that. Yeah. So then when we revisit it, what’s really funny is sometimes, and it’s kind of like you don’t want to be a jerk and be like, told you so, but you it’s happened many times where youth science gives some suggestions. The student says, whatever, I already know I want to be fill in the blank.

27:13
They go try that thing. They come back to us, you know, as a 21 or 22 year old. I hated studying this or I got my first internship and I hate this industry. We go back to you science and they’re like, oh yeah, that actually now makes so much sense because I’ve fallen on my face a little bit and I’ve learned. And I again have this experience. I’ve seen a bit of the world. I’ve seen what the application of this looks like outside of the classroom. So there’s, just all becomes so much more relevant. And now we can have a more meaningful conversation.

27:42
I think, and I think Betsy agrees, talking to people in like their twenties about this is so much fun because they have enough experience to where they have context, but they’re still so open-minded and excited and enthusiastic about the future. But having said that, I mean, I’ve talked to, you know, just the other day I was talking to someone who’s 38, who’s wanting to make a career change. He’s kind of like already at the top of his field and wanting to do something different.

28:09
And that’s a really fun um conversation as well, but it looks very different, right? It’s like, how can we make small pivots and subtle shifts? For some people it’s how can I just volunteer and spend my free time using my aptitudes in a more meaningful way? I’ve talked to retired people who are like, how can I just use my aptitudes now in my avocations? So I think it depends on the audience how you’re explaining um aptitudes. But my favorite way to talk about aptitudes is…

28:36
with teams who work together, like you were mentioning earlier, right? So like, how can you as a board or as a team understand and appreciate each other’s aptitudes and balance each other out? Like Betsy and I balanced each other out when we were writing this book. That’s, I think, a really fun opportunity. Happy and Steph, you have to take the, I don’t know, have you guys taken you science? I took it when we first started. Have you guys done it? Oh, you guys- I first started. Yeah, I would love to take it again.

29:05
I took it. right. I’ll have take it again. Yeah, it’s funny that you say that because I used it with friends who have wanted to either reenter the workforce or make a transition. And I was like, Oh, well, like I had one friend who was an attorney and then she stayed home with her kids and she was looking to go back and do something. And it came up that she should go into social work or you know, something like that. And now she’s a social worker and she’s like super happy. Wow. I had another young woman who was

29:33
She’s like, oh, I think I want to be a doctor. like, she majored, she has a BFA. And I was like, well, why? Why do you want to be a doctor? said, well, let’s do science first before we figure this whole thing out. And then it turns out that no, she shouldn’t be a doctor. Like that was very, very low on her aptitudes. Yeah. She was actually in the right field. She just needed to make a little bit of a tweak. So yeah, good to reinforce that.

29:56
It’s that confidence. you know, and please, you know, I want your listeners to know on your hidden genius dot com under resources. There are so many ways to use your aptitudes in using a I to help you write your LinkedIn profile to, you know, use it with your book club, to use it lots of different ways. So please explore that. The only thing I do want to go back to, though, is I think the elephant in the room for counselors with particularly young people is

30:25
You know, college is really expensive. OK. And so I do feel like the use case for you science in high school is to try to give people optionality and open their eyes as fast as possible so that they don’t close doors with an expensive education, you know, or take a miss, you know, go down a path that and miss the opportunity to open other doors. So I would say that when you see, for instance, again, we keep talking about engineering, but

30:55
any kind of pattern show up like that, you I always urge people to, you know, really explore, talk to people in those fields as fast as they can so that they aren’t a senior in college and wishing that they’d, you know, kept a door open. So that’s the one, em you know, like you said, bestie, talking to people, that’s a really important point. I mean, you can’t,

31:21
You can’t just do you science and then make your whole life plan based on that. It’s It’s much too abstract, right? So to then, but to use that to kind of hone in a little bit and get rid of such a tyranny of options and tyranny of choices so that you have something to focus on. And then you go seek mentorship and then you go get experiences, right? You can’t, it can’t be void of experience. Right. So how important is it to go into college confident in your career or major?

31:50
I mean, I think it’s very important to go in with some idea, but it’s also important to go in with a sense of curiosity along with that. Because as you know, when you get your science results, it’s never like, you’re just going to be this, that’s it. It’s an array of things to explore. So that’s, you know, sometimes again, even a challenge for people to do because it could vary. my husband’s score was architect.

32:20
fine art photographer, uh department store logistics manager or something like that. I know, but they’re actually all the same pattern. And so, and those are three very different jobs. And he had many other suggestions as well, but we laugh about that. uh He actually could be happy in any one of those three things. What does he do? What is he doing? He actually is an architect and does high-end restoration, uh renovation.

32:49
I always talk about one of his aptitudes is he has one of the amplifiers perfect pitch, pitch discrimination, which most people think of as a musical aptitude, but it’s actually your ability to discern really fine differences in things. So this doesn’t taste right. That’s crooked. Why is the house so messy when there’s just one glass beside the sink? And let me tell you again, it’s very hard to live with.

33:18
Okay, people with perfect pitch. But the man can make a punch list like nobody else. And so in his job, it really comes in handy to have that pitch discrimination, which is an aptitude. And it informs so many things. So again, with 52 different aptitudes we can know about, they’re all gonna come into play in some way. Sort of flipping it around to almost like the negative.

33:45
I come across a lot of kids, especially with pre-med and business, who want to do that for various reasons. Business, I think is obvious because they don’t really know and their parents are in business. And I don’t know, I think I’ve gotten pretty good at spotting kids that at least in their undergraduate experience, it’s not going to make sense. I mean, I have adult friends who didn’t do pre-med and then went back post.

34:11
and did it, but you just don’t want to set them up for failure with organic chemistry and investments 101. So I don’t know, do you have experience turning someone away from some, how do you do that gracefully? Well, I was just talking to a physician who was like, some of the best doctors I know did not major in like your obvious pure science majors. And I’ve always agreed with that, but it was neat to hear it from another physician and.

34:38
I think this is just a reminder that major is not always just this linear connection to your future career, right? And I think what Betsy was saying earlier about having a sense of what the career clusters could be a good fit for you, that’s, I think, really a relief to students, but that doesn’t exactly predict your major. It does for things like architecture and engineering, but for a lot of careers out there, the major is not actually all that important.

35:06
And so I think that there’s a couple of conversations that happen. What could you see yourself getting up and going to class to study for four years? And also, what are some of the careers you could see yourself being happy in longer term? So I think that those things aren’t always totally connected and life is circuitous, right? Yeah, well, I do have a little statistic. think somebody from White Forest, who is very high up in their administration, was telling me one time that 50 % of the

35:35
freshman class at one point was coming in pre-med and then maybe 10 % graduated pre-med. So lots of twists and turns, misfires, that kind of thing. And so in the sense of, you know, can we avoid that as much as possible? Wasted time, wasted money, it is important. But I do want to point out too that you can do anything with practice. You know, if you’re determined to be a doctor or determined to, you know, pass a course,

36:03
You can do it and your aptitudes are not going to stop you um if you want to put the effort in. But the question is, what are you leaving on the table that you’re not playing to the aptitudes? And do you really want your life to be an uphill battle when you can be so successful over here using your full complement of aptitudes? That’s really it. But we never want to be a dream killer based on, you don’t have the exact pattern.

36:30
I know, but it’s worth the conversation to just say, well, what are the other things that bloomers they come into it differently and especially with medicine, it’s a pretty wide field of what you can, what you can do. Yeah. Yeah. think the way in what we do, particularly if someone has gone through their high school experience and they don’t look like they’re a good candidate for a specific program, they’re limiting their options. You know, I only want to go, you know, get into business school, but then, you know, it’s going to be more selective. You’re not positioned well.

36:57
you know, it’s hard to, you know, okay, let’s try economics with a business mind. You know, it’s a little bit hard to negotiate just the practical side of that, you know? Right. To Betsy’s point, I mean, what a shame to leave all these other things on the table because you’re unnecessarily like fixated on one path that somebody at some point in your life told you is the epitome of success, you know? And that’s such a bummer because now you’re wasting time really.

37:23
not developing and nurturing those innate aptitudes that could just lead you to a life of thriving and joy. I I think that a lot of young people, well, let’s be honest, I think most Americans equate harder to better. Like if it’s harder for me, if it’s a real struggle, that must mean it has more merit. And I think we’re trying to kind of upend that myth a little bit. Yeah, I like that. So we’ve covered age a little bit, but just in your minds,

37:53
What’s the earliest you might want to have? We work with kids from ninth grade through senior year, and then we catch up with them in college. what, ideally, at what ages would you have students do this and revisit it? Well, the tool is designed, know, our aptitudes start emerging as early as two years old, certain aptitudes, like short-term memory, for example.

38:21
which is called associated memory in the assessment. You can see spatial ability coming out pretty early. The child who’s building, you know, the new East wing of the White House in Legos. It’s pretty obvious. And then the child who you don’t even know what they’re doing, but you he starts seeing clues, but really there’s quite a few very important attitudes like inductive reasoning, sequential reasoning that are not really apparent.

38:49
till we’ve kind of started or gone through puberty. So I’d say, you it’s, can learn a lot if you give it to a seventh grader even, and you science does offer that. But in ninth grade, you can learn even more. But, you know, 17 would be certainly early enough to give it. But sometimes I think the way our education system works, you’re going to need it about 14 so that your high school path is informed by that in some cases.

39:19
But the great news about aptitudes is they do not change after puberty. And so you can take it at 17, 37, 77, and you will score with the same pattern. And that’s really another reason we wrote the book is because so many people are in some kind of career pivot or crisis or shift that there’s never a bad time to know what your aptitudes are. Yeah, that makes a ton of sense. I wish parents would take it with their kids.

39:49
I wish you could do that because I think that conversation. Maybe we should offer that and then we could work with somebody. feel like that conversation would make it so much easier because all of sudden you’re see how they’re different. It’s all about empathy and it’s all about love. when you see how you took the same exact assessment and how different you’re going to score, the conversation becomes so rich and so powerful.

40:17
Well, now we need to add family counseling to our. I mean, we already do it. Yes, we already do it, but that actually might be an interesting thing, especially if there are some similarities or things like that. Yeah, think parents would love it. mean, the shared language is really helpful. I mean, one of the things that I like to do in my counseling practice is at the end of the assessment, there’s a discussion guide that gives you language, right? In terms to describe yourself.

40:44
And in generating ideas for personal statements or really any sort of, know, even like things like cover letters, you know, for jobs, anything, you can look at those terms that describe you, pick a few, and then think of a corresponding anecdote from your life that highlights that trait, right? Because we’re trying to get people to not just use a bunch of adjectives in their writing. So what is the anecdote? What is the historical example that illustrates or highlights that trait?

41:11
And then what’s really fun, Betsy had this idea, give it to a loved one, a parent, a friend, a sibling, and have them, without seeing your favorite terms, have them circle their favorite terms to describe you, and then ask them why. Why did you choose data-driven thinker as a term that describes me? And inevitably, they’re going to have an anecdote or a story that you probably forgot about that you didn’t think was of any consequence.

41:37
And it’s a wonderful sharing opportunity. So that’s a great partner activity that we talk about. I that. That’s actually a good idea. That might be a good thing to give parents before they do the brainstorming to have them take a part of it. when you’re to college, inevitably you’re asked to write a personal statement. This just gets you that much further into what you should say about yourself or talk about yourself. yeah.

42:04
Yeah, we have brought it out at times where we’ll look at it and say, you know, in a similar way, not exactly that way, but similar. Yeah, which I think is really good. So what do you think are some myths or truths about identifying careers and majors that are best for a person? In quotes, best. Well, number one, that there’s that you’re going to have one career. Yeah. You know, I mean, I think people have to spell that myth, but it’s.

42:29
how tightly we hang on to it and how much emphasis we put on that early on that the world teaches us later. You we’re going to have many different types of careers that it’s going to take advantage of our aptitudes in different ways. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, when when I did my TEDx talk, I was really obsessed with this idea of job hopping and I’m still very obsessed with why there’s such a disconnect between what young people think in terms of how many jobs they were going to have.

42:58
and how many jobs they’ll actually have. And the data kind of proves that. I give, much like you probably do, I give an introductory like intake to my clients and ask them how many careers would you like to have in your life? And everyone says one, right? Everyone says one. And I think it’s just a fascinating example of that disconnect. The other funny disconnect is most young people I talk to say they don’t want to be chained to a computer or a desk. If you look at

43:27
so many jobs today, right? We are, we’re at desks and computers. I counseling is now a remote career, it can be, and never used to be, right? So this is changing very quickly. And one of the great resources is on the O-Net website that’s run and managed by the Department of Labor. That’s by the way, where all the data for the youth science careers comes from. You can actually go to that website and search for career context.

43:54
And see how much time do I have to talk to people in this job? How much time do I have to sit? How much time do I have to walk? How much time do I have to be on the phone? All these things. And that’s really eye opening for a career starter, young, you know, a young career starter, because I think there are a lot of misunderstandings about what a lawyer actually does all day, what a doctor does all day. And so even what someone, I mean, I don’t believe there is like one perfect career for anybody, but even those people who do think that.

44:23
are often very misinformed about what that career actually uh entails. Another myth, I think, is that any one job is going to satisfy you. our expectations of our relationship with the career. And that’s why we emphasize so much in the book and online applications. And what does it mean to really have a fulfilling life? And it means that you are using these

44:52
all of your full complement of aptitudes in some way. So that is going to probably mean not putting off taking the pottery class till you retire. Go on and take it on Saturdays or, you know, build that full life. That is where you’re going to feel the happiest. That is why you will not put every job you have on the witness stand as the problem, which we tend to do. You know, what is our expectation going to be from our work? And in some cases, it’s going to be a happy

45:21
day a lot of the times and in other cases it’s going to be I do this because I love this other thing that I do for fun and I want to be able to afford to do that. That’s why how I’m going to have a fulfilling life. So you know understanding the difference between work and career and applications and volunteering and why all those components are going to really build that life you want.

45:45
Yeah, I think that’s such good point to think about it that the aptitudes don’t have to necessarily. It’s great if they could be within your career, but maybe your aptitudes are not things that necessarily can earn the living or the lifestyle that you want, but that doesn’t mean you can’t find it in other parts of your life. Yeah, you don’t want to be in a mismatch. That’s for sure. That’s true. Some careers are just not going to take care, take advantage of all of them. That’s the thing. Yeah.

46:11
Any final words? was funny, Alex, when you were saying that you don’t necessarily know what people do. My middle daughter always says that to mom, you have no idea what I do. She’s a doctor. She’s like, you have no idea what I do all day, do you? I like, I guess I don’t. I don’t know. can imagine. Can I shadow you for a day? Yeah. Exactly. A doctor is a great example. Many are drawn to it to care for patients or be drawn to it. And then they spend a lot of their time writing reports. Or I don’t know what she would say today.

46:40
You know, in the book, we talk about my friend who was a graphic designer. And when she entered graphic design, she loved it so much because it was cutting out pieces of paper, laying them out on boards. And then computers changed all that and it became digital. And she missed that part of it. And so instead of quitting, she actually took up quilting and started winning awards for her quilts and doing all this kind of thing and kept her job and was very good at doing it on the computer. But she had missed that piece of it.

47:09
So she was really glad she didn’t just abandon ship. ah She found another way to use the aptitude. Yeah. I think that’s incredible advice for people our age. Yeah. The kids don’t have as much time, but at our age, if you want fulfillment. I have a good friend who was really into theater in college and in law school and really wanted to do it. He gave it a shot. He couldn’t. He became a lawyer. He’s kind of this like typical grinding lawyer.

47:37
But on the side, he’s on the board of a local theater and he helps produce plays. And it’s just, I mean, he just lights up when he’s there and he can get through his day because that enables him to do what he loves to do. And it’s not a mismatch. He’s a great lawyer, but. Sure, he’s both. Yeah, yeah. And his identity is both. Like he will tell you about both. If you say, do you do? He doesn’t just say, I’m a lawyer at so-and-so. He says both. Yes.

48:06
I want to address one thing you said, though, or began to say, maybe the kids don’t have time. Listen, they don’t have time to waste. If they do waste it, I mean, we all waste time. That’s my belief. so, you know, I don’t really ever want to hear someone say, I don’t have time to talk to people about what their career could be. If they want to do it, they will. And I think they just need the motivation and challenge to do it. I do wish school would accommodate. mean, if I ruled the world like I would

48:35
I would require every single, when I rule the world, maybe as I should say, I would require every high school junior to do like a sneak peek week or a few months of shadowing. just see, that’s what my students and clients are craving. They wanna glimpse, they wanna look behind the curtain. They wanna see what the doctor does all day, what the lawyer does all day. And I do wish that was part of like,

49:02
the curriculum. I wish that was more formal like it is in Europe, you know, maybe one day. Yeah. All right. Well, this was great. We really appreciate you guys being on the show and thank you CBMers for tuning in. Thank you, Betsy and Alex. We’re going to also put, you gave this wonderful handout about different ways that people can find their aptitudes in other places if it’s, you know, hopefully in their work, but also outside.

49:28
To catch more episodes of College Bound Mentor, make sure to follow or subscribe on your favorite podcast platform and tell a fellow parent or student about the podcast. To learn more, visit CollegeBoundMentor.com Until next time, you got this!

The post Your Hidden Genius with Betsy Wills & Alex Ellison – College Bound Mentor Podcast #42 appeared first on College Bound Mentor.

This is Episode #41 and you’ll hear our first interview with a student, Zoe, who shares her experience not getting into her first choice Early Decision school. Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and your other favorite podcast spots – follow and leave a 5-star review if you’re enjoying the show!

• Episode Summary & Player
• Show Notes
• Learn more about the College Bound Mentor podcast
• Transcript

College Bound Mentor Podcast Episode #41: Extra Credit ’25: What Happens if You Don’t Get Into Your ED (Early Decision) School?

Now that Early Decision (ED) results are back – and students are either thrilled or disappointed – we wanted to look back at our first interview with a student, Zoe, who shares her experience not getting into her first choice Early Decision school. She reveals her feelings when she first got denied, why it was actually a blessing in disguise, and her advice to rising seniors. This episode covers everything from Early Decision to feeling rejected. Here’s a small sample of what you will hear in this episode:

• What was Zoe involved in in high school?
• Where did she apply Early Decision?
• How did she feel when she first got denied?
• What changed after she got denied?
• How did her approach change when she started applying again?

Subscribe to College Bound Mentor on your favorite podcast platform and learn more at CollegeBoundMentor.com

Check out the episode and show notes below for much more detail.

Show Notes

• Extra Credit ’25: What Happens if You Don’t Get into Your ED (Early Decision) School?
  • [0:18] Welcome to College Bound Mentor
  • [0:24] Lisa Bleich, Abby Power, Stefanie Forman
  • Interview with Zoe
  • [2:35] What was Zoe involved in in high school?
  • [3:52] What got her interested in mental health advocacy?
  • [5:05] Was she able to see the impact she had?
  • [6:08] Where did she apply Early Decision?
  • [7:14] How did she feel when she first got denied?
  • [9:42] What changed after she got denied?
  • [10:38] Villanova University
  • [13:34] How did Zoe’s approach change when she started applying again?
  • [15:35] Did getting into the Honors College impact Zoe’s college decision?
  • [17:51] What would she do different if she did it all over again?
  • [18:46] What advice does she have for fellow students?
  • [20:01] What else would she add?
  • Fun Facts
  • [24:35] What’s a Fun Fact Abby recently learned about college?
  • [25:37] What’s a Fun Fact Stefanie recently learned about college?
  • [27:24] Subscribe to College Bound Mentor on your favorite podcast platform and learn more at CollegeBoundMentor.com
  • Theme Song: “Happy Optimistic Americana” by BDKSonic

What is the College Bound Mentor podcast?

Lisa, Abby, and Stefanie know college. They also know students. With over 30 years combined experience mentoring young people, they’ll show you why understanding yourself is the key to finding the right college. Each episode, hear trends, case studies, and interviews with students who have gone through it all – giving you valuable insight to survive the college application process and beyond. Hosted by Lisa Bleich, Abby Power, and Stefanie Forman, Partners of College Bound Mentor.

Transcript

Please note: this transcript is not 100% accurate.

Zoe 0:01
When you’re applying to college, you’re only 17 and you’re still trying to figure out your identity and what it is that you want in the future.

Lisa Bleich 0:08
Hey, CBMers. Welcome back to College Bound Mentor, where we help you survive the college application process and beyond. We are your co-hosts, Lisa, Abby, and Stefanie, and today, we are talking about early decision what happens if you don’t get into early decision school, and how do you move forward in the application process regardless, now that all the early decision results are back, there are students who are elated because they got into their first choice. There’s, of course, students who are disappointed because they either got denied or they got deferred, which can sometimes put you in this very awkward state, because you you know, you’re wondering, why didn’t I get in and what could I have done for my application? And a lot of times the answer is, you are absolutely there’s nothing that you could have done, and you just have a really strong application. There’s just too many applicants. So we thought it would be really helpful to go back and listen to one of our first interviews that we did with Zoe, who was indeed denied from her first choice school last year, but instead saw it as an opportunity to focus in on what really mattered to her when it came to the college decision and where she was going to ultimately end up going. And I think it’s really helpful to hear that, particularly if you’re wondering how this is all going to pan out. So let’s take a listen to Zoe’s interview. Well, I’m very excited to have our first guest on the college bound mentor on our podcast, and I’m very excited that we have Zoe here with us. Zoe is a Actually, she’s finished her senior year at Mount Saint Mary Academy, which is an all girls Catholic High School in New Jersey, and she it was top of her class. She was the top 10% of her class, which is pretty amazing. She’s very involved in her community. I think of her as a community oriented, intellectually curious leader and an incredibly strong communicator. And I’m just delighted to have Zoe here. So welcome, Zoe.

Zoe 2:21
Hi, thank you so much for having me. So

Lisa Bleich 2:23
I wanted to start off before we talk about it, your early decision experience and also your overall college application journey. Tell us a little bit about what you were involved in at high school. Sure.

Zoe 2:35
So throughout high school, I was really involved in mental health advocacy after a fellowship program I participated in throughout my sophomore year, I started a mental health advocacy group with some of my best friends, and we were able to network with local legislators. We did a lot of work with changing High School lesson plans on mental health, and I was also able to give a talk at a TEDx convention, give a TED talk on the topic of mental health and activism among among young people. From there, I also got involved with a lot of voting rights advocacy and voter registration work. I worked as the youngest paid member of a voter registration nonprofit called voters of tomorrow throughout my senior year and part of my junior year, I was involved in speech and debate as a captain. I was president of junior state of America at my high school, and I was also really into music. I played drums for my school band and my church ensemble as well.

Lisa Bleich 3:30
Wonderful. So you were very busy, very engaged student. And I’m just wondering what got you interested in mental health advocacy.

Zoe 3:40
It was something that I was always passionate about from a psychology perspective. I love taking psych courses over the summer through Johns Hopkins CTY program, when I was starting out with high school. I was always really interested in reading about it and the way that patients were treated and how people were perceived based on certain conditions that they may or may not have. And once I got involved with this fellowship program, civics unplugged, I really started to notice that mental health is one of the issues that a lot of young people can reach a very clear consensus on when so many other issues divide us in this day and age. Because most of the people that I spoke with agreed that mental health is a real concern and something that should be discussed in schools and communities and classrooms. And from there, I was encouraged to create a project proposal, and I was one of five out of about 300 fellows to have their proposal selected, and my project was fully funded by the organization. That’s amazing.

Lisa Bleich 4:39
And were you able to see the impact that your program had in your high school or in other high schools across country?

Zoe 4:47
Yes, definitely. There were so many kids in my high school once I started working on some curriculum updates, who would actually approach me in the halls, whether they were my age or younger, and say things like, you’re a role model. You inspire. Me, and that’s really what pushed me to keep going, is because I realized that even these small actions that may be perceived as inconsequential because we’re just kids doing these things, even those small actions can have a really big impact, and they can start these really important conversations in our communities and create that kind of ripple effect that encourages other young people to take a stance, whether it’s for mental health or in other cause. Yeah, that’s

Lisa Bleich 5:24
amazing. And I and I know that you are going to be an agent of change wherever you go, because it’s just, it’s built into your DNA, and so you’re welcome. And that’s the thing that was, for me, was really surprising. Well, first of all, let’s talk about where you decided to apply early decision and what drew you to that school.

Zoe 5:46
So for early decision, I applied to Swarthmore College, which is in Pennsylvania, right outside of Philly. And I was drawn to that school because of the sense of intellectual curiosity that it seemed to foster. I could tell the kids were really passionate about what they were studying, and really willing to discuss these topics, whether it be in the lecture hall or classroom or even just among friends and their freedom. And that’s something I really wanted to continue in college. And I really was drawn to the small, close knit environment. I think it had about 1600 students. I was under 2000 and there was no grad school, so it was definitely one of the smallest schools that I applied to. And I think that sense of familiarity is something that attracted me, because my high school is only 300 kids, or even fewer than that currently. So going to a medium to large college did seem kind of intimidating, and I was looking for something that had that familiarly close knit and kind of small, welcoming vibe to it, right?

Lisa Bleich 6:47
And it’s also school that activism is a big part of it or impacting change. So that makes sense. So how did you feel when you first got denied?

Zoe 6:57
When I first got denied, I was really upset, honestly, I was surprised, because so many of the people that I had been talking to were so confident in me. I was unsure, but I was feeling optimistic, and when I got rejected, I was really disheartened, because I wasn’t sure what I did that wasn’t enough in their eyes initially, and I was really just one exactly, and before I kind of came to the realization that it’s really not you most of the times that you get rejected, and it comes down to the school itself and who they have a spot for what they’re looking for, I did kind of take it personally, and I was wondering if it would affect my other decisions, if this is just the way things were going to go, And I wouldn’t end up with many options in the end because of some perceived issue with my application. But after a while, I was able to kind of realize that it wasn’t the case, even though initially I was really preoccupied with what I had done wrong and if I was able to fix for the rest of my applications went out,

Lisa Bleich 8:00
and that’s a really common idea, is, what did I do wrong? What was what? What could I have done differently? I was equally surprised when you didn’t get into Swarthmore because you had such a strong application. You’re an amazing writer. You had a really you have a really strong point of view, and it was really clear who you were, and you communicated that really well. So I was also surprised, but I also had faith that it was just not where you went, where you were meant to go. How do you feel about it now?

Zoe 8:30
Now, I kind of feel like it was a blessing in disguise, because I feel like my perspective has changed a lot over this past year for a variety of reasons, a lot of different things that I had experienced and observed. And because of that, I’m kind of grateful that I had the opportunity to weigh all my options in the spring, about a month ago, and figure out what was the best fit for me based on the person that I had evolved into. Because when you’re applying to college, you’re only 17, and you’re still trying to figure out your identity and what it is that you want in the future. So I think having those additional few months, even though it does seem like a trivial difference, really did make an impact for me, because I was able to reflect on as I wanted and how those wants kind of developed over the course of my senior year into something different and

Lisa Bleich 9:21
what changed? What changed from what you wanted back in October, say November, 1 when you made the decision, and then when? Because ultimately, you had amazing options. You had so many amazing options you got in almost everywhere else that you applied, right? So what changed?

Zoe 9:36
For me, the main factor that changed was just the size and the overall nature of the school that I was looking for, because initially, when I first started this process, you remember, I was exclusively looking at the small liberal arts schools, and everyone around me was kind of saying, you know, you should try to broaden your horizons, maybe look at some bigger universities in addition to these small colleges. And, yeah. I wasn’t really open to that the first time that we drove by Villanova, as we were looking at all the other Philly schools, I just didn’t even want to entertain a possibility. But I think as the year progressed, I realized that going to a really small high school does have its benefits academically, but it can also be a little bit challenging in some aspects, to be in a small environment for someone like me who is definitely a more extroverted person and likes to be involved and network with all different kinds of people and talk to a new person every day. And as I got older and kind of realized that this phase of my life as a high school or in a very small high school, was coming to an end, I was kind of grateful to have options from have referred with 1500 kids to a school like NYU with over 10,000 kids, and having that range of possibilities was really helpful for me, because I’d realized that I didn’t necessarily want to limit myself to only small schools, or only schools in a certain location, or only liberal arts schools, right?

Lisa Bleich 11:07
So you brought in your expectation and or your desires, or what you felt like you could handle and what you would do well. And one of the things I was wondering is when you got over that initial just disappointment and you had to change your mindset, what was helpful to you to be able to do that? Because you did have some early action schools that you got into pretty closely after you got that denial, so you can talk about that, and how did that help change your mindset, or at least make you feel a little bit weighed by the experience?

Zoe 11:40
I think having those early action schools from the get go was definitely something that made me feel a lot more confident in the possibilities or opportunities for me, because Seton Hall was the school that I heard back from in October, which was a lot earlier than any other I got in. I received a scholarship, I got into the honors program, and I was able to just kind of take that deep breath and say, I know I’m going to college somewhere, and it was a good option that I did like and resonate with. So I figured that having that would be a great option no matter what else happens. And then from there, I got into some other schools, like Fordham, Rutgers, Villanova, and from there, even though I wasn’t really sure what I was leaning towards, because I wasn’t sure what other possibilities might be out there. It felt really good just to have those options no matter what, and to start researching those schools in depth from a different perspective since I had gotten in, because I feel like there is kind of a shift between looking at a school as a prospective applicant and as someone who’s been admitted and is looking for different aspects of student life, and not just worrying, you know, are my scores high enough for me to get into a school like this, right? So having those schools, having that safety net was really helpful,

Lisa Bleich 12:52
and you bring up a really good point, because when you’re looking at a school as an applicant and trying to understand if you are admissible, there’s a very different mindset than when you’re looking at a school that you’ve been accepted to, and you recognize that now I’m in the driver’s seat. Now I get to really think about what it is that I want from a school. How did that change for you? And what were some of the the things that you size was one that you talked about, but what else changed? And how did you weigh your options when you had it and what schools did it narrow down to when you were making your final decision?

Zoe 13:27
I think for me, a factor that became less and less important throughout the process was honestly the perceived prestige or reputation of the school. Because obviously, I love Villanova, and I think it’s a great place, but I definitely don’t think it’s perceived as academic as some of the other schools, like NYU that I was admitted to, or my number five people have that mindset, or have preferred

Lisa Bleich 13:50
exactly, which was very similar to Swarthmore, right?

Zoe 13:53
Yes, and that’s definitely one thing that drew me into Swarthmore in the first place was that level of name and the things that it’s associated with when you say that name. So that’s definitely something I was super worried about at first. But throughout the process, I kind of shifted from saying I have to just go to the school with the lowest acceptance rate out of everywhere I was admitted to, to figuring out, where will I be happy, where can I see myself living because as that reality kind of approached, I started thinking about, you know, where am I going to wake up in a dorm and feel happy? Where will I be able to get involved in the way that’s the most suitable to me as an individual? Where will I be able to appreciate the campus and the location and all that has to offer? So I think that’s something that changed for me. And as I was considering schools, after regular decision came out, I’d say my main options were Villanova, Fordham have referred and NYU, I’d say those were the main four. And as I continued to consider each option, I really started looking more at the. The Student Life aspect, and some of the more aspects, some of the aspects beyond academics and name reputation, because I realized there’s a lot more to college than just what other people see, because it’s also about how you’ll enjoy the experience and how you’ll be able to make the most of it, regardless of that name.

Lisa Bleich 15:18
Right? And you got into the Honors College at Villanova. Yes, right. And did that sway it at all for you because you were in that? Yeah, definitely.

Zoe 15:28
I vividly remember opening the letter in school. I just, for some reason, felt the need to check my portal again for Villanova that day, when I was sitting in class and I saw this big alert that I had an update to my application. I wasn’t really sure what I clicked on it, and then there was all this confetti, and there was a notification that I was admitted to the Honors College, which I honestly did not even know existed when I was applying. So I was really surprised about that. I was really excited, because initially I was very happy to be admitted, but it wasn’t exactly a front runner, because I was concerned about the size and the prevalence of Greek life and a lot of aspects that kind of deterred me from other similar schools. But once I got into the Honors College and I started looking online at some of the students and some of the things that it could offer to me, I’ve realized that it would provide a lot of opportunities, and I’d be able to find my people even in a bigger school, because they always say you can make a big school small, but you can’t always make a small school big. And I figured I could kind of get the best of both worlds with that small, close knit academic environment that I’d always been looking for, and a bigger social environment, with sports and a larger population of, you know, 7000 undergrads, instead of 2000 which is something that had kind of changed throughout the year with respect to my preferences on school size,

Lisa Bleich 16:53
right? And that’s a really good point. And I think a lot of people overlook the honors colleges as really good options if you want that small school experience or you want and even though 7000 is a medium sized school, it’s compared to your high school, it’s still quite big, but it does give you that opportunity to have that intellectual rigor and those small conversations And seminar style classes within a larger environment, looking back, if you had to do it all over again, god forbid, right? Would you think that smarter would have been a good fit for you?

Zoe 17:31
I think it would have been a good fit. I think I would have, you know, been fine and found my people, found my place academically. But I don’t necessarily think it would have been the best fit out of all the schools that I was looking at and was admitted to, because, like I said, I feel like I changed a lot and evolved a lot throughout the year with respect to what I was looking for and the kind of things I was hoping to get out of my college experience. And for that reason, I was really lucky to have the opportunity to choose from so many schools, rather than simply having one from December onwards and not being able to weigh my other options, or even see my other options, because I would have had to withdraw from all those other schools I got into.

Lisa Bleich 18:16
Yeah, it’s true. It’s sometimes. It’s really is a all for the best things always happen, for a reason. In hindsight, what advice would you give because to rising seniors who are just about to go through the process, or even younger students who are perhaps juniors looking starting to put their lists

Zoe 18:34
together? This is one thing I was actually just talking about with my friend who’s a junior, is that you should obviously consider the aspects of this that are important to you, like academics, the name, the alumni network, but really the most important thing, in retrospect, to me, is whether you’ll be happy there, and whether you’ll feel like you have a place as part of that school community, because as much as you’re worried about the name and the way people will react to where you’re going, they’re not the ones that are going to have to wake up in that school every morning and go through that routine and be part of that community. And once you get to college, from what I’ve heard, at least, and once you choose a college, you’re not going to think about all the other schools that either rejected you or the schools that you turned down, because you’re going to be so excited for all that there is ahead of you. That was such

Lisa Bleich 19:24
great advice. I’m going to package that and send it out to all of my rising seniors and sophomores as they go through this process. So that’s great. Is there anything else you want to add just at the end? Anything else that we didn’t cover that you wish I’d asked you,

Zoe 19:40
I guess another thing I would want to talk about is just the ways that you can kind of engage with the college once you’ve gotten into different places, and how you can make that decision. Because for me, I really enjoyed looking at the different Instagram pages that are out there for the admit. Students and previous classes where you can kind of see what kind of students attend that school and what their interests are and whether they resonate with you, and are the type of people that you could see yourself, you know, being friends with and spending time with, because as much as academics are important, and were a big factor for me, as well as you know, size, location, opportunities for internship service, it is really important that you’re able to find your people and find your niche, whatever that may be, shortening on your interests and who you are. So I think looking online at different resources, whether that be for your specific majors, department, if they have a website or social media, if there’s a page for admitted students, if there’s a website for your honors college or a specific scholarship program that you were admitted to, looking at the smaller details, rather than the school at large, will probably give you a more accurate view of what your experience would be like depending on the kind of offer you’ve gotten or the kind of ways that you plan to engage with the school once you get there. Yeah, that’s

Lisa Bleich 21:05
really good advice. Was there anything that you saw on those media that you felt, no, that’s not for me. Or when you were down to those four schools between NYU Fordham, Haverford and Villanova, because they’re quite different schools, you know, and they and they attract quite a different so Was there something that either clinched it for Villanova, or was it, or was there something that you saw, where you saw thought, those aren’t my people?

Zoe 21:35
Yeah, I think for the side of those aren’t my people, or this isn’t my school. I think seeing different photos and videos just on the websites or social media of the schools, and seeing what the day to day life of some of those schools really look like was very helpful to me, because, for instance, NYU is a school that I really wanted to apply to, but I never visited for some reason, and I never really researched from a critical standpoint of evaluating the pros and cons. And I think, honestly, one of the reasons I was so excited about getting in was because it was the quote, unquote, best name out of the schools that I had been accepted to. And I was happy about that. I ended up actually getting a Presidential Scholars offer. And I was just really happy that I had gone in, but once I started looking at them and some of the other schools that I had been accepted to their YouTube channels, for instance, and videos of the students just going through their routine, seeing the location and the lifestyle, I realized this doesn’t really resonate me. Resonate with me in the same way that the lifestyle and the campus at Villanova does. And I think one thing that really helped me kind of seal the deal with Villanova was admitted students day, because there was one speech from a current student, and they said, a lot of schools will say, you know, you would be honored to go to a school like this, but at Villanova, it feels like they would be honored to have you and have you contribute to their community. And that was something that really excited me, because I’d been speaking to so many students, I’d been figuring out, you know, the classes I would take and the clubs I would join, and how I would kind of make an impact, starting on my college campus, and hopefully beyond after that, whether that be grad school or the workforce. And I really saw myself kind of fitting into that puzzle and being able to contribute and have my perspective valued there. So definitely would help me decide

Lisa Bleich 23:40
that’s amazing, yeah. And I can’t wait to see what you do there, because I know you’re going to make a huge impact there. And I can’t wait to maybe have you back after you’ve gone through some more experiences at Villanova and see how great that was. Well, thank you so much. This has been so helpful, and I think students will really resonate with this as they are going through the process. So thank you.

Zoe 24:00
All right, thank you so much.

Lisa Bleich 24:05
Thank you so much. Zoe, that was a great interview, and I hope you guys learned as much as I did about the whole process before we say goodbye, let’s go into our fun facts about college. Abby, what was the fun fact that you learned last week about colleges?

Abby Power 24:19
So last week, I learned that University of Wisconsin has an appeal process, so that’s meant for if you don’t get into the school, you can appeal the decision, and there are a bunch of schools that have it. You know, this is not something that works, generally speaking, but a family came to me who I hadn’t worked with. They asked me to review their daughter’s application to see if I had any insight into why she didn’t get into Wisconsin. And after I looked at her application, I had no answers for them. I thought she was a fantastic candidate, not over qualified. Perfectly qualified would have been a great fit. So I recommended that they try the appeal process and. Duh, yeah, it worked. Wow, admitted, yeah, it was awesome. Oh, that’s later, so that’s awesome. She didn’t get any feedback as to why they reversed their decision, but I don’t know. Sometimes if, if you have that feeling, it might be worth pursuing.

Lisa Bleich 25:17
Yeah, no, You never know. You never know. What about you? Steph,

Stefanie Forman 25:20
my fun fact has nothing to do with this, but I am talking about it way too much. We went to an ICA conference last week in Connecticut, and we visited a bunch of Connecticut colleges, and I learned University of Florida was there, and I learned, and this is a big deal, my husband’s going to be very proud, because he’s a gator. He went to UF he’s from Florida. You might have, you know, many opinions of that state, but it’s a wonderful university. And I learned, and this is new in the past year, that if you have a grandparent and his mom is a resident there, so if you have a grandparent who’s a resident of Florida, that you get to pay. And if you get admitted to UF, which is Gainesville, or any of the Florida public universities, which is not an easy feat, especially some of them, you get to pay in state tuition, there are some caveats. I think there’s only about 350 waivers throughout all of the schools. So about 50 to 60 waivers for each college, and there are a few requirements, like SAT, ACT scores, GPA, but again, that just really excited me. And I thought that’s really awesome that a public university would give that opportunity to out of state. Yeah, smart.

Lisa Bleich 26:38
It’s really smart. Wow. And I think the woman said that we met with, she said you have to get in really early. You have to get your application in as early as you can, because they they get swept up. So that that’s a wonderful, wonderful piece of news for anyone who has a any grandparents living in Florida. Well, I want to thank Zoe again for coming on to college male mentor. It was a great interview, and we really appreciated what you had to say. And thank you, CBMers, for tuning in to catch more episodes of College Bound Mentor. Make sure to Follow or Subscribe on your favorite podcast platform and tell a fellow parent or student about the podcast to learn more. Visit CollegeBoundMentor.com Until next time, you got this!

The post Extra Credit ’25: What Happens if You Don’t Get Into Your ED (Early Decision) School? – College Bound Mentor Podcast #41 appeared first on College Bound Mentor.

This is Episode #40 and you’ll hear us talk about how to navigate college decisions with confidence and clarity with Jenna Schebell of The College Navigators. Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and your other favorite podcast spots – follow and leave a 5-star review if you’re enjoying the show!

• Episode Summary & Player
• Show Notes
• Learn more about the College Bound Mentor podcast
• Transcript

College Bound Mentor Podcast Episode #40: Dealing with College Decisions Dropping with Jenna Schebell of The College Navigators

With college decisions coming out in the coming weeks, we’re entering one of the most stressful times for high school students & parents. There are so many emotions you’re bound to experience, and it’s hard to resist comparing yourself to other aspiring college students. In this episode, we welcome on Jenna Schebell, Founder of The College Navigators. She’s an Independent Educational Consultant (IEC) with over 20 years of experience in college admissions. Here’s a small sample of what you’ll hear in this episode:

• How to navigate the news on college decisions
• How to understand what actually goes into admissions decisions
• How to block out the noise in this extra stressful time
• How to regroup if things don’t work out the way you’d hoped
• And how to own your path as an aspiring college student – no matter what it looks like

Subscribe to College Bound Mentor on your favorite podcast platform and learn more at CollegeBoundMentor.com.

Check out the episode and show notes below for much more detail.

Show Notes

• Dealing with College Decisions Dropping with Jenna Schebell of The College Navigators
  • [0:19] Welcome to the College Bound Mentor
  • [02:04] Jenna’s path to founding College Navigators and growing her presence on Instagram
  • [08:21] Managing stress around Early Decision (ED), Early Action (EA), and the college decision season
  • [11:39] How to cope with college rejection or deferral – avoiding catastrophizing about dream schools
  • [12:52] Understanding yield protection and whether true “safety schools” still exist
  • [16:06] Strategies for blocking out college-admissions anxiety, comparison culture, and community pressure
  • [18:57] Regrouping when decisions don’t go as planned and reassessing the college list
  • [22:04] Deferrals: what they mean, how they differ from waitlists, and when to shift focus
  • [25:40] When ED2 makes strategic sense and how to evaluate admissions statistics before committing
  • [30:12] The rise of pre-ED and rolling early-decision
  • [36:27] How to vet admissions information online and identify misinformation on social media
  • [39:39] What actually goes into a holistic review: institutional priorities, class shaping, and enrollment goals
  • [45:31] Common truths and myths about college decisions and the value of alternative pathways
  • [49:22] Final reminders about tuning out noise, trusting the process, and enjoying senior year
  • Theme Song: “Happy Optimistic Americana” by BDKSonic

What is the College Bound Mentor podcast?

Lisa, Abby, and Stefanie know college. They also know students. With over 30 years combined experience mentoring young people, they’ll show you why understanding yourself is the key to finding the right college. Each episode, hear trends, case studies, and interviews with students who have gone through it all – giving you valuable insight to survive the college application process and beyond. Hosted by Lisa Bleich, Abby Power, and Stefanie Forman, Partners of College Bound Mentor.

Transcript

Please note: this transcript is not 100% accurate.

00:04
It’s good to know that there are all these options and there’s not one right way to do it.

00:19
Hey, CBMers, welcome back to College Bound Mentor, where we help you survive the college application process and beyond. We’re your co-hosts, Lisa, Abby, and Stefanie. And on today’s episode, we’re going to chat with Jenna Schebell, Founder of the College Navigators. Jenna embarked on her journey in higher education after graduating from the University of Tampa with an MBA, where she discovered her passion for helping students navigate the college application process.

00:43
During her early years as an admission counselor, she traveled throughout the Northeast region, actively recruiting prospective students for UT. She then joined Marymount Manhattan College, which is no longer, as the Associate Director of Admissions, overseeing various aspects of the admissions process and evaluating applications for both the college and highly selective specialized admissions programs such as dance and theater. After a decade in college admissions, she shifted her focus towards high school, students embarking on their own college journey. She worked at a private

01:11
at private schools in New Jersey where her most recent role was director of guidance and college counseling. We first discovered Jenna, actually Stef first discovered her because of her strong social media presence. And we are grateful to the algorithms that led us to her posts. Jenna shares clear, current, easy to understand, up to the minute and most important accurate information about college admissions. Everything from upcoming decisions, release dates to specific college admissions data to application advice and everything in between.

01:40
So thank you so much for being so generous with the information. And today we’re going to talk about how to navigate college decisions that are coming out, especially since this is the time, know, where Rollout has started in many of the public universities, some of the private universities like Villanova and Tulane released their early decisions last week. But before we get to that, we’d love to just get a little bit more, know a little bit more that we haven’t talked about in your background.

02:04
and how and why you started College Navigators. And in particular, we’re interested in how you have such a big social media account following. Well, thank you. I’m so excited that we were able to finally connect. I know you had reached out earlier in the summer and then just the craziness of the fall and the application seasons. So this is actually perfect timing, like you said, with decisions about to come out. I feel like there’s so much just chatter and nervousness. So it’s a good time to kind of touch on that topic. As for me, I think you did an awesome intro. think you kind of…

02:34
hit all of kind of the points of my travels. How I got to the college navigators was kind of just a collection of, guess, where I had spent all of my time even prior to working as an admissions counselor, even throughout college. I was just very involved in helping students. I worked at like Center for our Talented Youth through John Hopkins every summer.

02:57
So I just, feel like I’ve always had that connection to students, but my background is kind of on the business side. So I did my undergrad in computers, which was an interesting time, which reminds me of now, which is why I mentioned is that I went to college, I started in 1998, graduated in 2002, which was really when that world wide web, you know, .com bubble happened. And it was so interesting because I felt like what I was learning when I started, which was all these coatings behind the scenes, you know,

03:27
and what they were teaching by the time I graduated, it almost seemed like my degree was so irrelevant, so fast. It almost reminds me of kids right now with what’s happening with AI. I feel like this is kind of that next big insurgence. So anyway, so my career led me into admissions and spent 10 plus years working on that side. So got to learn all of the intricacies and really have a good understanding of the business behind admissions, which I feel like is my biggest like…

03:55
point that I’m always trying to drill into parents and students, especially this time of year, that it is not you, it is them. This is an emotional process for you. It is a business decision for them. And so it’s always like, if I can convey one message, it’s just like, it’s not always gonna make sense. Like college is a business. Yes, it’s education. But every day when I worked in admissions, it was all about enrollment numbers and yields and what were decisions looking like that day. And then when I got to the college side,

04:23
I am the college high school side, should say, in terms of preparing them, it became then such an emotional process. And I saw the hours and all the effort that went into it, the heartstrings that were pulled when decisions didn’t go certain ways. So I feel like I bring this kind of unique perspective of really understanding what’s going into the decisions, but also the perspective of the students. Fast forward, I guess, 2023, post-COVID, a lot changed in New Jersey high schools where it was like,

04:51
so much less about college counseling and so much more just about like mental health and other things. So I was just like losing and my whole background was college counseling. So I was really missing kind of that one-on-one. And so ended up venturing into the college navigators, total leap of faith, like quit my job. Like, you know what I mean? With really no plan, just hoping it was the right move. I loved my colleagues. I loved my job. I’d been there for seven years. So was really just a leap of faith at that point and it has worked so far.

05:21
I’ve oh been fortunate, you talk about social media, I think social media has just been a lot of luck. I think when I first started the social media, it was more because you have to, right? Everybody makes a Facebook page and an Instagram page and all that, kind of checking the boxes of what you do to start your business. And then when I got into the space, it was just like so much bad information or like fear-mongering or like…

05:44
just things that weren’t true. And I was just kind of like, wait, wait, no, that’s not real. And then I just decided like, I’m just gonna start sharing it all. I’m just gonna start telling people what’s really going on to stop like the madness because there’s already enough craziness around the process. We don’t need to like create more crazy in it. So. Well, we thank you for that. Because we feel the same way whenever we read posts and we’re like, especially Abby, we so Oh, we get so angry. So angry.

06:09
Because the kids listen to it. Right. And then they come and ask us about it. And we’re like, no, that’s not really true. And so it’s nice to have good information where people can read it and be like, yeah, that’s true. You have to know the source of where you’re getting the information from. Yeah. I remember last year was when I started getting triggered by it. Because on the day that Northwestern released early decision.

06:36
there’s a guy who is, I don’t know how many followers, but probably close to you and a young guy. And he said, here’s everything you need to know about Northwestern decisions. And he spewed all of these things that not only no one outside of Northwestern admissions could ever have known, but there’s no way they would have known it that quickly. He was talking about the word, blah, applications for this major. So if you applied for computer science, you were this regionally, was this many.

07:03
And it was literally 15 minutes after decisions. I mean, he was just sort of making it up and there was so much dialogue and he was just literally lying. And he’s so mad because we had kids calling us, you know, is this true? Should I have done that? And I’m like, no, no, no, none of that’s true. He’s literally just spewing nonsense and hoping that, you know, somebody picks it up. I know.

07:28
I I feel, yeah. especially appreciative of accurate information. Yes, yes, we are. Because we make our, I mean, our whole life is just being accurate, like giving the truth to people so they can understand. Yeah, no, I get it. I do. I always, my favorite, like my cringe is always the one that’s like, this essay got me into this school. And like, I feel like a little bit more about your profile because it was not like the essay to the end. It’s like, help. I’m sure it did. But like,

07:55
be more truthful with like your whole profile. Like were you in the top 5 %? Did you have like top tier scores? Did you have like all these other meaningful activity? I mean, it’s a whole holistic process at most of these schools. So it’s just like, give a little more context. Yeah, exactly. Give a little more context. And the flip side of it too, an essay is not gonna necessarily keep you out unless it’s just so terrible. there’s so many things that go into making the decision. And I think that’s…

08:21
why we thought it would be good to talk about that. we have December coming up in a couple of weeks, we’re gonna get all of the early decisions are gonna come out. Some of the early actions are gonna come out. So what do you give your like, what is some of the best advice? I remember like with my own three kids, it was just not to talk about it all the time and not to say, oh, you’re definitely gonna get in because that would just make them so stressed out. If you know, they, especially girls like, no, don’t talk so bad. How do you

08:50
So what would you say is some good advice that you would give sort of during this waiting time and then also just to how to prepare? Right. I mean, some of it is, of course, the cliche things that you say, but I truly stand by it. Like, I really think you will end up where you are meant to be. And I always try to use analogies with my students because I feel like sometimes that works like a little bit better. But I even say like things.

09:14
You know, think if you’re shopping for a homecoming dress, right? And you go look at a rack and you think there’s these 10 really great dresses. And then you go into the fitting room and like all of these that you thought were great, maybe they don’t fit you right or they don’t look as good or maybe there’s ones that surprise you and all of a sudden they become your top choices. And so I always think students need to understand the list that they have when they are putting it all together and they’re applying is going to look very different from their list that they’re actually making decisions from. And there needs to be a point

09:44
during the admission cycle that you really start focusing on the colleges that love you back, the ones that want you and the ones that are accepting you and the ones that are showing you the merit money and applauding you for your efforts and lose that focus of the ones that maybe you didn’t get into or if you’re deferred and now you’ve got to wait a little bit longer, start focusing those efforts on the ones that have shown you the love because there are so many great schools out there and so many times I hear, it was my dream and I’m like, but.

10:12
Why was it your dream? Like, let’s really like break it down because besides maybe things like the great football team or the, you know, the fun Greek life or the location, a lot of times when I ask them to really break down what made it so right from there, they can’t always define all of that in terms of, you know, what was it about those academic programs? What did your four year trajectory look like and how was it gonna set you up for somewhere else? And the other thing I always tell students, just because it’s a no, doesn’t mean it’s a not never, like not ever.

10:42
You can always end up somewhere else later, meaning like look at the transfer opportunities, look at what it might mean for grad school. So it’s not where you start, it’s where you finish. And I think as adults, we know anytime somebody says, where did you go to school? You’re saying the last place you went. So I mean, if your heart is completely set on being somewhere, let’s figure out then how to get you there. But in the meantime, let’s be really excited about all the places and options that you do have. Yeah.

11:08
I think that’s, I mean, we say the same thing to our clients, but I think it’s really hard in December, because I what happens in March, then you have all of these options, right? How all the decisions, but I think it’s really hard when someone’s, you know, it’s their dream school, they’ve applied early, and they don’t have any other information yet. Like, they’re only gonna typically get that they might get into some of the the early notification schools that might have been

11:35
the safety school or if you could even call it that, but they don’t really have a lot of information yet. And so when they get that rejection or they get that deferral, right? That’s, think the hardest because all of a sudden, a lot of times they’ll start to catastrophize. Oh my God, I didn’t get anywhere. I’m never going to get it here. Or they got deferred from a school that they thought was like a school that they would, know, like Tulane, that was always a kind of thing. If someone was applying for perhaps an IV and then they got deferred from Tulane, like,

12:04
I didn’t get in there. I’m never going to get into any school. you start down that catastrophizing of things. And I think that’s another piece of advice. I don’t know what you recommend to your families. But I think that’s just the hardest thing is because at that point, they don’t have enough information. In March, yes, that conversation makes a lot of sense. But in December, there’s this feeling that that was it. I put everything into it. And I didn’t get it. Or I got deferred.

12:31
whatever it is and that’s it. I’m not getting it anywhere else. Yeah, I’m not gonna get in anywhere. Right. And I think that’s really hard thing to just wrap your head around that yes, you are gonna get into other schools and it really hurts. But don’t catastrophize it. think Right. And it’s important, I think, to educate them a little bit too on yield protection.

12:52
because I think sometimes students don’t understand that aspect of it, that colleges, like you said, are there really safeties anymore? Sometimes colleges look at you as an applicant and while yes, you are great, maybe they don’t sense that you’re going to commit and enroll or you you’re somebody that you’re better off deferring because they, in their mind, they might think you’re applying ED other places and they wanna see if you stick around. And you are.

13:19
So that’s kind of what it is. I think that, and I think that, and it’ll be interesting to see like Michigan, because that was always the school Michigan was doing that. we’re all super curious to see what happens with Michigan. yeah. This year. I think that’s going to be a huge thing. But to your point, and then I just, and then we’ll get off this sort of what to do. But like one of our, got this note from one of my clients who ended up at a school that wasn’t like at her tippy top of her list, right? And she ended up not getting into her.

13:47
her, you know, thought was her dream school, is a rich school, an Ivy. I just got a note from her and she told me, oh my God, I’m so happy. And she listed all the wonderful things that she was doing and that she was doing research with a professor, the one that she identified in her, why this school essay, and that she was in a sorority and she was doing everything possible. said, I’ve never been happier in my whole life. And so it’s just like that to see like she couldn’t have necessarily imagined that in December, right? But now almost a year later, she’s just

14:17
beyond the moon and she’s so happy. So I think that’s also something to keep in mind. I think the parents too, I always caution parents like read the room. Sometimes the kids aren’t as upset as you are. So like I can tell you how many parents will be like, I’m so mad at this school. Like I had one mom last year just constantly like she was so mad at UVA, her daughter didn’t get in and her, I mean, her daughter got into UNC and all these other great schools ultimately went to UNC and finally messaged me this past September like,

14:46
She loves it there. I’m so glad she didn’t go to VA. But sometimes it’s like, if your kid’s not upset, like even if you are, like don’t show that to them. Like don’t project some of that, maybe negativity or make it a bigger deal because sometimes, you know, what you had in your head is very different, you know, how your kids have moved through the process and what they’re thinking. So I always say like, read the room with your students as the decisions come in. Cause if they’re not like overly upset, like no need for you to be. right. Don’t like, don’t make them feel bad and undermine their own product. Yeah. Right.

15:15
I think it’s so important something you said about educating our families and our students about yield rate because you, um, Lisa and Abby, they’re back all of your backgrounds, business, or I was a little bit different. I, I was an English teacher and kind of doing the essay thing. So the business world, it’s very humble. I mean, all of it’s humbling, right? But like the yield rate that all of that was very new to me and like wrapping my head around that. And once I understood that, that like that light bulb went off when it’s like,

15:44
so much of it’s not personal. I think just like, and yield, we talk about it so much, but I think that’s such a good point, like wrapping your head around that. And I feel like sometimes we explain it and it kind of goes over their head. They don’t really understand what it means. So yeah, I’m glad you touched on that. So maybe this is to continue on with this conversation, we’re treating you like a therapist right now, but um like, I feel it might be a nearly impossible task, but how do you recommend

16:14
for students and parents to block out all of this noise and fodder surrounding the anticipation of decisions, the aftermath, the focus on results. We learned that Jenna is uh also in New Jersey, like Lisa and myself, and Abby too is in an area where you can’t escape this college talk. So yeah, what’s your advice to block out the noise?

16:38
I know, it is crazy. I always tell people like, just try to go out and have fun and do things to distract you because it is madness. And like the thing that makes the journey the hardest is when you start comparing yourself to others. And that, I mean, that’s an every single aspect. And even this time of year gets very tough. Like even if you take out the decision part of it, there are like a set group of students who very early in the process already know where they’re going, right? They’ve committed, they’ve enrolled, they’ve deposited. And so I think for the students, it’s so important to remind them that

17:08
what the normal thing is for this time of the year is, you you hear some decisions in December and you hear some more decisions in January and then you get more in March. And it’s really in March where you’re kind of laying everything out on the table and figuring it out and going back for visits and making a decision by May. Like that is normal. So yes, there are going to be the students who are excited and wearing the sweatshirts and already claiming everything, but you’re not behind. And I think it’s very easy to get caught up in like,

17:36
just feeling like everybody else has it figured out. And it’s like, from my perspective, I can’t tell you how many students maybe changed their mind at the last minute or have last minute things come up. And so it’s just, if you can just really keep the eyes on your own lane and know that this is your journey and the more you focus on it, the happier you’re going to be in the end. You’re gonna make the right decisions. You’re not gonna be doing things because everybody else is doing them. So I know it is so completely hard, but.

18:03
Just go celebrate, have fun. The applications are out. You can only control what you can at this point. And then just like I said, be excited about your senior year. Like I feel like so many people lose little moments in their senior year because they’re so focused on the future and senior year is so fun. Like you’ve waited four years to get to it. So if you can just like step back and just kind of like turn it all over and know that it is going to work out and just go have fun. Like I said, easier said than done, but.

18:30
you really got to turn off that chatter. And like parents too, like you’re part of that chatter. Like, did you say so and so? Like stop. Like let’s stop and let the students have fun. This is true. Yeah. I think that’s a great point. Or we’re going to start to use, I like your prom dress, homecoming dress analogy and loving them back. That’s great. Early actions have come out, early decisions, some have come out.

18:57
but they’re about to really drop in the next few weeks. And so kind of like what we were talking about, things don’t work out. How do you help your students regroup? Is there an action plan? Is there one thing you tell them to do? uh it depend on the student? I think it depends on the student, but I think, especially for the students that I’ve worked with, we try to be very intentional with the list. So hopefully you do have at least…

19:22
Some wins, I love rolling schools for students for that reason. So at least, know, that, you know, I can go somewhere. I know I have somewhere is just a little helpful. But I also think I tell them like, this is why we apply early because then we still have the regular decision and we still have early decisions. So if you feel like you’re not happy with the way certain things have worked out, you still have time now to apply to.

19:45
many other schools. So I think it’s just re-strategizing if necessary, or just like I said, shifting our focus and starting to focus on, okay, I got these five really great offers. I am happy with those five. So now it’s time to switch course and start going to admitted student days and revisiting and joining things on social media so I can meet other students. So I think it’s just, again, like I said, having that.

20:07
restrategizing conversation if we need to, but if not, then we just need to start getting excited about certain options that are out there. But I think it’s okay to cry and be upset and do that for one day and whatever you need to do, go eat a tub of ice cream, do something because you’re upset. But then the next day we put our boots back on and we get moving and we figure out what’s going to be next because we know life is not linear, right? It’s not.

20:30
doesn’t have to be this straight path. Like I said before, if you really want to go somewhere, we can figure out why, but chances are, like I said, it’s working out for a reason and you’re going to be excited. I can’t tell you how many parents have said like certain schools that have just completely surprised them. Like the number of parents that have messaged me this year about Iowa State in general, just saying like, I never expected and we got on the campus and they were just so interested in my student, the follow-up, like all of this. I think sometimes parents don’t realize the difference between

20:59
schools that can really just take every applicant for granted and the schools that are really going to nurture a relationship with your child all the way from the admissions process throughout the four years. So yeah, it’s just learning kind of all those options that are out there. And like I said, just getting excited about where your choices lie. Yeah. I didn’t appreciate the early win until I saw it with my own two boys who have now both graduated from college, but back in the day, Indiana was rolling.

21:26
Yeah, and they both got into Indiana. I mean, I just remember more than even them being accepted to the schools they went to. I remember that they opened it up and both just burst into tears, burst into tears like somebody wants me. So I try to remember that actually with all even super high, you know, flying kids to apply because I just have one who

21:50
applied to an IV early decision. We’ll see how he does, but he just got into his local university and he was all teary eyed. He was like, I’m just so excited. It does feel nice to get in. So the next topic is probably my least favorite in the entire process, I have to say. This is the time when I’m stressed. Deferrals. Helping the kids navigate what happens if they’re deferred from their first choice schools, whether it was an ED or an EA.

22:18
Yeah, helping them figure out if they should stay hopeful, if they should, as you were saying, recalibrate and re-strategize and go for an early decision too. Personally, I had had very little success with kids who were deferred and then accepted, but then a couple of years ago, it did happen at Duke. So I’m cautious not to be like, there’s no hope, there’s no hope at

22:46
I don’t know what, you have any advice about how to counsel the kids looking at the rest of the process once they’ve been deferred? Yeah, I mean, I try as much as I can, especially on my Instagram to like go crazy sharing stats because I think it’s so important for students to understand is this a small deferral pool where they are taking a certain percentage later where there is still hope or are we talking like.

23:09
Michigan that’s just gonna defer 53,000. Are we talking like University of Southern California that’s basically deferring everyone because they’re not denying anybody, right? So I think it’s really important to kind of set the tone for each school. And then I’m always the one that’s, I would say more negative. Like we’re just gonna expect that it’s not gonna work out so that if it does, it’s just a pleasant surprise because I just think like you said,

23:34
It’s almost like a wait list when it comes to deferrals that there’s not always a rhyme or reason who’s getting picked off, right? They’re fulfilling institutional needs and goals at that point. So it may work out for the student and be very favorable. may not. Again, I think it’s very school dependent, right? I think there are state schools that very intentionally defer a lot of out-of-state because they have state minimums that they have to meet for their in-state kids. Like I feel like South Carolina is big on that. They defer a lot of out-of-state kids, but later many of them get in. um

24:04
whereas other schools just aren’t as favorable for students. So I think, I guess going back to answer your question, I try to share as many stats as I can. And then I just have historical data so I can go back and look if the school share about how many percent really got pulled off in the previous years and got admitted out of that deferral pool, just so students can manage their expectations. But the funny thing that I will say is at least with my own students this past year, those that were deferred,

24:34
they lost interest, which was interesting over the course. Like I had a student who applied REA to Notre Dame was deferred and also deferred at University of Texas in that early January 15th, got into Michigan and eventually got into both Notre Dame and Texas. But because they had deferred, she had kind of given up and lost hope and in the meantime spent all her energy getting excited about Michigan that by the time they came around, she was kind of like.

25:02
whatever I’m sold on Michigan at this point, like didn’t even care. So I do think schools can potentially lose students in the process by deferring. I I know why they do it, but like I said, I think that’s why I just focus and channel their energy into getting excited and loving those back. If they work out awesome, like that’ll be another choice for you, but you may or may not even want it when it comes around. So. Yeah, I think that’s gotta be the exact right direction to give in that world of uncertainty.

25:30
Again, we really appreciate all the stats and information that you share and deferral stuff is, I don’t know, that information seems to be hard to come by. So for kids who are trying to figure out if they should do ED2, um A, how would you help them sort of navigate through that prioritization in their minds? And then also what data would you direct them towards? What pieces of from the school would be most important to consider?

26:00
Yeah, so I think again, I think it depends on the schools that they’re looking at, but looking at, know, what percentage of students, you know, what does the applicant pool look like for ED2? Because what I always try to tell students is don’t forget a lot of times, ED2 pools are like very successful ED1 applicants that got denied to say, you know, whatever their Harvard’s or Princeton’s or, those

26:22
5 % acceptance rate schools and now they’re going into the second round. So ED2 does not necessarily mean easier by any means. And I also say like, you’re giving up, I mean, obviously with ED1 too, you’re giving up your option to really negotiate and lay out all your options on the table. So I only encourage students to do ED2 if that was kind of part of the initial plan. You know what I mean? Like if when we were making your list in the beginning, we went into the process saying, okay,

26:51
We’re gonna do Vanderbilt first and if it doesn’t work out, we’re going to do NYU second. I don’t like the like last minute panicky detours. I just think sometimes you’re just panicking too early when you have all these other decisions that are probably gonna be coming out later that, you know, are you just freaking out and making a rash decision or was it, like I said, I tend to like the ones that were part of the plan. Of course, I know we have like your two lanes in Miami is that.

27:17
intentionally defer to try to sway into ED too. And Chicago doesn’t say anything. Yeah, so I mean, if that’s where you know you want to be beyond a doubt, then I would say go for it. But I even think like Miami, I had a student last year who applied ED, got deferred. And so she was, you know, that’s where I want to be. But in the end, it resulted in a spring admit. So like, eventually she still got what she wanted. And she, you know, she still went for the spring, but just know, I don’t know, I think it’s school dependent, but

27:46
I don’t necessarily love ED either. That’s just me. But I just think you have to just be willing to just that’s, you know, you’re just a hundred percent sold on it and that’s where you want to be. And it’s got to be worth it. But for me, it should have been a part of the initial plan, not just a knee jerk reaction. Yeah. Yeah. And I think it’s also like I had a student last year who actually it was two years ago. I think she’s a freshman there. Anyway, she, she applied ED to Duke and then she got deferred.

28:17
And she was a double legacy and she should have gotten in like there was no reason for her not to get in. And then she was really stressed out about it. So she wanted to apply to a second school. So she applied there, which again should have gotten into and got deferred. And then regular decision and she got into Michigan actually early and UVA early and then regular decision she got into both of the schools, Duke and the other school. So it was kind of one of those things where it was like.

28:42
the universe really did work out because it was like, should have been in those schools in the the get go, but then it gave her time to really make the decision whether or not she to do it. So, I mean, that doesn’t always happen, but that was kind of a nice story where that happened. And I think you’re right though with like schools like Tulane. I don’t know if you saw that article in the New York Times about the, sure everyone’s talking about that, the admissions people. And first people are focusing on how much money they’re making, but also just from a business standpoint, you could see, I mean, we saw that.

29:10
you know, we saw it happening in real time, how they were using ED and many schools are using it as an enrollment management business strategy, lock in number of students that they know are going to come. And most of the time they’re going, many of the time, much of the time they’re going to be full-paced students, but not always, because they often, they will meet full need, even for decision, but you don’t have the opportunity to compare. And then it’s like, okay, well, you didn’t get in to EA, so let’s switch you to ED too.

29:40
And they’ll ask the students to do that. And so that’s always becomes another strategy, is almost if you don’t do it, you feel like you’re not gonna get in. And they give you that option. So it does become tricky when you’re trying to advise students and figure out what the strategy is. So I think it’s a really hard thing to do. Yeah. Yeah, it would be nicer if it was just one timeline, one timeframe. You just put in your applications and everyone waits the same.

30:08
Like in England. Like everywhere else except for here. Yeah. Every other country. Another thing that kind of threw is sort of throwing me for a loop is these pre-ED ones now. Well, that’s really Chicago. Wake Forest. Oh, Chicago. yeah. Yeah, ED zero or early, you know, uh rolling ED. That’s just adding another layer of stress, I think, for the kids.

30:35
It is. I feel like every year, everything just keeps inching like earlier and earlier and earlier. But then like on the flip, I feel like things are extending later and later. Just look at it. The cycle used to be so much more predictable. You would know that most kids would, most of our kids, when we first started, like I’ve been doing this for 20 years. mean, most of would get an early decision, they would be done. And you’d be like, okay, great. Now it’s like, as you said, it’s starting earlier, it’s ending later, it’s extending. So really you’re not done until…

31:04
June, possibly. You could be going at it until June. mean, Duke was pulling kids in August. You know what I mean? It’s just getting, it’s crazy. So. And I think it’s all about managing enrollment. And there’s just, think because the world is uncertain. then at college admissions has become fodder and it’s a microcosm of the world and the uncertainty of the world gets overlaid on the uncertainty of college admissions.

31:30
and everything political that happens impacts college admissions. Like there’s just so many external forces that didn’t used to be at play as much, I don’t think. And I think that makes it really since COVID things have been bananas. Yeah. Well, it’s funny. I always try to like make predictions of like things that are gonna happen and whatever. like, think this year, we’ll see, but I feel like it started popping up last year and we may see more of it, especially that we know that there is going to be like this decline in enrollment.

32:00
is more of these guaranteed transfer admits. So I started getting more and more of those where it’s like, oh, you’re admitted, not for this year, but if you can go somewhere else for a year and get X amount. And it’s like, we kind of know that already, like that’s kind of like how the transfer process works anyway. But I think having that like guarantee in front of it is such a great marketing strategy from the college standpoint, right? It’s that these students know that you have a pathway in if you want it. And I just think, I think we’re gonna start seeing more of that.

32:30
as these schools know that there’s going to be a drop off and want to secure students without having to spend more enrollment dollars. Right. No, that’s actually a really good point. I hadn’t thought about that. But it also kind of follows suit with what’s happening in athletics, right? Because now nobody’s loyal to anyone. You can always switch at any time. And that makes it hard for the school to which someone’s leaving to manage their enrollment. it’s challenging. And I think that’s what a lot of people don’t understand is that like at the

32:57
You the, the top say, 50 schools are the schools that are have less than a 10 % acceptance rates. Those schools aren’t going to necessarily be impacted as much, but there’s so many other schools, which is the majority of colleges that are really trying to get enrollment, keep their right number up and they’re they don’t know how they’re going to do it from year to year. And and it’s hard. I mean, I used to when before I got into this directly before I worked at what year college I was there. The marketing department and and they’re at the time they’re. oh

33:25
their retention rate was like 78 % or something like that. And it was a challenge because every year they were trying to scramble to refill the class. And so they were doing it through transfers and other means of trying to get students in, but it made it harder to predict into, especially at the tuition dependent revenue. Yeah, tuition dependent universities or colleges, it makes it harder for them to kind of figure that stuff out.

33:53
I think one positive thing about social media and those alternative enrollment options is I think there used to be like a real stigma. know, parents would would feel like there was a stigma of saying, you know, my my kid is going to start sophomore year or spring term, spring semester. But now I think the kids are so out and proud with their experiences. Right. It’s big nothing ball. Like I have good friends whose son is very high achieving family and friends. The son’s

34:22
doing community college for a year and then transferring sophomore year and they are. They’re pro. Yeah, they’re like, it’s, it’s a It’s not a nothing call. They say that. They’re, they’re like, there’s the best. This is best of all, all world. But I think a few years ago, you would have sort of, you know, at a dinner party, been a little bit shy about talking about that. So I think that’s a nice thing. Actually. think the kids are really owning their paths, different kinds of paths to get to the same place. Sort of what you were alluding to earlier.

34:52
Well, my favorite article right now, favorite is the Rhodes Scholar who had a 2.08 in high school. Did you read that? So I mean, to show students that, and I always try to tell them, right, like I said, it’s not a linear path. There are so many different ways to get to where you want to do. Here’s the guy that went into the military who then went to community college who transferred into Princeton. Yes, you can transfer into Ivy’s, right? Students don’t always understand that. And now he’s one of 32 selected to be a Rhodes Scholar. So it’s like,

35:20
see that there’s all these different avenues for you. And that’s why, like you said, cut out that noise, figure out your path, how you want to get there. I think people are so much more price conscious now that a lot of people are like, totally cool. Like, yes, my kids are to go to community college and then transfer over and, you know, or go to these other options that are more affordable and go to the more expensive leader. It’s good to know that there are all these options and there’s not one right way to do it.

35:45
Jenna, I love that you do that on your Instagram, on your stories. Like you were talking about Iowa State, that you just put so much information out there, but you do highlight so many of these schools and programs that are specialized or acceptance rates that I think you really do make other people realize there are different paths. There’s different, I think you do this too.

36:10
here are these public universities that have all of these things that everyone wants in like a raw raw school and you open their eyes to them. Like you’ve opened my eyes to some of these schools either, like to some of these schools that, you know what? That might be a really good idea. It might be outside of their comfort zone, but let’s see what happens when they do some research. Right. Yeah, absolutely. And you know, with that, you know, there are so many resources on social media and we talked a little bit about.

36:37
but just on the internet and with, know, chat GBT and all these other ways that people are now getting information. How do you, someone discern what’s accurate or not? Because there is so much misinformation and harder, I feel like it’s harder to find good information than it is to find misinformation. What do you think? Right. I’m trying to teach people, like when you look at their profile, like,

37:02
or go to their profile should say when you see something, go to their profile, click on their link and like read their background. So you get a little bit more context to like who’s putting the information out. I mean, I’m a big proponent of saying like check and see if they belong to some sort of professional organization, right? See if they’re, know, IECA, HECA, NACAC, something so that you know that they have some sort of professional standards and ethics and you know that they’re regularly getting trained on what’s happening on college campuses, what’s going on in the college landscape and just really

37:33
doing your research before you take something. I mean, I have so many people that will send me stuff and be like, is this real? And I’m like, stop looking at some of this stuff. If it ends with dot AI, it’s probably like outdated or not right information to begin with. So I mean, I think it’s hard to sometimes discern, but if you can like as a parent or student, like at least go look up the person and see what their kind of credentials are, where they’ve worked or where the information’s coming from, because at least then you know, you know, is this just…

38:01
I don’t know, there’s so many, I just feel like it’s such an industry where anybody can do it. I mean, sometimes it comes from, know, groups, Facebook groups on, uh, there’s a lot of places where it comes from. Yeah, it comes everywhere. Yeah, it does. That’s good advice. Overwhelming. Yeah. I’d like to look, I sometimes tell kids if it, especially early on when it would be difficult to imagine that anyone could have done research.

38:27
And like it doesn’t say it in the school’s admissions blog, or the school’s website, take it with a grain of salt. I mean, it might be right what you’re saying, but verify. Yeah. mean, trust maybe and verify. Read and verify. Read and verify. We need to come up with a new acronym to come up with that, right? Something, yeah. And some colleges just do such an amazing job with transparency, like…

38:52
I always say shout out to UGA, shout out to UVA, Georgia Tech. mean, there are some that really just are just so forthcoming. And I think it just really helps in the end. Like it has to reduce their phone calls coming in because you’re just being very transparent about what’s happening, how decisions are made, what they value in an applicant. And so they, I think it just helps all around. And if, like you said, go to those sources.

39:15
The UVA dean she does a live every Thursday, go watch that. Like that’s the source. If you’re interested in applying there, that’s who you should be listening to, not just some random person that’s telling you why they think they got in. So. Yeah. Exactly. I’m sure you get some very interesting em direct messages, but that’s a, yeah, for another day. em So being a former admissions counselor,

39:39
What do you think are some important things for students to know about what goes into their decisions from the other side? You mentioned this earlier that, you know, it is a business and it’s them, not you. And what do you wish that students and their families understood? I think first, I mean, definitely understand, like I said, because these are business decisions, these have been set, not even by the admissions office, but board of trustees, president.

40:04
You know, they’re meeting long before you’re even applying and making decisions on what they need for their class. And so you can only control what you can in the process and things are gonna happen throughout the admission cycle, right? We’ve seen how many colleges, look at Columbia just the other day, we’re probably gonna increase enrollment by 20%. I mean, if you applied, good for you, right? Like that was lucky or like last year when Yale dropped it in like what, January, February, we’re gonna admit more students. Rice did the same thing. So you only,

40:33
have so much information and there’s so much that you’ll never know. So all you can do is really control what you can in the process and then just understand. mean, every school has their wish list just like you do in a college of what they’re looking for in students. And so the more that you can understand that so much of the class is going to be shaped. always like when I, cause I run the Navigator Network and do like group counseling, I bring up this big chart where it’s like, okay, if we can meet a hundred kids.

41:00
understand that, you know, maybe 10 of them have to be athletes and 10 of them are maybe legacy students and maybe 10 meet that low income or, you another tenant from rural areas. And so there’s all of these things that shape a class. And the more you can understand that, you’ll realize that your percent chance of getting in, if you’re not checking some of these boxes is actually much lower. And you’ll start seeing that that’s why decisions don’t always make sense. You know, you’ll always see colleges bragging that they have kids from 46 states. Well,

41:29
If you’re the only kid from South Dakota applying to a certain school, your likelihood is going to be stronger than the kid that maybe has, from the same high school as a whole bunch of other kids. So it’s just understanding how colleges are shaping a class. And that’s why I said, I love to just constantly educate parents as much as I can so that the decisions don’t feel deflating, that you understand that there’s just so much more going into it. And there could be…

41:57
some things that really work in your favor, that’ll be nice surprises. And then there’ll be other times that you just, it doesn’t make sense. You’re like, I can’t tell you how many messages I get where it’s like, my student had a four point something and this many APs and Johnny down the street didn’t, but he got in, it’s so unfair. And I’m like, you know, it’s.

42:16
There’s so much more to it that goes into it. that’s why you can’t, you what works for one school and makes you so perfect for one makes you completely wrong for another. You’re the same applicant. You haven’t done anything differently, but, you know, it’s just goes to show that they’re prioritizing something about you here. They’re not, you know, I had a student years ago, well, not too many, would say maybe 2019, who was in the top 20%. This is when I worked in a high school, top 20 % of her class, of the class got into Cornell and we were like,

42:46
How did she get into Cornell? No, I mean, she was good student, but like our valedictorian got denied, our salutatorian, you know, and we’re just really like completely befuddled at that point. Like what is going on? And like lo and behold, we figured out that Cornell has an endowment set aside for families of 9-11, who, children, parents had died. And so she was kind of at that very tail end. She was probably, you know, a tiny, tiny baby when her dad had passed away. And…

43:13
It made sense then, like this is, that was her hole in. And you can’t go around and tell all the other kids in the class, well, that’s why she got in. But it made sense of like, that just goes to show colleges have priorities. They sometimes have money set aside for certain groups of students. And so that’s why when you say, well, how did she get in and I didn’t, there’s so many variables that just you don’t either know about, don’t make sense to you. Like I said, you’ll never know. But.

43:40
it works at one school, but that student wouldn’t have gotten into say Stanford or wouldn’t have gotten into, you know what I mean? But for that school, she had something that checked the box and made her very attractive to that school. students just have to realize, like I said, there’s so much more that goes into these decisions. And there’s so much, there’s so many different types of students in the world that I think is also hard for people to understand when you’re in your little bubble, you just see like the little.

44:06
group around you, but there’s just so many different experiences that people have and it does bring different things to the community. I think the other thing too is a lot of people don’t understand the whole like in context to the high school you go to and that’s the other piece that I’m always trying to say like, okay, if you go to one school where maybe a large percent don’t go to college and maybe the average SAT score at that school is a 1200 and you have a 1400 and you’re tough like you’re a standout.

44:36
If you’re coming from a high school where it’s just kind of expected that you get a 1400 and now you’re 50 % of your class there, everything is, you’re taking into context. always tell students like, pull out your transcript, pull out your school profile. How do you look in context to your profile? Because that is how colleges are looking at you. They’re not looking at you. Freehold High School down the street, students can take five, six APs a year. I worked at St. John Vianney, our students could max at three. Like you’re not.

45:03
being looked at in the same capacity and students need to understand that. I think they start saying, well, I had this many and this many and it’s like, no, no, no, no. How did you look and compare it to your high school and what was available to you? Right. No, I mean, that’s very true. We always start off all of our meetings doing that. Yeah. And most times people don’t know what a school profile is. I’ve never seen it before. Right. And they don’t really understand how to interpret it, especially to put themselves within that context. Right.

45:31
We always put that at all of our first meeting. So we always just like to end or start with some truths and myths. And I think you’ve covered some of them. What would you say are some truths or myths about college decisions? Well, I think truth in general, and I know this is a college podcast, but I always try to tell students, like, you don’t have to go to college, right? And I say that because I think sometimes students feel like they have to or that it’s expected. And maybe it is depending on the family that you’re coming from.

46:00
I always want students to know that there’s lots of ways to be successful in life and that there are so many options out there. And part of your journey in researching even colleges should just be looking at all of your options that you have, because like I said, I don’t think there’s one path. So I always think it’s just important for students to understand that. And like I said in the beginning, we’re in a very, I mean, the landscape is changing.

46:21
And I feel like there are students right now that are going to school and there may or may not be jobs available for them, depending on the way AI goes. We’re already seeing how computer science students are struggling, whereas like engineers are having a field day, right? In terms of options. I always say, you wanna make sure you’re, I mean, this is an investment in yourself. I think, of course college is fun and there’s a social piece of it, but it’s expensive. And so you wanna make sure that you’re making the right investment in yourself.

46:49
so that you have options later. And I think it’s important too, as students are deciding where to go, who is going to help them with their next move? Like what does four years later look like? And so I always tell students too, like don’t discount those kind of small liberal arts colleges that really focus so heavily on kind of preparing for that next step, right? They don’t have maybe grad schools or if they do, they’re very small. So I mean, their whole reputation.

47:16
relies on getting students kind of to their next path. And so I always tell students, know, make sure you look into those options as well. And the other thing I say too is like, if you know you wanna work in a certain field, like check out where you might wanna live after too. You know, if you’re very invested in, you know, wanting to work in say politics, okay, maybe you’re applying to Georgetown, but if you don’t get in, there’s lots of ways you could be in the DC area and get those same internships that those Georgetown kids would be getting. And so,

47:45
I think that’s always an important piece. always tell parents like, look at where the internship opportunities, what employers are working with the campus. Because when I worked in New York City, I mean, yes, I was at Marymount Manhattan, but they were pulling kids from our school, just like they were pulling them from Pace and Fordham and NYU. our kids would go to internships and they were surrounded by those other students. So if your goal is to be, say, working on Wall Street or working in DC, like I said, set yourself up where you can be successful in those areas.

48:15
Yeah, I think that’s such good advice. And I also want to pick up on what you were saying about the liberal arts colleges or just the colleges that really focus on critical thinking, because I think what I’ve been reading a lot, and I’m sure you guys have as well, just like listening to what employers are saying that they want from students. And I don’t know that it’s necessarily changed as it’s always been the case, but like those critical thinking skills, those are the only things that right now AI can’t do.

48:41
Right. And so it’s being able to combine those thinking skills with the tools that are out there and that are always changing. Right. And so it’s that ability to learn, to learn new things, to figure out how you can apply what it is that you need to do by using those tools that constantly evolve. That’s what’s going to hopefully set you apart when you’re working in the job market. Because I know it’s tough right now, because I’ve been getting that question this year. It makes sense. oh

49:10
like, okay, so they go to college and then what happens if they can’t get a job? And so it’s again, uncharted territory that we’re all trying to navigate. So. Yeah, absolutely. you for your being the guiding light in this and helping people and families do that. Any last words that you want to share? Don’t believe everything you hear on social media. I feel like that’s a good one to say. I mean, if you’re a parent listening, I would say like,

49:38
I feel like there’s so many right now I’m constantly seeing like if you haven’t started in eighth grade, you’re never going to a good school, right? I feel like, like I said, just watch everything you hear. I can’t tell you how many people reach out and say, I’m already behind. And it’s like, no. Let’s start with where you are and then we can go from there. So I mean, if you’re a parent listening to this, try to weed out some of that noise just for yourself as you’re going through the process because it is overwhelming, but it does work out the way it’s meant to be. And then,

50:05
Just enjoy senior year. Like I said, so many students get stripped of that experience because they just focus so much on things that are just out of your control that if they can just really, you know, lean into where they are right now and know that everything’s gonna come right. Those dates and decisions will come and they’ll drop and you know, they’ll work out or they won’t, but you’ll keep moving forward and you’ll be successful. So.

50:26
You know, just good luck through the tough time, because I know this month is can be challenging. So everybody that, you know, we wish everybody good luck as they start hearing about their decisions. Well, thank you. CBMers for tuning in and thank you. Jenna for an epic episode. We will definitely have a link to your Instagram and your resources on our line.

50:48
To catch more episodes of College Bound Mentor, make sure to follow or subscribe on your favorite podcast platform and tell a fellow parent or student about the podcast. And if you like what you heard, please rate our podcast to boost our rankings so more people can find out about us. To learn more, visit CollegeBoundMentor.com. Until next time, you got this!

The post Dealing with College Decisions Dropping with Jenna Schebell of The College Navigators – College Bound Mentor Podcast #40 appeared first on College Bound Mentor.