Prep for a Successful Life, Not College Admissions

You endgame is not college admissions

In creating this website, I worry that many students or their parents are looking for the “recipe” of to get into a selective college. They want a step-by-step procedure of exactly what it takes to get in, and will dutifully perform every step on that list.

This is a really bad approach, for many reasons:

• Recipe might not work: You could get the very best college admission recipe, that you follow to the letter, and you may still be rejected from the college(s) of your choice. There is some randomness to college admissions, and that’s true even if admission criteria didn’t change year to year.
• It’s not you. It’s them: In addition to randomness, the colleges may have what they think are valid reasons to reject you, but accept less academically capable students. As I have written, due to hooks, not all applicants are treated equally, and a rejection may have less to do with your qualifications than with their “institutional priorities”.
• Student Fragility: If your entire high school goal is “elite college or bust”, and you bust, that’s a major setback for you when you should be celebrating the college admissions you received and your upcoming graduation.
• Fit Matters: Not everyone is best served in a highly selective college, including some of those admitted there. For some, being a big fish in a small pond is better than ending up in in the middle or bottom of the class in an elite college. It’s worth you taking the time to find colleges that are the right fit.
• Many paths to success: And finally, the key problem with the “just tell me what to do” approach is that it gives more importance to college admission results than it deserves. While attending an elite college does have some benefits, there are plenty of successful people who didn’t attend one. For some paths, such as pre-med, it can actually work against you as they want strong students from various universities.

What MIT says

Before I get into what I recommend, I will instead start with something from Chris Peterson, a person in MIT admissions, that closely aligns with what I believe. Chris wrote a post in 2010 called Applying Sideways that is still relevant today.

In the post, he writes that there is no guaranteed path to MIT. Instead, prospective students should focus upon three things:

• Do well in school. Take tough classes. Interrogate your beliefs and presumptions. Pursue knowledge with dogged precision. Because it is better to be educated and intelligent than not.
• Be nice. This cannot be overstated. Don’t be wanton or careless or cruel. Treat those around you with kindness. Help people. Contribute to your community.
• Pursue your passion. Find what you love, and do it. Maybe it’s a sport. Maybe it’s an instrument. Maybe it’s research. Maybe it’s being a leader in your community. Math. Baking. Napping. Hopscotch. Whatever it is, spend time on it. Immerse yourself in it. Enjoy it.

https://mitadmissions.org/blogs/entry/applying_sideways/

He summarizes by saying that if you do those three things, then MIT might be interested and admit you. But even if they don’t admit, you will have succeeded in making the most of your high school years.

My recommendations

My version is similar to what Chris wrote, but has five points:

1. Develop good work habits and skills
2. Find activities you deeply enjoy
3. Challenge yourself & accept failures along the way
4. Treat others well
5. Be thoughtful about college applications, but don’t obsess

If you do these five things, I expect you will have a successful career and fulfilling life, and along the way also do well with college admissions. Let’s go through each one.

Develop good work habits and skills

What you accomplish in life is significantly determined by how productively you work. While there are certainly other things that influence your life (such as your innate talent, the opportunities enabled by your parents wealth, luck, etc.), you don’t have control over them. The one thing you have control is over how hard and how well you work.

This is a topic that others have covered far better than I can in a single blog post. For that reason, I highly recommend a book by Cal Newport called How to Become a Straight A Student. While he targets college students, many of the lessons here are applicable for talented high school students as well.

Find activities you deeply enjoy & spend time on them

Because of holistic admissions, selective colleges look beyond just grades and test scores. One area they care about is extracurriculars, as they want students who have an impact on campus life in addition excelling academically.

I have written a post about how to choose extracurriculars. The summary is that you should find activities you deeply enjoy. And upon spending sufficient time on them, you may develop an unusually strong skill in one activity, giving you a “spike”An exceptional talent in an academic or extracurricular area... More that distinguishes you from other students.

Challenge yourself & accept failures along the way

Selective college admissions consider both academics and extracurriculars, but they treat them differently. In terms of academics, the most selective colleges expect almost all As on your transcript. Too many Bs and you are out of the running. I personally think this emphasis encourages perfectionism, which is the wrong way to select students. But that’s the reality.

However, in terms of extracurriculars, these colleges are not looking for perfection, but excellence in one activity (i.e. the “spike”An exceptional talent in an academic or extracurricular area... More as described above). And here the colleges are encouraging you to take some risks in pushing yourself. Succeeding can help you build confidence, develop new skills, and gain a sense of accomplishment.

However, with any new challenge comes the possibility of failure. In fact, if you don’t fail, you are likely not pushing yourself hard enough. The important lesson here is to take the failures the right way, to develop resilience and perseverance, which can help you overcome obstacles and achieve your goals both in high school and later in life.

Treat others well

If you are reading this far into a blog about selective college admissions, you are likely smart and a good student. Be thankful for that. There will be many in your high school without those same gifts. As time permits, help them through activities such as peer tutoring.

In order to for you to realize your full potential in high school, you will need the knowledge and encouragement from your teachers and counselors. Be thankful for them and treat them with respect.

You should treat others well because it is the right thing to do, not because it helps you with college admissions. But it will likely help you with college admissions anyway. This is because your recommendation letters from teachers will note how well you treat others, and that is an important complement to how well you learned the material.

Think about college applications, but don’t obsess

The best way I can explain this point is through an analogy. Suppose you were planning a dinner party for a large group of friends. How much should you plan for it?

On one extreme you could simply say it was a potluck and let everyone bring whatever they wanted. But then you could end up with 5 people bringing a potato salad and nobody bringing desert.

At the other extreme you could cook everything yourself and go overboard in planning out every detail, getting highly stressed in the process, when the entire point is to enjoy time with your friends.

What you need to do, both in terms of planning a party, and applying for college, is find a happy middle. Because college will be 4 years of your life and likely a considerable amount of money for your parents, it is worth spending the time to do it right, but not get stressed about it. I describe the individual steps in the yearly guides for Freshman, Sophomore, Junior, and Senior year. Put forth the effort, but enjoy the process.