Category: Holistic Review Process

Indivisible

“Where is your other sock? How is it possible to only have one?” I said incredulously to my 7-year-old. “I’m going to start waking you up at 5 a.m.” It was 7:45 a.m. Her backpack was half-zipped, she was not wearing a jacket in 40-degree weather, and the snack I packed for her expedition to the zoo was sitting on the counter as she approached the door. Other thoughts also flew through my head, such as “you have one job; I hope you’re wearing underwear; only 11 more years; I’ll brush her hair and teeth tomorrow.” What can I say? This is next level parenting.

Like watching a movie on fast forward we drove, parked, ran across the park and into the school (embarrassingly, I was 20 yards ahead as if it’s my name on the roll). We get to the classroom at 8:00:45 a.m. and the announcements are rolling. My daughter was nervous to go in at this point, so we crossed the threshold of the door as the Pledge of Allegiance started.

A few other things also happened to me this week. I won’t get into the details on workout classes or meetings or books or movies or trips—you’ve heard about those things before. But this week two things in particular stand out:

  • A staff member announced she’s leaving our team. Granted, this has happened before. In my time at Georgia Tech, I’d put the number of colleagues who have left around 60, but some hurt worse than others. Jade is a Tech alumna. She started working for us right after graduation and over the last four years she’s been absolutely incredible with everything we’ve asked her to handle (and that’s been a lot). She’s a spitfire. I’ve walked into my office to find her sitting there eating lunch asking me, “Can I help you?” Funny, smart, caring—she’s beautiful in every way. I love her. Even though she’s staying in Atlanta, it won’t be the same not seeing her every day and I am going to deeply miss her smile, wit, perspective, and infectious personality. 
  • We’ve been making lots of admission decisions. This Saturday, March 10, we will release approximately 21,000 admission decisions. Over the last few months, and particularly the last few weeks, our staff has spent a lot of time together. In our process applications are reviewed by two team members before moving into Committee. At this stage, groups of three or pairs are going back over applications with various recommended decisions to re-examine individual decisions and ensure we meet our class goals. Admitting one of every four applicants is tough. Thousands of incredible students with great stories who we simply cannot admit. Fun? No, it’s not. Every day we have debates and disagreements in our office about a student, a school, a state, a major, our process, our communication and recruitment strategy, if only local honey has allergy countering effects, or if the correct spelling is “grey” or “gray.”

IndivisibleBack at my daughter’s school, I put my hand over my heart to join in the pledge and we come to the word indivisible. It struck me. It stuck with me after I hugged my daughter and walked back (much more slowly) across the park. It stuck with me on the train, on my walk, all day after, and even as I’m writing now. Indivisible.  I thought about the public finger-pointing, vitriol on social media, drama of the nightly news, bickering and blaming, dearth of humility, and the prevalence and proliferation of fear in our world today. Division seems to be far more the norm and trend these days.

And then I thought about you- as high school students. I thought about the lessons you teach us through your applications. We have the honor of reading incredible stories every year—the essays, emails, and life stories we see, hear, and read challenge us and inspire us. I’m so thankful for my job because seeing the talent, passion, and perseverance you demonstrate through your applications gives me hope.

Indivisible 

The truth is we teach you very little in the admission process. You visit. You apply. You receive a decision. You ultimately come or don’t come. So today I hope to return the favor, even to the smallest extent.

Look Back. Go Back.  

If you are a senior, I know you are excited about next year—and you should be. My guess is you are talking about “moving on” or “our last” this or that a good bit these days. That’s awesome. But remember for your parents, teachers, counselors, and coaches every time you say one of these things, or even when you just walk into the room, they feel conflicted. Sure, some have better poker faces than others. Outwardly, you will get a lot of smiles, hugs, high-fives, and congratulations and best wishes. But when you are not looking they close their eyes, take a deep breath, and remind themselves it’s going to be okay. Even if you are the third of three (some would argue especially if that’s the case) to go to college, they still feel this way. Just because they’re the adult, or they’ve been through it before, or they are the ones who have been encouraging you to do this all along, your absence will leave a hole.
Friends
We have a Facebook page for current and former staff members. When we go to conferences we make an effort to have at least one Tech dinner of current and former team members. Honestly, very little gives me as much joy as to see and hear from our former admission staff. Once family, always family.  So before you walk out of the room, before you leave school this spring, before you close the door, look back. Walk back in one more time to say thanks. Tell them you love them. Tell them something specific about how they’ve helped you. And when you think of them next year as you’re eating in the dining hall or leaving an exam or heading to a game, send them a text or email, make a quick call. Once family, always family. Indivisible.

100%

As I said, our staff disagrees constantly. If you could listen to conversations in committee you’d hear different perspectives on a student’s match for Tech or what the ultimate decision should be. In review, if counselors have opposing opinions they’ll make a note of their disagreement and send the application on for further review. I always admire that, despite not always seeing eye-to-eye in review, they go eat together, go for walks together, and spend time together socially as well.

Last week, our Senior Associate Director and I looked over all recommended decisions and projections for the class. In order to meet class goals (size, geographic distribution, etc.) we asked our team to re-visit many of their previous recommendations. Did they love our directive? Nope. Did they have legitimate questions about timing and rationale? Absolutely. But ultimately they understood the big picture and what has to be done to meet our goals. Within your family, on your team, and in your job, club, and community I hope you’ll both speak up for what you believe is right and experience progress that can emanate from confidence and also from compromise.

As you graduate and move on, I encourage you to look for opportunities to improve things by finding middle ground– and always trying to see the bigger picture, particularly when others around you are taking a myopic view.  Indivisible does not mean 100% agreement in the short term, but rather 100% commitment to ultimate unity. Listen, consider, revisit, and seek out multiple opinions. A holistic admission process is actually a great example of how this can done well, and unfortunately, there are precious few cases of this right now in our society.

What the College Experience Creates

People will tell you college is the best time of your life. Perhaps it’s partly because of what the college experience creates: a diverse community that comes to campus from a wide variety of counties, states, and nations. A group of strangers with varying religious, ethnic, political, and philosophical backgrounds who have the opportunity to live together, eat together, exchange ideas and beliefs in class and in residence halls all week, and then cheer for the same teams at night or on the weekend. One banner, one campus, one motto. Win or lose… Indivisible.

If you would like to subscribe to receive blog entries when they post, please enter your email address above, or click the “Subscribe” button in the header at the top of this page. We also welcome comments or feedback @gtadmission on Twitter.

Would You Rather…?

Would You Rather…? Yep. This question was a big part of the Olympic viewing experience at our house.

  1.  Would you rather have no training and compete in the Skeleton OR Ski Jump? Personally, I’m going Skeleton all the way here. Sure, it would be moderately terrifying to go that fast, but worst case you roll off (careful for those blades on the dismount) and walk to the finish line. Meanwhile, with Ski Jump, I just see no way I’m walking away with less than two broken bones.
  2.  Would you rather be in Ice Dancing OR Curling? Our kids are split here. Our son is adamant that he’d never wear that costume and dance with a girl. (In this case, I am translating “never” as “check back when I am 16.”) Our daughter adamantly argues that Curling is the most boring thing she’s ever seen. “Is this still on?” “Sweeping is not for fun,” and my personal favorite, “He looks like our neighbor.” Hard to argue.

I didn’t pose this one but it did go through my head (because this is the kind of thing that does): Would you rather participate in a sport that has a score/time to win OR one that is judged? I can see both sides here. You’ve trained for four years (some would argue a lifetime). You’ve risen early, worked, sweated, and bled. You’ve sacrificed your time and sleep and diet and even personal relationships to get to this point.  It makes sense that you might want a very objective, neutral, quantifiable measure to differentiate you from the other competitors. And if you compete in one of those sports, that’s exactly what you get. Granted, it must have been heart-breaking for the US Luge Team not to medal when they finished .57 seconds from Gold and .103 from stepping onto the podium for a Bronze, but they signed up for it.  And clearly the German bobsledders who finished upside down were not concerned about impressing any judges on route to their Gold medal. They were the fastest. Period.

In Freestyle Skiing or Figure Skating it is all about the difficulty of your program, the execution of your routine, and your style (could argue personality) that you exhibit to the judges. Frankly, as a native southerner, I was just impressed when someone made it down the hill, landed a jump, or managed not to fall during a routine.  As I watched some of these events, the eventual medalists were not always the athletes I thought were the best from the outside looking in. Of course, I was not privy to all of the metrics or aspects they were looking for to make those determinations. Still, I could see how after all of those practice sessions and injuries that having a group of judges deduct or reward points based on the slightest angle of a skate or hand position on a snowboard would be maddening. And yet, it’s not like they were racing. They were not expecting their results or medal to come from time or speed. They knew that there would be a level of subjectivity leading to or from the medal stand.

So many lessons to be drawn from Olympians about perseverance, dedication, sportsmanship, teamwork, etc. but I am going to stay in my lane and focus on how this applies to college admission.

Let’s start with this.  Most schools make decisions based on quantifiable metrics. Of the four thousand post-secondary options in our country (with over 2000 four-year colleges), the average admit rate is 65% (See page 3). In the vast majority of schools nationally, they have space available for talented students like you, and they are going to use your GPA and test scores to make those decisions.  These are publicly available formulas that are clearly outlined on their sites, in publications, and in presentations. In most cases, these schools have admit rates over 50% and they have determined that if you are performing a certain level in high school, you will be academically successful on their campus. At least one of these schools should be on your list. The good news is that you will absolutely find more than a few where: you will be admitted; you will find a lifelong friend; you will find a professor who will mentor you and set you up for success in graduate school or as you launch into a career; you could take advantage of phenomenal internships, study abroad opportunities; you can afford and may even provide you with scholarships as well.

Like an Olympic athlete competing in a sport that is evaluated by people, here are some things you should know if you are applying to a highly selective college that has very few spaces and yet a pool of incredibly accomplished students.

  • Numbers are not going to be the deciding factor. Yes, we ask for test scores. We look at them and consider them, but at Georgia Tech this year two of every three applicants had a 1400+ SAT/ 30+ ACT. The College Board and ACT research clearly demonstrates that using “cut scores” (i.e. drawing an arbitrary line between say a 1360 and a 1370 is a misuse or abuse of tests). Our own campus specific research verifies this as well. Testing is far less indicative of academic success on our campus than rigor of curriculum and performance in classes. This is why students appealing a denial at a highly selective institution because they have a 1500 SAT has no merit. This is not short track racing. We never said it was going to be about your testing- and our decision only demonstrates that we were transparent here.
  •  Strength of program matters. If you watched any of the Snowboarding or Aerial or Figure Skating, you heard the announcers talking at length about difficulty of program. An athlete who attempts and converts a quadruple salchow or double lutz or a Triple Lindy is rewarded for that accomplishment, skill, and ability at a higher level than a competitor who hedges their difficulty in order to avoid a fall or mistake. In admission committee and file review, we do the same thing. This is why colleges that have a difficult curriculum (not always directly correlative to admit rate or rankings) also value your course choice in high school. The bottom line is that a student from the same high school, i.e. has similar access to courses, who takes AB Calculus and Physics II and does well is a better fit for our Civil Engineering program than a student who has opts instead for Pre-Calculus and AP Psychology.  You don’t see the Olympic judges walking out of the arena questioning their decision to place value on this element, and we do not either. Rigor matters. Figure Skating

 

 

 

 

  • Paper vs. Practice. “How could you deny my son? He has all A’s.” I understand, sir. However, since his school adds extra points for rigorous courses, an A can range from 90 to well over 100. A 91 and a 103 are not the same… and we are going to differentiate. This year we have a school that sent us nearly 200 applications. Of those 160 had above a 90, i.e. an A average. Now we can go round and round all day about the chicken and the egg here on grade inflation just like we can try to grapple with how Russia’s Alexander Krushelnitsky failed a doping test for Curling, but that seems counterproductive. Highly selective schools, just like Olympic committees, are going to differentiate great from outstanding.
  •  Style matters. Yes, we look at the technical as well as the full program. Review includes essays, interviews, and opportunities for you to tell us what you do outside the classroom. Why? Because you will not just be a student on campus, you will be a contributing citizen. Ultimately, once you enroll and graduate, you will be an ambassador. Judges give style points. Admission committees do as well. We care where you are from. We are listening for your voice. We want to know how you have impacted and influenced your community. We are counting on your counselors and teachers in their recommendations to build context around a GPA or a test score or an IB diploma. And because all of this is plays out in a holistic admission decision, the student with the highest test score or most APs or who sits at the top of a spreadsheet on a sorted GPA column is not necessarily the gold medal winner. Nobody is holding a stopwatch in admissions committee.
  • It cuts both ways. The hard truth of selective college admission is that it is a very human process. The upside? You’re not being sorted out based on GPA or test score alone. We are looking in depth at school curriculum, grade trends, course choice, performance, as well as who you are, who you want to be, how you impact others, and how you will match with our culture and mission. The downside? We are human. Read: judgment calls, conversations in committee, subjective decisions based on institutional priorities. Not gold, silver or bronze… grey.

Ultimately, if you are choosing to apply to a highly-selective university, you have to submit your application with the mentality of an Olympian. The competition will be stiff and there is no guarantee that you “end up on the podium.” Trust your training. You have prepared well. You have worked hard. Watch the closing ceremonies this weekend. Whether an athlete has a medal around their neck or not, they will walk through that stadium with incredible pride in their accomplishments, as well as confidence and hope for the future. If you are a senior this spring, regardless of admission outcomes, this is how you should be walking the halls each day and ultimately across the stage at graduation. Confidence and hope, my friends. Your future is bright.

The Rules They Keep On a-Changin’

I travel a lot. I don’t have TSA Pre or Clear or Global Entry or Jedi mind powers, or any special clearance allowing me to bypass some of the issues I’m about to describe. I’ve had friends literally scoff in my face, and others, including close relatives, utter statements like, “What the @x>~?!” (Valid question, mom.) What can I say? I like being with the people. Maybe I don’t want to pay the fee. And frankly I simply haven’t taken the time to fill out the application and bring my passport to the airport to go through the process. If you know anything from reading this blog it’s that I’ve got some issues.

Atlanta Airport Security: “Remove your belt, shoes, and everything from your pockets, and place them in the bin. Laptops need to be in their own bin.” As I begin undressing in front of my fellow travelers, I hear, “Sir, sir. You do not need to take your iPad out of your bag.” With belt in mouth and one shoe off, I’m simultaneously hopping and fumbling to put my iPad back in my backpack. The TSA officer rolls her eyes. It’s shift change and I hear her replacement say something slightly more R-rated than “Same stuff. Different day.” They both look at me askance with an expression which can only be interpreted as, “Idiot.” And, truthfully, as I’m holding my pants up and chugging water from the bottle I forgot I had in my bag, it’s hard to disagree with them.

But not that hard, really.

Washington D.C. Security: “You do not need to remove your belt, sir. Please keep your belt on.” Eye roll, eye roll. Is this person the Atlanta officer’s cousin? Because I’ve definitely seen that expression recently. I re-buckle and remove my laptop. “Do you have an iPad also, sir?” Yes, I reply. “Well, you need to put it in the bin too.” I comply. “Not in the same bin as your laptop.” Oh. Ok.

“And shoes need to be placed on the belt directly.” Airport Security

This command confuses me. I slowly move my shoes toward my mid-section, “I thought you said I didn’t need to take off my belt,” I replied.

“The belt!” And he points at the conveyor belt leading into the security scan. I may not be hopping around like I was in Atlanta, but I still get the “Idiot” glance again. No shift change this time but he has really mastered the look, so it is equally condemning.

In Tampa they insisted I take off my hat. In New York they scolded me for getting out of line to put my hat in the bin. The Vermont officer was clear that you ALWAYS have to take food out of your bag. Umm…. I beg to differ, my friend, because your comrade in Houston was singing a different tune. Of course, it does no good to get into a debate about it. So I pull out the pretzels and Kind bar from my bag. Oh, crap. I realize as I pull them out one was half-opened. Crumbs, crumpling of wrappers. I know its coming and then, yep, there’s that look again.

As you can see, I cannot explain why security measures vary from one city to the next—and sometimes the same city from one week to the next. It’s confusing. It’s frustrating. It’s moderately disconcerting. Why can’t they all be the same? And if they’re all different, how am I supposed to know the rules?

What the @x>~?!  

The rules they keep on a-changin.’ And if you are junior just starting your college search experience, you probably feel the same way.

At one campus, you’re told how critical teacher recommendations are and all test scores must be officially sent from the testing agency. Two hours south and a quick stop at Wendy’s later you’re informed, “We are test score optional. So we don’t need the score report I see in your hand, but you will need to have an on-campus interview.” Got it. Bathroom break, drool-laden nap against the passenger seat window, two state boarders crossed, espresso shot: “Our College deeply values demonstrated interest. And please don’t send us rec letters, because we are not going to read them.”

And on it goes: We are exclusively Coalition App… We don’t accept the Common Application, but rather have our own school specific app…. We have Early Action, so it’s not binding…. We have Restrictive EA, which means, well, it’s restrictive… We don’t have ED1 but we do have EA and ED2, so consult your doctor if you experience any side effects in the application process…. We’re really thinking about implementing ED 2.1 next year or just skipping right to The X. It is confusing. Undoubtedly part of the anxiety and stress of applying to college arises because it’s not a uniform process from one place to another.

Admission is not Airport Security.  

I can see how the differences may be confusing and potentially frustrating, but unlike TSA, it’s logical for colleges to have different processes and requirements…BECAUSE they’re different. I realize it’s not always clear from our brochures, websites, and emails that are misleadingly and often embarrassingly similar, but it is true. We value and prioritize different things, and ultimately each school is trying to create a distinct class and community.

Over 1000 schools across our nation have determined their best match students do not need to send test scores because they can demonstrate their talents and ability to succeed on campus through different elements of an application. Georgetown University requires interviews, and many colleges highly recommend you interview with an admission representative or an alum. These places are setting aside significant time to get to know you, to let you ask your questions, and sometimes (through alumni interviews) to see a bigger part of their community and network.

Inside Tip: View the requirements of a school as an indicator of their culture. Allow those front facing webpages to lead you to ask questions and do your homework—to dig. I wanted so badly to ask the guy in Miami why I can’t put my business cards in my shoe, or why the laptop and iPad can’t share the same bin. Of course I didn’t ask for fear of ending up in some back room answering questions about that run in with the cops on Halloween of my junior year in high school. But you should ask questions when it comes to college admission. In doing so, you’ll quickly learn the school asking you to write four essays on their application is doing so because their students write a lot in class. Don’t like completing the application? Well… four years somewhere else might be a better choice. Hate interviews or personal exchanges in general? Universities requiring or recommending interviews typically deeply value classroom discussion, debate, and dialogue as a cornerstone of their curriculum and pedagogy. It’s what makes them distinct—not just in the application but in the student experience too.

Advance information. Technically, TSA has a Security Screening site but it does not provide helpful information about expectations upon arrival. This is my favorite line: “…you may notice changes in our procedures from time to time.” Yeah, I have. In contrast, colleges go to great lengths on websites, in publications and in presentations to lay out exactly what they are asking for from applicants. I wrote this on an empty stomach and decided to go with the cheese theme to pick three schools and find their requirements: Colby College, University of Wisconsin, and American University (I got all three links in less than three minutes with a total of 11 clicks).

Inside Tip: Create a spreadsheet with your college choices. Initially include basic information you can build on: school name, admission website, admission contact info, application deadlines, financial aid deadlines, requirements. You may find additional columns or sub-headings to add to this base. Once you apply, each school will give you a way to track your submitted documents, but as you’re searching for schools, and before you apply, a spreadsheet is a great way to keep up with colleges’ nuances.

Bonus: Be sure to add the admission email address to your safe-sender list, and adjust your Junk, Promotions, Updates and other folder settings throughout the process. “I didn’t get that the email” or its cousin “I didn’t see the email” are not going to be valid excuses for missing deadlines or not sending critical information (yes, we’ve seen this happen).

Double Bonus: Kudos if you got the hat-tip to Bob Dylan in the title. His song remains relevant today and even applicable in the admission experience. More on that next week.

If you would like to subscribe to receive blog entries when they post, please enter your email address above, or click the “Subscribe” button in the header at the top of this page. We also welcome comments or feedback @gtadmission on Twitter.

Position vs. Disposition

This week I concluded my term on Georgia Tech’s Staff Council- a group of 20 members elected to represent the nearly 7,000 staff on campus to our President and Executive Leadership Team. We serve as the staff’s official voice to the administration and attempt to advocate for ways to enhance the employee experience and elevate suggestions, insight, and opportunities for improvement.

During my term I served as Council Chair and Past-Chair, giving me the opportunity to go on all-night “ride alongs” with our police force; conduct 6 a.m. town hall meetings for our facilities staff; and attend countless staff meetings in buildings and departments I’d never heard of before. In these three years, I’ve had people stop me on campus or show up at my office door (and even one person flag me down at a local restaurant) to talk about parking rates, maternity leave policies, campus-wide recognition programs, gender neutral bathrooms, uniform improvements for our grounds crew, and even why we run the triple option offense (I’m not making these up, I’m literally going back through my notes).

GavelServing in this capacity has not always been easy. I’ve seen tears, heard raised voices and accusatory, threatening statements, and endured not only the drafting, but also the revision, and “re-revision” of by-laws. And for all of the effort—for the additional time away from my family–for the early mornings or later evenings–for the lightning rod moments–I did not receive any additional compensation (though I did get a plaque and a paperweight, both of which are  lovely).  As I exit, my title is still the same as when I began this journey three years ago.

Short term vs. Long term

Over the next two weeks a lot of competitive colleges are going to be putting their EA or ED decisions on the streets.  The odds are you, or someone you care deeply for, will be deferred or denied by at least one of these schools. And since Williams or Rice or Notre Dame are not going to call you to walk you through their rationale and how you can move forward, I wanted to give you some insight from this side of the desk.

If you are reading this, I’m guessing you are someone who can relate to pouring time and energy into something. You get the part about sacrificing sleep and relationships to pursue other ventures. You chose a rigorous curriculum and found yourself studying and eating coffee grounds deep into the night. You went to test prep classes or found online options to increase your standardized scores. You played on intense travel teams. You gave copious amounts of time to clubs or volunteer organizations or research projects.

If you are denied or deferred admission, it’s pretty reasonable to ask, “Where did all of that get me?” “Why did I do the full IB Diploma?” “Why did I take my summer to volunteer my time or intern? I could have gotten an actual paying job or just hung out by the pool.” And, to be honest, in the short-term, I get it. You are not crazy—and you’re definitely not alone. Being deferred or denied admission stings. Disappointed may not even be strong enough, it’s ok to be straight mad. I see why you would question how, and why, an admission committee did not value or recognize your hard work, extra effort, and lack of sleep characterizing your high school career.Yellow Jacket Council

Similarly, I suppose you could easily argue Staff Council did not “get me anywhere.” But after 14 years on campus, I can earnestly say my involvement with Staff Council has been among the most rewarding and meaningful experiences of my career. Bottom line: this position connected me to people I would never have met otherwise; exposed me to issues I did not know existed; and forced me to relay information in many directions about sensitive subjects in an empathetic, balanced manner. It changed me and shaped me as a person, and has also enhanced how I tell and view the Georgia Tech story.

So all I’m asking you to do is wait a few weeks. Finish this senior fall semester strong with exams or papers you have to write. Enjoy the holidays with your family and friends. Go see a movie, and read a book for fun (not because you have to). Sleep. If three weeks from now, or three months from now, when you’ve been admitted to several other schools (and likely have some scholarship money to a few of those), you still feel like you wasted your time playing on that team; or you’re regretting meeting the people you’d never have met otherwise at your internship or volunteer group; or you believe all the information and study skills you learned in those AP courses have absolutely no long-term benefits for a foundation in college; or you are convinced the trip to South America to expand your language and cross-cultural skills was a complete waste of time, then I’ll give you back your Georgia Tech Admission Blog subscription fee (what, you haven’t paid that yet?).

My Guarantee to You

In the long-term, I guarantee, yes, guarantee, you will be thankful for pushing and stretching yourself academically. I am imminently confident you will look back with fondness on the trips you took with your travel team. I know you will appreciate having stuck with both the orchestra and the band. There are many things in this life I’m unsure of, but I am confident of this—you will not look back as a sophomore in college, or as a 26-year-old graduate student, or as a 48-year-old parent, and bemoan the opportunities you took advantage of, the people you met, or the exposure you received while in high school. In fact, at least in my experience, it’s always the opposite.

So be disappointed. Be straight mad. In a way, there’s a beauty in those feelings. You can’t appreciate the sunshine without the rain. You’re breathing. You’re striving. You have goals and dreams. You put in work and you want to see a return. I would be more worried if you did not feel that way. It would mean you either don’t care or don’t have high expectations for yourself. But slow down and consider why you made the choices you did. I’m guessing it was not all about getting into Haverford or Tufts or Caltech. If it was, I can’t help you. But if you studied, played, worked, and challenged yourself because you enjoy learning, because you see value in the effort, because you take pride in the results, then while you may not have been given a position in said college, you have earned something no admission letter will ever give you—a disposition formed through growth, maturity, and commitment. In other words, all of the traits another university will recognize, and they’ll be phenomenally lucky to have on their campus when you show up in the fall.

If you would like to subscribe to receive blog entries when they post, please enter your email address above, or click the “Subscribe” button in the header at the top of this page. We also welcome comments or feedback @gtadmission on Twitter.

Challenge By Choice

This past August I went backpacking in Scotland with 10 first-year Tech students. Our trip was led by Outdoor Recreation Georgia Tech (ORGT). One of their core tenants is “challenge by choice,” which means most of the activities have modifications based on your comfort level. “Today we are mountain biking. You can do the 23 mile trail with boulders, jumps, rattle snakes, and a few places you could careen off the side of the mountain. OR you can do the eight mile loop around the lake.” The goal is to give the participants options, but also to push them outside their comfort zone and stretch them beyond what they think they can do.

On our trip, however, there were no options. We were going point to point, and the distance was what it was, with one exception: Ben Nevis. At 4,400 feet Nevis is the highest peak in Great Britain. While it may not be Pike’s Peak, I could not see the summit from the trail head and there were lots of switchbacks.Mountain

After the first hour of climbing, our group naturally broke in half. The lead pack had more experienced hikers and moved at a pretty aggressive clip. I was not in that group. I was in the back… actually, the way back. After 2.5 hours we stopped for lunch, estimating we were about halfway up. Folks were tired. We had blisters, we had headaches, and we also had real doubts.

As we resumed our hike, the plan was to go 20 more minutes and check in. We’d plod forward, step by step, trying to talk about random subjects to keep our minds off of the hike. For the next hour we went from one logical stopping point to another. “Everyone good?” A few “Yeps,” a few “I think so’s,” and a few closed eyed grunting nods. “Challenge by choice,” one of the ORGT leaders would say. “We can turn around if y’all want, but I think you can at least make it to the next point,” as she pointed toward a large cairn a few hundred feet up the trail.

Ben Nevis taught me five lessons that are applicable to both life and college admission:

We all have more in us.
Admission websites, publications, and presentations often talk about competitive GPAs and rigor of curriculum. But we fail you by not always describing why we care to see you stretch and challenge yourself academically. Very little of our conversation in committee is about your ability to actually do the work. Most applicants to selective colleges have that covered. The truth is that some of the greatest difficulty of the first year is re-establishing yourself and a community around you; or adjusting to living in a completely new part of the country; or figuring out if you should use the warm or cold cycle on the washer. So in the admission process at competitive schools it’s not about the number of difficult courses you take, it’s about a character trait. It’s not about seeing that you packed in more but that you put in more, so that when you arrive on campus you thrive in the classroom and have the capacity to engage, influence, and connect outside the classroom. When we review your application, and particularly your transcript, we are asking if you have chosen challenge, because we want evidence that when you are stretched you respond well. So what is the next level for you? Maybe that is something quantifiable like taking HL instead of SL Spanish, or perhaps it is less tangible and translates simply to working harder or learning more deeply in a particular course you are taking. Set your eyes on the next switch back, and pull your backpack straps a little tighter. This is not about getting in. It’s about preparing and also learning an incredibly valuable lesson that will set you up for success in college and beyond—there is more in you!

Celebrate your wins! It's not a race
One student, a hard-core swimmer who was recruited by Division I programs, was in the back with me as we neared the top of the mountain. In a pool, she can swim all day (literally).  But the term “fish out of water” has never been so fitting. We saw the crest and she was pumped. But as we drew closer, it became clear it was a false summit. We found a natural stone bench and sat down to have water and a Kind bar. She looked around at the incredible views and vistas, then looked back down the mountain at hikers who appeared like tiny specks at the bottom. “This is beautiful,” she said, then added astutely, “I know a lot of people will never see this.” The vantage point was incredible. And she could not have been more right about the latter piece too. Getting there had taken a ton of work and we’d seen several groups turn around along the way. About 83% of high school students graduate, and only 65% of those go on to college, which means approximately half the students who started the climb are not sitting where you are. So when you get accepted to college, whether it’s your first choice or your fifth, celebrate your win. Consider the work that it’s taken to get there and the people who have been encouraging and supporting you on your climb. Look back at your hard work and stop to appreciate the view. (We celebrated with Skittles. I’ll leave your reward to you. Just promise me you’ll slow down, enjoy, and celebrate.)

There’s more than one summit.
This is your climb and your trek. You know where you’ll flourish. You know where you’ll find a community to challenge and stretch and support and encourage you. And if you are doing this search and application process well, you’ll realize there are many places to find the view and experience you need to realize your dreams. So don’t let a family member or a friend tell you that there is only one school you “need” to go to or “deserve” to go to. If a place is too cold or too homogeneous or too pretentious or too urban for you, it’s false summit for you. You define your summits.

It’s not a race.
Holistic review by definition means schools look at way more than one number (GPA) or a set of numbers (count of AP/IB/Honors, etc.), and certainly more than test scores, which continue to decline in predictive value. The person to the top the fastest does not necessarily win, and admission decisions from highly selective colleges will not be quantifiable. The student hiking in the back of our group had never been on a trail. She was not as fast as some of her peers, but her desire and indefatigable spirit were unrivaled. As we sat at the false summit dividing out red Skittles, I asked, “You good?”  I’ll never forget her response, because when she looked up at me I thought she was going to cry. But instead she replied, “Rick, I didn’t come her for nothing.” Wow! We got up and trudged another 45 minutes to the top. Selective colleges want to admit students like her because they are grinders, workers, strivers. Sometimes these are students whose parents did not attend college, and yet they’ve achieved incredibly inside and outside of school. Sometimes this is the student who was diagnosed with a life-limiting condition in their sophomore year requiring eight surgeries, yet they’ve still managed to make B’s while juggling constant treatments and medical attention. Sometimes this is the student from a school which didn’t offer Differential Equations and courses beyond AP Computer Science, but who sought out online options or dual enrolled at a local community college for a challenge. On a scatterplot, they may come in below a college’s profile, but an X and Y axis can’t capture “I didn’t come here for nothing.”

Hike Well.
You can’t fake number four (see above). You may be the kid in the front group with plenty of exposure to hiking, a high dollar backpack, and Gortex boots. If that is your background, this becomes a matter of how you climb. I wrote last week about controlling what you can. You control how you hike. The admission process is not fair. You will see a student with “lower scores” get admitted to a school where you do not. You will see a recruited blue-chip athlete get into a university that does not admit your best friend who took “better classes.” It will happen—it happened last year, it happened a decade ago, and it will happen this year. Want to know what doing it right looks like? When we reached the top, the first group had been there an hour. It was chilly, it was blustery, and they still had a 2-3 hour climb back down. But they waited. When we rolled in, there were high fives, hugs, and applause. It was one of the most genuine, inspiring moments I’ve been a part of in a long time.

If you are defining your own summits, then seeing someone else get there too is not going to bother you, it’s going to encourage you. That, my friends, is character. And character, for all of us, is a challenge by choice that lasts a lifetime.

If you would like to subscribe to receive blog entries when they post, please enter your email address above, or click the “Subscribe” button in the header at the top of this page. We also welcome comments or feedback @gtadmission on Twitter.