Our Bad. Your Problem.

We had an office retreat last week. One session included a quiz on Gen Z vernacular.  While our results were kept anonymous, I’m going to out myself and admit I did not score what most would define as high. “‘Ship them’, ‘Sips Tea,’ ‘Goat.'” As I watched one unfamiliar phrase after another pop up on the screen, I oscillated between trying to decipher their origins and thinking back on some of the popular phrases from my high school experience.  One of the most common, especially playing soccer, was “My bad.” Gen Z

I’ve come to realize “my bad” is essentially synonymous with “Bless her heart.”  A little girl trips during a ballet recital and Aunt May leans over and whispers, “She isn’t the most coordinated, is she? Bless her heart.” There are some real parallels between that comment and making a lazy pass to a teammate that ends up setting him up to get completely cracked by a charging defender. “My bad.” “Yep. Darn right it’s your bad. Nearly got me killed.” And to be honest, much of the consternation surrounding the admission process is “Our bad.”

Our bad!

Colleges should do a better job differentiating ourselves in the materials we send, the presentations we give, and the websites we build. In an effort to be broad and aesthetically concise, we end up blurring all schools together.

We want you to think, “Wow. I can see myself there” or “I’ll have friends and professors who will care about me,” so we stage diverse groups of students under trees with professors in front of our prettiest building on a perfectly sunny day. Now, you can attribute some of this to an overuse of the same marketing firm(s) within higher education.  “Check out the 2018 template. In this one we moved the football team winning a pivotal game to page two, and decided to get a drone shot of the steeple clock tower at sunset from the east. Don’t like that? Okay, how about the one with the study abroad picture on the cover and the ultimate Frisbee shot as a centerfold?” Maybe we need StitchFix to start creating college brochures. Give me a little more Atlanta and dial back the political activism–that’s really more us.

Our attempts to be inspirational or aspirational wind up being synthesized into three or four word taglines, such as “Change Your  World,” “Dream Big-Live Bigger,” or “Create the Future.” (Rumor is “Drain the Swamp” started with a consulting firm working for a college, but currently that’s been dismissed as fake news.) These attempts are ultimately why, based solely on brochures or websites, you might struggle to see a consequential difference between a small, private college in the middle of Ohio and a flagship public university in the Pacific Northwest. Our bad!

Truth be told, we do the same on tours too. We find the most involved students and best ambassadors to talk about all of the amazing research they’ve done, trips they’ve taken, and jobs they have lined up. While telling their story, they work in equally impressive anecdotes about friends or roommates studying abroad or creating companies– all the while somehow impervious to the 90 degree heat.

I’ve taken several tours this summer on my travels (registering under either George P. Burdell or Navin R. Johnson), so I’m not speaking only for Tech, or conjecturing about what may be happening. This is real, people.  These students are amazing- and they’re actual humans- not prototypes or conglomerates of a variety of top students. Not sure about you but I’ve walked away from some of those tours with an even mixture of being impressed and depressed.

Your Problem!

So, unquestionably, it is our bad. We set you up. We skim over lots of details. We give you very generic information online and in brochures, and then expose you to our best- whether its buildings, students, professors, or alumni. It’s the equivalent of us lazily passing the ball toward you. What are you going to do with it? Well, like any receiver (regardless of the sport) knows, you can’t sit and wait for it, because it will either get intercepted or you’re going to get hit upon arrival.

Run Toward It

1- Read and Research: Pick up an alumni magazine while you are on campus (tip: they’re always available at the college’s alumni building and most are readily available online too). What are they touting? Where are alums living and working? Inevitably, there are stories of professors, researchers, students, and even messages from the president or other influencers you won’t find in admission publications. Grab a school newspaper, look online for social media that’s not generated by admission, i.e. the academic department or clubs you are interested in joining. These posts are always more organic and less polished, which is a good thing.

2- Walk and Talk: If you visit a college with a friend or parent, try to split up and take different tours. Even though, theoretically, it’s the same route and basic script, the voices and perspectivesComic will always vary.   It’s incredible how many times a tour guide’s personality, choice of footwear, the day’s weather, or some off-handed comment will influence your impression of the university. I challenge you to not let any one voice be too powerful in this process. You don’t read only one review on Yelp or Amazon, right? After the tour, go stand in the longest coffee line you can find on campus. Those are the conversations you need and want to hear. Sit down, compare notes, pretend to read, and enjoy the variety of discussions. Eavesdropping gets a bad rap. It’s a life skill.

In the near future, colleges will all have virtual or augmented reality tour options. You’ll be able to choose your tour guide avatar, customized tour route, and set your voice narration style. Imagine having Thomas Jefferson take you around UVA or Mark Zuckerberg take you around Harvard. Not “throwing shade” here—as I  told you, eavesdropping was a life skill.  It’s on you to limit your bias by soliciting as many opinions as possible.

3- Ask and Task: We’ve covered this before, but it bears repeating: It’s on you to ask good, probing questions. Don’t let the admission counselor pull the string in the back of their belt and start droning on about getting seven friends, a snitch and sponsor to start the Quidditch club.  Dig deeper. They’re not being nefarious—but they are  being lazy. Get beyond the first layer spiel. Stop the tour guide, pause the presenter. Ask them to delve into some detail about their student: faculty ratio or the availability of campus housing after sophomore year, or the percentage of undergrads actually doing research.

brb. Well, next week anyway.

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Ask Better Questions

In the world of college admission there is always debate about the “best school” in the nation. As quickly as someone holds up Stanford or Harvard, someone else will poke holes in the methodology, or challenge that they may not be tops for  every major, and so on and so forth.  There are so many varying “sources” online these days that almost every school can tout a high-ranking or review in one area or another. “We’re among the nation’s best in ROI, or in STEM fields,” “We are the nation’s Greenest college” or “We have the best ice cream.” There is almost never a consensus or agreement on who really is “the best.” Perhaps that’s the beauty of this field– lots of great options and a desire to be the best in one thing or another, but clearly there is not a unanimous #1.

But in the world of music  a definitive leader is apparent; a band that rises above the rest and leaves no room for debate:  U2. From their lyrics to their history to their longevity, they simply define greatness. Glad we’ve established that.

A lesser known but important U2 song is 11 O’Clock Tick Tock. And in typical fashion, they always bring a lyric that is profound and broadly applicable to life:

“We thought we had the answers. It was the questions we had wrong.”

Asking the right questions, and being persistent in the asking, is a fundamental life lesson. And it’s absolutely vital as you go through the college Q&Aadmission process. So as you head out to college campuses this spring, whether you are a sophomore or junior who is just starting to understand how one school varies from another, or an admitted senior who is trying to figure out the best fit for the next few years, commit to being a relentless questioner. If you leave the question asking to the colleges, you can bet you’re  going to hear the same answers over and over again. “Oh, yes. Our biology program is great.” “Sure. You can double major in English and Sound Design. That’s actually extremely common.”

The emails and the brochures paint the same Pollyanna pictures, mixing appropriate diversity with studious learners closely inspecting a beaker or electrical circuit.. Don’t accept the Charlie Brown speeches. As you talk to people at different colleges,  turn off the switch that has them rambling about studying abroad or the number of applications they received and ask them something better.

1) You ask: “What is your faculty: student ratio?” This number may not include faculty who are doing research and teach only one class, or those who are on sabbatical, and so on. For example, Tech’s ratio is 18:1, but that doesn’t mean you and 17 buddies will be sitting around a table in Calculus I your freshman year. These stats are compiled for publications to be comparative. So while helpful in that regard, they don’t tell the whole story.

You SHOULD ask: “What is your most common class size?” This question gets you right into the classroom. Schools rarely publish average SATs or GPAs but rather bands or ranges. Likewise, you want to look at their ranges and variances within class size. Our most common class size is between 26-33, and around 7% of our courses have over 100 students in them. That type of information will be far more helpful to you in framing expectations and determining what kind of experience you will likely have.

And THEN ask: How does that vary from freshman year to senior year? Is that true for all majors? What does that look like for my major? I had an intro Econ class at UNC-Chapel Hill that had 500 students in it. But that was not my undergraduate experience. In fact, that was the only course I took all four years that was over 100. Similarly, one of my favorite student workers at Tech was a senior Physics major whose classes had seven, 12, and 16 students in them. But rest assured that during her freshman year she sat in a large lecture hall for Physics I.

Your job is to probe. Your job is to dig and to clarify.Rewind

2) You ask: “What’s your graduation rate?” Schools do not answer this the same. Some will give you  their four-year grad rate, some five, and some  six. The variance is not an effort to be misleading or nefarious; they have been trained to respond with an answer that is  most representative of their students’ experience. Most four-year, private, selective liberal arts schools would likely not even think to respond with a five or six-year rate because there is no significant differentiation and their goal is to have all students graduate in four years. That’s how they structure curriculum and it is their culture.

You SHOULD ask: What is your four and six-year graduation rate? And at those two intervals what  percentage have either a job offer or grad school acceptance letter? Who cares if you have a high graduation rate if your job placement rate is low?

And THEN ask: How does grad rate vary by major? What percentage of students who double major or study abroad or have an internship finish in four years? My opinion is too much emphasis is put on this clock. Unfortunately, much of this is antiquated and driven by US News and World Report rankings (we won’t delve into this too much, but you can read about here). If you are taking advantage of opportunities on a campus like picking up a minor, or participating in a co-op, or working to offset costs, or going abroad to enhance your language skills, and all of those things are translating into lower loan debt and more job or grad school opportunities when you are done, then who cares about the clock?

3) You ask: “What is your retention rate?” Great question.. and an important one. Most put the national average somewhere in the 60-65% range.  But as you can see from that link, it varies by school type and student type. So when a school says their first-year retention rate is 85%, that’s great, right?

You SHOULD ask: Why are those other 15% leaving? Is it financial? Is it because the football team lost too many games? Is it academic and they’re not prepared for the rigor of the school? Is it because the school is too remote or too urban or too big? Follow up. Ask them to articulate who is leaving. Tech has a retention rate of 97.3%, which  is among the top 25 schools nationally and top five for publics (these are statistics here, friends, not rankings). But we are constantly looking at who is leaving. Surprisingly, for many alumni and others who know the rigor of Tech, it’s not exclusively academic. It’s a balanced mix that also includes distance from home, seeking a different major, financial reasons, and, increasingly, because students are starting companies or exploring entrepreneurial options.

Some schools have retention rates below the national average, but they’re losing  students who are successfully transferring to state public flagships or into specialized programs in the area. If that’s your goal, then you can be okay with a lower retention rate, right?

Don’t be too shy to ask questions. This is your job… Not your mom’s job…. Not your counselor’s job. Your job. DO YOUR JOB!

And THEN ask: What that’s it? Nope. We’ll continue this next week because I have more questions…and so should you.

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On the Road Again…

This week I’ve been on the road traveling to spread the good word about Georgia Tech, or as I say, “Preaching the GT gospel.”

I love this part of my job, even though I don’t get to do it as much as I used to. There are many days when I’m in a meeting with a task force, committee, or commission and people are endlessly using phrases like “at the end of the day” or “synergy.” During those times, I find myself wishing I was waking up to a complimentary hotel breakfast and signing in at a high school to talk to students.

I’ve always thought that high school is one of the most critical times in a person’s life because of the implications it has on where you go, what you do, who you know, and how you ultimately see and experience the world. This is a huge part of why I got into college admission. What can I say? People have to work hard to stay interesting and optimistic as they get older– and most don’t. Conversely, the energy, enthusiasm and hope of teenagers and college students is contagious.

Since lots of college reps are about to come through your doors for visits or college fairs, I wanted to take some time to give you a few tips on how to maximize your time with these counselors.

  1. Do your homework. “What?! School just started and I’m taking 6 APs! You’re telling me I’ve got homework for college admission too?” Yep. Before a college visits your school, check out the programs that interest you about them. What do you want to do outside the classroom? Outdoor recreation, band, etc.? Research these. Then when they ask you what you want to know about, you’ll be ready. (If they’re not asking you that, see Tip 3 below).
  2. Shake their hand and introduce yourself. Pretty basic. You’re not doing this to advantage yourself in the admission process. Most the time they won’t remember your name from your handshake, since they’re also seeing 8 or 20 other students in that session. But it sets you up for questions later in the session and follow up in the future. Remember- this is the college admission PROCESS, and often it starts here.
  3. Interrupt. Yep, I said it. Too many admission counselors basically pull an invisible chain in their back and go into a useless spiel about study abroad, inter-disciplinary curriculum, and statements like “We have 400 clubs and activities. But if we don’t have what you want to do, just grab a friend and a professor and you can start one.” This is when the teacher’s voice from the Charlie Brown starts rattling around in my head. Your job is to throw them off script. They’re only there for 45 minutes. Make it worthwhile. Ask questions like “What are one or two things about your college that only a handful in the nation can also claim?” OR in a different version, “What makes your school unique?” “Why should someone from my city or state pick your school over the many similar in size and culture that are closer, further, less expensive, higher ranked, etc (you insert the appropriate descriptor).”
  4. Stay after or follow up. Sometimes you’ll have to leave immediately following the presentation. If that is the case, send a quick email to the rep thanking them for coming and letting them know if you have plans to visit their campus. Or wait until you apply and then send an email to say, “Hey. I really appreciate you coming to my school in September. Just wanted you to know I am really excited about Charlie Brown U and I have just applied.” (Don’t copy and paste that. I’m far more confident in your writing abilities than mine on this). But if you can stay after, be sure to get your questions in, remind them of your name, and then follow up as described above.
  5. BONUS: These folks are traveling. They’re hitting five schools a day, eating in their car, and trying to follow WAZE while not denting the rental car. Help them out. Give them a tip on a local restaurant for lunch or dinner. Tell them a good place to shop in the area or a park nearby if they want to go for a run. They’re just people. They appreciate that type of stuff. And it breaks both of you out of the normal college admission relationship that too often becomes robotic.

If you remember nothing else, remember this: No one person holds a corner on the market for what a school is really like or really about. You may find the rep hilarious. Doesn’t mean anyone else on that campus is- they may not even be an alum. You may find the rep really cute. That relationship isn’t going anywhere, and it’s definitely not a good way to pick a school. Or, you may find the rep dull and indifferent. Don’t let their personality (or a tour guide’s for that matter) be the reason you rule a school in or out.

Think about it like this: if you are looking at a school of 20,000, it’s basically a small city. Nobody speaks completely for that town. Your job in the process is to get as much info as possible to make a good decision on the best fit school for you. You can start with engaging the representative as we discussed here, but remember, your ultimate goal before you apply or choose any school is to talk to as many people as possible; alumni, current students, professors, and so on.

I hope that you’ll enjoy the college reps that you meet this year. Remember: You can make them better at telling their school’s story if you follow these tips. And ultimately, that is going to help you, your classmates, the other students they visit, as well as them as professionals in the long run too.

25 Reasons YOU SHOULD NOT Apply To Georgia Tech

The admission industry takes a lot of heat for not being forthright. Some claim we only take pictures on sunny days and never show pictures of crying students. We are lambasted for not being transparent and accused of not admitting our weaknesses. Many review our brochures with an eyebrow raised and wonder, “How is it possible that every student has class outside under a tree with a caring professor who is sharing great wisdom yet manages to do so at a distance that connotes ‘caring but not creepy?” We are criticized for telling students who may not be a good academic or ethos fit that they should still apply, “Well…we like to think of our 500 student campus as large… you know. It’s all what you make of it, right?”

brochures

Who We Are… and Who We’re Not

But our goal at Georgia Tech is to break open the black box, to lift the veil, and to be as clear as possible about who we are– and who we’re not. I recently read a college essay from a student begging colleges to differentiate themselves. After all of her tours and receiving these glossy, shiny brochures she’s in fact more stressed and concerned by the choices because they all seem to blur together. And when I’m really honest, I realize we send emails like “Why apply to Georgia Tech?” detailing all of our strengths and points of pride. But sometimes you need the converse too, right? Perhaps we’d appreciate our date saying, “Yea. I may look pretty but I snore a lot and my feet stink.” Or “Yes. I am the captain of the tennis team and hold all state records, but I steal about $20/week from my little brother’s top drawer.”

So while normally I write this blog more broadly on admission, rather than specifically about Georgia Tech, today I’m here to give you the other side. Now, for the record, in some form or another I’ve shared these truths about Atlanta and Georgia Tech before, but this is my attempt to consolidate all of those kernels of insight and give you the key reasons NOT TO APPLY to Georgia Tech. Consider this is your “anti-fit” litmus test: a series of if- then statements (admittedly influenced by Jeff Foxworthy’s You might be a redneck) that will help you understand our campus and city– and whether applying is in your best interest.

THE TOP 25 REASONS NOT TO APPLY TO GEORGIA TECH

  1. If you come to Atlanta and don’t get (or even worse don’t enjoy) a Frosted O from The Varsity, don’t apply to Georgia Tech.
  2. If you think yellow or gold make you look shorter or bigger or washed out or less likely to get lots of likes on Instagram, don’t apply to Georgia Tech.
  3. If you can’t deal with “The 3 H’s” (heat, hills, and humidity), don’t apply to Georgia Tech.
  4. If you find yourself struggling to remember your birthday, name, or address on the application…well, not sure what to tell you here.
  5. If you don’t want to be around students wearing mathematical formulas on their shirts or are annoyed by impassioned debates about theoretical chemistry, don’t apply to Georgia Tech.
  6. If you think Georgia Tech is really Georgia Tech University or The University of Georgia Tech, rather than The Georgia Institute of Technology, don’t apply to Georgia Tech. Try Massachusetts Tech University.
  7. If “improve the world around you” sounds like a bumper sticker, rather than your earnest desire, don’t apply to Georgia Tech.
  8. If when visiting colleges you treat either the person on the phone or the person at the front desk poorly, don’t even apply elsewhere. Go apologize to your mom. If she’s the one doing that, consider applying for emancipation.
  9. If you don’t like to be pushed, stretched, and challenged personally and academically by professors, roommates, sorority sisters, and lab partners, don’t apply to Georgia Tech.
  10. If you don’t believe in George P. Burdell, don’t apply to Georgia Tech.
  11. If you enjoy making route connections rather than having access to direct flights, and you prefer airports with street side parking, don’t apply to Georgia Tech.
  12. If you are afraid of bees (and B’s for that matter), particularly large ones that do push-ups after touchdowns, don’t apply to Georgia Tech.buzz
  13. If you want a school that has hundreds of majors and makes statements like “we are all things to all people,” don’t apply to Georgia Tech.
  14. If your tolerance for traffic is two lights and a railroad crossing, don’t apply to Georgia Tech.
  15. If you’d rather attend a school that has “an Olympic-sized pool,” rather than The Olympic pool, don’t apply to Georgia Tech.
  16. If status quo, homogeneity, and easy A’s are your goal, don’t apply to Georgia Tech.
    WRECK
  17. If you’d rather win a national championship than…wait… not quite willing go there.
  18. If “Ramblin’ Wreck” is how you’d describe your GPA, don’t apply to Georgia Tech.
  19. If the term “y ‘all” is completely unfamiliar and uncomfortable, and you can’t even see that it’s incredibly efficient, y ‘all should definitely not apply to Georgia Tech.
  20. If you are unwilling to entertain the possibility that drinking Coca-Cola fundamentally makes you a better human being, don’t apply to Georgia Tech.
  21. If you have severe allergies to tree pollen and are vehemently opposed to shots or meds to combat them, don’t apply to Georgia Tech.
  22. If whistles give you flashbacks, cold sweats or the “hee bee gee bees,” don’t apply to Georgia Tech.
  23. If being part of a place that discovers water on Mars and identifies gravitational waves in the atmosphere within the same year seems uninteresting, don’t apply to Georgia Tech.
  24. If you think that the word “DOG” is actually spelled “DAWG,” don’t apply to Georgia Tech.
  25. If references to Jeff Foxworthy seem irrelevant to admission or indicative of pedantic humor that fail to convey great truth, why are you still reading? And definitely don’t apply to Georgia Tech!

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Olympic Gymnastics and College Admissions– NOT FAIR!!!

It’s Not Fair!!

I’ve been watching the Olympics a lot lately both at home and in the office (don’t worry tax payers, I’m only viewing at lunch, or when slowly meandering past the lobby TV, or perhaps occasionally on the split screen desktop– what can I say, I’m a multitasker).

The other night Gabby Douglas placed 3rd in the Women’s Gymnastics All-Around qualifying. Third out of 24 (Top 12%). But because she finished behind her two American teammates, she was not able to advance to defend her 2012 Gold medal. She smoked the rest of the field and certainly could have edged out either of her two teammates in the actual medal round, if given the chance– but no dice. She was out.gabby

This is a young woman who grew up blowing away the competition in her home gym and school. She was quickly the best in her state, region, and ultimately climbed to national prominence. But this year, based on the most slight movements and judgments in the Olympics, she would have to watch from the sideline. And that’s when my wife stormed out of the room railing about the crappy Olympic rules and reiterating things like, “it’s not fair” and “that sucks” as she went upstairs to bed.

I just kept sipping my drink. Because, you know what, it all seemed very familiar to me (cough… college admission). She’s right though. It’s not fair. It does suck. World-class athletes get edged out of their pursuit for an Olympic dream all along the way– in trials, in nationals, and yes even right at the very last moment by .04 by her own teammate.

Here’s the thing though– she signed up for it! Gabby knew how good the other Olympians would be. She’s trained with, supported and pushed Simone Biles and Aly Raisman, along with her other US teammates to improve over the last few years. Would she have lost a night’s sleep before competing at her state tournament? Absolutely not. She’d probably have stayed out late the night before eating Cheetos and playing Pokemon Go. Then she would have waltzed in, closed her eyes, and still sailed to first place. But on this stage- at this level- she knew that coming in 3rd and having to cheer on her teammates in the medal round was a possibility.

Admission Perspective

Only about 20 colleges in our nation have admit rates of 12% or less. If you are applying to one of these, and frankly, if you are applying to a school taking 33% or less, you need to understand that getting edged out is a distinct possibility.  Is that fair? Does that suck? If your answer to both is “Yes” right now, you have some work to do:

  1. Consider: You are signing up for that uncertainty and possible disappointment. You may be among the best in your high school, county, or even state, but that does not guarantee admittance when the field is this strong. You may have 18 relatives who have attended or been wearing that schools gear since you were in diapers, but in that year, for that college, and based on where you’re from or what you want to study, or what the school is emphasizing or de-emphasizing (Institutional Priorities)– and most importantly the rest of the competition, you may not get admitted. Can your ego handle that? Can your parents handle that? Gabby was absolutely frustrated, sad, and upset. But she gathered herself, cheered on her teammates and then pulled it together to win other medals in the Rio Games. That choice is on you, too.
  2. Back-up: Every year we read stories of students who “got in to every Ivy League school.” While many marvel and inevitably some TV station broadcasts this “success” in awe, my normal response is they wasted a lot of money, because those place are so different from each other that clearly the student did not do their homework on the college search. OR (and more likely) they or someone around them have an incredibly big ego, so thank goodness they did not apply to Tech. Following that I am thinking, “I know it worked out, but I sure hope they had at least one “foundation” or “in- profile school” on their list. No matter how high your GPA, number of APs, test scores or others opinions of you, you need at least one non-Olympic school on your list.

Georgia Tech Olympics

BRONZE: We often get calls from counselors or parents who says that Tech was the only school a student applied to. Will you re-consider your denial because now it’s late March and all other deadlines have expired? Sip. You signed up for that.

SILVER: We also get calls from parents or counselors or principals/headmasters about a brilliant student who applied only to (insert your five to seven crazy elite schools here) and was denied or waitlisted to all of them. It’s now early April and she’s scrambling for an admit. “This is a great kid. I know you would have taken her if she’d applied in Regular because she’s right in your profile.” Sip. At that point, we’ve already handed out our medals too. “Games” over, friends.6 year snap

GOLD: Take a look at this application and admit rate chart. Imagine two siblings are applying to Tech. One in 2012 and one in 2016. Same classes, same grades, same Model UN coach and same summer job. But in those four years the competition rose significantly and the class size stayed the same. The bar went up drastically based on the other applicants in the pool, or field, or whatever Olympic/Admission analogy you choose to use here.

Listen, I get the desire to compete at the highest level. I applaud that. I also see the attraction to applying to one of the small set of schools in our nation that take basically 1/10. Big reputation. Beautiful campuses. Successful alumni. Parents love the bumper sticker. Not hating on that aspiration, so don’t misunderstand me. I’m just saying you don’t always know what the judges may be looking for in that competition, and that there are a lot of Simones and Alys in those applicant pools. That’s all I have to say about not getting “Gabby Douglased” in the admission process.

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