Seeing Your Child’s Way into College

When you think about what it will take for your child to get into college, you probably…

1) …think about what your child will need to do:

• Get good grades

• Take challenging courses

• Score well on standardized tests

• Excel at interesting extracurricular activities

• etc.

2) …think about what your child will need to be:

• Be interesting

• Be impressive

• Be passionate

• Be accomplished

• Be a student who stands out from the crowd

• etc.

You’re absolutely right. Getting into college has a lot to do with what your child chooses to do and be, and as college consultants, we help students do and be the things that will help them become the strongest possible applicants for the schools they most want to attend.

But there’s something else we’d encourage you to think about…

What does your child see?

What's your child's unique perspective? When your child looks at the world, what do they notice?

To unpack why this matters so much, let’s take a look at two hypothetical college applicants:

These two applicants have the same scores, same grades, and same extracurricular activities. They’ve taken on the same leadership opportunities, and they’ve taken all the same courses and done the same extracurricular activities. They’re from the same geographic location, the same socioeconomic and cultural background, and they’re of the same gender and race and/or ethnicity….You get the idea. Let’s say they have different writing styles, but both are equally impressive. Both are eloquent and engaging in their interviews.

So what could possibly differentiate them?

What differentiates these students is their vision.

We’re not talking about a grand vision of what they want to do in life or of how they want to change the world. We’re talking about an applicant’s unique perspective that can’t possibly be replicated by anyone else.

Why your child’s perspective matters

If we imagine that the applicant is on one side of the process, thinking about what they want from the school, and the school is on the other, thinking about what they want from the applicant, it’s pretty easy to understand why your child’s perspective matters: colleges want to know about the kinds of ideas and creative contributions your child will make the college’s classrooms and community.

But there’s also something else going on here, too (something we tend not to think about as much). Colleges are also very interested in what your child will get out of the school. What opportunities for growth and exploration will they squeeze out of the resources, interactions, and ideas that are made available to them? What opportunities will they see, and what will they do with them? Your child’s vision matters to colleges because colleges want to know what your child will see when they get to school, how they will see it, and what they will do from there. That’s why some of the best college essays and short answers are about change and growth—not because colleges love to hear how fabulously mature the student is or how quickly they learn and evolve, but because those essays reveal what and how the student sees.

Here’s how your child’s unique vision plays a crucial role at every phase of the college process:

Course selection:

The courses your child chooses to take throughout high school don’t just demonstrate her interests or her ambition. They reveal (or can reveal, in a well-crafted application) what your child sees and how your child sees it. This is of course especially true in schools or homeschool curricula that offer a great deal of choice, but even simple decisions about arts electives can be revealing. These choices can give colleges answers to questions like:

• What opportunities does this student see in the courses that are available?

• How is this student choosing to explore her interests in different ways, given the courses her school offers?

• Does the student use the opportunities available to her to create a fulfilling academic experience for himself?

• When choosing courses, what priorities and preferences guide her?

The answers to these questions will ultimately tell admissions officers a tremendous amount about who your child is and what he will bring to and take from the college, if he is admitted.

Choosing extracurricular activities:

Likewise, your child’s choice of extracurricular activities demonstrates her unique perspective. Colleges look to these extracurriculars (and to how your child describes them in his applications) to understand how and what your child sees.

To understand this a little more, let’s return to those two seemingly identical students we described above. Sure, they both did the exact same summer internship. But to learn more about who these students really are, colleges will be interested in questions like:

• Why did each student do that internship?

• What drew each student to that particular opportunity?

• What did they take from the experience?

• How did it shape what they wanted to do next?

• What did they do next?

As consultants, we encourage students to think about these questions and to engage in a little self-reflection as they choose their extracurricular activities. Not only does this kind of reflection help high schoolers come to know and understand themselves, but it prepares them to talk about their choices with passion and clarity when it comes time to fill out their applications.

College visits:

Anyone with access to Google and a decent college tour can tell you helpful facts about the programs and campuses of each college. When you actually visit a college, though, your child gets to notice the kinds of details that are only visible in person…and every person is likely to see something a little different. What is your child noticing that is unique, even idiosyncratic? How does this draw her to the school? One of our favorite examples of this kind of vision comes from a student who noticed a groundhog on a college quad. While the rest of the colleges he’d visited were filled with ubiquitous gray squirrels, this one had a chunky groundhog smack dab in the middle of the lawn. Not only did this groundhog among squirrels give our student a giggle, but he thought it perfectly captured the school’s culture of open-mindedness and willingness to accept students who were a little different from the others. Whether it’s a groundhog or a certain piece of state-of-the-art lab equipment, what your child notices and why she notices it can tell you (and potential colleges) about your child, what she values, and what kind of school she wants to attend.

Writing the applications

Your child’s perspectives should be expressed, not just in the personal essay required by the Common App, but in every piece of writing on each application, from descriptions of extracurricular activities to seemingly silly one-sentence answers to questions like, “If you were a baked good, what kind would you be?” The trick isn’t to be especially clever, moving, funny, or surprising (although if your child is an especially clever, moving, funny, or surprising writer, that never hurts!). The trick is to remember that each piece of the application helps admissions officers understand what the applicant sees in the world and in themselves.

If we could advise parents to change just one thing about how they approach the college process, it would be this:

Stop thinking that being the strongest possible applicant means being the world’s coolest human being or most impressive robot.

If the strongest applicants were simply the ones who’d done the most interesting and impressive things and taken the most impressive courses, then the ideal college essay would be nothing more than a laundry list of well-chosen accomplishments and experiences, delivered with impressive writing technique. That’s not how it works.

It’s all too tempting to believe that the way to get into college is to present the most impressive academic and extracurricular record, coupled with the most interesting or heart-rending essays. Combine that with a little luck, and—presto!—college magic. This is a compelling story, but it just isn’t accurate.

Don’t get us wrong: an impressive record, fabulous essays, and, yes, luck are all important. But so is your child’s humanity. So is their unique perspective. In a world where students can use ChatGPT to help write their essays (more on that in another post…) and where more and more of our lives are reduced to alogorithms and optimization strategies, your child’s unique humanity is actually more powerful than ever. The only things that can truly make your child stand out as a human being (and as an applicant) are the things that no one else can replicate. And this is good news. Because being who they are and sharing their perspective, is something that most teenagers truly excel at. They just might need a little help remembering that, when it comes to the college process, their authentic perspective isn’t just allowed; it’s essential.

Major Takeaways:

• Don’t just think about what your child does and is; think about (and encourage your child to think about) what your child sees.

• Your child’s vision and perspective is reflected in the extracurricular activities and academic courses your child chooses and in what they notice during their college visits, as well as in how they fill out their college applications.

• Ultimately, colleges are looking to admit people, not perfect resumes or robots.

• Your child’s unique and authentic vision can’t be replicated or faked; that’s what makes it a tremendous asset to their college applications.

As college consultants, we’re delighted to nurture students’ unique vision and to help them showcase that vision in their college applications. We start this work as early as 10th grade or as last as 1st semester of senior year. It’s a joy, not only to support students’ growth and development as individuals, but to give them to tools to get into a college where they will thrive. Contact us to set up a consultation.