Deren Finks: College Admission Strategies

I'm excited to present to you the following conversation with Darren Finks. Darren passed away from an unexpected health complication shortly after this podcast was recorded. He was a legend in the field of college admissions and a dear friend. As far as I know, this is the last piece of media that Darren ever recorded. Toward the end of his life, he made it his mission to share everything he knew about college admissions with as many people as possible. In that spirit, here's my conversation with Darren. We will miss you. All right, I am very excited about our guests today. Darren Finks is the former vice president and dean of admission and financial aid at Harvey Mudd College, one of the prestigious Claremont colleges in Claremont, California.

Yes. On the high school side, Darren was a director of college counseling at Cranbrook School and Kiski School. Am I saying that right? Cranbrook schools, all of them and Kiski School. One. Very close enough. Yeah. He's a former executive board member of the Western Association of College Admission Counseling and Dean of Faculty Emeritus at the College Board Summer Institute on College Admission and School Relations. And he is consulted to numerous prestigious undergraduate and graduate admissions offices. Darren is currently working as an independent college counselor for individual families. He is at the moment residing in Houston, Texas, but he works with students across the country.

He's a longtime friend and colleague, one of my favorite people in the wild world of college admissions. And it's my pleasure to bring Darren Finks to the show today. Thank you, Nick. Yeah. How are you doing today, Darren? I'm great. It's always exciting to hear. And, you know, I just love things like this because so often people to get the inside information is what happens on the college admission side. And it's very mysterious and it doesn't have to be. And I'm one of those people that likes to demisins, right? So I love these things like this. So thank you so much for inviting. Well, absolutely.

And you're one of those few people that have been in this game from every single seat at the table, right? You've worked in the college admissions office. You've worked in the high school counseling office. And then you've also worked with individual families where it kind of brings it all together. And so, yeah, I know everybody's really looking forward to your insight. So let's let's jump into it. What excites you about being a counselor today? Gosh, everything. I feel like I have one of those jobs that that paid to do and I would do it for free. But luckily I do get paid to do it. So I, but because I think it's just such a fun job.

The most exciting part, well, we go back. A lot of things exactly. One is that getting, you know, this information that I have from friends who are still these in admission in college throughout the country and knowing what college is looking for, how testing works and how applications are read and what it's like to sit in the admission committee and read applications and know how decisions are made and that, you know, where they try and be as fair as they can, but we're dealing with people. So everybody's different. And so looking at all of the nuances of how this process works is really exciting for me because I feel like I have some inside information, almost like I know secrets that I can share with everybody else.

So that part is really exciting. But I tell you the most exciting part about my job today, being a college counselor is the times when I get to sit down with you and just say, what do you dream? What do you want to do? What do you want to get there? And then just say, I'm the guy who is helping me. I'm going to question that. And, you know, like, one of the things that I said to other people about this job is that what I like about it is that, you know, it's like, it's kind of, there's a lot of power here. I mean, there's a lot of work because the information is power. And I like the power and I like just read the power around.

I think that's different from I think some people feel like, like, that power in a hold on to it, it's going to be mine. I think, roll the world. No, I want to give it all the way because that's when you have them, when people can see how much power you have. It's like, I get so much power. I can just throw it around. Right. Well, and that's, and that's the real, real impact, right? Is by sharing that and giving. I know people want to hear about those, those secrets and how it works behind the, behind the closed doors and we're absolutely going to get to that. But I had a couple of things I wanted to ask about first.

Tell me about a student that surprised you at, at one time. Here's one with surprise. So as you know, Nick, I was, I was working at a fault called Harvey, my college. Harvey, what it is, is, is on any one's short list of one of the most elected college, country, test work, re-rate blah, blah, blah, just like so hard to get it too crazy, you know, less than just admission, right? And I remember when I was working there, a student surprised me as a young man, who, this was the fun part about being a dean. As a young who applied from a very, very low income family, as a matter of fact, I think the family is on public.

And, and he, and he was from inner city Los Angeles from a very, very not so great high school. Yeah, amazing grade. But at Harvey Mudd, you know, where the average math test score is 800. He had just to be clear is a, is a perfect score on that math section. Is, is the average score there? Yes, right. It means that you didn't miss any. That's the average, right? So he had somewhere around the lives of the year, almost 600. Which, which in the larger scheme of a place like Harvey Mudd means, in most cases, that this kid has a really tough job of getting. But because he had come from this background where all of his teachers and the recommendation were saying, this kid, that's good with your pink.

Like he had never seen anybody's friends. And then of course, this is a high school that isn't the most challenge for either. So you might want to sort of let that go and say, okay, well, I mean, it's just a new ever scene, but I've seen that. But there was lots of compelling things about his, the support his teachers began, the way he wrote his essays and his background. And we just said, you know what, this kid has, you know, with our average test scores being in the mid 1500s, and this kid's test scores being 11 hundred is, you know what? We're going to be there. You know, and, and this is a kid who, when we admitted, he came in and he struggled for his first semester.

But then he kind of, over time, picked up and got better, better, better. And I still remember like watching him go through this process of building his friends and learning and really becoming an amazing, amazing student to the point where when he graduated from us, on the, he applied to a bunch of different grad schools, he ended up getting into Stanford and MIT for PhD programs. This kid Christian is saying, I will never forget this guy because he is just one of those people who you just think, I am so glad I had that. When most families are looking at the stats of a given college, you don't know that there was a kid in the mix, right?

So it gets washed out in all the averages and all the rankings that there, what there are kids that somebody like you will take a chance on when they have a compelling story. And somehow through that application, their personality comes through and what they wrote, what teachers wrote about them, and when we've got really talented people in those admissions offices. And there are many of those across the country, I mean, really talented, generous people that want to make this process fair and transparent. And they also want to give different kids from different walks of life a chance. These stories sometimes just get lost.

Taking it back to my side, I mean, it's that experience when I work in a college side, that I take to a college counseling side when I'm working with students is to say, we've got to get a good narrative on what is your story? Who are you and how we're going? I mean, so many times kids are costary, I want to get more APs, I want to get more of this, and I need to add more activities. I mean, it's like, slow down. As a dean of admission, my job was to admit not staff, but the stats are, they're coming on their own. Like the stats are in the pool, I don't need to worry about those. When I spoke to the president of college from my annual evaluation, he asked me about budget, he asked me about a few other things, you know, about making sure the financial aid budget wasn't where I'd love.

But one of the biggest questions I got was, did you create an environment on this campus that is interesting, better as lively, as attractive that people want to come to by students that you chose? So is that student body that you chose enhancing our community? He wasn't asking me about doing the averages go higher, do the averages go lower? He's asking me about the community. And so when I'm looking at an application, when I was at the university, you know, I'm concerned more about who you are as a person, not the number of boxes you take. And did you get this, did you get this map? Did you do that?

Mostly what the anything you did, I didn't work around. If you've got something compelling to bring. Right, right. Well, and that gets lost in the shuffle too with a lot of families that are going through this process. It absolutely helps to be able to check those boxes in terms of the grades and the scores. But after that, that student still needs to have something to say. They need to have an idea of who they want to become, where they want to go in life. Simply being able to fill every single box on the resume or adding those extra activities, isn't necessarily going to make you pop when somebody reads your application.

And we do have to be careful about when students are so overwhelmed with doing so much that there's not any time left over for reflection, for introspection, to think about the future. It feels like a stats arms race when you're when you're a parent and your kid is going through this. But one of the best things a parent can do for their student is give them a little time and space to figure out who they are. So when they write that application is having something to say and knowing having an idea of who they are and where they want to go and how a particular college will help them get to that place, become that person.

I did want to ask what's the number one mistake that you see kids make today? I think the biggest mistake I think is and I can put this over everything that students do, whether it's sort of like the classes they take or the teachers they choose for the recommendations or the ethics they write on their essays is they make the mistake of trying to feed an admission office what they think they take you. You will never win that because you will have no idea who is on the other end or reading that application. So the only thing you can do is feed yourself and say this is from YM and cross your fingers.

If you try and create sort of more of yourself into something you think that the admissions point did like you missed about because you know we trying to please everyone usually end up pleasing no one. Exactly right. It's a great way. I saw an essay recently about this young lady who she was very had extremely strong stats clearly had spent a lot of time studying working hard very prim and and proper young lady and she wrote this essay about how when she would get stuck on writing a paper at home she would lash out and curse at her computer screen and just let it all go and really really give it to that to that computer screen.

It was such an off the wall topic. It just rang with truth. She wasn't making this up. She clearly wasn't trying to impress anyone. It wasn't a story that would say hey I'm gonna sneak in a bunch of humble brags here about how smart I am and how great my grades are. It was real and it spoke to her sometimes her frustration at working so hard and and all this time and energy she put into her classes and her personality just came flying through in this essay and I thought it was just such a wonderful example of how sometimes that unexpected or just taking a chance can really make you pop in this process and she got in all over the place.

Oh that's good. I think because it's an unexpected combination of the kid with the really high scores the really strong grades in all the AP classes and then here she is dropping a bunch of F-bombs at her computer screen late at night and isn't afraid to tell people about it. Right right and that's the key and I think that yourlessness is what makes the grade estate and and also the unexpected when you said that when you gave that example I immediately thought of a young woman who I was working with Jared one of my one of my counselors she's a she was a watercolor player and she is very hard charging and like kind of she could she could take you out in a hot second like she was having trouble trying to generate an essay and I kept asking her questions because you know one thing that I do in my job wouldn't help me and at least of course is you try to draw the best out of you and as she would say why don't you worry about watercolor and like no you have watercolor in your resume you have water in your thing we are know your watercolor skills like well I can write about how watercolor maybe no no no we're not going to talk about how watercolor is made you a good person or a top person or whatever we're playing nothing having to do with watercolor so we're now some ideas it's just like I don't know this today I don't know I don't know how to know what to write about and finally she said oh I love this new movie I was like wait the heart charging watercolor girl who is like loves Disney movies I was just like well not all Disney movies just the ones about this I was like wait so and I was like well well and I just made this off of your America I just said well let me ask you a question and I want you to think about this gorgeous part are you a princess and she's like well yeah I guess like the watercolor girl grows a princess like okay write it down as she wrote this beautiful essay about about what about first of all that princesses Disney princesses have all had most of them had really tough lives like their dads have died or their or they've been pulled out their kids and their parents are always dying yeah right parents are please dying it's like she's like yeah and I have to have some tough times in my life dudes maybe kind of tough person but princesses are bad as taught and quotes like you know what right princesses are bad as taught and it was just a beautiful essay about how she will have this and because when you read her narrative and you read the things your say about it's like oh man this girl's bad she's gonna she's gonna plow through she's gonna be there nothing holds her back so you can take on the world and then there's this back I'm just a princess so straight it was really great I love that I love that all right let's jump into some of that insider knowledge give me a quick overview of how college admissions works let's pretend I know nothing about this and I've got a junior in high school and I say Darren what do I do how do I even begin the process so so let's start from the grid I think the biggest mistake one of the biggest that people make is that they go and me right like I want my kid to go to one of the top school so let's get that I like to start with saying that is the worst way to start thinking about health the first inventory doesn't come from what colleges are out there the first inventory comes from before and what do I need what kind of environment do I want what kind of people do I want to hear what kind of atmosphere because if if you're a Southern California and the idea of going to a snowy cold environment is not your choice why are you looking at because every statistic out there tells you if you're not happy with the physical environment of your college environment you will not do well so so thinking about who you are as a person and what you want out of that theory is going to be the first thing that the other of us people make is they find the one college that they think is their dreams full a term I never knew because the fact is for every student is going to college there could be anywhere from 50 to 300 students where they could be perfectly happy and we see this all the time when the college counseling side when a student comes to us there's no much through things I have to go to blah blah blah and they don't go to blah blah but then they go somewhere else nine times out of ten they say this is the best situation for me I'm really glad I didn't get into blah blah because I would have never found this and so and that's not an accident I mean most of us go oh that's great but we know that this happens because it happens there because there are many that's not just so the good thing about about what you get to that place of understanding what you're looking for as a student and as a family is to move into which colleges fit that and how many of those can we can we apply to to to make sure that we get to any of the schools on our list of eight ten power mini school to apply to that any of that would be happening and that's the goal and that is speaks to the value that a really talented college counselor can bring to this process simply by being aware of the breadth of schools that are out there and we've got two thousand plus four-year colleges across the country that's pretty tough to if you're just a parent coming into this or just a student coming into this to have an idea of what they're all like and I think somebody like you can really add a lot of useful information to that process and saying hey have you considered x y and z schools one of the reasons people hire people like me is because everyone has their piece if you work in the marketing world you know that if you work in in the top world you know that I know color and that's what I know and then I'm an expert in that area and if you want someone to guide then you need to hire next let's let's jump into the components of the application sure basically we've got we've got grades we've got scores we've got letters of recommendation we've got the essays the resume of activities how do all these come into play how do they work together which ones are important which ones aren't I think they're all important but let's talk about that a little bit they are all important let's start there but some are more important than others here and I will tell you that that there is an optional survey that is done by the National Association of College of Education every year and they do it every single year and the answer is always the same if ranking all of those things that you just listen what's the most important aspect on that uh of of that list and hands down number one is always going to be what's on the camera because that is probably the most closely related to what's happening on a policy when you're in high school you're going to listen to your teacher top you're going to read some books you're going to take some tests and then you're going to uh and you're going to write some paper when you get to college you're going to listen to your teacher talk you're going to read some books you're going to take the best you're going to write some paper so if you're doing that already that's the best way to predict that you can do it again when you get to talk now given there are other instillary aspects around this that matter as well because the next thing that tends to come into play for those schools that require testing is the test because the test is always looked at if infa college is doing it correctly they're always looking at the test in conjunction with the test so and the reason for that is to think if you think of it this way there are so many different schools high schools in this country by teaching very I mentioned one of the ones I talked about in the city of LA where there's gang violence and there's poor teaching and there's not great facilities and it's not great but compared to there's so boarding schools on the east coast where they have you know I worked in that has a half billion dollar down the best labs that you can have a campus that most college representatives would come to and say we can't compete with your high school campus you know so I've worked I've seen these dreams of these and I know that learning is different so what the test work does though is it says okay I can't tell exactly what's going on at George Washington high school in st.

Louis but I can't tell exactly what's going on at a private boarding school in Michigan so how can I compare these two kids somewhat even though I know they're completely different environments so the idea was this okay well what if I take all of the kids in the country and I wake them up and exactly the same time and I walk them to the same place at the same time in the same over air conditioned room and I give them the same pencil and I give them the same test would that give me a better idea of how these students work now it's still not exactly but it's closer than say compared school to that and I can be able to say to your high school and given your your ass I get a better idea of how you might compare to someone else from this title with their yeah yeah I mean it's that common yard stick as as we know but I think it always bears repeating doesn't tell us a lot of value about a particular kid and who they are and who they're going to become but it's one other metric that is the same across the board for all these different students when we're trying to decide at a given school who's going to get in who isn't right I've been to the Cranbrook schools it's nicer than most college campuses very difficult to compare that kid to to a student like you right that was coming out of a high school in in Compton when you were a kid and and something that where you at least okay they have this one experience that is that is the same one helps to add some just adds some light to who they who they might be and what they're capable of and I think that's the thing is that people have to keep in mind too is that to keep to take the weight off of that test score like in most cases I'd say in and definitely 80 maybe 90% of the cases your test scores reflect it's just is this is not necessarily to be new information or shopping information within admission if you go to a high school that has rural class at least and you're doing great work there I'm assuming you can do great work on the SIT if you're going to a school doesn't have your beach list it's been I'm going to look at that test differently because it's not that you can't work or that you don't have what it's just that you haven't given the opportunity so so that's why kid from city Los Angeles might get into Harvey mud with an 11-minute test score where a kid from Cranbrook with an 11-minute test score which would give all the advantages of this to amazing education and still has not performed on the grades and or testing wouldn't get the opportunity because because there was more more for you to do and you did not have they were able to do it this gets doing everything they can with what little they're so you're looking at potential versus you had it and you didn't use and I'll tell you when I was at Harvey mud when I looked at test scores and grades we knew that we were not able to predict whether if the student came here they would be a student or if the student came here then he minds you we knew that that was something that we weren't very good at protecting but we could say pan the student graduate or can the student not correct and so once we saw was the initial look at transcripts and grades can they graduate or not participate it's a yes or no question and if the answer is yes then let's move on and look at who we're bringing who is this we're gonna bring to our community and when I go back to my president and he says why did you admit that kid I want to be able to think he's because he's bringing this amazing perspective or he's got this amazing skill or he's an amazing athlete or he's got you know he's gonna make a great roommate for somebody or you know that kind of thing I'm looking at the other aspects of them at this point to the public community building a community is my job that's what my job is let's be frank if my job was to admit the highest test scores and the highest grades you don't need me you don't need people you just need a computer algorithm but no my job is not to admit the highest grade and test scores my job is to build an interesting community now this goes back to what I said earlier is that don't really tell me that you're interesting tell me who you are so you can't you can't tell us what we want to hear you just have to be you and apply it properly and then just to summarize the grades and the scores that basically we're just trying to answer the question yes or no can the student do the work and then we're moving on to the other pieces and those pieces would be personal statement letters of recommendation everything they get to write about themselves and the application yeah talk to me about how those things come together to create a narrative about a student and and then how they're determining if that student would be would be a good fit for that community and and what's going to make them stand out let's go through them one by one so um so after after looking at the test scores we grade one of the things that I like the next in an application is so now what do you do with your time yeah a lot of families have this myth in their head that there's a checklist and it's like okay we need some volunteer work and we need some credit and we need some part and we need some best we need some that um and that is far from the case I mean I mean for me I mean well let's be clear that's not even human nature it's humans don't do that humans don't run around doing a lot of things they usually find what do you think they like and they just got it and that's what you need to work on you know I think colleges love to see students who have chosen a few select activities and it's really just sort of embraced up and whether that's theater whether that's music computer programming whether that's a design whether whatever it is it is your athletics uh arts and they people tend to gravitate towards things they want people don't say well you know I really hate volunteering but I'm gonna do it anyway you know that's not what you can do you know and by the way if you hate volunteering please don't volunteer no agency wants someone who hates being their volunteering don't do it um anything and uh or whatever it is you feel like you put a quote need to do no do what feels right to you dive in and become an experiment become really good at that one and had it okay to try a few things and find out you like something into us or as you that's going to happen but eventually you'll hit on something that you love doing and you just want to dive in and it is that passion for whatever that thing is that we find attracted on the on the college side what you're reading I don't have to be a person who loves theater to appreciate someone who really loves theater um and and be happy for them that they love um you know either even you know I you know I I think most of us have the spread of today's aid most of us have a particular view on politics I still remember reading um reading s about people who've firmly believed in a political stand but I as a dean of admission completely disagree with but I still would be a company because it's their passion that I really enjoy it's the fact that they're so committed and it doesn't their research and believe erroneously what they believe what they believe that makes uh that that makes them an attractive candidate that makes them interesting because they're going to bring a perspective to my that that they're going to stand behind and hold up and so you don't even have to worry about sending some of us if if we just like you said when a student wrote you know yelling her thing and dropping the F bomb at her computer okay and yeah people with something went to oh no one say you did the F bomb she did and it worked and it worked right because you know why we've used it once it's ourselves right right yeah that's twice though not young that's right um so so I mean so that's what the uh that's what the activities are about diving into something and really getting it you're wrong talk about teacher recommendation it is so those things are very important to especially at the small um liberal arts colleges where they're they're looking at at how what you're doing with your uh with your academics because participation in a small college is going to be really important you talked about it before teachers want to discuss with you they want to be able to have conversation they want you to think outside the box they want to have a debate in class with you and so if you're a kind of student who would rather be a person who were kind of sitting in the back and just kind of listening only wanted to stay actually want to get my degree and get out of here that maybe a small liberal arts college isn't true um but but there are places for you and that's the beauty of us and your teacher recommendations are going to talk a little bit about what you're like as an in the classroom and that's going to be that's going to be instrumental in helping them decide whether or not your good master how teaching is done on that particular college and then there's also going to be something called the school report you see written by the county it's kind of also sometimes called the council that most colleges and uh and that's not by a person like me who you may have hired because we're biased because we of course we're in love you but you're going to invest your high school counselor who's going to be right and the high school counselor's job basically is to talk about what you're like as a citizen in high school so they'll talk about what you're like with other students on campus what teachers let you think about you about the kinds of activities you've been involved in um about maybe about something about your family for things like that if it's pertinent to the application and so that gives us more of a context of who you are as a person so so i've got my son or daughter and they're in a high school big public high school there's three thousand plus students and my high school counselor has 300 maybe more students maybe more 800 is the average of the country there you go uh that that they're supposed to write something about how do i or or as that student how do i give them something to say sure sure okay so this is a really important aspect most high school that do a good job of this even the larger ones are doing this by um by getting information directly from students and families so if our high school sends you a questionnaire that says you know sometimes they call it a brag sheet or or just a high school house thing question me something like that that becomes up during your late junior or early senior year they're gathering information value that you give and so one of the things Texas students make is that they don't spend enough time on it so they'll say how many little bit about your activities you're like well i'm doing this okay now give more information so i'm doing this and why i like it and this is why i'm into it and this is what's going on because this is the only way your counselor at a large school is going to be able to guess that information the put it in a better in an effective way that's going to help you a long way now let me let me put this out there first we on the folks who are reading application understand this that you wait that high school counseling is is is a mess and that counselors have little time not only are they trying to help you get to college but they might be doing crisis counseling or or psychological counseling what have you and and the college counseling aspect of this is somewhere way down on the bottom so these so they understand that and they're reading it with that time i think everything that we go back to just like we talked about test scores and different high schools everything's in contact colleges get that and they don't expect that your counselors actually know you one and one if they have a counseling load of it if your counselor does not offer you a question or if it's not something comes up i would highly recommend that you get yourself to get put together or resume for yourself of your activities of your background of things that are important to you and you make sure that counselor gets as this is for my college letters if there's anything you need from me please let me know i'm having to give you more i'm having to sit down talk with you i'm having to do what i need to do do that now there are going to be some schools out there becoming more and more sadly better saying we don't do that but we don't we don't have time we're not going to try to do it we're not going to pretend we're not going to get a fraction we're just not going to do what we're going to send the money we don't do that's to college and that's okay colleges colleges understand that and they might have that again that is not your fault it's not even the school's fault if nobody's fault it just is so don't worry if that's going to be the situation that you're in because colleges we have either been thousands of kids to crazy select institutions who have not had that and then finally the most telling aspect about whether or not this is going to be a big institution are the personal state the essays and things that you find because this is if you think about it i i've gotten to have to read your application with is in some demographic background where you're from where do you what your parents do where'd you grow up do you speak another language i've gotten your transcripts so i know what you've been doing in the classroom i've got your test scores and have you've formatted us tests i've seen your recommendations i know what people think about you there's only one voice i have not and that's you i've heard what you think and this is the last thing that most of us read in the application because you have the final work and so it becomes very important that that essay be something that epitomizes who you are now 650 work a lot of people make the mistake of saying i'm going to tell you everything about me in 650 words it 18 years in 650 words it's not going to fit there's no way so what you have to do is you have to find one aspect of who you are as a person and ill and that is show no don't tell me you're a good person show me give me an example what is it that makes you a person who you why is it that people like you the best thing you can do for that essay is after you've written it into a close friend who can go over for you and say does this sound like me and maybe it's just one aspect of who you are maybe it's a fact that you that you've always been involved in theory your whole life because it has really changed who you are as a person the first step when i'm standing you realize this was your fault and that's what your essay is about but this this little snippet of who i am is that i want you to know it's and it's almost like you're saying there's just a little piece of who i am one the more you have to get me to find out more and so telling a story it sounds like is an important part of that to illustrate who you are what you're what you're really about with a story that that shows instead it tells that's right when if you were to write a making the subject you were to write about a theater experience don't say oh my gosh i love theater from the moment i said for that stage it was the best thing that's ever happening no no take me something like walk me through so so you start me off right here where i walk out of stage the lights are in my face and i'm staring at this audience and i know i'm supposed to stay alive but it's just not paying to me oh wait there it is and i stay and then my partner says there are like and i stay in my life and the crowd grows after yeah i'm in i am and you know what as a dean of admission that's what i want to be there with you i want to be a part of it again i'm admitting people i've never been a sex they take me with you i want to go on that journey with you show me what you're doing i want to be right there by yourself i want to be in that audience i want to be the first and cross stage watching this happen this is what i want to experience in that essay not just to don't see what you're doing show it to me yeah i got a little i got a little nervous when you told that story oh you did yeah it was just oh what's gonna happen is the kid gonna remember the line immediately engaged yeah exactly like are you crazy y'all and so get me on the journey with you so i'm going to read like literally thousands of essays and in a few months we have through them please entertain please i'm back you show me as as as someone who reads a lot of essays i can get through i can get through a six hundred fifty word essay in like less than a minute for so despite scanning because for the most part they're all pretty scared but the minute i read that opening sentence and you get me booked i'm reading every word and that's what you want you don't want me to just give me a rest you want me to read it and you want me to enjoy me and so then when i'm done i have a smile on my face going like oh my gosh that was such a great essay yes what i'm going to say like i'm going to fight for this kid a thousand essays later you remember that the kid on the stage yeah a thousand essay later you still remember that that's oh that's one of the secrets right there for it's one four hundred percent it's all secret really we the reason we all get into this is because we love people we're not in it but the stats we're in it for people and so if you can humanize your application in any way you're going to win so because so many people make the mistake i want to help figure my test scores are i'm gonna make my grades are like no i don't care you know i i want to know who you are and that's the key how is that piece of it different if i apply to a school like UCLA to use an example a big public university more than a hundred thousand applications every year how's that process different there it is quite different but when you have that kind of ball of you about it there's no way you can look at it like looking at it at liberal arts places that the smaller public because one you're state funded right so you have to serve your state population two you have to be very fair and the only way to be fair to the objective about the numbers not the essays not things like that because anyone could call a law student said oh well you did that you get that but if you use the numbers nobody can argue so it becomes a little bit more number story at the however even said even so i do if there are people on those staff who are making those decisions who are look for people aspects as well there's still one to have a good community they're still wanting to have the diverse interests of my students but on the large of things there is a standard that you have to meet and meet the standard you're kind of in and if you don't mean that you're kind of let's turn to scores especially in california right where the where the uc's have said we're not going to look at them anymore and so a lot of people are confused over whether or not those scores still matter at all the other colleges whether they're in california or or the rest of the country what does that look like today yeah it's kind of a crazy wild west playing field in some many different ways so there are very few colleges and or systems like the uc's that say we want them at all either uc a lot of schools that are saying test optional or test flexible or or we require the test uc's are one there are others besides uc's but the uc's are what we're like no test for me as someone who has worked with the test and has worked in some places about it I always like the idea of saying if you if you have another piece of information about a student that you can use it's nice to have because soon you can use it or you cannot use it if you send me a test I might say oh there's a good test I'm going to use this or I might say okay there's this test here it's low it's just I mean I'm looking at the the recommendations I'm looking at the applications I'm looking at the transcript when you're there but it's the one thing that doesn't fit everything else about this kid looks amazing here's one thing that just seems out the uc's have said that they don't want to know and I actually think that's a bit short-stack because you might tell you something about when kid or five kids or kids or in their case of 1000 kids or them this goes back to that whole state oversight aspect where it's sort of like if you use it for one you have to use it for all because that's the fair thing to do so if you don't want to use it for one then you have to be rid of all so it's like throwing the baby out with the bad so I actually like the fact that when schools are saying that we will use the test if you send it to us and we won't use the test if you're not sending to us now I have to give a caveat there because there are some unspoken rules this is one of those secrets of unspoken rules that go with not using that test or use one of the things about the test that is unfortunate I won't even say unfair because it reflects the school systems more than anything is that the higher your income level the more likely you are for higher honesty and that has been proven and proven over and over and over now I would argue that the reason for that is that the higher your income the higher your property taxes and therefore the better your school so it's not just the money aspect it's the fact that if you live in Costa Mesa you're going to have better schools and they do it confident and therefore you'll have benefits given that aspect and you are a higher income sort of family and you often not to take the test or not to submit the test I think most highly selective schools will assume that you have chosen not to submit that because you didn't do well and you probably should have given your background whereas if you are from a lower income area and you chose not to benefit you probably didn't do well but maybe it's because you just didn't have the resources to do well on that and so even though you don't submit that test some colleges especially if the higher selected are going to make assumptions as to why what I'm hearing from you is it when you're looking if you're on the college side and you're looking at a student who's coming from Beverly Hills or Newport Beach California and they didn't submit a test score you might interpret that differently than if the student is from Santa Ana right right I'm not yeah say it's that and by the way demographic data as far as where you live how much your house is for it all those kind of things readily available so even if they've never heard of your tiny community they can very quickly find out what your tiny community is.

If you are a student who is from a family that can afford to do tests and afford to get help with this breath I highly recommend you do and that you submit score because it is almost can't say completely but almost expected but generally speaking the scores are again they're always going to be looked at in conjunction with the transcript I never would look at a score and make an admission to solely without seeing a transcript both of those things go together and the validity of the score is much much higher when you pair it with the transcript than it is if you look at the score and without a transcript the test score is just a stop indication but not very you pair a transcript with it then you've got a lot.

Yeah I thought it was interesting that MIT in their recent statement about test scores when they removed the testing component of it during the COVID lockdowns and they didn't have the test scores that they they found it actually really hurt their students who are coming from low income areas because they wanted that little extra piece of information. I can tell you that even if I got low score from a kid from a poor not so resource high school that score was still helpful to me to say is there a foundation or something there that I can put my hat on this says okay he may not be in AP Cal now but if I get him here he can get him up to speed really quickly so that that sort gave me that foundation like no it's not very high but it tells me enough to know we were going and so that's so I think that's what MIT got well.

Tell me how admissions has changed from 10 years ago or 20 years ago because I think a lot of the time parents come to this process thinking that it's the it's the same lay of the land as it was when when they apply that might be more than 20 years ago. Well you know when you say 20 years ago the media began to promote us as the US News and World Report the states are so much I miss those days for us to sort of like you know you just go to school and go to school. You don't go to school for prestige you don't go to school to build a network you don't go to school to get connections you go to school because you want to work but things have changed tremendously from from those from those days and and now schools are in some ways that is the you know you want to be able to put that bumper sticker on your on your on your back window that says the college name that people will give you an immediate validity because you went there kind of thing which which I think is is just misguided because education is a personal aspect that's going to take you personally but to your goals to where you want to be in the teacher that is starting to impress your neighbor but who cares what your neighbor thinks about where you went to school.

Growing up back in things were much simpler because it's sort of like look I have a really good education and the University of Auburn is not a name that no my classmates are one owns a cane or a virgin care um sisters one owns is is is a world renowned journalist when you know like I know people who are doing amazing things from this title college that was like that's no name is it because of the college balance because they got a really good education and they knew what to do with it and that's what college is doing I was just talking to a young man today who was staying on the plane to all these anything they named schools he mentioned my team helped that I said you do realize that selectivity is just another word for talk that that is just that these schools are popular it's not like they're better believe because I can tell you as someone who has studied engineering school and has visited hundreds of engineering school campuses MIT has been but I know there are better programs out there and I said to him so what you're telling me is that the popular schools are the best schools he said yeah it's like so the popular kids at your high school those are the best kids right yeah well no they're not the best kid well they're popular therefore there must be reason you help no they're not the best kid they they just happen to be popular that's not a measure of quality how many applications you get a gear is not a measure of quality of its it's just a measure of how well known you do I do recognize that there's empirical data that comes from some colleges that are able to say we're better at career placement or we're better at internships than some or we're better at what have you the financial aid than some but what should be right for you like what's going to be the most important aspect for you as a student not going with the flow of everybody else says this is the good one so it must be the good one and one of my pet thieves out there are these social media stuff like oh this college is not great this college is great and a lot of kids have had some kids who put way there that they put everything on that rating and I said okay you know how trolling works right one person jumps on and then another person piles on that and piles on that and all of a sudden everybody's saying this is the worst place in the world is it or is it just that people like complaining on the internet anonymous well they clearly like that yeah exactly it's almost like we have too much information because what you like about it is not going to be what I'm about it's not going to be what's about it so it becomes really important for you to sort of blur out all of that noise and think about what I need to have in order to have the best educational experience that I need do I need it to be a large school do I need it to be a small school do I need to be close to home because my family is my rocket I need to pin them up or do I just really get over my parents those are the kind of things you need to weigh I agree it would be really healthy to get back to a place that isn't so focused on getting in somewhere and back to what are you going to do when you get there how hard are you going to work what are you going to put into it we all know people that did not go to big name brand colleges or perhaps didn't go to college at all and are doing something with their life that they love that they are successful at they're thriving in what they're doing there is no school with the monopoly on your path to success and I firmly believe what we put into that those four years or five or six years while we're there is what really makes the difference do you actually read the books that are assigned to you in some of your classes are you know do you get interested do you dive deep into stuff that's what will make the difference in the in the long run in somebody's career in their life not just oh my gosh when you were 17 what college decided to let you in and and what is their brand standing I still remember when I was working at my first college and the term marketing and it was sort of like why would we do we're like we're not we're not selling Xerox coffee ears we're we're college and but now that is big business and you know whole kind of gentle streets have run up from my industry of independent high school counseling is thrown up because of the noise that families are saying how we get sore through it we need an expert to help us figure it out one last topic that is a it's a big one okay but let's just let's just scratch the surface a little bit which is money financial aid how that should factor in into where you choose to go somehow these colleges just become more more expensive each year I mean we've got a number of schools topping 60 70 thousand dollars if not more than that each year I think that's that's one that weighs big on a lot of families but they don't necessarily always want to talk about it publicly the best quality cost of education is ridiculous it is ridiculous and it's not I mean I can tell you that the cost of education has gone up tremendously and that most colleges are charging a tuition that is actually less than they would that they actually have to pay out for students in order to educate that kid which which that difference is made up from donations and alumni and but even so for a the average family that has to come up with 70 grand in just tuition in some cases that doesn't even prove room and board that is undoable there's a lot of us that work to a place where we've got good careers we make good money we're not going to qualify for a lot of need based financial aid because the cost of living is just so high that there's no way we would be able to our families in the way that we could if we didn't make that more they come so it just makes it really tough so the key to this is just to make sure that you are doing a couple things one that you're stopping the rent one of things you know a lot of colleges are going to be giving out merit scholarships and it's important for you to know who they are and what they're doing and real quick will you just tell us what a merit scholarship is versus a need based scholarship sure so need based scholarships are is financial aid based solely on financial need that is to say that you have that based on families income and or assets you you are not making enough money to be north to afford this at all now need based scholarships it sounds like me because all of us like well I need a scholarship yeah so but that is federal formula that colleges will use to determine whether or not a family has financial need or not and it's generally speaking if you're making a six-figure salary you're probably not going a lot you still could get some but you're probably not going to get a lot of need based money so most families who are making in the six figures are going to be counting on merit scholarship and what a merit scholarship is that's a scholarship that's given up based on either grades or talents or any number of different things that it calls my football scholarship is a merit scholarship a academic scholarship is a merit scholarship based on a college a violin scholarship is a merit scholarship based on talent some colleges have a lot of colleges have a blanket idea that says if you have a certain GPA and or a certain passport then you will follow up an extra amount of money in merit scholarship now here's the key to that if you're applying to one of the more uber selective colleges will not find very many merit scholarship mainly because everyone who goes there has a big GPA and big test scores so there's nothing special about you than the rest of their group however and at a lot of colleges if if money isn't new the next year down from now they do offer merit scholarships because they want to promote their academic profile they want to be more selected you want to have a higher quality of student they want students who are going to be in the classroom we're going to set the tone that says this is the high level of thinking in this classroom and bring the students up to that level so they want students who are going to be there to do that in order to get them they would if they can lower their tuition a little bit by giving a tuition discount or a merit scholarship then that would help that student choose them over maybe another's now one of the ways to find out go to each college's websites or financial aid west usually those things are published but even if they're not published every college on every college financial aid website has a financial need calculate where you can go in and put in your family situation GPA and maybe come whatever they're asking for and they can give your pretty good estimate of what you might get if that word is going to this now if you are a family that should be applied for financial aid and by the way there is no income ceiling on the charity who can get financial aid.

When I was in Harvey but I have seen rarely but I have seen families go to a hundred thousand three hundred fifty thousand dollar income qualified for need based financial aid basically because they have a debt or some else behind that that offsets that to a place where like we get it you don't have lots of money so we'll do that. Keep in mind that that consumer debt your credit cards things like that that doesn't happen it would have to be something else so maybe you have a business. I'll also tell you this that if you are a family that thinks you won't qualify for need based financial aid but you choose to apply for need based financial aid.

It's actually not a bad idea to do because I know when I was at Harvey Mudd my director of financial aid uses they look this is a family with a five hundred thousand dollar income they've applied for need based financial aid I mean they clearly feel like they need something I can't give them much because they are thinking but I'm going to take a couple thousand dollars. Now that might need something to you because for my financial aid budget which is millions of dollars you're going to call thousands of dollars for a five hundred thousand. Just like you're applying for colleges to make sure that you have a balanced list where there's some that are going to be really hard to get into and some that are going to be relatively safer for you to get into you'd have to do the same thing for your financial aid this is one is going to be really hard to pay for but because of their mere scholarship this is one that we can certainly make sure we report and if you can be happy at either one of those let's see how it comes out.

I still remember when I was a Deeter Commissioner Harvey Mudd and we get the fifty thousand dollars and I thought I said oh my gosh nobody's going to pay this nobody's going to pay this we're going to be we're never going to get in class somebody's going to pay this they did and then it went to 60 and they did and then it went to 70 and they did part of it is just that it seems to be there seems to be no limit which unfortunately and I don't think how college is a guard counting people I mean because like I said it costs about a hundred grand to educate a kid through Harvey Mudd today it's supposed to be a drug spout city but it's still costing more than that so it's just the reality of the situation and everything's expensive.

I think you make a really good point there though which is sometimes gets lost in the conversation the amount of resources that an expensive college pours into each individual student. The more high time a school is like yours was like it was at Harvey Mudd the more expensive I did you know it's much much cheaper to educate a kid and and add the unit of the California where you have this this economy it's still right you know you put five kids in class right one teacher I'm going to get well when you try to do have when you have a class where where there's no class larger than 20 well that's going to cost you.

Well Darren thank you so much this has been very insightful and what a joy I really appreciate your time and I hope that we do it again soon we could spend an entire episode just talking about some of these individual topics. I have a inkling here that people will be asking for that down the line. Well I am happy to provide again more the more secret that you can get out there the more knowledge it makes me happy this is this is mission so I appreciate the platform thank you so much for having me. Again thank you for coming it was just a wonderful conversation and I look forward to doing it again soon.

Next time yeah absolutely all right you take care. Thank you for listening to the next Standlea podcast if you enjoyed this episode please subscribe like and comment the best way to support this podcast is to visit our sponsors in the description have an excellent day