612: Admission Nutrients (Part 6 of 6: Intellectual Curiosity): Important Ingredients for a Well-Balanced College Admission Process—And Life with Hillary Dickman

The College Essay Guy - Episode 612 - Hillary   Tue, Jul 15, 2025 3:29PM   1:27:18 
SUMMARY KEYWORDS 
Intellectual curiosity, college admission, Colorado College, block plan, personal statement, supplemental essay, deep focus, liberal arts, student engagement, essay workshops, admission process, student activities, critical thinking, flow state, academic rigor., college essay, writing process, chatgpt, demonstrated interest, college application, self-reflection, critical thinking, AI in education, essay writing, pencil and paper, brainstorming, proofreading, college research, parental support, college fit 
SPEAKERS 
Ethan Sawyer, Hillary Dickman 
Ethan Sawyer 00:08 
E
Hi friends and welcome back to the podcast. So this is our sixth and final chapter of our series on admission, nutrients, qualities that can make for a healthier, more meaningful college admission process and life. In case you missed it, we started with collaboration with Raisa diamante, Director of admission from Harvey Mudd, and then I sat down with Deanna Dixon, the Dean of admission at Smith College, to talk about leadership. And then Tom met with Deshaun Alexander from Lafayette College to talk about consistent engagement, and Nathan Faust from Loyola Marymount University to talk about service to others. Today, we conclude the series talking with Hilary Dickman from Colorado College about intellectual curiosity. Hillary and I met at the national conference a couple of years ago, and she came up to me and let me know that she uses some of cegs brainstorming exercises when she's leading students through essay workshops as an admission officer, and I've had different admission officers come up to me and say this, but it's the highest form of compliment. And side note to college admission officers who are tuning in, we've got editable slides and handouts that you can use with students when giving presentations on essays. We won't be covering those today, but they've been used by colleges all over the country. You can find a link to them at college essay guide.com/colleges in our conversation today, Hillary and I cover a lot of ground. We talk about what intellectual curiosity is in the context of the college admission process, where, practically speaking, intellectual curiosity shows up in a student's application or where it can why it's important in the admission process at Colorado College in particular, and how their approach to identifying intellectual curiosity differs from other liberal arts colleges. We break down Colorado College's supplemental essay prompt, which, if you're listening to this right after it's released, it just came out, like a few days ago, she gives advice to students on their personal statement in particular, how to get started, and then she offers some great wisdom for both students and parents as they navigate this process. If you've never met Hillary before, she's originally from the San Francisco Bay Area and holds a bachelor's and a master's in speech communication from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. She started her career in higher ed, teaching, public 
speaking, interpersonal communication and Intercultural Communication at the University of Cincinnati and the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. Since 2021 she's been part of the admission team at Colorado College, where she's worked on scholarship programs, the counselor advisory board, and now focuses on print and email marketing. She's also navigated the college admission process as a parent. Her older child is a recent graduate of Wellesley, and her younger one is a student at Colorado College. I hope you enjoyed this conversation. I certainly did. I 
E 
Ethan Sawyer 03:04 
Well, hi Hilary, welcome to the 
H 
Hillary Dickman 03:05 
podcast. Hi Ethan. Thank you so much for having me. 
E 
Ethan Sawyer 03:09 
So it's summertime, and a thing that students might be wondering about as they listen to this or parents is, what do college admission counselors do during the summer? So what are you up to so far this summer? What's your Yeah, yeah. 
H 
Hillary Dickman 03:21 
It's funny. People ask me lots of times if I get the summer off, and I'm like, oh, no, I don't get the summer off. This is, like, our time to catch up, and it is a little bit slower, like I'm trying to take a day off every other week or so to use up my PTO that I can't use the rest of the year, but we have a lot of so I work in admission, communications and marketing, and there are a lot of projects that we sort of save for the summer or, you know, rewriting email campaigns, creating new print publications, that kind of thing that those have to be ready to go in August or September. And so we start working on them in April or May, and spend most of our summer doing that work. We also go to conferences. I just got back from Slate Summit, some of our outreach and access folks just got back from the GWI guiding the way to IMPACT Conference and college horizons. So we're off doing some professional development and connecting with students in different ways. I also do a little bit of travel, recruitment, travel to some summer fairs. So there's it's a lot of like working on things that we don't have time to work on the rest of the year. And I try to make space to be creative, because my work sort of requires me to have long periods of time when I can just dive deeply into into thinking kind of big picture and thinking creatively. So I try to save space for that in the summer also. 
Ethan Sawyer 04:55 
E
Well, one of the exercises that I love is our rules and identities. Actually. Size, which were, you know, which I use pretty regularly now. And I'd be curious. I, you know, I shared it with you ahead of time, but I'd be curious, just by way of contexting some of the roles that you play in 
the admission office at Colorado College, what are some of those invisible hats that you wear? 
H 
Hillary Dickman 05:16 
Yeah, that's such a great question. And I love the roles and identities activity. I've done it with students during essay workshops, so it's a fun one to get to use on yourself right after working with students on it. So I have been in this office longer than most of my colleagues. I have the 
fourth longest tenure in my office, and yet I came to admission late. I came from the classroom side of higher ed, and then I worked in nonprofits for a little while before I moved into admission. And so I'm I'm older than a lot of my colleagues, but also have sort of a different perspective on admission than they do, because they have a longer history here. So I see myself as a challenger in some ways, because I'm thinking a little bit differently, both maybe from a parent role, and also because this is new to me. And I sort of have you heard the old story about like we're all gathered around the kitchen together making the Christmas roast, and we cut the ends off of the roast, because that's what grandma always did. But nobody knows why we cut the ends off the roast. And so somebody asks Grandma, why do we cut the ends off the roast? And she says, well, because we didn't used to have a pan that was big enough for the whole roast, right, right? And so it's that like thinking about, why are we doing the things that we're doing? Is it just because we've always done it that way? And what does this new sort of market in higher ed demand, and how can we meet it differently? So I like to challenge a little bit, kind of on that front. And then also, because I'm this, all this seems to come back to my age. Because I'm a little bit older than some of my colleagues, I also sort of take on the nurturing role. I feel like I am pretty intentional about identifying strengths in my younger colleagues and affirming them in the work that they're doing. I feel like it's a real privilege for me to not necessarily see this as a step on a career ladder because I because I came to this later, like I don't. I'm not trying to be a VP of enrollment. I'm not trying to be a dean of admission. I just really like the work that I do, and I like being able to support the younger folks around me who are going to be deans of admission someday, and to be able to say, Wow, I see that you do this thing really well. That's an incredible strength. Have you thought about and then kind of poking them on opportunities that are coming up in the office. So that nurturing role is, I think, pretty fun. And then I also, in addition to my marketing and comms work, I get to be a territory rep. So I've got the western slope of Colorado, and I have most of New England, and I am, perhaps to a fault, protective of my territory. So the advocate and protector roles are my my colleagues would probably say those are, those are the ones that are most obvious to them. I think especially when I think about western slope of Colorado students. That's a really rural part of the world, those kids who live down in the Four Corners area, or even up like near Telluride Montrose, those places are very, very far from urban areas, and those students have something incredible to offer to the college that we don't see from students coming from urban areas. And so I'm a really strong advocate for them, and I want to make sure we do team based evaluations here, but I want to make sure that my eyes get on every file of every student from my territory, which can be challenging with our with our volume. But I want to make sure that I'm available to advocate for those students. I'd 
Ethan Sawyer 08:56 
E
love for you to spend just a minute before we get into sort of the theme of today, and just maybe give us a little bit of background for folks who aren't familiar with Colorado College in terms of, you know, how many students attend, you know, how many students apply these 
kinds of things? 
H 
Hillary Dickman 09:10 
Yeah, we are selective, or highly selective, depending on how you define it, national, small liberal arts college. So we get around high 8000 low, 9000 applications every year. Our incoming class this year is 517 students. The college altogether is around 2100 or 2200 students, depending on the year. And we're a small liberal arts college. We're the only selective, or highly selective, small liberal arts college in the Rocky Mountain region. We our peer institutions are schools like the Claremont Colleges and Bowdoin Bates Colby. We have a lot of overlap with Middlebury Whitman, those types of small liberal arts colleges kind of across the country that attract really curious students, a lot of student. Who are interested in Adventure inside and outside of the classroom. That's a big part of life here in the Rocky Mountains, but also because of the way we do our classes, the thing that CC is most known for is the block plan, so our students take one class at a time. Each class lasts for three and a half weeks, and having no scheduling conflicts for the students and professor, allows the faculty member to take students off campus, to do field study for lots of our classes, or to really just dive deeply and focus on the topic that they're learning about. So it's a different way of learning that requires and really works well for a different type of student, 
E 
Ethan Sawyer 10:39 
and for those who missed it, who are driving or brushing their teeth or doing whatever you listen when, when you listen to podcasts, you're taking one class at a time at Columbia College. So just I want to let that sink in for students and parents listening for a second about what that might mean, what that might look like. So we're going to get into that a little bit more as we as we get later into the questions. But I'd love for us to just zoom back for a minute and talk about this quality of intellectual curiosity, which, after surveying hundreds of college and university websites over the last couple years, this is the one that's come up the most frequently different variations on it. You know, what are you a nerd for? You know, what are you a geek for? These kinds of things, but it's come up again and again, and I'd be curious, from your perspective, what intellectual curiosity means in the context of the college admission process. I mean, is this more about depth? Is it about breadth? Or is it more about, like, a certain attitude toward learning? 
Hillary Dickman 11:36 
H
Yeah, I think that there are elements of all of those that we look for, and we, you know, we're building a community, right? We're not looking for just one type of student. We're looking for lots of different kinds of students who complement each other in a myriad of ways. So yes, we're looking for depth. We love it when we find a student who finds one thing that they care really deeply about and they're really excited about, and they just go, go, go on that one thing I remember reading an application from a student from Boulder, Colorado, and she had turned her little walk in closet in her bedroom into a lab, and she was growing algae in her bedroom to test the photoreceptors of different kinds of algae, because photoreceptors are I don't know anything about microbiology, but I learned from her that, apparently photoreceptors are important to creating biofuel. And so 
E 
Ethan Sawyer 12:28 
side note, I love that moment when I'm reading a student, yes, as their application, where I learned something from them, and I tell students, I'm like, yo, if you're a nerd for something, you might actually be teaching the reader something. So here's an 
H 
Hillary Dickman 12:38 
example. Great. Yeah, let the nerd flag fly, because it's fascinating to read these applications where there are students who are diving into something because they they their curiosity about that one topic is limitless. So we love those kinds of students. We also love the students who have a lot of breadth to their curiosity. So they might be curious about a lot of different things. And I would consider these students to be the perfect liberal arts learners, because in the liberal arts, we're encouraging students to learn about a lot of different topics and understand the context of their favorite topic among all these other sort of subjects that are available to them to study. So an example I thought of for this actually, this is my this is so my younger daughter. So she loves ancient languages. She took Latin and ancient Greek when she was in middle school and high school. And when I know right, I love a classical curriculum. And man, she does too. And when we were exploring colleges, we were at Swarthmore, famously. Swarthmore is an arboretum campus, and so their trees have all of these Latin names on them, right, which she had not really thought about naming conventions for plants, or why, why plants had Latin names, or how those Latin names were created. And that led her to doing a deep dive into plant naming conventions, which led her to learning more about plants. And then she was curious about plants. And you should see how many plants this child now has right in her bedroom and her dorm room. And then that made her more interested in sustainability, and specifically sustainability and farming. And this kid took a gap year. She went to Italy because she also loves art, and spent a year studying art and learning Italian. And what do you think an 18 year old does while they're in Italy, learning about art in Italian, they also drink wine. And so she started drinking wine, and so she's learning Italian, she's drinking wine, and she cares about sustainability. And all of this is overlapping with these other interests that she had that really started with her love for ancient languages, right? And this summer, right now, as we speak, she has an internship at a winery in Italy where she's learning about sustainability and winemaking and like that kind of curiosity that starts as one thing and then transforms, over time, into something different. And I don't, I can't tell. You where it's going to go from here. She hasn't decided her major yet. She's still exploring like that is what we want from a liberal arts learner who is excited about learning about all these different facets of multiple 
E 
Ethan Sawyer 15:12 
topics. I love this. I sometimes call this quality curiosity with legs. Yeah, and certainly it means like curiosity, and then doing stuff about it, which it sounds like your daughter did. And then the legs for wine connoisseurs will have a double meaning, 
Hillary Dickman 15:27 
H
yes, absolutely, yeah. So that sort of breath is in is something that we really value, and then we 
yes, absolutely, yeah. So that sort of breath is in is something that we really value, and then we value students attitudes toward learning. I have, I have a quote on my wall from Adam Grant. He's one of my favorites, and he says the people with the most potential are the ones who know that they have a lot to learn. And so that sort of humility, that desire to learn, the realization that, like there is a lot out there, and you don't know it all yet, that feeling of wonder or awe at how big the world is and how much there is to learn and wanting to dig in. Wherever you encounter something new, that is something that we value. We we try to create a culture in our office of not being afraid to ask questions. Because how can you, how can you learn if you don't ask questions? And I think the idea that students come to us knowing that they don't know it all is is really important and and shows a fundamental kind of curiosity. 
E 
Ethan Sawyer 16:27 
Yeah, I love this so much. I I think it's really wise what you're pointing to, this notion of students who aren't necessarily pointing to what they know, because sometimes there's that temptation right to be like proving of the self and look at the things that I've done, but I love it when a student is pointing in their essays, for instance, to like big questions that they're excited to explore. And that's what I wish for students in this process and in college, is to be like finding new questions. And in fact, one of the things that I heard, I forget who said this, but like the mark of, are you happy and engaged in your work? Is, are you working on interesting questions? So I think, and you know, what's so 
H 
Hillary Dickman 17:08 
interesting is, like, those questions might not be interesting to everyone, but they're interesting to you. And if you can dig in and you can talk endlessly about them and ask additional questions, like, there are definitely things that I read about in my students applications that I'm like, Well, that is not a topic for me, but I'm really glad you're exploring it, right. Like algae, like I don't have the capacity to think in a way that would lead me to building a lab in my in my closet so that I can explore algae. But man, like that is interesting to her, and so she's really going for it? Yeah, 
E 
Ethan Sawyer 17:43 
there's a you're already giving some beautiful examples. And I want to give just say to students who are listening, who are trying to think about how to stand out, quote, unquote, in the college application process, one of the things I want to encourage you to consider, as you're listening to this, like, what are those big questions that you're interested in exploring? Is there somewhere where you maybe weave them into the application? Because it can be a really cool way of showing your curiosity. So besides that, what are some of the other places Hillary like, practically speaking, that intellectual curiosity might show up in a student's application? 
Hillary Dickman 18:16 
H
Yeah, I It's so funny. I was listening to this series that you're doing, and in the first one, you kind of alluded to some places where this might show up. And you were spot on. I thought the transcript, yes, for sure. When a student gets to choose their classes, what classes are they 
choosing and why? And sometimes they're the most rigorous classes, and sometimes they're not. Sometimes they're classes where a student has said, like, gosh, I have to choose here because, like, AP Bio and this class on the environmental systems of the Maine coast are at the same time, and like in an admission review, the AP Bio class might be the one that is considered more rigorous, but if this student is really fascinated by coastal Maine and the systems that exist there in the environment. And that student chooses that, and it's obvious that it's something that the student is fascinated by, and they want opportunities to dig into marine biology. Well, then it makes sense for the student to choose that class. You'd hope they'd be able to take both. But those, I don't think that a class, just because it's the most rigorous necessarily shows that the student is, you know, has the most intellectual curiosity, so seeing what's available at their school, and then seeing what they choose to take depending on kinds of what choices they have. If there are classes that are available outside of their school that they want to jump into, or opportunities to learn over the summer. Those are really great opportunities, online classes, those kinds of things that don't show up on the transcript, but are academic ways to pursue their curiosity. Those are all great. So we see some of that on the transcript, and then some of those are separate from the transcript, but I would file under academics. So. Yeah, and then activities we see, for sure, intellectual curiosity showing up in students activities. So how are students using their time? What are they what kinds of opportunities are they seeking in order to learn new things? And I think that sometimes we'll see students who have activities on their list that seem a little bit outside of their academic wheelhouse, and that's fine, too. Like there are, I know that there are schools where filmmaking classes aren't available, but maybe a student is really curious about filmmaking and what goes into it, and how you create a film from start to finish. And so you see that show up as a summer project or a summer class or a summer program or something that they pursue independently. And that tells me that, wow, this student has gone beyond what's actually easily available to them in their school, and is is trying to learn outside of school. So that's for sure, meaningful to us. And then letters of recommendation are students asking questions in class? And what kinds of questions are they asking our classes here at CC, because of the block plan, are three hours long, and they're discussion based. And if you don't come with some questions, if nobody in class comes with some questions to ask, it's going to be a very boring class, and you're asking a lot of an instructor right to pull new information or create new discussions out of thin air. So we we really value students who are not dominating conversations, but are asking questions in class, and are they learning for learning's sake? And how does the letter point to that? Is this the kind of student who comes to a teacher after class and has their essay in hand and doesn't ask about the grade? Why did I get 42 points out of 50? But says, Hey, I'm really curious about your comments here on page three of my essay. Can you help me understand what you meant by this? I really want to, I really want to get this that's a very different student from a student who's learning from a grade, and that for sure stands out to us. And then the essay like, Does their essay show that the student wanted to know more about something, and it doesn't. It doesn't need to be an academic area necessarily, right? But does it show awe? Does it show wonder? Does it show a desire to learn and not? And I'm saying show like purposely, right? Because it's not that I want them to tell me and recount how they wanted to learn something, and so they went and did this thing, but tell me the story of of how you learned new things and why that mattered to you. 
Ethan Sawyer 22:29 
E
Yeah, I love this, and I'm excited to talk a little bit about the supplemental essay, which, right when this releases, it will have come out, like, I think, four days before. So stay tuned for that, y'all listeners, but I'd love to just hear Hillary maybe some examples of these, so that when 
students are thinking about, you know, our parents sort of saying, hey, you know, you need to show that you're curious. What are some awesome examples that you've seen over the years? 
H 
Hillary Dickman 22:53 
Yeah, last year, I was working with a student from Durango, and I was fortunate enough to be able to go to his high school and sit with the students there and read their essays and give them feedback. And he brought me his essay, and it was perfect from the first time that I read it. And it was a montage structure, and part of the montage was about how he spends the summer in Alaska working on a seaweed farm. And his family is from Alaska, and so he goes up there, and you could see his awe and his wonder coming through in talking about the landscape and talking about standing, you know, up to his knees in water, and dragging his hands through the seaweed, and wondering like, how does this grow here? And why does this work, and why is this farm set up the way that it is? And and it was just clear that he had a really strong desire to understand the environment that he was working in and that he was wanting to learn every day. So that's one example that stood out to me. I remember reading another student who was from the Boston area who would spend, like, one afternoon a week just sitting in his local town square playing chess with the unhoused folks who hung out in the local town square. And he wasn't doing it because he wanted to get better at chess, although that is a different kind of intellectual curiosity, right? That sort of game theory and figuring out how to how to perfect your chess game. He was doing it because he was interested in the people he was playing with, and because he wanted to know their stories. How did you end up here? What's the rest of your story? We see you out here in the park, and we know that you're unhoused, but there's more to you than that. What is tell me more about who you are, and it's really easy as a liberal arts person to see that carrying over into studying psychology or sociology or political science or something that helps you change those systems, because the people are worth it, right? So that was a pretty fascinating one. My I so. So before I started working in admission, I was sort of walking alongside my older daughter through this process and her I really loved her essay. I still love her essay, where she weaves together part of her own story with Atalanta, who was this character in Greek mythology. And toward the end of it, she says, a few summers ago, my mom and I backpacked in Yosemite National Park, and I finally witnessed this grandeur looking up at the countless stars. I thought about how 1000s of years ago, this was the sky that Greeks gazed upon. No wonder there are so many stories of heroes and gods, monsters and kings. There's hardly another way to explain the limitless grandeur a person looking up, a person sees looking up at something so vast. And I go back and look at that now, and it's really easy for me, on the other side of it now, as an admission rep, to be able to look at that and see like, look at the wonder in that, and look at how she's looking at the sky and and it's making her think about an ancient civilization. And since then, I've read or read essays from other students who are talking about the sky, and they're talking about it from physics, right from a physics perspective, or an astronomy perspective, and the desire to understand how the sky was made and how stars came to be, and what's out that they're what's out there that they can't see, but that like, really, like asking those big questions that are a little bit philosophical in nature, but tie to so many other areas of study I think are really interesting and fun to see. And then 
Ethan Sawyer 26:34 
E
go ahead, no, I was just gonna say that, like hearing that, sorry, I know 
H 
Hillary Dickman 26:37 
you've got no sorry. I'm like, on a monolog, Ethan, you're great. You're 
E 
Ethan Sawyer 26:41 
doing great. I'm just, I'm interrupting. Basically, it reminds it just makes me think that, like, I want to add to this intellectual curiosity, to like our understanding of it. I want to like, just say back what I'm hearing you say, it's like, there's this sense of wonder and awe. And I think that's a beautiful way also, of like expanding our definition here, or if we're creating a word cloud of something that, in the middle, we're calling intellectual curiosity, there are all these other words that we can use to describe it. And I just think that's such a beautiful example. And I'm adding wonder and awe to my own conception of this, you know, sort of nebulous thing that we're talking about. I 
H 
Hillary Dickman 27:20 
love that. I think that, and maybe it's because I'm coming from the Colorado College perspective where, like our students, are asked to dig into one thing for three and a half weeks. You have to have some wonder, right? In order to maintain that pace and that depth of learning, you've got to be excited about learning new things. And that comes from a place of, wow, like I didn't know that that could exist, or I didn't know that that could be, or I didn't know that people could do that. Or, you know, I think there's just, it's a big world, and there's a lot to 
E 
Ethan Sawyer 27:52 
learn. Yeah, okay, sorry, what was the thing? 
Hillary Dickman 27:55 
H
So then I just wanted to give an example from one of my favorite teacher RECs of all time. This was a few cycles ago, and this was a student I really wanted to come to cc after I read this Rec and he didn't, he ended up at the place that's perfect for him, but his teacher, it's so funny. This student, like, had a little bit of trouble getting their homework done, but also was clearly, clearly, just loved learning. So this teacher says he did a good 90% of the homework I assigned, which I love in class. He was attentive, curious, teachable, funny, and always on task. Whatever you teach him, he'll drink it up and ask questions that come from a mind with a high interest in understanding and a low threshold for Wonder. He's frequently very excited by learning. The other day, he was in my room talking about classes. And as happens, when he gets excited, his limbs stiffen slightly, all that energy, with nowhere to go, and he said, most emphatically, Mr. H, I love calculus. So good, isn't it so good? I mean, so good. First of all, like the tone of this letter was so fantastic, because it was so authentic, like, you could tell that the teacher just sat down like, I think the first line was, I've been so excited to write, to write this recommendation for the last two years, and so he had some pent up energy, also that he was just waiting for an opportunity to tell us about the student. And you could feel it. I mean, it was electric. As soon 
as I finished reading it, I immediately, like, copied and pasted his email address and sent him a thank you note, because he just made it so clear why we should want to have this student at our school. And it wasn't because he had achieved some great thing. It was because he was curious and he wanted to learn, and those are the kinds of students we want, right? Because we know that that curiosity is going to lead to big things. We care a lot about making a positive impact on the world. Here at CC and in lots of other small liberal arts colleges, and these students who have really good hearts and who want to know more are the kinds of students who are going to make change in the world. 
E 
Ethan Sawyer 29:56 
I love this so much, I mean, for a few different reasons. One is just like, I'm just captured by the energy. I'm like, I'm moved by the time that the teacher took to advocate for this student. And as you know, someone in the in on the college essay side, I go, wow. And it seems like what that you know recommender wrote, like, made a difference. Oh, my gosh, made a huge difference. Yeah, it sounds like, I mean, I'm not gonna ask you to be like, Did it help them get in or not? But it seems like it's something. It puts something on your radar in a bigger way. And in this student was just, you know, this was a quality that they'd had them, they weren't like, doing this thing. They weren't screaming, Mr. H, I love calculus because they were trying to get into Colorado College. They were just being their awesome selves, yes, in in the world. And this teacher, you know, was a witness at this moment, and was able to choose that 
H 
Hillary Dickman 30:50 
Yeah. And I just don't think there are that many kids who love calculus enough to yell, I love calculus, or say emphatically, I love calculus. But I think the other part that's hard is that there aren't that many students who are willing to wear their hearts on their sleeves in that way, right? And so it takes a certain kind of student to be willing to like let their nerd flag fly, and to be unapologetically themselves where we aren't all like that, and some of us show our intellectual curiosity in quieter ways. For this student, it was obvious, right? But for another student, it might be that they show up quietly after class and say, Hey, your comments on my essay made me think about this other thing, like, what would you think about for my next essay if I delved into that? So there are lots of different ways to show your intellectual curiosity. This student happened to be one of those who it's hard not to notice how curious they are and how much they love to learn. And for others, it's gonna be a quieter kind of experience. 
Ethan Sawyer 31:50 
E
Yeah, and I love that this is something that for students who are younger parents, who have younger students like this is something that they can be doing all along, like throughout high school. This isn't like a wait till your college applications to start being intellectually curious. You know, they're, and I'm probably preaching to the choir if they're listening to this episode, listening to this, there are so many ways to nurture that and to bring that forward. And I just want to encourage any students, you know, listening to this, that there are so many different ways to show that. And I think it's easy to get, get get this get, I don't know to to get it wrong when we start to add the pressure of what colleges want. Quote, unquote. So I wonder if you 
could say just a few words about what do you feel students misunderstand or parents misunderstand about what intellectual curiosity means in the context of the college application or admission process? 
H 
Hillary Dickman 32:43 
Yeah, that's such a great question, because I think there's so much pressure to, like, deconstruct the college admission process or turn it into a formula, and it's not a formula, and it's frustrating to hear show up as your authentic self, but that's really what we want. So I think that there's pressure on students to feel like they have to make or create some kind of project that you hear, like the passion project phrase thrown around, which makes me, makes my heart hurt for students. But I think that that pressure to like, go the extra mile, do something extra, to build a lab in your closet, right? Like that's not, that's not for every student, and it's not the only way to show that you're curious. I think the idea of the word passion at all at age 17 is really tough. It's a you know, point 1% of 17 year olds who have figured out that there's something that they're really, truly passionate about and is going to be a lifelong pursuit for them. So I don't think that that is equivalent with intellectual curiosity. I think for students who believe that they have to take all of the most rigorous classes at their school, I think that's a rough path to go down. I think it's really hard to dig into what you're curious about if all of your time is taken up studying for really tough exams or writing really hard papers, there's just not enough room to let your mind wander. And part of being intellectual curious, intellectually curious is having time for your mind to wander and to daydream a little bit and just to think in a quiet space, right? And then I think that this like pressure from students, especially in STEM to be doing university level research or publishing with a university level faculty member, that I know that there are colleges where that would stand out and that would be important, but if that is the only way that you're showing your intellectual curiosity, you're missing a lot. And I just think it's unrealistic, and it's a crazy thing for students to be reaching for, and there are going to be some who are going to do that, and that's awesome, and most of us shouldn't be aiming for that, because. And if you're a 17 year old and you have a 17 year old brain, you should be exploring lots of different things and thinking more widely, and not spending all of your time in a lab. That's not to say that I don't value that. I certainly do. We have this awesome program on the western slope that matches students with faculty members doing research all over the country, and I love it when those students get to go spend a summer doing that. It's amazing. It gets them out of off the western slope of Colorado, out of rural Colorado, they get to go experience something different, but it's one component of of what they're doing, and it's not the thing that makes them stand out. 
Ethan Sawyer 35:39 
E
I love this point that you're making about there not being a formula. I'm so with you, of course. And I even in creating this podcast series and putting out the notion of these nutrients, felt self conscious and felt like, oh gosh, this is going to be one more thing that students that turns this even more into an arms race. So I just want to re emphasize for students who might or parents 
who are maybe only listening especially, and counselors maybe who are. You know that this is not, this is kind of a side note, but I want to say it in front of you. Hillary, this is not meant to be like, okay, new boxes to check, and you have to do these things in order to get into a great college. These just happen to be things that when we, you know, when I talk to admission officers, like you are, they're like, yeah, these are things that we look for and trying to decode 
what some of these things are. Because I think students are sometimes confused and yet. So I imagine a parent a student listening to this, and I hear, on the one hand, you say, Well, you don't have to have created a lab in your walk in closet, and yet they listen to podcasts and listen to examples, and these are the cool, flashy examples that we use when we talk about things that stuck out to us. So I can see why students have that pressure or feel that pressure. But then I think the question that comes up is, well, for selective colleges and universities. What's a quote, unquote, average kid to do? Right? Like a student who doesn't have the sort of proof that they've been intellectually curious, they've they've read some books, you know, they read what was required in class, and they've spent some time on their own, and maybe they, you know, played some video games, and they play soccer, and they're maybe even, like, you know, co captain of their soccer team. And yet, they've seen students in the last couple of years who have all of the things seemingly getting rejected from from these schools that they're, you know, they're thinking, Oh, wait, I should have a great shot, or I would probably do great there. So I think I'm coming around asking, What advice do you give to students who don't have the flashy examples? 
H 
Hillary Dickman 37:46 
Yeah, I think it's about looking at how you live your life and identifying what you're talking about as the nutrients, this case, specifically intellectual curiosity. Where does that come through? Because I think that most of our students can identify a place where it shows up in their life, but it might take a step. You might have to take a step back from your life, right? And look at it from like a 10,000 foot view, and be able to see the different ways that you engage in your life and the examples of how your curiosity shows up. So I don't think it's so much about about fitting into a formula or checking boxes, as it is about seeing what is it that you're already doing that you can highlight for us. So there are only, there are only two quotes on my wall in here, I promise, and I've already referred to one of them, but the other one is this one that says I'm literally reading off my wall right now. Everyone is interesting once you get them talking. And I really like, I love having that on my wall because it reminds me to take my time while I'm reading a student's application. And we shouldn't expect students to be able to put together a perfect application and be able to tie up all the loose ends, make all the connections. Some of that is our job. But you can make it easier as the student by being reflective, by being a critical thinker, by knowing yourself well, which is why I love your process, Ethan, because it encourages students to know themselves well, so that they can pull out those examples of when they were curious and what they did with that curiosity. 
E 
Ethan Sawyer 39:35 
Thanks. Yeah, I want to say thanks for saying that, and emphasize for folks who maybe, again, this is like your first time listening to the podcast, that these things that we're talking about, these qualities, are qualities that I don't believe are just about getting into college. They're about leading a more meaningful, you know, purposeful life and And side note, they might lead you to, you know, interesting jobs, interesting work, interesting career. Thank you. So let's talk about, I'd love to talk about CC, aka Colorado College in particular, just a little bit, and and why intellectual curiosity is important in Yemen, my southern is going to come out in y'all's admission process. 
Hillary Dickman 40:14 
H
H 
Hillary Dickman 40:14 
Oh, man, that word is sneaking into the vocabulary up here in Colorado. Yeah, it's important at CC for a couple of different reasons. One, because we're a liberal arts college, right? So the point of attending a liberal arts college is to get a really broad foundation, to understand the context of your major in kind of the rest of the world, to become a really good critical thinker, to become agile once you get out, to be able to change careers if you need to or want to, and that's all about being able to learn. And at CC, it's about being able to learn quickly. So we our classes here are three hours long. They go from nine to noon every day. All of our students are in class at the same time, and they're all discussion based classes. And if you can imagine being in a political science class or a philosophy class for three hours where you're discussing a text that you read the night before, it was maybe 150 pages of text, and it's hard text to get through, that can be a tough three hours if students aren't really engaged and aren't asking good questions and aren't thinking critically. One of our political science professors calls the third hour of class the Magic Hour, and he says, I taught at Dartmouth, I taught at Dickinson, and at both of those schools, my longest classes were like an hour and 15 minutes long, and students and parents and teachers all know that it's hard to get a class moving for the first 45 minutes, maybe longer of class, right? Like everyone kind of has to, like, drop their armor and be willing to engage. And that's why we do warm up, warm up activities in classes or in groups, right? When we're trying to get groups to bond, because we want people to be able to come to that discussion as their full and authentic selves. And so he says that once you get to the third hour of class, that's when everyone is comfortable and the discussion is rolling and you're getting the best of that discussion. But you got to get to the third hour of class, and there just aren't very many schools that have three hour classes. So our students really need to be able to stay curious for that full class period. And so intellectual curiosity at CC means kind of being able to go that extra mile and finish strong in class every day. And then our classes are interdisciplinary also. So like at all, probably liberal arts colleges, there are going to be a lot of different topics that are covered in one subject area of a class. We care a lot about sustainability at CC, and 80% of our departments have classes that have that cover sustainability in one way or another. So that doesn't matter if you're in a philosophy class or an Asian Studies class, you're going to encounter sustainability. Well, if sustainability isn't something that you really care about, you're going to have to find a way to engage with it, and that's easier to do if you're curious about the world and how the world works. So it's not just sustainability, right? Like the point of being at at a liberal arts college, and taking interdisciplinary classes is being exposed to lots of different ideas, and those should be your curiosity. They should make you think differently. They should make you change your mind. And you should be open to changing your mind, but it's hard to be open to that if you're not curious about different perspectives and different ways of thinking. 
E 
Ethan Sawyer 43:38 
Yeah, I can. It's it's fun to imagine studying the same thing for six, eight hours a day, you know, three and a half weeks, like, really intensively. And it sounds to me like a really beautiful example of, sort of, like, just the liberal arts ethos, the experience of, like, let's get in on this. And then All right, now, let's move to something else. I'm curious when it comes to, you know, CC's approach to identifying intellectual curiosity, how is that different from, say, other liberal arts colleges? 
Hillary Dickman 44:12 
H
Yeah, you know, it's interesting. I think. I mean, I obviously haven't worked at other liberal arts colleges. I have chatted with folks in our office who have worked in other liberal arts environments and who have a better understanding of the review process in other places or what they look for. And I have come to believe that a lot of the way that we do things in our office at CC is shaped by our director of admission, Matt Bonser, who graduated from CC in 98 and he's been here ever since. And there's something wonderful about just his personality, which and his approach to life, which is very nuanced. His two favorite sayings are, I don't see bright lines and my favorite color is gray, which I think just speaks to the nuance with which. He kind of sees the world and which which he approaches admission. And so one way that I think our approach to the admission process is a little bit different at CC is that we don't have a lot of things that are like, you have to have done this thing, or you have to be this way in order to be admitted to cc. So one example of that is that we're looking for rigorous classes across three out of five academic subject areas, and we're not picky about which three we see them in. You don't have to have rigor across three different subject areas to be admitted. This is sort of like the peak, right of what we're looking for, but it's not like you don't have to have gotten to the highest level of math at your school, or you don't even have to have taken calculus. Would we prefer it? Yes. Do we admit lots of students without it? Yes, absolutely, because we know that your curiosity and your academic prowess can show up in other ways. It doesn't have to be in math. There are some liberal arts colleges that will really not consider you if you don't have four full years of a world language, and CC just doesn't have a bright line like that, you're going to have to take two blocks, two units of world language when you get to CC, but if you stop taking Spanish at Spanish three, because in your last year of high school, you want to add an a different class, something that you enjoy more, that you want to explore more, that's fine with us, and that actually gives you more opportunities to show your intellectual curiosity. So I have found that our admission process is a little bit squishy, and I think that's because Matt has been here for so long, and he really drives it, and that's the kind of person who he is, and I appreciate that about him, because I think it helps, it helps lower the stress level for us. It helps us see the humanity in people, and I hope it helps lower the stress level for our applicants also, 
E 
Ethan Sawyer 47:05 
yeah, and for anybody who's listening, who's maybe listening to this, or just jumping in to this clip, I want to just emphasize that this is how things are done at Colorado College, not how every school is doing it. And that's part of why I wanted to talk to you, is because I think that Colorado College does some things differently, and that's part of what I think the seed that I'm trying to plant here is that colleges are different, and there's such a wide range of what's out there. So just keeping that in mind, and hopefully what this provokes is in y'all who are listening curiosity about what else might be out there, in terms of, 
Hillary Dickman 47:40 
H
I think it's really interesting to see how colleges processes align with their values and who they are as institutions. Right? Like I I have thought since I was a kid. I first got interested in college admission when I was going through the process. When I was 16, I was the one out of a million kids who was like hiding under her covers at night with a flashlight, reading the Fisk Guide to 
Colleges and the Lisa Bernbach guide and and my parents thought I was weird as I was creating our road trips and like identifying which colleges I wanted to visit along the way. But what fascinated me about colleges is that I could see personalities associated with each 
college, and I think you see an aspect of that as you learn about colleges admission processes and what they require and how they walk through the process, I think is often, probably not always, but often in line with sort of the personality of that school. 
E 
Ethan Sawyer 48:32 
Yeah, I'm with you. I mean, I've seen this again and again about how well, in particular, the supplemental essays, which I wanted to talk to you about. So let's talk about that, maybe a little bit, but about, I'd love to talk about how what, what somebody can learn through CC's supplemental essay as it relates to the school's values. So maybe, if you wouldn't mind just reading us the supplemental essay prompt for this year. Side note to students, parents, 
counselors will know this, who are listening, but usually supplement supplemental essays, which are essays written besides the personal statement, slash common app, slash college essay, like the main one that you write, these are ones that oftentimes reveal what colleges care about. I'd love for you to just maybe read us the prompt and maybe say a little bit about, yeah, what does this reveal about about the school's values? 
Hillary Dickman 49:21 
H
Yeah, I do think that supplements are such a good window into schools values. So ours has changed. The last three years, we've had a different one. Every year we're finding one to land on. So this year, here it is. One of the benefits of Colorado College's Block Plan is the opportunity to immerse yourself fully in a single subject for three and a half weeks. We see this as the luxury of focus, the joy and value of directing your full attention to one thing. Tell us about a time when you experienced this kind of deep focus in an academic or extracurricular setting. What were you doing and how did it turn out? And optional, if you'd like to share the outcome. Com, a project, performance, paper, or other result. You may upload a document or provide a URL. So in short, we're asking students to tell us about a time when they experience deep focus. What did they do? How did it turn out? And it's because it's such a critical part of the block plan, like this is sort of what defines CC as an institution. We've had the block plan for 50 Years and and it was created because our faculty wanted students not to miss class because they wanted them not to say, shoot, I've got this Spanish class in the morning and econ in the afternoon. I've got to study for my econ exam, so I'm going to skip Spanish. They knew that our students were coming here because they wanted to learn. And so what's the best way to give them the opportunity to learn? Well, it's to allow them to focus on just one thing and to not have to juggle different priorities. So we are leaning into this because we know it's something that makes CC different from other colleges, and we know it's something that attracts especially right now, in this time, when students are feeling overwhelmed by notifications on their phones and by really having they're just having a hard time focusing that this is something that's different. So we don't have any examples yet, right? Because this is brand new. I wish that I actually, usually I will take our essay over the summer and, like, plug it into chatgpt and see what chatgpt would write. And this is so new that I haven't even had a chance to do that yet, but I can tell you that we really want students to feel the freedom to talk about whatever they want. It could be academic. It could be a deep dive into a hobby. It could be just something personal. I've been writing the emails to students to give them sort of some pointers on this. And I've used a couple of examples so far. One, imagine that you foster animals for your local shelter, and you they've given you this really anxious dog, and you have to sit for hours with this dog, and maybe you start 12 feet away, and then you're 10 feet away, and then 
you're five feet away, and the whole time you're talking quietly to the dog, maybe you're even just like reading a book aloud to them in a quiet voice. And eventually you get to the place where the dog will let you pet them. And then at some point, you can take a selfie with the dog. Send us the selfie. Tell us what it was like to sit there and be fully focused on this dog and their reactions to you as you moved closer and closer. What was that like to help bring a dog to a place where it was adoptable because it wasn't so scared of people anymore? Another one that I've thought of, that I've been using is this experience that I had a few weeks ago. My older daughter, Brynn, was an architecture major at Wellesley, and she loves to sketch, and she we were traveling together. This was like, my gift to her for her birthday was to take her to some places that were building that had buildings that had inspired her. So we're sitting outside of this building, and she has her well worn sketchbook, and I'm I have one that she made me buy so that she wouldn't sit there sketching alone. And so I'm like, I'm not an artist, and I'm trying to sort of keep up with her sketching. And man, was she right when she said, you're going to get into a flow state, and you're not going to realize how quickly time is passing. Just, trust me, just just put down on paper whatever you're seeing, and that feeling of deep focus, where I sort of reluctantly sat down next to her and started sketching, and by the time I looked up, it was two hours later. The sun had gone down. I was hungry, like hundreds of people had walked by us. I lost all track of time. What's that like to lose track of time when you're doing something, maybe something you didn't even think you could do, but you got so into it. And then the last example that I've been kind of thinking about is one of my friends from high school. His name's Dan, and I remember in high school he had this old VW square back that he had bought, like with his, you know, allowance money or whatever, for a few $100 and he spent at least two years of high school deconstructing this old square back and rebuilding it. And every weekend, he would just dive in, and he'd be, you wouldn't see him for the whole weekend, because he was so immersed in rebuilding the square back. And he credits that experience with where he is now he's an orthopedic surgeon and learning how to put things together, how to tweak things so that they fit together correctly, how to understand how systems work. That's That's what made him interested in orthopedic surgery. And I could totally imagine him answering this question and being able to tell us all about his square back and then upload a picture. It's beautiful. He put a new, beautiful red coat of paint on it, and to be able to see the results of that. But we also don't want students to feel like there has to be some like, amazing result, like your rebuilt square back right? It could be the ugly sketch. It could be the picture of your foster dog who is still anxious but is making headway, and it's gonna. Be adoptable, because you've taken the time to focus. 
E 
Ethan Sawyer 55:03 
I love this. Did you all talk about flow states? Specifically, when you were talking about the 
H 
Hillary Dickman 55:07 
problem? You know, it's so interesting our president, so our president, Manya Whitaker, has taught at CC for 13 years, and she is the one who started using the phrase flow state and when she was talking to parents and students about what it's like to be on the block plan. She was using the example of flow state, and we have sort of CO opted it from her, because that's how we see being in class on the block plan, 
Ethan Sawyer 55:32 
E
E 
Ethan Sawyer 55:32 
yeah, for those who are listening, who don't know about this and who are interested, there's an awesome TED talk from years ago from Mihai chiks, Mihai, who sort of popularized this, and it's worth checking out, and there are some different qualities. He's also written a book on this, most several books, and some of the qualities that are sort of required, according to chick sent me high about that for the flow state, are having a clear goal in mind. So a thing that you're trying to do, whether it's draw building or soothe an anxious dog, something that gives you immediate feedback on how you're doing. There's also a feeling of a balance of skills and challenge. So you're being sort of challenged enough that you're engaged, but not so much that you give up. And oftentimes there's this altered time perception that happens, whether it's, you know, for me, it's ping pong, it's Tetris, you know, like actual Tetris, or trying to, like, you know, fit things into a car that we're packing. And so I the reason I'm slowing down here is a little bit, is for students who are thinking about this, I'm kind of trying to slow you down and thinking about, what are those experiences in your life? Because one, I think they can be really useful for the supplemental essay for CC, but I also think that they're just really useful to think about, one in terms of what are those experiences that create happiness in our lives? And then two, as you're thinking about Yes, other parts of the college application and sides of yourself that you would want to show and bringing those in, bringing those to the forefront, and finding ways to weave those into your, let's say, your personal statement, which we'll talk about in just a minute. Now, a question that I can imagine coming up for students or parents is, but wait, what if the thing I want to do, like rebuilding an old bike or an old car, has nothing to do with my major. You know, I'm interested in studying whatever it is. What would you say to students who are wondering that? 
H 
Hillary Dickman 57:29 
Yeah, that's such a great question, and I do feel like it's something that so many students feels like. They feel like their major interest has to align with what they're doing in their free time. And at CC, it just doesn't our students are kind of all over the map, and that's what makes them interesting people, is they're not just doing one thing. So we know that you are likely to change your major once you get here. You don't have to declare a major until the end of your sophomore year. We also know that only about 27% of American adults who have bachelor's degrees are doing work that's related to their major. I mean, Ethan, I look at you doing this job with a background in theater, and I think, frankly, that theater comes in very handy for what you're doing. And also, no one would have drawn a straight line between these two things, right? Totally. It doesn't really make logical sense. And yet, your background in theater makes you really good at what you do. So I think this is something that students are concerned about and something that we don't care about at all. I love 
Ethan Sawyer 58:27 
E
the way you said that. I love the forthrightness that you're bringing. I also feel seen there. We just last weekend, there was, I was leading a four day retreat for counselors, and I had a friend come along who's known me for years and years, and afterwards, after we did sort of the exercises, a lot of them related to personal growth and some personal writing. We wrote our own personal statements, and some of us shared them at the end. And at the end, my friend said to me, you're doing theater exercises, and do they know that? And I was like, I think some people know that. And I was like, Yeah, I guess these are theater exercises. And also for 
students, like, practically speaking, if you're worried about this, I want to just point out how in the examples, for instance, that that Hillary just gave, like, pick a career. Like, imagine that your career is, let's say medicine, because we were talking about that, you know, helping an anxious foster dog talking calmly to them. Like, there are qualities in there that are definitely going to serve you in the future, you know, sketching a building, you know, thinking about the way things are built, the way things are structured and constructed, also just slowing down and taking your time with the thing. Like, there's so many once you get into the values and the things that you love about a particular thing, whatever it is, if you can anchor in the values there. It's going to be so many overlaps into whatever the thing is that you're going to want to do. You don't need to make explicit connections to your major, right? It but there are, there it's going to be for, for readers, admission, readers who are used to making connections and seeing, Oh, I could totally see. First of all, listen to what Hillary is saying. We don't care. Yeah, but then also, if you're worried about it, you know there are, there are connections to be found. 
H 
Hillary Dickman 1:00:04 
Yeah, absolutely, that's 100% true. I think any student, if they spend enough time thinking about the overlap between what they love doing and what they see themselves doing in the future, that they can find connections there. That's part of 
E 
Ethan Sawyer 1:00:18 
what I love about this process. Yeah, so let's talk personal statement a little bit like, what advice do you give to students when it comes to writing their personal statement? Or what are some of the things that you find yourself saying a lot when it comes to writing essays? 
H 
Hillary Dickman 1:00:31 
Yeah, I tell students to lead with their story, not to stress over the prompt. I really don't think that students should spend a lot of time thinking about the prompt until they've spent a lot of time doing reflection and starting the writing process. And then if you want to, if you want to take a peek at the prompts and and let that help you, kind of with some guidance. That's great. 
But when I'm reading an essay, I don't look at the prompt unless I can't understand the essay. If it's a poorly written essay, then often I will go up and and, you know, scroll up to the top and look at the prompt to try to help me understand what the student might be trying to say. And I talking, for those who are wondering, you're talking about the Common App prompt, yeah, I'm talking about the Common App prompt, yes. Sorry, we just spent all that time on the front for the supplemental essay. 
Ethan Sawyer 1:01:18 
E
Yeah. So, you know, just for those who are listening. These are the, you know, as of this recording, seven prompts in the common app, you know, and there are these options, seven. Choice seven, by the way, is topic of your choice. But you're not even looking you're just reading the story. 
H 
Hillary Dickman 1:01:33 
I'm just reading this story. Yeah, I don't, you know, we go through applications really quickly, and every bit that you don't read saves you a little bit of time, so I don't read that part, because I figure that I'm gonna learn about the student from their story. And then I feel like there's this pressure on students to talk about some big thing, some big events, some lightning strike or whatever that happened in their lives. And I find small stories, everyday moments, to be just as moving and interesting and enlightening as those big moments, and sometimes even more, I think, because I want to know how what a student's like on a normal day of their lives, not what they were like on the best day or the worst day, necessarily. I want students to write in their own voice, keep it real the ways that you speak when you're maybe speaking in class, speaking with a teacher, chatting with your family, that that voice is what I want to hear. And I think that can be really hard, especially in an era of AI. That can be tough, because people are sort of all starting to sound the same in writing, but I really want to hear what you sound like, and then I think it's okay to share challenges if you want to, but I don't think that the college admission process needs to be like the stress Olympics or the challenge Olympics, right? You don't have to have overcome some huge thing in order to be admissible to even the most highly selective schools. And if you have and if that's an authentic part of your story and you want to share it, you should share it, but you shouldn't feel like your story's not good enough because it wasn't hard enough. And then the last thing I'll say that I tell students a lot is, can you please use paragraphs? Wow. And I know that sounds so basic, but like we do, get a lot of essays that are just one long paragraph, and these essays come from schools where I know that they're learning really good writing technique, but they may not be learning how to they may not be Learning Creative Writing, and they may not be learning reflective writing. And so when they start writing like kind of everything that they've learned about writing an essay goes out the window, and they just don't realize that when we're confronted by one giant block of text, it's super overwhelming, and it's just not we have to read quickly, and so there's an element of skimming. We're not spending a few seconds on every phrase, right? And by breaking up your work into paragraphs. It's just much easier for us to read. 
E 
Ethan Sawyer 1:04:03 
Somebody's gonna ask me, How long ish, and you can give a range, do you spend reading an essay? How long ish Do you spend reading an application? 
Hillary Dickman 1:04:11 
H
Yeah, it depends a little bit on the essay, right? I know. Sorry. I hate that. No. No. Good. Yeah, an essay that really, that really pulls me in. I might spend two to two minutes to three minutes on because I I'm entranced by it. I'm excited about it. I want to read every word an essay that feels more skimmable and is is leaving less of a mark. I might read more quickly than that. And how long I spend on an application really starts with what I see in the transcript. If the transcript shows me that the student is admissible or on the bubble, I'm going to spend more time on. Their application than one where it's got a ton of F's, right? If you have a bunch of F's on your transcript, it's going to be really hard for you to be admitted. And so I'm not going to spend a lot of time like I will just sort of glance at the rest of it, so that can be anywhere from five minutes to I will spend 15 or 20 minutes on an application when I'm really trying to dig in and identify themes across the application, make connections across the application, find 
what's going to be most compelling to my colleagues, for when I present that application to my teammate, when we're doing team rating. And then if, if an application makes it into the committee round, full committee where all of us are reading the app together. I'll spend sometimes I spend an hour prepping those apps because I want to make sure I don't miss anything. I want to know every single thing that the recommenders said. I want to figure out the most compelling way to put together that student's story. And this goes back to me being a protector of my territory and the advocate, right? Like I care about my students, and if I, if they've made it all the way to committee, I want them to come to Colorado College, and so I'm going to spend a lot of time. That's not normal. Most people don't spend that much time prepping. But I, I love that part of my work. You 
E 
Ethan Sawyer 1:06:18 
mentioned the word skimmable for certain essays, what what signals in a first paragraph or first couple paragraphs that you're like, oh, I can probably this is, this feels more skimmable. Like, what are those things that become that sort of put you into skimming mode? Because I know just talking about, I have it myself, yeah, 
H 
Hillary Dickman 1:06:33 
if it feels predictable, if you think that you can that you sort of know where the essay is going based on the first paragraph, then I might skim. If the way that it's written is not very sophisticated, then I'll skim because it's just easier. It's fast and easy to skim more sophisticated writing, you can read quickly, but you don't have to skim it to understand what they're saying. And then I think, like, just the structure of it, if it's structured in a way that it's easy to follow, then I have, I can skim it more easily, versus sometimes, you know, when it's structured as a poem or in a more non traditional kind of structure, and you have to go back and reread it a few times. That's that can be rough. And like, skimming is not a bad thing. It doesn't doesn't mean that you're not going to get high marks on your essay when we review your essay. It just means that it wasn't hard for me to read. And then not skimming also is not necessarily good or bad, right? It just depends on sort of what the content is, because you can skim it and it can be a great essay, but you didn't feel like you needed to spend a lot of time on it in order to understand it. And sometimes you can skim it because you're like, I really don't think I need to read this to understand the student. I 
E 
Ethan Sawyer 1:08:00 
see how you're using skimmable now, yeah, I was, I was thinking skimmable in the sense of, like, you know, the sort of, quote, unquote bad way. And I can see how, you know, just structurally, it could be easier to to skim something that's good or bad. So let's talk about and 
Hillary Dickman 1:08:15 
H
sometimes it's also because, like, I know I'm going to be going back and putting more time into this application later, right? And in order for it to get from that first read to the read where I'm with my partner, I don't need to dive deeply into the essay, because I can sit when we split it up 
and one of us is driving and the other one is the passenger, whoever is assigned to read the essays, then has more time to dive back in and look at it more closely. So I mean, most of the applications we read go through multiple eyes, as long as the transcript is reasonable, right? And so you you may not just see it in one sitting. You might skim it in the first sitting and then dive back into it more deeply the second time around. 
E 
Ethan Sawyer 1:08:53 
Yeah, and part of the just to let you behind the curtain in my brain what's happening. And this is a side note to like students, parents, counselors, listening. Part of why I'm talking about this roles and identities exercise on these podcasts and in webinars and stuff is that I'm trying to make your job Hillary easier for spending an hour trying to figure out who is this student and how do I present them. Is like, if you can focus on three to five of these roles, identities, invisible hats that you wear, and whether you name them explicitly, or it's just like, oh, I can sort of get these, like you said, a theme, or themes, yeah, that. It makes it easier. Yeah. We all in that. 
H 
Hillary Dickman 1:09:34 
Love that. Yeah. Those are, and those are the things that I find myself writing in the reader notes as I'm going through are the three or four things that I can identify about a student that is their roles or their values or the ways that they show up in a community, right? And sometimes I don't have to read deeply in order to identify those things in a student. 
E 
Ethan Sawyer 1:09:54 
Yeah, that's my hope. Is that the hope, the takeaway, I hope for y'all who are listening, is that. These are being read fast, even if it is 10 minutes, you know, that's still relatively fast given the work that y'all are putting into these. Are there ways that you can, you know, highlight and make it clear the parts of yourself that you want to that you've been nurturing and expressing and exploring for, you know, at least High School. So let's talk about getting started. How do you recommend students get started. Favorite brainstorming exercises, et cetera? 
Hillary Dickman 1:10:24 
H
Yeah, I would say don't reinvent the wheel. Just really, like, use defense resources. I'm sorry, I just sound like a commercial for you. But, like, I assume if people are here listening, then they're they are discovering the resources that you've already created for brainstorming and for reflecting and understanding who they are in this process. And I think that that, I think that's the best way to get started. But outside of of that, I I would say I think it's really important to keep a notebook close, or to keep your notes app kind of open on your phone. For me, anyway, I have like these moments when I'm in the middle of writing something where it'll unexpectedly, all of a sudden, something will come to my brain, and I'm like, Oh, shoot. I hadn't thought about it that way. And then I've got a type, or I've got to write. I'll be out on like, a long walk with my dog, and I'll pull over to the side of the trail and be typing in my notes app, like, shoot. I've got to use these words. These are the words that I couldn't think of earlier. So I think 
having that close by can help move the process along, because once you come up with the right way of saying what you want to say, if you lose it from your brain, it's not coming back. So you gotta write it down. And then I think it's important to be open to scrapping your work and starting over again, not saying kill your darlings when you're writing, meaning, eliminate the parts of your of your writing that don't serve the story. You've got to be open to that you can't you can't like just because you spent a few hours writing a draft doesn't mean that it's the right one. And sometimes taking that draft and crumpling it up and throwing the trash can and starting over from scratch brings you to a new perspective, and you can weave your story together in ways that you couldn't have before, but that takes a lot of courage, right to be able to scrap what you've already worked on. And then the other thing is, I think it's, I think it's important to work with a paper and pencil or paper and pen in the early stages of the process. I just am a strong believer that our brains, even students who are digital natives, the way that your body works together with your brain as you're writing, as frustrating as that might be, that using your hand and putting it on paper leads to a different outcome than if you're starting in Word on your computer or in Google Docs, 
E 
Ethan Sawyer 1:12:38 
I love what you're saying. Hillary like and I had this experience over the weekend. There's something about putting a pen in my 
H 
Hillary Dickman 1:12:45 
hand. We're gonna sound so old. I know it's not nostalgic, though, like I think it's true. Hang 
E 
Ethan Sawyer 1:12:50 
on. I'm gonna make the argument that I think something is happening, that I'm actually slowing down, and I'm allowing like myself to be impacted by the thought that I'm having so rather than sort of like it's whisked onto the screen, and there's something that's happening when I'm writing the thing, I'm slowing down, I'm marinating just a little bit more. And the way that I experience it is like, it's almost like it's not just I'm writing the essay. It's like, in some ways, the essay is writing me, yes, absolutely. And there's like a back and forth that's happening. Yep, I think it's really hard to 
H 
Hillary Dickman 1:13:29 
know what you think if you haven't written down what you think. It's hard to explore your thoughts and really understand what you're thinking without writing it down. And so I am a, I'm a huge advocate of like pencil and paper, or pen and paper, and there is, like the nostalgic part of me that likes the feel of a certain kind of pen on a certain weight of paper, on a certain thickness of notebook. And maybe that goes back to when I was a kid, but, but I think also just the act of writing with your hand is is just different. 
Ethan Sawyer 1:13:58 
E
E 
Ethan Sawyer 1:13:58 
So this feels like a, in a weird way, a perfect segue into talking about chatgpt. And we talked briefly offline right before we started recording that this is something, you know, it's a resource, the tool that we use. So I don't want to make this like a here's why sort of like chatgpt is bad. We can go there. But I'd be curious to just hear you reflect a little bit about I'm just going to offer you, like an open ended prompt, and I'm curious what you'll say. What advice would you give to students when it comes to chatgpt and their college, let's say application process writ large, like essay writing included. 
H 
Hillary Dickman 1:14:37 
Yeah, I think that the best way to use chatgpt in your college application journey is to help you identify colleges that are the best fit for you, that are a place where you would be happy and you would be successful. I think it's incredibly helpful at that kind of work, and sometimes it's wrong. Yeah, right. So you have, you can't just totally rely on it. Yeah, absolutely. And explore those links and and, and double check, you know, the work with your trusted people. But I think that the list building part of chat GPT is probably what it's best at. I don't think that. I don't think that we should outsource our thinking to chat GPT in this process, I think that there are times in work and in life when it makes sense to outsource some of your thinking to chat GPT. But I don't think that this is one of them. I think you shortchange yourself if you're asking chatgpt to brainstorm for you, because it just doesn't know you, and it can't do the work of brainstorming the way that you can. So I don't think that's a good use of it. I think you need to be writing it on your own, because, not because I have a problem with chatgpt, but because you're going to have a better result if you write it yourself, and then once you get to the end, I think it's totally fine to very specifically write a prompt in chatgpt asking it to identify grammatical errors, punctuation errors, any of that kind of proofreading part. Don't let it revise. Don't let it rewrite. Don't tell it what kind of voice you want it to be in, and ask it to change the voice, because I want it to sound like you. But it's okay to for it to identify a place where you had two periods, or a place where you forgot to close your parentheses, or a place where your sentence structure wasn't quite right, I think those are reasonable uses. 
E 
Ethan Sawyer 1:16:42 
Okay, foggy crystal ball moment. Can you imagine a future, however, X years hence, where colleges just say, okay, just use chat GPT, and everybody's using it everywhere, all at once, 
Hillary Dickman 1:16:55 
H
as it were, yeah. I mean, there's a there's a new course for first years at Ohio State, where the purpose of the course, and all the students are taking it is to learn how to use AI appropriately in their work. So I think that that crystal ball moment is not that far away. And I think that students who don't learn how to use AI appropriately are going to end up behind in the workforce. So I think that there are some ways, and I think that the work that institutions are doing right now is trying to figure out the nuance in that, and how do we teach our students to use it? And that's hard, because it's changing faster than we can sort of get our arms around how to teach students how to use it. But I think that there are ways in which we are not going to get rid of AI generated work. And there are ways in which, if we value our critical thinking abilities, we really have to push back against it. And I don't know how, as a 17 year old, you 
have the self control or self discipline to push back on that the way that you need to in order to allow your great your brain to keep growing. But we we learn what we think by writing and by being in discussions with people and chatgpt can't do that for you. Yeah, I 
E 
Ethan Sawyer 1:18:16 
want to pivot for a couple minutes and talk about something that we haven't talked about it all yet, but I know that Colorado College tracks demonstrated interest. Some people listening to this podcast won't know what that is. So if you would be so kind as to describe just briefly what that is, and you know what are some great ways to demonstrate interest in the application process. 
Hillary Dickman 1:18:38 
H
Yeah, so demonstrated interest can mean slightly different things to different colleges, but generally it is when there is a record of your engagement with the college through the Office of Admission. So that can be attending a virtual information session, a virtual small group chat. Can be showing up on campus for an open house or for an info session and campus tour. Can be going to the high school visit when counselors like me come to visit your high school and sit and chat with students, when you show up, we take role. And so all of those opportunities for formal engagement, they appear on the dashboard of your application. When I'm reading your application, you don't see it, but I see it along with all of your demographic information. Any way that you have the we have seen you formally engage with us, will show up there. And I think that the idea of that, I mean, there are a couple different ways to think about this, like colleges are trying to predict yield. We're trying to predict how many students are going to come to our school once they're admitted and demonstrated. Interest is supposedly one way that we can track that it can help us identify which students are most likely to enroll. And some would say that. Then you're going to be more likely to admit the student who is likely to enroll. That is different. There's different philosophy on that at all different colleges. But the other side of it is that by getting you to formally engage with us, we are sort of, we have an element of control over what you're learning, and so you actually learn how the block plan works rather than hearing about it from your neighbor whose cousin's daughter went to CC, right? Like that is something like I want you to I don't want you to apply here early decision without understanding how the block plan works, because I want to know that you are going to be happy here and that you know what you're getting into when you come here, right? And I would imagine that lots of colleges want students to understand their values or how their school works, or what matters to them, and they want to be able to control some of that learning. And so we, we want you to engage with us so that you can hear it straight from us, rather than hearing it, you know, through multiple people. And then there are other ways of engaging that are less tracked or less formal. So when you hear from your friend's mom's, you know, cousin or whatever, about CC, like, yes, you're gonna learn something about CC, and that's awesome. And also, I don't know that you've learned that thing, because I can't see it in my database. So it's sort of it's great for you figuring out whether CC might be a good fit for you, but it's not great for me, knowing that you know that CC is going to be a good fit for you. Same thing like if you show up on campus because you're on vacation in Colorado Springs, and you're here on a Saturday, and we don't have tours most Saturdays, and you show up and you wander around yourself. Okay, so you've gotten a feel for our campus. Maybe you visited downtown Colorado Springs, got to eat in one of our awesome restaurants. That's great, but you haven't really 
gotten sort of the inside information. So you know a little bit, but I don't have a way to track that, and I don't know that you really know what you need to know in order to make a decision about coming to cc. So there are a few different perspectives on demonstrated interest. Some colleges will ask you to, like, check a bunch of boxes in the application. Of here are all the ways that I engaged with your college. And sometimes it is like I talked to a friend who goes to your college, and you can check that box at CC when we're reading an application. If you have had any kind of formal engagement with us, we check a box that says that you formally engaged with us, and that's it. It adds, you know, we're scoring all the different parts of your application, and adds a very minimal, like, additional couple of numbers or something. I don't even know what the total, what the total score possible is, but it adds, like, a little bit to your application, but mostly it's like, all right, this student, we're, you know, we really like this student, but do they actually know anything about CC, and how serious are they about coming here? And that matters most in our our most selective round, our regular action round. 
E 
Ethan Sawyer 1:22:56 
Side note to anyone listening, we've got a whole separate podcast and like guide on demonstrated interest for anybody who's interested, and we'll link to it in the show notes. And I want to also point out that this you talking about using chatgpt and the research process, I think is such a great idea. I mean, it's going to save you some time. I don't think it replaces necessarily, counselors, you know, because I think somebody who's really knows their stuff, and who's visited a campus and walked, walked the halls, you know, as it were, and eaten at the dining halls, like there are counselors with lots of experience that have, you know, encyclopedic knowledge. And I don't think this replaces that, but when you're trying to figure out, hey, are there other schools that are, as you were saying earlier, Hillary, that are sort of peer institutions, what are schools that are like that if you can't reach your counselor, or if you don't have a counselor? Yes, I think chat GPT can be useful. And make sure that you ask it for links. You can go check this out on your own. And we're going to be releasing updating our guide to researching colleges. And as soon as we it's updated, it'll be in the show notes. Hilary, as we wrap here, I'd love to know like I'd love for you to just speak directly to students for a minute, what do you hope that they'll keep in mind as they go through this process? 
Hillary Dickman 1:24:11 
H
Yeah, that's such a great question, because it can be such a stressful process. I like to remind students that there are somewhere around 3000 colleges in the US that they get to choose between, and most of them, they're going to be admitted to, like the vast majority, and most of them are awesome places with great communities and great resources that are going to launch them into a great career. And I hope that that helps take some of like, if you can go into this process with that mindset that, like, there are a lot of amazing places out there that I can be admitted to, that should make this a less stressful process, I hope. And then I think the other part of it is like, I don't know if this is true the Socrates quote that says. Unexamined life is not worth living. I don't, I don't know if that's true. I don't, not a philosopher, but I think that there's at least some truth in it, in this process, right? That self reflection, that thinking about your values, how you became who you are, how what you care about overlaps with the different colleges on your list and what they care about. Thinking about these things spurs growth. And 
as a 16 or 17 or 18 year old, you're at a time in your life where your life is all about growth, and the college journey is such a perfect opportunity to engage in that kind of self reflection and growth. And so let it be that for you, what 
E 
Ethan Sawyer 1:25:46 
would you say to parents? 
H 
Hillary Dickman 1:25:48 
This is what I tell parents, you need to make it easy for your kids to make you proud. And so that means being excited about their list, every college on their list, not just the ones that have the lowest admit rate. It means letting your kids sort of lead the way through this process and cheering them on. It means your face lighting up whenever you see them. This is such a hard process for kids, and I think as parents, we can make it easier by setting a low bar for what's going to make us proud as our kids walk through the process. 
E 
Ethan Sawyer 1:26:31 
I love that so much. We'll end there. Thanks. Hillary, so much. 
H 
Hillary Dickman 1:26:36 
Thank you. Ethan, so good to talk with you. 
Ethan Sawyer 1:26:42 
E
Thanks friends as ever for listening. You'll find the show notes at college essay guy.com/podcast and hey, the best place to find out about everything that's coming up in CEG land, that's College Essay Guy land. To find out about our latest resources, live events and so much more is to just opt into our newsletter on our homepage, college, sagui.com, or to basically any of the other opt ins on the site, and we'll add you to the newsletter. Be well and stay curious. You.