303: Behind the Scenes of an Admission Office with Tom Campbell of Pomona (Part 2)

Ethan Sawyer  0:08  
Hey, friends, what's up? It's even Sawyer, the College Essay Guy. And my goal, as you probably know by now, is to bring more ease, joy and purpose into the college application process. Just so you know, I definitely said ease, joy and porpoise in the last take. This is the college as a guy podcast where I interview awesome minds from the college admissions world, analyze their genius and break it down for you into practical, actionable steps that you can take, whether you're applying to college yourself or maybe helping somebody else apply. So this is another episode in our series that goes behind the scenes of admissions offices to let you know what's really going on. And this is part two. If you haven't checked out part one, you might want to check it out. It's the one before this one. It's with Tom Campbell, who, at the time of the recording, was the assistant dean of admissions at Pomona College, which is not too far from where I live. He was also the assistant director of admissions at College of the Holy Cross before that, and works as a group leader, essay specialist and faculty member at the very awesome college horizons. So this episode was part two, because we had so many questions after our initial episode, which was originally a webinar, that we thought it would be fun to sit down again and dig deeper into some of the questions that folks had, but I also wanted to get deeper into some of the things that folks didn't ask. We started off talking about demonstrated interest, which is something that not a ton of folks talk about, and some students don't even know about, but it could play a factor in your admission process. We even talked about, why is it important for colleges even to know how likely a student is to enroll, aka yield, at their institution? Then we got into some do's and don'ts for students at a college fair, because Tom has been to many of these, we got specifically into what folks can learn about Pomona based on the supplemental essay prompts. And then I asked him to take us behind the curtain on how Pomona actually decided which prompts to use and how they make that decision. Each year, I asked Tom, does it matter which common app, personal statement prompt you choose. You might be surprised at what he said. Then we got into supplemental essays. Should students stick closely to the prompts when it comes to the Pomona supplements we talked about? Does it matter which major you choose when applying? And then finally, Tom shared some red flags that he remembers that got students like immediately rejected. Take a listen. Hey, for those who missed part one, Tom Campbell, who's here with me now, Hi Tom. Hello Ethan. For those who missed it in part one, Tom came on and talked about a variety of things, and you might be just listening to that episode if you didn't check it out, but we realized in that conversation we just had lots more to talk about, and Tom has graciously agreed to come back on the podcast and to give us a part two, and to really take us behind the scenes, like give us the real deal, the things I don't know. I don't know what this is going to end up leading to, but I'm just grateful Tom for your time and for being here. You bet, hey, I


Tom Campbell  2:56  
really, you know, applaud the platform that you all have and the capacity to reach so many students and to speak a lot about this process, which can, you know, I know, I mentioned this, I think, in the first episode, but just can be so fraught with misinformation and variability from institution to institution. So again, that's a huge piece of this is the big mantra and admissions of, quote, unquote, it depends. Is a huge one that I'm going to be putting out there as a disclaimer right from the start, because it really does depend on the school and their particular culture, environment, priorities, growth plans, strategic everything, right? So I think that admittedly makes this process all the more complex as and it already is to begin with for all of you. So just want to start out by saying I mean kudos to any student family going through this, staying together this, like, right? Like, can be definitely a testing a testy time for lots of family units. So just being kind to one another, being gracious, taking each step as it comes with a sense of reflection and growth and thinking of the process as that type of opportunity is the best advice I can get from the start, but I know that in the heat of the moment, those supplemental essays, some stings of early decision, deferrals, rejections, whatever may come along, do sting, and it's real, and I don't want to invalidate that, but yeah, that cohesion and that kind of solidarity, I think, is a nice component To try to weave into your college process, however that manifests for yourself. Let's


Ethan Sawyer  4:24  
talk a little bit about demonstrated interests. And if you could, maybe before you talk specifically about it at Pomona, because I'd love to hear how Pomona treats demonstrated interest, will you just tell folks what that is and what that means?


Speaker 1  4:36  
Absolutely. Yeah. So demonstrated interest is a term that is used by colleges and universities to indicate how engaged a student has been with their particular admissions office or institution through the application process, many schools will track demonstrated interest in the form of you know, for example, if a student visits campus and they fill out a visit card or check on their attendance on. An iPad that is recorded and attached to their admissions file if a student does an interview with a school, of course, that is going to count as a demonstrated interest related activity, even casual browsing of an institution's website. You know, this is a little big brothery, right? But colleges and universities utilize softwares. So for example, slate is a software that Pomona in particular uses and many other colleges and universities utilize slate as a platform to basically, it's a, what we call a CRM, or, I actually don't know the acronym. This is embarrassing, but essentially what it is is it is a internal system for us to we read applications through this software and system. We have pages for each particular applicant, and once they kind of give us the green light for their information, or a lot of schools will get information from testing companies, or companies like Chegg will sell colleges information actually about potential leads on students. So that's something that I don't know, that everyone knows, but that's true. That's why, sometimes, if you're getting emails from schools and you're like, I don't know you. Like, I don't know who this is, right? That is kind of usually the result of why that might be. And there's always supposed to be an unsubscribe button at the bottom. So if you don't want that spam meal, you can press unsubscribe. They're legally supposed to do that, I'm pretty sure. So anyway, a demonstrated interest is typically tracked in some form of internal application, slash student management system that a college will use, and the way that demonstrated interest influences and a particular admissions offices process is highly variable from institution to institution. So for example, at Pomona, demonstrated interest is not a part of our conversation in admissions. And I'm saying this very candidly and just very much. We don't talk about it. We don't, you know, hypothesize whether or not a student has done this many visits, or, you know, how likely they are going to be to enroll. Sometimes, we'll see a file and we're gonna be like, ah, you know, this kid's probably gonna go to this school, like, we'll shoot our shot and see if we can, you know, have the student on our campus because we we like them. We think they're great fit. They meet priorities for the college. But we, we kind of can see a little bit of like, okay, this student is, like, such a rock star that, like, we can see them being scooped up by a lot of places. But other than that, we really don't measure, or we don't discuss, or have it as a as a factor in our admissions process. That said, we still do have a record on the back end of visits that students have done webinars, that students have attended, emails that students have sent to their admissions officer, times that they've been on the website. Cookies kind of save students who are surfing the web, so we can see that we don't use it during the time of application, but when students are entering into what we call the yield process, which is what we're going through right now, we do have a sense for Okay, here's all the admitted students. We didn't look at demonstrated interest prior to this point, but now we can see that some are like ghost applicants that have no they haven't even been on our website. Maybe they got like, a pamphlet in the mail that we don't know about, or they picked it up from a dentist office or somewhere like, I don't know how they found out about us, but they have not really done anything offered by our office, or have not looked at any web pages that we have. So the chances of those students enrolling are very slim. And oftentimes we kind of look at it and they're like, All right, well, we're not going to really spend a ton of time on trying to, like, convince the students to come to Pomona, because clearly they might not be that interested. Then again, sometimes their students every year who, like, they got into Pomona it was they apply. And then they're like, All right, now I'm going to start exploring it. And then we start to see an uptick in their activity. They start to attend some presentations, they start to engage with our website a little more. And then we see, all right, well, maybe this student actually is interested in considering enrolling. So that's the point at which that data and that kind of back end, behind the scenes, log of how a student has engaged with our particular school is helpful. It has limitations, right? Like it doesn't measure social media engagement, for example, like I'm not able to see if someone's been receiving all their information from our Instagram, which is a great source of information. Shameless plug for Pomona admissions on Instagram. So there are limitations to it. And of course, also some students might be showing their interests and demonstrating their interest through, you know, fist guides that they're reading, or through, you know, people in their community, at home that they're talking to, word of mouth or on their own, zooms or not, things that are formally organized by the school. So that's something that offices and admissions folks to keep in mind, as well as that sources of information are going to vary depending on the student and the family as well.


Ethan Sawyer  9:23  
And why is this such a big deal for colleges like why is it important to them that they know which students are likely to yield or not? And I'm asking kind of a leading question that may have to do with rankings.


Speaker 1  9:35  
No, that's a great question. So So typically, most of the most selective schools in the United States are ones where demonstrated interest is not really going to be a part of their admissions process. It's not going to give students a leg up, it's not going to give them the little gold star, the plus one, the up vote, you know, in the admissions queue, right? That said, the further you go down in terms of selectivity, the more schools have to hustle. School to have students enroll at their particular institution, or the more students are kind of considering a wide range of options, right? So it makes sense, right? Like, if a student's admitted to, you know, they apply to two safety schools, quote, unquote, to match schools and then to reach schools. And they get into both their match schools, they get into a safety and they only get into one of their reach schools. The chances of them enrolling at the enrolling at that reach school is highly likely, right? It's the school that they seen the most in the media. It's the school that kind of has the most attention. So typically, those schools are not as pressed for convincing students to enroll. So Pomona happens to be in that echelon of school, but there are a wide range of schools that, even the ones that are very selective, still do measure demonstrated interest and still do track it, just depending on their particular institution and their particular yield rate, which, for a wide variety of reasons, is going to vary from school to school. Some is because maybe the location is not as hotly desired as other parts of the world, right? It might be because they have certain financial aid policies that make it difficult for people to enroll. There can be a laundry list a multitude of reasons as to why a school's yield rate maybe isn't as high, and the yield for those who may not, you know if I'm if I'm tossing out this term to those who haven't heard it is the students who enroll at a particular college that rate, the percent of students who are admitted, who actually enroll, is called yield. That's kind of what that plays out to be. Of course, some schools also have early decision rounds and early processes. And really, for lack of a better word, they pad a school or their incoming class largely through early rounds because those students are going to come right, they are committing to intent to the school. There's not going to be this flux in play situation with any student who is admitted through early decision. So that is a strategy that schools will also use to increase their yield. So I think the combination of demonstrated interest, of course, programming that schools put on, as well as how you utilize early rounds and leverage kind of locking students in early are some of the three, the three biggest strategies that I would say schools employ to build a class and to really have the class that they want to enroll.


Ethan Sawyer  12:10  
Yeah, one thing that we'll link to in the show notes is a little guide on demonstrated interest. For those of you who are listening and wondering, well, how do I find out? How do you know which schools track demonstrated interest or not. And there's a little step by step guide that'll show you how to look that up for any school that you're interested


Speaker 1  12:26  
in. Great resource. Yeah, and I just want to interject, you know, most schools will be very transparent and upfront about how they use demonstrated interest. This is not something that, in my experience working in admissions schools are ambiguous about. They don't tell people. If you ask schools and admissions reps, they typically will tell students because they want students to engage with their school, like they want students to learn more about it. So it makes sense for them to tell students in information sessions, in recruitment travels on the road, college fairs, hey, like, make sure to sign up for an interview. Make sure to do this like our school really is excited about students who really want to be here. And it makes a lot of sense in a lot of places.


Ethan Sawyer  13:03  
What would you think about a student coming up to you at a college fair and asking you, do you track demonstrated interest? Like, how would that land for you? You


Speaker 1  13:10  
know, I gotta say, if that is their first question, I would be a little just kind of irritated, like I would come and I would be like, Well, why are you interested in this school? Like, I kind of want to know a little bit first about, like, why you stopped at my table, and I would hope it's not just to find out whether or not we track demonstrated interest. I hope you hear things about my school, or have heard things about my school that are exciting to you and because you want to be a competitive applicant, I'm wondering, does your school track demonstrated interest, or are there ways to show interest that might make my process more advantageous or more proactive, right? It's a


Ethan Sawyer  13:43  
great note, and I want to get into college fairs in just a little bit. But you talked a little bit about how slate is used at Pomona. How does what Pomona tracks differ from, for example, other schools, and let's say you know whether it's highly selective schools or other less selective schools in terms of what they're tracking for students, sure? Yeah.


Speaker 1  14:01  
So a lot of what will be tracked is going to be email open rates. So schools with email marketing, they're going to send out emails and have a system in place. So for Pomona, that would be slate, where you see how frequently was the message open. We also do, like beta testing sometimes, where we'll send out, like, version a of an email, version B of an email, and we'll see if one was more attractive to the other, and make marketing decisions and communications based decisions based on some of that testing. So that's one way that certain, you know, steps that a student takes in the college process will be tracked anytime a student visits campus, you know, and they get a survey that's sent out by our office at Pomona. We do that through slate, so we have a survey that comes in. It's automatically attached to the students file, unless they like, check off, I think, to be completely anonymous, and we can see, you know, what types of feedback they gave for our tours or information sessions or anything like that. And that's something that we don't like. Oh, this student said our info session was terrible. Like, you know, denied. Like, that's not. Not what we do with that. We do it to increase and enhance our programming. And if we see trends and we see, okay, gee. You know, 70% of students who did our tour said that the first year experience was, you know, not as flushed out as they would like. Let's find ways to build that out more in our tour, right? So useful data collection and customer service oriented, program oriented information can come through slate. Of course, their application, you know, is going to be something that is tracked and measured. I want to make sure I'm answering exactly your question. But what types of things are tracked, essentially by a college? I think


Ethan Sawyer  15:32  
you've spoken beautifully and thoroughly. Let's talk about interviews for a minute. How much, how much do interviews matter at Pomona? It's a


Speaker 1  15:39  
great question, and one that we consistently tell people that interviews and demonstrated interests are not a factor in admission, and people still don't believe us. And like I said in my previous episode, I understand why folks are skeptical of colleges, because there has been a lot of misinformation over the years, and it's really unfortunate to have that precedent be be a reality of this. But for Pomona, you know, our interviews are done exclusively by our alumni admissions officers or our alumni admissions volunteers, our AAVs, the interview really at Pomona is there's two different types of interviews that many colleges will employ, and one is going to be evaluative, and one is just going to be purely informative. So technically informative interviews are just you have a chance to get to meet someone who is associated with the college, whether that is a current student, typically, it might be a senior student at the college who is hired or volunteers to be a admissions interviewer or a admissions staff member, admissions officer, an alum. Perhaps a lot of people ask us whether some way more than others in the process too, and at Pomona, we only have alumni, so it doesn't make a difference. But at many schools, they're going to tell you, it doesn't make a difference whether it's the senior, whether it's the admissions officer, or whether it is the alum, and I, I've worked at a school where that was those are the three different populations where the interviews were recorded, and truly it didn't, statistically does not make a difference who you have so just putting that out there, and it's on the record, and we hit record, right? The other category is going to be evaluative interviews, and that is where schools will evaluate and receive feedback from the interviewer about your candidacy, and the interviewer will type up notes and comments kind of about how the conversation went, maybe some key takeaways, maybe some areas that you know we're concerned if there were any, a lot of times the interviews are just a glowing rehash of all the things that We hear about from the recommendations and the application, and it's usually kind of just validates and is additional consistent information with what the rest of the application entails. So those are the kind of two different categories. And again, as with everything in admissions, it does depend on the school as to how interviews are weighed in the process. So at Pomona, we do get notes from our alumni interviewers, but, you know, we look back at every every cycle and the difference in acceptance rate, which is truly what people want to know, right? Like, let's be let's be frank, like people want to know, just get me more points to get higher and upvoted in the process. At Pomona, the difference is really not statistically significant. At other schools, you are highly more likely to be admitted if you have done an interview. And you can ask, because you can ask an admissions representative this, you can ask a school, does interviewing make me a more highly competitive candidate? And they most likely will tell you the truth. I know from my previous institution, we did our information session. We spent a lot of time talking about interviews. We actually did an entire July advisory day. System, was what we called it. And we walked through demonstrated interest. We walked through interviewing do's and don'ts and tips and what you should wear, and we told people, like, don't bring in your pet, don't be chewing your gum. Like, you know, this is an opportunity for you to show that you are a mature adult, you are entering this new phase in your life, that you can coherently have a conversation, right? So I know interviews make a lot of people anxious and nervous because they think they're going to say the wrong thing. They're going wrong thing. They're gonna flip their words, the person's going to be judging them. And of course, there is an element of Judgment in this interview, right? Like, that is what this opportunity is. And I know for us, for example, like, we tell students, especially because at Pomona, the interviews are so, so optional. Really cannot emphasize that enough. We tell them, like, if you are not super excited to do this opportunity, like, it is not worth it for you to do it. It doesn't make sense. It's not going to make you more competitive. If you are, like, terrified to the phone that this is just going to be like, such an awkward experience, you're really not going to like it. But that's something that we really don't push people to do. But there are some schools where they're like, kind of like, yeah. I mean, this is even if it's uncomfortable. Like, let us tell you some ways that it can be less uncomfortable. Be less uncomfortable, and just know that the interviewer just truly wants to get to know you. They want to see whether or not you're a good fit for the school, and it's a chance for you to show that you are a good match. And you know by what you say and your research and how you've demonstrated that, right? So it can be a useful strategy for a lot of schools.


Ethan Sawyer  19:58  
Yeah, one of the things that you. Are saying that I think is so important, is that this is a thing. It's yet another thing that students, I think, sometimes feel nervous or shy to ask an admissions rep about. But this is a thing that you can totally email someone and ask if you're curious. And there are real people in the line, you know, there are folks, good people, like Tom, who, like, are willing to answer these questions. And there's a little in the demonstrated interest guide that I mentioned. There's a little mentioned, there's a little section on how to develop a relationship with, you know, your admission rep, so that you you know, so that when they read your application, they're maybe more likely to recognize who is this person. Now, that sort of depends on finding the rep, but, yeah, go ahead, what were you gonna


Speaker 1  20:36  
say? No, just gonna say, I mean, that's absolutely the case. And I think I remember when I was in high school, I thought I was wasting people's time, and I was like a burden and annoying by sending email messages. So I tried to avoid it at all costs. And I just tried to find things stealthily online, you know, through questionable valid, like not valid, sources and resources of information, I'd be like looking at, I mean, I don't think Reddit existed at that point, but I was looking at college confidential and now, of course, there confidential. And now, of course, there's like, applying to college on Reddit. And like, I see the things that people are saying, and I'm like, this is blatantly not true. Like, this is someone's anecdotal personal experience with the admissions process, and for people to say this is why I got in is very misleading and really puts people down a path where their particular situation is not being understood or factored into the reality of this, right? So getting to the source of the admissions representative and talking to someone who works for that actual institution, it really cannot hurt you. Well,


Ethan Sawyer  21:34  
let's, let's jump in. So what are the what are the do's and don'ts of a college fair? Great


Speaker 1  21:38  
question. Tell me about our psychology program. If you're interested in psychology, I'm not saying like, find something else. It's not worth your time, right? Psychology is a great form of study. You know, learning about how we operate as people is so valuable, no matter what career path you go on to so highly encourage folks to explore psychology, especially because I know many folks don't have opportunities to explore that in high school. Definitely. I'd say best questions are the ones where, and of course, if you don't know the school at all, you can be honest and be like, Hey, I'm just stopping by. I'm at a college fair. Like, I just want to be completely honest. Like, I haven't had the chance to do some, like, brochure level research on your school. Can you maybe just give me a, you know, five minute pitch on it right at reps will absolutely be willing to do that, especially if you preface, like, I'm new to this, like, I'm stopping by your school. Looks cool. I'd love to know more, right? Reps are absolutely willing to do that. If you come in immediately and just like, pick up a brochure and ask, like, do you have hair? Or, like, you know, like, basically people asking, like, do you have, like, a cosmetology program? Or like, do you have this? Do you have that? It's more like, it'd be great to be like, Oh, I'm really interested in pursuing, or I'm interested in this. Like, do you have a program that's like this? And if you do, like, can you tell me a little more about, like, what makes it unique? Or, you know, what are maybe some of the opportunities that you can do in that program? Or I like to hear from students like, Oh, tell me about like, Do you know any students who have done research in this or do you have any like interesting, you know, career paths that a student has taken, who've done, who's done this program, in a way like the admissions rep might not 100% know the answer to that off the top of their head, but they'll appreciate kind of the depth and kind of the less brochure surface level investigation and knowledge about what a particular program is. And for them, you'll see the admissions rep getting more excited about talking about something that is different than yes we meet. We're need blind Yes, we have this program, yes and like, yes or no questions are not as helpful. Essentially, in a college fair interaction, right? You want to try to suss out the vibe and the culture of the school from the rep, and a lot of times they are going to really embody that, just in how they interact with you, and kind of the things that they highlight, the talking points that they center on. So, you know, if they, for example, if you asked about a certain program, and they talk about someone who's done really great work with equity and inclusion related to classics, you know, it's something that maybe people don't really associate together. It shows a little bit about what the school values and kind of what types of candidates and what types of graduates, like tend to be associated with that place. So you just get a lot more of kind of the ethos and the feel of a school when you're asking things beyond, do you have x, y, z, what can folks learn


Ethan Sawyer  24:16  
about Pomona based on their supplemental essays, and what was the process like for coming up with those prompts?


Speaker 1  24:25  
That is a great question, and I love talking about this. Promote a supplemental essays we actually have a team of staff members, and I actually was, I was part of this team. We have a team of staff members who meets every summer to talk about what types of questions we want to ask on our supplemental essay prompts. We usually don't repeat these essays from year to year. So I know, actually, I think I saw again. I saw some people on Reddit who are like, I'm working on my essays now, and I'm like, Stop, like they're not going to be used again. So that's something that you should know for folks tuning in, many schools will have new essay prompts that are. Revealed each year in order to, I think, capture what the admissions team is most trying to identify when it comes to institutional fit. So there are some schools, for example, who are really legendary for, like, quirky essay prompts that are just really avant garde and really outside the box, and kind of really gives you a little bit of a hint and a clue as to what the student body is like, the ethos, again, of the school. I like to use that word a lot, ethos, the philosophy of the school, if you will. And I'd say Pomona essays are no different. You know, we actually, in the past two years, we have been doing a really in depth review of our particular admissions process, and we're working on increasingly measuring some of the more qualitative parts of our application, and coming up with a system that's kind of basically identifying qualities like in an application that we see that suggest Pomona fit in different parts of the application. I alluded to this a little bit in the last episode when I talked about reading an application having different quotes and highlights and reference pages, you know, on my what we call our prep at Pomona, which is kind of like my cover story slash like, here's the low down as to why Little Timmy should be admitted. So that's something that these particular supplemental essay questions usually are the platform and one of the best sources for us as admissions officers to be able to possibly identify and call out some of those qualities that we are trying to measure in these applications. So for example, we asked a question about a community this year, and we had a lot of students, and I forget the way that the wording was exactly phrased, but it was basically for students to reflect on a community that they belong to and to share, like, what bringing that perspective or lived experience to the college really entails? I know we had a lot of people who kind of wrote about being part of a team or being part of athletic team and and that was great to hear, of course. But there's other questions that kind of were more related to that that were later on down the line with those questions, and this is really meant to get more of that, like, lived experience components. So is there a certain racial or ethnic tradition, religious tradition? Is there a certain cultural norm? Do you identify with community of, are you coming from an all girls school and like, that's been a big part of your identity, and you really want to amplify women's voices, right? Like, not saying that you need to have one of all those different components, but definitely those types of responses really were helpful for us to to get a sense for the way that students have reflected on kind of what they've been through in their lives, how that has influenced who they are and how that will impact their future campus Pomona specifically, right? So that's something that Pomona really does take a lot of value in, is the multitude of lived experiences that are represented on our student body. I know, for example, like students from the Bay Area, right? You know students who, a lot of them, are upper class students. They are on the highest end of the socio economic spectrum. They oftentimes are students who are not racial or ethnic minorities. And you know, we've had students who've reflected in these responses, for example, about the culture, the stress culture of the Bay Area when it comes to competitive high schools and the rates of suicide and people that they know who just have not been able, like have had to swim and navigate through this environment that has just been very toxic for them and felt like there was no way out. And it's really, really disheartening to hear about that, but then you hear about students who say, I really want to be an advocate for mental health and balance and wellness, and I want to bring that perspective to my college campus, because I've seen how detrimental and devastating it be to my community, right? So I think I always tell students, this is, I guess, a little bit of a tangent with Pomona specific essay, but with any of those kind of identity based essays that are asking for you to reflect on your lived experience, many colleges and universities are going to be interested in that you've done a little bit of reflection on where you're coming from and where you're going and how your experiences will influence a school and a community, and your voice will contribute to a certain space on campus. So I just tell people, like, own where you're coming from, and like, if you are coming from a place of privilege, be honest about that. Don't try to be like, Oh, I don't want to talk about this because I'm embarrassed about it, or I feel like people are going to think that I'm uppity. Or, you know, talk about what that's been like, and just talk about kind of like, what, how it has influenced you are, maybe who you want to be in the future, how you want to maybe utilize those privileges for a larger and greater societal purpose, right? And, of course, if you're a student who has not been afforded many privileges in this, in our society, and are experiencing systemic oppression, and however that takes shape, not saying that you have to necessarily talk about this, because you should never feel pressured. And we talk a lot about people, you know, being performative in these essay supplements and writing things because they think, Oh, the the admissions team wants to hear the story, and this is exactly what they want. You want to be coming from a genuine place. Of here is kind of where I'm coming from, and I want to give you a window into this if you've gone through experiences. We don't need, necessarily to. We don't want this to be a chance for you to have to spill out traumas if you don't want to relive them, or if it's just if you're not in the place to kind of address that in these writing samples, like it's that's definitely not the goal. These. But if you have been through experiences that have that demonstrate your resiliency and your strength and the fact that you have this great quality that you know is so central to what so many how so many schools measure what we call potential in a student, you can definitely utilize those supplemental essays as a platform to discuss that. In regards to kind of your first question, before I really took that dive into how we come up with the essay questions, we talk a lot about the values of the school. So for example, some iterations that have been tossed out in the past have been we have these college gates at Pomona. There's a quote on the outer end of the gates that reads, let only the eager, thoughtful and reverent enter here. And that's a quote from our fourth president, named James placedale. He was actually the visionary behind the Claremont Colleges Consortium. So Pomona was its own institution. It was kind of through his vision that the college has expanded. And there was this great idea to have this network of different schools that all are in one square mile and share resources, etc. So the idea is that this kind of all the students run through the gates together on their very first day of campus. So there's a camp. Campus. So there's a campus tradition that's attached to it, and it kind of has like a mission statement e feel to it. So we asked students, if you were to add a fourth adjective to the gates today in 2020, or, I think it was last year. So it's 20 2019, to 2020, what would you add? What would be your but your fourth word to add? And then, actually, in the press release, when we announced the class, we talked and we put this is what the incoming student body. Here are some of the top words that came up that students wrote in their essays and then their applications that they think should be included and should be core qualities of what a Pomona student is. I think that these essay questions, regardless of if it's Pomona or another school that has supplemental essay questions, they usually center some somewhere towards the mission statement in some way of the college. So I think for students who are looking to see a little bit of like, why would a school be asking this and hypothesizing around that, starting with the mission statement, I think is a good place, because it might give you a signal as to why this is something that the school cares about. Any other kind of, like foundational documents, like statements from the college that exemplify this is what we care about, you know, or these are the things that we're we're working towards, and progress that we're working towards, like, those are all signals, I think, a little bit of to what type of community the college is hoping, either currently is, or is hoping and aspiring to be, or some combination of the two of those things. So that's usually kind of at the core of why a lot of schools choose these different supplemental essay questions. And then again, sometimes we know that it can get a little serious, and we know that, like, it'll be it's nice to try and, like, inject a little bit of fun into these essay questions. And like, I know you're probably hearing me say fun and putting error quotes around it, because I know it's an essay, it's yet another Google Doc that you have to, you know, add to your arsenal, right? But I remember like, seeing like, so, for example, we tested and we kind of like, allow our current students to also give feedback about these questions. And we kind of test them on our summer student workers who work in our office and do tours with us over the summer. And they said they're like, all these essays are kind of serious, like, the first ones that we had them where they were like, it might be nice if we had something that was, like, a little more light hearted, because, like, Pomona does have light hearted and fun things here. So it might be nice to kind of like signal that that's something that is like, something that we value and care about too. And that was very much a point well taken. So huge shout out to our summer student workers, Ole Emma. See Chris Sienna, Chloe, Deanna, for being the ones to kind of really open our eyes as admissions officers to like, hey, like, if the goal of these essays is to be representative of what the college values and cares about and is central to who we are, like, this is an element that's missing, right? So it's, I think it's good to have like, those feedback channels present in these discussions and conversations, but we added these little, short answer questions that were like, Oh, if you what's your favorite way to eat a potato? And we asked people like, oh, what's your favorite song to listen to on a Friday night? What's the best piece of advice that you've ever been given? Things like that. And I could not tell you the amount of students who reached out to us, and we're like, what's the like, what's the strategy with these there's got to be, like, a magic puzzle or formula or they're trying to get something. And I'm like, we were just trying to be a little less rigid. And apparently it didn't maybe work for everyone, because a lot of people were very freaked out about them, and also, especially because they were optional. And they were like, does it really mean optional? Can I really leave them blank? And I was like, yes, you absolutely can. These are not make or break questions. And we made that very, very clear to people that, like, this is just a chance. Is just a chance for you to showcase a little personality and to give us even more additional context about things outside of your academic and your intellectual goals, right? So let's


Ethan Sawyer  34:31  
talk personal statements for a few minutes. What have been this is a question that came in during the part one webinar that we didn't get a chance to get to. The student asks, I know both of you have read so many essays, in regards to those few essays that just stick out in your mind, what makes them memorable?


Speaker 1  34:46  
My little like catch phrase for this is that I found in my experience working at admissions that essays usually stand out for one of two C's. C's are more than welcome when it comes to your your essay, and when I say. That I mean creativity and content. So I've usually found essays to be memorable. In my experience, fall into one of those two camps, that's another C, or sometimes they're a hybrid of both. I think a lot of times people can make what I call the mundane very memorable and use creativity to really kind of talk about riding with your dad to school and listening and bonding over 70s singer songwriter music. That was one of the essays that I remember reading a few years ago at my previous institution. I just loved it. Just seeing the relationship of the dad and the daughter and kind of just like the beauty of that and just their honest kind of connection with one another was just like a really nice signal of what type of person this young woman would be on on a college campus, and how she would connect with other people. I had a student last admission cycle write about her junk drawer and how it's like, kind of like a little like Museum of all these different like things in her life. And that was incredibly well done. She talked about how she, like, is a junk aficionado, and she's always learning how to do things that are maybe outside of, like the owner's manual, like she talked about learning how to, like, make pasta without boiling water and things like that. So that kind of, like, ingenuity, kind of creative vibe definitely, kind of really came out of that response. I had a student who write like a wrote like, a scathing review of how much they hated Disneyland, and how they thought it was, like, antithetical to like, it's the destruction of our society, like, It's the symbol for everything that's wrong. And she started out like, I hate Disneyland. Let me tell you why, like and it, it was great because it really showed a lot of like, what she cared about and like her personality and things. But it was done in such a way that it was, it was about her and kind of like her association with the park and experiences with it and but was just like, so fun to read, and just like, a great story. And again, like, that's the other end of the spectrum, which is content. I mean, sometimes I get stories and essays from people who have fled refugee environments and write about that story, and it's incredibly poignant and just absolutely beautiful to read. I read about a student who found out that they were an in vitro baby, like years later, like in their life, and they did not know that that was the way they were conceived. I've had students who've, yeah, just written about just, like, incredible stories that are just like, so unique, so outside the box. You really get drawn in right from the beginning. But again, like I tell students, people think that content is the only thing that's going to make an essay memorable. And again, the mundane can be memorable when you think about the creative spin that you can employ with your essay. That's when I think, just like thinking about some of these memories in your life, or kind of interactions or instances that you feel just like, you know, what? This was a turning point for me. This is a moment where I learned a lot about myself. Or this is like, I had another student who, like, wrote about, kind of, like fear of, like, jumping off this rope swing at, like a camp that he went to when he was a kid, and he used this in, like, really beautiful metaphor about, like, jumping into things and kind of like, had these different, you know, the paragraphs about jumping and movement and kind of like, you know, momentum, and it was all just, like, really artfully done and really showcase, showcase, like, sophisticated writing skills, great use of figurative languages, of symbolism, was beautiful writing sample. And again, jumping off a rope swing into a pawn. If I just was right, I was scared, and I jumped off a rope swing into a pond, and I now, I'm now I'm more brave. Like, end of essay, that's not really going to be the most, like, exciting. Like, oh, we have to have Tom right, but pivoting it in that creative way, like, can make it. I mean, I still remember this essay to this day, and it's one that I read in my first cycle of admissions at Holy Cross. So shout out to rope swing kid, if whoever you are, you're man now you always were, but now you really


Ethan Sawyer  38:43  
are. How much do prompts matter when it comes to the personal statement, like when you talk about all these essays, do you also remember the prompts they went for? Or No,


Speaker 1  38:53  
I never do. And I always tell people admissions is kind of like the opposite of English class, where, like in English class, with on a timed essay, you have a prompt to in order to do well on the essay, you have to exactly answer the prompt and make sure that you look back and what did I write? Does it match the prompt? Great. Sometimes I tell students in with admissions, look at the prompts to begin with and like, use them as kind of like a guide to get a sense for like, what types of stories or anecdotes or reflections can I share in this writing sample, looking at the listing of common or common application, or coalition application, quest, bridge, whatever application a school uses, looking at those essay questions as a guide for you to start to generate and start to turn the wheels in your mind about, okay, these types of experiences are most appropriate for This particular writing sample, and then you can honestly just start to write, like, get your ideas out on some Google Docs, or start to like, think about some experiences or things that you want to share about. And then nine times out of 10 you're going to find you can like work in the reverse, you can probably find a question that matches most of what you want to share based on how open ended they are and how. Comprehensive they are, and if all else fails, most schools have a essay of your choice. You can always use that if at any time your essay is like, this is actually a little very you know, I took Tom creative advice with a whole new level, and now I'm on like, a really avant garde zone where I really don't know if this fits in to any of the questions. Revel in the fact that that option is always there in your back pocket, and you can always utilize that. Utilize that to tell the story you want to tell.


Ethan Sawyer  40:24  
And I want you on the record for this, do students have a better or worse chance of getting in if they choose topic of your choice for their


Speaker 1  40:32  
No, I have never, ever heard of this or seen this or like I genuinely never look at the question, ever. I never look and see what it was, or I never read an essay and be like they didn't really answer the question. Answer the question. Sometimes I'll read an essay and be like, this wasn't an essay about them. This was like a school paper about Ferdinand the great like that did not answer any question. Or like, it's not a personal essay. So basically, I guess, if you're thinking about what the admissions officer is thinking, they're thinking about the section of the application is called personal essay. If they get through the essay, and it is not a personal essay, you didn't fulfill that part of the application, the question that you're answering genuinely does not matter that much. Actually, it really doesn't matter. Like, I'm on the record, like, put me, if


Ethan Sawyer  41:15  
a student, I'm going to ask this in two ways. If the question is, tell us about one of the communities you belong to and what it means to bring that shared belief andor perspective to Pomona, and they don't answer that question, is that different for you?


Speaker 1  41:35  
Yes, supplemental questions are curated by the school to get a specific answer. Well, not a singular answer, but they are curated by the particular


Ethan Sawyer  41:45  
school to so what if the student goes great. I want to write a y us essay, and I want to talk about my visit to the campus, and I want to instead of it so, like, they choose that prompt, but instead they're writing about a visit they took and how their grandmother went to Pomona. Like, how does that land for you? If you read someone that has just not answered the prompt at


Speaker 1  42:06  
all, we look at it as a missed opportunity, because that's the chance for them to be able to suggest they're fit to us through the question that we post. And when we're reviewing the file, I'll be like, well, the students didn't answer the question. It's like, super awkward.


Ethan Sawyer  42:18  
It's like, I ask you a direct question, and you answer like, a totally different question. It's like, were you question. It's like, Were you even


Speaker 1  42:24  
listening to me? Yeah, yeah. And again, like, and this is where I really empathize with students, because I just told you with the personal essay questions didn't really matter, and now I'm telling you one page later in the supplemental section, but the questions matter Absolutely. So I get it like, and I know that it's inequitable, especially for people who don't know about Ethan's podcast and people who don't know about resources to learn more about some of these nuances of admissions processes from school to school. So I just want to put that out there that you know, I again, I'm mostly speaking on my experience from the two schools that I've worked at. I do think that there are some things that are by and large consistent across a lot of schools, but there's so much variability from school to school that I really can't emphasize that point enough about the importance of, you know, having some kind of, like, Google spreadsheet with, like, all the things that you care about most in columns and like, you know, the names of the schools and column A and just like finding either through sources of information you find on the web, or asking admissions offices directly if you're not getting the clear answer you want about how these different components of an application factor in or shake out, or kind of what their take on it is, because that way, you have a record of the things that are the most important to you, or the things that you are the most concerned about, and you have a unified, singular place to Go to that has that sense of organization for you to go forward and knock your application process out of the park as much as possible. For


Ethan Sawyer  43:47  
those of you listening who are thinking, wow, it would be really great if someone created that and could just like, link to that in the show show notes. If you go to the show notes, you'll find there's a guide called How to create a great college list. And you'll find a spreadsheet that's downloadable, that's free, obviously, that you can go in and you can track all the things that Tom's talking about. And then when it comes to writing your why us essay, which is Pomona, I don't think had one this year, but some schools, particularly selective schools, will ask, Why do you want to attend our particular institution? And there's a pretty specific there's pretty specific information they're looking for there. There will link a separate guide that's how to write the why this college essay, and it's a pretty popular one, and it's it's a good one to read about, because once you've written and spent a lot of time on writing one, the next ones get easier, I promise. But there's a specific spreadsheet that you can use to track the research that you're doing on a particular school and it walks you through how to do all that. Let's talk for a few minutes. I want to switch gears and talk a little bit about majors, because this was something that, when it came up on part one, you have said you had a lot to say about and so it seems to me that each year, you know, a student will ask me, if I apply to UCLA for Italian versus, you know, engineering, do I have a better chance? And I. Guess, my the larger question here is, like, how much does it matter when you're applying to Pomona, what you choose for your major, and you said it doesn't matter at all. But I want to, like, check that, because I imagine that there are some situations, or there are some schools for whom the what major you choose matters a lot, and you know for other schools that it just, it really doesn't matter. Great question.


Speaker 1  45:22  
So I would say it definitely is yet another factor that plays into conversation for a lot of different schools, some schools, it doesn't, you know, I know schools firsthand where, like, they are like, Hey, we we just admit students based on fit for the school. This is really what takes the precedent what they want to study is not as much of a concern to us, because we have data that shows from our school that most students change their mind. It usually all ends up working itself out in a nice, equally spread way. But perhaps there are some other schools, you know, where their applicant pool is more lopsided to certain areas, and the school has 30 departments, and if everyone's trying to go to three of those 30 departments, the reality of them all being admitted is absolutely not going to be mathematically possible in order to sustain all 30 departments, to provide students for all those different faculty and great resources and facilities that that particular college is providing, right, or sometimes schools might be developing a New Program, you know, or a new facility, or new spending attention and money and institutional progress and priority on certain areas that they're trying to grow. Obviously identifying students and admitting students who are going to fulfill and make that multi million dollar science complex of worthwhile is going to be a reality, right? So it does matter at some schools, like I actually did a tour. I remember this two summers ago. I did like a tour because I run the tour guide program at Pomona College, and the tour guide was very upfront with the families who were asking they he said, like, you know, if you are interested in engineering and you want to do at the school, the internal transfer rate is slim to none to that particular school. So if you want it, you have to come in from the beginning and know that it is the most competitive program that we have. And he was like, you just need to know that going in. I really appreciated the guide saying this to these, these families, not to scare them away, but just to be like, Look, this is the reality. Don't apply under something else, thinking that you can squeeze in through the back door later on, because it's not going to happen. I think that's a very real thing at many college campuses where, particularly where it's a larger university, and there's different schools, for example, where internal transfer between a school of nursing, a school of business, a school of arts and sciences may or may not be as possible as you think it might be as a first year applicant. So I do think it's really something to keep in mind, and you can ask the school you know kind of about what that looks like. Let's


Ethan Sawyer  47:51  
just do a sample email that I'm you're receiving from a student. Hi, Tom I'm such and such student. I'm so excited about Pomona. It's my top choice. I'm torn, because I'm very interested in biology, but I'm also interested in classical languages. Do I have a better chance of getting in for biology or classical languages? It's


Speaker 1  48:11  
a great question. And if I'm being honest, right, like you know, you're going to look at Pomona student body, and there are far more students who are interested in biology than those students who are interested in classics. For so many, for me to see a student who for me to see a student who's interested in two of those things with everything in college admissions, it operates in a culture of scarcity. When something is more scarce and rare, the more a school is maybe going to be interested in having that particular student on their campus, right unless the school only has one program or only is really only investing resources in one area and just letting the rest, you know, die a slow death. They're going to want to tell, you know, I would probably respond and be like, hey. Like, that's great. You know, both the departments are great. Like, let me, are you interested in pre med? Is that the, you know, onus of biology? If so, classics, you can be pre med and still do it, right? So, and I'm not saying like anyone who studies X major at Pomona, you know, is not going to be admitted, because there's so many other things that go into our process. And it is a list of review. They're all those qualitative fit pieces. I see there are going to be students who have done incredible biology research, or, honestly, incredible classics research, and have done all these things, and it's all they've done. And I go through the application, and I'm like, this was entirely one narrative about one, only one thing, and I have no evidence anywhere else. They opted out of rigor in certain areas in high school. I don't have evidence from any other place that, like they would be remotely interested in taking a single class outside of this. And our school is a liberal arts college. You take classes all across the board, right? So if you have only one thing that you care about at all, no matter where you go, at Pomona, like, that's going to be a harder pill to swallow for our process. So I'm not saying, like, some majors are completely just like, Don't bother, don't waste your time. And also, it depends on the year, like, some years there's a surge in applications in a certain area, and that can be for many reasons. That can be because. Of national conversations that can be, of course, you know, the pandemic, so much of the current conversation is about healthcare and health, and it makes sense that a lot of people are like, I really want to address this and go into this political strife in our society, right? Like, there's a rise in students who are interested in politics, and we like, that's great. So that variability piece around, like, situational, year to year distinctions, it can be a reality, like in a college admissions cycle for a particular school, and there are going to be a lot of schools that just don't care. They've done the math, they've done the research with their research team on campus, who like, measure how students go through their funnel, through their four years, and they're like, hey, every time enough students change that it really doesn't matter what they put down initially, because this percent of students change their mind. And I believe the national statistic, and I, you know, don't have the source to back this up, but I believe it's around 80% of students nationwide end up changing their major from their initial point of application. So schools know this. Schools are aware of this. It's something that is a reality of being a 17 or 18 year old and thinking about what you currently like, what classes you like, what you're good at, and using the application process as a point to identify programs at a school that most closely match up where you see your gifts and talents making an impact. And schools will see a lot of that from the activities you've done, from the teacher recommendations, from your counsel recommendation from the courses you've taken. There will be lots of other signals from a file suggesting what you're most interested in. And I know I touched on this a little bit on the last segment, but to have an apathetic application, that's just kind of like, I'll study whatever you want. I just want to be admitted. That's not really going to be a compelling response for an admissions office to admit. Show us what your curiosities are at this point in time. Us knowing that the possibility of change is very possible, and if you suggest and put out there in the universe in this one application that like these are what I'm thinking about right now, these are not the ironclad end all be all for me, I've seen the ways that these connect with other areas that I also sparked interest in. You know, that's something that's going to speak a little bit more to the broader academic culture and fit of the college. Well, I want


Ethan Sawyer  52:09  
to ask the question that some students are out there thinking is like, Well, how do I find out what a college wants every year? Is there any way to find out? And what I'm hearing from you is like, you can't know. And even if you ask the school, they can't really tell you, like, they're probably going to tell you, you know, what just apply with what you're most, you know, passionate, what you care about most, and the the niche that you're going to kind of fit in, right and then, and but I'm also hearing you say, like, in some cases, if it's a more uncommon major? Yeah, you might have a slight chance. Am I overstating by saying that, that you might have a slight chance of standing out? Now this is not to say on this podcast that therefore everyone should go pick weird majors, just to pick weird majors, right? But in some cases, I mean, you spoke to the scarcity thing, that students who choose that Italian major might have a chance if they're truly interested in Italian, and they got supported with evidence. Blah, blah, blah. They evidence, blah, blah, blah, they might stand out more than the 30,000 psychology major. I


Speaker 1  53:07  
mean, to be honest, I think you're spot on. I mean, like you said, though we can smell inauthenticity and crafted applications a mile away. Like you said, if a student's like, I really want I'm so passionate about this. And every activity is for something else. Everything in their application is related to something else. No, you're not like, or at least you haven't shown us that you are. So we often do a question that will ask each other in admissions. It's like, oh, this is documented through this. Or, like, this is validated through this, or this is signaling that they really have done great work in x, right? So that's something that colleges are going to ask as well as, like, basically, like, basically, like, Oh, what have you done? Not to say that you have to have done necessarily, like, research in this area. You have to have, you know, made this connection with the professor to show that you are incredible linguistics research that you've done. But that definitely, kind of, that validation piece is definitely also a part of the puzzle. Of, like, you know, it's it. We need to kind of see a little bit of, kind of, kind of, like, where this interest is coming from, and it needs to be just if it's an outlier, and it just feels like this is just weirdly coming out of left field, like it can just look a little odd and dissonant from the rest of the file. Give us


Ethan Sawyer  54:11  
some application deal breakers, like things that you've read that were just an immediate No, like you put it in the reject file, like when you saw it or read it, yeah,


Speaker 1  54:20  
one time I read an essay, and I still remember this essay to this day, the student wrote about how he was proud of how vocal he was in class and the prompt, or, like, basically, his essay was kind of about, like, Oh, of course, Juliet would have been happier if she did this. It was basically a very sexist comment, and it was just very tone deaf, very much. Like, you know, we tell people to be honest and authentic in their applications and if, but we don't mean it. Sometimes I'll read applications, and that's very rare. Like, I would say, most people have more self awareness, more proof readers, steering them in the direction where, you know, I read this essay, I was like, he must have not sent this to. Anyone where you usually have a sense of, like, at least checks and balances, where people will kind of check you and be like, All right, this is sounding a little braggadocious, and it's always that fine line between being confident in your abilities and owning kind of your awesomeness, but also, like, not being like, Oh, I'm the best person at this that has existed ever in all time. And like, I look at things that other people do and are like, Oh, that's cute. Look how adorable and quaint like that is just not a really likable quality in a person, let alone a student at a residential college. So I'd say things like that signals, or, you know, yeah, if ever like, there are instances where we're told that a student is consistently disrespectful, or, you know, deal breakers might be if we hear some really concerning things in a file that is coming from either the student's self disclosed like disciplinary history, or a lot of times it can come from those writing samples where people just, like, really rub you the wrong way, and kind of just Yeah, are exhibiting just nasty personality traits that are just not, not treating other people with dignity or respect or openness, or considering other perspectives, or really kind of just operating in a singular world. I think it can be harder to be enthusiastic about those applicants, even if they have other things in their file that make them more attractive and competitive. Like we've had files that we brought before that are like, okay, here are the priorities the student meets. Let me tell you my take on the whole file, reading it through and base and oftentimes, more often than not, like our team will agree with one another and be like, You know what? Like, it's unfortunate. These are some priorities that the college would really, you know, love to see in the student body. And the student has demonstrated that well. But like, I'm sorry, like, the residential environment that we're trying to put together in the class that we're building like, is far too important to have a seed like this that is demonstrating this be a part of this. So I think that will always decency and honesty and qualities that folks should aspire to embody are always going to trump priorities, no matter how hard pressed those can be for a school, I want


Ethan Sawyer  56:57  
to flip it for a second. Are there ever situations where a student has gotten awesome grades, and they've even taken tests and gotten great tests. Their extracurriculars were solid, their teacher recommendation letters were great, their essays were well written, and they told a lot about them, and they didn't get in. Does that ever happen


Speaker 1  57:17  
every year that's, I'd say, more than half the applicant pool, and that really just goes to show the influence that institutional priorities, selective admissions, we truly have far too many amazing applicants that we have space for. And every year, applications come into our complete slam dunk, and some will be wait listed, you know, because we could see them possibly being competitive down the line, depending the line, depending on how things shake out, some just because of the volume and the fact that we don't want to lead too many people on with the wait list that is already, you know, has more than enough students, more than we would ever, you know, take off. We would never take off every student on the wait list. It's doing a disservice to the student. Just courtesy wait list the student, when we want them to consider other options and and are confident that they will be admitted to other places. I want to give


Ethan Sawyer  58:05  
an example of that, and I want to see if there's a specific corollary or another example that you can think of in your history of working at either Pomona or college of Holy Cross. So I was at a conference once, and a director of admissions was saying how one year, the institutional priority that they had was to enroll more Well, the problem that they were having on campus was they were running out of parking spots, and they couldn't expand to create enough parking spots. And so the math they did, they thought, you know how we'll deal with this is if we admit a higher percentage of international students, then international students don't have cars, so they'll fly in, they'll come and we're going to solve it's going to help us with our parking problem. So that year that school happened to enroll more international students based on this parking issue. That's not surprising at all. Yeah. And the punch line, of course, is, guess what happened? When all those international students arrived in the US and got to campus, what did they buy? You know, went and bought cars exactly, and so they still had that problem. But I wonder if there's any really minute thing, and it could be Pomona specific, or from another one, just to plant in, in folks brains. How little control, in some cases, students have over the ultimate, you know, there is certainly things that they can control, which we'll maybe come back to, and maybe we'll close on that. What can students control? But just to give students a sense of, like you've said to me before, like, the application has gone through your read, you loved it, you know, a second reader loved it. It went to committee, and it went well, and then the student doesn't get in. What can you think of an example of, like, one of those institutional priorities that might play in, you know, the classic example is, like, the we needed another bassoon, you know, a female bassoon player. Are there any of those that come to mind? I mean,


Speaker 1  59:44  
that's definitely part of it, yeah. Like, basically what will happen is like, so another thing that slate does is like, you can run reports and projections of, okay, this is what the class will look like with all these students inside of it. Are there any areas that are lopsided is gender pro. Crazy imbalanced after committee. You know, is academic balance. Crazy unbalanced in certain areas after committee. Do we have a healthy percent of students who are first generation to college? Do we have all the instruments that the you know, music ensembles and performances and department are looking for? Are there ones that we've heard back that are top picks that we just heard from the chair of the music department that are more high press because they didn't get what they wanted an early decision, right? Like, there's all of these things that kind of we have to consider and factor in that were asked for by the college to do so that it do influence a lot of why, like, especially for students who are at that very last end of the phase, and who are what we call shaped out, and basically they were in the class at some point, some area was too high. They were sent to the wait list because of that, a state that's a big one too, like, definitely, like geographic imbalances where, you know, maybe and quotas are illegal. So, just so everyone knows, like, a quota system has been determined by law that, like, schools cannot be like, This is exactly the amount number that we are going to have a quota for that said, kind of a general balance and range of students that are kind of creating what the school might consider a desirable range, a representation of certain areas, is something that schools still do have the capacity to shape and control with their admissions process. And the vast majority of highly selective schools do employ strategies similar to that in order to bring in an architecturally crafted and built class that is representative of what the institution has asked them to bring in to your question about what students have control over. I want to leave this being honest and transparent and upfront that there are so many things again, with a highly selective admissions process, keyword, highly selective that are outside of the applicant's control. And of course, you want to put your best foot forward. We have a system, actually at Pomona that I don't know if I talked about this before, but we have a process where, and it depends on, kind of like your committee and kind of like just who is, kind of like leading the show in this particular situation that you're in. But essentially, the chip kid is like a student who, like you, just love as an officer. They meet everything that you feel like the school needs. You know, they just bleed the ethos. Again, I'm gonna keep saying it. It depends ethos. It's kind of like the dictionary. Mundane is memorable. We love the C's with the essay, that is something that the chip kid is basically, like, the kid that, like, you get the one kid, and some schools maybe they have, like, more, right? Like, you know, you get a handful of chip kids, right? But it's the kid that you're just like, all right. Look, I get that, like, the priorities are not all matching up with this particular student, but like, they are just too good to pass on. And this is my kid this year that, like, I think just deserves a spot here. And my two kids, when they enroll, I have a few on campus. Every time I see them, I'm just like, I'm so glad you're here, and you did it on your own. You got here, you made the app, you put together the application that impressed me so much that regardless of the fact that you didn't meet priorities, you still deserve to be here, and that can happen admissions a human process, human beings. At this point in time, an algorithm is not controlling the vast majority of highly selective admissions offices. It is human beings who are coming together to discuss and evaluate and using parameters and priorities to have that funnel and weed it and funnel it down to a healthy amount of students that can warrant a larger and more in depth and more fleshed out conversation. Those conversations that happen, decisions shift depending on who's in your committee, who's advocating for you, who is going to bat for you. It really does depend on advocacy, on oration of people on the other end. So that's also, I know, for students, they're like, well, now you're just telling me that's my faith in the hands of just people that can, like, be having a bad day, or, like, not have their coffee, and, you know, just feel like, ah, Today whatever. I'll just do what we want that I know is not a good feeling either. So I mean, that's just the end, I guess. And the summary of my advice, in a more succinct way, would be to spend your time and energy focusing on the aspects that you can control, because the better put together your application is as a comprehensive body of work. And think of it. Think of it as that. Think of it as that book, and with all these different chapters and layers and different sides of yourself that is going to put you at the best position for the vast majority of schools to be competitive in some capacity. Of course, at some schools, the priorities that you're bringing forward are just not going to match up. And that's something that's really sucks. And I just have to say that and acknowledge that, because especially when you fall in love with a place that is just flush with applications and applicants who want the same things as you, who have the same talents as you, who are coming from the same place as you, it's impossible for that school to admit all of you, in order to guarantee housing all four years, in order to guarantee small classes, to guarantee full financial aid, to guarantee the funding that make this place a transformative place for many people, right? That harsh reality is harsh, but know that there is going to be a school who. Sees all that either A, you mean priorities, or B, you just did such a good job. They're like, You know what? Like this person just screams. Insert school. We have to take this person that is not statistically impossible to achieve, and assuming


Ethan Sawyer  1:05:12  
they've developed a balanced college list that is


Speaker 1  1:05:15  
critical. Again, as I said before, a broken record. 3% of students, 18 year olds, go to highly selective colleges, 3% there is more to the world, and you will be so much more no matter where you go, when you know who you are, where you're going, and even if you don't know that, you're confident in the fact that like eventually going through it with intention and with mindfulness and with people supporting you, you'll get there. And I think that that's just something that I really want to leave this episode really reiterating and emphasizing to you all.


Ethan Sawyer  1:05:51  
Thanks so much for your time. Thank you. Ethan, Hey friends, that's the episode. Thanks for listening. You'll find all the links in the show notes, including the practical How To Guide. It's a demonstrated interest, how to create a great college list and how to write that. Darn why this college essay? If you're not subscribed on YouTube yet, check us out. And I say us, because it's not just me doing this. We got a whole team of folks behind the scenes doing all the things. Maybe we'll feature them on a future podcast. I don't know if you get an idea for a future episode or a guest that you'd like to hear featured, shoot me an email info at college essay guy.com I'd love to hear your idea. Thanks for listening. Talk to you soon you.


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