109: How to Figure Out Which School is Right for You

Ethan Sawyer  0:08  
Hola, hola hola. This is Ethan Sawyer College Essay Guy, and this is my podcast. My goal here is to bring more ease, joy and purpose into the college application process. Because if you haven't heard yet. Those three terms aren't always synonymous with the college application or college admissions process, so I'm trying to do something about that. And y'all my guest today is just the person to help us. So I first met Dr Steven Antonoff at a NACAC conference. And if you don't know what NACAC is, it's basically the National Association of College admissions counselors. So we all get together and we geek out on college admissions for a week. But I heard him telling a story about how he used to like run on the treadmill, and while he was running on the treadmill, he would read the FISC Guide to Colleges, which is a 900 page book that is probably in your hands and your if you're or if you're a counselors in your office. And I thought to myself, who does that? And then I thought, that's amazing. So the cool part of this is that this is part one of a two part podcast. So Dr Antonoff and I focus on resources that students can use to help find themselves to figure out what they're looking for in a college. Part two of this podcast is with I just mentioned the Fisk guide, the author of the Fisk guide, Ted Fisk, so be sure to check that out. Needless to say, Steven, in this part one of this podcast, he's a student of colleges, and there's a reason his email is the school buff. He spent more than 30 years building his college knowledge, which is a really lovely phrase. And not only is he the recipient of an award given out to given annually to the person who's contributed the most to developing the profession of independent educational consulting, but the award is actually named after him. So on this episode, we talk about how many schools students should apply to, when the best time to start the process is he offers an amazing list of resources for helping students to get to know themselves better, stuff I didn't even know about yet. He answers this question. I ask him, what's the highest impact hour a student could spend if they were just going to spend one hour developing a college list. How should they spend that hour? He also talks about what parents and students might miss out on if they're only using US News and World Report. Oh, and he shares what he listens for, specifically when he's helping a student develop a list. Can you tell how geeky I am about this? He has particular terms that he uses, instead of reach, match and backup for schools on a list, he'll share those. And then we play this game where I basically give Steven some just search criteria, and he helps me develop a list, a college list, on the fly for myself. It's something that he would never do. He says, you know, without more information, but he's a great sport and and he plays along. But anyway, this is this man is a giant of the college admissions world. He's an amazing and generous mentor, and I consider him a friend, and I hope he considers me a friend too. So I hope you enjoy this first podcast, part one of two in how to develop a college list with Steven Antonoff, my guest today is Stephen R Antonoff. He spent more than 30 years building his knowledge of educational options, including 11 years in college administration, serving as dean of admissions and financial aid, Executive Director of Admissions and Student Affairs and Dean of Students at the University of Denver. He founded Antonoff associates in 1981 and has worked with more than 3500 students and families through his private practice. He's got a PhD in Human Communication Studies, an MA in education from the University of Denver, and a BS in psychology from Colorado State University. He teaches colleges and college counseling and educational consulting principles. He works with low income and first generation students through the IB program, Latino Association at a Denver Public High School, and helps provide guidance to low income students through college Summit, which is an amazing program if you don't know about it, check it out. He's the Founding Chair of the American Institute for certified educational planners, which I'm going to ask him more about in just a minute. And he's the author of college match and college finder, and these two books are two of my favorite books, and we're going to get into those more in depth in a minute. He's written bunches of articles and has been quoted by everybody from the Wall Street Journal to the Chronicle of Higher Ed and finally, he's the recipient of the IEC, a Professional Achievement Award. It was created to recognize the person who has contributed the most to developing the profession of independent educational consulting and the award, get this named the Stephen R Antonoff award has been presented annually at the National Conference Since 2014 Dr Antonoff, welcome to the podcast.


Steven Antonoff  4:58  
Thank you very much. Glad. To be here. Well, so


Ethan Sawyer  5:01  
one of the first things actually, let me, let me, let me start with this. I want to hear a little bit more about your email address, because for folks who don't know and who haven't emailed, Dr ants off before his email address ends at school. Buff and so, will you tell me a little bit about where


Steven Antonoff  5:15  
they Well, I was trying to think of an interesting moniker to to use many years ago, and I felt at that time, and I feel now, that that really I am, above all else, a student of colleges. And so it seemed to me that that school buff with 2f at the end just seem to to capture at least one element of of what I have wanted to do here. You know,


Ethan Sawyer  5:49  
sometimes my friends and I joke that, like we all have, everybody's got a PhD in something, right? And you have another different PhD, but you definitely have a PhD in colleges, you know, just given that Yeah, time that you spent studying them, right? It is true. So Steven, I want to get into there. It seems like there are two parts, and certainly the parts are connected, but it seems like when students are trying to figure out develop a college list, part one is figuring out what they want. And so, you know, you've written a book called College match. And I'm just curious about this book, because it really deals a lot with this. First of all, why did you write it, and who'd you write it for?


Steven Antonoff  6:28  
When I started, you know, in the dark ages, there were not, there was not the number of guide books. In fact, the the number of college guide books was was very small, and I developed a number of worksheets to use with my own students here in my practice in Denver. And after about three years of trial and error with a lot of those worksheets and materials, I decided that I was going to share it, because when I went around the country and and spoke a lot of counselors and students would ask me for those materials. And so I was, I was always running copies of them. And so I thought, you know, it does make sense to to make this, to make this a book. And I'm really pleased with how it's how it's gone. We're in the current edition. The 13th edition is the 25th anniversary edition. So it's a, it's a, it's a special, it's a special day for college match. Wow,


Ethan Sawyer  7:41  
that's epic. And it's, I mean, your contributions to the profession have been so ridiculously huge. And I didn't say this at the start, but you're, you know this, but I don't want to, I don't embarrass you too much, but you're kind of one of my heroes. And it's not just maybe you're like my hero in this world because of, because you've been doing it for so long, and a great model for me of how to be, you know, generous with your with your resources and your knowledge. At the beginning of this book, I'll stop doing that. I don't embarrass you. But at the beginning of the book, you start off with with 13 myths about starting a college list. And I love a good myth busting section. So I'm just curious if you have any like favorite myths to bust. You know, what are some misconceptions that folks have when they come into this process?


Steven Antonoff  8:26  
Okay, let me think about this. Well, I guess maybe one of the major myths is that two thirds of colleges admit over two thirds of those that apply. So I think the myth, the myth that college admissions is amazingly competitive, is is, is just really not true. I think there's a myth that there are only a handful of really top colleges and the rest are sort of hangers on, or worse. And and the truth of the matter is, the the more you study colleges, the more you know that that there are at least 100 maybe 200 truly elite colleges in the country. So that's one that I like to talk about. I think the there is a myth that admissions officers know what they're doing. And I have, and I have great respect, and I, as you mentioned, I was an admissions officer myself, but the truth is, at really selective schools, there's there's great consternation, there's great uncertainty about about, really, who to admit. You know, they work hard and they make good decisions and all of that, but, but the idea that that, that it's, that it's, it's really easy, and. And that that they know just what they're doing is is is totally false. Maybe the myth that if the college is more selective, then it's more academically rigorous, and there's a, there's a correlation, definitely, I mean, and there's certainly, there certainly is a relationship. But not always. There are schools that are more rigorous, that admit more students. They may be more self selective, for example, and and probably a final one that, that I'm, I'm thinking of, is the the myth that there's some kind of secret strategy which is going to get me into college, you know, if I, if I only wrote about my hot air ballooning over Tibet, that that would be that would get me in, or if only I did this, this thing, or if only I hired this person, or if only I did whatever that the notion that that that that college admissions is pre packaged, and that you can package yourself for admission is a is, is, is a total myth. Oh my gosh,


Ethan Sawyer  11:35  
I'm just nodding as you're saying this. And like thinking about the phrase that I use is like, crack the code, you know, yeah, that there's some kind of code. And if I just do this, and it's gonna work out. And so I'm really grateful that to hear you say


Steven Antonoff  11:47  
that, well, it's something that I hear, you know, I hear all the time. And and parents who are going through this for the first time, or even the second or third time, you know if they see an article, and, God knows, there's enough articles about college admissions these days, but you know, if you see an article that that that that that Buffy Smith got into Stanford, And she, you know, worked in a rural health center. There's a rush to rural health centers to to work, so you can put it on the resume and and that kind of thing is, and I'm all for Rural Health Center volunteers, but, but, but the notion that there's something that works for Buffy but also works for James and also works for Beth, is just not true, right?


Ethan Sawyer  12:46  
I love your names, Buffy and Biff Park. Muth and I were talking about this, about how there's like, he's like, I have to be careful in talking about spider essays, because people will listen to this and suddenly there will be, like, a surge in essays about spiders. Yeah.


Steven Antonoff  13:00  
Well, and it is interesting, and I think particularly in the area that you engage in most of the time essays, I think there's a, I think there's a feeling that, that there are certain topics that you should write about, or certain topics that you shouldn't write about and, and, and hopefully you agree with me that it just depends, you know, I've, I've read wonderful essays about divorce, I've read terrible essays about losing the presidency of the student council. I mean, it just, you know, it just depends on, on, on, on who that student is, and what the best way to to present what she is to the colleges is, yeah, and we,


Ethan Sawyer  13:51  
gosh, I was having a conversation at brunch this morning with a counselor I really admire, and we were talking about just sharing war stories and going back and forth. And he was sharing about some students who were accepted at highly selective schools, and talking about how, you know, he likes to have students write about the summer opportunity, whatever they've done in their summer before senior year. And I was sharing about students that had been accepted at great schools, and he was saying, you know, do they write about that? And I said, No, you know. I was just giving examples of how wide the range is and how you just never know. And there just came a point where I just gave up trying to crack the code and trying to figure it out, you know,


Steven Antonoff  14:27  
yeah, yeah. Well, and I think that's, that's a message, you know, for those that are listening, particularly students and parents, to try to be yourself, to try to try to communicate who you are and and not what you think the colleges want to know about you,


Ethan Sawyer  14:47  
right? And for students who are because, you know, students are 15, 1617, going through this process and not having, you know, in some sense. I mean, if I certainly if I'd have been asked at 16, who are you? You. Know, be yourself. It's like, well, what? So what are, in terms of, just in terms of developing a college list, what are some of the resources that you use? And feel free to reference the book you know some of these. You've got this great self survey for the college bound, for example, that's got all these questions, what are some of your favorite resources or questions to ask to help students figure out who they are and what they're looking for before we even get into the schools. Part of it, yeah,


Steven Antonoff  15:27  
well, I'm glad you asked, because this is the part of college planning that I think does not get as much attention, and that is really helping a student examine who they are, and, and, and as you say, they're developing and they are learning and they are growing. So the self survey, which is one of 12 or so worksheets in college match, was developed really almost exclusively as a conversation starter. I could care less if somebody is high on one thing and low on another. It's really, it's really to give. It's to give a student. It's to give a parent more insight as they begin to think about colleges. So the self survey results, the 80 questions that you mentioned, results in in six or eight categories that can be scored there. So that there's a there's a score for being a participant learner, for example, and there's a score for eagerness for college, and there's a score for independence, and and, and again, it's, it's, it's, it's a way to to begin to think about, to think about your yourself, to be to begin thinking about The the person that that you are. In addition, I like to, I like to ask questions, like, if you had a free day, what would you do? How would you how would you use it? Let's say you had a free day during the middle of a of a semester. That that can be, that can be really, really helpful. I like to ask, tell me about your friends. I like to ask if they feel like they've worked up to their potential. I sometimes ask if you could make a fortune without going to college, would you go? What I'm trying to do is, you know, Buffy is more than a GPA and a test score. And it really irks me when I hear people say, well, she's really bright, and what they're using as the rationale for that statement is her SAT scores. You know, we know what, what, what the test scores are. There they are a measure of a certain type of cognitive ability. But, but, but that's all and and so to really encourage students to think about themselves, to think about their friends, to think about the sorts of things that they do and like to do, and to think about themselves today, and Also think about themselves as they perceive themselves in three years or one year, or something like that. So those are the kinds of questions that I tend to use. Yeah,


Ethan Sawyer  18:49  
they're great questions. And I love how thorough the the this, this exact worksheets you're talking about are the self survey. In fact, early on, when I was just getting into this. I was like, hey, you know, I wrote to Steven, this is my side note to the listener. And I was like, Hey, can I turn these into a Google form? And, you know, share these with some students? And you were very generous to say, Yes, I'm curious. For the students who say you're listening in a country where they don't, they're not going to get college match. What resources could they use, you know, to begin this conversation with themselves? How could they start this process?


Steven Antonoff  19:22  
Well before I forget, the self survey is available to anyone on my website. It has been for years. It's both in English and Spanish. The qualities worksheet is also on my website. So So I encourage people to to use those wherever they happen to be, wherever they happen to be based. But you're you're asking about other ways to learn about themselves. Question, you


Ethan Sawyer  20:01  
nailed it. Okay, it was a bit of a question, because I kind of knew those were on there, but that's that's great. So just want to underscore that for folks that like you don't have to buy the book to get this resource. That's how awesome, awesomely awesome Stephen Antonoff is that you can get these. And I'll link to those in the show notes so that folks can check those out. But also, if you


Steven Antonoff  20:19  
want an autographed copy, though, you pay a lot, a lot, yeah, yeah.


Ethan Sawyer  20:27  
And, but there are, I mean, I know that you You're such a fan of other resources. Are there other things that you'll sometimes recommend to students? I mean, certainly this is, or at least if you're like me, it's like, well, this is the best thing that I could think of. It's the thing that I put together. It built. But are there other resources or things out there that you sometimes point students to, or do you pretty much say, Sure, do this, yeah, what are some other things?


Steven Antonoff  20:48  
Well, there's so many to really get to know a student. I use a lot of different modalities. I love the concept of multiple intelligences, and so to talk with students about multiple intelligences, about emotional intelligence, I think is, is really helpful. There are two worksheets that are on my website that are not in college match. One is a self knowledge questionnaire, and the other one is a college planning values assessment. So those, those can be, those can be helpful. I'm a big fan of card sorting and no Dells card sorts, K, N, O, W, D, E, L, L, there are several packages of cards that you can buy. One is, I think maybe career values, and one is called motivated skills, and another is occupational interests, but I find those to be to be very helpful. What else do I use? Even a really quick survey that I find with with some students to be helpful is true colors. It's it's maybe 15 questions, and then you're, you're marked as a certain color, and there are certain characteristics. Again, all of these tools are ways either for students to learn about themselves, for students and parents to have discussions about about these issues, or certainly for for counselors to to use with students. I like the you know, the career inventories. Do what you are. I use, I like, to encourage students to look at ONET for career information, I'm a big fan. I don't know if you use it Ethan, and you can tell me, but the Search Institute, I don't know. Are you? The Search Institute is, produces a number of forms. Their classic assessment is 40 developmental assets, and it's, it's specifically for for teenagers, and it's a wonderful way to to to learn more about the student that's, that's, that's sitting in front of me. I use it a lot. In fact, they have other tools, and it's, I think, search, hyphen, institute.org, or something like that. But some really good materials. I love the material at authentic happiness. As strange as that sounds, I have, I find that some of those tools in that website, and really this is, this is based on research at the University of Pennsylvania, and it's primarily geared to adults and and and how people can be happy, and things to to think about facets of happiness, but, but some of those tools for for teens, I have also found to be to be useful. So


Ethan Sawyer  24:29  
I'm curious too about this CEP thing. So what does it take to become a certified educational planner? Well,


Steven Antonoff  24:35  
the first thing is a master's degree or a lot of experience, it's really for a school based counselor or an independent educational consultant who has been in the field for a while, most people for a while. What I mean? Is maybe four or five, six years. It's not for the new person. I think the first step is always to join the professional associations, whether it be NACAC or or ICA or heca. But then what we are hoping to do is to create a pool of people who are really experienced and who want to sit for an exam. The exam is given at national conferences. It's given locally. And so I would encourage any professional listening who really wants to up their game to to consider being a certified educational planner. It's it requires 75 college visits every five years, and it requires 75 continuing education hours. So it's not only, you don't only demonstrate your background and abilities at the front end, you also demonstrate that you're continuing to be committed to the field, right?


Ethan Sawyer  26:13  
And so they're not just handing these things out, are they? That's true.


Steven Antonoff  26:17  
That's true, and it's a peer reviewed examination. It's very it's very fair. The best source of information about AI, about this, is a, i, C, E, p.org, and there's a lot of information on the website. There's the application itself. We typically present at conferences. So if somebody is interested, there's plenty of ways to learn about it. This is


Ethan Sawyer  26:48  
awesome, and for anybody who's frantically scribbling notes and trying to rewind the podcast, don't worry, it'll be on the show notes page. I'll find links to all of these, and it'll be easy to find there. So what I'm hearing you saying is that it's a conversation. I've heard you mention that a couple times, and I'm curious when what advice you give to parents and students in terms of when the conversation be, when's an appropriate time to begin the conversation? And something that is an impossible question I know to ask you, but I'm going to ask it because people are probably wondering is, how long does the process, or should the process, take? And I know that's kind of a loaded question.


Steven Antonoff  27:23  
That's all right, I'm glad to answer loaded questions. You know, college planning starts early. I mean, college planning, really, in many ways, starts in middle school in terms of time management, in terms of developing love of learning, in terms of personal qualities, in terms of thinking about how your curriculum is going to look through your your high school. So So college planning, in that sense, can start, start early. College identification, on the other hand, is something that that probably starts in earnest in in the in the junior year. I think there are, there are things that sophomores can do, and I encourage sophomores to do it, but I to think about, I encourage sophomores to visit local, local colleges, just to get some idea of of different types of colleges. I think there are. There are activities for sophomores. And clearly sophomores have to begin to think about the pre A, C, T and the pre s, a T and that sort of thing. But, but real college identification starts in earnest, as I say, in the in the junior year and and moves through the the really, the first semester of the senior year, and then after the first semester of the of the senior year, it's, it's a matter of waiting for admission notices from the colleges. And then in the second semester of this of the senior year, it's a good time to to talk about success in college and resources in college, and plan ways that that students can really maximize their college years. So how long should it take? You know, if it's much longer than about 12, you know, pretty condensed months, it's probably a little too long.


Ethan Sawyer  29:51  
Yeah, yeah, it's, yeah, that's great. You've answered my question, and because you've worked with so many students and. Really parents developing the students college list, hopefully, and I know that's loaded too, I'm curious if there's something that, if there's a particular factor, or a couple factors that you feel like students or parents should maybe consider, but often don't, or at least initially they don't consider it. Is there anything you would kind of throw out there as being like, here's something to think about that you that may not have been on folks radar.


Steven Antonoff  30:24  
That's a good question. You know, one thing that that I think is important and and I don't hear enough people talking about it, is the focus on undergraduates. I really you know, if you look, for example, at the schools in the Ivy League Athletic Conference, if I'm not mistaken, brown and Dartmouth and probably Princeton have the greater proportion of undergrad to graduate. If you look at Big 10 schools, you will you see that. And again, I'm trying to recall this, and I may be wrong, but I think Penn State, for example, is more undergraduate focused than than, let's say, the University of Illinois. So I think looking at that, I don't think, of course, that that should be the the end all factor by any means. But I I do think that a college that is it that really corrals its resources around the undergraduate experience is is something to take into account. A second thing that I think is is not looked at closely enough are good value colleges. I really you know you can be a good consumer here. You can really look at internship possibilities and and you can look at at the amount of research that undergraduates do, and you can compare that with the cost, a great resource, by the way, in in this In that area is educate to career. Educate to career has a listing. They have a, I think it's a, it could be a patented procedure for ranking schools. And they take, they take the kinds of things that I am talking about into account in their in their ranking. So so I do think that that you can find good value colleges, and if you can move beyond the myth that if it costs more, it's better, that the colleges want you to believe that and, and that's that's certainly not true, and, and, and I guess the other thing that I think about in this context is, I think that too many students have preconceived notions about small colleges, and I think that I think it limits their choice. I mean, the truth of the matter is two thirds of colleges in the country have 25 or 2500 or 3000 students. So the that's a large chunk. And I think that there's, there's too many myths. You know, there's nothing to do at small colleges. And you know, they don't app they don't have absolutely every possible academic area that I might be interested in. So, so, so I would, I would, I would throw that size factor in as as as something to consider. That's


Ethan Sawyer  33:56  
great. And I want to get into, you know, how students can go about finding colleges in just a minute, but before I do, I want to also speak to the student who's listening, who's feeling like, oh my gosh, this sounds like a really long process. And this guy just mentioned a lot of things, and that sounds like it's going to take me a whole year for the lazy student, if they were to just spend one hour on the highest impact and feel free to include college match in this the highest impact hour that they could spend on self discovery as it relates to their interests and preferences. You know, related to college. What would you say? How should they spend that hour?


Steven Antonoff  34:35  
Well, my first inclination is to tell them to go to the top of a mountain and think about themselves. I really do think that that self awareness comes from taking time to really think about who you are and what you. Want from college to talk with adults that you respect about the about the person that they see in you. I would, I would spend an hour of self reflection more than I would spend an hour with with a survey, or any, or any of the other kind of instruments that I that I have mentioned, awesome.


Ethan Sawyer  35:28  
I will go with that. So part two, I want to shift a little bit so once the student has done some exploration of interest and preferences. So the question that I'm going to ask you, and I'm not asking you this question yet, I'm going to ask in a different way, but just for the listener, for the listener, is OK. So how does a student find schools that match those interests and preferences? And so I just want to set this next part up by saying that Dr Antonoff has written my favorite book for the college admissions process. It's called the college finder. And actually, I won't say too much about what I think it is. I'd love to hear from your perspective, what is this book? How did it start? And and why? Okay,


Steven Antonoff  36:06  
so, the college finder, which is now in its fourth edition, started in the mid 90s because I have a terrible memory, and I when I started, when I left the University of Denver and spent several months visiting colleges. And by the way, I I knew almost nothing about colleges as as a dean of admissions, I knew about colleges in a very superficial sort of, sort of a way, and I really, it took time to really think about what I didn't know in terms of my visits, right,


Ethan Sawyer  36:55  
which is an interesting point, right? That sometimes we kind of project that just because someone is a an admissions counselor or officer or even a dean of admissions, that they suddenly know everything about everything college related. So that's an interesting point. So, and part of what I'm trying to kind of draw out of you is these stories that I've heard about you reading the FISC guide on a treadmill. Will you tell us a little bit about that? Yeah? Irrelevant, sure,


Steven Antonoff  37:23  
and I should be on the treadmill now, probably. But yeah. I mean, when I started, I read the FISC guide, cover to cover. I paid more attention to certain states that I was more interested in and that I thought that I would see more students that were interested in those states, but, but certainly I used the FISC guide a lot, and still, still think that it is as good of a subjective guide as as as there is so using that. And do you want me to talk about other resources? Oh, sure, yeah, go for it. Okay, you know, I do want to put in a word for for counselors and independent consultants. I do think that that, that they can be a big help in in trying to help a student find a good a good college but let me go back to college finder. So it started because I had such a poor memory and I didn't know, I didn't know any way to keep information other than lists. So I developed a, you know, a list of colleges that had a strong Greek system, and a list of colleges that that I felt like really had particularly valuable learning resources for a student with learning disabilities and so forth, and so that process led to the first edition, and it it has just grown from from that point The other, the other motivation behind college finder is I just feel like a good college shopper has to use more than one source of information, and and and, and I feel like using US News and and, and feeling like that's the end all in terms of learning about colleges is not a good method. And so I felt like the more lists, the more the more categories that I could present, the more possibilities. That the greater the chance that the student would say, hey, you know, I really didn't think about that balance between academic and social, but now that I see that list, that's, that's, that's interesting, that those are some schools or I never really thought about a school where that might be recommended by experts because it has the most flip flop wearers, or what, or what have you right?


Ethan Sawyer  40:28  
And I want to just, you know, I have the book here, but I want to just give examples of some more of these lists, like colleges where the LGBT student is comfortable, colleges with active African American communities making a large school seem smaller. You know, schools with honors colleges where English literature PhDs receive their undergraduate degrees. So some of these, I mean, and I love how specific and just how many of these there are. And the two questions I have to follow up on this one, you mentioned the importance of getting information from different sources. So as you have compiled these lists, you know over the years, what are some of the resources that you're using to compile these lists? Well,


Steven Antonoff  41:10  
the major resource is past readers of the book. I The dialog that goes on between me and and people who who read and and, and this is primarily school based counselors and independent consultants, but, but it also includes students and parents who Who share stories with me. So, so, so those are, that's a that's a main source, you know, Ethan, that the book has a number of lists called expert choice lists and and what I've done there is, is ask a select group of of school based counselors and independent consultants to complete a survey. And there are some 80 lists in the book that are from there so that colleges for the budding entrepreneur, colleges for the the the Hispanic student colleges, for a student who might be kind of on the on the autism spectrum, all of those have come from either the expert choice, or they have, or I have invited one particular expert in a particular area to to comment and to and to create their own lists. The other lists come from a wide range of sources, the NCAA, the there, there are associations of most academic majors. So the American biological Association, if they have information about biology programs that's included, there are a number of lists from the Hispanic outlook and from black Excel, there are a number that that that came to fruition here in this office as a result of of our research. So you know where campuses where movies are made and and things like that. And finally, a whole bunch of lists came from wintergreen orchard house, which is the publisher of college finder, and they were kind enough to let me use a lot of their lists. And they have wonderful, wonderful list of colleges that have unusual calendars and colleges that have the most acreage, and colleges in lots of different categories. Yeah,


Ethan Sawyer  44:11  
there's some more of these that I've jotted down. You know, colleges that are great for students needing a second chance, colleges with great a cappella groups, colleges for great for a student interested in Culinary Studies or ethnic studies, you know, you know major specific things. I love this. And I'm curious in the in the more recent edition, the most recent edition of college finder, what are some Can you remember any lists that came on your radar that you thought, oh, it'd be great to have a list for that? Any anything that pops up?


Steven Antonoff  44:36  
Well, the college for colleges for the flip flop Where is is new. There are a lot more majors this time. You might be interested in that the hardest part of college finder is the section on strength in May. In other words, schools with with great programs in psychology or in in business, because there's not a lot of good information out there. And so unless I feel like there, there's something that that that really stands out to me, and I think would help college shoppers. I don't include the major, but having said that, in this edition, we have way more academic fields. We have probably twice as many lists in engineering, for example, there's many more lists in fields like art, there's, there's, there's a lot more, there's a lot more lists, because I felt a little bit more comfortable this time with the data that I was getting. Yeah,


Ethan Sawyer  45:51  
and I'm curious in terms of the, you know, it's so funny. I remember this presentation about the myth of fit, you know, at NACAC a few years back where it was sort of like, you know, the liberal arts college that's touting, it's, you know, it's sports, and there's the research school that's starting. It's, you know, arts programs, and that there's sort of like, when you said, you know, college is being hard to, like, talk about major, it's like, Well, everybody's got a great psych program, right? Or, yeah. And so it makes me curious. First of all, actually, I have a question about that, but I wanted to go wanted to go back to this other question about if a student or a parent was just to be using US News and World Report the numbers rankings given there, what might they be missing out on, and maybe say a little bit about those, the US News and World Report rankings, because at this point on the podcast, nobody's really, really talked about those too much, although I imagine guests in the future might,


Steven Antonoff  46:42  
yeah, well, if you're only using US News, you're you're missing the depth that exists in in terms of colleges. What what US news does, and they do it well, is, is they have a one size fits all approach to colleges, so that every school is graded and ranked on the criteria that they set every year. So for example, the selectivity of the student, the the amount of pay that faculty members get, all of those things are included. So what do families miss out on is outputs. There's nothing in the US News ratings that have anything to do with whether anyone learned anything. There's nothing in the in their ratings that have to do with whether kids are happy at that school. There's, there's, there's only, again, input variables. So, so if, if you're going to use that. And I have families coming in here, and I certainly on my talks around the country, I frequently see families coming in and using that, and it's one Gage. It's a way of evaluating, you know, Ethan the interesting to me. And just as an aside, you know, we have decided as a as a country, what we're going to rate and what we're not going to rate. So so we don't rate churches, for example, because somebody has determined, well, how could you possibly compare this denomination with that denomination. How could you compare this with that well, my my feeling is higher education is just as diverse, and yet, you know us news that was having a hard time way back in the in the 80s and 70s, competing against Time and Newsweek, they decided that ranking colleges would be a bonanza, and indeed it has been for them. You've


Ethan Sawyer  49:10  
already answered my next question, but I want to ask it point blank so that you can just have a clear answer to it. So why don't you rank the schools you list? And again, you kind of already answered it. But why


Steven Antonoff  49:21  
not? Because there, what am I going to rank on? There are just too many variables. So, so, so if I can present 700 variables that students can look at and they can look over the list of of the titles of the Listen finder, and if they can identify that, that that they're interested in, you know, the the balance between academic and social, and they're interested in a school with a winning basketball team, and they're interested in a. In a Catholic school, or whatever it's, it's, it's a lot better to have more points of discussion and more points of of inquiry than it is to have one one ranking. So so very few of the you know, some of the some of the lists and in in college finder are ranked. I mean, you know, the colleges with the most acreage, or or something, something of that sort, but, but, but most of them are lists of colleges, and they're not intended to be exhaustive. They are simply intended to help someone begin to craft a list. Right?


Ethan Sawyer  50:42  
Do you ever get emails from schools that feel like they deserve to be on a particular list and aren't or And do you ever reject those requests?


Steven Antonoff  50:52  
You know, I do occasionally. Winter green gets them more than, more than I do, but, but, you know, it's, it's fine. This is a dialog, you know, I'm I'm not a journal, you know, I'm an I'm an educator and and, and I want to learn more. And so if, if a school contacts me about a program or about an athletic something, or about a type of student body that that I see that as reason for me to do more homework. And so I I check it out.


Ethan Sawyer  51:26  
I love that. I love that spirit about you. So I want to play a game for a second. I want to see if you're down for this. But I want to, I want you to help me. Ethan, develop my college list based on some preferences that I'm going to kind of like, basically make up right now on the spot based on sort of a combination of the things that I was interested in in high school and and things that I'm currently still interested in. So I want to play the role of high school student and give you some things I'm looking for and see if you might be able to give me some schools consider. Are you down for that game? Okay, sure. Okay, cool. And I'm part of just interested in seeing how your brain works as you're so feel free to, you know, talk out loud as you're thinking about why these schools might work. So okay, so one of the things if I were applying to college now still stands from when I was 17, and it's like, I would be interested in doing theater and doing and having Theater and Film opportunities, but not necessarily going to a Conservatory where I have to only do that, because the second thing that I'm really interested in is, like, going to classes where there are really smart people that are going to challenge me in terms of my like, you know, one of the things somebody said to me is, like, go somewhere where you've got, like, some class presidents and, and, or not class presidents, but like, you know presidents of journalism, or, you know, editors in chief. So a student, you know a place where there would be some editors and chiefs in the Journalism Department of their high schools and some presidents of drama, I want to go to a school that has size. I want to go to a mid level school. So I don't want to go to one that's just so huge that I can't get across campus, you know, on my bike. And yet, I don't want to go to someone so small that's smaller than my high school. So my high school was about 2700 so I want to go to a school, and so I'm going against something that you've said, actually, you know what? Let's leave it. I don't know if this complicates things more, but let's, let's leave it open. Let's go into like I would not want to go to a school that's like 1200 students or fewer, but if it's more than like 12 or 1500 that would be okay. And then I want to go to a school that has sports. I think sports would be great division one sports. And I would be open to going to a school that doesn't have sports, because the film and theater thing would trump that sports is a kind of like, it might be nice, but it's not a must have. I'm going to give you two more things to sort of think about. I want to go to a school where, with I'm not, you know, proximity to a town isn't necessarily important to me. So I don't need to be near a big city. It would be nice, but it's not a must have. So it could be a more rural school. I want to go to a school that, let's see, what's one more thing that I would really prefer. I want to go to a school that has a great I wouldn't have thought about this as I was going to high school, but now I would love to have a school that has great connections to internships and off campus, you know, opportunities beyond college, and so that would that does some kind of externship or some kind of programs where you can kind of get placed in the real world, where that's something that's emphasized in the education, and where that's something that that they really Think about, and that's that's discussed on campus. Are those enough search terms, or should I give a couple more? No,


Steven Antonoff  54:45  
goodness, it's more than enough. Okay, but what I want to know is for you to tell me a little bit more about you. Are you? Are you a little bit more? Conservative? Are you more liberal? Are you liberal? And do you like, do you like interaction with teachers? Oh yeah. I


Ethan Sawyer  55:11  
love, love knowing my teachers. I love those conversations. I like being able to walk with them after class, as they go back to their, you know, office. So that's that's cool. That's important to me. More things about me, I'm, you know, somebody who, really, who values those deep, late night conversations. You know, in terms of, you know, on campus involvement, I'm pretty choosy. It would be nice if there's a range of things, but I'm pretty selective in terms of the stuff I get involved in. What are some other things that would help help. I


Steven Antonoff  55:41  
think you've, you've, you've given me enough. Let me think about this. So here's, here's, first of all, I want to say that that I'm glad to play along with you on this, but I would never do this because, because I just feel like the development of a college list is really a process and and it really, it really takes time. But what absolutely and, but what I would hone in on first is not the major and not the size, not the the sports I would, I would focus in on what you said about wanting discussions and smart people. So because I think that will will be a really important variable in your happiness in college. So so therefore I would, I would begin to look at the smart people, lots of discussions of concepts colleges that would lead me to to places like Wesleyan, perhaps The University of Chicago, it might lead me to Carlton. It may lead me to St John's, but I'm going to get into the theater thing in a second. But that may not be good because of theater, but I'd be thinking maybe Swarthmore I might be looking at I because I again, I find that the kind of relationship that a student wants to have with peers and with professors is really important. So those would be some of the those would be the first ones. Then, then, then I would then move to thinking about theater, which may lead me to, oh, maybe to Boston University, maybe to Brandeis schools that have great theater programs, but also smart kids and so forth. Maybe, maybe DePaul in in Chicago might be a possibility. What else might I be thinking about? Maybe Yale could work maybe a school like NYU. That would be another whole set of of things that you'd have to tell me, but, but so, I guess so. So those would be some of my initial schools. And then I would say to you, all right, so let's start by reading these guidebooks and your grading each of the schools that I have mentioned on a A to F basis, and not on the basis of the quality of the school, but on the basis of the fit for you. And I would, I would tell you how to research, and then I would, I would give you those schools and ask you to come back with your research so that we could talk a little bit more,


Ethan Sawyer  59:12  
right? That's awesome. I feel like I'm getting the treatment. This is awesome. And one of the things that I found really interesting about that is that you kind of let some things pass by and honed in on what seemed like the part that I always tapped into. And you kind of, you're using your intuition there to sort of see what, where's the energy for Ethan, or where's the excitement? Yeah, yeah. Which is really cool.


Steven Antonoff  59:36  
Well, because, you know, obviously there's, no perfect college. But beyond that, you know you said you were interested in in d1 sports, well, unless I was convinced, and and I may be, after talking with you more that. Really a viable choice what? What I think students have to do is they have to think about the factors that they are most interested in, and then, what are the anchors? What are, what are the major elements of their search so, so if it's deep conversations, or if it's a program in engineering, or if it's a low cost, those things become anchors, and those things become obviously more important as the process evolves. Right?


Ethan Sawyer  1:00:33  
That's great. And so it's so interesting just to hear your brain work on this, because it seems that, on the one hand, it's intuitive in the sense that you're kind of looking and listening for these cues as to what these anchors are, and then it's sort of, it seems like it's pinging in your brain, like this encyclopedic knowledge of like, Oh, that makes me think of this and this, and this is really neat to hear that work. Well,


Steven Antonoff  1:00:54  
it's, it's, it's a process, and it takes, you know, it takes a long time and and on the other hand, there's, there's good information out there, and there's, you know, there's, there's lots of ways that students can go about finding a good match college. So once students


Ethan Sawyer  1:01:14  
have gone through the process and they've done some research, how do they what's, what's the measure of a great college list. Like, how does the student know when they've when they've landed on a good set of a good number of schools? In other words, so, and it's occur to two questions is, one is, are there any indicators to know when? Besides, oh, wait, we've just got to decide and start applying to know that they've kind of found it. And how many schools should students apply to?


Steven Antonoff  1:01:42  
The first part is, you know, in terms of indicators, tell me a little bit more about what you mean.


Ethan Sawyer  1:01:48  
So, you know, I imagine that students who are particularly perfectionistic or really digging into this process and parents would just keep researching this until, you know, they run it into the ground, and everybody's tired of it. So when can somebody know that they've done? It's kind of like, it's hard to know. You know, it's like when an essay is done, or when, when you've done enough test prep, it's kind of like you do it until the deadline. But are there any indicators that you've seen from students where you go? You know what? I think we're I think this is a great list for you. Yeah, well,


Steven Antonoff  1:02:17  
it's, let me say that normally it's earlier than people think, because you're never going to know enough about colleges before you enroll. I mean, you a student would have to take a year off between high school and college and visit colleges to really know so I guess I feel like when they visited different types of schools, when they have looked at more than one or two resources, when they when they have talked this through, and I'm talking About at home, as well as with their counselor at a certain point in the summer between the junior and senior year, I encourage students to to to not look any further. That doesn't mean that they can't add a school if it suddenly comes up, but, but I do think that that use the junior year, explore extensively, visit if you can afford it, and if you have the time, and, and, and, and be ready to have your list early on in your in your senior year. Great.


Ethan Sawyer  1:03:35  
And how many schools do you tip? This is, I know this is one of those questions you get all the time, but how many schools you typically recommend. What's the range?


Steven Antonoff  1:03:42  
Eight, maybe 810, it does vary, I think, particularly in terms of merit aid. I think you have to apply to a few more schools these days if somebody is hell bent on applying to a lot of the super competitive colleges, then their list has to be higher. If they have five, you know, low chance of admission schools they need, they need enough in the middle and in the backup category, right?


Ethan Sawyer  1:04:20  
And I'm curious more about those terms that you're using there. So some people call them reaches or Uber reaches, and other schools, they call them safeties or backups. How do you do you have certain words that you'd like to use and don't like to use? Or do you kind of use terms interchangeably when you're working with students?


Steven Antonoff  1:04:34  
I use low chance of admission, medium champ, medium chance of admission, and high chance of admission for the three categories, I think that reach sounds almost like you can't get it. Unattainable. Backup sounds like a booby prize, sort of which I don't like. And given that we're only talking about admission, I like to use low, medium and high chance. In the last few years, also Ethan, I have begun to use the the term wild card when referring to the colleges that admit less than 15% of the students who apply, which doesn't mean that they shouldn't be on someone's list. Of course, they should be. But I I think that that it's beyond low chance of admission. It's really a wild card. I love


Ethan Sawyer  1:05:36  
that. I might ask you if I can borrow that. That's really good, of course. So let's get practical for a minute. I just have a couple more questions, but I'm curious, you know, in kind of broad strokes, if there was a and you've answered some of this in pieces throughout this, but if there was a process that you would recommend for students to take them to arrive at a great list of colleges, what does that look like? And it doesn't have to be, you know, all the nitty gritty, but generally speaking, you know, we've talked about, okay, learn about yourself some and then learn about some colleges some. So those would be the two bullet points. But if you had to give flesh it out just a little bit more, what is the whole what does the process look like? All right,


Steven Antonoff  1:06:15  
well, everybody, or at least most people, have some notion of some colleges that that might be right. And so I think the first step is starting there. I encourage all students to go in and see their school counselor. Use the resources that are available at at your school, if you can afford to have a private counselor, or if one is available at a at a good fee, that can be very helpful, because we are again students of colleges, and that's, that's what we concentrate on, but, but, but talking to your counselor is a good way to go. I think, looking at if you're really lost at the first even doing some of the basic matching that's available on websites, big future, for example, prints and review, I think college data, it seems to me that they have something called College data for one, one or something, which allows you to plug in some variables and get some some ideas. So if you don't have a counselor that can, that can help generate the list, then use, you know, use Princeton Review, use college data, use big future some of the some of the websites that I suggest people use for is one would be unigo. There's some good videos you University TV has some good information. If you're really keen on going to the Rocky Mountains to school, you can look in Fisk and read about all the colleges in, you know, in in five or six states, and see which, which ones are appealing. And the last thing I want to mention, in terms of building a list, is, I have found that the comparison lists can be very helpful to students, so that, for example, the college completion, which is a part of, I'm pretty Sure, the Chronicle of Higher Ed, they allow you to put a name of a school in and then there's a there's a link to compare to peers. College results online also has you can get similar colleges. So if you think that that a particular school, or if your counselor is recommended a particular school, you might look there College. Raptor also has comparable colleges. Those are, those are ways, I think, of of of adding substance to your list, but, but keeping in mind that that that that you're not going to know everything there is to know. You have to be okay with some ambiguity, and particularly, you have to be okay with a friend saying, Oh my God, you're considering that school. It's a dump. You know that? Why would you ever look you know, you have people are going to express their opinions. You have to be able to deal with that. And you kind of have to know where you're headed, right? This


Ethan Sawyer  1:09:51  
is huge. I mean, again, for those of you who are frantically jotting all those down, they'll be in the show notes. Don't worry. Before we get to my. Last question, I want to do this little show and tell thing that's basically an opportunity for my guest and me to share a resource, and you've just shared some amazing resources that you're finding or that you found useful, either in the admissions process or in your life. So Stephen, what have you brought for show and tell today?


Steven Antonoff  1:10:17  
Well, I brought my group of toys that I have in the middle of the desk that I use for my counseling. They are, they're they're stress toys. Mainly, they're not loud. They're just, they're things you can push together. They're things you can, you can fiddle with. There's a lot of plastic things. To me, the college search process has become so stressful for so many kids and and I think we have an obligation as as advisors, and whereas parents to try to calm the waters, and so my my toys in the middle of my desk would be my show and tell.


Ethan Sawyer  1:11:09  
I love it, and I know the toys you're talking about, and I could hear a smile in your voice. There's a thing in the voiceover world where they'll tell you to read something again and say, Can you do it with a smile? And I could, oh, yes, your smile. It's true. So my show and tell is and I'm writing it as you're talking. I'm rewriting it as you're talking. I created this how to create a great college list, in large part, you know, based on your resources and the resources you know that you know Ted Fisk put together in his Fisk guide. But I'm rewriting it in my mind and editing it, and I'll be posting a link to it at the bottom of the show notes. And one of the resources on there is one that we haven't mentioned yet on this podcast. But would you be willing to say just two words on on the college Express, the relationship between college finder and college Express, because some students, again, out there may be like, Man, that sounds like a really cool book, but we don't, you know, Amazon doesn't deliver to, you know, my street, or, you know, they can't get this book. So for students who can't access these college finder lists, or can't get the book, or think they can't, you know, what do you say to them, where do they how do they get this these? How do they get access to these lists?


Steven Antonoff  1:12:14  
Sure, sure. Well, college Express is, is a website that has all of the lists from college finder. College Express is a part of the winter green orchard house publishing world, and I have given them the right to to use the lists when the new editions come out, like the one that just came out, it's going to be a few months before those lists are are online, but there's a lot of good lists from the last edition that are on college Express so and and the ones for the new edition will be there soon.


Ethan Sawyer  1:12:59  
Awesome. And I will again, link to that in my this resource, how to create a great college list, which I hope you all will check out. So last question, Stephen, what? Why do you do what you do?


Steven Antonoff  1:13:14  
Why do I do what I do? Well, I guess I do it mainly because people need good advice, and I like to be needed, you know, I really, you know, this is a huge expense nowadays. It's a huge commitment of time. You're taking a person at a volatile age, an age where they can really grow in so many different ways. And it's, it's, it's such an important decision that that if I can help someone, if I can identify a college that they might not have thought about. That's the reason that I continue to love what I do.


Ethan Sawyer  1:14:12  
Well, you've just beautifully modeled how to write a college essay, and that you came to that question with vulnerability, with core values, with insight and with craft. So I thank you for that.


Steven Antonoff  1:14:22  
So will I get an A from the College Essay Guy? Get an A plus, plus. All right,


Ethan Sawyer  1:14:29  
my friend. Thank you so so much for for all that you do and have done and continue to do, for for me and for this profession, it's just, you're just, you're awesome,


Steven Antonoff  1:14:37  
you're very kind. Ethan, it's a pleasure, and I'm I'm honored that you would ask me to do this. Thank you very much,


Ethan Sawyer  1:14:47  
friends. Thanks so much. That's the podcast. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you learned some stuff. Make sure to check out the blog post that I wrote that's that basically takes a lot of the resources that he. Talks about and the resources that I'll talk about on the next podcast episode. And I put it into like a three page PDF that you can download and just follow the steps it'll save you. This is I also call this my resource for saving you $3,480


and I explain why in the blog post. So check out the show notes for that. That's it. Have an awesome everything you.


Transcribed by https://otter.ai