Meeting students for the first time

I haven’t been posting online much the past two months (or reading online, for that matter), because I’ve been busy meeting new clients from the class of 2024. The first meeting with a student is one of my favorite parts of the entire process, because it’s when I get to know these new, interesting people. I never stop being amazed and grateful how much strangers will open up to me within a few minutes of meeting.

What does that first meeting look like? One thing that’s really important to me is that we almost never talk about college in our first meeting. Because a good application process is about finding schools that are a good fit with the student, I need to know about the student.

Here is my outline for talking with students the first time. I don’t usually get to every question, and I try to let the conversation flow as naturally as possible. Whether or not you’re going to work with a consultant for college admission (you probably don’t need to), how would you answer these questions? How would you explain yourself to another person? What questions do you think I should ask that I don’t?

How’s it going? Two things I learned teaching high school: always begin a test with an easy question to put nervous people at ease, and always begin a discussion by asking what the students want to talk about. So I try to begin every meeting with a general “how’s it going?” or a slightly more specific “how’s school going?” 80% of the time the answer is “fine,” but sometimes students are ready to talk about really interesting things right off the bat.

What school do you attend? What’s it like? Most my clients go to the same five high schools, and I’m familiar with them. But it’s good to hear what the students think of school. There’s are huge differences between “I go to the health professions magnet school because I want to be a doctor,” “I go to the health professions magnet school because my parents make me,” and “I go to the health professions magnet school because I thought I wanted to be a doctor…but I’ve changed my mind and now I’m stuck there.”

What classes are you taking? It’s funny, but most students have trouble answering this question. They’re in their classes all the time, but they’re rarely asked to list them. It’s like asking someone to list all the rooms in their house; it’s so familiar that you rarely actually think about it.

What do you like and dislike about school? What’s working for you? The most popular answer for what students like about school: being with their friends. (Especially after pandemic lockdown.) The most popular answers for what they don’t like: taking classes they’re not interested in. And busy-work.

Have there been any big changes recently, either in circumstances or what’s working for you? If your high school life has a before/after structure, I’d like to know. Before/after you moved. Before/after your parents split. Before/after your injury. Before/after you got in some trouble. Before/after your diagnosis.

Who do you live with? What do they do? Parents, ask your children what you do for a living. You may be surprised by the answer. A lot of my clients have trouble answering this question.

What are your grades like? Do you have a GPA and/or rank? Asking “what are your grades like” often gets a narrative answer. Things like “mostly As, but Bs in math classes” or “not too bad, though I had a bad freshman year.” I follow up with asking about the GPA, but that narrative is much more important.

What tests have you taken (PSAT, SAT, ACT etc.) and how did you do? Do you plan on taking any you haven’t already taken or re-taking any? For years, I noticed that nobody was ever happy with their test scores. Everybody wanted to re-take tests and raise their scores. At least for my clients, that’s largely gone away for the past two years. Thanks to test-optional policies and general fatigue, most are taking the SAT once and being done. I’m happy about that.

Tell me about extra stuff at school. Tell me about extra stuff outside of school. Like listing their classes, students have a hard time with this. I’m constantly going back to my notes on this one to add something when they casually mention something they do outside of school that they didn’t list before.

What are your external limitations and special circumstances? Do you have any learning differences? Dyslexia? Anxiety, depression, or OCD? Do you care for your anyone in your family beyond the occasional babysitting or normal housework? Do you work job to help sustain your family? None of these things are a problem, but they are circumstances it's better to know about sooner than later.

What are your current career aspirations? What are all the things you’ve wanted to be when you grow up? This is my favorite question. Lots of “astronaut,” lots of “lawyer,” lots of “veterinarian.” Someone once told me “I had a spy phase, obviously.” Having someone list all their aspirations, even going back to pre-school, can be illuminating. For some students, there’s a clear theme. Some are all over the place. Some don’t really have a career goal. Late middle school seems to be the line where people either find new interests or begin to lose interest.

What do adults praise you for? I didn’t realize it when I began asking this question, but I can now usually predict the tone of the next year’s work with the student based on their answer to this question. I listen very carefully to what students say—and don’t say—when I ask them this. A few have basically given me an outline for an application essay, enumerating several intrinsic traits that adults have noticed in them and giving examples of how those traits have been helpful to themselves and others over the past few years. At the other end of the spectrum are students who have never really heard praise from adults. Most are somewhere in between.

Why do you do what you do? Everyone does at least a few things beyond the bare necessity of what they have to do to graduate high school. Why have they chosen the things they have? What do they get out of it? Where do they want to go next with those interests?

What’s the last book you read--because it was assigned--and enjoyed?  I don’t think anyone will be surprised that students rarely name a book they read for school that they enjoyed. Most reach back to elementary school to find a good example.

What’s the last book you read on your own volition and enjoyed? This usually gets much more robust and enthusiastic responses. And they’re often books I’ve never heard of.

How heavily do you edit? Big things like school essays and projects, and little things like emails and texts? My favorite responses to this question are the ones who essentially say “I don’t really edit much. I just go back over the essay five or six times, making changes each time, until I feel like it’s good enough. But that’s all.” This question gets more humblebrags than any other.

In the past year, what’s been your biggest victory? Let’s celebrate the good!

In the past year, what’s been your biggest setback? Let’s acknowledge the difficult.

For what are you most grateful? This one is really tough to answer. I know because most students begin by saying “this is really tough to answer.” But then they usually answer it.

If you could magically gain one talent or trait, what would it be?

What are you hoping to get out of college consultations with me? It’s never the student who hires me. Usually parents reach out, occasionally an uncle or a family friend. But there’s always something the student hopes to get from me, and it helps to know what it is. It’s also good for the student to understand that what they hope to get from our work may change as we go.

What else do you want to talk about? What did you expect me to ask that I haven’t asked? What else do you think I might need to know about you? I like to end just as open-ended as I begin. My first year or two doing this, I didn’t ask about test scores in our first meeting. I didn’t want to over-emphasize the numbers. But so many people told me that they were expecting me to ask about test scores and that they wanted to tell me about their test scores, I began asking. I now prefer to ask about ACT/SAT early in the conversation to get it over with, since so many are expecting to talk about it. Like with the opening question, the majority say they have nothing else to talk about or ask. But the ones who have something on their mind usually have something really interesting and useful to say. I always want to make room for interesting and useful.

 Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this post, here are three easy things you can do:

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   What do you want to be easier?

   What would you do as a bored billionaire?

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What do you want to be easier?

There’s something that I try to make very clear to my clients before I begin working with them. Everyone gets almost exactly the same speech:

I don’t do anything that you can’t do. You don’t need me. A million high school kids graduate every year and go on to college. Most do it without anyone like me helping them. I don’t have any secret techniques or special connections. You won’t get into college thinking that Benjamin Holloway got you there. You’ll probably, hopefully, forget about me. What I do is help you do it more effectively and more efficiently. This is your first and only time going through this, but I go through this with multiple people every year. So that’s something, and it’s not small. But you can do this on your own if you choose.

To be honest, most colleges could make the same sort of statement. You don’t need college, and you certainly don’t need any specific college. The benefits of a college degree are meaningful and real, yet around two thirds of Americans don’t graduate from college. College doesn’t automatically or effortlessly deliver you to your goals. What it does is make you more effective and more efficient at reaching your goals. College doesn’t make things good; it makes things easier.

To find the best colleges for you, spend time thinking about what you want to be easier. It’s not as simple as it sounds. You have to be honest with yourself and think expansively. There are probably several things you would like to be easier, and some of your hopes and expectations you probably don’t talk about openly.

Sometimes the best way to figure out what you want to be easier is to focus on replacing words like “good” and “best” with statements of ease.

Here’s one example: “I want to go to a college with a good chemical engineering department.” Ok. What does “good” mean to you in that sentence? What do you want to become easier? Do you want it to be easier to get a job in chemical engineering directly after college? Do you want to make it easier to get accepted into a graduate program in chemical engineering? Perhaps you want to go to a “good” chemical engineering program because you want to make it easier to decide if chemical engineering is really what you want to do, and you figure that going to a “good” program will make that more clear than going to an “mediocre” program. Maybe the desire, at its core, is more social-emotional than academic: you’ve spent years being a nerd, and you want to make it easier to hang out with other people who are interested in things like chemical engineering; you want to make it easier to belong.

And what if you don’t know your major, or you’re open to changing? When students tell me they’re worried about choosing a college because they have no idea what they want to do, I tell them that’s no problem— liberal arts are really good for undecided people. When I talk about liberal arts colleges being “good” for these students, and what I really mean is they make it easier to explore multiple options while still graduating in four or five years.

Another example: students often tell me that they’re interested in a place with a strong sense of school spirit. That’s perfectly fine, but think about why that’s important to you. What becomes easier? Is it because a school like that will make it easier to set up a lifetime network of friends and job contacts? Will it make it easier to find social events with people your age? Will it make it easier to feel part of a community that will last beyond the four years that you’re in college? Will it make it easier to do your school work, which you’re not super excited about, if you know there are sports events every week, which you are excited about?

I can anticipate some objections to thinking about how colleges make things easier for you. College isn’t supposed to be easy or to make things easy, some will say. It’s about being challenged, being out of your comfort zone, about being exposed to things that make you question your assumptions and even your identity. I don’t disagree—college, at its best, indeed does all those things. But also: any other aspect of life, at its best, will also do those things. College just makes it easier, because there’s a concentration of people and traditions whose job is to challenge you, and there’s also a built-in support system for dealing with the challenges. It’s like going to a gym. You don’t go to a gym because gyms are the only places with heavy objects to lift. Gyms aren’t meant to be easy, but you go to them because all the equipment, trained professionals, and support are in one spot. It’s easier to do the hard work. College, while hard, is the same. Yes, college is difficult and challenging. So much so that you go there because it’s easy to be challenged there.

While we usually think about college as a transition from youth to adulthood and focus on things like jobs and training, there are also deep emotional aspects of college. There are all kinds of things we want to be easier that college can help with. We want to make it easier to make our own paths while still making our parents and communities proud. For many, the thrill of getting accepted to a prestigious, famous college comes down to making it easier to feel accomplished and important right now, before college even begins. In our vague-but-real American class system, a college degree doesn’t guarantee you’ll be in the upper classes, but it sure makes it easier. That’s on a lot of high school students’ minds, even if they don’t articulate it that way.

I don’t think every student needs to go through this. The majority of students I talk to have a pretty good idea of what they want, and they can go straight to committing to that by making a College Mission Statement: “I want to _____ at a _____ school with _____.” But if you’re struggling to understand what you want, if the answers to lots of questions about your near future are “I don’t know” or “I’m not really sure,” then begin by thinking about what you want to make easier. Think about it academically, professionally, socially, emotionally, and spiritually. You can do almost anything. What would you like for someone else to make easier? Which challenges would you like the most support in tacking? Understanding that can help you narrow down your college search much more efficiently and effectively than looking though more lists of “good” colleges.

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this post, here are three easy things you can do:

1. Share it on your social media feeds so your friends and colleagues can see it too.

2. Read these related posts:

   How do I write a college mission statement?

   About the transactional approach to admissions

   What do colleges want?

3. Ask a question in the comments section.

Apply with Sanity doesn’t have ads or annoying pop-ups. It doesn’t share user data, sell user data, or even track personal data. It doesn’t do anything to “monetize” you. You’re nothing but a reader to me, and that means everything to me.

Photo by Zoe Herring

Apply with Sanity is a registered trademark of Apply with Sanity, LLC. All rights reserved.