Common Data Sets

I wish more high school students knew about the Common Data Set. The Common Data Set (CDS) is a form that many—though not all—colleges use to report information about the college. It’s where the College Board, US News, and Peterson’s all get their data about colleges. When you’re ready to do a “deep dive” to get to know a college, their CDS is one place where you look. How do you find a school’s CDS? Just Google “[name of college] common data set.” For example, here is a link to Austin College’s 2022-2023 CDS.

Most high school students looking for data are going straight to section C: “FIRST-TIME, FIRST-YEAR ADMISSION.” Find out exactly how many people applied to the college, how many were accepted, and how many enrolled. Find out if they have a waiting list, how many people were offered wait list spots, and how many of the people on the list were ultimately admitted. Wondering how many foreign language credits they require? How many science credits they recommend? You can find out in section C of the CDS. Does the school consider demonstrated interest? How about legacy status? or first-get status? They’ll tell you in the CDS. They’ll also tell you how important things like class rank and interviews are to them. You can find out what their SAT and ACT midranges were to compare your scores (if you have them). Pretty much any piece of information you would like to know about their admission process is in the CDS.

But if you only look at section C for admission data, there’s a lot you’ll miss that may be important to you.

Section B: ENROLLMENT AND PERSISTENCE. This section tells you how many students there are, broken down by gender, ethnicity, and type of degree. It will tell you what their graduation has has been over four, five, and six years.

Section E: ACADEMIC OFFERINGS AND POLICIES. Here’s where you find out if the college offers double majors, study abroad, internships, and student-designed majors, and other programs. It will also tell you if there are subjects where all students must take at least one class.

Section F: STUDENT LIFE. This section tells you what kinds of housing are available on campus (like coed housing, special housing for the disabled, theme housing), what percentage of students are in sororities or fraternities, what percentage of students live off campus, if the school offers ROTC, and what kinds of clubs and organizations are on campus.

Section G: ANNUAL EXPENSES. Tuition, fees, and living costs are found here. Notice there’s a place for schools to check if the costs are not the same for each year. For example, Austin College’s tuition and fees are $475 more for first-year students than returning students.

Section H: FINANCIAL AID. You can look through the financial aid section, and I encourage you to. But remember that it tells you nothing about the financial aid that you will receive. You only find that out once you apply and are accepted.

Section G: INSTRUCTIONAL FACULTY AND CLASS SIZE. Here you can find out how many faculty members they have, how many of them belong to minority groups, and how many of them have doctorate degrees. You can see what their overall student faculty ratio is, and see a sampling of class sizes.

Section J: DISCIPLINES. This section tells you what majors they offer, and what percentage of students graduate with degrees in the majors. So you can see what’s offered and also what’s popular.

That’s a lot of detailed information.

A few things to remember. Not all colleges participate in the Common Data Set , and not all of them answer each question. So while it’s very standardized, it’s not perfectly standardized. Also, different schools publish their CDS in different ways. Most have it as a downloadable PDF. Some a downloadable Excel file. And some have it formatted into their web site and not as a downloadable file at all. But you’ll still get plenty of information from any CDS you can find.

Combing through the CDS of every school you’re looking at might be too time-consuming. It’s fine to begin with each sites like BigFuture, Forbes, US News, and the Fiske Guide. But once you’re seriously considering a school—once it’s in your top 15 or 20—then you should take the time to look through the CDS. What all does the document tell you about the school? What questions does it leave unanswered? These are really important, and they’re (usually)waiting right there for you online.

 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:

   What to think of college rankings

   Finding the right college can be like finding the right bottle of wine

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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 Angela Elisabeth

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What's changed since Covid?

Last week I had a lovely time talking with a local PTO about college admission. I was specifically asked to talk about how the admission process has changed since Covid. That’s a great question, and I talked about three changes that I’ve seen in my own small practice over the past few years. From everything I’ve read about nationwide trends, my experience seems to be pretty typical of admission for most people.

So what’s different?

1. I talk about testing a lot less.

To be clear: All of my clients have taken at lease one SAT (usually administered at school during the school day). Some take it more than once, and some have also taken the ACT. Most of them are choosing to submit test scores in their applications. Testing has not disappeared.

And around 4% of colleges require test scores—MIT is a notable example. So please carefully check the policies of any school you’re thinking of applying to. Most schools who are going to announce any changes to their testing policy will do so this summer, so check again in the fall.

But many schools that relaxed their testing requirements for Covid have decided to stay permanently test optional, and some are going test blind and not looking at test scores even if you have them—the University of California system is a notable example of this trend.

Testing is still a part of the application, it’s just not the stressor it was a few years ago. Almost everyone takes the test once or twice, accepts their scores for what they are, and then moves on. It’s been two years since I’ve had any kind of “testing strategy” conversation. Once or twice I’ve spent a few minutes talking with a client about whether I recommend they re-test. Once or twice I’ve chatted about the pros and cons of test prep. I’ve had a single conversation this year about whether a test scores is “good,” or “good enough.” And a quick email about whether or not to report scores. That’s it. Probably a 90% decrease in time spent thinking about, talking about, and writing about standardized tests.

(The most common test-related question I’ve had so far this spring is about whether certain colleges prefer the SAT or ACT. The students admit that colleges say that they don’t have a preference, but wonder if they really do have a preference. They do not have a preference. Colleges are very used to both ACT and SAT scores.)

In the big picture, I think this de-emphasis on testing is a really great thing. Of all the things you do to make a stronger college application, standardized tests have the shortest longevity. Better grades in high school, a stronger essay, more connection with your community, more activity out in the world—all of these things are a better use of your time in the long run than getting high SAT/ACT scores. So I’m fine with this development, especially for otherwise bright and promising students who just don’t do as well at timed, high-pressure, multiple-choice exams.

I also acknowledge that the de-emphasis on testing can be frustrating for students who had hoped to make their test scores the centerpiece of their application. You can still report your scores, of course. And really high scores are never going to be a hindrance to your application. But students should be a lot less confident on their acceptance to colleges based solely on high test scores than they could a few years ago—and they shouldn’t have been over-confident a few years ago.

2. The whole process has moved up by about two months.

My first few years doing this, December was really busy for me. Clients were finishing up applications for Regular Decision deadlines in early January. There were lots of questions, lots of last-minute changes to their college list, and quite a bit of last-minute edits to essays. Then I would have little to do in January and February, wondering if I would even be able to continue doing this work since nobody was inquiring about my services. But a little later, mostly in the week before Spring Break and the week after, calls and emails would start coming in, and I had close to a full roster by May.

The past two years, that whole cycle has been accelerated by two months. October has been really stressful, and applications have been largely finished by November 1. Almost everyone I work with has applied early—whether through Early Decision, Early Action, or just turning a regular application in early—to at least one school. Many, though not all, had at least one acceptance by mid-December and didn’t submit any more applications. Even the ones who sent January applications were still pretty much done early, though, since they had already finished things up for a November deadline. December has been pleasantly slow.

Just as things are wrapping up a few months earlier than before, things are beginning earlier. I almost always only begin working with students in their junior year, and March and April used to be when I brought most people on board. Now, I’m getting calls and emails in the first half of 11th grade. I had about half of my current juniors by the end of December, and by Spring Break this year I was turning people away because I have all the clients I need. January and February are no longer quiet, but now really busy.

I don’t know to what extent this earlier schedule is a national trend. It could easily be that I’m getting client inquiries earlier just because I’ve been doing this a bit longer and am more established. But I know that early applications are definitely on the rise, so I suspect that the timing shift is bigger than just my small sample.

3. There’s no “normal” number of applications any more.

I used to tell students that ideally they will be applying to four to eight schools, and that most apply to eight to twelve. I still talk about the four-to-eight goal, but there’s no longer a “normal” or “average” number of applications for my students.

As I said, the past two years have seen more students applying to a few schools early, getting accepted, and being finished. Although the number of clients who apply to only one college is still pretty small, it’s double what it used to be. And the number of clients who apply to four or fewer schools is also a lot higher. So, fewer applications…

…except the students who don’t apply early, or don’t get accepted early, are typically applying to more schools. If there’s not early success, then they get nervous and feel the need to send out more applications, just in case. I’ve had a lot of clients in the past two years apply to more than 15 colleges overall. Last year someone applied to 23. So students are applying to fewer schools or to more schools, but not as many students are applying to the middle of range of four to 12.

Those are the major changes I’ve seen in the past few years. And they seem to be normal. It’s a mess out there, and I haven’t got a lot of hope in the near-to-mid-future that it will get better.

What advice do I have for parents and students considering these changes?

Consider early 11th grade as the ideal time to begin thinking seriously about college admission. I still don’t encourage 9th or 10th graders to get too involved, because there’s still so much time for so much to change. But I know lots of parents my age didn’t begin their own college admission process until 12th grade, and that’s just not nearly as feasible as it used to be.

Think of November 1 as your deadline, not January 1. Some of the large public universities have earlier deadlines, especially if you want financial aid or campus housing. If you’re in a position to consider Early Decision, then consider it seriously. While I used to have “will you apply ED to any of the schools on your list?” conversations, now I mostly have “to which school on your list will you apply ED?” conversations.

Building a balanced list of colleges is incredibly important. I want all my clients, no matter how impressive their transcript and resume, to apply to one or two schools they are very confident they’ll be accepted to. I don’t discourage anyone from applying to as many “highly rejective” colleges as they want, but we work hard to have realistic expectations, and I want those Dream School conversations to happen after the conversations about confident-in-acceptance schools.

Remember that the best way to prepare for college is to be a good high school student. It’s not about “tips and tricks” or strategy. It’s not about secret formulas or inside information. It’s about being the best version of you possible, and then clearly communicating who you are. And as I say as often as possible: when you see unhappy adults, they’re never unhappy because they didn’t get into their top-choice college twenty years ago. College is important, but getting into your Dream School just isn’t that important in the grand scheme. You’re going to be fine.

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:

   Four things juniors should do now, before the end of the year

   Three pandemic changes I hope become permanent

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.

Three quick questions with the University of La Verne

For Three Quick Questions, I send the same three questions to admission representatives at colleges all over the country, and then I hope to hear back from them. The three questions are meant to probe some of the things that make a school unique but that aren’t easily captured as a stat to go in a book or web search.

Today’s response is from Luz Cabada, Admission Counselor at the University of La Verne in La Verne, California.

What is a course, tradition, program or event that is unique to the University of La Verne?

A tradition here at the University of La Verne is our annual Spotlight event. This is a weekend event where we host admitted students to the university. It provides students with an opportunity to get to know the university before decision day. This event includes campus tours, department presentations, faculty meet and greets, one-on-one appointments, student panels, food trucks, raffles and more. It is an awesome opportunity for us to show our LEO pride and give students a taste of the University of La Verne community.

Naturally every college wants to recruit the perfect student--high grades, high test scores, involved in their community, leadership...everything. But what kinds of imperfect students tend to flourish at La Verne?

Something incredible about the student population at the University of La Verne is that no matter who they are or where they come from, they receive a very personal and one-on-one education. We have very small class sizes (around 16 students per class). Students are able to get to know their professors and faculty members allowing for more opportunities and success. With this style of learning, every kind of student can flourish. You do not need to be the loud and outgoing student to stand out and be noticed by your professor. Every student can flourish at the University of La Verne.

When people come to visit La Verne, what's a place off campus that you recommend they check out while they're there?

The University of La Verne is located right in the middle of downtown La Verne. Downtown La Verne (D Street) is full of eateries and shops for students and faculty to enjoy! A community favorite is Warehouse Pizza located on the corner. There are also restaurants such as Lordsburg Taphouse, Fourth Street Mill, Allegro, and Miss Donuts and Bagels!

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. See which other colleges and universities answered the questions.

3. Is there a school you’d like to hear from? Let me know, and I’ll make sure they get the questions.

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 Angela Elisabeth. [The banner photo is not of La Verne. I use the same photo for all Meet the Class posts so you can spot them easily.]

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

Three quick questions with Marymount University

For Three Quick Questions, I send the same three questions to admission representatives at colleges all over the country, and then I hope to hear back from them. The three questions are meant to probe some of the things that make a school unique but that aren’t easily captured as a stat to go in a book or web search.

Today’s response is from Christopher Valenti, Admissions Counselor at Marymount University in Arlington, Virginia.

What is a course, tradition, program or event that is unique to Marymount University?

 Located just six miles outside our nation’s capital, Marymount provides countless opportunities for internships and research. Students are required to complete an Internship in order to graduate. Marymount students have interned with the White House, the State Department, the CIA, the FBI, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and countless other notable organizations in the Northern Virginia area.

Naturally every college wants to recruit the perfect student--high grades, high test scores, involved in their community, leadership...everything. But what kinds of imperfect students tend to flourish at Marymount?

I believe that all students have the opportunity to flourish at Marymount. Because we are a small, close-knit community, it is very easy to get engaged and involved on campus. Our average class size allows students to truly interact with their professors. So if you are a student who is looking for small class sizes, and a personalized learning environment, Marymount is the place for you! 

When people come to visit Arlington, what's a place off campus that you recommend they check out while they're there?

Arlington is very beautiful! You can go to the National Cemetery and pay your respects to the Unknown Soldier. Washington D.C is only 6 miles away, so I always like to encourage students to explore the monuments and Smithsonian Museums. Restaurant wise, I always like to recommend the Ballston Quarter located inside the Ballston Mall. There are so many food options to pick from! If you are a sports fanatic, the Washington Capitals &  Washington Wizards are just a few metro stops away! 

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. See which other colleges and universities answered the questions.

3. Is there a school you’d like to hear from? Let me know, and I’ll make sure they get the questions.

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 Angela Elisabeth. [The banner photo is not of Marymount University. I use the same photo for all Meet the Class posts so you can spot them easily.]

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

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:

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

2. Read these related posts:

   What do you want to be easier?

   What would you do as a bored billionaire?

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 Angela Elisabeth

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

What should sophomores do this spring?

Work at being good at high school

Everyone’s experience is different, I get that. But there’s a really good chance that this semester is going to be your Golden Age. For one, you’re almost half way through high school and have got the hang of it. You’re not a clueless and picked-on Freshman any more. You’ve cultivated relationships with fellow students and, hopefully, a teacher or two. And also, the big jump to more rigorous courses and more college pressure usually doesn't begin in full until the 11th grade. 

So now is your time to shine. There are a few things you should do:

Improve your grades. Set modest and achievable goals--like improving your grade in each class by just three points--and track your progress at that goal. Do this in a positive way by studying a little harder and giving an extra half hour of effort, but also do this in a negative way in the sense of working to eliminate one bad habit or time-waster. 

Continue to explore your interests. By now you don’t need anyone to remind you that school is about more than the classroom. 10th grade is when a lot of people make the move to leadership positions in clubs and teams, to getting after-school jobs, to driving, to dating. It’s also when you see a lot more people get into parties, alcohol, and drugs. You know all this, so just let me remind you to stay focused on you. Think about your interests, explore new ones, and work toward building some kind of expertise. Whether moving toward High Achievement or Dropout Prevention, it’s all too easy to get caught up in some Flow that doesn’t really fit you. Resist this. Get help when you need it.

Build confidence and clarity. There are dozens of ways to actively reduce your stress and build your confidence. If you haven’t yet, try at least one. Practice meditation; begin a workout routine; join a book club; take a low-stress online course; take on an art project; volunteer; write a short story; find a mentor; be a mentor.

Make summer plans

This is the same advice I have for 11th graders. 

If you need to work or want a job, that's great. As far as college is concerned it really doesn't matter what that job is so long as you work hard at it and are reflective about what you learn from the job. As you go to work, remind yourself to work as hard as you can. And when you're done, ask yourself what you learned from that day's work. Those two things matter so much more to everyone than the job title or name of the company. 

If you don't need to work, then make other plans. And here's the trick: treat it like a job, in the sense that you decide to do your best and be reflective. Even if you have the cushiest summer imaginable--maybe you're going to spend two months as a VIP on a cruise ship sailing around the Caribbean--you can still get a lot out of this. Just begin each day reminding yourself to make the most of the day, and end each day reflecting about what you learned. Whatever is you do, it can be useful for your college applications and useful for your productive and interesting life.

Sitting around "doing nothing" is the enemy of any smart and ambitious student.

Make fall plans

In his 5th century B.C.E. classic The Art of War, Sun Tzu says that the battle is won or lost before it even begins, because it is the preparation that wins the battle. Sports coaches love to repeat this wisdom about games being won during practice. The same principle applies to you and college admissions: the more you prepare now, the better it's going to be when the deadlines come.

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:

   The secret to success? Here are two of them!

   What are the strongest signs of success?

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.

What should juniors do this spring?

People often say that this is the most important semester of high school in terms of college admission. They’re usually right. This is the last full school year that will be reflected in your application, so finishing this semester as successfully as possible is important. If things don’t go well—especially for reasons out of your control—it doesn’t mean that everything is ruined forever. But doing your best, whatever that means for you, in whatever your current circumstances are, is more important now than any other time in high school. Here are some guidelines and suggestions.

Dates & Deadlines

I thin it’s safe—and wise—to make not taking the SAT or ACT as your default. There are several god reasons to test: if you live in a state where the public colleges require test scores, then you’ll definitely want to test and do as well as possible. If you’re pretty sure that you’ll be applying to an other college that requires it, then prepare for that possibility. And lots of high schools still give tests during the school day and it’s just easier to take the test than not. Those all are fine. But “it’s just the normal thing that everyone has to do” is no longer true and no longer a strong to take the ACT or SAT seriously. But just in case:

SAT: March 11 (register by February 10); May 6 (register by April 7); June 3 (register by May 4).

ACT: February 11 (register by January 6); April 15 (register by March 10); June 10 (register by May 5).

AP Exams: May 1-12

Work at being good at high school

The best way to prepare for college is to be a good high school student, and there may be no more important semester of high school--as far as college planning is concerned--than this semester. When admissions counselors look at you transcript next fall, this semester is the most recent and full picture they have. While they'll look at all your grades and activities, the junior year is more important. It lets them see how you perform in more rigorous classes and more leadership roles than you're likely to have in the 9th and 10th grade. 

What it means to be a good high school student—what it means to be a high school student at all—is drastically different for you. You haven’t had a “normal” year of high school. Keep in mind that everyone knows this. Everyone, from your teachers to school counselors to admissions officers, are in the same boat…or at least similar boars. They know that this hasn’t been normal and that transcripts and activity lists look really different.

So you don't need to add any stress or anxiety about this. You need to give this spring all that you have, to be as fully engaged and active as possible. Nobody is asking the impossible of you. If your circumstances require you to scale back your efforts this semester or are getting in the way of your success, begin thinking about how you will talk about those circumstances with colleges.  If you find yourself falling behind, take the time to talk with your teachers and family about how to catch up—if you can. If you need emotional help, go get it. Don't wait.

A lot of the pressure that smart and ambitious high school students have to deal with is the idea that one wrong move or bad grade will ruin your chances of getting into a "good" school. This isn't true.

Reach out to colleges

By now you've probably got a good idea of what type of college you think will be good for you, and you've likely got some schools in mind. If you haven't done so yet, reach out to them now. As a starter, check out their admission web pages and read what's there. Watch the videos and take the virtual tours. If there's an easy way to ask for more information or get on a mailing list, do it. If there's an easy way to ask a question, ask it. Many schools will even make it clear on their web site the name of the admissions counselor for your area. Remember their name and reach out to them. If you find yourself feeling anxious, remember that this process isn't about proving that you're worthy. This is just an introduction, a saying "hello." It's not going to hurt you or count against you.

If you don't have a good idea yet where you might like to look, do some exploring. I’ve found that students’ geographical preferences are usually their strongest preferences. People who thought they wanted a big school end up at a small school. People who wanted to major in STEM end up majoring in Humanities. But people who want to avoid hot places rarely end up in the Southwest, and people who want to be in an urban area rarely end up in the country. So try this: think of three states you might like to live in. For each of those states, spend some time looking online at their big state university, a liberal arts college in that state, and at least one other school in that state. In this case, it's ok to search for "best colleges in...." Don't take the list's word that those schools are indeed the best for you, but it's a staring point to look around.

Once you find something that looks interesting to you, reach out to that school. This reaching-out process is really important, but not necessarily for obvious reasons. Even though some schools take "demonstrated interest" into account, it's not real likely that filling out an on-line form in your junior year is going to be the one thing that gets you accepted to a school that would otherwise deny you. It's also unlikely that an admissions counselor will, a year from now, remember your name and feel more inclined to be generous. The reason reaching out is really important is because it helps to shift your own mindset. Proactively reaching out to schools and taking that initiative reminds you that you're not just a passive product to be offered to colleges. The power in the relationship isn't only with the schools--you also have a voice in asking questions, making decisions, and finding what's right for you. When you treat the process like finding a good person for a relationship, then you understand that you have to be an active participant.

Talk to 12th graders about college

If you're in the 11th grade, then you know 12th graders. Talk to them about college. Ask them where they applied and why. Ask them how they went about their search. Ask them where they thought about applying but didn't. Ask them for advice. Be a good listener when they talk about their own experiences. 

Lots of schools have some sort of get-together where graduates get to come back and give advice about college. If your school has this option then go, and listen carefully to what they say. Ask them not only about their college experiences, but about their application experiences. Remember not to take any of their advice--or anybody's for that matter--as the only or best advice. What worked for them may not be appropriate for you.

Make summer plans

Here's where I'm supposed to give very pointed mandates about thinking strategically and making plans for this summer that best align with your college goals and help "round out your resume," whatever that means. But really, I can't make myself do that. Because it really doesn't matter so long as you do something and you're thoughtful about it. But sitting around "doing nothing" is the enemy of any smart and ambitious student. That’s true in the summer, true in the fall, true in the spring.

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:

   Four things juniors should do now, before the end of the school year

   Should you submit test scores to a test-optional college?

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 Angela Elisabeth

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

What should seniors do with their last few months of high school?

When I taught high school seniors, I had a pretty reliable trick to predicting how the year was going to end: how soon I heard them talking about Prom. When all the conversations were Prom-related a few weeks before prom, no problem. When talk had turned to Prom as early as March or even February, I knew it was going to be a long and senioritus-filled spring semester.

Seniors, here’s to a happy new year, an exciting time in your life, and no Prom talk for many months.

Dates & Deadlines

AP Exams are May 1-12.

You should already know which AP classes you’re taking and which exams you’re likely to take. But seniors are in a weird spot: you’ve probably already registered for exams, since it was due November 15. So you had to sign up for AP exams not knowing how they might affect you or if you even want to take them.

For example, if you end up going to a college that doesn’t give credit for AP exams, or will only give credit for a 5 when you’re on track for a 3, then you may not want to bother taking a test that’s not going to benefit you directly. But you usually have to register for the exam long before you know which college you’re going to next year. Here’s the best thing to do: go ahead and register for exams and act as though you’re going to take all of them. Act as though each score of 3 or higher will get you college credit, potentially saving you time and money. If that turns out not be the case, then talk with your teachers and counselor about what to do. If you registered and paid for yourself, it may be easy to not sit for the exam—you just don’t show up. If your school paid for the exam, they may want you to take it whether you want to or not.Many seniors end up going into the exam room knowing that the exam either doesn’t gain them anything or that they’re not likely to get a good score, and so they go to sleep. While this practice, honestly, is not likely to have personal negative repercussions for you, it may have negative effects for your AP teachers and your school. So be thoughtful about how you handle an exam that you’re neither expecting to get much from or put much into.

Work at being good at high school

It may seem silly to talk about being a good high school student in the spring semester of your senior year, but the fact remains that you're still in high school and there's still more to be done. And yes, I'm very aware of "senioritis." Your parents and teachers may not want me to say it, but slowing down your last semester is completely normal and fine. Because it's true, you're not just a regular high school student any more. On top of your normal classes and activities, you also have a lot of college decisions to make. Many seniors go on more college visits once they get their acceptances and have to make a decision. Your time in high school is just about over. There are often Prom and Senior Trip and Senior Gifts and Senior Pranks to organize. And so it's normal and fine to begin a transition and be less committed.

But think about it this way: how crazy would it be for an athlete to be told she's going to be on the Olympic team, and then stop working out and practicing? How self-destructive would it be for an employee to get a big promotion and then celebrate by not showing up to work half the time and being rude to her team that helped her get the promotion? You're almost out of high school and into college. That's wonderful! Keep acting like a great student.

One way that senioritis works is for students to suddenly take on the "I don't need it to graduate" standard. Even good students find themselves failing classes or dropping their extracurricular activities simply because they don't need them to graduate. If your family has raised you with the bare minimum of parenting required not to get arrested for neglect, and your teachers have only done what was required to not get fired, then the "I don't need it to graduate" attitude is understandable. Otherwise, it's pretty reprehensible. Don't celebrate your transition to adulthood by acting like a toddler. It's that simple.

So what is a more healthy and productive transition? What, if you will, is Good Senioritis? Good Senioritis is the kind that begins to move away from high school realizing that you're moving Up. You act even more like a leader in your extracurriculars to pass your skills along to next year's seniors. You let the adults in your life know you appreciate all they've done to help you get to this new space. Even though you really are tired and stressed, you ask a lot of questions instead of whining or dropping out. Seriously, the last thing your teachers and parents need is for you to tell them how hard it is to be a responsible adult. They know. So ask them for guidance and be honest about your fears.

If you begin to jettison time-wasting school activities, fine. But also think about jettisoning time-wasting activities outside of school. The best way to prepare for college is to be a good high school student. While it's different being a high school student your last semester, you still need to be good at it. 

Choose a college

Most colleges ask for a commitment by May 1, and that’s the standard deadline for accepting or rejecting their admissions offers.  Take a lot of time to think about this. Talk to your family. Talk to your trusted teachers and counselors. Talk to your smart and ambitious friends. Talk to the financial aid offices. You’re not just making a choice about classes and professors, but a big part of your identity. Go back over the Five Foundations, especially the part about treating it like a relationship. Remember that while some schools may be a better fit than others, it’s hard to make the “wrong” choice unless you choose not to go anywhere.

Get financial aid

Most students depend on at least some financial aid to get through college. For most, the final decision about where to go is heavily--if not completely--influenced by financial considerations. Look through your financial aid offers very carefully. Ask a lot of questions. Talk to you family about money, often. Don't be afraid to ask a school for more money.

Make summer plans.

What do you need to do to get ready for college? Don't wait until the week before the fall semester to think about clothes for a new environment, bedding for a dorm, and transportation issues. If you've had a sluggish spring and need intellectual stimulation, see what your local museums or community centers offer. If you haven't had a job during high school, now is a good time to get some work experience, even if you don't think you need the money--especially if you don't need the money. It's tempting to treat this summer like a long nap, getting rested and doing very little before school next fall. But this is the best time to get prepared. Wherever you think you need improvement, be it physical, emotional, spiritual, financial, intellectual, or any combination, now is the time.

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:

   Three things seniors can do while they wait

   Seniors, it’s time to decide

   What if you get a full ride?

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.

How students can handle their Winter Break

What does a non-senior high school student need to do over this winter break to help prepare for college? In most senses, nothing. This is a break, after all. And, unlike 12th graders, you’re not finishing up applications for an early January deadline.

But in another sense, this is a great time to work on college applications, in the most broad way. The best way to approach college admission is as the beginning of a relationship. You’re trying to find the best match for you as a whole person. It’s not about proving that you’re worthy, or trying to rack up a lot of “impressive” things for your resume. You are, however, trying to be the best whole person that you can, and a break from school is a good time to plan and practice.

First, look over what I wrote for seniors. On top of finishing up college applications, I suggest that they should rest, read, re-asses, and spend quality time with people. Those are all true for you as well. Below is a list, which I first put together for my own 16 year-old, of things to try over the break that are neither difficult work nor passive consuming. I hope you’ll try some.

Go for a walk long walk, at least 30 minutes. Don’t play music or have any distractions. If you’re already a walker, take a different route than you’re used to. Pay attention to all your senses as you walk.

Clean and organize your room, bit by bit. Choose a small, discrete section--like a single shelf on a bookcase or one part of your desk--and clean it thoroughly. Then, when you’re ready, move on to the next. If you have the time, energy, and ambition, do a full “Konmari” of your room.

Read a novel. A good one. Preferably by an author you’ve never heard of. Read with your full attention.

Begin a meditation practice if you haven’t already got one. I like Andrew Weiss’s Beginning Mindfulness.

Improve your organization. I like Dan Charnas’s Everything in its Place: The Power of Mis-en-place to Organize Your Life, Work, and Mind.

Listen to some music. Preferably something you’ve never listened to before. Not just as background while you do other things—listen with your full attention.

Choose a work of art and learn as much about it as you can. Find information about it from as many good sources as possible. If it’s a work you can see in person over the break, even better.

Do a creative writing exercise.

Read a college profile. Or more than one.

Watch some School of Life videos.

Choose a place you’ve never been and plan an imaginary vacation there. Research online. Be as detailed as possible in your itinerary, learning as much as you can about the place.

Stretch. Then exercise.

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

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

2. 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 Angela Elisabeth

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

How seniors can handle their Winter Break

These suggestions are made with seniors in mind, but they’re good advice for anyone with a few weeks off this winter.

Rest. This sounds obvious--of course you're going to rest. You have several weeks with no school! But for lots of students--and adults--it never quite seems to work this way. You stay up too late, thinking you'll sleep in, and then you have to get up earlier than you expected. Or you spend too much time in bed or on the couch, and you feel sluggish and dumpy. You can only get good rest from your break if you decide that you're actually going to and schedule for it. Decide that you're going to get 8-10 hours of uninterrupted sleep a night, and then plan accordingly. The time you spend awake will go much better if you do.

Spend quality time with people. Now is a great time to catch up with friends and family, but, like good sleep, quality time with people is also elusive. You go to parties and gatherings, you have text or Snapchat conversations, you spend a little time with people...and then you realize that you didn't really have any good conversations. Quality Time is usually thought of as time you spend with another person giving them your undivided attention. Schedule some time for this with a few good friends and/or family members.

Re-assess. Now is a great time for reflection and regrouping. Here are several exercises to try to keep that conversation with yourself productive and useful.

Highs and lows. Like a lot of families, at our dinner table we often go around and share our high and low moment of the day with each other. It's a better conversation starter with school-aged kids than "how was your day?" and it reinforces that every day has both the good and the bad. Take some time thinking about--and sharing with someone else--your high and low points over the fall semester and your college quest. What worked? What didn't? What felt good? What felt bad? Consider it all.

Two-month time machine. When evaluating your semester and planning ahead, think about a two-month time machine. If you could go back two months to re-try the fall, what's one thing you really wish you could change? You obviously can't really do it, but it's a good way to think about "lessons learned."

Restate your dreams and aspirations. Take some time and write a personal mission statement for the year, especially if you're a senior and moving on to college next fall. Or if you don't want to be so college-centric but want to spend time thinking about what's really important to you, try the "last-year test" method of thinking about New Year's Resolutions. 

Read. It's really tempting to read nothing--or nothing of merit--over the break. You've read so much over the past few months, so why do it on vacation? The answer is simple: now you get to choose what to read, and you can make engaging your intellect fun for yourself. Besides, if you're ready to concede that the only reason you read or learn is because you're assigned to by authorities, then you may want to re-think the whole college thing. Take back control of your mind by reading something. It doesn't have to be Important Literature if that's not what you like, just choose not to be a mental slacker.

Don't do any more college stuff than you absolutely have to. As contrary as it may sound, you really should use your time as a true break and not college-planning time. If you put things off with the idea that you'd do them over break, that's perfectly normal. But get them done first and with focus. You're not going to send out good applications if you're finishing them a little bit at a time while you also finish gift shopping and meet with friends. Make a plan to finish your college to-do list as quickly as possible into the break. If you have December 15th or January 1st deadlines, get those things sent out first and with focus. There's no good reason to wait until the 14th or 31st to send those out.

Don't expect other people to work over the break just because you do. Virtually every year of my time teaching high school I got at least one over-the-break plea from a student. They wanted one last look at an essay, or a last-minute recommendation sent, or help getting their English grade up a little but before the final grades were turned in. How I responded depended on the nature of the request and the student doing the requesting. Sometimes it really was an unexpected opportunity for a really on-top-of-things student, and I happily did what was asked. Sometimes I put forth a minimal amount of effort to just get along. Often I just said no. But please remember that sending other people things to do over the break feels about as crappy and unfair to them as it would to you if they gave sudden unexpected homework over the break. Don't do it.

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. 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.

Practicing gratitude

Let me tell you about what I ate for Thanksgiving. My wife is a wonderful baker and cook, and she did something different this year. She made regular cornbread dressing, but baked it as muffins. She sliced the dressing muffins in half as a base. A layer of homemade cranberry sauce went on. And then on that went smoked barbeque turkey from my favorite barbeque restaurant in Houston. She put poached eggs on top of that, and then covered it in a sage hollandaise. Thanksgiving Eggs Benedict for a Thanksgiving brunch. (The benedicts were so good that nobody even noticed she forgot the pumpkin pancakes she had promised.) It was a very traditional Thanksgiving meal, only prepared in a different way. Everyone I told about the benedicts said something like “that sounds so good! Why didn’t I think of that!?!?”

Gratitude is on my mind lately. Because of Thanksgiving, of course. And also the wave of articles I’ve seen lately about gratitude being essential for good mental health. Like this one. And this one. And this one. I work with stressed-out high school students for a living, so mental health is always on my mind.

Gratitude is also the topic of the newest essay prompt on the Common Application, and I’ve been thinking of ways to advise people who are interested in writing about it.

Reflect on something that someone has done for you that has made you happy or thankful in a surprising way. How has this gratitude affected or motivated you?

I actually haven’t seen any of the students I work with attempt that essay yet. It seems to be a strangely difficult one to write. I suspect one reason students pass it up is because of the idea that your essay needs to stand out. It needs to be unique and individual. But, to a huge degree, we’re grateful about the same things: family, health, being relatively better off than others, having at least a little bit of stability. And the prompt specifically asks about being “thankful in a surprising way.“ That feels hard to do. Tolstoy wrote one of the most famous opening lines to a novel: “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” If you’re in a happy family, it seems, there’s no way to write about your happiness in a unique, surprising way.

I’m no Tolstoy, but I reject the idea that you can’t be both happy and unique. A grateful person can be just as quirky and individual as a miserable person. Someone with no “sob story” can be just as inspiring and worthwhile as someone with far too many sob stories. It may just take some more intentional thought to realize it. To write well about gratitude, we need to do what my wife does and make something both new and traditional. If you’re interested in cultivating gratitude, whether for an application essay, better mental health, or just as a thought exercise, here are some approaches.

Think small. You’re grateful to have a healthy body? Excellent. Now, be more specific. Pick three or four specific body parts, internal and external, and think about why you’re grateful for them. For example, I’m extremely grateful for my nose. Noses don’t get a lot of attention (there’s not q wide variety of jewelry or makeup for noses; ever seen a tattooed nose?), but I pay a lot of attention to my nose. It’s actually where most taste comes from, and I enjoy good food more than I enjoy most anything else. My nose contributes to a lot of my joy. As I get older and my allergies lessen, my nose is less a problem area for me. Fewer sniffles, more flavors. My nose is also a strong reminder of family. My mother’s genes for nose shape must be dominant, because all four of my siblings and I have her nose. Both of my kids have the same nose. My three-month-old niece? Same nose. There’s a variety of hair, height, and eyes in the family, but our noses are a reminder of our shared biology and history.

You can do the same thing for small items in your life. When it comes to gratitude, we tend to focus on the big things: beds, cars, computers, things like that. But what about the small things? All of us should be more grateful for toothbrushes than we are. And door locks. And ice cubes. There are probably many things people have done that you should be thankful for, but that you overlook. They’re probably small things. Work on thinking of some.

What do people praise you for? I ask all my students this question in our first meeting: what do teachers, your family, and other adults praise you for? When say good things about you, what are they? Everyone has difficulty answering this question at first. There’s always a long pause. But then, after they think about it, I hear wonderful things. My teachers praise me for being a leader who can get the group back on track. Everyone says I’m a good writer and can express myself. I’m the person people count on to ask a good question. People say I’m a hard worker. Thinking about what you’re praised for is a great place to think about gratitude. This thing you’re good at: what innate qualities make that possible for you? What people help make it possible? What systems and traditions help make it possible? What habits make it possible, and where did you learn those habits? What continual practice keeps you good at it, and who helps you with that practice? When a leader or a star wins a prize, it’s common to say “I couldn’t have done this without the team that made it possible.” When you get praised for something, think about it the same way. Who are the team that made it possible? Is there anything there to be thankful for in a surprising way?

Not getting what you deserve. Everyone wants to get what they deserve—nobody likes feeling disappointed or cheated But there’s a lot of gratitude to be found in not getting what you deserve sometimes. Start by thinking of times you got more of a good thing than you deserved. The seventh chicken nugget in the six-pack you paid for. The five dollar bill you found on the ground. The teacher who didn’t count a late assignment as being late, or bumped up a grade a little bit. Again, the things above and beyond what we deserve are usually small things, but that doesn’t make them any less available for gratitude.

Getting less than you deserve is often annoying. It’s often unfair. It’s sometimes truly tragic or oppressive. And sometimes it’s a blessing. I know several people who broke an arm or leg as a kid doing stupid things like jumping off the roof just for fun. I did stupid things like that, and deserve at least one broken bone. But somehow I lucked out and got less than I deserved. I’m grateful. At least once that I know of, I wasn’t paying enough attention and ran a stop sign. But there was nobody there to notice or to run into. I deserved an accident, a ticket, getting honked and yelled at. I didn’t get what I deserved, and I’m grateful. It feels good to get what you deserve, but there is often gratitude to be found in getting something other than what you deserved.

None of these exercises—looking at the small things, exploring the roots of what you’re praised for, thinking about the good side of not getting what you deserve—are going to quickly become a response to the Common App prompt about being happy or thankful in a surprising way. But they can eventually lead to a strong response. And even if they don’t, they can help you cultivate that healthy sense of gratitude in ways other than gratitude journals. Nothing against journaling, but it’s nice to know there are more techniques out there.

Here’s to a happy holiday season. I know it can be stressful and difficult, especially for seniors who, on top of all the other things, have applications due soon. Acknowledge and validate the difficult things, don’t try to just ignore them. But also find some small things to be grateful for.

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:

   Seniors, it’s time for thank-you notes

   To do better at school, think of studying like bathing

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 Angela Elisabeth

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

Three quick questions with Mary Baldwin University

For Three Quick Questions, I send the same three questions to admission representatives at colleges all over the country, and then I hope to hear back from them. The three questions are meant to probe some of the things that make a school unique but that aren’t easily captured as a stat to go in a book or web search.

Today’s response is from Kit Schulz, Admissions Counselor at Mary Baldwin University in Staunton, Virginia.

What is a course, tradition, program or event that is unique to Mary Baldwin University?

Mary Baldwin University is the first college in Virginia to offer Autism Studies & Applied Behavior Analysis as a major (BA).

This major is available to both residential and online students, with the option to obtain a Masters in ABA in one additional year after undergrad. We are proud to offer this program at Mary Baldwin.

Naturally every college wants to recruit the perfect student--high grades, high test scores, involved in their community, leadership...everything. But what kinds of imperfect students tend to flourish at MBU?

First generation students, which make up 40% of our student population, can thrive at MBU. Our McCree Center for Life Success in our library gives students access to counseling and academic support throughout their undergraduate studies. This is also a place where they can pursue internship opportunities within their field starting their freshman year.

When people come to visit Staunton, what's a place off campus that you recommend they check out while they're there?

As a Mary Baldwin alum, having downtown Staunton within walking distance of our campus is one of the greatest appeals of our school's location.

I would recommend the American Shakespeare Center, which is a couple blocks from our campus. The ASE is integral to our connection to downtown Staunton.

There are also plenty of cozy coffee shops like the By&By, which is on the way if you're headed to the theatre.

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. See which other colleges and universities answered the questions.

3. Is there a school you’d like to hear from? Let me know, and I’ll make sure they get the questions.

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 Angela Elisabeth. [The banner photo is not of Mary Baldwin University. I use the same photo for all Meet the Class posts so you can spot them easily.]

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

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.

Senior application checklist

Hey seniors, this is for you!

There’s a lot going on this fall. You’re still in high school, with all the classes and out-of-class activities that entails. You’re also in a crucial phase of your college admission season, the phase where you have to do a lot of things and send out applications. In case you’re feeling lost or unsure, here’s a checklist of things for the fall.

Do you have your recommendation letters taken care of? It’s getting late for this. If you haven’t got these taken care of yet, do this first! You’re probably going to need one or two teacher recommendations, plus a counselor recommendation. You may also want, but probably won’t need, a letter from someone outside your school.

How do I ask a teacher for a recommendation letter?

Do you want or need a resume? Most colleges don’t require one for their applications, so you may not need one. The important thing right now is to know if you need one or not. Do any of the schools your applying to ask for—or allow for—you to submit a resume? Do any of the people writing recommendations for you want to see a resume? If so, get that done soon. If not, that’s something that can easily wait until the spring or even summer.

How do I put together a resume?

Is you college list final? You’re probably going to apply to anywhere from four to 10 colleges. Have you decided which ones you’ll apply to? I’d like you to choose four right away: two with acceptance rates over 50%, one with an acceptance rate under 20%, and one with an acceptance rate in between. Then, once those are ready, add on as many more as you’d like. But stick with those initial four. If your current list doesn’t include any with high acceptance rates, find a few that would be good for you, and find them quickly. Schools you’re likely to be accepted to should always be a priority over schools you’re not confident you’ll be accepted at. For all the schools on your list, look up some key financial facts: average net price, average percent need met, and average debt on graduation. You never know for sure what a school will cost until you apply, but do a gut check using these key stats.

Creating a balanced college list, for everyone.

Will you apply early anywhere? Most Early Decision and Early Action deadlines are coming up in about a week. There’s still time to submit, but you need to decide soon. Really soon.

The Glossary: Early Decision

The Glossary: Early Action

Are you building relationships with the schools on your list? Have you joined their mailing list to get information sent to you? Are you spending time looking at their websites—not just to look up a deadline or fact, but just to browse and get a feel for them? If possible, have you introduced yourself to your admissions representative for the school? Have you put their application deadline in your calendar? Are they already on your Common Application list (and Naviance list if your school uses it)? Do you know if and how they conduct interviews? Have you attended any in-person and/or online tours? These are places where you’re considering a relationship of at least a few years. Make sure you’re doing the things necessary to understand, as best as possible, who the other side of that relationship is.

How is your writing coming along? While some of the shorter, school-specific prompts won’t get addressed until you’re sure you’ll apply, you will probably end up writing a Common Application essay. Get this done as soon as possible. If you’re not done with the “finishing touches” until a day before you’re going to send it out, that’s fine. But you should have a good, almost-ready-to-send draft at least a week before that. The essay is definitely not something to procrastinate with. Get it finished!

How do I write a great essay?

Have you filed you FAFSA? This is your first step to getting financial aid. You’ll need cooperation from your parents or guardians, and you’ll probably have questions. So begin soon. Your goal is to have this submitted by the time you apply. Make the deadlines the same.

How to fill out the FAFSA form.

Do you know your target budget? There is a dollar amount above which a school is absolutely unaffordable for your family and below which a college is affordable. You need to know what that amount is.

Three things parents should stop saying to their children about financial aid.

When should you send the application? As soon as you’re sure your application is ready, send it on in. Every year, more of the students I work with have everything sent out by November 15—even applications with January 5 deadlines. Once they have everything done for early November deadlines, they go ahead and send out the rest. If you can do that, great! But of you’re a person who doesn’t really work like that and tends to finish things right before the deadline, then plan on sending it three to five days before the deadline. Do not wait until the last minute. Do not put it off until the last minute. Do not hope everything goes right in the last minute. There are lots of things that can go wrong in the last minute, and you don’t want to give those things too much power over your future choices. Plan on sending it in three to five days early. If something goes wrong, you have days to get it fixed instead of minutes.

Wherever you are in this checklist, from just beginning to already finished, just remember to be deliberate, thoughtful, and thorough. Remember that this is a process to open up future possibilities, not to judge your past actions. This is a great time to be optimistic and proud. You’re going to be fine.

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:

   What are your chances of getting into your top college?

   Seniors, it’s fall. What should you be doing?

   What’s the right number of colleges to apply to?

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 Angela Elisabeth

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

Following your North Star

There’s a quotation from Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh that I return to often:

If you are lost in a forest at night, you can follow the North Star to find your way out. You follow the North Star, but your goal is to get back home; it’s not to arrive at the North Star.

It’s an analogy that Hanh use several times in his writing and talks. In all cases, it’s about not confusing the method with the bigger-picture goal. In his book Being Peace, he uses it when talking about how difficult it can actually be to follow even a basic guideline, like not killing animals:

If you are lucky enough to have a vocation that helps you realize your ideal of compassion, you still have to understand more deeply. If I am a teacher, I am very glad to have this job helping children. I am glad that I am not a butcher who kills cows and pigs. Yet the son and daughter of the butcher come to my class, and I teach them. They profit from my right livelihood….You may try to follow a vegetarian diet, to lessen the killing of animals, but you cannot completely avoid the killing. When you drink a glass of water, you kill many tiny living beings…..I am aware that my vegetarian dish is not completely vegetarian, and I think that if my teacher, The Buddha, were here, he could not avoid that either. The problem is whether we are determined to go in the direction of compassion or not. If we are, then can we reduce the suffering to a minimum? If I lose my direction, I have to look for the North Star, and I go to the North. That does not mean I expect to arrive at the North Star. I just want to go in that direction.

Rules, guidelines, and methods are great for helping us achieve our goals, but they’re not the same as the goal. We don’t follow the North Star to get to the North Star.

This understanding can be really useful when you’re working through college applications and start getting stressed about the expectations. My SAT score is in their bottom 25%—does that mean I’m not qualified? The college’s admission website says they recommend four years of social studies, but my I’ve only got three years—should I even bother to apply? I know that it’s good to visit campus, but I didn’t have time to visit campus—that’s going to count against me, isn’t it? Don’t get too bogged down in the guidelines and expectations. There are definitely some non-negotiable rules. But lots of the guidance and advice is just…guidance and advice, not the goal. Those details just let you know that colleges are looking for smart, hard working students who have already expereinced some academic success and are active in their college search. If that describes you, then put together the best application you can that demonstrates it. Don’t worry if you don’t check off every tiny box. You’re goal isn’t to check off boxes, it’s to apply to a college that’s a good fit.

It’s good to remember this in the larger picture as well. Your goal isn’t to be accepted to a particular college or a particular type of college. Your goal is to become a productive, successful, happy adult. Going to a “good college,” however you define that, is a path to that goal, it’s not the goal itself. If you’re not accepted to your top-choice school, or are denied from many schools and enroll at a “safety,” it doesn’t mean that you won’t achieve your goal of becoming a productive, successful, happy adult. If you are accepted to your “dream school,” it doesn’t necessarily mean that you will achieve your goal. If you cheat, plagiarize, and lie on your resume to get into a school that will make you feel good about yourself, you’re not likely to feel good about yourself. The hit you take to your integrity and self-worth will negate the temporary, superficially good results.

The whole process can all be especially difficult if you don’t know where Home is. If you only have the method but don’t know the goal, that can be demoralizing. I’ve known a number of high school students who knew to follow the North Star, but had no idea where they were going. They knew to get good grades, to have things they could put on an Activities List, to get accepted to selective university. But they didn’t have any goals or ambitions beyond that. They were following the North Star just to follow it, with no real idea why they wanted out of the woods or where home was. If they were being honest with themselves, some would probably see that they spent so much time and energy following the North Star to avoid having to think too much about Home. None of us have a goal or path all the time; all of us go through the motions of what we think we’re supposed to do until we figure out a higher calling or passion. It’s really common, and not necessarily a problem at all. If you think you’re doing this—that you’re following a method to reach your goals even though you’re not sure what you’re goals are—the first step is be honest with yourself and acknowledge that’s the case. The next thing is to be kind to yourself and curious about yourself. You’ll find your way. Get help if you need it. Just don’t expect that you’re going to arrive at the North Star.

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:

   The secret to success? Here are two of them.

   Expect surprises

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.

Creating a balanced college list, for everyone

When we talk about applying to colleges, we typically use three categories: Target, Reach, and Safety. A Target school is a school that you are pretty sure you can be accepted to. A Reach school is a college you’re not likely to be accepted to. And a Safety is one where you are quite sure you’ll be accepted—it’s a safe bet. The standard thinking is that it’s fine to apply to Reach schools, but you should focus on Target schools. And you should make sure you apply to a Safety or two, just in case.

According to this three-category framework, how do you know if a particular college is a Reach, Target, or Safety? One common way to determine is to use standardized test scores. If your SAT (or ACT) scores fall in the published mid-range of a college, then it’s a Target. If you’re in their top 25%, then it’s a Safety. Bottom 25% means it’s a Reach. Another way is to use the same method, but with your GPA. And one of the most popular ways is to use the Scattergram function in Naviance, which shows you how many people from your school got accepted to a college charting their test scores and GPA. There are also more anecdotal ways of determining, like talking to friends and family members who were accepted (or not) to the college, or extrapolating from a comment made by an admissions representative. There’s also the infamous “chance me” threads on forums like College Confidential. Knowing if a college is a Safety, Reach, or Target isn’t an exact science; you don’t really know until you apply and are accepted or denied. But it’s an exercise many students go through to put together a balanced college list.

One thing I’ve learned over the years working with students on admission is that, surprisingly, a less individualized approach is probably the better one. These guesses about whether a school is a Target, Reach, or Safety—they’re just guesses. They’re imprecise guesses that take up a lot of time and energy. I don’t think the time and energy are worth it.

What I do with my students isn’t radically different, at least on the surface. I still divide colleges into three categories, and the categories have to do with likelihood of acceptance. But I’ve let go of trying to draw lines for the three categories individually for every student. I use the same three “buckets” for everyone I work with. Trying to re-draw the lines for everyone is a waste of my time and a waste of the students’ time. I never look at scattergrams, and I never ask my students to look at them.

Here are the buckets I use.

Schools where you are highly confident you will be accepted. This is the category formerly known as Safety. For almost everyone I work with, I use a 50% admission rate or higher as the standard. I want everyone to apply to at least two colleges in this category. They are often, but not always, in-state public universities. These should be the first schools you choose. They are your top priority. Don’t make these a last-minute thought. Some of the unhappiest students I’ve known were the ones who didn’t put thought into their highly-confident schools and then were denied by everyone else. That’s a hard place to be, so take some time to find high-acceptance schools that are a good academic and cultural fit for you. Don’t daydream about other colleges until you’ve picked at least two from this bucket.

Here’s some good news: this bucket includes around 80% of colleges. Despite anything you’ve heard about how impossible it is to get into college, the vast majority of colleges accept more than half their applicants. It’s not a sacrifice to find schools that fit this category. You just have to decide to find these schools first, and then dedicate time and energy into finding them.

Schools where absolutely nobody should feel confident they’ll be accepted. Please hear this, and know I’m saying with the greatest amount of love and respect: if a college has an acceptance rate under 20%, you should assume you’re not going to be accepted. No matter how good a student you are, no matter how many impressive things you’ve done, no matter how strong a writer you are. These schools get so many applicants that they have to deny lots of strong, impressive students. Obviously some people do get accepted to these schools, and you very well could be one of them. But because the odds are so low, choose these schools last. Almost all of the ambitious and impressive students I’ve worked with think about these schools first. They’ve really internalized the idea of “Dream School,” and want to find the most perfect place for them. I understand that, but almost none of the most ambitious and impressive students I’ve worked with end up enrolling at one of these schools. (Even students who get accepted to one or more of these schools usually end up not enrolling at them.) Apply to as many of these schools as you want. Seriously, go for it! But don’t make them your highest priority.

Everything in between, with acceptance rates between 20% and 50%. After you’ve got your highly-confident schools picked out, this should be the next batch. And around half of your applications are going to be to these schools. It’s really the sweet spot. What I say to my clients about these schools is “I’d be pretty surprised if you got into all these colleges. But I’d also be pretty surprised if you got into none of them. What’s going to be fun is seeing which ones accept you, and I can’t predict that at all.” And I mean it: some of the happiest conversations I have with students in the spring is about their acceptances to these schools—and, usually, their choice of one of these schools to enroll. Because of all this, these schools should get most your time and attention. This is where most of the work is going to go, and where most of the payoff for that work is going to come from.

That’s it. Those are the three categories, the same for most of my students. Instead of Safety/Target/Reach, we have Probably/Maybe/Probably Not. And I tell everyone to use the overall acceptance rate—and ONLY the overall acceptance rate—to know which schools are in each category. We don't waste time trying to use other measurements, of either the school or the student, to try to figure out how to categorize colleges.

Are there exceptions? Are there students who should adjust the dividing lines for these buckets? Sure, absolutely. When I talk about “my students,” it’s not necessarily a representative group. As a teacher, I mostly dealt with students who were in multiple AP classes and had been identified as Gifted & Talented. As a private consultant, I work with families invested enough in this process that they’re willing to pay me to help them with it. So the lines I draw for the three “buckets'“ may not be the same for everyone.

If you haven’t taken many of the upper-level courses offered at your school, or if you’ve struggled with grades, or if external circumstances mean you missed a large portion of school or had a very rough patch of high school, you may want to bump the line for “schools where you are highly confident you will be accepted” up to 70% acceptance rates, or even 80% or 90%. That’s fine.

On the other end of things, I know plenty of counselors and consultants who use a 25% acceptance rate as their threshold for “schools where absolutely nobody should feel confident they’ll be accepted” instead of the 20% I use. That makes sense.

And occasionally I have students who skip the middle section altogether. After choosing one or two schools where they’re confident they’ll be accepted (usually because they have guaranteed acceptance somewhere), they spend all their time on a few more under-20% schools that really would be “dream schools” for them. They see no need to apply to a lot of colleges, and they focus on a small number of schools on each extreme. I love this approach, because it’s relatively low-stress, but it’s not a good approach for everyone.

Sometimes I have students with no interest in the super-selective schools and don’t apply to any of those. Again, this is fine.

But here’s the important part: whatever categories you realistically pick for yourself, you can do it once, quickly, and move on. It should be a general, 20 minute conversation. Decide a reasonable line for “highly confident,” with acceptance rates of at least 50%. Decide a reasonable line for “can’t be confident at all,” below somewhere in the 20% to 25% acceptance rate area. After that, use only the general acceptance rates for deciding which bucket a college belongs in, and make sure you’re keeping a reasonable, balanced list. Don’t spend 20 minutes or more on each individual school trying to guess how confident you are. That’s time that could go into writing a stronger essay, or being more active at school, or getting more time with your family, or getting more sleep. All of those other things are more important than scattergrams, I promise.

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:

   What are your chances of getting into your top college?

   Should you apply to all the Ivy League Schools?

   What’s the right number of colleges to apply to?

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 Angela Elisabeth

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

Help with money

When I talk to students about money, it’s usually in the context of financial aid and paying for college. However, there’s a lot more to money and finances than that one expenditure, no matter how large. Most students—and most adults—could use some help with financial literacy. “Financial literacy” is the basic knowledge of how to manage your money to be better able to live your life the way you’d like to. It’s one component of what we now call “adulting.”

To build up my own library of financial literacy resources I can share with students, I asked a bunch of friends—including two Certified Financial Advisors—what sorts of tools they would recommend to high school students. I got a lot of good answers, and I’d like to pass on a few them. Here are some good places to begin learning more about financial literacy: a book, a game, a podcast, and an app.

The book. Loaded: Money, Psychology, and How to Get Ahead without Leaving Your Values Behind, by Sarah Newcombe. While Newcombe’s 2016 book includes lots of practical things like assessments, exercises, worksheets and strategies, what makes it great is the focus on emotion and values. Loaded understands that money and finances come with very deeply rooted stories, experiences, feelings, and values. Money is loaded with our very sense of ourselves, our culture, and our families. Loaded begins with the psychology and ethics, and only then moves into the practical how-to exercises. Newcombe treats the readers as complex people, not just entities with bank accounts.

The game. Build Your Stax. This game takes about 20 minutes to play. You’re given a starting amount of money, and you get “paid” more on a regular basis. Your task is to invest that money as you get it, with the goal of making as much money as you can by the end. It introduces and explains, one at time, seven different investment types: savings account, certificate of deposit, index fund, individual stock, government bonds, crop commodiites, and gold. You choose how much to put in each type of investment, and then you can see how well you fare. You can play alone or with a group to make it a competition. You’re not going to learn how to balance your checkbook, manage credit cards, or budget from this game. But through repeated cycles of the game, you can learn a lot about how to balance risk and the pros and cons of different types of investment. Plus, it’s fun!

My stax, being built

The podcast. Planet Money Summer School. Planet Money has long been one of my favorite podcasts—just ask my kids, who have to hear “Planet Money did a podcast on that” all the frickin’ time. There are years’ worth of episodes to sift through to find what you may want. Luckily, the past two summers they’ve done a series called Summer School to go over the basics. These episodes are made with students in mind. Last summer’s series was on microeconomics (the kind of economics that’s about individuals, not national economies), and this summer’s series was on investing. Everything I know about economics—which is less than an actual economist, but more than most non-economists—I learned from listening to Marketplace and Planet Money. Planet Money’s Summer School can help anyone reach that level of understanding easily and quickly.

The app. YNAB. YNAB, for You Need A Budget, is a budgeting app that helps people set up and follow a budget. It’s made for your phone and is high-tech, but its basic methodology is old and proven: the envelope system. The app isn’t free, but there is a free trial period. And a month may be long enough to learn their four rules and see how they work in reality. I’ve found that budgets, like meditation routines or organizing systems, are highly personal and difficult to begin. But the more you try, and the more systems you try, the more likely you are to find something that works for you.

Good luck with your money, no matter if it’s a little or a lot!

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:

   Some fun financial exercises

   A good example of a family doing it right

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.

Productivity and time management for high school students

Maybe this sounds boring, but I enjoy thinking about organization and time management. I haven’t always been good at managing my own time productively—many days I’m still not—but it’s been a part of me for a long time.

I’ve been writing daily to-do lists for at least 30 years. I’ve read and absorbed Getting Things Done, Deep Work, and Everything in its Place. I read every post of David Cain’s Raptitude as soon as it’s published, and I was an early reader of his book How to Do Things. I’ve kind-of done Mission Control. I know the Pomodoro Technique.

I often tell students that the two things they need, for college or anywhere, are a time management system and a meditation routine. Still, I rarely give specific time management advice or recommend specific books or programs. The big problem for those types of books and programs for high school students is that…they’re definitely not written for high school students. They tend to assume family and work roles that are quite different from what most high school students actually have. The thing about time management for students is how little of your time you have control over. It’s about how to manage the time left over from when other people are, for good or ill, managing it for you. While I don’t have a complete guidebook to give you, I would like to point to three main ideas that come up over and over and over again in the guides made for adults.

Write things down! This rule is pretty much universal—everyone agrees: you have to write things down, immediately, in a consistent place. Whenever you get a new school assignment, whenever you make plans to meet anyone, or any other time you think “I need to remember to…” you write it down. Our brains are really good at lots of things, but they are not good at remembering all those details we tell ourselves we will remember. So we need to get into the habit of writing those things down, immediately, in a consistent place. You should have one (or maybe two, but never more than two) places where you write these things down. For most American teens, that’s going to be on your phone. Notes scribbled on little pieces of paper, on the top of homework assignments, or on post-its don’t work. Write things down, immediately, in a consistent place.

Then what? What do you do with everything that’s written down? Every day you go through those notes and do what you need to to do take care of them. Add items to your to-do list. Put things on your calendar. Set up a reminder, send a message. Whatever it is you need to do to get it off the note and into your life, you do that. Daily. Once this becomes routine, you stop forgetting (almost) everything. As soon as you have something to remember, you write it down. Daily you take those written notes and process them. Writing things down, consistently, is the most high-impact thing you can do to increase productivity and organization.

Wake up with the plan already made. You should make each day’s to-do list the night before. You should get the things you need for tomorrow the night before. Instead of waking up wondering what you should be doing and how you’re going to do it, you should wake up with the plan already made. Every night, some time between dinner and going to sleep, do three things.

One, look at your notes from the day. All those times you wrote down something that you need to remember can now be taken care of. Put things on your calendar; put things on your to-do list for tomorrow; set an alarm or reminder. Get all those things off your notes and into your organization so you’re not trying to remember them any longer.

Two, look at your calendar for the next day. Know what classes you have the next day (this is especially important for students with block schedules, where the classes aren’t the same every day), what you’re doing after school, if you have any special appointments or meetings. Know where all you need to be tomorrow.

Three, make your to-do list for the next day. It will probably incorporate things from today’s to-do list that didn’t get done. It will definitely incorporate what’s on your calendar and the things that you do on a regular basis. Wake up the next day with your plan already made. Your plan may change as the day goes on—it probably will. But that’s ok. You can easily go with the flow, because you have a system for writing down anything that comes up and for transferring undone items from today’s to-do list to tomorrow’s.

Keep your work spaces tidy. I’m not Marie Kondo, and I’m not going to tell you to tidy everything you own to reduce it to only the things that “spark joy.” I love high school, but there are a lot of important but joy-less parts of it. I’m not Admiral McRaven, telling you to make your bed first thing every morning. It’s not bad advice, but it’s not my advice. If you want to be organized, productive, and make it easier for you to be successful—however you define success for yourself—then focus first on keeping your work spaces tidy. High school students have several work spaces. Keep your backpack tidy—no loose papers or old snack wrappers. Put everything where it belongs so that you can find what you need when you need it. Keep your home workspace tidy. If you have your own desk, keep it clean so that you can use it easily without losing things. If you do homework and studying at a shared table or desk, clear yourself a space that’s tidy before you begin work. If you do homework and study on your bed, find another place immediately. Your bed is not a good place to do school work.

When you go into other people’s work spaces, you expect them to be tidy. You want your food from a clean kitchen. You want your school hallways and classroom floors to be clean. When you walk into a store you want to be able to find what you’re looking for rather than have merchandise strewn about in random order. If you haven’t already, begin the habit of making your own workspace as tidy, organized, and useful as you want other people’s spaces.

I’ll tell you what I do. I don’t expect it will be perfect for you, and I don’t even think it’s certainly best for me. But sometimes it helps to have examples, so here’s mine.

Every evening I make the next day’s to-do list. I use a Google Doc. Actually, I use six. Since there are so many recurring appointments and tasks that happen on the same day every week, I have a separate to-do list for each weekday and one for the weekend. The moment I pull up my to-do list, it’s already almost completely done. First I just look over it, deleting anything that can obviously go off the list because it’s already completed and adding anything I already remember needs to be added. I’ve got three sections. At the top I have “On the Calendar.” That’s where I write down appointments from the calendar, where I need to be at a certain place at a certain time. Then I have two columns for “Work” and “Home.” Under those headings, I have my list of things I need to do. I have them, roughly, in order of importance so I can start at the top. The first thing on my work to-do list, every day, is “tidy office.” Because I do it daily, it rarely takes more than 60 seconds, but I always do it first so I know I don’t have stray papers or gross half-empty coffee cups on my desk.

With that doc still open, I look at my calendar to make sure I’m not forgetting anything I have scheduled. If there’s something on my calendar not already in the “on the calendar” section of my to-do list, I add it. Then I won’t need to look at my calendar again for a day.

With the doc still open and my calendar still open, I look at my notes in my phone for things to add. Maybe I need to add something to the next day’s to-do-list. Maybe I need to add something to my to-do list several days from now. Maybe I need to add something to my calendar. When I’m done I delete all the notes, close the calendar and print the doc. I feel confident that I have captured everything that needs to be done.

And that’s it. That’s my example. Do I get everything done I should? Rarely. Do I keep myself away from distractions and spontaneous decisions? Rarely. But do I miss appointments or deadlines because I forgot all about them? Very rarely.

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:

   The secret to success? Here are two of them!

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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 Angela Elisabeth.

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

9th graders, what should you be doing this fall?

If you’ve just started high school or are just about to start, congratulations! I don’t get into generalizations about these being the best, hardest, easiest, most important, or more wasted years of your life. I just know that a lot of intellectual, social, and emotional learning takes place in high school. You are ready, wether you feel ready or not.

There’s not a lot to say about preparing for college while you’re in 9th grade. That’s still a long way off, and you’ve got a lot to do before you get to that. But if you already know that you’re planning on college or think you might be going to college, here are some things to do these first few months to start you down the path.

Work at being good at high school. This has an academic side—take the most rigorous classes you can, get the best grades you can, be involved in your education. But just as important at this point are the social and emotional sides. You’re easing your way into a new and exciting (and challenging) place. You’re going to have missteps, and you’re going to change your mind about things. That’s normal, and that’s fine. If you’re feeling pressure to make yourself into a perfect resume—from your family, your school, your friends, or yourself—just repeat this mantra to yourself and anyone else: the best way to prepare for college is to be a good high school student. If you find yourself feeling disconnected from high school because you’re already too immersed in test prep or overexerting yourself in too many activities to boost your college prospects, then it’s time to back off and reevaluate. Also remember this important rule: if the only reason you’re doing something is because you think it will look good to colleges, don’t do it. That’s not a good reason to do anything.

If by Halloween there’s a class that still isn’t working out—because it’s too easy, or too challenging, or not the right fit—bring this up now and see if there are schedule changes that can be made for the spring semester. Keep doing your best in the class, but understand that adjusting plans is something that all successful people do.

Explore your interests. Remember that the whole point of education is to help you be a productive, happy, and interesting person. You can’t and shouldn’t wait until some future date to start working on those things. Explore activities and interests that you haven’t before. Try out a new club, sit somewhere different for lunch, find an interesting question to ask a teacher you haven’t connected with yet. The great thing about high school is that you get to do a lot of growing and changing and developing—you’re not stuck being the same person you were at the end of last year or the beginning of this year. But the hard part is that you are in charge of that growth and development; it can’t happen passively. So try new things, read new things, listen to new things, talk about new things, think new things.

Begin good habits. There are two things you need for success in college and beyond: a meditation routine and a time management system. Now is the time to begin. The sooner and better you do these two things, the easier everything else will be.

Start talking to your family about paying for college. Ask them what the plan is, what your priorities should be, and how you can contribute. If they give you any of the three most popular answers (“don’t worry about,” “we can’t afford anything,” or “we don’t have enough to afford it but make too much for financial aid,” then please ask them to reconsider. You need something more specific. You’ve got time to have these conversations, but now is the best time to begin them.

I wish you the best in this exciting and difficult time!

10th graders, what should you be doing this fall?

Work at being good at high school. Take time to reflect and talk to your family or other adults you trust about the high and low points of last year. Work on making a plan to be even better at high school than you were last year. Keep taking the most rigorous courses you can, and keep doing as well at them as you can.

Think about college. You don’t need to know which college you want to go to, and you don’t need to have a “long list” prepared yet. But it is time to start thinking about it—I assume you have, since you’re here. Remember that you’re at the exploring stage right now, not the deciding stage. Ask older friends where they are thinking about going. Ask several adults you know and trust: what kind of college do you think would be good for me? What should I be looking for? Ask yourself what you think you might want in a college and what you hope to get out of it. Think about geography and areas that you might like to spend four to six years. Think about what sorts of things bring you pleasure and how you hope to pursue those when you’re older. Resist the pressure to decide what you’ll major in. Resist the temptation to look at college rankings. Resist the pressure to think you’ve got to have this figured out.

Now is the time to make “college” less abstract and more specific. Get to know a handful of colleges. Pick a handful of different types of schools—large public university, small liberal arts college, medium-sized university—and spend some time researching them. Look at their admission web pages. Look at their profiles on BigFuture and Niche. Follow them on social media. It doesn’t really matter which colleges you choose at this point, or if they’re a good fit for you. Right now you’re just getting a feeling for colleges. When you find yourself wondering “what do colleges want?” you have a place to go look it up. Change the schools on your “following” list as much as you want, but start following and getting familiar with a few places.

When you get recruiting information from colleges, hold on to it. Make a special email folder to archive all the "college stuff.” Have a box to keep all the materials you get in the mail. You don’t have to examine it all closely and make decisions about schools—but keep those resources near you. When it comes time to find a school that’s a good fit, starting with the ones who reach out to you early is a great strategy.

Find a mentor. You need an adult you can trust to give you advice. Academic advice; personal advice; advice about how and where to find further resources. An adult, other than a family member, who you see and speak to even when it’s not required. So a teacher that you can talk to outside of class, or a coach that you can talk to outside of practice, or a minister or spiritual leader you can talk to outside of regular worship. There are a lot of factors that go into productive, independent, happy adulthood. There’s no single magic formula. But having a mentor is one of the biggest factors, and it’s often overlooked. Finding a mentor has a lot of the same risks as making a new friend. You have to be willing to accept rejection and awkwardness. But it’s really hard to go through life without friends, and it’s really hard to go through life without mentors. If you haven’t got at least someone who fits the description, then there’s no better way to spend your time than searching for someone who will.

Expand your interests. Assuming that you’re not completely bombing any of your classes or dealing with trauma, the place you should be pushing yourself isn’t with putting together college applications or getting that math grade two points higher. The place you should be pushing yourself is in your personal interests. Begin looking for a leadership position in your club or team. Read more books about your interests beyond what’s required. Look for mentors who can give you guidance. Explore careers that use the same skills. For example, if you’re passionate about soccer and a member of the soccer team, that’s fantastic. But don’t just show up to practice. Tell your coach you aim to be a team captain as soon as you can. Follow your favorite team, and also learn about the history of that team. Look for summer camps or programs where you can be an instructor. Be a soccer player, but also be a soccer leader.

Maybe sports aren’t your thing, but by now you’ve probably got some ideas about what your thing is. Push yourself to expand your skills and your presence in that thing—even if not’s academic or something school sponsored. If what you do is spend hours a day playing video games—no problem. But push yourself to do more. Design a video game yourself; take a break to learn an esoteric or alternative game; research the history of game design; join a competitive league. If that doesn’t sound interesting, if what you really want to do is keep spending hours passively doing what you’ve been doing for years, then it’s time to shut down the games. The problem isn’t video games, it’s that you’re using them to avoid exploring something you’re more interested in and better suited for.

It’s perfectly ok to be interested in whatever you’re interested in—assuming it’s not violent or self-destructive. But now is the time to expand your presence in that interest.

And keep repeating to yourself and whoever will listen: the best way to prepare for college is to be a good high school student. 

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:

   Finding the right college can be like finding the right bottle of wine

   Three myths about college admissions

   What to do with all that mail you’re getting

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.