Kevin McMullin

College admissions advice for students, parents, and counselors

Better effort = better results

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If you bought a four-year, all-inclusive pass to your gym for $15,000, $30,000, or $50,000, would you work out halfheartedly and hope for the best? Or would you squeeze out every opportunity, every personal training session, every spin and Pilates and yoga class that you could?

Just belonging to a gym—even a high-end one—won’t transform you into a fit person. And just enrolling in a college—even a prestigious one—won’t transform you into a successful person.

In both cases, the better the effort, the better the results.

Wanted: Director of College Counseling ($700 bounty)

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We’re looking for the next Director of College Counseling for our Los Angeles, California office. If you send us someone we successfully hire, we’ll pay you $700 after the person completes three months of successful work.

Wanted: Our next Director of College Counseling (Los Angeles, California)

*Do you believe that finding, applying to, and getting into college should be enjoyable, not stressful?

*Have you thought about becoming an independent counselor, but you’re worried about getting started, working alone, or handling the pressure of entrepreneurship?

*Would you like to join a team of wildly ambitious, unwaveringly supportive, lovably weird admissions zealots who have very strong feelings about their favorite—and least favorite—college essay questions?

If you’re nodding your head, you might be interested in becoming the Director of College Counseling at our Los Angeles, California office.

What is Collegewise?
Collegewise is a small but rapidly growing college counseling company that does college counseling differently. Our goal isn’t necessarily to get every kid who works with us into an Ivy League school. Instead, we work with A students, C students, and everyone in between to help them find and apply to the colleges that are right for them, prestigious or not. We do it all with just the right mix of advice, encouragement, and occasional cheerleading to make the process exciting and enjoyable for the families in our program.

But running a Collegewise office takes more than just good counseling. Successful directors are those who are not only drawn to the college counseling side of this role, but also to the opportunities and challenges of running a business (more on all of that below).

What does a Collegewise Director of College Counseling do?
First, you will be a Collegewise counselor, working with your own caseload of 25–50 students—most of whom are juniors and seniors—to help them find and apply to the right colleges for them.

You’ll also be in charge of leading a Collegewise office. You’ll make sure that families who hire us have a fantastic experience in our program. You’ll manage at least two counselors to help them be as successful as possible. You’ll speak in public and build positive relationships with high schools and community-based organizations. You’ll have a lot of responsibility, with the training, support, and room you’ll need to be successful.

Southern California is the home base of Collegewise. So not only will you be joining an existing office and team, but you’ll also be regularly rubbing elbows with our leadership and many of our most experienced counselors.

Let’s hear it for the perks!
Competitive salary, 401k, medical and dental benefits, vacation, etc.—we have all of those, and are happy to tell you more about them if you apply. But here are a few extras we appreciate about where we work.

  • The learning—and training—never stops here.
    Every director who joins us completes an initial 40-hour training, followed by mentoring, support, and ongoing professional development like regular webinars and in-person trainings offered by our most experienced counselors. Nobody coasts on experience here—we walk our talk about always getting better.
  • We want your ideas.
    The only way for a company to be innovative is to let smart people occasionally try things that might not work. While there are specific Collegewise counseling practices where we enforce conformity (we don’t want our students to be the experiment that might not work), we’re generally not a place where you’ll have to fight just to try something you’ve thought about.
  • We don’t work with every family who wants to hire us.
    We prefer to work with families who are predisposed to be delighted by what we do and how we do it. And that starts with enrolling the right people. So you’ll have the ability to say “No” to a potential family you believe is not a good fit. It’s not something we do often, but in those cases, you get to pass on a family you would have struggled to make happy, and they get the opportunity to work with a different counselor who will be a better fit (we even refer them to the competitor we think could best help them).
  • We enjoy a real winter break.
    Our students submit all (yes, all) of their applications before the winter holidays. So we (and they!) take two weeks off in December to enjoy our holidays free of application-related worries.
  • We take actual ownership of our work.
    Employees are given the opportunity to earn an equity stake in our company. That’s not necessarily a good reason to take a new job. But it’s a nice benefit if that job becomes a place you’d like to call home for a long time.
  • We run a business we can be proud of. 
    You won’t be crossing over to the private counseling dark side here. We have an excellent reputation with both high school counselors and admissions officers. In our spare time, our counselors volunteer with several organizations committed to improving access to higher education for under-resourced students. We present at NACAC and local ACACs, we recycle, and we have at least three confirmed vegetarians here. Yes, we’re biased, but really, this is a pretty great place to come to work every day. We work hard, we love what we do, and best of all, we like—and are proud of—the team we get to do it with.

What are the downsides?
Every job has its less-than-perfect components, and we think applicants have the right to know what you’d be getting into before you apply.

  • It’s not 9-5.
    You will work hard, sometimes in the evenings and on Saturdays during the busy fall season.
  • The customer isn’t always right.
    We do this job because we really enjoy working with kids and parents. But we’re in the customer service business. Sometimes customers are unreasonable. Sometimes they don’t take your advice. Sometimes they blame you for things that really are not your fault. Thankfully, those cases are the exception rather than the norm here. But it still happens, and when it does, those are not our favorite days.
  • It’s a business.
    We’re running a business, and you’ll be responsible for your office’s financial performance. We’re not going to ask you to be (or train you to become) someone who says things like, “What’s it going to take for me to put you in this counseling program today?” In fact, we’ve learned that the best sales technique is simply to be so good that your customers can’t help but tell their friends. But the financial aspect would likely be a source of stress for someone who just wants to counsel kids, without other responsibilities.

Salary and start date
This position starts at $52-80K depending on experience, with annual bonuses, as well as room for future growth in both salary and responsibility. We’d like our new director to start as soon as possible, but we can adjust the start date to accommodate the right person.

What’s the next step?
If your interest is piqued, get to know us a little better on our website. Find out more about what we do, who you’d be working with, and what we believe. If you like what you read and think you could find a professional home here, please send a résumé and cover letter to jobs@collegewise.com.

We really can’t emphasize enough that like a great college essay, an effective cover letter should help us get to know who you really are. Don’t be afraid to be yourself—smart, thoughtful, or maybe even funny. Just don’t be generic. You might also consider checking out our five tips for job-seekers.

If you have questions about the job, please email us at the above address rather than call us. We promise to respond to you quickly.

Thanks for reading our post. We’d love to hear from you, but if we don’t, we hope you find the perfect professional fit someplace else.

Complaining isn’t a strategy

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In the early days of Collegewise, when I would spend my days meeting with families, there were always a few names that I was notably less excited to see on my calendar for the day. And for me, they all fit into the same category—complainers.

For these families, every meeting included time spent listening to who or what had somehow disappointed, frustrated, or otherwise seemingly worked against them.

My Spanish teacher won’t raise my B+ to an A-.

The counselors at our school don’t know anything.

The principal refuses to change our school’s class ranking policy.

Our point guard only gets to start because her dad is friends with the coach.

My son should have gotten into AP US History—he’s smarter than most of those kids in that class.

It’s not fair that I have to compete with kids who go to easier high schools.

Of course that kid gets straight A’s. His mother spends her days just standing over him.

(None of those examples are fictional or embellished, by the way.)

Sometimes it was kids. Other times it was their parents. And in the worst cases, the entire family would complain, feeding off each other’s negativity.

I’m not talking about customer service challenges. If a customer was unhappy for some reason, getting annoyed by it wouldn’t have helped me or them fix the problem. That’s part of running a business.

These complainers had goals in mind, and anything at all, real or imagined, that seemed to get in the way, they perceived as a personal slight, a misfortune, or an injustice. There was nothing that could be done to make them feel better. They were going to gripe about it, one way or another.

Here’s the most important thing I wish those, and today’s, complainers could understand—none of their complaining ever once improved their situation. In fact, they were actively working against their own goals by expending so much time and energy focusing on things that were in the past, out of their control, or inconsequential.

Life isn’t perfect, and neither is the college admissions process. The happiest, most successful, most productive people find a way to accept those imperfections as par for the course. If they can do something to improve their situation, they’ll do it. If they can’t, they’ll move on to other things.

If your family is feeling negatively about the ride to college, if you’ve traded excitement for anger or frustration, try to stop and take a step back. Is whatever’s eating you worth this energy? Will this matter to you in five years? Are you making it worse by focusing—and complaining about—something that’s done, or out of your control, or comparatively insignificant, or all of the above?

Complaining will always be an option. But it will almost never be a good one. And it’s never an effective strategy.

Memorial Day perspective

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My dad flew 280 missions in Vietnam as a fighter pilot with the Marines Corps. Since then, whenever he’s facing a stressful, uncomfortable, or otherwise undesirable situation, he always says the same thing:

“Hey, at least they can’t send me to war in Vietnam.”

Memorial Day is a good day for perspective. Students, there are plenty of young men and women who joined the armed forces and then never got the chance to do all the things that you’ll soon be doing—going to college, finding a career, starting a family, etc.

You live in a country with the most open and accessible system of higher education in the world. Beyond the comparatively short list of selective schools, it’s actually never been easier to get into college. There are billions of dollars in financial aid and scholarships available. And what you do while you’re in college will always be more important than whether or not you attended a school that tops the rankings list. Life is good.

Appreciate the fact that not everybody gets to do what so many of us take for granted. And today of all days, remember that nothing—nothing—in the college admissions process ever qualifies as a tragedy.

Be thankful for your opportunities, and remember those who sacrificed to preserve them.

The best stress reducers

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I’ve written a number of posts about how to reduce acute stress (often linking to articles on the matter). So as we’re coming to the close of the school year, when stress can be especially high for students, here are five stress reducers, and where appropriate, some links to past posts with more information.

1. Don’t assume it’s bad.
Some students assume that a stressful feeling is a sign they’re not prepared for what’s to come. But stress is often just your body’s way of rising to a challenge. See this past post, and watch referenced TED talk, for more information. Sure, if you’re worried because you haven’t started a huge project that’s due in 24 hours, you’ve got a problem worth addressing. But a feeling of worry about a big test you’ve studied hard for is likely just your body gearing up. Take it as a good sign.

2. Focus on the parts you can control.
Say you’re responsible for the junior prom, and you’re worrying constantly about things that could go wrong. What if the DJ doesn’t show up? What if it rains and the outdoor check-in tables don’t have any coverage? What if your classmates don’t like the décor or the music? A Harvard psychologist reminds you that the first step to addressing stress is to focus on the parts you can control (and let go of the parts you cannot). Confirm with the DJ. Have a back-up location for the check-in tables. And resolve to be resilient if some people don’t agree with the choices you and your committee made. You can’t guarantee everything will work perfectly. But directing some of that nervous energy into the parts you can control certainly increases your odds.

3. Attack what’s eating you.
Procrastination is not your ally in stress treatment. In fact, even one of the most successful CEOs admits that his stress often comes from ignoring those things he should be paying attention to. The good news is that relief is often just a little focused effort away. So acknowledge where inaction is making you worry, then use the advice in this recent post to attack it.

4. Sleep on it.
In the seven years I’ve been writing this blog, I’ve seen an ever increasing number of experts—with scientific evidence in hand—praising the power of a good night’s sleep (even the US military agrees). In fact, an extra hour of sleep is more likely to improve your performance on a test than an extra hour of studying will (more on that here). And if you don’t think you can find the time for more z’s, you might try eliminating the snooze button from your morning routine.

5. Try just saying no to stress.
Sometimes stress has less to do with reality and a whole lot more to do with the way you’re reacting to something. If that’s the case, the good news is that you’re in charge of you, and you have the power to change how you’re responding, as this past post reminds you.

Some reasonable, and temporary, bouts of stress are normal—successful people just find ways to manage them. But if a feeling of stress is becoming your natural state of being, get serious about addressing it so you can redirect that energy to more productive, and hopefully enjoyable, pursuits.

Evaluate your counseling program

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Last month, I recommended that private counselors debrief their most recent admissions season. For high school counselors looking to do the same, Patrick O’Connor, one of the best in your business, just shared some of his own advice, along with specific questions to consider.

If you’re looking for more detailed advice, Patrick’s book is a great read. And we’ll be launching our own training programs for counselors later this summer.

Learn from the child genius

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Tanishq Abraham has accomplished quite a bit for a 12-year-old. He’s been enrolled in community college since he was 7 (the same age he also gave a TED Talk). He earned his high school diploma at 10. He’s earned three associate’s degrees, and he’s currently deciding where he’ll transfer (with junior standing) to college this fall—he’s been accepted by UC Davis and by UC Santa Cruz, where he won the Regents Scholarship, the highest honor they award entering undergraduates.

But Tanishq didn’t get into Stanford. And even this child genius is struggling to understand why.

To most counselors and admissions officers, the outcome actually isn’t that surprising. Stanford admitted only 5 of every 100 applicants this year, the lowest acceptance rate in the school’s history. When a school receives applications from the most accomplished students—not just from the United States, but from all over the world—they have to look for reasons to say no to plenty of brilliant, once-in-a-lifetime type kids. That’s what it means to apply to a highly selective college.

Good counselors have to spend a lot of time convincing high-achieving students (and those students’ parents) to include some less selective schools on their college lists. When students have taken the hardest classes, earned A’s, scored off the charts on tests, and flourished in activities, they’re recognized as some of the best and brightest at their schools. So it’s not surprising they often expect to be admitted to highly selective colleges. In fact, it’s totally reasonable for them to wonder what more they could possibly have done.

But if you’re going to take your shot at any school that denies just about all of its applicants, it’s important to understand what—and who—you’re up against. You owe it to yourself to have a college list that guarantees you a few options you’ll be excited about. And you can’t write off all your hard work as worthless if a highly selective college doesn’t say yes.

Tanishq is living proof that nobody, not even a genius, is a sure admit. But he’s also a good reminder that you can find smart, accomplished, talented students at plenty of colleges that may not vie for the top spot on the rankings lists.

When houses become homes

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Some close friends of mine are house hunting. And in what’s proving to be a seller’s market–where just about everyone makes offers over the selling price, waives inspections, and does pretty much anything to beat out the other interested parties–hopeful buyers are experiencing a lot of heartbreak.

The only way to seriously consider buying a house is to imagine yourself and your family in it. You see where you’d put the breakfast table, where your kids would play, and where your favorite spot to read will be. Once you put an offer in, you’re emotionally committed. Even the most rational person can’t completely detach from that connection. And if the sale goes to someone else, it’s difficult to change gears and imagine yourself in a different house. You’re still sold on your current vision.

The only way for kids to seriously consider a college, especially one that they’ve been able to physically visit, is to imagine themselves there. They see themselves enrolled in those class they visited. They see themselves painting their faces for the football games. They see themselves living in one of the dorms, joining clubs, and becoming fully-fledged members of that campus’s community.

There’s nothing wrong with that approach—it’s what serious college shoppers should do. But it also means that if you fall in love with a school and you don’t get in, it’s hard to imagine yourself someplace else. You’re still sold on your current vision.

But most heartbroken buyers eventually find their house. And once they move in, they turn that house into their home. They start living their life and creating their memories, and pretty soon, they can’t imagine themselves anyplace else.

Colleges work very much the same way. If you don’t get into what you think is your perfect college (there’s no reason your perfect college has to be one that isn’t a slam dunk, by the way), it might be hard to imagine yourself anywhere else.

But once you make that commitment to a college that said yes, once you move into a dorm, attend your first class, make your friends, and create your new life at college, you won’t be imagining yourself anyplace else. You’ll be too busy living your new life and creating your memories. It might not happen overnight. But if you put the time and energy into making it work for you, your new college will feel like it was the right one all along. That’s what happens when houses become homes.

Five college planning tips for introverts

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Natural leaders—the outgoing, charismatic kids who can seemingly win over just about anyone, from teachers to fellow students—find it easy to demonstrate their impact to colleges. But what if you’re not the outgoing type who wants to stand up and be heard? What if you’re quiet, reserved, or just plain shy? Nobody should have to fundamentally change who they are to get into college. So here are five college planning tips for introverts.

1. Channel your enthusiasm.
Just because you’re introverted doesn’t mean you aren’t passionate about your interests. So channel your enthusiasm in whatever it is that you love. Write the best programming code that you can. Take art classes to improve your skills. Learn to play the pieces of your favorite classical composer. One of our former Collegewise students wrote her essay about the 10th grade summer she spent trying to read as many classic works of literature as possible. She was admitted to nearly all of her colleges. Colleges understand that not everyone is outgoing, and they’re perfectly happy to admit interesting, engaged students who thrive in comparatively solitary pursuits.

2. Engage academically.
One potential admissions challenge for introverts is that they often don’t participate in class discussions. This can make it difficult for teachers to tell just how interested you were in the material, and that can affect your letters of recommendation. So if you can push yourself to put your hand up and offer a comment or question semi-regularly, it will help. You can also approach your teacher before or after class to ask questions or discuss the material. And whenever there’s a class project or any opportunity to do more than sit in class or take a test, bring a little extra oomph. There’s nothing wrong with being the quiet kid in class. Just make sure you don’t come off as the quiet kid in class who would  rather be doing anything else other than learning this subject.

3. Find ways to impact others.
You don’t need to be outgoing to do things that impact other people. Draw cartoons for the school newspaper. Bring your set designing skills to the school play. Build websites for clubs, fix computers for the administration, or write poems for the school literary magazine. Colleges are looking for students who will make contributions to their campus communities. And there are plenty of ways to do that, even for students who don’t necessarily feel comfortable front-and-center.

4. Show that you’ve got some social skills.
It’s one thing to be the quiet, shy type. It’s another, not-so-good thing to be a misanthrope who just can’t get along with people. It doesn’t take much to show that you’re in the first camp, but you’ll need to make the effort to do so. Be nice to your teachers, counselor, and fellow students. Be willing to pitch in and help when someone needs it. And don’t automatically rule out everything that doesn’t let you work in solitude. One of our former students wrote her essay about working the drive-through at a fast food chain where she would stand outside with a headset and take orders from the cars as they passed. She was still introverted, but she was justifiably proud of how much more outgoing she became as a result of that job.

5. Apply to the right colleges.
Maybe you’d like to attend a school where you can easily get personal attention without having to ask for it? Or maybe your introverted self would be happiest blending in at a large university? It’s important for all students to consider the type of college where they could be happy and successful. And there’s no one type of school that fits best with all introverts. Think carefully about your likes, dislikes, strengths, and weaknesses. Imagine yourself in college and consider in what kind of environment you’d be most likely to thrive. Then get to work finding those schools—and communicating why they’re a good fit when you apply.

Temporary turbulence

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When my 17-month-old son let loose an indescribable amount of vomit during a flight to San Francisco last week, it was easy to tell which of our fellow passengers had already raised kids of their own. They offered sympathetic looks, generous helpings of napkins and water bottles, and some encouraging words, my favorite of which was,

“This is something you’ll laugh with him about when he’s 16.”

Every parent has those stories–the tales of parental challenge and horror that seem so terrible at the time, but in reality are just temporary turbulence on an otherwise joyful journey.

The journey through high school can feel so high stakes, as if every grade, every test score, every decision takes your kids either one step closer to, or farther from, a desired college admissions destination. It’s no wonder so many families approach it like something to survive, rather than savor. The D+ on the biology exam, the test scores that defied your chosen course’s guaranteed improvements, the teenage missteps that make you wonder how you raised a child who could make such a decision—I know it’s hard to find humor in them when kids are 16.

But the truth is that most of the bumps are just temporary.

When your kids are 26 and 36 and 56, you’ll laugh together at the way that D+ proved he didn’t have a speck of scientific ability. You’ll joke about how fortunate she is that her professional success wasn’t tied to senseless standardized tests like those she took in high school. And your kids will have no choice but to shake their heads at some of their own high school behavior while simultaneously wondering if there’s any way to prevent their own kids from making the same choices.

Our children’s education is important. It deserves a parent’s time, attention, and sacrifice. And of course, there are some limitations, challenges, and decisions that are no laughing matter, now or later. I hope you and your kids don’t experience those, as most college admissions concerns pale in comparison.

But after watching so many families go through this process, and after seeing not just what happened at 16, but also where those kids ended up in college and beyond, I promise you that most of the college admissions anxiety will not only pass, but will ultimately prove to have caused far more worry than necessary.

If the high school bumps arrive, find some solace in just how many parents have been where you are now with their own children, pretty much all of whom eventually emerged unscathed. And look forward to that inevitable day when you’ll laugh with your kids about what ultimately proved to be temporary turbulence.