Many colleges ask specific questions of students in one of two ways—application essay questions and personal interviews. Some of the most popular are some version of:

Why have you decided to apply to our school?
Who’s your favorite teacher?
What’s your favorite subject?
Have you thought about what you might like to study in college?
Which of your activities has the most meaning for you?
Tell us about a time you failed or made a mistake.
What do you do for fun?

If a college asked you these questions today, would you have answers?

I think this is a healthy exercise for future college applicants. If you don’t have a favorite subject or teacher, if you don’t have any idea what you might like to study in college (“study” isn’t necessarily the same as “major in,” by the way), if you have colleges that interest you but can’t articulate personal reasons why, and if you can’t name something that you regularly do for fun that has absolutely nothing to do with getting into college, you can thoughtfully consider why that’s the case. And you can spend the next few months or years finding answers before you actually apply to college.

No need to necessarily have answers now. But it’s the perfect time to start looking.

Frank Bruni’s recent NY Times Op-ed had everyone at Collegewise cheering. If you’re a parent whose child is going through the college admissions process (especially a senior awaiting decisions), this should be a required read. The part I’m sharing here isn’t even the most powerful in the article (read all the way to the end of the piece–one of the best things you could do for your student is to write him or her a letter like the one the parents in the article penned for their senior).

“But for too many parents and their children, acceptance by an elite institution isn’t just another challenge, just another goal. A yes or no from Amherst or the University of Virginia or the University of Chicago is seen as the conclusive measure of a young person’s worth, an uncontestable harbinger of the accomplishments or disappointments to come. Winner or loser: This is when the judgment is made. This is the great, brutal culling. What madness. And what nonsense.”

Collegewise counselor Monica Brown forwarded me this post from Ken Anselment, dean of admission and financial aid at Lawrence University, entitled, Don’t believe scary college admission tales. Here’s my favorite part:

“[Maria] Furtado [executive director of Colleges That Change Lives] likes to put the issue this way: ‘Americans love things that frighten us. We love roller coasters, scary movies and stories about college admission.’ The problem with these scary admissions stories is that they generally cluster around that small group of colleges — you know who they are — that admit only 5 to 7 percent of their applicants. And while single-digit figures are certainly the norm when we’re discussing low temperatures around the Fox Valley this time of year, they’re hardly the norm when it comes to college admissions. The truth about college admissions may surprise you, because it’s far less exciting — and way more hopeful — than you might be inclined to believe if you put too much stock in those scary college admissions stories. According to the 2013 State of College Admission Report published annually by the National Association for College Admission Counseling, the mean acceptance rate among all four-year U.S. colleges was 64 percent. This means that the average college admitted nearly two-thirds of the students who applied. According to the same report, 80 percent of all four-year U.S. colleges admit more than 50 percent of the students who apply. In other words, those super-selective colleges that are the focus of so many mainstream media stories are the exception, not the norm.”

From the Washington Post’s, Grit: The key ingredient to your kids’ success:

In a recent TED Talk on grit, Angela Lee Duckworth, a University of Pennsylvania psychologist, says the most significant predictor of success in kids isn’t social intelligence, good looks, physical health or IQ. ‘It’s about having stamina, sticking with your future – day in, day out, not just for the week, not just for the month, but for years – and working really hard to make that future a reality.'”

And here’s a past post on the importance of grit.

Yesterday was one of those days when I forgot to follow the advice I share here. I spent most of a long, long work day responding to emails and checking off nagging but comparatively insignificant to-dos, all in an effort to mentally clear the decks and focus on 2-3 big, difficult projects that needed attention. Here’s what I had to show for that effort at the end of that day:

1. I didn’t get to the important work.
2. I didn’t have any feeling of relief or accomplishment.
3. I still had the stress of the more important work hanging over me.

So for me, and maybe even for some of you, here’s an important reminder: the total number of hours you work (or for students, how many hours you study) is a meaningless measure of your productivity. Nobody—your teacher, your boss, your-co-workers, your customers, etc. cares. And neither should you.

The better measure: what was the value of the work you got done today?

If you’re in the same camp of occasionally slipping into the hourly measures, here are some past posts with some helpful links to get you—and me—re-focused.

I took flights out of two different airports last week. Neither of the security screening areas had any seating for people to use while putting their shoes back on. So every single person (including the elderly man holding a cane while I was there) has to re-shoe while standing precariously on one foot like the awkward version of a flamingo. I know from experience that this scenario has been true at one of those airports since 2001.

The TSA staff at both airports seem like nice, professional, and reasonably intelligent people. Why doesn’t one of them logically take in this scenario and say, “I have an idea—we need to put some benches out there for people to sit down.” Maybe there’s a restriction preventing it, but I’m guessing it’s just an example of the “It’s not my job” syndrome.

Whether you’re working in a counseling office, on a team, in a club, or with an organization, there are plenty of things that won’t technically be in your job description. But you’ll become invaluable a lot faster if you make it your job and act like you own the place.

Bonus tip: If you’ve got Girl Scouts in your family who are selling cookies (they’re out in force these days in my town), here’s a great tip from a past Seth Godin post.

 

If you need to find the right colleges, learn more about schools that interest you, or even just see visual proof of how many colleges there are from which to choose (and how accessible the vast majority of them are), visit a national college fair this spring. And brush up on this past post before you head to the fair nearest you.

If your school eliminated grades and tests, how would your teachers describe your academic merit in class? They’d probably talk about the contributions you make—do you ask questions, do you contribute to class discussions, are you genuinely interested in the material, did you do any interesting projects, etc.

That’s what colleges are looking for in letters of recommendation.

The grades and tests are important, but they’re just one part of your academic story. Make sure you put the effort in to create the other story—the one that grades and tests don’t measure—too.

We received an email this week from a student at a selective college who’s completed an internship at her school’s admissions office and is looking for summer opportunities in college counseling. She’s doing a lot right. She’s taking advantage of an interesting opportunity on campus. She’s showing initiative to seek out a valuable summer experience. She’s not waiting for graduation to start building a resume and showing potential employers what she can actually do. But everything from the standard language in her email to the noticeably different font in the “Dear Collegewise” had an “insert name of company here” feeling.

Applying for jobs is a lot like applying to college, as I’ve written about before. Sure, some big employers are impersonal in their hiring the same way that some big colleges make decisions based only on grades and test scores. But that’s not true everywhere. And whether you’re trying to get a job or trying to get into college, it helps to notice the difference and to act accordingly.

I don’t bring this up here to be critical of college applicants or job applicants.  All too often, the people doing the evaluating don’t make their expectations clear. So here’s a past post on this topic for job seekers, and one for college applicants.