The most successful students don’t just get an education; they take one.

They don’t just passively accept the education that’s handed to them.  They meet with their counselor to plan their courses.  They ask questions and meet with teachers after class.  They’re curious and want to know more about their favorite subjects.  They think about what they want out of college and find schools that can give it to them, even if those schools aren’t the most famous ones.  They don’t wait for other people to care about their education or their future for them.  They’re fully engaged in taking as much education as they can.

It’s tempting to evaluate high schools, teachers, and colleges by what they’re going to give you.  But remember that the education you get has a lot to do with how much education you’re willing to take.   

I wrote a post in 2009 called “What’s your tag line?”  My point was that one way successful college applicants stand out is by doing something interesting that can be summed up in one sentence on a college application.  But as Dan Pink points out in Drive: The Surprising Truth about What Motivates Us, this thinking actually has a much broader and more important application than just impressing an admissions committee:  

In 1962, Care Boothe Luce, one of the first women to serve in the U.S. Congress, offered some advice to President John F. Kennedy.  “A great man,” she told him, “is a sentence.” Abraham Lincoln’s sentence was: He preserved the union and freed the slaves. Franklin Roosevelt’s was: “He lifted us out of a Great Depression and helped us win a world war.” Luce feared that Kennedy’s attention was so splintered among different priorities that his sentence risked becoming a muddled paragraph.

You don’t have to be president—of the United States or of your local gardening club, to learn from this tale. One way to orient your life toward greater purpose is to think about your sentence.  Maybe it’s: “He raised four kids who became happy and healthy adults.” Or “She invented a device that made peoples’ lives easier.” Or “He cared for every person who walked into his office regardless of whether that person could pay.”  Or “She taught two generations of children to read.”

As you contemplate your purpose, begin with the question, "What’s your sentence?"

There’s no magic formula of grades, test scores and activities that will guarantee you an admission to your dream college.  But there is one way to make sure you get yourself closer.  At the end of each day, ask yourself this question:

“Am I more college-ready today than yesterday?”

Your successes will leave you more prepared for life at whatever college is lucky enough to have you.  And even more importantly, asking yourself the college-ready question will help you focus on what's really important–the effort, not just the outcomes. 

If you take a challenging chemistry class but don’t get an A, you’re still more college-ready.  If you take an AP class but don’t pass the associated test, if you run for a club office and don’t win, if you make the varsity volleyball team but never come off the bench, you’ve still worked hard.  You’ve accepted a challenge and emerged relatively unscathed.  You’re probably more confident and even more eager to prove what you really can do.  And yes, you’re more college-ready.

You don’t have to be perfect to get into college.  You just have to keep working, keep improving, and keep getting a little more college-ready than you were yesterday.

When I get an email or am directed to a webpage that asks me to take a  customer survey, I almost never do unless I'm so delighted or disappointed and just have to share it.  Most surveys take too long.  They don’t give you the chance to just tell them in your own words about your experience.  You get the feeling your responses will just be sent to a central processing agency that’s going to create a spreadsheet with them. 

Contrast that with Zingerman’s deli’s survey (this image and similar post came from Jason Fried at 37signals). 

Here’s why I love this.

1. It’s fast but thorough. 

There’s only one question to answer, and all you have to do is rate them on a scale from 1-10.  Done.  But the question is both simple and all-encompassing.  There’s no need to ask people to individually rate the layout of the store, the courtesy of the staff or the selection of the products.  Zingerman’s just asks point blank if you’d recommend them.  And if you’d like, you can tell them more about why you gave them the rating.  

Best of all, you just have to reply to the email.  There’s no online form to click over to or any other additional steps to take.  They’ve made it easy for customers to share how they feel about Zingerman’s. 

2. It sounds like a human wrote—and will read—it.

A company whose survey says, “Your feedback is very important to us” just isn’t believable.  But it’s obvious that real people at Zingerman’s wrote this.  They promise to read your responses.  They even put their names at the end of the email.  That would make me even more likely to respond.

Schools, colleges, students and parents could do this, too.  Private counselors could send an email to their customers once the students have headed off for college.  High schools, particularly at small independent schools whose customers pay tuition, could email parents and ask how they’d rate their students’ experiences at the school.  Colleges could ask admissions reps to solicit feedback from families who attend their info sessions.  Tour guides could do the same thing.  Club presidents could ask the members, “How likely are you to join us again next year?”  Parents who organize grad nights, PTA events, or fundraisers could ask for simple feedback from attendees.

Yes, it’s scary to ask for open and honest feedback.  But giving people a chance to share helps you learn more about what you’re doing right and wrong.  If somebody’s particularly unhappy, you can fix it.  And you can identify the people who love you the most and make sure you keep them happy.

By the way, I’ve never had one of Zingerman’s sandwiches.  But I did read their book (update: link is working now) about how they run their business and it’s excellent.

Whether you’re a counselor planning your college night for juniors, a student running an event for your club, or a parent organizing a PTA fundraiser, a lot of the wisdom you’ll gain won’t be apparent until after the event when you know what went well and what didn’t.  That’s why it’s good to create a quick event autopsy afterwards.

When your event is finished, create a document and answer these questions:

1. Do you think your group should do this event again?  Why or why not?

2. What parts of the event went best or were particularly well received?

3. Knowing what you know now, what would you do differently before, during or after your event that might have made it smoother or more successful?

4. What websites, people or other resources were most helpful to you?

5. What advice would you give to someone else who wants to run a similar event?

Save the document and forget about it until the planning starts next year.  Or hand it off to someone else who will be taking over for you.  You’ll never have a clearer and more defined perspective about your event than you will immediately after it’s over.

Katie in our Northwest office does this after every speaking engagement she does.  She keeps a spreadsheet with the event’s attendance, notes about the topic, and how many potential Collegewise families expressed interest in working with her.  When she has to make a decision next year about whether or not to repeat the event or the topic, she doesn’t have to rely on her memory.

It takes some discipline to add one more item to the to-do list after an event, but doing this will increase the chances of repeating and even improving your success.  And you’ll save yourself (or your successor) a lot of time in the future.  

Bonus tip:  Save your autopsy in a folder with all your other resources for the event.  Keep it all in one place so you or someone else has easy access later.