SPEAKER_00 0:00

You're listening to the Support Ed Learning Podcast, where we challenge the status quo of education and reimagine what learning should be. I'm Dr. Joe Sebastian, and in every episode we dive into critical thinking, Bloom's Taxonomy, educational innovation, and how AI is shaping the future of learning. Whether you're a teacher, parent, policymaker, or lifelong learner, you're in the right place to rethink, reshape, and revive education. The college admission process isn't just hard on kids, it's tearing families apart. Evelyn Jerome Alexander has spent her career trying to fix that. She is a certified educational planner, a UC Berkeley instructor, and the founder of Magellan College Counseling. And her whole approach treats this process as a family's wellness challenge, not just a strategy problem. Today we're breaking down how to navigate it without losing your mind or your relationship with your kid. Welcome back to the Supported Learning Podcast. I'm Dr. Joe Sebastian. Families often ask me how to navigate the maze of college prep without wasting thousands of dollars and years of time. And the answer usually involves finding the people who have figured out the rules of the game that schools aren't telling you. And that's why I am thrilled to welcome Evelyn Jerome Alexander here today. She is a certified educational planner, a UC Berkeley instructor, training the next generation of college counselors and the founder of Magellan College Counseling. Her practice is built around the philosophy you don't hear from many consultants that the admissions process should be a journey of self-discovery, not a high-stakes ordeal that fractures families. We're going to dive into finding the right fit colleges and how to navigate the process without destroying parent-teen relationships and how to support students who don't fit the conventional mold. Evelyn, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_01 1:48

Thanks, Dr. Joe. I appreciate being here.

SPEAKER_00 1:51

I love your whole philosophy because we've talked to a couple of college counselors and the ones that I think come across as the most authentic and actual, like there's a sea of college admission companies out there, but the ones that we like to say start with the why, right? That oftentimes you have a lot of potential clients coming in saying they want this school for no specific reason outside of just it's a top school. And it seems like your process really starts with, well, like what we say, why do you even want to go to college? What's the outcome of the college? Right. So I've given them the highlight room. Just kind of who give walk us through who you are and what specific problem in education you solve for students and families.

SPEAKER_01 2:35

Yeah, I well, I appreciated your your description as we were, as we're, you know, on the way in here, because um it really does uh tear families apart. It really frustrates people. And when people ask me what I do, I tell them I stop teenagers and their parents from killing each other in the fall of their senior year. I mean, and the and the problem is, I mean, I feel like a psychologist half the time. The problem, a lot of the time, the problem is the parents sort of putting their hopes and expectations on their child who may or may not be the human being that the parent wants them to be, right? And so the first step is really that you have to take a step back and you have to let your child, they don't have to drive the whole process, but but they are the reason that we are in this process. And you have to let them express who they are, express what they're looking for, and you have to accept when it's not necessarily your alma mater. I mean, that causes so much heartache. Um, but it's just a really bad starting point when we start with a list of schools and we say we really want, you know, top 20, top 30. Um, like you said, for no apparent reason, other than it's gonna look good, you know, as a bumper sticker on my car.

SPEAKER_00 3:48

Yeah, and your background is really rooted in membership, membership, mentorship, excuse me. Um, how did that lead you to college counseling specifically?

SPEAKER_01 3:58

Well, I used to, um I did my undergrad at Johns Hopkins and I used to interview as an as a volunteer. I was an alumni interviewer. And honestly, for 15 years, I watched students. I interviewed a lot of students, I trained other alumni, um, and I watched students get so stressed out, like, oh my God, if I don't get into Hopkins, my life is gonna end. And I was thinking, I'm guessing it's actually not. Like, if you are legitimately a good candidate, a good applicant for a school at, you know, at that level, you probably have tons of choices. And so it's really just a function of opening your eyes and looking at what's out there. There's 2,200 four-year colleges out there. And honestly, I think the biggest mistake people make is they throw names onto a list. I live in California, so it's even worse here. They they come to me and they say, you know, we really want to go to UCLA or Berkeley, but UC San Diego would be okay, or UC Santa Barbara would be okay. And it's like those schools themselves have a 30% admit rate. Like those schools are going to be a reach for you as well. So instead of starting with the name of the school for the heck of it, let's instead look at the human being your 17 or 18-year-old is right now and who they want to be in their life. And let's figure out what colleges, because there's many of them, could help them get from point A to point B. It's that journey. Um, and we like to spread that journey out, that list creation part. That's all of 11th grade in my book. That doesn't happen, you know, in a two-week span.

SPEAKER_00 5:28

So what pushed you to launch Magellan? Like what were you seeing in families that you knew you had a fix?

SPEAKER_01 5:35

Yeah, it was the stress. Um, it was just crazy, crazy stress. And I thought to myself, I feel like there's a place for me here. I feel like there's something I can do in this universe. And the truth is, I I chose the colleges on my list for the same reason that, you know, parents do today. They they know the names. You're getting mail, you're getting emails. We didn't get emails when I was in high school, but um, you know, you're getting information from these colleges that have massive marketing campaigns. To be honest with you, it's the ones that don't have the massive um, you know, marketing budget that you should really be looking at. Those are the ones that could really, you know, help you get to be the human being that you're intended to be. That's what college is in my book.

SPEAKER_00 6:18

So you actually teach at UC Berkeley, you train other counselors. What does that experience show you about what families really need versus what they're being sold?

SPEAKER_01 6:27

Yeah, so interesting. I've been teaching for seven years. And so, like you said, I teach people how to be college counselors. Sometimes they're already school counselors, but their responsibility, just a tiny part of their responsibility, is the college part. They've got other stuff that they have to do. A lot of the people that I've trained over the years have been like mid-career switchers. Um, so that's always really interesting. But almost all of them either have had a kid go through the process themselves or they're coming up soon. They have a middle schooler or a high schooler. Um, and they all start, and I and I teach a two-course introductory series. Um, and for the last year, I've only taught the first. They have other people teaching the second in the series, and they all start, so I'm getting them fresh. They all start with those names that you know at the top of their minds, right? So, so they have to do college research reports and they always want to do Stanford, they always want to do Duke or Michigan. And I say, you know what? We're gonna put those off the table. I want you to look at schools that have a little bit higher admin rate. It's really, it's a huge blind spot. You know, people just I I honestly feel like my evangelism is look at the names you don't know yet, right? There's a reason that I've got the penance behind me that I have instead of the whole Ivy League, right? Or my alma mater. It's over there, it's really there. You just can't see it. Like I feel like this is an exploration process. Um, and and some people need help with the exploration because they literally don't know where to start, right? You can start, you could start with a big old book, right? It's this thick, it's really heavy. Sometimes I when I used to go to people's houses, I would walk into their um living rooms and the mom would have this book sitting um like on the uh dining table, and there'd be like there'd be like 30 or 40 sticky notes, you know, sticking out the top, and then there'd be 30 or 40 more sticking out the side because the mom already did all the research, and that's mistake number one, right? You if you're gonna get the book, if you're gonna do the research, buy the book and give it to your kid and tell them read, read through, read one college a day. Each one, you know, each uh profile is like four or five or six pages. Read one a day. Start thinking about what stands out to you. Um, it's it's today and not 1980. So if you're not gonna buy the book, go online, go on YouTube, start researching college websites. But to me, the whole magic of this whole process is to go beyond. Go beyond what you already know and open your mind and start thinking about what could be the magical place that is really going to turn me into the human being that I want to be in my life.

SPEAKER_00 9:04

But Evelyn, that sounds like work. And my kid is just smart, and so like they should uh they should just get in the Harvard. Why can't they? Why can't they just get in the Harvard? They're a top there at 4.5 GPA, gotten 1550 on their SAT. We're good. We do a million different research projects and passion projects and activities. Why do we we're good, right?

SPEAKER_01 9:29

Mike, can't we just show up? Show up, write the essay. Um, it's such a good question. So I gave a presentation last week, and there was a woman. Um, most of the people had high school kids. There was a woman there who had a daughter who graduated high school last year, and she's just finished her first year at community college, and she said to me, Um, and I know I won't say the name of the high school, but I know the high school, she said, Um, my daughter graduated last year, she had a 4.6, she took nine AP classes, she had straight A's all the way through. She didn't get into UCLA. She said, Um, but her friend who had less AP classes and there were B's on the track, got into UCLA. Why did that happen? This is the frustrating part about college admission. It doesn't follow a pattern that makes sense to you and me, right? So I actually just did a tiny little short video on this. It would make sense to us if every college would just pluck the top kids off of the top of their applicant pool, right? Wouldn't that make sense? That's not how it works. They're um each college is building a community. And and each year they bring in new people, but they already have an existing community. So the community they bring in has to blend nicely and add to the community that they already have. So that's what they're looking for. And they, the people who make these decisions, they know what their community is like. They know what they're looking for and who will um uh enrich everyone else's experience. When you're an applicant, you don't know that about every college you're applying to. If you do your research, you can learn a little bit about their community and you should, because that will be reflected in your essays and your essays, honestly, on top of grades, rigor, test scores, where they're required or where they're considered. Um, those essays are where they get the human being that you are. In the end, it is um a friend of mine is uh is a really well known in the college admission community, and and the way he describes the the selection process is it's a data-informed human decision, right? If it were just a data decision, then we pick the top grades off the top and we're done. We're done. But it's not the way it works.

SPEAKER_00 11:36

So, I mean, that's we we do express that to families because we serve similar audiences. We have a lot of kids taking AP exams in our programs and the need to get the good scores as well, because just they're not impressed by you just taking the classes and grade chase in there. They want you to actually show the rigor, right? So you're um you are a big believer in student-led parent-supported for the parent listening who's been driving the bus, like you said, doing all the research. What's the actual transition to make? Like, how do they back off without completely checking out? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:14

Yeah, I mean, I think that a parent will back off when they have confidence that their student will actually step up. So if you have a kid who isn't really taking charge of their academics, they're just kind of showing up every day and they're going through the motions. Um, you're not gonna have faith that that student is really gonna lead their own admission process. Um, I mean, I hate to say it, the the families I work with, they they let go because they know that I'm next to the student kind of supervising. Um it's it is really hard. I mean, I I know some teenagers who do a really good job of taking control, taking ownership. I will tell you, one really good piece of advice that that we give our clients is um don't um so pick a time, a day and a time every week where you're you are going to talk to your kid about college. If you pick a day and a time, they know to expect it, they'll be prepared. They won't feel like at any minute you could be bombarding them with questions about have you done your essay yet? Did you add this? Do you have a safety on your lid? You know, did you ask for your letter of recommendation? Pick a time and do all of that at one time. Um, that is probably going to go a long way in helping parents and students really communicate well throughout this process.

SPEAKER_00 13:37

So you specialize in diverse learners and students who don't fit the conventional mold. What does that mean and how do you approach those families differently?

SPEAKER_01 13:48

Yeah, so I'm not going to say that I personally specialize it, but in it, but I definitely have a couple counselors on my team who work really, really well with um, we call them students with learning challenges. Um, and I think the the one of the um ways I would answer your question is parents of students who have traditionally had challenges going through school, they always know that things take a little bit longer for their kid. So what does that mean? We start earlier, right? Because the one thing about college admissions is there's a deadline and the deadline doesn't extend. So if we can't go this way, we have to go this way. So we start a little bit earlier. So we'll start them in, you know, 10th grade instead of early 11th grade or even earlier. Um, but I will say, because we've worked with a ton of students who are what they call twice exceptional, so very, very smart, but have a learning challenge. It could be dyslexia, dyscalculea, they just an ADHD or an anxiety or on the spectrum. Um things are just sometimes a little bit more challenging for them. It's just the way that they go through life. And honestly, most of the time um the student has learned what their challenge is and how to move through it successfully. But I definitely think um uh extending the time of the process is a very, very good idea.

SPEAKER_00 15:10

This episode is brought to you by Supported Tutoring, where we don't just help students get better grades, we help them become critical thinkers. Whether it's mastering AP exams, maximizing college applications, or building lifelong learning habits, our expert tutors focused on critical thinking, confidence, and real growth. Head to supportedtutoring.com to find the support your student deserves. So walk us through your process, like how a family comes in Magellan, where do you start? What does the structure roadmap actually look like?

SPEAKER_01 15:43

Yeah, I love that you use the word roadmap because we definitely use that word. So um you didn't ask, but I called the company Magellan because he was an explorer and that's what we're doing. We're exploring. Um, if we do it right. In our process, it's a it's really two phases, right? Phase one is we're building your college list. Phase two is we're doing the work, we're checking off all the steps and writing all the essays and getting stuff done. Um phase one, if you come to us early enough, it should last about a year. Um and that gives us time to help you um do your research, learn what you care about and prioritize, um, spend a little bit of time on the road. We have a lot of students who, for their spring break of their junior year, they'll go out and they'll go visit colleges. So again, I'm in California. We send a lot of kids east and they'll do, you know, Boston and New York or Philly and you know, deep sea. Um, so phase one is we build that list. Um, phase two is, and they overlap a little bit. Um, phase two is we start working through. So like it's uh early June. I'm starting, getting started on essays with my juniors. We're uh trying to get as many essays written over the summer as possible so that in the fall we don't have like all of I call it AP college apps. We don't have AP college apps sitting on top of all the other stuff we've got going on senior year.

SPEAKER_00 17:05

You know, Magellan died on his journey. But he did circumnavigate the world all the way to the Philippines.

SPEAKER_01 17:15

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 17:16

And then that's it. Exactly. You're trying to prevent families from dying, killing each other.

SPEAKER_01 17:22

Exactly. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 17:24

I like it though, because I have often said that it's like I've actually used, I probably will get sued by Ford Motor Company, but like I think it's college exploration and college expedition, right? So you have to explore yourself and the why, but then you have to inform the expedition of the applications. But right fit is something every consultant says. What does it actually mean from your perspective? Academic, social, and emotional.

SPEAKER_01 17:52

Academic, social, emotional. So I'll give you an example. I have a student I've been working with for two years. She's a junior rising senior. Um, she we started with her saying, I want big, sporty spirited, which is a place a lot of kids start. They see college sports on TV, they want that. They want rah-rah. Um, uh, she started going out and visiting colleges. She found herself liking the idea of a smaller college where the learning is done in a discussion format where the professor knows you, where if you don't show up to class, the professor texts you and says, Hey, hope you're doing okay. Um, so fit for her, when we started, it was big, rah-rah, sporty spirited. And now it's it's worked its way down because she has spent the time introspecting about what do I want, my educational experience. That's the process, and that's why it takes a year because I'm not going to meet a student for the first time and say, Do you want a big school or a small school? They're gonna go big and I'm gonna go, great, that's where we'll start. It takes a while to get to the real answer.

SPEAKER_00 18:55

So for a teenager who's overwhelmed and shutting down, what's the first move you make as a counselor?

SPEAKER_01 19:04

Oh an overwhelmed and shutting down teenager is really hard. Um, so I will so sometimes I I give advice and say things that I call tough love. Um, the first thing I will do is um ask the parent to not join us at our meeting. So a lot of parents want to be there, which is totally understandable. You're you know, you're part of the process, you're paying for the service. Um, if I can have time with the student alone, I can sometimes get to the bottom of why are we shutting down? What's not working right now? Um, it could be something at school, it could be something with the boyfriend, um, it could be grades tanking and they don't know what to do. Um, and so we'll try to make a plan. Um, and the other thing to keep in mind is um teenagers expectedly do not have the same executive functioning um faculties that we have, right? So if you have a teenager who doesn't wake himself up every morning, you have to go in and wake him up. That's not surprising, but it probably means there's other things that he's not doing quite as well as you as a parent expect him to do. So we need to, we need to give them the skills um to become adults. Um, they're gonna need them in college, and and high school is really a good time to start proactively developing those kind of skills.

SPEAKER_00 20:30

So it sounds like for parents who are like anxious and pushing your art, you actually you'll actually tell them, like, hey, you need to let your kid breathe here for a second. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 20:38

Yeah, it's hard. It's really hard.

SPEAKER_00 20:41

Parents take control of the process, it actually can make things worse. Um, I say, my saying, especially of any kid that works with us senior year, I'm like, listen, the cake's kind of baked at this point. We're really not changing the GPA too drastically, right? Like, we're we are who we are, but that doesn't mean you can't get into a really good school, just not be the school that you think you're gonna get into. Um, I've also had a tough conversation. I was telling another counselor this that it's like I had a person come, she was shopping around for different programs and you know, wants to go pre-med, so you know it's BSMD, because that's the only that's the only way you can be a doctor. Now it's BSMD, right? Uh it's the only way you can be a doctor. You get into a $800,000 program that's had a 1% shot of getting in there. Um Right, exactly. Hey, what do you think she should do? She should start her passion project this summer as a rising senior. I'm like, horrible idea. I'm like, you I'm like, I'll just tell you right now, I won't, I won't support that because the first question in the interview, because like I it's funny how we want to go to these institutions that promote learning and you think really smart are really smart. Do you think admissions officers are dumb? Like, like, oh, I see here you started your lifelong fashion two months before the college application process.

SPEAKER_01 21:57

Two months ago. What? Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 21:59

So Yeah. Um, but it just comes across inauthentic, and that's like our whole mom message is to be authentic in the development of part of this process.

SPEAKER_01 22:08

Authentic, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:09

And so I guess it's hard because we are a consumer-based society and we love our brands. And I'm sure a lot of our families that we support similarly are great, like that's consumption of the brand and competition amongst families and friends versus what is best for my kid.

SPEAKER_01 22:27

Yeah. Right. Right. So, and yes, all of that, and um, you know, I think one of the differences is I would say reach out to your school counselor, reach out to, reach out to uh there's millions of nonprofit organizations that help kids apply to college. I'm not saying everybody needs to hire someone, um, but the bottom line is I spend my time on the road visiting colleges so that I can look at a family and say, I know you want um, you know, Duke, but let me tell you about Colorado College because I was just there two months ago. And I think that the way you're describing, I'm just making up names, but you know, the way you're describing what you really love, that would fit perfectly at, you know, pick a school. And that's the difference. You know, you can ask, I was just talking to someone about this today, you can ask Chat GPT to make a college list for you a hundred percent. And it will be balanced, right? It'll have some reach, some target, some safe, but it doesn't know you, it doesn't know who you are and what your preferences and priorities are. Um, so I feel like um if you're going to sit with someone and and work through this process, sit with someone who is out there visiting colleges because that's the whole point of it. So that we can say to you, I would love for you to look at Rice University because they're huge on leadership. And all of these things you've been doing throughout high school, they fit really well with the community there. By the way, for your student who's starting the Passion Project, like I literally hate Passion Projects. I hate it.

SPEAKER_00 23:59

She's not, she's I told her we're not doing that.

SPEAKER_01 24:03

Like, I'd rather she do 30 hours worth of volunteer work all summer, every week, all summer. Like throw yourself into some something medically related. That tells a story way better than some manufacturer, you know.

SPEAKER_00 24:18

And I I think like that's what like I you know, I have I have counselors who have been college counselors and and just like worth pushing these like these research, like you're doing medical research. That's that's great. If you can get into one, that's great. But like if you're not gonna get published, if you're not gonna go through the process of the IRB and get published, it's really pointless. You're just basically adding more homework for yourself. Whereas, which I think because there's a disconnect in the communities and what we value, many high school programs offer trade schools inside or affiliate. You could go to that, you could spend time and go to the trade school and become either um a medical assistant or an EMT. Absolutely. And you could actually, hey, you want to be a doctor? Oh, I wrote this generic research paper, or I actually saved lives. Like I was a first responder for two years. Yep. And I actually, you know, I've seen this.

SPEAKER_01 25:18

I have a I have a handful of yep, I have a handful of kids who've done their EMT. I had a student who um she goes to UC River, she's graduating from UC Riverside, and she did her CNA, certified nursing assistant. She got the license the summer between graduating high school and starting college. So all through college, she's been able to have a job, a paying job, because she has a certification. And and now that she's applying to medical school, that's what they're looking at. What have you done in this field? It's not like how much do you they don't care how much you say you love it. They want to know what you've done.

SPEAKER_00 25:53

Right. And not to mention, if it doesn't work out with medical school, oh, I have a pathway to becoming a nurse practitioner or a PA or something in the medical school.

SPEAKER_01 26:02

Absolutely. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 26:03

Because it actually is a self-suffering prophecy there. If you say you love it that much, then you should you should be volunteering at hospitals. You should be around it.

SPEAKER_01 26:12

Be doing it.

SPEAKER_00 26:13

Like I love model trains. This is my confession on this sports like this. So like I like I if I could find a job that would pay me hundreds of thousands of dollars to just be engaged in model to play with model trains. I wouldn't be doing this anymore. It's like that's that's my I mean, like you, I you could say, like, trust me, that's like my lifelong thing, right? It's really just make a bunch of money and then do that. All right. I want to be a 75-year-old man in my basement playing a model train. Anyway, like that's my passion, right? So if you say you want to be a doctor, you should have a deeper philosophical thing than I want to make money. Like it's I get it. We get it.

SPEAKER_01 26:52

Well, and then I want to make money, right? By the way, P.S. uh just append what you just said to kids who think they want to be a business major, right? Why do they think they want to be a miss business major? Because they want to make money. Because they want to make as much money as their parents. Yes, I work with, you know, upper, upper middle class and and higher people and very, very privileged. And they they think they want business because their dad's a business lawyer, their mom is an accountant, and like they literally have no exposure to anything else. So this is hard too. If you're if you're middle class, upper middle class parents, you need to find ways to expose your kids to more than just what you do. I know that's also really hard. It's hard, go out, go out to your network and and find friends who do other things so your kids know what's out there in the world. You can't expect a teenager to know what they want to do if you don't expose them to stuff.

SPEAKER_00 27:42

Right. Which goes back to the parent control and the whole situation and protecting them from any type of danger, right? Like, I mean, that's the thing is like, okay, do you my question? Do you even have a LinkedIn page? No. Do you have a resume? No. Okay, so how are you supposed to connect things? And that's where it's like, I think the medium of social media with technology, I'm gonna sound like an old man now, but like it has created this we we have more time, like there's been systems created to make our time more efficient, but we waste so much more time. Whereas like, do you spend so like and I I'll I'll I'll give you an analogy. I in terms of like when I came back, I taught, I did a student teaching internationally at Budapest, Hungary, and I came back and I'm like, I want to move away from my area as fast as possible. So literally every night after work, working on a golf course, I would spend hours sending out applications to every school district across the eastern seaboard to get a job, right? And it sucked because most everyone has a different system. Nothing, the only one that had a universal one was South Carolina. You could apply to everything in South Carolina at once. But I had and luckily I got invited to a couple job fairs where I eventually ended my first job in North Carolina teaching, but it took consistent work over a couple of weeks to even get to that point to have those opportunities. Most kids, I would argue, don't even get past step one of lead gen. Like I want, I say I want this. Have you done any exploration in that?

unknown 29:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:12

What do you mean? Well, have you talked to anyone in that field first? And like schools do a really poor job of doing that, but we don't even start there as humans, like I think.

SPEAKER_01 29:23

Yeah, yeah. And that is, I think that is where you as a parent can help because you have more access to grown-ups doing jobs than your kids do. So that's a great thing that a parent can do without taking control, right? Introduce.

SPEAKER_00 29:40

What's the biggest mistake you see parents make in high school on the kids' college mission journey?

SPEAKER_01 29:46

I mean, I see a million of them. I I I really see parents thinking, you know, thinking that they know what's best for their kid. And I'm not here to say that you as a parent don't know. Um, and maybe what I really mean is thinking they know what their kids want without having the conversation. And a lot of times that looks like, well, I went to Penn. So, and I know Penn isn't right for you, but then you probably want to go to Yale. And, you know, so we're talking way up here. And and and then what you're telegraphing to the student is um, well, it has to be Ivy. I mean, it doesn't have to be the Ivy I went to, but it has to be Ivy. And then if we get all the way through the process and you don't get in to any Ivy's, you, teenager, feel like you've disappointed your parents. And that's bad.

SPEAKER_00 30:41

All right. So AI and emissions, right? There's Chat GPT essays, brainstorming supplementals. What are you seeing in your practice with the use of AI? And what's some advice for parents who maybe don't have a college coach, but they're worried about their kids' essay, but they obviously don't want them using AI because that's probably a way to get it rejected.

SPEAKER_01 31:06

Well, you I think that most people don't think that yet. I think most people think that AI could write you a perfectly good essay. And here's the thing: it can write you a beautifully written essay. Um, it doesn't know your personal experiences and it hasn't, um, it's not inside your head. And and the the thing that makes a college essay strong is reflection, like personal reflection. Um, and AI can't do that for you. And you can't, if you're gonna bother to reflect, you might as well just write stuff down. Um so I will tell you though, here's what AI can do for you. It can um it can write your activity descriptions and or it can cut the characters down to 150 characters, which is what the common app limitation is. Um, it can take your thousand-word essay and edit it down to 650. I have no problem with that. Um, it takes some of the fun out of my job because I like editing things down, but um I just you could it can do things for you. I'm not saying don't use it because I know teenagers are using it. And um, and there are there are some colleges that have regulations. So there are, so you need to know the rules of the colleges that you're applying to, because there are some saying, you know, your work needs to be your 100% your work, and you can't use AI. But there are some that I can't remember who it was, but there was one college last year that said have AI write your college essay and then you read it and criticize it, critique it. That's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_00 32:33

Yeah. You teach at UC Berkeley. So what trends are you seeing right now amongst new counselors? What's the changing in the field?

SPEAKER_01 32:41

A lot of people, um, well, Berkeley, so a lot of people coming from tech, a lot of people career switching from tech, which is interesting because tech has been so big for the last 25 years. Um, but I think we're all seeing tech is contracting a little bit. Um, and and I think it's um it's dovetailing with tech um being integrated into education and college counseling more. So it's actually a good career change for for a lot of people.

SPEAKER_00 33:08

Do you think that's gonna because like we saw a dip in software engineers and now it's going back up with AI, meaning we're probably gonna need a lot more software engineers. Um what I mean, like, I'll just ask you this question because like at this point, I'm an educator, I'm going into 17 years in education. I'm still a practitioner as an assistant principal, run a I run an education-based business, help kids with their AP scores, help them with SAT, ACT, some help some with college stuff. 10 years from now. Like my kid, like I'm my kid, my oldest is 10. I don't even know if I'm gonna. I'm like, I'd rather you buy a business than maybe go to college unless it's gonna be something specific. Like, where where are we going with AI? Like, how that is a scary other thing that's gonna be very disruptive in the space. Is a college degree still worth it?

SPEAKER_01 33:56

Yeah, um, I just got like halfway into this article on Katie Couric's website today, and then I didn't have finish reading it. Um there's lots of arguments about how having a college degree will still net you a higher lifetime earning than not having a college degree. I think that I don't think that will ever change. Um, but I uh what I think I think a lot of things are converging. So we have what's called the demographic cliff. It's not really a cliff, it's more like a plateau, right? So the class of 25 was actually the largest class of graduating high school seniors, and from there it's actually declining. It's not, it's not skydiving, it's just it's just plateauing a little bit and and getting softer. So, what does that mean? Necessarily fewer people going to college. Um so I don't know. I I it I it would be really interesting to to have some a whole panel of of really smart economists and and computer scientists, people like looking 10 years into the future and telling us what the world is going to look like. I personally and and people who I work with, they still see the value in a college education. And I think, I think if you think about a college education, let's go back to that academically, socially, emotionally. If you go back to the purpose of a college education is to prepare you for the workplace, any workplace. It prepares you to work with other people. It prepares you to ingest information, take in information and analyze it and think about it and write about it and communicate about it, as opposed to doing a physics equation. You know what I mean? I think that to me is really the long-term benefit of a college education. I don't think that's going anywhere.

SPEAKER_00 35:43

How about for a parent of a freshman or a sophomore listening that thinks that's like far off in the distance, but what should they actually be doing right now that pays off on their kid as a junior or a senior?

SPEAKER_01 35:53

Yeah. So a couple things. Um, make a four-year plan for your students' high school curriculum. So don't just plan for next year, plan for four years so we know what they're taking all the way through senior year. Um, find your school profile, um, and I'll send you the link to the article if you want. But basically, there's a document that travels with your transcript and it tells it gives colleges the context of what's offered at your high school. So, for example, it'll say how many AP classes do you offer? It sometimes it'll give a GPA distribution, sometimes it'll give average SAT A C T scores. It just gives colleges context so they can understand how to evaluate you. When I'm meeting with ninth grade or even eighth grade families, I say find your school profile. It's almost definitely on your high school website so you know what colleges are seeing when you apply. To me, if you're a ninth grader, those are the two things that I would do right away. But honestly, the advice that we give, you know, people when they call us really early is take the hardest classes that you can and try really hard to get good grades. And and that doesn't mean you have to get straight A's. You can there can be B's. Um, but really take hard classes at both grades.

SPEAKER_00 37:05

All right. We're gonna move into rapid fire lightning round. So just first thing that comes to your mind uh to kind of close this out. All right, no explanation needed.

SPEAKER_01 37:13

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 37:14

Okay. Most overrated piece of admission advice right now.

SPEAKER_01 37:18

Ooh, have your English teacher read your college essay.

SPEAKER_00 37:23

One thing parents overthink in the college process name, ranking, reputation. How about something they underthink?

SPEAKER_01 37:31

I think they underthink how important deep extracurricular activities can be.

SPEAKER_00 37:37

Best question every parent should ask their teen about college that they're probably not asking.

SPEAKER_01 37:44

Ooh, this is really hard, but do you want to go to college? And if so, why?

SPEAKER_00 37:50

One book or resource every family should know about.

SPEAKER_01 37:53

Colleges that change lives. Usually I have it in my bookcase, but I don't have it. Colleges that change lives.

SPEAKER_00 38:00

If you could actually whisper one piece of advice to the parent of a stressed-out junior right now, what would it be?

SPEAKER_01 38:07

It's all gonna work out.

SPEAKER_00 38:10

Awesome. Evelyn, this has been so valuable. I know parents are gonna want to go deeper with you and learn more about what you offer. What's the best place for them to find you and Magellan?

SPEAKER_01 38:21

MagellanCounseling.com. There's a contact us page in the upper right hand corner. If you send an email, it comes directly to me, MagellanCounseling.com.

SPEAKER_00 38:29

And uh before we wrap, what's one thing you want people to remember from this conversation?

SPEAKER_01 38:33

You know what? I'm gonna um I'm gonna back up and give you a better piece of advice, but this could be the thing I want you to remember. Um, is it's something one of my colleagues has been saying for years. Control what you can control. You can't control everything. You can't control what your what your kid's best friend um writes in his essays. You can't control other people's extracurriculars. Like you said, after 11th grade, the cake is baked. You can't control your grades and your rigor, it's there. So stop trying to control what you can't control.

SPEAKER_00 39:02

All right. Evelyn, thank you so much. I appreciate you sharing all the information with us today. And uh hope to have you back on the podcast soon.

SPEAKER_01 39:10

Thanks, Dr.

SPEAKER_00 39:11

Joe.

SPEAKER_01 39:11

I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00 39:12

Absolutely. Thank you all for watching, and we'll see you next time. Thanks for joining us on the Supported Learning Podcast. If today's conversation inspired you, challenged you, or sparked a new perspective, be sure to subscribe and share with a fellow change maker. We'll be back soon with more voices, more insight, and more ways to elevate the future of learning together. Until then, keep learning and keep pushing the conversation forward.