SPEAKER_01 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. Dr. Cynthia Cologne has spent 25 years inside Elite College Emissions. As a dean reading applications, as a school administrator, and now as a consultant helping public school families access the same insider knowledge that wealthy private school families take for granted. And she has some sharp options, sharp opinions about the $40,000 emissions college coaching industry and why most college essays are wasted real estate, and about what really actually moves the needle when an emissions officer reads an application. So this one is going to be really loaded. So welcome back to the Supported Learning Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Joseph Beshan. Families often ask me how to navigate the maze of college emissions without wasting thousands of dollars or spending tons of time trying to figure it out. And usually involves finding the people that have tracked the code and figured out the game that schools aren't telling you. And that's again why I am so pleased to welcome Dr. Cynthia Cologne here today. Dr. Cynthia holds degrees from USC, Columbia Teachers College, and a doctorate from UCLA. She has been a school administrator, a dean of a mission, and now an educational consultant. She is the founder of Dream College Academy, the author of two books, Tips for College Success and Beating the Odds, and the host of Destination College Podcast. Her mission, in her own words, is to help public school families access private school college advice. Her signature methodology, The Art of the Emission Essay, is built on something most consultants don't have. She has actually read the applications from the inside. We're going to dive into the black box of elite missions and what really moves the needle and how coach as students, how do you coach students to stand out without manufacturing fake authenticity? Dr. Cynthia, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for your time coming on.

SPEAKER_00 2:21

What an amazing introduction. Thank you for having me, Dr. Jobs. Please pleasure to be here.

SPEAKER_01 2:26

Absolutely. So a lot of those things in the intro kind of hit home because we have kind of been preaching it from our side of things over here in the test prep industry, is as that conversation has naturally led to college admissions. Um, but I want to just kind of like start um with you know your experience and your background, kind of a little similar in terms of where you started uh in the education. And I have yet to leave the education space, but you have kind of talks through that journey and how you ended up uh a college coach of all of all things.

SPEAKER_00 2:58

Well, I mean, my origin story really starts with my mom. I'm a daughter of an immigrant mother who really helped change the trajectory of my life. She heard me talk about USC, the University of Southern California, when I was young. I used to watch football on Saturdays and it was my dream school. And unbeknownst to me, she met a man, Mr. Raul Vargas, when I was a sophomore in high school and he worked at the institution. So she held on to this business card for two years because he said, When you're ready, and when she's ready, just call me and I'll help you, you know, figure it out. So she took some time off, uh, got off work early, drove us north on the 110 freeway, and there we went and sat in his office and he for an hour spent time with us telling us what to do, how to engineer a good application and what it meant. And I think back, I mean, this is you know 1989. I mean, I know I'm dating myself, but I don't care. For a woman like a mom to know and say, I don't know how to help my daughter, and I'm gonna just go ask for help. Like that took a lot of courage for sure. And so the two of them, I give them credit. And so I basically went on, graduated from my dream school, USC. And then when I started, I got an internship and I was working at Barnard College when I was at teachers' college at Columbia, and then moved on to Vassar. So when I worked at Vassar in admissions, I was given a list of colleges or high schools, sorry, high schools to go visit. And they were private, mostly private independent schools. It was a world I did not know. And I would get there, the guard gate, manicured lawns, brick buildings, and I thought, wow. I mean, these students didn't need my help giving them the behind-the-scenes truths. That was the truth. But I I knew then that it was really my mission to become the Mr. Vargas for other students and help close that information gap of what public school and private school students know and uh have access to. So that's that's how uh that's my story. And I left ultimately, I left college admissions because I just couldn't do the Sophie's choice anymore. Every year, about March, we'd have to move kids that were otherwise admitted. We'd have to move them to the wait list because we had overadmitted.

SPEAKER_01 5:17

That's a that's a pretty incredible story. I have a similar pathway to USC as well, as my parents discouraged me from going there. So because I long ago I wanted to be a movie director, and I heard USC had an amazing film program, as did UCLA and MYU. Um, and my parents are like, Well, you're not going to California and we're not paying for MYU. So you can go ahead and shut down that dream of calling. So, but that's awesome that you're a Trojan, you know, uh, as an undergrad, and you uh you made it through uh a lot of educational reform policy shifts, but I think it would be basically I want to mention how intense emissions has changed. I mean, in terms of UC USC and even UCLA, it has now become super, super selective and it becomes super competitive now, as I'm sure you know, uh, in that. And so I guess just what has changed for families that don't understand this, like, why are these tools so selective? Why is it so hard to get into UCLA is a state school in a California state system, and it's a great school, but we're talking about less than what, 7% acceptance rate now or 3%? Is it in 3% now?

SPEAKER_00 6:31

Or no, it's not 3% quite yet. But so it's interesting. I I don't know why I know the stat off the top of my head, but 1998, UCLA had about 33,000 applications, and today they they're you know north of 100,000, close to 150,000 applications. So to understand how we got here, you have to kind of go back to US News and World Report, sort of mid to late 90s. Uh, this comes out. And um, as a good friend of mine, Maria Morales Kent, she was working at the University of Pennsylvania at the time. And basically something shifted, right? Now this ranking, Americans love a good ranking of anything. And now colleges are chasing. I mean, she said, you know, UPenn, we would just recruit locally. I mean, you no one was sort of recruiting inner, you know, nationally. And now the race was to be at the top of this list. So things started changing even then, how they recruited, who they recruited, who they admitted, how they, you know, how they decide, how they look at who's interested. So over time, uh things started to change. And then early decision also changes a lot of things. A lot of colleges um sort of I I like to say it this way, and it won't be taken very well, but sometimes they're they're cooking their numbers. If you're admitting 40 to 60 percent of your freshman class or early decision, what's left? It's a it's a bloodbath with regular decision. So Americans love a good list, love a good ranking, and the more something is well, the less accessible something is, the more we want it. And so each year that the admission rate goes down, the more popular that same school gets. So it's like we're just kind of in this constant, because here's the truth. The truth is we're actually going down in the number of students. Our population is going down, but it doesn't seem to be slowing down the number of applications, and the acceptance rates keeps going down.

SPEAKER_01 8:41

Yeah, you're describing a death spiral. In a lot of ways, a lot of our things in society are in death spiral, like healthcare costs have gone up, um, tuition costs have skyrocketed, college education has gotten no better. It's the costs have only gone up exponentially. Um, there's a lot of things that were in kind of a death spiral. It seems like elite college emissions is there too. Um, but speaking to your mission, and I'm gonna make some broad assumptions about California just because of some of the students we help, but I am assuming that your mission of helping public school students get a like private advice, does that come from just the probably the overuse of resources or uh in in what should take place in high schools in terms of counseling? Because like I've been in education for 16 years, gone 17, up until probably about four years ago. I didn't even know college counseling was a thing. I didn't know that this entire world existed. And now I'm like, people are charging $50,000, $100,000 for this. And I'm like, what's the counselor at the school doing? And I imagine just based on the ratio of kids and the mental health crises, they're probably doing that and not college planning for kids. Is that kind of where this kind of started as well?

SPEAKER_00 10:04

Well, in our nation, the average student to counselor ratio is 500 to 1. And in some states, merely double that. So that's point, you know, like problem number one. But to your point, I mean, counselors are generalists, they're not strategists, they're certainly not experts in helping students get admitted to top 100, top 50, top 25 schools, which is where that sort of gap comes. And also, you know, at a private school, and I worked at one, so at an elite private high school, and I'm talking private independent schools that today in today's cost north of $50,000 per year for high school. At schools like that, you know, and I'm talking Andover, Sidwell Friends, Harvard Westside, Horace Mann, Dalton, they have counselors to deal with the mental health and the you know what courses you're gonna take. And they also have college counselors. And those college counselors, when I was hired to work at Marymount High School in Los Angeles, I was one of two. So I had a caseload of 50 girls. 50. Okay. Then there was a whole slew of counselors to deal with other issues. So my only job was to basically improve the outcomes of the students from that high school. And most of most of my friends that I know are colleagues. I'm part of an organization that you can't buy membership to. You have to have worked at an IV league or a sister institution in admissions to be part of this group. So, with the exception of like there's Stanford and Georgetown, I think, also part of MIT as well. So all of my colleagues worked at those institutions and then also now work across the country. Many of us at some point are still do work at private independent schools. To put it mildly, there's like David and Goliath, the students who already have the resources also are getting the strategist and the S and the SA and the college expert right in their school. And so for me, I come to this place of there are certainly public school families who want the same thing for whatever reason. They don't attend a private school. Uh there, and I've worked in and I've been a Catholic school principal. So there's just a difference in terms of the tier of schools that we're talking about. Private independent schools, the top 50, top 100, many of those high schools send 30 to 50 percent of their class to the top 10 schools in the country. That's not even playing field whatsoever.

SPEAKER_01 12:45

So I was also a I was a Catholic high school teacher for one year outside public school, all the rest. But that was my move back to Pennsylvania, taught it, I taught a year at a Catholic school. And uh it's funny because I actually went to Catholic elementary up until sixth grade, but you're so right in terms of the population was less now now the price tag was a lot less than what you mentioned there. I'm thinking like 12,013,000. Still not chump change, but 12, 13. But in just of that college planning aspect, they did have separate people for it. And like, I don't think I ever even knew Notre Dame entered the threshold of my public school, but Notre Dame was at that school two to three times. And so, like, just in terms of the opportunities that these kids are having access to. And I think when I was looking for a rich, because I was like, get me out of Western Pennsylvania, I'll teach literally everywhere. But the school I landed on was like Mother Day out there in California because I was like, Oh, there's like three quarterbacks that have gone to USC. This must be a sweet school to teach to, teach more, right? So, yeah, I mean, they just the opportunities those kids have, you're absolutely right. And then you do have kind of like the chaos of public school. By the way, for our listeners listening and and viewers viewing, the recommendation counselor to student ratio is 250 to one by the CDC. And so 500 to one is insane, which is also why we have a lot of issues in schools right now. So you were a dean of admissions, and so you've, I assume you read thousands of applications and essays. What's separating that the kid who got in versus the kid who didn't? Like what is the determining factor, even though if the students look on paper identical?

SPEAKER_00 14:37

Well, the first thing is, you know, 60 to 80 percent of the applicant pool, whatever the applicant pool is, whether it's VAS or college, H Y P or S or you know, USC or RICE or UNC, doesn't matter what pool you're in, 60 to 80 percent of them are going to be equally academically qualified. So that is not what's ever going to separate. It's just gets you a ticket to the dance, so to speak, right? You get you get the thing that helps the students really stand out, and this is the number one question I get, right? How do I get my kid to stand out? So two things. One, what are they doing outside of the classroom that's naturally authentically just joy for them? What do you do that you would do even if no one gave you a grade or paid you to do it? And how are you making an impact in your community or in you know the state or in your in your world? That's number one. Number two, how do you make sure all of those things tie together for a complete and compelling application? Everybody thinks community service is the answer, but it's not. We don't we don't want a whole class full of altruistic do-gooders. We need leaders and entrepreneurs and English majors, we need all of it. But if you can tie the things together that make sense to the reader, the reader's only gonna get six to twelve minutes to read the application. So it has to make sense to the reader. So I'll give you an example. A girl from Orange County, California, a public school, she has been dreaming of H Y P R S from little. She wants to major in political science, not gonna be different. She wants to be an attorney, not gonna be different. She wants to be an immigration attorney. Okay, now we're talking. She wants to be a high-ranking judge or one day maybe on the Supreme Court. Okay, now we're really talking. So in addition to being all the things academically qualified, she's also a national dance champion for her dance team at school. But she decides to do a six-part education series and interview six immigration attorneys for her podcast to help educate others on how to navigate the process. So when I read her application, she's not just another applicant who wants to be a lawyer. She's got a specific story that she's telling. She was admitted to three Ivy League institutions per year, and she's now at Yale. It's not hard, but it's intentional.

SPEAKER_01 17:17

Yeah. We um I'm gonna I'm gonna ping pong off you some of the things we tell, and we'll see how much we are aligned to the students. So um I I I do think a lot of college admissions companies are not starting with that, what you just said. Like foundationally, it has to be on academics, right? You're not getting in if you don't have the grades and the academic part of that. But we do talk about starting with the why of like, why do you want to go to this elite school? And it has to be more than just surface level, right? So you're not getting in without good academics, aligned activities, depth of activities, not shotgun approach, a million different activities, but like you said, authentic to that person that aligns with their why, and then tie it all together with that good personal story and how you stand out. And how I usually explain it to families that are not that urgent with ninth and tenth grade is like, well, you know, I've seen on your website too, really wait till 11th year. The cake's baked at this point. You are what you are. You're that's that you we're not changing much. But starting the greatest asset that I think most families don't understand is their kids' time. And they just fill it up with stuff and not purpose. Meaning, for a kid to build a real podcast, they have to do that over time. To have a blog, they have to do that over time because that's the only way it's going to come across authentic. That when the admissions officer naturally looks up their podcast or the thing, they don't see three entries, they see 300. And it's like, oh, this actually is something this kid actually authentically did. It's not just to get into my school. So we align there.

SPEAKER_00 18:58

Thousand percent. Yes. Yes. Well, and I would say that if you force it, many people will get to me and they'll be like, Well, what do we like? They're looking for the answer. And I'm like, you know, I can tell you 10, you know, I can tell you all the students and the examples that they've done, but you have to find your thing.

SPEAKER_01 19:18

Right.

SPEAKER_00 19:19

You know, there's not a magic bullet. So I give that example, I give a number of examples, but it's like the kid didn't start out thinking, what is going to be my strategy? Like we just naturally, I was like, okay, you know, she was on the mock trial team. She wants to be a lawyer, like she was a Girl Scout, she needs a Girl Scout Gold Award. Like all the things just happened to like to align. And she also she doesn't have time. I I think that's what I picked up on most teenagers who are shooting for these top 50 kind of colleges don't have the gift of time. They're rock stars. So I I approach, I'll tell families, I'm gonna tell you right now, I'm not trying to add to her plate. We are gonna try to leverage and compress time for maximum productivity for maximum results. That's it. So you don't have to cure cancer between now and November of senior year, but you do have to do something impactful.

SPEAKER_01 20:17

Dr. Cynthia, then that leads me to my next question of what is the most common mistake you see in applications that makes you, as a reader, lose interest in the first 30 seconds? Basically, what's the quickest way to get rejected to an elite school?

SPEAKER_00 20:31

Yeah. Uh starting with the topic sentence, restaging the prompt, or the worst is talking about community service. So those are probably the the three things that come quickly to mind right away.

SPEAKER_01 20:44

This is this sounds terrible because uh there's obviously kids who are out there who do struggle, but we so as an administrator, you know, our devices are monitored at school, and we can always know when it's like personal essay story time for the common app because kids talk about their mental health struggles and it just flags the system of like suicidal audiation. And it's like I was like, I don't know if is it all the essays just super depressing? Like there's not there's no uplifting like stories of encouragement. Is that like a race to have the saddest story is gonna get you in as well? Is that number one? Is that one two?

SPEAKER_00 21:18

Yeah, oh, for sure. Okay, so that's a big misconception. Think I think it's parents. I I don't know that it's students, but I think it's parents believe they have to have like a sad, sob story to win the day. And I'm like, no, death, divorce, devastation, and uh a D, I would say those are the four D's you avoid, and you're not writing about those things.

SPEAKER_01 21:38

Family practice attorney right there.

SPEAKER_00 21:39

I even had someone who uh he used to work for a college board and like we worked with his daughter, and he's like, remind me, he has another daughter. He's like, What are those four Ds again? Death, divorce, devastation, and actual an actual getting a D or learning differences is the other D. Why? Because if I'm writing about something you should spend, if you insist on writing about, I definitely. Or discourage you. If you insist on writing about it, it should be no more than 20% of the essay. And then quickly get to the resolution. What did you learn? How are you different? How are you changed? What did you know what are the takeaways? Because I don't want to think I'm bringing on someone who hasn't worked through that issue.

SPEAKER_01 22:17

Right. 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 focus on critical thinking, confidence, and real growth. Head to supportedtutoring.com to find the support your student deserves. Going back to the I mean, what the common question is the or common mistake. I hear this a lot too in families is that so-and-so got in with doing this, therefore I'm my kids doing this. Or like we're doing everything what everyone else is doing. And it's like, but Harvard isn't looking, they're like they're not look, they're looking for a diverse range of kids. Like if they already accepted that kid, yours is probably not getting in, right? Like you need to stand out a different way. Is that accurate?

SPEAKER_00 23:14

Yeah, yeah, a thousand percent. Yes. You know, we what we teach is like we I've talked to hundreds of parents, but pro prospective clients, and uh, and like we don't do cookie cutter. Like, if you want to do a research paper, get it published in a journal, in a peer-reviewed journal, you want to do an internship, like you can. And I'm not saying those are bad ideas. I'm just saying MIT doesn't need uh yet another person who did that same thing. I promise you. Lean into what is unique to you.

SPEAKER_01 23:44

I think that's probably speaking to prospective families. So, like it is so hyper-personalized to the kid. It's not, I mean, there's a process, right? I assume you have a process, but it's every kid's gonna take you on a different journey in how we get there because it's everyone's unique, which is kind of lost. I think, but I think it's I think in our instant gratification society of just having podcasts on like SAT, there's no like secret, like it's not like just like if you just do this one thing, you're good. You're gonna get in a hundred percent. Like it's easy. We know the secret, but you don't. And if you just you know pay us enough money, we'll give you the secret, then you're good. That's how it is. Um, you said the essay is the most undercoached lever in the entire application. Why is that? And what are most students getting wrong?

SPEAKER_00 24:27

Well, first of all, you know, it's the way we teach writing in schools. I mean, and students get to this part and they think the essay is an English paper or a test of their vocabulary or a regurgitation of their resume. It is none of those things. So college essay writing is something we we just don't teach and we don't learn. So we learned on accent. You know, when I was at Marymount, I told you we had a 50 to one college counselors to student ratio. We lacked in time to give all the feedback for the essays in the fall. It was not enough hours in the day to get all of the feedback back to just my 50 girls. So we started essay camp uh back then. And here's what we learned again on accident, and now we have of course have now taught it over to 10,000 plus students. It's not, it's more about your why. You said this a little bit earlier. It's not about the accomplishments and accolades. I don't want to know what you did. I'm already gonna find that in the activities section. The essay should be something I cannot find anywhere else in the application. It is a window into your life, into your soul. And most students think they know what they should write about. And Gary Clark, he's the VP at UCLAY, interviewed him. Uh, he said, um, think less about what you think we want to hear and more about what you need to say. But the the truth is the amount of reflection that it takes to really get a good essay that is gonna stand out and go, wow, and and not just be a flat read. Most adults haven't done that kind of reflection. You know, we're asking teenagers to think about our signature core for essays are you're gonna write in five days, who am I? What am I good at? What's something cool about me, and why this major? That is gonna take several hours of work and exercises in those five days. That again, most adults haven't done. So I say all of that just to kind of sum it up. Like we don't teach that in a school, nowhere else are they getting that information. And the discrepancy between the public and private schools is it's not even close. So to give the draw this, make this point. Two students I had one year applied to Princeton. Princeton requires a graded essay as part of their application. The private school student, I said, What do you have? He was able to turn in a 17-page paper with really good feedback from the teacher. Private school. The public school student, if I asked, What do you have? She had a 40-minute in-class assignment to offer. So the amount of pages and the amount of hours that a public school student has spent practicing the muscle and the skill of writing, no nowhere near what they need to achieve that level of competition.

SPEAKER_01 27:45

So then how do you how do you get the how does the public school student stand a chance to get in?

SPEAKER_00 27:52

Right. Such a good question. So again, what we developed kind of on accident, but we've discovered for me, I'm just the like I'm a master of my minutes and like every minute has to count. And I need a good example. So in our classes, we tell you what to do, we show you an example of what to do, and then we time we give you the time right, and you're gonna do it right now. So we walk them through exercises of like brainstorming, do the what, why memory exercise, and then you go, you do test drives. So we set the timer for literally eight minutes, and they do six mini drafts in like the first three hours. So usually students will have two or three good ideas because we've walked them through a specific exercise to get like, for example, they always think that I'm gonna write about being the student body president or like how we won the game or Costa Rica trip to build houses. Nah, wrong. So that little nugget of like bird watching, that little nugget of the Taco Bell scene, picking the from Frankenstein's menu, the little nugget of being obsessed with roller coasters and he wants to be a mechanical engineer. Those are little nuggets that most students miss and would never think to write about. But in our brainstorming section, if I read the essays and I don't find anything interesting, I'll go back to the brainstorm and I say, tell me more about this. So we call that week amongst our coaches, we say, we're trying to excavate the gold. The more we can get you to write and just throw spaghetti at the wall, the closer we're gonna get to finding that one sentence that we're like, yes, this is it. Write more about this. So it takes some time, but once they're in a groove by day three, they understand why we're we're saying what we're saying.

SPEAKER_01 29:46

I want to push on something that's a hot take in your world. If you can if I can dig in for a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 29:51

I already know where you go. I think, I think.

SPEAKER_01 29:54

Well, where do you think I'm going?

SPEAKER_00 29:56

AI?

SPEAKER_01 29:57

No, well, I will get to AI, yeah, for sure. But I think first, because we mentioned in the intro, there's an entire industry of consultants charging $40,000 and more to coach families through emissions.

SPEAKER_00 30:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:10

A lot of what they do, a lot of these, because they're, you know, in a wherever there's money, there's a lot, a lot of flows in there. So we've seen this in a lot of other industries, coaching industries as well. But essentially, a lot of this is manufacturing leadership positions, padding activity lists, and writing essays that sound polished but feel hollow. So, I guess what is your take on the industry as a whole where it's at right now? Because I, and I'll just I'll interject mine and let you have space to explain too, is that you know, I described it as um, you know, you either do it's kind of like trickle-down college emissions or ground up college emissions. I think to build an authentic profile, you have to start with a good foundation, obviously the academics, and like we just talked about. But a lot of what I hear families talking about when they come to me for like test prep is passion project, internship, research, like all these things, the the peppered of marketing and not a process. And then there are also a lot of these places are charging a lot of money for a dream of getting into one of these tools. What's your take on it? Like honestly, there's where where are we at? What and where where is that where is that leading us?

SPEAKER_00 31:22

Well, I will take the stance of like it comes from supply and demand and doesn't make it right. I I I will often say, I don't love this process. I just happen to know how to navigate this process, right? So the scarcity, uh let me lead with this, because I just recently did the work, the numbers. So to give you an example, I just recently looked up Duke, because a couple of my students are uh gonna be applying next year. So Duke receives about 58,000 applications. So their acceptance rate is like under 5%. It's like 4%. But if you do the math, they get 6,000 applications in early decision. 1,040 are admitted. Okay, and some are denied. So let's say we throw 4,000 back into the pool. So now we're at 56,000 instead of whatever it is. 1,042 that they already took is 60% of the freshman class. That leaves approximately 680 freshman spaces left to fill from a pool of 56,000. Now they admit about 2,000-ish to get that 680. But it's it puts fear in the family. There's a scarcity problem. So they'll they'll do anything to to to to to figure out how to navigate that and how to help my child have even a chance. So there's that. The other is really believe we're going in this direction of like they're not gonna be, they're families who are already questioning, is it worth it? Is education worth this cost? And there will be really just at the end of the day, the luxury brands will always still be something that's sought after. So that's why families are willing to spend, spend that money. And what it's creating is a even bigger, wider gap between the haves and have nots, because you have, you know, that's why I try to say we serve, I happen to attract, because I'm I was a public school kid and a Catholic school principal, tend to attract those students because I'm trying to help close not the education gap, the information gap and help you get a seat at that table. Why? Because colleges could, if they wanted to, fill their entire freshman class with private school students. But they can't and they won't. That's not what they want. But it's not hard to stand out as a public school applicant because most public school students don't have access to really good counseling. So those who can afford or get something, we offer things free, a lot of things for free. It's the same information on my YouTube channel, on my podcast, what I do daily on social media, all of it is the same thing. Same thing I'm giving to my VIP clients that just obviously have more one-on-one time. So the information is out there if you want it and most people need it. But you're absolutely right. Until there's a class action against early decision. I don't know where that is right now and where it's headed, but until we correct what colleges are doing to cook their numbers, it's going to continue to be this crazy.

SPEAKER_01 35:01

You said you can't, you really can't fake authenticity, that admissions officers are trained to spot it. What does inauthenticity? We've talked about this a little bit, but what does inauth on authenticity actually look like in an application? And what are the tells?

SPEAKER_00 35:16

One of the things that when I think about and I'll reflect each year on like who didn't, who didn't get admitted to like the the top that they were shooting for? And it always comes back to students who are applying to top 50, top 25, you know, really top schools, because they are a top school, because it's prestigious. Like in my first conversation with families, you'll say, Oh, you know, I see you have these schools listed in, you know, when you signed up for this call. You know, is there a reason? And well, you know, it's a good school, it's prestigious. And I'm like, that's not a reason. Um I mean, like, like you know, good school, Harvard. It's a good school. Like, okay, well, that's not gonna help you get in. So I always just say, like, it's if you tell me you want you love Brown and Columbia, I already know you didn't do your homework. Those two Ivy Leaves couldn't be farther from like different from each other. So I'm like, no, try again, right? Core curriculum at Columbia, right? They just like they're reading the Iliad and Homer, like they're like steeped in tradition. Brown, open curriculum, do whatever the heck you want. Okay. So if you're gonna apply to both, like you better have a darn good reason. Otherwise, I'm gonna say, no. So when John, uh when Jonna was admitted to Princeton, when I woke look back, I kid you not, this was true story. She's the kid, she's from Chicago, public schools, and she applied early to uh Georgetown. She was deferred. So she was all like, oh, she was nervous. So we went ahead, we went forward. And I remember, and I went back, I found it. I found her draft of Princeton, her Princeton essays. And then when I was reading them, I stopped and I wrote at the top of her Google Doc, I said, This feels like a great fit. Like every answer feels better than the the previous one. I don't know. I just have a feeling, I think this is the one she's graduating this year. I kid you not. So if I could see it, they can too. And it's you have to, there's a line in Rocky, the one of the Rocky movies, I have gaps and you have gaps. Together we got new gaps. So if you've done your homework, your values align similarly to that college. And you may also have some that are aspirational. We align this much, and that last 25 to 30 percent are aspirational. And that's where the match comes.

SPEAKER_01 37:57

That line in Rocky, was that before or after he single-handedly won the Cold War for America? What do you think is the biggest mistake you see parents making during the missions process? The thing that they should, if they would just stop doing it, that actually would change their outcomes the most.

SPEAKER_00 38:14

I think parents put too much emphasis on uh community service, a thousand percent. I think that there are families, parents out there that are trying to do it for their child. You cannot want it more than the kid does. For sure.

SPEAKER_01 38:31

Yeah, it's well said.

SPEAKER_00 38:32

That's never gonna get it. You know, last year with I had a kid who was worried about you know his AI. He said, I it's I know, you know, he wrote his essays in our essay camp and he was getting this score and he was freaked out. So I texted uh about 50 colleagues and said, okay, tell me, just answer A, B, C, or D. One, every application goes through an AI check. Two, you know, if something seems fishy, you you you may check it. Three, what are you talking about? We can smell it a mile away. Or four, Cynthia, who has time to do any of that? We have a hundred thousand applications. And mostly I got C's and D's, meaning someone said, we knew when the mom was, the mom or the sibling was writing the essay 20 years ago, there's nothing different today. Or what are you talking about? We we have too many applications to read. We're not we're not. So um think that parents who are trying to do the process for their child, it's never gonna win the day.

SPEAKER_01 39:37

And then um test optional. So I've seen, which has been great for both of our industries in terms of this, but a lot of families don't know because you have smart kids taking a bunch of AP classes because it looks good on the application and it boosts their GPA that don't sit for the exam. And it seems in the great pendulum swing of college admissions, one, the GPA, everyone has a good GPA, it's applying to Stanford. Two, everyone has good SATs now because test optional skewed the scores up. Stanford said you take an AP course, you have to submit a score. So even more pressure on the AP exams. I guess where do you land on if you have a family come to you debating about test prep or debating about whether or not they, you know, it's test optional, they're not putting too much stock in their actual standardized tests.

SPEAKER_00 40:31

Right now, while we're, I mean, and and we are going back, some some of the top schools, I think many of them, if not most, are going back to test required. But with test optional, I just had a conversation recently, and I think the I think they were somewhere between the 1250 and 1350. I won't remember the details, but I said, if you're a junior, time is not on your side. Figure out where you're applying. And if most of the colleges, if not all of the colleges you're applying to, are test optional, abandon ship. Like you can only spend your time doing so many things. And with test optional, if you're if you don't have a score in the mid-50% range of what that college admits, don't submit it. Because college admissions is a business at the end of the day. And as soon as you submit the test score, they have to take it into their average. So it is a lose-lose situation. If you're below the mid-50% range and you've submitted it, it's going to be a lose-lose situation. So only if you're in the mid-50% range, and I would dare say at the top of that mid-50% range, should you submit. You're right. It's been skewed now because the only people who submit are those who've scored high. So I don't think that if a college doesn't have to, right? If you're H Y P R S, you could do whatever you want. But if a college doesn't have to go back to test required, they won't. Because it has increased the number of applications because now everybody's tossing their hat in the ring. And it's improved their test average. So it's a win-win on the college side. So I was never a fan of letting go of the test because GPAs don't tell a whole story and great inflation has gone through the roof over the last 10, 15 years. The only way to compare apples to apples is through the testing. And the job of the admission officer is to know and understand the context in which you come from. So if you have a 1080 or 1580, if I know the context of your school, your high school, that's my job. As a professional, that's my job to understand and put it into context. But the everyday family doesn't really understand that kind of thinking and why it's important.

SPEAKER_01 42:57

All right. Well, let's shift gears here and move into lightning round. All right. Rapid fire as no explanation needed, all right?

SPEAKER_00 43:05

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 43:06

Most overrated emissions metric that everyone obsesses over.

SPEAKER_00 43:11

Most overrated?

SPEAKER_01 43:13

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 43:15

That everyone obsesses over. Okay. Help me understand what you mean by that.

SPEAKER_01 43:19

So an emissions metric that everyone obsesses over, that's actually overrated. GPA?

SPEAKER_00 43:25

I I would say the test score, and I mean, but it's both both things. Okay. They obsessed over that because they'll try to get like 20 more points. I'm like, the difference between 1530 and 1560. Like, don't obsess over that.

SPEAKER_01 43:44

Gotcha. I gotcha. Good advice. Most underrated thing no one talks about that actually matters in emissions.

SPEAKER_00 43:50

I think more people are talking about it now, but demonstrated interest is definitely a thing. So being on social media, liking things, we say get a family. Family email just for colleges so that you can sign up for their newsletters. And when those emails come in, do not ignore them. Open them, click on them. You're getting little gold stars next to your name every time you open, click, engage, demonstrated interest is underutilized.

SPEAKER_01 44:17

One thing parents overthink about the application.

SPEAKER_00 44:20

They overthink uh the essay again to go back to like the drama. They're like, oh, what's gonna be our story? And then like, it's it's not that. Um, so don't overthink it. And in fact, your gold is sitting somewhere, like something you wouldn't even think to write about.

SPEAKER_01 44:38

One thing parents underthink.

SPEAKER_00 44:40

Probably I'd go back to fit the Rocky. Like, they just it's not about the name. If the name comes with it, great. The question you have to ask, do I want to get into the most prestigious college possible? Or do I want to get into the best college for my major? Answer that, and strategy follows.

SPEAKER_01 44:59

How about the best question every family should ask a college during a campus visit?

SPEAKER_00 45:05

It probably has to do with the values of the college or who the president is. So we do a speed date exercise, and I say go look up the mission, vision, values, and the president. Just like in the United States, the president of the United States determines the agenda. So if you know who the president is and what their agenda is and their background, you're gonna know already half of what you need to know if that agenda is aligned with your needs for the next four years.

SPEAKER_01 45:38

What's the next big shift coming in college admissions that no one's talking about?

SPEAKER_00 45:42

The next big shift is, well, it's a few things. One, colleges are closing. I don't know if there was a podcast about Hampshire closing. In very short order, short, shorter than we think, there'll be a number of colleges that close. And I when I say a number, I'm gonna say, you know, 50, 100 colleges. There's not enough enrollment to maintain all of the colleges that we have right now. It the the the enrollment or the just the population is going down. Number one. Number two, AI is going to hit college campuses and admission officers like a ton of bricks in very short order. So the shift of what how all of that plays out uh will be the next major thing. But education systems uh are very slow to move. So we'll see, we'll we'll see how that goes.

SPEAKER_01 46:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:35

Good luck.

SPEAKER_01 46:37

Well, Dr. Cynthia, this has been incredible. For families and educators who want to go deeper with you, learn more about what you do, what you offer. Where's the best place to find you and learn about Dream College Academy and your books?

SPEAKER_00 46:48

You can go to my website, drcynthiacolan.com, follow me on all social media. I'm gonna give you some things that you can link that they can download for free. My dream is that my book, Be Committed, Get Admitted, is the go-to eighth grade graduation gift. Uh, and it's not about getting admitted to college, it's about understanding that the process of choices, what choices you have at the end of senior year, again a freshman year. So be committed, get admitted is in English and in Spanish, and you can find it on Amazon. And I also will offer you a, I'll give you a link for um a couple of things that you can download the first chapter for free and a couple of things I'll give, I'll give you to link. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 47:29

Great. We'll put that all in the uh show notes and the description. Uh before we wrap, what's one thing you want every family listening to remember from this conversation?

SPEAKER_00 47:37

As parents, your only job is to give your child the best educational experiences possible and help them to maximize their choices, whatever those choices are. It does not have to be H Y P R S. But that's my message to every parent. Be the hero or the Shiro in your child's life.

SPEAKER_01 48:00

Well, Dr. Cynthia, thank you. 25 years of insider intelligence, and I appreciate you laying it all out. And again, for everyone listening, uh, remember you don't have to play the game the way the system is set up. The kids winning are the ones with the most polished, are the ones with the most polished consultant, they're the ones with the most authentic story. So, again, we'll put all that information in the show notes below, as well as whatever Dr. Cynthia sends us for some freebies. So I really appreciate that. Uh again, thank you for your time and thank you for tuning in to the Supported Learning Podcast. 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.