Ready for the Ivy League Challenge?

Transcript

SPEAKER A

Welcome back to season two of the Ivy League Prep Academy Podcast. Equipping you to successfully pursue the college of your dreams. We believe everyone deserves to reach their full potential and the admissions process shouldn't hold you back. Welcome back to the show. I am so excited today. We have a guest with us that I think you are really, really going to enjoy. This is an interview that's born out of my request. I had a conversation with Akshay Maliwal and we met a couple of weeks ago and we've been chatting ever since. And I just think that he and I have a lot of consistencies around our philosophies in elite university admissions. And I think that it's just really valuable to share his voice and his opinions with you. Before we say hello, let me just tell you a little bit about Akshay Maliwal. He took the athlete route to elite admissions, so he actually went to UC Berkeley as a golf player. He went on a golf scholarship. And I think we're going to really, really benefit from his advice and from his experience. And so, without any further ado, actually, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER B

Thanks so much, Steve. Thanks for having me. It's a fantastic opportunity for me to talk to you. And as you said, we connected two or three weeks ago, if I'm not mistaken. And was it such a great meeting? I mean, I remember we were walking down the river, been beautiful Singapore, and having great chats about your views on the college admissions process, my views on holistic, family and personal development of individuals. So I really appreciate your time today.

SPEAKER A

It's great. And to be honest, you and I shared a lot of consistencies and I find that all over the place. Right. It's not that every admissions support team has this philosophy, but the people that I spoke to who are actually admissions officers at schools like Harvard where I attended, and other schools where I've spoken to admissions officers, this is what they're hoping for. It's the philosophy that you bring to your clients and the philosophy that we definitely uphold in the Ivy League Challenge. So let's go ahead and dive right in. First of all, you attended UC Berkeley. It's obviously widely considered America's best public school. How did you decide to attend UC Berkeley and what were your thoughts? How did you like studying there?

SPEAKER B

Absolutely I loved my UC Berkeley experience. It was so different from studying in Singapore and doing the International Baccalaureate program here at United World College. But I loved my experience, and I think that going forward we'll unpack some of the reasons why UC Berkeley is really the best public university in the world and currently in the US. So I had a great experience. I was a recruited golfer and then I eventually studied economics, and hopefully I've done well so far, who knows?

SPEAKER A

Well, you've certainly had a fantastic career after university, which is what we expect, right. Like you and I talked about. And my listeners are very familiar with this whole approach, this whole idea that these top tier universities are not accepting students based on the preparation that students have done to get into university generally at this top tier. And UC Berkeley is definitely there. These are schools that are looking at you and saying, well, what have you done for your community? Because if you have a track record of doing great things as a teenager, then wait till you get to university and you experience all the resources that we have at a top tier university, you're going to make an even bigger impact. And then when you leave, you'll combine the resources, the experience, and your network of peers from this elite school, and you can go and do even greater things. So, absolutely, we had a wonderful conversation about this kind of process, what you called a holistic process. And just like you complimented me, I also love your philosophy, love your approach. We obviously have a ton in common here. Let's just start off there. Can you tell the listeners, most of whom are teenagers or parents of teenagers, what would you say is the most common mistake that teens make when they have ambitions to study at a top tier school?

SPEAKER B

Absolutely, Steve. I think the biggest problem that I've noticed, and this is a similar problem we experience with our own clients is that they come to us and they come as a high school student, and they're very outcome oriented. And I think that's a good thing to be. I think being outcome oriented in life can get you far. But I think if your outcome ends at university admission and that's your high moment in life, then you kind of fall short of what is the long term target or the long term achievement here. For us, when we look at it from a holistic view, going to a great college, a top tier academic school, an Ivy League, is one great milestone in the journey, which is life. And ultimately, after you go beyond college and you're in the working world and five years later, six years later, you have a great job and you're thriving in your career, people remember you by how you're thriving in your career and what are the types of opportunities you took and you took advantage of. And so when we talk to parents and we do this almost on a daily basis, we have to keep reminding families that when you are trying to aspire for top tier academic universities in the world, it can't end with my high moment in life was getting in. It has to be much greater than that. And as a result, the authenticity of what you do in high school is even greater. And that's something that is a big misconception for us, especially in Asia, where so many families, I call it, they gear up with academic counselors sports counselors, Sat, act, advisors, they basically have an entire army with their student. The idea is it culminates in this admission, and if that admission outcome isn't as desired, then it's like there was nothing more to it. And my life is kind of not as meaningful as I thought it would be. And that for me, is a very shocking kind of mindset, which I've been working extremely hard over the last seven and a half years to kind of eliminate. It's taking a lot of time, slowly, we're working on it. But as we help a few hundred students every year, I'm noticing the evolution of mindset. I'm noticing that students and their parents are starting to want to do things because they care about it. I think the care part is what I care about. I think people have to want to do things. No amount of private college counselor, no amount of university counselor in a school can make your son or daughter into something that they may not be. And so that core passion has to be coming out of oneself. And it can't be coming out of yourself because you need to go to Harvard, or it's coming out of you because you need to go to Yale. It needs to come out of you because you want to pursue that. It needs to come out of you because you look at that and you say, this is what I love, and if tomorrow I don't get into Harvard, I still love it and it won't deter my track. And that's when you know that student is gifted and destined for great university admission, but beyond that, for great success in life.

SPEAKER A

Yeah, I mean, it's like this idea where you become the best version of yourself and let the cards fall where they may. Right. Because if you truly shine as an individual, if you identify your real core values and you live them authentically, then Harvard is going to be lucky to have you on campus. And if they don't have you on campus, that's their loss. You're going to be successful with or without Harvard. And that's kind of this. You let go of all the desperation around your dream school, whatever it is. Right. I use Harvard, but it can be whatever school you're dreaming about. Once you don't need your dream school to be fulfilled, to be happy, to be successful, you are far more likely to be an attractive candidate for your dream school. It's one of the great ironies in life, not just in college admissions. I love it.

SPEAKER B

I don't agree with you more.

SPEAKER A

Absolutely. Totally. So tell us a little bit about your company here. I know you started Added education. It's the name of the company. You started it in 2014, almost ten years ago. Tell us about your company and tell us about what you do.

SPEAKER B

So the origins of our company was really an added sport. We started as a sports recruitment firm where we're helping student athletes from Asia leverage their sport to get into US. Universities. Me and my co founder, who is my twin sister, she went to Stanford to play squash. I went to Berkeley to play golf. So we both were products of that pathway, and we both did the IB program in Singapore, did fairly well, and so we had a chance to get recruited into some of the best universities in the world. And this was very surprising moment for my family because we realized, wow, there is a pathway beyond academic credentials to getting into some of the top universities in the world. And that was a very unique thing at the time when we were applying to US. Universities. Fast forward. When I graduated, I was kind of struggling in a career in investment banking. I liked it. I didn't love it. I wanted to do something on my own. I didn't know what it was. And then my sister approached me and said, you've always loved sport. Why don't you do something that connects education and sport? Because what we did was so unique, and I don't see anybody else trying to do that in Asia. So when we started this business at the end of 2013, we were the first people to navigate the pathway as a consulting firm for student athletes, specifically going to universities abroad. Over the last three years, we've expanded beyond sport, and we help regular students who are looking to build something bigger for themselves. And I want to caveat this by saying I don't want student athletes or students to come to us and say, build me my profile. That is templatized, that is well put together, well manicured, and help me get into an elite college that isn't the mindset of added education. We want students to come to us and say, this is the problem I have, this is the problem I want to solve. These are how many things I'm interested in. Could you help me navigate the admissions process such that all these things I'm interested in can be better put together and continue to develop further so that I can get to my journey, which is university admission, and then beyond, which is maybe biotech, computer science, economics, different fields that people are interested in. So we actually are very keen to work with students who are quite hyper focused on what they want to do and those who don't know what they want to do, we put them through a program of finding themselves. And so that's why, Steve, you and I really connected well, because I love what the Ivy Prep program that you have, and I love the message and the meaning of it because it really helps to identify students and what their desires are. And we believe in that 100%. Until you know what you want, you're not really starting the admissions process. And I don't know how to say this to families who want to engage with us in grade nine, grade eight, grade seven. The student has to know what he wants if you want to be the most successful, because no amount of private counseling ideation can give a student a unique idea. At the end of the day, all university counselors across the world, they have a database or a library of ideas from past track record and past clients. They will try and figure out if something works for you and push you in that direction. Now, you and I both know that admissions officers are very, very clear that they understand whose profile is theirs and whose profile has been given to them. And so as we look through the admissions process, I kind of tell parents, steer clear of ideas and profile building activities, quote, unquote, that have been given to you because it might not be your child, and they may. Do it today. And they may fortunately, have a great admission. But it could be a 180 degree shift when they go to college. Or it could be that that really wasn't who they are, and that doesn't set them up for a good future. And so that was the philosophy behind Added education, was really to find the authenticity of how students were developing themselves from a holistic perspective and then filtering and narrowing it towards university admissions.

SPEAKER A

Yeah, I think there's an important mindset, right, this overarching philosophy that the parents and the child have to be aligned with the child's actual values, what is important to the teenager.

SPEAKER B

Right?

SPEAKER A

And that can be really challenging. Right. This is one of the challenges that I think we're really good at in the Ivy League challenge. Not to toot my own horn, but it's difficult for even adults to figure out what their values are if they've never really thought about that throughout their entire life, let alone teenagers. And for teenagers, it might even be more difficult because you're used to being in school and you're used to being told what to value and how to assess value in performance, in a project, in an exam. And so you're constantly being told what is valuable and what is not and how to assess that value. And very, very rarely, I'm an educator in Singapore, and I can tell you it's difficult to add this in and to actually ask students to bring their values to a project, to bring their values into school, and to assess their performance based on their own values. School is not really set up to reinforce that. And so, of course, most students, most teenagers don't yet know what their actual values are. And until they know that, it's difficult to really pursue an authentic this journey to university for it to be fully authentic until you start with fully understanding yourself.

SPEAKER B

Couldn't agree more. I think that's like a pillar of the student admission success.

SPEAKER A

If you look at the students who are the most confident, the reason why they're so rare is because they're the most authentic. At some point, they figured out that they cared about this, they didn't care about that. And once they realized what was important to them, they could be authentic and they could be congruent. Their activities during the day, their choices throughout the day and throughout the week could be consistent with their values. And this unbelievable, it's almost superhuman level of confidence just begins to naturally grow from these teenagers, and they're able to do amazing things. And so I'd love to talk just a little bit more about sports because you're such an expert in that kind of pathway to elite university admissions.

SPEAKER B

Absolutely.

SPEAKER A

You were a competitive athlete in high school, and then you continued that competitive athletics into college. Can you tell us what did competitive sports teach you about academic success or about life success? How did sports kind of help you, help create the you that came out of all of this?

SPEAKER B

Yeah, it's really interesting, Steve. I grew up never playing video games. I grew up always running around with a ball, with a bat, with a racket. I remember my dad made this really miniature tennis racket when I was younger. And that was really interesting because in an age when I grew up, I grew up in the everybody was watching teletubbies, everyone was watching all those crazy cartoons, and everybody had some level of desire to be a video gamer, play counterstrike. I remember all these games were so popular in high school and in middle school and elementary school. I was busy always chasing a ball. And now that I look at my life, I'm 31 years old, and I look back at my life and I think I learned so much from being a sportsman. And the skills that I absorbed from being on the field, from doing a workout or playing a team sport have totally changed the way in which I look at the business world and totally changed the way in which I studied. And that's something that I think no other passion, hobby, extracurricular activity can give you. There's so many important learnings from sport. One of those things for me was integrity. The other was honesty. And the final thing I learned from sport, which I actually wrote a blog about maybe a couple of years ago, is this idea that when your back is against the wall and all hope seems to be lost, you find another gear, and sportsmen seem to do that day in and day out. And that grit, that ability to find another gear when there is no gearbox available is what stands a sportsman from the rest of humanity, in my opinion. And that is so exciting to know. Because if I take that same grit and I basically transpose it into my academic life when I know, let's say I didn't do well academically in a subject, or my midterms didn't go as well, and I find another gear to prep myself. Better to get ready, to mentally align myself. Then it's almost like nothing can stop you, because then you're focused on progress, not perfection. And the true journey of an athlete is progress over perfection. Because if you look at Roger Federer, you look at Novak Djokovic, you look at Tiger Woods, you look at Jordan Speed, you look at Michael Phelps, you look at the greatest athletes ever. Their winning record is not as much as their losing record. They're losing a lot more than winning. But time and time again, they put themselves in a winning position to have a chance at winning. So if you put yourself in that position to have a chance at scoring great grades, to have a chance at delivering a great community development project, if you put yourself in positions to give yourself the opportunity to win, which is what sports teaches you, you will be luckier more and more of the time. And Gary Player said this amazing line, and Gary Player is a legendary golfer. He said this line, which is, the harder I work, the luckier I get.

SPEAKER A

Right? Yeah.

SPEAKER B

And many people have used it after and it's a well known phrase, but I still believe in it because I think life's journey is 80% luck, 20% hard work. Sports teaches you that hard work cuts through every socioeconomic class. It cuts through any emotional barriers, and it cuts through a lot of different value systems that we have in today's world. And so that's what's my learnings from Swordwire Beautiful, actually. I definitely discovered that when I was in school. And I think when you start playing sport at a more and more competitive level, you start to notice this challenge more and more, which is the losing becomes more common. And reacting to losing is commonplace in the beginning. You lose badly, you lose hope, you lose confidence, you lose motivation. As you start losing less, you start gaining motivation. But the problem with the sports journey or the fortune of the sports journey, is that as you win, you start losing a lot more and you start winning a lot more. So it's not that something just clicks and you start winning everything. It's not like that. You win some, you lose some, you win some, you lose some. But you keep gaining experiences. So from a net result, you're gaining all the time. And it wasn't something that was sitting around and thinking, wow, all these experiences are adding to the fact that I have more grip. When you're a sportsman, you're not really thinking about that. But what you are thinking about is, how do I keep getting better? And what you are doing is working on yourself so that you don't keep losing motivation every time you lose or every time something doesn't happen to your favor. And we're talking about this win versus loss. And while it's very binary, it's also not because winning and losing can be as binary as you want it to be and as fluid as you want it to be. You may have won the greatest match of your life, but the learning may have been the least versus. That other opponent may have lost the greatest match of his life, but his learnings were the greatest. And so the fluidity around win and loss is another point that I want to mention, which is students and parents, they talk about this all the time. I didn't get 95%, or I didn't get that seven in IB economics or I didn't get that I didn't get that perfect grade that I was targeting. But it is in one time and one time only. And that's the beautiful thing about college admissions process. I want to bring it back to that, is that the beauty of the US education system is that they've set you up such that you don't have to make any one moment, the moment that makes all the difference. It's a progress or a development of activities, academic credentials that really stands you in good stead. It isn't like my 12th grade exam result will determine every single college outcome. And I think that's what I love about the US admissions process is that it gives you a chance to go from a B student to an A star student and still have a top tier admission.

SPEAKER A

Yeah, it's a body of work that you present.

SPEAKER B

Absolutely.

SPEAKER A

Here's the deal. I mean, most people know that they could be doing certain things that would greatly enhance their life and would greatly enhance the quality of each day. So, for example, when students begin the Ivy League Challenge, the very first thing that we do with each cohort is every single student commits to the Ivy League Health Challenge. And it's pretty simple, to be honest. When your feet hit the floor in the morning, you don't just kind of crawl out of bed. Your feet hit the floor, and you stop, and you take a couple of deep breaths, and you begin your day with gratitude. And everyone in the program commits to take 60 seconds when their feet hit the floor and take a couple of deep breaths and feel grateful for the day. Right? And then when you get out of bed, instead of just, again, crawling around the room and just stumbling through your morning, you get out of bed and stretch for one to three minutes. We're not talking about massive commitments that are going to take all day long. We're talking about a few seconds or a few minutes here and there. But these are the things that really change everything for you. They set your day up just right. You start with stretching, you start with gratitude. And immediately you're going to be significantly more productive, significantly more engaged, significantly more authentic throughout the day. You'll be able to bring your best self to the day. Now, here's the thing. Both of those suggestions. Start your day with gratitude. Start your day with stretching. Everyone who has ever been to school or who has ever listened to any podcast, anyone who is 15 years or older has heard that advice before. It's common sense. But common sense is not common practice. And what I love about the college admissions process, this impetus for students to try to be bigger than themselves, to try to do something great while they're still young. I love that it's enough to get students to start thinking about how do I become a better version of myself so that I can compete to go to university? How do I become the best I can be? And perhaps without a holistic admissions criteria, a holistic admissions committee helping to make those decisions on kind of this holistic way. If it was all based on a test score, or if it was all based on one culminating event, then I just think we'd be missing out so much on the growth that can happen throughout middle school and high school, on the road to college. And that's really what's most important, not the one test score that you did or did not perform well on.

SPEAKER B

Well said, Steve. Absolutely. Couldn't agree more.

SPEAKER A

Well, amazing. I think we could just chat for hours and hours on end. I really, really want to thank you on behalf of the listeners. I think that this has been a real treat and a ton of value in these minutes that we've shared together. Thank you so much, Akshay, for joining us. And perhaps we can invite you back again with some other topics that you're also an expert in.

SPEAKER B

Absolutely, Steve. Looking forward to it. Thanks so much for having me today. And I think what you're doing is fantastic. I think it really helps and enables students to find themselves and as a result, find a great university admission.

SPEAKER A

I love it. Couldn't have said it better. Thanks so much. We'll talk next time.

SPEAKER B

Thank you, Steve.