Step-by-step guide: What to do instead

Step 1. Clarify (discover) your core values

The best college prep BEGINS with discovering your core values—figuring out what matters to you the most. 

This is the first phase of successful college prep. 

However, many teens admit that they've never done anything to figure out their core values. 

Most don't have any models to follow too since many parents also don’t know their core values. 

This is especially true if the adults in your life buy into the idea that “you’d better work really, really, hard, because middle school is coming … high school is coming … college is coming … your first job is coming … your first promotion is coming…." and make it to the end of their lives endlessly preparing because the “next thing’’ is coming.  

If you're in high school right now, your prefrontal cortex has already developed to the point that you can use abstract reasoning to figure out what matters most to you. And when you figure out what matters most to you, you can begin aligning your life with those core values. 

LIFE BEGINS when you discover your core values and when you start living your life aligned with your core values.

High school students who don’t know their core values try to copy their peers to know what to do in different situations.  

But when you know your core values, you can look inward. 

How do you do this? 

In my course, we take an entire month to go through a variety of exercises to help teens figure this out. 

This is how one student described it:

Step 2: The impact project

Starting with clarifying your core values is necessary for the second phase of great college prep which is finding something in your community that violates your core values and beginning to work to solve it. 

This is called an impact project. 

For Iris, her impact project was her gender-neutral economics textbook. Here is Corey explaining his impact project:

There are dozens of other examples of students who figured out their core values, and then created an impact project by working to solve a problem that violated their core values within their community.

Many of them were juniors or seniors when they joined my course. As a junior or senior, it is important to look backwards at the things you have been doing, and figure out what kind of personal theme you can create by framing your activities and adding some kind of a capstone project. For Iris, writing the textbook (which sounds daunting, but for someone who already loves economics, writing a guide that introduces middle school students to economics in a gender-neutral way is not too difficult. Adding some practice problems and making it a textbook isn’t much more challenging…), for others, it is programming an app, or speaking at a conference, or leading a campaign of some kind.

The important thing to understand is you do have enough time, as long as you can think clearly.

Step 3: Strategic admission

As you clarify your core values and provide evidence that you are the kind of person who is likely to graduate from college and go on to make the world a better place by executing an impact project, you also need to communicate this unusual self-awareness and unusual community impact in your college application. 

You must get the application details right—the third phase of successful college prep. 

Make sure you are getting strong letters of recommendation.

As a high school teacher before becoming an admissions expert, I know most teachers have no idea how to write a great letter of recommendation—you need to train them.

Most teachers, even if they like you, are going to write a letter that is boring and is not specific to you. 

They will write how it's a joy to have you in class and that the college would be honored and privileged to have you on their campus and that they should not let you slip by.

But every single letter says the same thing. 

To the admissions officers, when they read the same letter, there's nothing there to help you stand out. 

You need to follow a strategy months before you ask for that letter of recommendation. 

You should be sending emails to the teacher with very specific things that you do to help them understand that you have been spending time in self-reflection, figuring out your core values, and getting their advice about who you are as a person. 

If you don’t have months left, you still need to think carefully about how to encourage the teacher to write the kinds of things that will help you stand out. 

This will help you get strong recommendation letters. 

This podcast briefly describes that strategy.

You need to know how to do outreach to admissions officers. 

Many people think that demonstrating interest means clicking on emails and going on  a college tour. But that's what everyone is doing. 

To build a relationship, this process should be started early and be meaningful. 

As long as you have an impact project that justifies reaching out, it's something that you can be strategic about. 

Admissions officers should know your name and be excited for your application to come well before you apply. 

Write great essays.

You need to communicate your personal theme effectively so that admissions officers know how to present you to the admissions committee. 

They must be able to present how you are differentiated from your average teens who are doing the exact thing as everyone else.

So, don’t make common essay mistakes. Get started early.

Scale your impact.

Some students add academic research to their impact projects; others recruit media attention or scale the impact in other ways in the real world. 

Academic research can be a game-changer for you– especially if it clearly aligns with your theme and your core values. 

The three phases that are described are exactly what we do in the Ivy League Challenge. 

We move through this material in phases over 12 weeks.

We meet in cohorts so that peers can learn from and support each other. I find that when peers discuss their values and the desire for impact with each other the most profound breakthroughs occur. 

In phase one, we will figure out your core values. 

In phase two, we will explore the nine frameworks for an impact project that can make you exceptionally memorable to an admissions officer. You figure out your impact project and get started. This includes academic research and expert collaboration.

Then in phase three, we will talk about your admission strategy. 

How do you communicate your unusual self-awareness gleaned from knowing your core values and your unusual community impact to the admissions officers?