Let's fix your BORING College Essay! | Go Ivy or Go Free Ep. 1 w/ Mark Hernandez

Welcome to the first episode of the Goive Year Go Free Podcast. I'm here with Mark Hernandez, who is a college essay coach and an excellent English teacher as well. And he's going to be giving us some advice today in part on how to improve your writing in general, but also how to improve it for college essays in particular. We're going to go through his philosophy on the best college essays and we're going to take some live Q&A for my audience on Instagram. So tune in, this is going to change the way that you guys approach the admissions process. You know, I found you, Mark, on Instagram and you know, one of the things that always struck me about your page was that you cared so much about the actual people that you were helping. What I really want to do is bring to light people who I think are making a difference in the lives of students. And this goes beyond getting into college. This goes into, you know, how you're expressing yourself. What are we doing to compensate for some of the failures right now? Of the education system and what we can do to make it so that students are living happier, healthier, more productive lives way on after. And you know, I want to talk with you partially because I want to get, you know, we're going to talk about college essays for sure and I want to give some advice on that. But what I really want to do is talk about what goes into the preparation students should be having way before them because one of the things that I encountered and I've had a few clients like this this year, which blew my mind, were students who did phenomenally well in their standardized tests. So these are like brilliant kids, top 1% kids. They can't write a sentence. I genuinely don't understand what on earth is going on. So maybe we can start there a little bit. Tell me something. Like, first off, have you encountered students like that? And why on earth do you think that there are people right now who literally don't know how to write anymore? And it's hard. I mean, I have definitely experienced what you're talking about. And for sure, like I've worked with a lot of high achieving students who still don't know what a comma splice is. Like we'll talk about things. And I'll say, well, you know, this doesn't work, right? And they'll say, why not? And we'll ask the comma splice and they go, what's the comma splice? I mean, so you break it down and that definitely happens a lot. And I'm not sure where the breakdown is. But yeah, you definitely, if I had a magic wand, I would just give everyone the skills that we were taught in sixth to eighth grade, right? We're just like the basic fundamentals. And I'm not sure why, again, I'm not sure where the breakdown is. But I do know that the most important work is the work that's not very glamorous, right? Like you have to have the fundamentals of like, that's the basics of it. Well, you're a dab, right? And so you have kids that are somewhat in this age range. So why don't we go ahead and explore what you would do for your kids, right? Because I know what I did, actually in my case. So I have a little brother. He's 10 years younger than me. And he had kind of a similar situation where I wonder if the technology really is getting in the way of this because it's just easier to avoid spending a lot of time reading. And I think, you know, I have a controversial view on this. I'm familiar with like the whole Montessori thing where like people are supposed to explore to learn, right? Yeah. Yeah. I don't believe in that at all. Right. Actually, I don't think that people do that well with exploratory learning. I think actually you need to give people more structure, right? Now, in a loving way, right? You want love and structure so they can have room to explore, but within the structure, right? Right. Because you don't naturally learn how to write. Writing is a very rigorous thing, right? And so you need to spend time reading really good writers for a long time. And then you learn how to write because like you're just emulating them. We're kind of like LLMS, all of us. Right. Right. So with my little brother, you know, he was in like fifth grade. And I realized he can't write a paragraph, right? And you know, the way I fixed that for him was we had him start reading a ton of books. So I had him actually just read Harry Potter chapters to me until he could pick up on the style of the writing and the story. And then eventually he started writing. And now that worked out really well. So like that's something I've seen work really well with students to expose them to a lot of good literature first and then build that writing skill up. Yeah. What are you doing with your kids? Yeah. And that's where there was a silver lining in COVID because you know, during the, there's a third in year with my kids a lot. And we definitely talked through some for them at the time, pretty advanced concepts of grammar and punctuation and such. But we definitely talked about that a lot. And we definitely worked on it. We have a little exercise with them. It used to do not so much anymore. But where you have to speak your punctuation as you say it. Come on. Right. So comma, you would comma, for example, comma, just say comma for you know that you actually speak your punctuation so that they would get a sense of here's how these different marks of punctuation work. And here's how you can adapt these skills into your writing voice and your speaking voice. And I bet that makes you aware too when you're using too many of them. Exactly. Right. Exclamation point. Well, and also, you know, again, I guess I'll stop now. But again, really start figuring out the uses for I think some of the underrated marks of punctuation like the semicolon and the colon, which people actually use in their conversations all the time. But they don't use them. They write except for the M dash. Well, so yeah, yeah, by the way, I'm an M dash enthusiast by the way. No, me too. One of the biggest tragedies I think of our modern time is that, you know, the M dash is being stolen from us by Tatchee B.C. right now. You know, one of my students this year, Nico, he wrote this beautiful response to one of the Duke essays actually about AI just like sort of pushing back and saying like, no, actually, I want to reclaim the M dash. We need to bring the M dashes back. We can't let AI steal that from us. It's true. Well, and as you say, like maybe he's going to have track a bit. But what I've also noticed with these things is that people think, oh, I take the M dashes out. I won't sound robotic. And it's like, you still sound robotic. Taking it to the M dashes doesn't help that much. No, not at all. Right. Because they're looking at like other pieces of the structure there too, right? If your sentence is, you know, they're inverting all the time or you have something else that is like some kind of repeated structure, it's going to feel like AI, even if it's not like AI. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Let's go back to that for a second. Sure. I want to really make something useful here for parents that are trying to teach their kids to write early on. So let's put yourself in the shoes of somebody who's, let's say, has a kid in like six to eight grade, right? Because that's really where those skills I imagine would develop before they even go to high school. What would you be doing to make sure that they turn out to be a strong writer so they have a better chance way later on? That's a great question. So I've described it as, right, good writing is magic. Yes. We've described it, right? Good writing is magic. And he started breaking magic down. Magic is part science and part art, right? When you match the science, then you apply the art and that's how you get magic. And so it really is treating writing and grammar and punctuation like a science, right? If you learn the fundamentals and the rules, just like chemistry, biology, physics and so forth, they're things you can do and things you can't do. And then we understand the science behind it. Well, then you can, you know, move along from there, but it's not going to be fun. Right? That's the thing. Like, it does take discipline. It does take willing to have delayed gratification and grind through stuff, as he's saying. Like, it's not, I agree with you. I don't think the best way is full exploration. Like, there's got to be some rigor and some structure and some willingness to, you know, do repetitive things, right? Look at 20 cents a row with comma splices, for example, and just correct them all, right? And you know, again, I'm sure as we did in sixth, eighth grade also, I did that and I hated it. Oh, it's horrible. I hated it. It was terrible. But I will tell you now, now my favorite book is, my favorite books ever, still is the old yellow warners book of English grammar composition. Oh my gosh. And sixth grade, I hated it. That was miserable. But thank goodness for that book. It makes a big difference later on. Yeah. Like, my recollection would actually go toward like the Gruber SAT Word Master. Sure. Right? That's how I actually built a vocabulary. Right? Because, no, because if you, if anyone's prepared for the SAT, this book is actually available. It's like a free PDF. You can download it now. There's like little quizzes in that book that are maybe 20 words each and you could do them 20 words at a time and take these little multiple choice quizzes and you can phenomenally increase your vocabulary as consequence. And then you have tools to work with, right? And then when you're writing your sentences, it doesn't have to be, you know, some simple thing. Oh, I like the food. No, no, no. This food was scrumptious. Yeah. Okay. So, you know, it's something really different to, you know, add something to the writing you're doing. Yeah. I also like the idea of like recommended reading lists and trying to like emulate authors. Like, have you ever had like a writing class or were like, they trained you to do like a certain style, like create a writing or speech writing or something like that? I have. I haven't created writing yet. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because like, what I did at one point, I did a lot of speech writing training. Oh, interesting. Yeah. So, I don't know if I told you this. I actually, so I worked for a little bit in politics and did some stuff way back in the day. And, you know, during that time, I got trained actually on how to write, you know, for that audience. It's interesting. And so, you know, they trained us on old speeches, believe it or not. So, I used to take out. It's like MLK, JFK, exactly. Exactly. Right. Yeah. I used to take those speeches out and my job was write a speech in that person's style. Oh, interesting. And like, I had to learn to step into that person's brain. And that changed everything for me. Yeah. And you get to learn from the best writers as a consequence of that. Yeah. It's so different. Right. So, how would you approach that? Well, as many mentioned, I used to teach a public speaking course. I did a very similar thing. Yeah. We would write down speeches of JFK, MLK, and we would identify their speech patterns. identified. the tactics they were using for persuasion and that helps students a lot. And so, you know, they didn't have to emulate exactly one of the other, but it's like, look, here are tools that we know to work. Right. Here's there are tools that can keep your words lingering in the mind of the audience for longer. And that's, here's how you use them. And that definitely helped a lot. What's your favorite tool? So my favorite tool is actually, and it's a tough one because it's sort of now been co-opted a bit by Chatchy B.T. My favorite is the JFK antithesis where, you know, we do things not because they're easy but because they're hard. Yep. You know, that kind of stuff. Or we was never negotiate out of fear. We was never feared to negotiate. Right. That kind of stuff. So, the inversion of words, because I think that helps keep words in mind for a long time. 100%. Right. And it also, it creates a deliberate contrast between the ideas. Which I think, you know, really highlights the reader why something is important. And if you're writing a college essay, that matters a ton. I was just saying that. Like, that you have a background in speech writing. Yeah. I think speaks to why you're a very good college essay coach because, well, hold on. What I, why it's always doing all the time is, look, how, if you want to sound like yourself. Yep. And if you want your stuff to be memorable, if you want your essays to stand out, well, look, there's so many robotic and so many just very cookie cutter essays that sound basic. But if you can write it in your speaking voice, and if you can imagine reading this out loud to someone, that's going to go a long way. So honestly, I think, you know, the best college essays can be read as speeches. They have to be read as speeches. They also have to be much simpler than people give them for. And that's, you know, let's actually go into college essays for a second. Because, you know, I want to hear your take on this too, because one of the things that I get into the most trouble with online is I have a maximum that I call people out with where I talk about, you know, essays that are written as if they're like meant for a professor. Yeah. And those are the worst. They're actually the worst. And, you know, and I have a bone to pick with English teachers. Go ahead. Really do. Because the style of writing that English teacher's teaching English classes is horrific. It's actually the opposite of what you want to do for college essay, right? Like, for example, they'll have them write these long, winding introductions. Forget it. Right. You can't do that. I can't do it. Say, right. Forget your supplements. Okay. You don't do introductions. What you're supposed to do actually is like start off from some like middle piece of your story. Right. And then work your way back. Right. Right. Right. Because that's interesting. And then you can pick up the context later. Right. You're allowed to do that in normal writing. Right. Right. Right. I don't think I got any trouble for is I tell people that their essay should be at a fifth grade reading level. And they get so mad. And they say fifth grade. I'm applying to Harvard. How could I write my essay at a fifth grade reading level? It's like fifth grade reading level is not a fifth grade writing level. Yeah. Those are not the same thing. Right. A fifth grade reading level means a 10 year old should be able to understand the thing you wrote. And wait a second, like 10 year olds are actually pretty smart. Yeah. Let's give 10 year olds some credit. Yeah. If a 10 year old can't understand what you wrote, right. That means that what you wrote is like stupidly complex to the point where you're not even like helping anyone. You're not making an emotional impact. Right. You're creating so much work for the reader that like this person who's skimming your essay in 30 seconds. Yeah. They're not going to care. Yeah. They're gone. Yeah. I tell people that like, dude, like the comments I get. It's so bad. It's funny. I mentioned that because I was I was in a half way where there's a phrase that goes around is often in politics now. Yeah. And I don't like that it's so applicable, but it is very applicable large and specifically in college essays and it is everyone's 12. Yes. Right. Literally everyone's 12 everyone. So just like if you write with the mindset of I'm writing for a 10 or 12 year old, like, yeah, you should be okay. Yeah, it's way better. Right. But know what you say. No one cares, but the long, wide introductions. I mean, I tell my students like, look, don't fact check me exactly on this, but the best first sentence is 10 words or fewer. The point of the first sentence isn't to be memorable. The point of the first sentence is getting them to read the second sentence. Literally. That's it. Right. That's it. That's even the point of the first two paragraphs. Right. That's why I just said. It's like moving. Like, you know, your only job is just to get their attention. Yes. Right. And this is the part people I think misunderstand is that like attention comes first. Right. Right. Right. We have to make sure that they're paying attention first. And then you can leave them. Right. Right. So this is actually an interesting concept in persuasion. And I teach this to my students. It's called pacing and leading. Yeah. Right. So pacing and leading, you know, this is for persuasion. Yeah. Right. But like, you know, this actually comes from horse training originally. Right. And when you're training a horse, what you want to do is take it around the corral. And then what you do is you have it match the pace of the trainer, right? And then if it goes too fast, you whip it. And if it goes too slow, you whip it. Not too hard. You want more of a kind of horse. But you have to communicate to the horse. Right. It's a big animal. Right. So you make sure that the horse understands like what's too fast and what's too slow. And then once the horse is paced, right, then it learns, oh, I stay with my trainer. Right. Right. And then you can lead it. Right. Right. And then when you're in the horse, you have to take it around the horse. And then you have to take it around the horse. - Oh, do this summer program. It'll get you into blank. And there's quite a few of these summer programs that may or may not be paying people a lot of money to say those things about them. So heads up and that you're never gonna see me promote them. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. I want people to just take a risk anyway. - Yeah, man. - That's beautiful. I love that. I'm gonna say, that's a great way to get someone's attention too. - Right, well, I thought, yeah, I mean in high school and it was this totally, you know, unironic, you know, owed to confidence and like taking chances. And like, it's funny, so my law school essay was about how, you know, I told my students about that and they love it. But then when I was applying to law school, the students were telling me I should read an essay just like it did about Star Wars again. And then I said, well, the difference is I don't want to be on solo anymore. And then my law school with personal state was about, I want to be like Rick in Casablanca. You know, it was the last of those, I had the last of Casablanca who, you know, leads resistance and is totally courageous and principled and I fail sometimes, but like he's by a role model now, not Han Solo. And I had this line. I said, law school is not a bigger asteroid field. Law school is a bigger cafe. And anyway, so it was very, I was very proud of this. I was very proud of this. - I love it. - Dude, you may be the king of last lines in that essay. So hold on, hold on, are you ready for the last line? - Oh, it's more. - That was not a last, that was-- - That was too, brother. - That was more like an intro. - You have the last line? - Okay, last line, tell me. - So if the last line was this, in other words, is it gonna refer into the first essay about Han Solo? - Yeah. - In other words, I'm not proud of that essay because it helped me get into college. - Okay. - I'm proud of that essay because it helped me get my students into college. - Oh. I like that a lot. - That's a good mic drop, brother. - It is a good mic drop. - I was saying, I'm super flexi, I'm sorry. - No, take it, I like it. - But I like it. - So then let's take a step back. - Yeah, yeah. - Because I wanna give some actionable advice to people when they're going to approach their essays. Now we're filming this at the end of a pretty tense college essay season. A lot of people are wondering, "Did I even do this right?" - Yeah. - Okay. What are some general guidelines that you follow to know, like, doesn't essay land? - Right. So first, it's gotta be grammatically clean. - Yes. - Is you have to show that you can control the language. - I'm gonna push back on you. - We'll get that a second, okay? - Okay, go ahead, go ahead, sorry. And that also has gotta be in your voice. - Yes. - And I think the number one piece of advice I'd wanna give people is you have to be brave to use your voice. - Yes. - Because that's the only way you're gonna stand out. If you try to stand professional, that will fail. - Every time. - You will not work. So be aggressive and I was actually gonna post by the slate around today. As a sports knowledge, I think makes sense to me is, you wanna write your essay like you are in the fourth quarter. There's only a minute to have to go in the fourth quarter and you're down by four. You need to touch down, you have to be smart, efficient, you know, take some chances. And you have to be aggressive with it. 'Cause not that people are aggressive. It feels so bad for them. Like they've been sort of scared into not taking chances. As you mentioned, like look, I don't even think your odds are anyway. But like your odds aren't great. - No. - These are great schools. So if you wanna, if you wanna, you have to go get it. So you have to be aggressive with these things. - No, you can't play it safe. You have to pick like way out there topics. Like one of my favorite college essays I helped a student write was her exploring her experience, building an organization that raised awareness for adaptive athletics. - Oh. - Right. And so she actually opened the essay talking about observing a game from the men's, so the U.S. men's national amputee soccer team. - Oh. - Right. But we didn't give any context. It was just like literally sentenced after sentenced of like a one-legged man ran across the field. And it got no arms blocked. - The shot coming into the net. - Oh, yeah. - And just like bizarre stuff. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - And if you, you know, as an unissuated person, if you read this essay, right, you might say, well, that's horrible. Because, you know, like, there's no context of this. We have no idea what's going on. Right, but it's, it's that chance. - Yeah. - Right. - Exactly. - Made a big difference because it landed for the person who read it. And that's the part it cares about. I wanna talk about the grammar. - Yeah, sure, sure, sure. - You know, I will deliberately actually add - That's really cool. - As we're going to call it. - Interesting. - Interesting, right? - But on purpose. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. - Right, so you don't want grammar errors by accident. - Right, right. - But every now and then, there are things that are grammatically incorrect. - Right. - That listically are really cool. - Right. - Right. - So for example, using ellipses in like a weird place. Or let's say, you know, putting quotes with the, you know, they wouldn't have been otherwise. Or using a parenthesis in a certain spot that maybe you wouldn't have done. - I love those things. - I love those things in writing. - We speak in them all the time. - Yeah. - We speak in ellipses. We speak in parentheses all the time. - It's not. - So yeah, exactly, exactly. - I'm bored with that. I'm bored with that. - I like a little few errors. I, it's got, it's got, "Wabi Sabi." - Right. - Right, right, right, right. - Right, right, right. - Something about it that works for that. Okay, so then, you know, tell me then. So, you know, let's say, you know, the essays are in now. - Yeah. - You know, you assume that, you know, you did a good job. It feels natural to you, right? It's chromatically there. - Yeah. - How could you know if you really have a great essay on your hands? What's the marker of that in your eyes? - Right. Again, we just stand up on the speech test, right? Would you get up in front of a person and say it? - Oh, I like that. - You know, post about this also. - Yeah. - That's my number one stress test for the deer roommate essay for Stanford. - Yes. - Is, how would you feel if you walk into your room on day one and there's a mission's officer and there's a roommate and the mission's officer says, "Welcome to Stanford, here's your roommate, here's your letter, read this letter to them. Would you feel confident doing that?" Because if you, that's how it works. Like this, but people, again, people have been sort of scared into thinking that this is, you know, some sort of formula and it's not. As you try to, as you mentioned, get and retain the attention of a person and build a relationship with them in like 30 seconds. Like can they feel like they want to root for you in 30 seconds? - Yeah. - That I think is the biggest difference, right? Because you have a lot of people who think this should either be like a resume contest. - Oh goodness no. - Yeah. - Which, a campy. Or it's gonna be something like, you know, where they're looking through all the institutional spreadsheets and I try to explain to people, this is a persuasion game. - Yes. - This is literally just a situation where you're going to try to get on that person's good side. - Yeah. - And you want them to be your friend. - Exactly right. - And if they're your friend and if they like you, they will go out of their way for you and they'll make excuses for you and they will even lie about you to themselves so that they can get you in. They don't even care, right? They will make every excuse on earth for the kids they like. And not for anybody else. - Right, right, which is the important part. So you have to be likable. I want to really drill in on that. - Sure. - Right. Tell me who you think they should be using for feedback on these essays. 'Cause I have a pet peeve with the way that students get feedback normally. And I don't know, you may disagree with me. - Sure, sure, sure. - I firmly believe that asking your high school English teacher to edit your college essay is generally a terrible idea. - That's interesting. - Right, same about that. - Well, so here's the reasoning why. Because people, I think, underestimate how hard it is to write things. And the underestimate how hard it is to write things persuasively. And who has experience writing persuasive things. Right, now you have a special situation, right? Because I'm gonna be candid with you. - Sure. - How many high school English teachers have a Stanford creative writing background and then what Stanford law school? - Not in so many. - Not that many. - Not that many. - Right. You're a special guy, right? Which is why I really appreciate your insight on these things. Most high school English teachers, I don't think fall into that category. For the most part, and my mom was a teacher too. So I grew up around these. - Yeah, yeah. - They're wonderful readers. And they're great teachers for academic context. Because that's the context they teach writing most of the time in school. But in terms of creative writing, pretty much none of them have actually done it. They've never had any real world experience with writing that has a consequence. Whereas somebody, for example, who's a lawyer has to deal with that a lot. Someone who's in business, ironically has to deal with that a lot. Somebody who is a journalist would have to deal with this more. Because their writing is being exposed to the public. And they have a market outcome for the writing. - That's analogous to the college essay process. Which is a similar market outcome. Because you have your writing being read by a wide audience. It's being judged by that audience. And so what I tell people is, do not rely on the opinion of your teacher who's an academic. Instead, what I tell my students is, no, take your essay and go have a random stranger read it. - Oh, interesting. I don't even tell them who it is. Make fun of it. - Oh, he's like some other person as an essay. What do you think about that? - My girlfriend in Canada. - Exactly. (laughing) Right, exactly. That way you don't feel bad. - Right. - Right. - And then they'll give you some real feedback on the essay. - Interesting. - Yeah. So what do you think? - So what would you do? - I would say, okay, let me say, English teachers I worked with, they gave a lot of help. And I will say this also, to the extent you should ask them for advice, they've already got so much work to do. - Right, they're overloaded also. And they're generally doing this as a favor to people and bless these teachers, they're wonderful. And they're also superver worked. So to the extent you can find somebody else, I would definitely do that. I think a friend, 'cause that's the big thing on Andreas, is like, does it sound like me? - Right. - Read it out loud on your friend. and then. like give you straight up like, no man, doesn't sound like you at all. I've never heard you used that word before. - Right. - Right? - Well you did be careful with what friend you pick. - It's true, no it's true. - It's fair. - You want to find your friend that's like the biggest asshole you can do. (laughing) - Right, so tell you the truth. - Yeah, so we have friends that will actually do that. - 'Cause like I said, I was like that. I mean people know that about me. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - That's me. (laughing) - People who know me from around when I was in high school, like I was, I'm a very blunt person, right? My producer, Ariana actually, she got me this mug. It was a really sweet Christmas gift, but it says, best blunt millennial. - I like that a lot. - Right, 'cause Ariana blushed, that's great. (laughing) It's who I am, right? I'm the best blunt millennial. - Right. - Right. - But I give it to people straight, right? So you want your friend who's gonna be your best blunt millennial. - Yeah. - That's right. - That's what we're just like, tell you exactly what's going on. Like don't go to any friends that are actually nice to you. (laughing) You want to fight somebody? - Right. - Yeah, I have that kind of like, rousing relationship with me. - Right. - I like ask them, right? - Right. - That's gonna be really perfect. - I like that a lot. - Yeah, I think I make a big difference. Tell me what you would do if you were preparing to apply next cycle. So now I want to talk about juniors real quick. - Yeah. - Right, so people who are getting ready, tell me about first timeline. You know, if you say you were getting ready to apply to college, when would you start? - Yeah, so I mean, I tell my juniors that they should be keep their eyes open for events all the time. Where I think some people get a little trouble, my opinion is I think they actually sort of set their topics too early, right? Sometimes they'll say, oh, this happened to end in freshman year or sophomore year. And it's like, okay. - Like it's been a while. - It's been a while, exactly. And like there is some sort of some calculus there where the good news about waiting is, is that the event they're writing about the story is closer to who you are when you actually apply. - That's right. - The bad news is that like, well, then you can't get started until, you know, wait later. So you want to find some sort of sweet spot. So like second semester, junior year is a great time to think about, well, what are my topics? To have you said that, and again, maybe you could say a controversial, but like, I think topics are overrated. Well, what do you mean about that? - Well, 'cause I think people think, oh, how will I impress them with my topic? And so I'll wait for them, I've got this big competition or this big model you end thing coming up or this kind of, it's like, I don't think so. I don't think so. And people, you know, don't believe me sometimes, I say this in comments and DMs and such, but like, people say, oh, could this idea work? Yeah, why not? - Yeah. - Right, do you tell a story? - Well, it's not. - Well, it's not. - Yeah. - Just tell a story. So, yeah, like having an idea in hand, and then sort of like maybe sort of brainstorming outlining in second-spotior junior, the other problem, of course, is that the actual academic phase of second-spotior junior year is brutal. - Right. - So, I mean, I think right into the summer is, you know, a good idea. - Right. And the summer is usually when I recommend to put the start, I like starting, like, literally the second that junior year ends. - Interesting. - Right. And, you know, that makes, I think, a big difference, 'cause what I want my students to do typically is like, start that June. - Yeah. - And then sprint between June to August of September, and just try to get as much as possible during that time. Because if they can wrap that up by about, like, you know, at least get like your main essay done. - Yeah. - Maybe like, you know, one or two schools worth of supplements, it makes that fall so much easier. - Yeah. - Right, 'cause the last thing you want is if you do in like a full common app essay, rewrite in December, which, you know, we do. - For students, of course, it happens. - It happens, but it sucks. I mean, being honest, it really sucks. Like the best thing would be like that summer, you just get it all out of the way, and then you relax going into the fall. That's not really that big of a deal. And then you can have a much better experience. But with the essays, I'm with you when the topic's being overrated, but from a different angle. - Okay. - So, I think that the best essays are not planned. I think they're discovered. Right, and so what I force my students to do, believe it or not, and my students, if they're listening to this, they'll recognize this. I force them, actually, to write their first draft of their college essay in under an hour. - I like that a lot. - I literally tell them I want to, I want you to, I want you to behave as if I have a gun to your head. Right, I don't care if the essay is complete garbage, but I want it done in an hour. - Yeah. - Just get it done. - Yeah, that's it. - Something. - I like that a lot. - And they come out with it. And it is garbage. - Right. - And that's fine, right? Because we can fix garbage. - Exactly, right. - Right, right. - Oh, that piece was good. Great, we're gonna keep that. Let's try it again. - Yeah. - And then do it again. And again, and again, and we'll get like five drafts that way. And then next thing you know, we have gold material for an essay. And you know, halfway through the third draft, they'll turn around and be like, "Oh, wait a second. I want to write about this instead." Right? And all of a sudden, you have a phenomenal topic for the essay. And you had no idea it was coming. - Well, and I say, if I may, Andreas, this is where there's value in having a mentor and working with someone because I'll also say, what happened for me a bunch this fall is, they'll write their drafts and they don't know what the actual story is until they get far enough into it. And so it happened multiple times to me, where I'm like, wait a second, wait a second. This doesn't make sense here, but did anything else happen? And they're like, "Oh yeah, actually this happened." Okay, well, then hold on. That's the actual story. Right, that's the actual story. Okay. - All the time. - So one of my students was his sister had personal tragedy as a result of disease, I'm celiac disease. And so he decided to develop this app that would help people see that disease find the best food options for their men in their area. And then the essay ends and he says, "Yeah." And then my sister, the personal tragedy's over. Like she's fantastic now. And I go, "Wait a second, hold on. Is there a connection here?" And he's like, "Oh yeah, well, my sister used my app." And actually started eating better because of my app. And so that made her healthy. And I'm like, "Whew, hold on." - He just ignored that in the essay entire day. - Yeah, yeah. And I'm like, "That has to be in there." - That's a miracle. - Exactly, that has to be in there. - That's a huge thing. - Yeah. And I'm like, "Oh, I don't see like a bragging too much. I need a brag about that." - You need a brag about that. - Bro, your essays are not the place to be humble. - Right, at all. - Right. - Like even a little bit. In fact, like, you know, and to be honest, like I've ever heard the joke about like, you know, Harvard is like 2000 little presidents. - Right, right. - And it makes a lot of sense when you think about it, right? Because, you know, the whole process rewards people who frankly are like a little narcissist. - Right. - Right. - You have to be a little bit of a narcissist to win in this process. And if you're naturally a humble person, that's gonna be a tough thing to get out of you, right? Which, you know, normally humility in like a social context is a good trait. And, you know, on a personal level, we want to promote that with people. But like, I'm just being candid with you. Like these admissions officers are reading, what, 70,000 applications. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - You're not gonna get ahead by being quiet. - Right. - So, you have to brag about yourself. - Yeah. - Right. - And if you've accomplished something spectacular, like this kid did with his sister, like, my God. - Yeah. - Like, tell them. - Yeah, exactly. - Make sure they know. That's the craziest thing. I had a student. It was a similar situation actually. So he, believe it or not, had created this beautiful company while he was in high school. So he was doing a sneaker reselling business. But he got gotten huge. So he had actually done over $3 million in revenue before he turned 16. Right. That's pretty good. Yeah. - A spectacular. - Yeah, okay. Like, this kid was phenomenal. And, you know, he had taken a lot of the revenue from that company and he had used it to sponsor, you know, his sneaker donations to Kids in Need. Right. Really cool project. - Yeah. - This consequence of that. And he didn't bother to mention that to me until like two months after we had written some of his assets. - Oh goodness. - We just started to just keep it under wraps. Like, I'm like, what do you mean? Like, you know goodness is good. - Oh goodness. - He's like, oh yeah, I casually have this company. Like, casually. Like, oh goodness. Like what? How do you keep that to yourself? - Yeah. - It makes no sense. But, okay. So, we talked about the juniors that. So for the juniors, we want them to start a little bit earlier. We want them to build that up. - Yeah. - What can you be doing earlier on in high school to build those kinds of skills that will turn into those essays? - Yeah. I mean, I think so two things. Number one, learn punctuation. You know, master the semicolon, master the colon. Yes, master the dash, parentheses, ellipses, master punctuation so that you're not just a comma period person. - Right. - So that you can actually sound like yourself more so than in high school essays, you want your writing voice to mirror your best speaking voice, right? So, sophomore year, develop your skills. And also, and this is again, we talked about this a bit, but, gaze to telling stories. - Yeah. - And you know, tell stories, stories, stories that have beginnings, middles, and ends, right? Get in, you know, tell stories to your friends, your family, like get in that habit, like develop that art. And because, and I'm not the first one to say this, it's a dying art to my stories. And there's, therefore, a huge chance for leverage if you can, if you leverage those skills. If you can tell a good story, then you can almost write anything. - Almost anything, man. It makes a big difference. - Yeah. - Where should people look for help on these kinds of essays? I mean, other than you and me, I mean, - I mean, we're only two people. - I mean, we're two people. So, I've a, I've a pet theory here. It's gonna piss a lot of people off. So, I'm gonna share it with you anyway, 'cause it'll be a lot of fun. - Sure. - I believe that if somebody, We can't get a sufficiently large social media following that you would know about them. They should not be giving advice on college SX. Interesting. Yeah. I really do believe it. Interesting. Because the same persuasion skills that let you do well on social media are the same exact things that let you market yourself in the college admissions process. Interesting. Like, so if you're going to coach people on how to market themselves for college, why can't you market yourself? Right. You know, it's like a physician healed by self. You know what I mean? Right. I really think that you should be able to show that. And so like, I tell people, one of the best markers for somebody who would eventually actually help you with a good college essay is just go check to see if they can market themselves. Go look on Instagram, look on TikTok, see if they actually have a sufficient number of followers because if they can script a lot of videos, they can probably script a decent essay for you. Yeah. It's an interesting point. Because I'll say, you know, before, you know, I started this, I was not a big social media person, like, I was an Instagram novice and so forth. But then, you know, it took off. Yeah. But you have to like, there are principles and things that social media coaches and such will tell you will work. And so you're like, okay, this is going to work. And so you do it. And you can grow. So yeah, there are, there are tactics that you can use to, you know, get followers, comments. I mean, we've talked about this. Like if you really want to get comments, you're really going to engage with, you've upset people. Right. And say things that I'm said. Well, you have to be careful how you accept. Right. So like when I upset people, I upset them and nothing upsets people more than telling the truth. I was going to say that, yeah, yeah, you tell the truth in public. It's going to make people mad. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's great. So like, I'll go out and I'll be like, oh, if you have a, exactly a 650 word college essay, it's probably not that good. That's what I say. Yeah. Oh, you say you say it too? Absolutely. Well, the guy mad at you about that also. I mean, bro, like, yeah, people got so mad at me because they came at me and I like, my essay was 650 words and I got into Harvard and it's like, okay, it's not a guarantee that your essay is bad. Yeah. Right. But how do you get the 650 words? Exactly right. Yep. Right. So the editing style you follow, you get a 650 words is, well, you're, you must, almost always, you're editing word by word. Yeah. Right. Otherwise, what are the odds you'd end up at exactly 650? You'd probably end up somewhere maybe close to that, but not exactly that. Right. And so it's the editing style I have a problem with. It's not the word count. Yeah. And so I have a problem with the word count. I have a problem with the word count. I am not giving advice for the lazy people. about. Right and people are like oh I don't know. I didn't realize I was supposed to care about things. I thought my job was to do ABC things and I was supposed to go around my life as a robot. That's legitimately how people think. And it's like, that makes you an NPC. That doesn't make you a person. You need to have actual opinions about things, passion, and you should be asking these questions early on. I want students in an ideal world, I would start students off in ninth grade and like pose that question to them off the bat. And I'd be like, "Hey, listen, just so you know, like during this time and take a few years to think about it, but you should be struggling with those questions of self." Because that's where the adventure comes from. And then when you go to write your essays, you could actually explain yourself to other people, "Well, now you have a foundation." Then there's this hero's journey. He would fall, by the way, shout out Joseph Campbell. Joseph Campbell. Here are the thousand faces. Oh my God, such a great book. I love it. By the way, when I'm training editors and I have editors that work with me in my company, one of the things I love for my editors to read is that book. I'm almost always like, if you're trying to get into like college essay editing, I couldn't recommend something more than that. If you have not read here with a thousand faces, you are not a good editor. You're at least, you're not as good as you will be. After you read that book, for sure. Because you'll see it in a sidebar here, but like you'll see how resonant so many of those elements that he talks about are. And it's like, this is why if you can follow, not exactly, you know, a framework per se, the twelve steps per se, but if you can understand these principles, you will appeal to your reader in a sort of subconscious way. Like that's what the book is about. So these myths that we're all part of and they're all part of us. And if you can write your essay with those principles in mind, it's going to work. I knew you were a Campbell guy. Well, still, it's Star Wars. It's the matrix. It's like all over the place. It's Disney. It's Disney. Disney built a multi-billion dollar empire literally off of, and they used to make that required reading for the right term. So Disney has like a formula on how they make all their fairy tales actually go viral. They all the movies they made, all the Disney classics. None of those are an accident, right? They literally read Joseph Campbell. They follow the steps in that book and then they wrote stories that have stuck with people for a century, right? And they built theme parks out of it. People are obsessed with these things. Right. They're like tattoos of them. Right. Right. Imagine if someone got tattooed. Imagine if you were like, "I'm not sure." Right. Someone's going to do that with the letter S.S.A. at some point soon. Like, by the way, like, what do you think about the viral college S.S.? So my first thought always, because that comes up a lot in my life sessions. And like, "Oh, Mr. Nannas, what do you think about the viral letter S.S.A.? And my first thought is I have just tremendous empathy for the admissions officers. Right. Because can you imagine how many I hate the letter W. I hate the love. I hate the love. Exactly. And also empathy for the admissions officers, but also empathy for the students who saw that viral S.A. and decided to copy it and just sort of wasted their opportunity, like, through their chance to weigh because they feel so insecure and they felt that this was the answer. If I can just do this, then it'll get me in. And it never works. It never works. Like, and that's a caution I always give to people. Yeah. Which is that like, if you've seen any S.A. go viral on social media, yeah. I guarantee you so as everybody else. Yep. It's why it's viral. It's why it's viral. Yeah. And anything that, you know, and this is an interesting thing too, because I think people don't think about this process at scale. Right. They think about this on individual level. They think, oh, this would be unique in my friend group. It would be unique in my school, but this is unique on a national level. Yeah. Is unique when they have 70,000 applications going in. Yeah. I don't think so. No, I don't think so. Yeah. One of the 70,000 multiple probably of the 70,000 is going to have the same idea you did unless it's very personal. Right. So, just keep it personal. Yeah. Keep it personal. Keep it to you. No, you mentioned the scale and that's what I tried to tell them. Works with students also like, look, understand the math. Right. Understand the math here because, you know, again, you are, you are special. Listen to this. No, it's not forget that. You are special. You're not special to them because they've got 70,000 these things. And that's the football stadiums where the people with, you know, with one of the same S.A. Right. So, how are you going to still stand out there? Right. And there are things that are special, right? Right. Yeah. That's the thing. You're not special when you are you as an individual. You are not special when you frame yourself as part of a category. That's why I tell people like, oh, I'm going to write my whole S.A. about how I'm part Vietnamese and part Korean. Right. And it's like, there's like millions of people who are in that same boat as you. Yeah. Like, there's no ethnic identity. There's no national identity. Does it matter what your identity is that will set you apart enough that that becomes interesting. Yeah. Maybe in 2003. Right. When? Like, S.A. Is like that used to get people in. Like, I had a client this year who I had to help her rewrite her entire college essay and her family was part Greek and part from Peru. Okay. And it was a really interesting situation, really great girl. But she had some terrible advice on that essay. They made the whole essay about the national identities and it's like, you know, you can't do that. Yeah, right. You can't do that anymore. It's just not interesting. Right. Right. Like, her actual skills and talents and her unique experiences. And it's like, okay, now I'm learning about somebody. Yeah. I love that. Yeah. My most, I think, common and useful piece of advice when I'm working with a student on something that's like, okay, look, say it how you would say it. Right. Like, forget it. Forget what you wrote here. Like, just don't even look at the screen right now. You tell it to me. And you tell it to me in your voice. Like, you be you. Right. Because you are special because you are you and the things that you do and the way you put them and the way you think of them. So like, that's what makes you special. I love it. Mark, thank you so much for this conversation. I love it. I'm pleasure. You're the best, man. I love it. Alright, so we are live on Instagram. Hi guys. We are going to be taking live Q&A about college admissions and Ivy League admissions in general. I'm here with Mark H. So if you guys have questions about college admissions, Ivy League admissions, you can address it to either me or Mark. That type of dog is that? That is a cabapoo. This is my little baby Mellie. Mellie is a half cavalier, half poodle, and she is the sweetest dog alive. She's incredible. Do you think I should start preparing for college application in ninth grade? Oh, great question. What do you think? I wouldn't. I mean, get some ideas about where you want to go. But again, I think ninth grade, like skills, skills, like writing a story telling. I think there's a big difference between prepping for an application. Right. As opposed to like prepping for the process. Yeah. Right. So there's a lot you can do in ninth grade that was set you up for the process. So for example, like you should be trying to get ahead in your math classes. Yes. You should be working on projects as a school. As a product, etc. Yeah. In this competition too, like for example, like, you know, I did Deca when I was in high school. And if you want to be at the international level of Deca, you need to be studying from ninth grade. But there's no people who win national's like a who don't start ninth grade. It's not a thing. Right. It takes a long time to get there. These are not easy skills to build. Right. So for those things, I would start early. But I wouldn't be doing is drafting my college essay. Totally. Totally ridiculous. Where are some things that my creators should prep to get into? I mean, the most important thing would be building fundamental skills. Yep. So it would be, you know, like what level of math are you in? Right. Are you ready for the SAT? You know, stuff like that. And study skills. Well, right. Because freshmen sophomore's years and seniors will confirm it gets way harder. It gets way harder. Yes. Good habits, diet, water, rest, like, yeah, if you get good discipline, study habits early. 100%. That makes a big difference. All right. Next one. Legacy matter. What apply to you, Penn? Of course. Yeah. Why wouldn't legacy matter? Guys, listen, I think people are confused about what college is. Yeah. You know, legacy has the matter because legacy matters for donations. Colleges are a business. They're a business. Yep. And that's it. They're going to prioritize the legacies. And then you're going to go from being a Penn alumnus to a Penn family, right? Because your kids went there too. You're way more likely to want to donate some money to Penn. Right. And you're also probably very successful, God willing. You know, you grow to one of these schools. Right. So there you go. Which is interested to endorse this because it's a fact. It's a fact. Right. This is how it goes. I mean, as a goes. People have, I think, a very delusional idea of what on earth a college is. Right. They think this is some lofty institution. It does not obey the laws of economics. And it's like, yes, they do. Well, I can say until they get the financial aid package. Yeah, literally. Actually, no, actually they are here to make some money too. Oh, you know, make a lot of money. They don't charge $100,000 a year for these schools for nothing. Right. It's a very, very mercenary process. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. A level of students get into Ivy League. I mean, the same as anyone else. So the eight levels for those of you who don't know are the, you know, British, you know, equivalent to like AP or IB. You just take your exams. The same as everybody else. That's kind of a, that's kind of an easy one. Does the U Chicago ED zero still apply this mean this year? Yeah, yeah, actually. So for people who don't know ED zero for U Chicago, refers to a special super early way you can get into Chicago. If you were to go do one of their summer programs. And then they let you apply, believe it or not, and find out in October if you made the cut. Right. So crazy early. Yeah. If you're not interested in doing that. No, no, no. Okay. I've had a couple. So really interesting things a way to get into Chicago. So if you know Chicago's like your top choice, you can just like speedrun this entire process and just be done with it. Wow. friends will won't even find out until December. - 'Cause you're done like October. - That's the funnest walk away. - Senioritis starts that much earlier, right? - No, literally, right. (laughing) - You're asking about a published patent? - Patent, yeah, yeah, 100%. So-- - So does that matter? - Yeah, of course, patents matter. So people were asking how you can publish a patent and if that'll matter to get into Ivy League schools. Yeah, 100%. So I've had students, one of my clients actually, who patented a skiing robot. - Oh, no, no, no. - Used to find down skiers. So it was like an enhancement to like, ski patrol rescue operations. So say a skier lands in a place that's really hard for humans to get to. - Yeah, yeah. - The robot could actually ski down the mountain and then find that location and flag it for the ski patrol. - That's extremely cool. - And yeah, so he had a patent for that and he got into Cornell. - I would hope so. - Right, worked out really well. - Well, right on. - Right? It's pretty cool. It's a Cornell, so it got some bright kids there. - Yeah, yeah. - That's great school. Shout out to my student, Mikiya, Susan, who's watching this. We'll bring him on soon, too. - I believe like when a student works outside of school and teach themselves a higher level math and skip the class for the next school year, does it make a difference or not really? - I have the opinion on this, but I want to hear yours take first. I mean, I think it's a really good thing, yeah. Right? Like showing that initiative like, look, we're here to go big. - Right. - Right. - And so that shows you're going big? - Yeah, I think there's a hard cap to how much academics can help you. - Yeah. - But in the context of showing a strong academic profile, it can be really good. It wouldn't be my top priority. - Right. - It would be, and I think it depends also on what you want to study in school. So let's say you did want to be a math major. - Right. - Say that I think would make a huge difference if you want to be a math major. It would not make a big difference to skip ahead of year and math if you were going to be like an English major. - Right. - Like, right. So it's limited utilities sometimes, but it can help you show it or pretty rigorous profile. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - I will average SAT scores drop this year due to test required coming back. - Is your favorite? - I like those. (laughing) - So the question was, how will average SAT scores drop due to test required coming back? That's really interesting. You know, what this is relying on is an effect that happened because of COVID. - Right. - So during COVID, they institute a test optional policies. And when you make SATs optional, the only people who are going to report them are the people who scored very high on SAT. And so what that does is it artificially inflates the average scores for all these colleges. That's how you ended up in the last couple of years with schools like Harvard having an average SAT of like a 1550, which is also fake. (laughing) It's just not real. - And you have people in my comments that are like, oh, how am I going to go to Harvard? They have like a 1550 average. I need to get like a 1580. It's like, no, you don't. - No, you don't. Most of my students get in with like scores in the low 1500s or high 1400s. If you're over a 1450, you're probably fine. - Right. - That's all you need. - Right. - Don't go nuts. - Right. - And yeah, will the average scores drop, not a test required is back? Yeah, but it's going to take a while. Because of two things. First, the colleges are actually still giving test waivers. You know that? - Right. - Right. - Right. - Even though they went back to requiring the SAT, in a lot of cases, you can still get out of the requirement if you have a good reason for it. We have to justify it to college. - Right. - Right. - So it's a little more friction, I'll take it. - Right. - So that's going to slow it down, but also the CDS, which a lot of people are relying on to get this information in the first place, it gets reported a couple of years down the line. So it's going to take a little while for that data to filter out before all the search engines actually are real SAT scores again, but we will come back to normal, I think. - Right. - I think it's good. Next one. - What extracurriculars are best in high school for Ivy League pre-med? - Ooh, what extracurriculars are best in high school for an Ivy League pre-med? Ooh. - It is outside my room, but I will tell you, and I say this in every live, and she will confirm this. Kate Stone is the expert on this. - Oh yeah. - Kate Stone and her extracurricular stuff, like she is-- - She's-- - She's-- - Not a lot of good stuff with that. - She's excellent. So if you're listening to this, watching this, go follow Kate Stone, Kate Stone Prep, she's the best, her crew is awesome. - She'll be on the podcast actually really soon. - I'm going to be a dad for you. - I have a great dad for you. - She's awesome. I think she's the, she and her crew are the best. - They're awesome. I'm really a big fan of them. - Me too. - She and her husband, they have a really good group of them on Connecticut. For pre-med stuff, it really depends. You know, there's a couple of approaches you can take to this. You can go to the Hardstem route, which would be more on the research side that helps. You can also do a lot of volunteer activity that makes a difference. So a lot of organizations that raise money for certain diseases might be a good thing for you to leave a group and organize around. You know, they want to see a combination of both hard stem ability and you actually carry them up for most pre-med programs. So you want to have that combo. If you have both of those, you should be fine. So, you know, what you don't want to do with pre-med stuff, by the way, is just shadow people, for example, or make it seem like you're applying to medical school straight out of high school, unless of course you're going for a BSMD program. But for most of us like standard pre-med tracks, I'm not sure you do the track. All right, next one. Does being student body president help for top schools? No, not as much as you think. Yeah, not even a little bit. If anything, it's probably one of the worst accolades that I can think of that a student would have. I know that's going to make a lot of people very mad. I don't mean that in a mean way. Right. What I mean by that is that it's going to suck so much time out of your life. Because student body presidents are who the principles in a high school dump all their busy work for big school events onto because it's free labor. And so they figure the student body president is probably smart enough to organize all the decorations for homecoming where all the necessary preparations for a prom or something that falls on the student body president a lot of the time. And they were doing all this extra work for free by the way. Not even getting paid for it. And how much of that is relevant to colleges? Very little. Right. Now I would say one pushback would be, yes and being student body president once you're in school has potential for a real advantage for you. Right. You learn the skills and you learn persuasion speaking, you know, it's leading. So it can help you down the road. But you say like not necessarily get into college. No, I mean, there's going to be a very limited utility of it. Because you also have to look at this in terms of the numbers. Yep. Right. Because like I like gaining skills. So anything education like that has some value. It's not that I'm against that. It's just that, you know, like if you look at how many high schools are in America, it's 25,000 high schools. So that means there's 25,000 student body presidents, right? Which is the same problem, by the way, of being valedictorian. Yep. Right. So people are going to freak out when I say this too. Here we go. Being valedictorian does not help you get into these colleges. Right. You know, why? Because, you know, in your school being valedictorian is so special. You're one of like 300 kids. Yes. Yes. Great. Okay. Good for you. But there's 25,000 other valedictorians. Right. And so when you're applying to, you know, the top end of colleges, well, now these numbers don't look as impressive, right? Because there's 25,000 other people with the same exact title. Right. So anything that has that quality where you can have 25,000 other people with the same thing, not going to be that impressive. Yep. I have the same problem with Eagle Scouts, actually, you know that. Oh, is there any people that don't like this one either? No. No, they really don't. I'm going to get people are going to so mad at me for this. Yeah. Okay. Eagle Scout, Girl Scout, uh, Girl, Gold Awards. They're really not that great. They have value. They have value. But like as far as emissions game goes, that's what we're here for. Right. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. So this is the goi of your go free part. Yeah. It's not the go to northeastern, you know, and people $100,000 podcast. Okay. You know, like guess what? You know, there's a lot of people in this country that are Eagle Scouts. Yeah. Right. When I say a lot of people, we're talking about thousands. Yeah. You know, if you have thousands of people with the exact same award as you, yeah. What do you think it's going to do? Yeah. That's why unique projects, unique, yeah. Creative projects are the way that you would actually do something interesting that was then that to this. Right. That makes the biggest difference. Right. Disapplying without age top colleges like MIT, Harvard, Stanford, etc. Increased chances as an international transfer applicant this year of fall of 2026. So does applying without financial aid, without needing financial aid, improve your odds of getting in to these colleges? What do you think? I think yes. Generally, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, almost always. Except for MIT. Yeah. Interesting. You know, MIT is unique in this regard, actually. So the New York Times had this really interesting article that came out a few weeks ago where they plotted the average acceptance rate of students to these colleges compared to their income levels. Oh, here we go. And if you look at every single school in the Ivy League, what you see is actually a big bump at the low end, right? It was an advantage for low income. And then a huge dip for the entire middle class going all the way up to the 90th percentile of income. So it is a disadvantage. Oh, great. If your parents are in the top 10% of income earners in America, you have a massive disadvantage in the Ivy League admissions process. And then if you go from the top 10% to the top 0.1%, it shoots up. It literally shoots all the way to the moon, right? And you know, and why is that, right? You know, in large part. It's because when you apply to these colleges, this is the part they don't like, right? They say they're need blind. Yep. But on your application, there will be a question that asks you, point blank, do you need financial aid? Yes or no? Right. And that is on the admission application. Now your financial aid is on your admissions application. Right. And if you guys don't believe me, go open up. That's how it happened. Go see for yourself. Okay. Everyone in my commas is like, I know, no, no, you're making that up. Go see. Go see. It makes that up. I don't make a damn thing. Okay. But go see for yourself. Anyway, so they're going to go see for themselves. They'll correct themselves eventually. They're going to apologize to me. I promise. Okay. But back to this. The colleges ask you, do you need financial aid? Why? They ask, do you need financial aid? Because if you say no to that question, you're effectively communicating to them. Wait, I can pay $100,000 a year out of pocket. Go for business. Great for business. 25% of the budget of an Ivy League school comes from tuition. It doesn't come from the endowment. The endowment, believe it or not, Harvard, they lie, by the way. You know, Harvard lied about how big they're endowmentists? I didn't know that. They lied in 2021 with a fake paper valuation claiming they had a $53 billion endowment. You know what they're endowment's actually worth? I love to hear it. Sub-20. Okay. Oh, that's interesting. It's less by like a factor of two. That's a lot. It's massive. It's a massive lie. And Harvard perpetuates this lie so that they can go in public and virtue signal and say, "Oh, we have all this money. We don't even need to worry about the finances of our students." Bro, they're full of it. They're full of it. You know, and I know they're full of it for two reasons. One, over 20% of their budget comes directly from the federal government in terms of federal grants. And 25% of their budget comes from students tuition directly paid by the students. 20% only, 20% to 30% of their operational costs come from their endowment. Wow. That's it. That's it. And so they're dirty, dirty liars. And they say that the money doesn't matter. And I get to say this because they have no strings on me. Right, right, right, right. Harvard's not going to like me afterwards. But I love them anyway. And I think they can do better. Okay. I just want them to be honest in public. Right. I say all of this because, yes, signaling to these colleges that you can in fact pay the full tuition amount does make a difference in terms of whether or not you get it. And the reason is because they have to budget. There's only so much financial aid that a school can offer. Right. And because they can only offer so much financial aid, then what ends up happening is they have to make up the gap with the student's tuition. Right. Right. And they put students into two separate categories and they say, okay, well, there's a cap for how many students we accept who need financial aid. And there's no cap for how many students we take who could pay for price. Right. So it helps. Yeah. That's it. That's it. I'm going to ruffle some feathers with that one, but I'm sure it's fun. I mean, were they going to do not accept your students? No, they don't take their money. Yeah, I know. I like that. I like that. All right. Let's go to the next one, baby. What do you think? What if there's no AP courses in your school, offered or nearby in a third world country? Ooh, what do you do if there's no AP courses offered in your school or in a third world country? I guess one a lot too in my last two. And so generally, I mean, you're comparing your cohort. Yep. Right. So, you know, should you look for other ways to prove academics online? Yes. You're not going to be as not as if you were lack of APs when there are no APs in your school. As we held against someone who has no APs when there are 12 APs available in school. 100%. Yeah. It won't matter at all. Colleges get a thing called the school report and they're perfectly well aware of how many APs your school does or does not offer. Right. So if your school doesn't offer the APs, you're not expected to take them. Right. If you can, take them outside of school or online, more power to you. Yeah. But, you know, that's not going to be held against you. So, it's kind of a, you know, I get why students are anxious about it because they don't understand how they're really being compared in the process. But I like to explain to people that you're being compared in terms of concentric circles. Right. So you have your cohort that you graduate from high school with. Right. And that's the tightest comparison that's being done to you. Yep. So you really want to make sure you're better than your immediate classmates. That's why I tell people people who don't like this one either. Your classmates are your competition. Right. They are your fiercest competition. The people in your school side by side with you because those are the only people who had the same opportunities that you do. This is, I've seen this play out or 25 years, Andreas. I saw, you know, I taught in Palo Alto, you know, literally the shadow of Stanford. Yep. And so, out of the 400 students, I'd say 250 applied to Stanford and really wanted to go there. Right. And like, you know, people get pretty upset because some people get in and most don't. Right. And so they sort of understood, but didn't really get that they were definitely competing against each other. It's very cutthroat. Yes. And they compare you to the other kids. Yes. They have to. They have no other reference frame. Yes. It's subjective. And again, if you're Stanford, there's value, for example, and blessed Stanford, World Wheel of Loves Stanford. And even if, even if all 250 students from Palo Alto are wonderful and qualified and great, you can't have all 250 that go in to Stanford. No. You can't do it. And admissions officers lie about this in public, do you know that? Oh. Oh, yeah. I know they're dirty, dirty lies. I go to these committees sometimes. I try to listen to their Q and A's where they have admissions officers come in to say, oh, no, no. We don't have any caps for high schools. And it's like, yes, you don't have a cap. Thanks. Okay. You don't have a hard cap. But you have a soft cap, right? Yeah. What it means is like if you accept like, you know, one or two kids from a high school, you will be extremely hesitant to accept the third, right? Because of diversity. You can't have diversity and also no quotas, right? Whenever you hear the phrase diversity in admissions, in admissions context, diversity equals quota every single time. That's what I try to explain to people. There's no such thing as a does diversity with no quotas because if you want diversity, you have to have a certain number of people only every bucket you're picking from. So you need a quota. Yeah. There's no practical way to do that otherwise. Yeah. It's no sense. I don't know why they're trying to front. Yeah. It's crazy. I'm going to do it for them for lying. Can you sue the colleges for lying? I wish. I wish. I don't know what grounds. It was the harm. I'm a fraudulent. I know, but like what is it? What's the harm they suffer? I mean, I get that it's fraudulent, but like what is the people apply the wrong way as a consequence of that? Yeah. Yeah. But then they can't, if it's a hard time proving, there's, there's like, all right, I wouldn't do it. You know what? I'm going to do a lawsuit. I'm going to sue. I'm going to find admissions officer. I'm going to find one of these like little worms. That one out there and said, be yourself. Right. Oh, just be yourself. Right. I'm going to sue them because that's like the worst advice you can ever get in college admissions and everybody knows it. Everybody knows that. That's my client. Okay. Anybody who's going out there saying, just, oh, just be yourself. Like that makes you seem good. It's virtue signaling for sure. But like it is quite possibly the most toxic thing I have ever heard. And here's why it's toxic. I'll tell you why because it is abandoning your responsibility to create a persona. Right. In admissions. And you should be the best version of yourself. You should be curating your image. You can't just like go and be like, oh, my full authentic self. And they should love me for me. It's like, come on. Like this is the random sense of humor person, right? Like, no, you should not say you have a random sense of humor. That doesn't make any sense. And like, yeah, that person needs to be sued. Okay. That person needs to be sued to the ground. Okay. But yourself. So, what do you think? You're not going to like this one. Tell me. Who cares? I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I'm serious. It's like, okay, because easier or harder by what factor, right? By how much? Right. The only question is, are you going to apply or aren't you? Right. Why? Then who cares? You're going to apply. You're applying anyway. Yeah. And like, and like, your chances are low, right? But like, how much higher than really low, are they going to be? Well, are you going to do anything different because your chance is one percent to three percent. Exactly. Like, no, your chance is almost doubled, right? But, I mean, but exactly, unless you think your chances are 99.999, then why are you stopping? Right. Like, you need to do more. Like, you need to, like, we talked about this, like, you need to pretend that you're behind. Yeah. Like, you're behind and like, you need to, you're an underdog here. Yeah. Right? So, you always have mentality. I'm an underdog. I'm going to just go for it and then see what happens. I go nuts, these questions like easier or harder because like, who cares? Apply or don't? Right. I'll never say. I think people like this because it feels like, I don't know. I think people like these general odds questions could be because it gives them hope. Yeah. Or like, you know, the same way people like follow sports stats or like they go look at the weather. And they say, you know, like, oh, you know, we have this odds of it being sunny today or something like, you know, and you know, it's also just interesting on like a macro prediction level. I enjoy participating in it. Like, just for fun. Right? But not because I think it actually makes a difference. Yeah. The same thing either way. But to answer the question though, because like, there's been some big changes coming in. Right? So, we have visa changes. And if changes in terms of, you know, the requirements for applying, my prediction is that it's going to be significantly easier. Yeah. That's how you why. I think it's going to be easier for three reasons primarily. The first reason is that they've gone back at this point fully to requiring the SAT for admissions, right, which has carved out. I think the bottom 20% of applicants that created a lot of noise in the process. And so that's a big factor that will make it easier for them to pick out qualified students. Because I think admissions officers during COVID, especially just had a hard time. Right. I think the second thing that matters is the bird. rate. Right. So the birth rate didn't just drop because of 2008. It's been dropping since 2008. And so for the next 10 years, every subsequent year actually has had fewer students enrolled in high school. Interesting. And so there will be a significant reduction in the competition because of that. Right. So that makes a difference. And the last reason is going to be because of these visa changes. Right. Under the new administration has really shaken things up this year. Yeah. 75 countries are now banned from travel to the US entirely. And so students from all those countries are now out of the competition. Right. No granted. Most of those countries weren't sending a lot of people the right with. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. But going from a small number down to zero, right, definitely cut some things out. Right. And so that I think will make it on the margins easier. But like you said, yeah, is anyone really going to apply now that wasn't going to apply before because of that? Well, and also again, like, so let's just say, actually no, it's going to be harder next year. Yeah. So then what you're not going to apply, right? Well, there's zero. Right. Right. Right. So whatever chances you are, you apply. Seriously, they're not zero. Right. Exactly. Right. Maybe not high, but like they're not zero. Right. So as long as you're interested in a chance, it's not zero, then apply. Then go for it. Yeah. Next question. Is fundraising $100,000 in my nonprofit considered top college activity level? Nope. Right. Because no, no, I mean, I mean, I mean, that actually fundraising $100,000 in a nonprofit is not by itself going to get you into one of these colleges because they are not impressed by the dollar amount. Yeah. They don't care. It's what did you do, right? With that money. Right. So, okay, sure, you raised $100,000. Yeah. You just get right at check to a different nonprofit. They don't care about that. Right. Right. Right. Did you use that to actually make a difference of someone's life? Did you build a whole school for somebody in Africa? You could build. Get shoes for people. Yeah. So I, one of my clients at one point donated to Jordan's to like all the kids that are refugees and are in New York City. That was awesome. That was a great use of it. He got into pen. Okay. Not an accident. Right. Right. Because he used the money for a good cause. Right. Don't just raise some money to raise the money. I mean, my god, like, what the heck's the point of that? Right. It makes no sense. Next question. For the class of 2020, $1,500 SAT good enough for T20s or should I read it? Generally, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, like, for SATs, there's a hard law of diminishing returns. Right. Like once you hit like $1,500, anything more than that is barely going to move the needle. Right. So like, you know, there are people who are obsessed with being over $1,500, you don't need to do that. Right. That's kind of crazy. $1,500 plus is more than enough in my book. Are the independent research and tutoring I be weak or what do you think about that? Well, the same more about, I know that, quote, unquote research is one of your favorite topics. So you're going to get an aneurysm mark. You're going to give me an aneurysm. Okay. Okay. So all right. First, fair background on this. I spent about seven years of my life doing high energy physics research at Birkehven National Lab. And so science research is one of my like pet topics. Yeah. This is consequence. Or just joy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's a crazy urgency. I ended up carrying a lot more about the nature of research. I think most people in this industry do. And I'm kind of disgusted with what a lot of programs like I'm going to name some names now. I'm not a fan. This is my personal opinion. You can't sue me over this. Okay. I do not like Lumiere. I don't like pioneer. I don't like any of the paid research programs. Polygense, throw them in there. Algoverse, throw it in there. I don't like any of these programs. If you're getting paid to do science research, I don't like these programs. Here's why because the only way to make a paid science research program is to hire graduate students that will work with you. Right. For like maximum 10 to 20 hours, you will never learn how to do original science research in 10 to 20 hours. Right. And the alternative. It's a equivalent of a few days. It's garbage. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The reality of what it takes to learn how to do real science research. I know because I started doing real science research when I was 14. Okay. So when I started learning how to do this, it took thousands of hours working in the lab with my mentor, thousands. Yeah. Right. And the only way you'll ever do that is if a mentor agrees to volunteer to teach it to you. Yeah. Yeah. It will never happen otherwise. Right. And the with these programs of doing is lying to people. They're making it seem as if you can learn how to do this kind of research. In reality, what they have the students do is not an original research question. What they have them do is they write summaries of existing research papers and a thing called a literature review or a meta analysis, which is not real science research. The colleges are perfectly well aware of when you submit your research supplements to the college, it goes to a professor and the professors are real scientists. Right. So they know what the difference is between a literature review and an original piece of science research. And they don't care. Right. So it won't do anything for you in the admissions process. And you know, moreover, like I hear this phrase independent science research. And I want to have a stroke. Right. Because what do you mean independent science research? You're in high school. Right. Independent. You don't know how to do science research. Yeah. Why are you trying to do that independently? Go get a mentor. Get a mentor who's not only going to teach you what you're doing. They're going to write you a letter of recommendation. And if you can't get a mentor, accept that what you're doing is not science. Right. Like whatever it is, you know, it's definitely not science. I promise you that. And for the love of God, do not pay $10,000 to one of these scam programs. Right. Right. That's all I'm talking about that. Right. It's, uh, they're going to sue me for this. It's your opinion. It's your opinion. Right. It's not a statement of fact. You can't statement of fact. I'm going to sue that admissions officer. Okay. That's going to happen. I swear to God. Okay. Sorry. Go ahead. Our colleges really need blind. I think we covered this one already. No, no colleges are not really need blind. Need blind is a really cool marketing phrase. Yeah. They use that to virtue signal and to try to pretend that they're doing something philanthropic. In reality, there is a very big advantage if you are coming from a family that is wealthy enough to pay full price. Yep. What about summer programs? Are there any summer programs you like? I mean, not in particular. I mean, to be honest, yeah, I'm not a huge fan. There's a couple RSI at MIT. I think it's pretty good. They do good research there. There's, um, at the national laboratories, there's the HSRP program, which I try to promote because it's a free program where you can spend eight weeks working with a mentor on a national lab on an original research question. Oh, need. Okay. Right. It's a beautiful program. I did that when I was in high school. Big fan. Yeah. And the other ones I like are like Yale, young global scholars. That's pretty good. Okay. That's about it. Okay. Obviously. Yeah. Not too many. I go to a competitive high school. My class rank is quite bad, even though I have a 95 average in all advanced classes is this a major headwind. Goes to a competitive high school. Class rank is pretty bad. Even though they take a lot of competitive classes, is that a major headwind? I think so. Oh, yeah. Yeah. It's tough. Yeah. It's a class rank is a problem because even if your school doesn't officially rank, the college admissions officer who reads your applications, can read all the applications in the book, the same geographic areas, you would obviously include your classmates. Yeah. And so that's going to necessarily impact you. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, definitely a pretty big headwind there. Yeah. What should our profile contain in order to raise our chances of getting accepted in Stanford or I guess other schools like that? Tell me I'm wrong in this one. I often think that the alleged values of an institution, I think you're overstated. I don't think any of them have values. Okay. Good. Okay. Fantastic. Yeah. People have values. Yes. Institutions do not have values. Yeah. That's not a thing. Okay. Great. Fantastic. We'll have a great list. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, I think if you want to build a profile, again, you've got to do something special. But also you've got to show that you're committed to things. Yes. Right. And I'm not the first person to say this, but like trying to say, oh, I've got a dozen extriculars. All right. But then, you know, do them half an hour a week or whatever. Yeah. No, you're better off like three or four that you were just like all of a sudden. Three or four that you really put a ton of effort into that you made a difference in people's lives. Like, you know, what you really want to do is lean into stuff. Yes. Depth over bread. Yep. Every single time. Yeah. If you can do that, yeah, that's how you'll stand out to a school like Stanford for sure. Yep. Values in customization to a college is overrated. Well, I mentioned that because again, I work with many, many students who wanted to go to Stanford and they thought the way in was to show that they have like the spirit of Silicon Valley. And like, you know, and I need to show them an innovator and entrepreneur spirit is like, no way. That is so overrated. No, it's so. It's not what they admit for anyway. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The people make the decisions for you on your application are individuals. Yeah. Right. They admit people they like. You know, you just have to be like, see, I'm glad you say that because so often I get these students like, oh, but should I add some innovation stuff to my Stanford essays? No. No. You shouldn't. No, you really should just be yourself. Yeah. And show something interesting and different about you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I can one write better college essays. Right. Cleanly. Well, maybe maybe a few errors here there. But use your own voice. Use your own voice. Don't try to sound professional. Use your own voice. And then tell a story that's the beginning, middle and end. All our Joseph Campbell. Allah here are the thousand faces, make it with a hero's journey, even Ark. It is easy to follow. And what I tell students is readers want to do, readers want to get home. Yep. And they want to read quickly and peacefully. And so if you slow them down or disrupt their peace, you lose every time. So let them read quickly and peacefully and you win. I love that advice for college essays. I think that brings us to the end of the first episode here. So Mark, thank you so much for being with us. Thank you so much for helping me start off the go-ive year go-free podcast. And I don't think we talked much about the titles here. But I really wanted this to be a conversation point. I wanted this to be a place where we can show people how to actually win in this process. Not enough to just be in the middle. Yeah. And I think the way that you approach students and essays and your philosophy around actually helping students develop for after this process. It is as big of a win as getting 20 schools to begin with. So thank you very much. Appreciate that. And I will say, if I may, I'm honored to be here. And thank you for having me. And I said this to you, but you're an easy person to root for because you are smart and principled. And you want good things. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Awesome. Cheers. Cheers to you.