***

Question:
SAT test prep advice- My son took 5 of the Bluebook SAT practice tests for the March 2026 SAT and then scored 1520 (740 Reading and 780 Math). He is now taking the remaining practice tests this summer to prep for August. He is hoping for 1550+ and to roll into 11th with SAT behind him.

Once he’s exhausted the Bluebook material, what would you recommend for practicing the hardest of the hard questions? I remember hearing about a math recommendation that was considered “overkill” but maybe overkill is exactly what he needs at this point?

He basically has the month of July to study bc he will be in summer camp the next few weeks. Any advice is appreciated!

Me:

I’d recommend he finish up the Blue Book in the weeks right before the test along with reviewing all missed questions and collecting every vocab word he didn’t know in those tests and studying them, and in the meantime focus on all the meaningful and fun activities and endeavors I’m sure he has going on this summer. The 1550 is his/your marker, for some reason, but it’s not anyone else’s. Those 30 points won’t get him in or knock him out anywhere. And I do mean anywhere.

*** Question:
Is it true that schools are requiring test scores again now? The most competitive students were probably submitting them anyways, but does this have any implications for how less high-aiming students should prepare for the SAT and ACT?

Me:
Every school is different. Research each one over trusting [someone’s website that I’d never heard of] - not saying he’s good or bad, I’ve never heard of him. But any article shouting TESTING IS BACK or TESTING IS OVER needs to be taken with many grains of salt. Some great schools are returning to requiring testing, others never will, and there are many many many good schools that are legitimately test optional - don’t believe the hype!

(Ingrid reminds you all to take breaks, get outside, run around - stress doesn’t help improve ANYTHING!)
(pic by Anja Schutz)

(Next week we will return to our regularly-scheduled programming)

As I wrote earlier, my kid got into Columbia and UCLA. She declined Columbia and accepted UCLA. And I’m feeling guilty as hell.

[JB: I believe this parent was feeling guilty for even suggesting his applicant consider cost/value (UC, in state) even though the family could pay for either school. He was now considering the less tangible value of an Ivy degree along with his daughter’s preference that he may have biased.]

Is it too late to go back and ask Columbia to let her in? I know I can always ask, but I worry that this will trigger some string of events that will invalidate her UCLA acceptance.

***

Me:
As a Columbia grad, I encourage you to think long and hard about committing to the core curriculum if she’s eager to dive into more than the tiniest bit of specialization before senior year. Lo these 40 years on, I still occasionally have misgivings about it and feel it may well have altered my career path, not that I’m complaining. Also, try as hard as you can to REMOVE PRESTIGE FROM THE DECISION - it and five bucks won’t even buy you a venti oat macchiato at Starbucks any more.

***

That’s all I’ve got for this week. GO KNICKS

[Ingrid, in earth tones, contemplating the value of an extensive core curriculum.]

OP:

Are we cooked?

DS current junior 3.9uw/4.32 w, currently will end up with 3 B+, and 4 As. This years core courses: Calc BC, AP LangAP Bio, AP Chem, DE US History

He thinks he’s cooked to get any merit at a great school. MechE major. Only 15 years old.

Amazing EC with stellar Leadership roles. Community service hours 100+.

SAT- 1420 first try. Retakes in June.

This is not a brag but honest worry.

***

Me:

He needs to understand that there are no legitimate rankings, prestige is a sucker’s game, and that there are hundreds of GREAT schools. As you build the school list (consider using free resources such as the College Board’s Big Future or the Website Niche (dotcom)) work just as hard at finding schools to love at the “bottom” of that list as on the dreams at the top, and he’ll be anything but cooked and have a terrific result a year from now.

Applicants are only “cooked” if they lack realistic expectations and a great school list.

For help finding merit aid, google Ron Lieber or check out his book The Price You Pay for College. Jeff Selingo’s new book Dream School is also one to check out to expand your horizons beyond those obvious brand names.

(Mario says do your homework to build a great list, then go have a day on the beach!)

We all know that sometimes students get into Ivy League or T20 universities not just because of perfect stats, but maybe due to an incredibly unique essay, a compelling background, or as a recruited athlete. Their academic profile might be good, but maybe just a bit below the typical median for that specific school.

My question is: How do these students actually manage once they are on campus, especially if they choose a rigorous STEM or Engineering major?

The academic gap and the stress must be intense, and keeping up a high GPA seems like a massive uphill battle.

Me:

An important factor to consider in terms of survival is the difference between going to a selective+ school that is cutthroat/hyper-competitive and one that is collaborative and less stressful. Some of the most brilliant kids I’ve worked with could be admitted to any of those schools that everyone wants to put the sticker of on the back of the SUV but realized they would thrive in the atmosphere of a smaller, calmer liberal-arts college. This year, in fact, I had one wise young man choose to stay close to home at at Georgia Tech over Ivies or Duke because GT was a great fit and a great value (even though his parents were willing and able to pay the full freight anywhere). It’s not just athletes that might be over their heads in the wrong environment, it can be absolute geniuses, and, in fact, sometimes the competitive nature of top athletes is what will make them overperform at those “top” schools. P.S. stop thinking of schools in terms of illegitimate “rankings” and find great fits for a happy outcome.

(another commenter went on to ask which schools are thought of in which of the categories mentioned)

Googling on your own will help, but of those brand-names, UPenn and Harvard are often called cutthroat, but it will really depend on department/major, while Rice and Brown and Wash U are often considered much more collaborative, as are many many great small-to-medium liberal arts colleges at various levels of selectivity. Hamilton, Northwestern, Grinnell, Haverford, Macalester, Tufts, Case Western are schools that come to mind, but again, it will vary by department, not just by school…. You can also try searching posts on this page using the word “collaborative.”

(Minky sez: everybody just calm down and take a nap, it’s going to be okay!)

***
Post: (edited for length)

We are having a difficult time editing down our college list.

Currently at 25 schools.

Everytime I ask ChatGBT it gives me different answers

What should we cut?

Targets:

UMass, Stony Brook, Binghampton, Rutgers, Rochester, Richmond, Lafayette, Bucknell, Union, Skidmore

Likelies:

RIT, Marist, Hobart, Drexel, Rowan, Delaware

Reaches:

Cornell, Wesleyan, Middlebury, Carnegie Mellon, Hamilton, BU, Tufts

SAT: 1490 with 800 in math, taking again in June to get over 1500, cast of esports team, 4.2 weighted, 3.75 unweighted GPA

Doing all the stuff everyone else on here does (volunteer, clubs)

AIME (math competition) qualifier

***

ME:
It’s, if anything, more important to visit schools on the bottom half of the list (in terms of selectivity), because, statistically, that’s where your applicant is likely to end up. Make sure you have a list that they feel good about from top to bottom. Also, these days, a list doesn’t need to be perfectly balanced. So long as you have a few *happy* safeties and targets, you can aim for more reaches - so long as your applicant can handle the potential, even likely, rejections. But really put the work into finding safer and target schools that fit and feel great to them!

Last, build a great list, not a long one. At some point it becomes overkill and supplemental essays can become weaker as burnout sets in. 12-15 schools is still ideal. You can add a couple in December or even later if EA results don’t yield a final choice.

Oh, and one more thing. Don’t let your applicant put this on you - in the end it’s the applicant who will attend one of those colleges, they need to be very active in the process!
***
ME again: (second comment after reading all the other comments)

Don’t research based on selectivity, research based on FIT!

All of these comments are about academics, stats and ROI (perhaps the worst way to pick a college, as there are so many factors besides where you go that determine future income). Are there any other factors to consider in helping them choose where they spend the next four formative years living, not just studying? Where someone thrives as a person, they will succeed as a student, and beyond.

*** OP:
Right but part of FIT is going to be decent rigor for her. And with that, peers capable of that rigor who will enhance her experience and also help her grow. I agree with you that selectivity or “name” alone are an unhelpful way to find a good fit school, nor the right rubric alone to try to do so, but, as an example, Hobart William Smith looks amazing on paper and for the life of me (and without visiting) I can’t understand why it’s not more widely known and selective. It seems incredible, and to be doing some incredible things. Princeton recognized it recently across a number of metrics - happiest students most satisfied with their school, top environmental impact school, best career services and so on. It’s one we’ll def apply to but it’s showing as a 96% likely admission for us on collegevine and that slightly concerns me because if you are the best who will push you to grow?

***

ME: All part of the picture, indeed. Equating level of selectivity with your student being “the best” or not, though, is not at all the way I see it. Most of the advice I give around who the the applicant’s peers would be at any selective school, from Hobart to Princeton, is more around whether the atmosphere is more about collaboration or competition. Some schools are very strongly associated with one or the other. There are students accepted to UPenn (known to be among the most highly competitive) who choose Hobart and other more collaborative environments, and there are many good reasons they might do so. Yes, there are many more who are accepted to both and choose Penn. But the point I’m trying to make is that wanting to be with the highest achieving kids in terms of typical high-school metrics is a legitimate consideration but isn’t always the best way to go. Success and happiness in college depend on so many other factors.

That is among the reasons why I won’t take on a client who is adamant that they plan to apply to (nearly) all the Ivies - that family is working based on one criteria only, selectivity/prestige, one that so often leads to disappointment at the rejections and lack of focus on happy safeties, or to a bad match even if they are admitted. But, again, that’s a big part of my way of looking at helping a client (by which I mean the applicant, not the family) find their great fits - I’m not saying it should be everyone’s method. Good luck!

(Ingrid, also known as Dr. Lynda Shnay - see photo in photo - found a great match and moved all the way up from Texas!)

Any useful advice to talk to a teen who really has no directions, and is heavily influenced by friends? Any useful podcast/ books that he can listen/ read about the how to prepare for college type of stuff?

*** A:
One could as easily argue with you and several of these commenters (other disgruntled parents whose kids weren’t eager to take what the parent had decided they would/should take) to the effect of:

Here we go again, a parent immediately poo-pooing their high-schooler’s choice to take one AP course over another without researching said choice themselves. Not so sure who’s behaving more “blindly” here.

Perhaps your son actually knows what he’s doing. Look into AP Capstone and the Seminar course - many think they prepare students very well for college level-work and collaboration, especially on research projects. Whether he’s a math kid or perhaps discovering he’s something more complex than simply one thing or another, this may be a great way to explore and expand his horizon and may even make him a more engaged and interesting math major someday. Also, AP Stats is an AP that isn’t considered (by some) the most challenging/rigorous - *if* he’s really a pure math kid, the AP Calculus courses and beyond are where he should focus.

As for reading/listening suggestions, there are so many to choose from, but try Admissions Beat for a podcast and Jeff Selingo’s Dream School for a book (also audiobook). Good luck!

(Mink says: sometimes it’s nice and warm inside the box, but don’t forget to think (and let your kids) think outside of it too!

1. Money/prestige/NPC

2. The Erzatz Rankings/Tiers trap

3. On the helpfulness of essay help

4. Prestige/rankings and course load for a 10th grade

5. Cost of public vs private schools, ROI, and much much more! (below)

   ***

But First, post Decision Day (5/1), Here are the final choices for my class of 26 crew! This was a very successful year in that all their selections came with varying degrees of happiness and ZERO degrees of heartbreak! That’s what building a great list yields:

Skidmore College
Georgia Tech (full scholarship!)
Cornell University
Washington and Lee University (full scholarship!)
The University of Michigan
MIT
Hamilton College
Northwestern University
San Diego State University
Pennsylvania State University
Florida International University
Bates College
Case Western University
Gonzaga University
Vassar College
University of Maryland (FIRE program)
American University
Allegheny College
University of Florida (Honors)
Loyola Marymount University
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
University of Richmond
University of North Carolina Wilmington
Northeastern University
University of California Santa Barbara

***
This week’s Q and A, from another post in the College Admissions Experts Facebook Group:

Q:
I observe on this group that there is higher inclination towards private universities over public state universities even though private may be out of pocket and may not have return on investment unless it’s top tier and high pay major. I don’t find a strong reason to go for out of state or private ones since it usually is cheaper and usually there are good options out there closer to home.

What am I missing here? Would like to make an informed and educated decision to shortlist colleges.

[The poster also wrote about being reluctant to pay a private institution which would then use that money to support need-based aid for other students, didn’t like the idea of paying for other students’ educations, but deleted that part of the post after many critical comments and before I could copy the text.]

A:
There are certainly posts here quite often that are very supportive of state schools on here. First, I would suggest not spending any time worrying about covering the costs of others. That’s how a society works - I pay taxes that go to schools I don’t have kids attending, roads I don’t drive on, services I don’t need, the list goes on and on.

Also, with merit aid, the difference in cost between public and private is not what it once was, and sometimes private schools may even be more affordable than even your own state flagship.

I would also recommend looking at factors besides/beyond pure ROI in this process, as life is not purely about the amount one earns, so neither is education and the atmosphere where one spends four immensely important years. Jeff Selingo’s Dream School and Ron Leiber’s The Price You Pay for College are books that will help.

(Below: Kono, dressed for alumni weekend)

.

Please help!

A:
Prestige and rankings are not a good way to select colleges. Fit is what to search for and try to resist the prestige trap, the dream of seeing that one precious name and logo on her hoodie. She really really really should focus just as hard on seeking out HAPPY targets/safeties/likelies as on how to please those selective+++ lottery tickets. 15 applications to schools with 4-10% admissions does not equal 150% chance to be admitted to one of them. It doesn’t even equal a 50% chance.

Okay, rant over.

To answer your question, every kid is different. Six APs is a lot, but it’s what she’ll be competing with in many applicants at those reach schools. What you need to help her with is to understand what she can manage while still having a life. (Gosh I seem to be using a lot of italics in this post but THIS SH*T IS IMPORTANT.) Colleges - even those Ivy+ fantasy schools - want interested and engaged human beings, not just rigor and grades and scores alone. They get applications from thousands of kids with perfect stats with spots to accept only a fraction of them. Regarding activities, she should focus on diving as deeply as possible into what she loves not what some 22-year-old TikTok influencer says Geoergetown will love. This is just SO important! Also, is a 14-year-old positive she wants to go into law? Explore!

(A great resource for both of you will be Jeff Selingo’s new book, Dream School. Another would be Frank Bruni’s Where You Go Is Not Who You’ll Be

(Mink says don’t forget to sit on the bed and relax and play with a sock sometimes!)

.)

A good essay coach helps the Common App essy writer find their topic, their voice, their story, gives feedback as to what works or doesn’t work for them as a reader, points out errors but lets the writer figure out how to fix them (sure with a few little corrections) and the like.

Actually, I’m not sure what your question is. One way he could look at it is to tell a story that ***introduces himself to a stranger in terms of one aspect of who he is***(my mini-definition of the personal statement). Think of that stranger/reader more as a potential friend or peer than some stodgy old authority figure representing a college. His first reader for a college is likely to be closer to his age than yours, a recent graduate proudly working in the admissions office of their alma mater, eager to learn who the actual human being is behind all the scores, the gpa, the rigor - the data. The personal statement is a way of saying hello, NOT an essay-writing contest - some schools (Duke, for one) even have (or until recently had) a note on their site to the effect of this is not a writing test.

Another point to make is that the essays are but one of many factors, very important at some schools, not at all at others. Just get it done. If hiring someone to ethically help, great - if he’s just procrastinating and will get it done on his own, also great. And yes, if he finds one reader he trusts to give him honest, informed feedback, that might help.

One last note. When a family hires me, I make it clear that, to a great extent, Mom and Dad are paying the bills, but the applicant is my client. The main reason I mention this is because of one common issue that comes up. The client doesn’t share their essay with their parents, in which case, certain parents will ask me about the essay, how it’s coming along, and I will give them general responses, but that’s all, and that’s fine. The worst case is when parents write telling me to share their child’s essay with them. I reply that that’s between applicant and parents, it’s not my essay to share. Amazingly, I’ve never had a parent write back insisting - I think they get it at that point. Good luck!

*P.S. Don’t worry about AI if it’s not written by AI, and DO NOT run it through an AI checker. If you want to know more about why … well, hire me! (insert winky emoji)

(below: the admissions committee after reading the last of 50 essays for the day)

Anonymous commenter we’ll call StrivingTulip247) because that’s now how Facebook is letting people name themselves lately):

I have a sophomore at an Ivy and one that is about to go to one. They both only got one ivy acceptance .

My senior this year was rejected by many tier 2 schools, including Emory, nyu, tufts. But did get accepted by 1 Ivy, ucb, umich, etc

Both my kids do not have stellar resumes. Nothing out of the norm. Honestly, just normal [Jamie here: many commenters noted that this applicant was nothing even vaguely like “normal.”] kids. My son has rigor and academically strong. Horrible writer. Public school in jersey. 35 act. Prelaw.

My daughter, the hs senior. Less rigor, good grades, no APs (not offered) but prob in the 20%. Amazing writer though. Alot of voice. Top boarding school in CT. 1530 sat. Premed.

We are not a minority. Asian actually. No legacy. I think their secret sauce is authenticity. No counselors. No touch ups. They just do what makes them happy. Honestly, very normal kids.

Me:

There simply aren’t tiers of colleges. There aren’t official or even vaguely legitimate rankings, there aren’t magical doors that open only if you go to a certain school. There are hundreds of good schools, and hundreds of doors.

Find great fits for great results - many kids I’ve worked with who could get in to Ivies and some of whom did, were bad fits for, say, the highly-competitive nature of a UPenn. Some couldn’t resist the allure of that Princeton sticker on the back of the SUV even though they’d have thrived better at Haverford. Some, if too few, have made the wise and tough choice to escape the prestige trap for any number of reasons.

This year I have one in that category, a great kid who chose Georgia Tech over an Ivy because GT is the perfect match for what he wants. He is an outlier, but not an extreme one. Over the years, I’ve had several clients select everything from state flagships to many liberal-arts colleges over Ivy+ schools for various reasons beyond financial.

(Tufts and Emory are two of

the most selective schools in the country, btw.)

StrivingTulip247:

agree and disagree. As much as we want to say there are no tiers, but we all know that they exist. Emory and Tufts are selective, ofc. But, and i think we can agree on this, they aren’t in the same space (or even near) as Harvard, Yale, Stanford, MIT, and rest of the ivies. Thus, tier 2.

But my tiers are by my definitions of willingness to pay for schools. My hs senior tells me they are all good schools.and she is right, they are. But imo, they are not worth paying 80k+ for when she is premed and can go to rutgers for 10k a year and a free ride to case.

Me:

No, we cannot agree on that. You’ve bought into a fiction and a trap. They are different, not better or worse, and there are many who should pay full price for Emory who shouldn’t go to Stanford at half the price because Stanford would be the wrong fit. There are so many more factors than prestige, which is nearly all your “tiers” are built on. And the concept of Ivies “opening doors” is fiction except in a very few select fields.

Hundreds of schools open hundreds of career doors.

Where a student thrives as a person they will succeed as a student, and beyond. And in terms of academics, when you compare department by department what you’re calling “top” to what you seem to see (deep down) as pathetic middles, an Amherst College, say, there are also zero tiers. Find the department you love at the school you love with specialties and professors that interest you in your perfect location.

When a family approaches me for help applying to “Ivies,” plans to apply to all of them (not a straw-man-family, this happens), and can’t even pretend to be convinced of the ridiculousness of that pursuit when all the Ivies so different from each other beyond the prestige factor and membership in a sports league, we won’t be working together - they believe in an imaginary tier that is the only tier that will satisfy, and will be misrable a year later regardless of the great fits the applicant has been admitted to if/when they don’t get to say she’s headed to Princeton. It occurs to me it would be way to easy to come up with a tiers/tears pun here, but the families I’m are headed for heartbreak for absolutely no reason beyond the myth and false allure of prestige.

***

At that point I made the power move of turning off comments for the post. Yes, the power of moderator-ship corrupts. At the top, when I mentioned the polarity of my response to Ms. Tulip, what I mean is that yes, sure, I’d be thrilled if I had a kid get accepted to one of the fancy-shmanciest schools in the world, sure, but I would also encourage that child to find their perfect fit college, and if the Ivy+ school wasn’t what they felt in the end was that perfect fit, I would be extremely proud of them for making that choice and thrilled to put that Reed College sticker on the back window of the Volvo.

(Below: Mink, proud alum of Purrdue) (sorry)

Responses to Parents of College-Bound Kids

My first reply is short but sweet: Yesterday a post appeared on the College Admissions Experts Facebook page (of which I am a moderator/admin) from a woman whose daughter was (*purportedly) just admitted to several Ivy+ colleges. Both family and daughter are distraught because the family is just now realizing that they can’t possibly afford to send their daughter to said “dream” schools. There is quite the silver lining to this story, in that the daughter was (again *purportedly) accepted to Rice University with a 100% free-ride scholarship. The caveat to that is that everyone was dreaming of those other Ivy+es (Rice is just a notch below that status). My response to her is below, but let let me add one more bit to what I offered - I say it and write it all the time, for a happy outcome, dig yourself out of the prestige/rankings/bumpersticker-you-dream-of-seeing-on-the-back-of-your-SUV hole and find GREAT MATCHES for what your student really wants to be besides, say, A PRINCETON ALUM, for happy outcomes. Okay, here’s what I wrote:

Moderator here:

I almost didn’t approve this post because of the harsh criticism this parent is likely to face from some commenters.

Please be gentle. What’s done is done.

PARENTS OF JUNIORS, run the NPC (google it if that means nothing to you) for every school your aspplicant is interested in and BELIEVE WHAT IT TELLS YOU. Taking a “let’s apply and see what happens” approach is an almost sure recipe for disappointment at best, straight-up heartbreak at worst.

To the poster: Rice is an amazing school in many many ways, and a free ride?! Wow! I visited just recently. Have you?

[Note: the “*” in the intro regards the fact that a colleague of mine and I have come to have some doubts as to the veracity of the poster’s story, but regardless, the advice is important]

Mario and Ingrid’s top college-admissions tip: take all the naps

Because I wasn’t allowed to comment on Mounk’s post without becoming a paid reader of his blog—reading is free, speech isn’t, apparently—and because I just couldn’t get it out of my head, I decided to write a defense of the college essay, and, to a degree of our profession, which always falls under attack in these rages against the writing portion of the application.

[Note: While I take great exception to Mounk’s post, I ended up going a ways down the rabbit hole of his political writing, which is thorough, thoughtful, incisive, insightful. I tend to be someone who encourages people to speak their minds/truths, not “stay in their lane,” and I don’t want to feel that Mounk should have stayed in his, I just wish he’d put, no exaggeration, a tiny fraction of the thought/effort he puts into his professional work as he put into this dashed-off diatribe, because clearly he has intelligent and dedicated readers who take him seriously.]

What Mounk is referring to as “the college essay” many know as the Common Application Essay, formally the “Personal Statement.” It’s a vital, crucial piece of each applicant's overall application. It serves a nearly utterly neglected function in the age of data (grades, rigor, test scores, activities and honors) being nearly all that colleges use to make their admissions decisions. What critics of the Common App essay ignore is that a huge part of what makes the most highly-selective American colleges great—to whatever extent nearly everyone thinks they are, particularly those who grieve loudest after they or their child is rejected from them—is the distinctive variety of bright, engaging and engaged young people in each new freshman class. In 2025, just about the only way colleges can discern the human being behind all the data to build those cherished communities is through that short essay. Each applicant has a story - the essay is the only place to tell a tiny piece of it in their own words.

I enjoy working with college-bound kids and their families and think of it as a helping profession. Yes, some people pay me a lot of money for my work. Others don’t. And a few each year pay nothing at all. This is not to virtue signal, but to point out that, after a lifetime of sundry academic and other gigs to support various creative endeavors, I began what I thought was a legitimate, useful, career in what I thought of as a fairly uncontroversial field only to read, without exaggeration, at least one bit of media a week lashing out at those so-called private college counselors as shameless sharks who write students’ essays for them and otherwise get rich teaching the wealthy how to lie and cheat their way through the college admissions process. Yes, you can go watch “Varsity Blues,” (I actually encourage it for certain parents) about a scandalous conman in our profession and the rich Hollywood parents who chose to forgo ethics and try to finagle their kids’ way into selective+ colleges via bribery, fraud, SAT-score-rigging, etc. You may also have heard about one particular consultant in the news these past couple of years who charges $100,000+ and guarantees Ivy+ admissions (the price is disgusting and the promise impossible to fulfill, but that’s for another time).

Most of us college admissions IECs (Independent Educational Consultants) take our work and ethical obligations very seriously and take great satisfaction in helping families navigate a deeply flawed and overly complicated system. I like to think that by coaching applicants—many of whom have never before been asked to write about themselves, let alone for such high stakes—in how to introduce themselves memorably in terms of one chosen topic, one story, in brisk, conversational English, in just a few hundred words, I send them off to college with at least a primer in an essential life skill they would otherwise be slow to develop, if they develop it at all: self reflection. It’s a skill that they’ll be needing as they move on to cover letters, internship and job interviews, the list goes on. Writing the Common App essay teaches them a new writing form, introduces them to their own voice, and to writing with a particular audience in mind. Soft/people skills have largely been omitted in the teen years of so many college applicants, particularly those who, isolated during covid, began nerding out about their given academic passion along with grades and SAT scores, in middle school, forgoing much of a normal pre-teen’s social life. Those are the kids (and parents) who have the highest expectations, and who often fear and hate the essay the most, who feel they’ve done everything “right” up until the point of writing that ^*$(% thing and that should be enough—they’re also the kids who most gravely need to learn the skills the essay requires.

That said, here is my defense of the only humanistic aspect of the college application process, the Common App essay, via some constructive responses to Mr. Mounk’s attempt, not altogether unlike notes I might give a client.

Again, if you’d like to read the background material, here’s Zach Yadegari’s Common App essay and one of the many articles about the grave injustice he and Mounk feel the young man has suffered.

Below are quotes from Mounk’s piece (published 4/4/25) followed by my feedback (in italics). To read his post in full, here you go.)

***

A few days ago, an 18-year-old by the name of Zach Yadegari publicly shared his impressive accomplishments—and the disappointing outcome of his attempt to get into an elite college. Zach had a GPA of 4.0. He had a score of 34 (out of 36) on the ACT, a standardized test applicants sometimes take in lieu of the SAT. Perhaps most impressively, he is an accomplished coder who has built a genuinely successful business…. Despite this impressive record … he was roundly rejected by every Ivy League school…. Nor did he fare any better at other top colleges…. Even some comparatively less selective schools such as UVA and Washington University did not take any interest in him.

“Did not take any interest in him” is not the way college admissions works. The schools certainly all took an interest in Zach Y. His essay, though ill-conceived and poorly executed, certainly succeeded in standing out. They noticed all right, they just didn’t end up admitting him. Additionally, it would serve the argument to acknowledge the counterargument - that he was also accepted by three selective++ “top” colleges, Georgia Tech, The University of Texas at Austin, and the University of Miami - and then rebut it.

The average test scores for white students admitted to NYU are lower than Zach’s; but the average test scores for Hispanic and especially black students admitted to NYU are far lower. This leaked data suggests that Zach would have been highly likely to gain admission to NYU—and perhaps many of the other schools he applied to—if he wasn’t white.

Mounk takes far too long to get to his clearly stated topic: an attack on “the college essay.” On top of that, though, this paragraph takes a hard right turn that will distract readers. Is this a polemic about the college essay or an anti-affirmative action rant? (Similar issue re veering far OT later re that bizarre and distracting Bernard Williams paragraph, which offers little except proof that the author is familiar with the work of a certain British philosopher. No need to establish bona fides here.)

The central role the college essay plays in admissions forces even genuine and well-meaning kids to have “one thought too many” as they go about activities they might otherwise undertake for the pure pleasure of it. It is the first of many steps in shaping a social elite that is willing to put its own advancement ahead of any authentic engagement with the world.

It’s hard for a reader to track, beyond sensational headlines, why the writer feels the college essay has this immense power. As for the essay or “the system” encouraging too many activities, if anything, colleges—and thus those nefarious coaches and counselors—have for many years now leaned the opposite direction, encouraging young people to engage deeply and consistently over their high school years in a few activities that interest them—neither the schools nor the essay encourage otherwise—like, not even a little bit. I would argue the converse, actually: that what’s disturbing is that kids (and parents) who feel pushed to be specialists as early as middle-school to compete in selective+ admissions really aren’t allowed to be kids and try a little bit of everything to figure out what interests them most—that is, if they want to stand a chance to be admitted to those cherished Ivy+ schools. The days of the well-rounded kid who does everything (sports, clubs, academics, non-specialized summer camp, family trips, a social life) being a top Ivy+ candidate are long, long gone. Perhaps Mounk has been holding this rant back too long, it’s more than a bit dated.

The college essay is a deeply unfair way to select students for top colleges, one that is much more biased against the poor than standardized tests.

Source? From what I know, there is data to support both sides of this point, likewise about testing favoring the rich. This piece is intentionally a rant, but even rants need support to be successful.

The college essay wrongly encourages students to cast themselves as victims, to exaggerate the adversity they’ve faced, and to turn genuinely upsetting experiences into the focal point of their self-understanding.

This is simply counterfactual, and feels like Mounk has created a straw man, or rather, has vested college admissions essay itself with some bizarre agency, and then blames it. What is there to support this claim? The college essay doesn’t encourage anything at all but a response to one of these seven prompts, in 650 words or less (not the 750 Mounk mentions—even for a rant, fact-checking would be appropriate!):

1. Some students have a background, identity, interest, or talent that is so meaningful they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story.

2. The lessons we take from obstacles we encounter can be fundamental to later success. Recount a time when you faced a challenge, setback, or failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience?

3. Reflect on a time when you questioned or challenged a belief or idea. What prompted your thinking? What was the outcome?

4. Reflect on something that someone has done for you that has made you happy or thankful in a surprising way. How has this gratitude affected or motivated you?

5. Discuss an accomplishment, event, or realization that sparked a period of personal growth and a new understanding of yourself or others.

6. Describe a topic, idea, or concept you find so engaging that it makes you lose all track of time. Why does it captivate you? What or who do you turn to when you want to learn more?

7. Share an essay on any topic of your choice. It can be one you've already written, one that responds to a different prompt, or one of your own design

The college essay, dear reader, should be banned and banished and burned to the ground.

Solid rant language, except for “dear reader,” which weakens the power of the rage, and, at this point, is a bit tired.

…rich parents can, however, easily write the admissions essay for their kid or hire a “college consultant” who “works with” the applicant to “improve” that essay.

A college admissions essay written by a parent reads like a college admissions essay written by a parent. It’s nearly always a disaster that hampers much more than helps an application. The essay is the only place—in this era of no admissions interviews—for admissions offices to get an actual impression of the human being, an important factor in putting together American college freshman classes, in constructing a college community. Perhaps it’s this aspect of the system, as opposed to the British one Mounk was raised in, that he really objects to. The fact that US colleges and universities are nearly as focused on community as they are on academics might have been a better focus for this piece, and for his self-righteous anger.

Even if rich parents don’t cheat in those ways, their class position gives rich kids a huge advantage in the exercise.

Again, Mounk swings wide here. If he wants to write a rant about ending capitalism and class in America, he should do that, but given the system we have, yes, money does buy things, including college admissions consultants. And yes, like those folks in LA, one can choose an obviously unethical consultant who will actually write much of an applicant’s essay, but, again, be careful, those unprofessional practitioners are often hacks. If said ghostwriter isn’t extremely skilled at the voice of a teen, let alone attuned to the very particular teen who’s an entrepreneur and sneakerhead applying to the University of Michigan’s Ross School, say, the essay will backfire, miserably—admissions officers have become pretty savvy about this sort of thing. Perhaps Mounk should give them a bit of credit? Last, why the scare quotes around “college consultant,” “works with,” and “improve”? Does Mounk not “consult with” his students to help them “improve” their work at the elite private institution where he teaches? Those words he puts scare quotes around are precisely what a good, ethical educational consultant does. What we do not do is write essays, any more than Mounk writes term papers, I assume (because I try, even in today’s USA, to assume that professionals act professionally). Throughout the piece, he seems to be raging against sensational headlines and outliers, consultants and wealth, the “system,” not the essay itself. I can’t help but wonder how many Common App essays Mounk has actually read. A great place to start would be his own school, which offers great examples every year.

Writing a good admissions essay is to a large extent an exercise in demonstrating one’s good taste—”

Mounk simply hasn't researched his topic. So a good college admissions essay demonstrates the ability to have great taste … under conditions of dire adversity? That’s a big ask. And Zach Yadegari’s essay was far beyond tasteless. It was arrogant, condescending, and scoffed at the very idea of someone of his precociousness and accomplishments bothering to attend college. It was also, at best, a mediocre piece of writing. I can’t imagine an admissions officer who would think he would make a good member of the community that is a freshman class of any college, let alone the most competitive ones in the country. I’m actually really surprised that, as someone who I assume teaches undergraduates, Mounk would defend Yadegari.

If you come from a background in which your parents and grandparents went to college and many family friends have recently gone through the Kafkaesque process of gaining admission to an elite institution and you are friends with a person or two who teaches at such a university, then you obviously have a giant advantage.

This is a fair point, if it didn’t directly contradict the thesis that emphasising one’s struggle and adversity is the key to admissions-essay success. The “good taste” and “adversity” arguments don’t seem to jibe—do they and Mounk just didn’t connect them in this early draft? Also, OT re the essay itself.

This is all borne out by the data.

A bold point followed … by an utter lack of any data, just a vague reference to “studies” and then Mounk quotes … a memoir?

But the thing I truly hate about the college essay is not that it is part of a system that keeps deserving kids out of top colleges

How is Mounk defining “deserving,” grades and scores and awards? That would make for very boring classes full of “perfect” achievers. I assume Mounk is referring to “deserving” in terms of “meritocracy,” a term that has come to be almost universally viewed as positive but was meant as anything but that by British sociologist and activist Michael Dunlop Young, who coined it back in 1958 (feel free to refer to Wikipedia this one time, but never use as a source!). Before we lionize meritocracy, it’s important to ask who wrote these standardized tests and developed the curriculum, who set the bars that define “merit”? White men of means and taste, of course. Thus the “merit”-based admissions system Mounk seems to crave is predicated on race and class. The income bracket and school district one is born into (Buffett, et al) define whether one has access to the resources to develop this “merit,” which really does belong in scare quotes. Also, were he a client, I would strongly encourage Mounk to avoid “truly” (which appears five times—it almost never adds anything and we only have 650 words to work with!)

... while rewarding privileged kids who (to add insult to injury) get to flatter themselves that they have been selected for showcasing such superior personality in their 750-word statements composed by their college consultant or ghostwritten by ChatGPT.”

I’m hard-pressed to understand Mounk's disgust here. Does he believe that Zach Y. should have been rewarded for his mediocre writing (which reads as possibly AI-aided in parts) and dismissive attitude? Or that he should have been admitted based on his 34 ACT (which really isn’t that great a score for the schools he applied to—again, even a rant should be factually defensible) and the millions of dollars he’s supposedly earned? Should college-bound 6th graders start focusing on how to garner a seven-figure income by the time they turn 17 instead of learning how to write a good personal essay? I suppose there’s an argument for that, but I would never make it.

In the end, truly talented kids like Zach are going to be just fine; he’ll still have plenty of educational opportunities at the less prestigious schools to which he was admitted.

Does Mounk mean “truly alented” (grades! scores! money!) compared to the “falsely” talented kids who’ve been avid game-designers and streamers, or sneaker heads, or dedicated volunteer tutors or coaches, or worked at McDonald's throughout high school (recent great essay topics I’ve helped clients develop)? Branding the schools Yadegari was admitted to as “less prestigious” is also more than a bit misleading. He was accepted by three schools with extremely low admissions rates, and not admitted to others with even lower ones. That’s just how it goes for nearly everyone aiming that high. He wrote an essay that likely alienated nearly every reader despite their best intentions to read generously. Perhaps he should have given that some more thought—“consider your reader” is one of the first pieces of advice I give—or hired one of us wretched admissions coaches with all that bitcoin he has lying around. When it comes down to it, Zach’s essay is actually a terrific example of the value of the admissions essay to applicants and schools alike. It can weed out bright but disingenuous, intellectually disengaged young men like Zach, who, while they may someday serve a university by making a hefty donation to be able to see their name etched in stone on a building, otherwise contribute nothing. I’m sure the admissions readers appreciated the young man’s frankness in utterly dismissing a college education for most of the essay before a late, cursory, cliche u-turn (that also feels AI-aided): “College, I came to realize, is more than a mere right [sic] of passage….” His essay helped admissions offices do their jobs more efficiently.

Rather, what I truly hate about the college essay is the way in which it shapes the lives of high school students and encourages the whole elite stratum of society—including some of its most affluent, privileged and sheltered members—to conceive of themselves in terms of the hardships they have supposedly suffered…. It is the bizarre spectacle of those kids from comparatively privileged backgrounds being effectively coerced by the admissions system to self-exoticize as products of great hardship which I find to be truly unseemly.

But I thought showcasing taste and charm was what Mounk truly hates about it. Perhaps the two can dovetail, but it’s hard for this reader to see how. In his revision, perhaps Mounk could also explain more clearly the “effective coercion" aspect of “the system” and drop the vagueness—claiming that the essay itself, earlier, and now “the admissions system” are somehow active agents of societal ruin reads more like a conspiracy theorist’s manifesto than a rant—a subtle distinction, to be fair.

The fundamental problem with it isn’t that it arbitrarily excludes some highly talented individuals like Zach from positions of power and privilege; it’s that it drains the souls of teenagers and encourages a deeply pernicious brand of fakery and breeds widespread mistrust in social elites.

I’m still not sure where Mounk is finding the “deserving” and “talented” aspects of Zach Y’s profile beyond his unverified and ostentatious brags. Or how writing an essay drains a soul. And the young man simply hasn’t been excluded from anything except for a dozen schools with fancy names and admissions rates between 4 and 10%. The best admissions essays do precisely the opposite of what Mounk asserts, in fact.They are unique, authentic, and introduce the actual human who hopes to join a freshman class. In fact, they sometimes help young people find their souls. A counselor/essay coach’s role, at least as I practice it, is more akin to a creative-writing workshop instructor’s—helping young people write self-reflexively, in a casual, conversational voice, often for the first time in their lives.

The American education system has huge problems, especially regarding the financial barrier to college, which has skyrocketed almost beyond imagination, all but killing whatever was once achievable as the American Dream. The college-admissions essay, is, sadly, the only personal aspect remaining in the college-application process. As such, it would be a shame to lose, but that’s likely to happen in the coming decade in the name of efficiency and cost-cutting. When that day happens, the brash entrepreneurs with mere 34 composite ACT scores Mounk seems to crave won’t nearly make the Ivy cut, even without the essay to expose them. Instead, Mounk will find himself lecturing to a classroom full of flawless, homogeneous, “meritorious” achievers.

***
P.S.
Do you remember your college admissions essay? I’d love to read about it in a comment!