Curtis WestbayThere’s a saying, “Too many cooks in the kitchen will spoil the soup.” Sometimes, I feel like there are too many cooks when it comes to college guidance.
Everywhere I look, there is advice from many different people about how best to prepare students for applying to and succeeding in college. Even if it weren’t the case that many of these enterprising people have ulterior motives for giving this advice (e.g. gaining your business), students can get lost in all of this input. When it comes to preparing for college, students should feel that their plan is their own, and that it works perfectly for them as a result.
There are a lot of things that students have to do that they don’t necessarily want to do. Without a doubt, the coursework they are required to take in order to graduate won’t always align with student interest. It is our hope that, in the recent course interest surveys, students have been able to minimize the coursework they will take in which they aren’t invested. It really matters for college application success that students are opinionated about how they use their time. On the one hand, there is a certain strength of character to be found in someone who can do things they don’t want to do. We all go through this experience, and the ability to be “professional” while completing work like this is highly valued.
Still, college admission officers look at student applications for certain qualities which can best be found in headstrong people—independence, conviction, passion, and individuality. Students who can tap into these qualities can make better decisions about their path to adulthood. Students who are opinionated won’t just go with the flow when faced with questionable demands. Students who know what they do want to do can go about their lives as students with zeal and eagerness. And these are the sort of students that colleges want. Who wants an intellectual community full with factotums who are hesitant to stand out?
There is a balance that we must find as advisors and parents between setting clear and actionable goals and being overly prescriptive. If we listen to our students and really value the times they express a desire to do things their own way, maybe we can help them develop a plan uniquely their own. In particular, student activities are a place where the student should be the architect of their time use. Activities are an important part of college applications, but there are really no explicit demands on the kind of activities a student must do in order to apply to a college. There’s no one activity that a college needs to see in order to admit a student. If a student only engages in activities because they believe that they are necessary to be competitive, they might be depriving themselves of these things—passion and conviction —that colleges really want.
As we approach the end of the school year, there will be exams and the end of grading periods. To succeed in these important assessments, students will push themselves to do things they’d rather not do, like study hard and spend time thinking about subjects that don’t interest them very much. Let’s not add to that as we proceed into the summer. Students who ask what they should be doing this summer and beyond should hear in response a simple question—what do you really want to do? What is a plan that both helps you prepare for college applications, but also doesn’t make you feel unfulfilled?
What is the plan that works for nobody else?