Speaker 1: Hi. I'm Laura Vanderkamp. I'm a mother of five, an author, journalist,
Speaker 1: and speaker.
Speaker 2: And I'm Sarah Hart Hunger, a mother of three, practicing physician,
Speaker 2: writer and course creator. We are two working parents who
Speaker 2: love our careers and our families.
Speaker 1: Welcome to best of both worlds. Here we talk about
Speaker 1: how real women manage work, family, and time for fun,
Speaker 1: from figuring out childcare to mapping out long term career goals.
Speaker 1: We want you to get the most out of life.
Speaker 1: Welcome to best of both worlds. This is Laura. This
Speaker 1: episode is airing in early September of twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1: Probably most of our listeners sending kids back to school
Speaker 1: either last month or this week, so we're doing some
Speaker 1: school related content here. I am going to be interviewing
Speaker 1: Alice Chen, who is the owner of Bright Story Admissions Insulting,
Speaker 1: So it's going to be talking a little bit about
Speaker 1: the college admissions process, things that people with children in
Speaker 1: middle school or high school might want to think about,
Speaker 1: but not just the college admissions process, because as we've
Speaker 1: talked about on this podcast many times, it seems to
Speaker 1: swallow up senior year for many kids. And that's a
Speaker 1: shame because it's also a time of life when kids
Speaker 1: are learning to be adults, and there's a lot that
Speaker 1: goes into that. And so Alice talks about all the
Speaker 1: life skills that you can think about the college admissions
Speaker 1: process as developing, and to some degree is the kids
Speaker 1: get those life skills that can be even more important
Speaker 1: in terms of how they talk about themselves, how they
Speaker 1: think about their strengths, how they learn to present themselves,
Speaker 1: how they learn to manage a big project with multiple parts,
Speaker 1: to manage their time, all of those very very important things. So, Sarah,
Speaker 1: do you remember applying to college. It's been a long
Speaker 1: time for both of us now I do.
Speaker 2: I mean the applications mostly on paper, but I would
Speaker 2: type my essays like using like word or word perfect
Speaker 2: or whatever we were.
Speaker 1: Using back then.
Speaker 2: My dad helped me edit them, but definitely didn't write
Speaker 2: any of them. And one random vision that came into
Speaker 2: my head when we're talking about college admissions is, you
Speaker 2: know you'd get the paper, not the acceptances or rejections,
Speaker 2: but like the big books in the mail that would
Speaker 2: like show like the glossy brochures. Okay, so I cut
Speaker 2: the ones I had applied to out and I put
Speaker 2: them all up on my cabinet wall. I taped them
Speaker 2: all up, and there were like seven of them, and
Speaker 2: then like, I got rejected from two of them, so
Speaker 2: I took those down, but I was just so proud
Speaker 2: of having the five open that I had gotten to
Speaker 2: look at Like it was like, oh, I get to
Speaker 2: choose from all these flavors of ice cream or something
Speaker 2: like that, and so yeah, that's my it's my college
Speaker 2: application process in a nutshell. I did not apply early
Speaker 2: decision anywhere.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that was starting to be a thing,
Speaker 1: but it wasn't quite as big a thing when we
Speaker 1: were applying. Certainly one difference. I mean, you applied to
Speaker 1: seven schools and that was probably seen as a normal
Speaker 1: number or even on the high side, and kids these
Speaker 1: days definitely apply to a dozen or sometimes even more.
Speaker 1: That it's been facilitated by it being online and a
Speaker 1: lot of this being a college app that a lot
Speaker 1: of the common app a lot of the colleges except
Speaker 1: the common app sometimes with a little bit of supplementation.
Speaker 1: But it certainly has become a little bit more doable
Speaker 1: to apply to a lot of places. I think I
Speaker 1: actually wrote one or two of my essays or at
Speaker 1: least the application stuff on a typewriter, Like I put
Speaker 1: the form into a typewriter and then wrote with the typewriter.
Speaker 2: I think I did the same thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I had a typewriter. I liked playing with it.
Speaker 1: And of course we got our decisions by mail torture.
Speaker 2: Torture, I mean, and you didn't know when it was coming,
Speaker 2: like you know, at least I think with a lot
Speaker 2: of them. Right, it's like you know exactly when it's
Speaker 2: going to come, and you can refresh your email and
Speaker 2: you can be like, Okay, I'm ready for this moment,
Speaker 2: I'm in the right place.
Speaker 1: Whatever.
Speaker 2: No, it was like roulette every day at the mailbox.
Speaker 2: So like I don't want to go through that again,
Speaker 2: and I'm glad my kids.
Speaker 3: Won't have to.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I remember I had been at a conference.
Speaker 1: I went to a residential high school, so I had
Speaker 1: a little mailbox for me, like a dorm mailbox. And
Speaker 1: it couldn't take big stuff in it, so if you
Speaker 1: ever had a package or a big envelope, they'd put
Speaker 1: a little slip of paper. And so I had been
Speaker 1: at a conference with a group and we'd you know,
Speaker 1: contain the van back and I walk in It's early April,
Speaker 1: and I don't see anything in my mailbox. I'm like,
Speaker 1: what what? And then I open it and there's little
Speaker 1: slips in there, so I was like, ah, okay, that
Speaker 1: sounds good. So then you know, take it up to
Speaker 1: the counter to get envelopes and hand the slips, and
Speaker 1: of course the person behind the counter is like, so
Speaker 1: super fun. It was fun. It was a good time.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean, it's so much has changed with it.
Speaker 1: It's fascinating to go through this as the parental version
Speaker 1: of it. But we definitely for our listeners who are
Speaker 1: in this stage of life to turn down the pressure
Speaker 1: a little bit. I think some of this is self imposed.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of wonderful schools out there who
Speaker 1: accept a reasonably high proportion of the young people who apply,
Speaker 1: And so your kid is going to wind up somewhere
Speaker 1: amazing and wherever they go, that is not the sole
Speaker 1: thing that determines their lives, Whereas the relationship you have
Speaker 1: with your kid is a huge part of your experience
Speaker 1: and their experience of their last few years before they
Speaker 1: are launched out into the world. So hoping that people
Speaker 1: could keep that in mind, well, we're about to. I
Speaker 1: guess we'll do the interview portion now with Alice Chen
Speaker 1: of Bright Story Admissions Consulting. So Sarah and I are
Speaker 1: delighted to welcome Alice Chen to the program. Alice, can
Speaker 1: you introduce yourself to our listeners?
Speaker 3: Sure?
Speaker 4: Well, first, I just want to say I'm a huge
Speaker 4: fan of the podcast. I've been listening for years and
Speaker 4: I've read so many of your books, So thank you
Speaker 4: for having me. Yes, so again, my name is Alice Chen.
Speaker 4: I'm based in the San Francisco Bay area. I'm a
Speaker 4: Stanford grad. I'm a professional journalist, and I run a
Speaker 4: boutique college consulting firm called Bright Story. We specialize in
Speaker 4: helping high performing teams get into top schools. But something
Speaker 4: that's really unique about my practice is in recent years,
Speaker 4: I've shifted away from just purely getting kids into college,
Speaker 4: but focusing more on like the long game, so preparing
Speaker 4: students for life. And I use the college application process
Speaker 4: and prep process as a way to teach life skills.
Speaker 1: Because there are a lot of life skills involved in
Speaker 1: a big project like this, right.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, yeah.
Speaker 4: I think that is one mistake families make when they
Speaker 4: come to me is they often think it's just academics
Speaker 4: will get you in.
Speaker 3: But the landscape has.
Speaker 4: Changed so much, especially in recent years, that I think
Speaker 4: you really need something to stand out. And a lot
Speaker 4: of times I find that when my students are doing
Speaker 4: this standout thing, they're gaining a lot of life skills
Speaker 4: in the process, so it's fun.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, let's talk a little bit about how college
Speaker 1: admissions has changed over the past few decades. I know
Speaker 1: a lot of our listeners, whether they have kids in
Speaker 1: that age range of not of you know, high school
Speaker 1: aged kids, they probably went through the process themselves, but
Speaker 1: it may have been at least ten years ago, probably
Speaker 1: more like fifteen, twenty or a little more. What has
Speaker 1: changed over the past two decades or so in the
Speaker 1: college admissions landscape.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, I think it's just gotten a lot more competitive.
Speaker 4: Like when I applied to college a long time ago,
Speaker 4: it was maybe twelve percent admit rate to a place
Speaker 4: like Stanford, and now it's less than four percent. And
Speaker 4: I would say it's a combination of things. There are
Speaker 4: more people in America, there are more people globally, so
Speaker 4: there's just more competition. And after COVID happened and a
Speaker 4: lot of schools went test optional, Like the application rates
Speaker 4: shot up because I think so many more people are
Speaker 4: applying just to see if they have a shot to
Speaker 4: get in.
Speaker 1: And the common app has changed this too, I mean
Speaker 1: over the past few decades. If you want to think
Speaker 1: back even further in sort of the historical college admissions landscape, Yes.
Speaker 4: For sure, I think it's just easier to apply to
Speaker 4: these schools A lot of times, a lot of the
Speaker 4: essays replicate, so you're not writing that many more essays
Speaker 4: for extra schools.
Speaker 1: And so how many colleges do people generally apply to
Speaker 1: these days?
Speaker 3: Oh my goodness.
Speaker 4: I often recommend applying to maybe twelve schools and getting
Speaker 4: arranged within those schools. And but I've seen some of
Speaker 4: my top students who have gotten like great results, they
Speaker 4: might be applying to like fifteen or twenty. Like when
Speaker 4: they're done with me, I see that they apply to
Speaker 4: a bunch more, and I'm like, oh, okay.
Speaker 3: And I think.
Speaker 4: Initially i'd be like, you should really focus on the
Speaker 4: number of schools you apply and produce excellent work. But
Speaker 4: I have seen that when they apply to more, they
Speaker 4: are getting more admissions.
Speaker 1: Interesting, so families come to you, when are they normally
Speaker 1: coming to in the whole process in terms of how
Speaker 1: old the kids are when in the high school journey.
Speaker 1: Maybe you can talk a little bit about that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, a lot of families tend to come to me
Speaker 4: junior year. That's like a very prime time as they're
Speaker 4: like gearing up. But I have had some people approach
Speaker 4: me as young as sixth grade and want to get
Speaker 4: like an intro call in. And typically for those families,
Speaker 4: I don't actually take them because I really value mental
Speaker 4: health and I want kids to have a childhood and
Speaker 4: just experience their middle school years without a ton of pressure.
Speaker 4: So typically I do accept students going into freshman year.
Speaker 1: All right, but junior year isn't too late. If somebody's like, well,
Speaker 1: I hadn't even thought about college until junior year, Now
Speaker 1: you're not doomed at that point.
Speaker 4: No, I mean I have people. I'm sure I'll get
Speaker 4: inquiries this fall. Yeah, so at that point, it's more
Speaker 4: like packaging and shaping. But if you come earlier, then
Speaker 4: you can really think about like life goals and more
Speaker 4: like big picture strategy. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So when I mean, we're talking about teenagers here, and
Speaker 1: I'm not sure how many of them have a big
Speaker 1: picture strategy when you are true sixteen seventeen years old,
Speaker 1: I mean, what does that initial conversation even look like?
Speaker 4: Then it depends on the student. You'd be surprised. I
Speaker 4: would say that for some reason, I do attract a
Speaker 4: lot of like high performing students, and so a lot
Speaker 4: of times they come in with a clear direction of
Speaker 4: what they want. Sometimes with younger students, they're like all
Speaker 4: over the place, and I'm totally.
Speaker 3: Cool with that too.
Speaker 4: I might send them away with like a personality assessment
Speaker 4: or build brainstorm dream jobs, and I'll say, hey, this
Speaker 4: is good practice for finding a job in the future
Speaker 4: or a field. Is like go google like interesting people
Speaker 4: in your field and just send them a cold email,
Speaker 4: ask them if you can talk to them for ten
Speaker 4: or fifteen minutes and ask some questions about their field.
Speaker 3: So it really depends on the student.
Speaker 4: But I would say that typically the student that comes
Speaker 4: to me is more like motivated and that type of thing.
Speaker 1: But do kids need to know what they're going to
Speaker 1: be doing as they're going into the college admissions process?
Speaker 1: I guess what I'm trying to ask here is I
Speaker 1: feel like so much of this has gotten like you
Speaker 1: have to know what your path is in life, and
Speaker 1: you can't just be a good student who's done well
Speaker 1: at two different activities that you like. That that's not
Speaker 1: well packaged. I guess if that's what makes sense.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, I think it
Speaker 4: really depends on the types of school.
Speaker 3: You're looking at.
Speaker 4: So if you're looking at like the tippy top, I
Speaker 4: do think that students need like a very cohesive narrative.
Speaker 4: With that being said, a lot of times to take
Speaker 4: the pressure off, I'm like, Okay, you can probably change
Speaker 4: majors at any time in college, so let's just go
Speaker 4: with what your current interests are. You don't have to
Speaker 4: have like the next fifty years planned out, but what
Speaker 4: are you interested in today? And so with those type
Speaker 4: of students, that's typically.
Speaker 3: What I do.
Speaker 4: And then again, like, if you're not going for as
Speaker 4: competitive of a school, I think you could be a
Speaker 4: little bit broader. But for the top schools, you need
Speaker 4: like a super strong narrative.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about that. What does a narrative mean when
Speaker 1: we're talking about sixteen seventeen year old children.
Speaker 4: I know, I know it's and sometimes I feel bad
Speaker 4: about saying stuff like this because it's gotten so much
Speaker 4: more competitive than when I went to school. But I
Speaker 4: think a narrative is like a general area of interest.
Speaker 4: A lot of times they have had like an extracurricular
Speaker 4: passion project, and some of them come in with like
Speaker 4: crazy stuff that they've done, and I'm like, you know,
Speaker 4: you don't even need college at this point, like you've
Speaker 4: created a viable product, a viable app or something like
Speaker 4: And I hope to help take the pressure off of them.
Speaker 4: But basically it's telling their story, like why they did
Speaker 4: what they did. Maybe there's a personal tie in how
Speaker 4: they want to contribute to the world, how they want
Speaker 4: to impact the world, And sometimes what they do in
Speaker 4: college remains the same, and sometimes they go in a
Speaker 4: completely different direction. But I think it's just like, at
Speaker 4: that point in time, can you create like a cohesive narrative.
Speaker 4: And it's a good skill to have, you know, like
Speaker 4: any time you're applying for a job, you're going to
Speaker 4: need it and maybe you change careers. But I think
Speaker 4: it comes through like self reflection and knowing what you
Speaker 4: like at that point.
Speaker 1: In time, because the idea of the narrative is, let's
Speaker 1: say a child has done a lot with soccer, and
Speaker 1: then you would construct other things to support that interest,
Speaker 1: showing the interest in that, like that you went deep
Speaker 1: into it, or like doing a vol into your project
Speaker 1: associated with so not just playing soccer. It's that you
Speaker 1: helped at a soccer camp in the summer, right, Or
Speaker 1: maybe you could give a few examples for people.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 3: Ah, that's a great question.
Speaker 4: This is tough because I don't want to talk about
Speaker 4: any current students that I'm working with. But for example,
Speaker 4: I have a student in recent years who was interested
Speaker 4: in research and science, and so she actually during the pandemic,
Speaker 4: her parents were both working big busy jobs and she
Speaker 4: was home alone and she actually created a lab in
Speaker 4: her garage.
Speaker 3: She invented a new biofuel.
Speaker 4: So she took at home material she would buy them
Speaker 4: on eBay and things like that, and she read through
Speaker 4: like maybe dozens or hundreds of journal articles to come
Speaker 4: up with a protocol of how to create a biofuel.
Speaker 3: And she went out and she got a bunch.
Speaker 4: Of different specimens, different types of plants, and like experimented
Speaker 4: to see which one would be the most efficient. She
Speaker 4: found like an invasive species, and it's like ten times
Speaker 4: more efficient than corn as a starter crop. It doesn't
Speaker 4: need water and all this stuff. So her narrative would
Speaker 4: be actually the most impressive part of this is that
Speaker 4: she did it all alone, and then she wants science
Speaker 4: firm and things like that. But typically students who do
Speaker 4: these type of big research projects, they will have a
Speaker 4: mentor they will have a lot of funding from their
Speaker 4: schools and things like that. But I think the most
Speaker 4: important part of her narrative was that she did it
Speaker 4: on her own. And then actually in working with her,
Speaker 4: I was like, you don't need these top schools. You
Speaker 4: can start a company, right, And that puts you in
Speaker 4: a very different position when you think colleges are going
Speaker 4: to want me rather than I need the college. And
Speaker 4: so I think it helped her develop a lot of
Speaker 4: confidence in knowing what her strengths were. So not every
Speaker 4: student is like that, but it's like that type of
Speaker 4: cohesive story, or like a parent had cancer and I
Speaker 4: want to be a cancer researcher. Things like that. Like
Speaker 4: the environment, it just growing up with wildfires. Now I've
Speaker 4: developed these apps to like help predict wildfires. So it's
Speaker 4: stuff like that a personal tie in that hits like
Speaker 4: a big world problem ideally, and then what you've taken
Speaker 4: to do that. I know it sounds very intense, and
Speaker 4: there is this population of students who are doing that.
Speaker 4: My personal my own children are not doing that, but
Speaker 4: I know what people do and what it takes to
Speaker 4: get in.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was gonna say, I'm not doing any biofuels
Speaker 1: in my basement, nor are any of my kids, So.
Speaker 3: I know I don't think we ever will be.
Speaker 4: But you know, that's why I'm focused on life skills though,
Speaker 4: right because I know for my own kids, do you
Speaker 4: want that stress and that pressure, like you don't need
Speaker 4: a top school?
Speaker 3: Like what can I do to teach them today to prepare?
Speaker 1: All right, Well, we're going to take a quick ad
Speaker 1: break and then we'll be back talking more about college
Speaker 1: and life skills in general. Well, I am back with
Speaker 1: Alice Chen, who helps teenagers with college admissions but also
Speaker 1: building life skills through the process of applying to college,
Speaker 1: figuring out who they are, what might interest them, things
Speaker 1: like that. We've been talking about building a narrative, which
Speaker 1: is just you know, I think about this when people
Speaker 1: sometimes ask me, well, why did you write this book?
Speaker 1: And I can't just be like, because I'm a writer
Speaker 1: and I needed to write a book. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: like you have to come up with some compelling origin story.
Speaker 1: And so I imagine that that is a life skill that
Speaker 1: you are teaching children as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 4: I mean I always want them to have a personal
Speaker 4: tie in if possible, and once they actually create this
Speaker 4: narrative with me, if you will, like it's something that
Speaker 4: they can keep using and adapting, like when they apply
Speaker 4: to grass school jobs, fellowships, things like that. And so
Speaker 4: we go through the process and I actually approach it
Speaker 4: like I would a journalist. So I asked them a
Speaker 4: ton of questions, like if I were reporting the story.
Speaker 3: What would I want to know?
Speaker 4: And so I asked them a ton of questions and
Speaker 4: then I'm like, oh, put that in, Oh put that in, Like, oh,
Speaker 4: you're funny. You should write with a funny voice, like
Speaker 4: bring your personality out and things like that.
Speaker 1: Awesome. So with that, I mean, when you see families
Speaker 1: approaching the college process or they're in it somewhere, what
Speaker 1: are the biggest mistakes that they wind up making.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean I think again, a lot of families
Speaker 4: focus too much on academics. And if you're going for
Speaker 4: I would say top one hundred schools, Yes, grades and
Speaker 4: test scores are a big thing, but.
Speaker 3: I think they don't think about life skills.
Speaker 4: They don't think about extracurriculars and passion projects enough, and
Speaker 4: they focus too much just on academics.
Speaker 1: Okay, but with that, I mean, how should kids be
Speaker 1: focusing their time then? I mean, I guess the good
Speaker 1: grades is kind of like maybe the table stakes, right,
Speaker 1: But do you do like one or two things? Should
Speaker 1: you do a couple different things? I mean, what would
Speaker 1: you recommend?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I would recommend, you know, definitely you need the academics,
Speaker 4: and then on top of that, maybe two or three
Speaker 4: things max and go deep. I mean maybe that's like
Speaker 4: per year though, right, because you have four years, and
Speaker 4: so I would also say definitely, I encourage my students
Speaker 4: to have like one passion project in their high school career,
Speaker 4: to just play around with, explore, create something on their own,
Speaker 4: that type of thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and one of them you mentioned just now, the
Speaker 1: like idea of applying to top one hundred schools, and
Speaker 1: then you know, there's obviously more than one hundred schools
Speaker 1: in the university. I'm guessing that a lot of people
Speaker 1: haven't even heard of some number of the top one
Speaker 1: hundred schools. I mean, the schools we've heard of are
Speaker 1: either the most competitive ones out there or are ones
Speaker 1: that have a really big football team. Right, that's kind
Speaker 1: of the extent of people's college knowledge. How should families
Speaker 1: go about finding there are schools that might have a
Speaker 1: more reasonable admissions rate but still be very good schools
Speaker 1: that do great things with their kids, but that you
Speaker 1: haven't heard of because they're not an IVY league and
Speaker 1: they don't win the College Bowl championship.
Speaker 4: Yeah, there are definitely various resources, Like oftentimes I'm like
Speaker 4: chat GPT as your friend, enter it in with all
Speaker 4: of your parameters and your statistics and see what comes out.
Speaker 4: There are various search engines where you can again enter
Speaker 4: in geography, size and things like that. And then one
Speaker 4: book that I really enjoyed was this book called Colleges
Speaker 4: That Change Lives And there's actually a website associated with that,
Speaker 4: but basically it was written by a journalist and he
Speaker 4: really evaluated colleges that give students a good learning experience,
Speaker 4: like small class sizes, access to professors, high student satisfaction,
Speaker 4: and he narrowed it down to primarily small liberal arts schools.
Speaker 4: And it's interesting because everybody wants to go for that
Speaker 4: big state school or that prestigious Ivy League school, which
Speaker 4: which is like seventy five hundred people for undergrad and
Speaker 4: you're going to be top by people just a few
Speaker 4: years older than you. As ta's you're not going to
Speaker 4: get access to small group classes with a professor. And
Speaker 4: so that's why I would highly encourage people to look
Speaker 4: at the smaller liberal arts schools.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, it's funny that you just said, like
Speaker 1: put in your parameters in chat GPT Again, if I'm
Speaker 1: seventeen years old, how do I even know what my
Speaker 1: parameters are? Like, how would you go about thinking about this?
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, we're like obviously my listeners know
Speaker 1: we have a seventeen year old and we're going through this.
Speaker 1: But it's like, okay, people like, well, what size city
Speaker 1: do you want to be at? It's like, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean maybe not two hundred people, but I don't
Speaker 1: have many parameters beyond that.
Speaker 4: I don't know, right, I think parameters would be like
Speaker 4: where in the country do you want to be?
Speaker 3: What industry are you interested in?
Speaker 4: Later, like, if my students are interested in film, I'll
Speaker 4: say okay, or LA and New York. If you want
Speaker 4: to do tech, maybe do Bay Area that type of thing,
Speaker 4: because I do think that where you go to school,
Speaker 4: oftentimes people end up there, alumni networks are stronger, etc.
Speaker 4: So I would say geography is something knowing whether you
Speaker 4: want to be in a big city or not or
Speaker 4: in a more rural area.
Speaker 3: The size of the school.
Speaker 4: So if it's like super large, I would say that
Speaker 4: there are a lot of resources and a lot of
Speaker 4: diversity in terms of classes and professors, but you might
Speaker 4: not get as much contact with people, and you'll have
Speaker 4: to be more of like a self starter, Whereas if
Speaker 4: you go to a super small liberal arts school, you'll
Speaker 4: have a lot of contact with your classmates, the social
Speaker 4: fabric might be stronger. So if you're not a super
Speaker 4: self starter, I would probably encourage kids to go to
Speaker 4: a smaller place where they would be seen and have
Speaker 4: more support.
Speaker 3: So it's stuff like.
Speaker 4: That, Yeah, And then again like areas of interest in
Speaker 4: terms of majors and things like that, so ensuring that
Speaker 4: the major exists that is strong, that their resources dedicated
Speaker 4: to it, and things like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I was talking with one family recently that you know,
Speaker 1: mentioned one parameter for them was if the child was
Speaker 1: going to want mom and dad to come to things,
Speaker 1: then they needed to choose a school that was kind
Speaker 1: of within like let's say a four hour driving distance,
Speaker 1: because otherwise it was going to be somewhat harder to
Speaker 1: just get there for the weekend to go to the kids'
Speaker 1: theater performance or go to a intermural soccer game that
Speaker 1: they were having that was important to them. So that
Speaker 1: was another criteria that might wind up being important to
Speaker 1: people too.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you're totally right about that.
Speaker 4: And one thing, since this is best of both worlds
Speaker 4: and we think about family and life beyond college, I
Speaker 4: think just even thinking of where your family of origin
Speaker 4: is and whether you want to be closer to them
Speaker 4: in the long run, because once you have kids, you know,
Speaker 4: it's great to have family nearby.
Speaker 3: So actually I did grad school and Chicago.
Speaker 4: And the thing that surprised me was like almost everyone
Speaker 4: that I knew like grew up in Illinois.
Speaker 3: They never left for college.
Speaker 4: They were there and they were friends with people for decades,
Speaker 4: Whereas in the Bay Area, I feel like people are
Speaker 4: very transient. They move here for jobs and things like that.
Speaker 4: But I definitely agree that there is value to staying
Speaker 4: close to home if you will, and having that family support.
Speaker 4: I think America is very transient and it's nice to
Speaker 4: have that support.
Speaker 1: Absolutely. Talking a little bit more about the actual parts
Speaker 1: of college admission, the SAT changed this year. I mean
Speaker 1: during COVID we had the whole thing with some places
Speaker 1: being test optional. I think some places have gone back
Speaker 1: and forth on that now, but then we also had
Speaker 1: the rollout of the digital SAT this year. I wonder
Speaker 1: what you're telling your kids that you're working with about
Speaker 1: tests these days, and how they should prepare for them,
Speaker 1: how important they might be, anything like that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, for the types of kids I get, and for
Speaker 4: the types of schools they want, I always recommend that
Speaker 4: they take the test. Like for a lot of schools,
Speaker 4: especially at these more challenging schools, they just want to
Speaker 4: see that you have that score to make sure that
Speaker 4: you can handle the work. And that's why a lot
Speaker 4: of the schools like MIT have brought the test back,
Speaker 4: because it puts you at a disadvantage to apply without
Speaker 4: a test. They're taking more of a risk on you
Speaker 4: because they don't want to admit you and have you
Speaker 4: not do well. And so if you're aiming for a
Speaker 4: competitive school, I would say, take it, and whether you
Speaker 4: want to submit is another story, but typically a role
Speaker 4: of thumb for that is like, if you're at the
Speaker 4: average score above, I do recommend submitting, or maybe with
Speaker 4: if you're like within strikingness is like ten twenty thirty
Speaker 4: points below. But again, like for the caliber of schools,
Speaker 4: you do need to take that test too well, and
Speaker 4: you do need to prepare, whether that's on your own,
Speaker 4: hiring somebody taking test prep but take it seriously.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so just making sure that whatever score you're reporting
Speaker 1: is with in the range for what that schools. Although
Speaker 1: I guess as places aren't reported, as kids aren't reporting it,
Speaker 1: the average is going to change because it's like, if
Speaker 1: you're under a fifteen hundred, why would anyone report it
Speaker 1: then or something. I don't know, it's exactly.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it is.
Speaker 4: One of the downfall of test optional is it's actually
Speaker 4: made it harder because the scores are going up, and
Speaker 4: so it's sad I feel for kids these days to
Speaker 4: get in just because it's a very different landscape.
Speaker 1: Yeah, very much. Well, so let's talk about what life
Speaker 1: skills are though that you said, like, because it is
Speaker 1: so competitive and who knows if anyone's going to get
Speaker 1: into the top twelve schools or whatever they are. It's
Speaker 1: somewhat of a lottery for some of it, as it
Speaker 1: is for sure, But what skills can you learn through
Speaker 1: the process of applying to college and how my parents
Speaker 1: think about supporting their children through that learning process as
Speaker 1: they are applying to schools.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, I've been thinking this top one I
Speaker 4: think is sort of a skill as well as a mindset.
Speaker 4: And I feel like a lot of students who come
Speaker 4: to me, I've noticed that they don't see how amazing
Speaker 4: they are, Like, I feel like they lack confidence. It
Speaker 4: comes through in their essays where on the outside they
Speaker 4: have all the accolades, but on the inside they're quite
Speaker 4: nervous or they don't know like their strengths. And so
Speaker 4: I would say confidence is a huge thing. And so
Speaker 4: with my students. For example, I had a student who
Speaker 4: came in with excellent grades. SAT score in she broke
Speaker 4: fifteen hundred, and I'm like, well, why aren't you applying.
Speaker 3: To the top schools?
Speaker 4: And she said, oh, my parents have a kid and
Speaker 4: that kid got a sixteen hundred, So I'm not going
Speaker 4: to apply. And I'm like, what, No, you know, just
Speaker 4: because like, don't care what other people are doing. You
Speaker 4: always should put yourself out there. And so yeah, I
Speaker 4: have other students who have more concerns about social confidence,
Speaker 4: and so for those type of students, I'll be like, Okay,
Speaker 4: your assignment is to go talk to your teacher twice
Speaker 4: a week, ask them how their weekend was, or get
Speaker 4: phone numbers from people, invite them to hang out that
Speaker 4: type of thing. So I think there's a confidence issue.
Speaker 4: I would say also with COVID, there's been so much
Speaker 4: isolation and screen time that getting kids away from their
Speaker 4: screens and into real life is super important.
Speaker 1: Well, we're going to take a one more quick ad
Speaker 1: break and then we're going to be back talking more
Speaker 1: about life skills that kids can develop. Okay, so I
Speaker 1: am back with Alice ten. We are talking about all
Speaker 1: things college admission, but more broadly what kids can learn
Speaker 1: in the course of doing it. So you're saying confidence
Speaker 1: Sometimes kids need to just decide to try, even if
Speaker 1: there's someone in the universe who's done better. But so
Speaker 1: what there always is that exactly getting to interact with
Speaker 1: people in the real universe, like asking your teachers for
Speaker 1: recommendations or figuring out how you can navigate situations. What
Speaker 1: else are people learning?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I would say how to position themselves. Like a
Speaker 4: lot of times I'll read people's resumes and they'll be
Speaker 4: like super technical and I don't even understand what's on them.
Speaker 4: But then I teach them how to translate it into
Speaker 4: plain English and we talk about like scope and impact
Speaker 4: and things like that. So part of it is learning
Speaker 4: how to communicate what you bring to the table. And
Speaker 4: a lot of times like their leaders, Like one of
Speaker 4: my students was doing research and she talked about how
Speaker 4: she was one of the top programmers and like the
Speaker 4: lead person in her lab. And I was like, Okay,
Speaker 4: who's in your lab and she said college students and
Speaker 4: grad students And I said, wait, you're one of the
Speaker 4: top people as a high schooler and she said yes.
Speaker 4: And I said, well, would you say that you are
Speaker 4: like perhaps an informal mentor and she said, actually, the
Speaker 4: think about that, Like my mentor was off site in Canada,
Speaker 4: and so I was the person really in the lab
Speaker 4: and people would come to meet with questions. So yeah,
Speaker 4: I agree that that's something I could say, So we put.
Speaker 3: That in the application.
Speaker 4: So I think a lot of it is getting them
Speaker 4: to reflect and realize the impact and the value that
Speaker 4: they bring and communicate it to others, because you can
Speaker 4: be absolutely amazing. But if you can't share that message,
Speaker 4: only you're going to know. So opportunities come to those
Speaker 4: who put themselves out there and who can communicate how
Speaker 4: special and amazing they are.
Speaker 1: Absolutely. And as parents, I mean, we know how special
Speaker 1: and awesome and wonderful our kids are. But what can
Speaker 1: we do as we are sort of supporting kids through
Speaker 1: this process that ultimately they have to do, right, I
Speaker 1: mean it's we're not the ones on novice applying for them.
Speaker 1: They need to be there doing it and thinking about
Speaker 1: all of it and managing the process. So what should
Speaker 1: we be doing? Yeah, to be supportive but not too
Speaker 1: in it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I agree, I think overall support and encouragement. Like
Speaker 4: with my own child, I'll tell her, oh my gosh,
Speaker 4: like I could see you as a great coach one
Speaker 4: day because she asks really great questions and I'm like,
Speaker 4: you've got great emotional intelligence. So whatever strengths you see,
Speaker 4: calling that out and just like encouraging them, I would
Speaker 4: say that's probably the primary thing. Maybe giving them a
Speaker 4: gentle nudge to get them out of their comfort zones.
Speaker 4: But I'm sure that as high schoolers that gets harder.
Speaker 4: I would say that there are parents that hire out.
Speaker 4: That's why people bring in someone like me. So I'm
Speaker 4: sure two people can say the same thing, but if
Speaker 4: your parent says it, you're not going to listen.
Speaker 3: But if like a partial, impartial.
Speaker 4: Like third person gives you an assignment to go talk
Speaker 4: to people, you're going to do it, right, And so
Speaker 4: that's where I think, to like alleviate family tension at times,
Speaker 4: it could be beneficial to bring in a third person.
Speaker 4: But yeah, I think and also modeling in your own life,
Speaker 4: like you and Sarah are such self starters and you
Speaker 4: guys have created this amazing community and all that kind
Speaker 4: of stuff. Your kids are going to absorb that. So
Speaker 4: just focusing on yourself as well.
Speaker 1: And what if the kid is really feeling a lot
Speaker 1: of stress about it, because I'm sure it is a
Speaker 1: stressful process. I mean, you're figuring out at least some
Speaker 1: chunk of your future. But from the perspective of being
Speaker 1: an adult, you could say, well, it's not your entire future, right,
Speaker 1: so sure, what can we do to maybe even lower
Speaker 1: the tension level a little bit?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I totally agree, and that's why I think it's
Speaker 4: this focus on life skills and telling your students what
Speaker 4: your philosophy and outlook on life is, introducing them to
Speaker 4: various people who have done various things, and I just
Speaker 4: tell stories to my kids a lot of like, oh,
Speaker 4: this person didn't go to college, and look they did
Speaker 4: this amazing thing, right, And so I think just emphasizing
Speaker 4: your own philosophy awesome.
Speaker 1: Well, we always end with a love of the week,
Speaker 1: so this is something that we are enjoying right now.
Speaker 1: So I was gonna throw out there. We're recording this
Speaker 1: in summer. This is running a little bit closer toward
Speaker 1: back to school season. But I've really been enjoying riding
Speaker 1: my bike. This is especially I mean I always like
Speaker 1: to take some sort of active break in the middle
Speaker 1: of the day, and when it's blazing hot outside, running
Speaker 1: has zero appeal whatsoever. So I have to if I'm
Speaker 1: going to run, it's got to be in the morning.
Speaker 1: But then, well, what do I do to take a
Speaker 1: break in the afternoon. So I have been hauling my
Speaker 1: bike out and the good news is it can fit
Speaker 1: in the back of my car without my dealing with
Speaker 1: the bike rack stuff if I just put the seats down.
Speaker 1: So if I have to take anyone with me, then
Speaker 1: the bike racks coming out. But if it's just me,
Speaker 1: I can stick it in my car, drive somewhere, bike
Speaker 1: for thirty forty minutes, come back and you know, it's
Speaker 1: been an hour long break. And I don't do it
Speaker 1: every day, of course, but once or twice a week
Speaker 1: has been a really nice thing to add to my
Speaker 1: life this summer.
Speaker 3: That's awesome.
Speaker 1: How about you?
Speaker 4: El, Yeah, well, yesterday I felt like I needed a break,
Speaker 4: so I went to the beach. It's about five minutes
Speaker 4: from my house look, and it was so great. I
Speaker 4: just sat there, I smelled the salty air. I pulled
Speaker 4: out some watercolors, did a little painting. I am not
Speaker 4: an artist, but it's just really fun to put brush
Speaker 4: to paper and it was definitely the highlight of my
Speaker 4: day and maybe my week.
Speaker 1: Awesome. Awesome, Well, I love that you just doing something
Speaker 1: just for fun right too. It has nothing to do
Speaker 1: with your career or nothing to do with like you're
Speaker 1: trying to be known for it or anything. But that's
Speaker 1: probably a good thing to model to children as well
Speaker 1: to our adolescence that you know we do stuff just
Speaker 1: because we want to do stuff, absolutely absolutely. All right, Well, Alice,
Speaker 1: why don't you let our listeners know where they can
Speaker 1: find you.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So, I have a website called Brightstory dot info. And
Speaker 4: I also have another blog that I write on which
Speaker 4: actually has some of the principles of bright Story. It's
Speaker 4: called Happy Asian Woman and it's on Happy Asianwoman dot
Speaker 4: substack dot com.
Speaker 3: And that's just.
Speaker 4: Helping people find more joy and meaningful and purposeful lives.
Speaker 4: And I like to incorporate those principles into my coaching,
Speaker 4: so as I'm figuring out it out on my own,
Speaker 4: I try to bring it into my work, so they
Speaker 4: kind of work together.
Speaker 1: That's awesome. Well, thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 1: We really appreciate it.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Laura.
Speaker 1: Well we are back. That was a great interview with
Speaker 1: Alice Chen talking all things college admissions and the life
Speaker 1: skills that kids are also developing as they become young
Speaker 1: adults through that transition of the last year or so
Speaker 1: of high school. So, Sarah question, what are you doing
Speaker 1: about saving for college and do you plan to pay
Speaker 1: for your kids to go to college.
Speaker 2: Yes, we plan to cover our kids undergraduate college don't
Speaker 2: know about grad school because the feasibility of that could
Speaker 2: get you know, multiplying times three could be a lot.
Speaker 2: And by that point they are adults, so that might
Speaker 2: be more or of like we can offer help, but
Speaker 2: for undergraduate we definitely do want to cover those expenses.
Speaker 1: And so we do two things.
Speaker 4: We do.
Speaker 2: Florida, as a lot of states, have actually five twenty nine,
Speaker 2: but they also have something called the prepaid program, where
Speaker 2: like since the kids have been little, we paid like
Speaker 2: these little monthly installments. It's like a couple hundred dollars
Speaker 2: per kid that by the time they turn eighteen is
Speaker 2: actually like the full cost of going to any state
Speaker 2: University of Florida school.
Speaker 1: Like it's done, you're done.
Speaker 2: So of course if they don't go to one of
Speaker 2: those schools, you get whatever they're charging I think for
Speaker 2: tuition towards whatever other schools. So you're not going to
Speaker 2: throw it out the window no matter what. But pretty
Speaker 2: cool thing, and I think, you know, there's at least
Speaker 2: some chance that somebody will go to a Florida school,
Speaker 2: so that's great. And then we also do five twenty nine.
Speaker 2: In addition, we really didn't start on that as early
Speaker 2: as we probably should have, probably around twenty twenty when
Speaker 2: it was like, oh, money is accumulating a little more,
Speaker 2: what should we do with it? But we stuck with it,
Speaker 2: and we do it as an auto draft for each kid.
Speaker 2: We do a little bit more for the older kids
Speaker 2: because Genevieve has a longer runway. Will we have the
Speaker 2: entire amount of like a private college by the time
Speaker 2: they hit college. No, but I think we'll have enough
Speaker 2: of a dent that cash flowing the rest would be fine.
Speaker 2: And then if any of them do end up going
Speaker 2: to like a public college, then actually we would you know,
Speaker 2: that would be money they could use for any kind
Speaker 2: of graduate education as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is very important for me to pay for
Speaker 1: my kids to go wherever they would like to go.
Speaker 1: That is something that has I've wanted to do since
Speaker 1: having kids, and so, yes, that is what we will
Speaker 1: be doing. And to that end, saved money from when
Speaker 1: they were born in college funds for them and so
Speaker 1: got a long time still to go with Henry, but
Speaker 1: Jasper is about ready to go and that money should
Speaker 1: mostly cover it. And obviously you can cash flow whatever
Speaker 1: it doesn't but yeah, it's it's it's pricey, but I
Speaker 1: don't know. I guess I feel like it's really hard
Speaker 1: starting adult life with a lot of loans. And it's
Speaker 1: one thing if you're going into profession you know, is
Speaker 1: high paid, like you're taking out loans for medical school
Speaker 1: or something like that. But with undergraduate I think it's
Speaker 1: a little bit more uncertain, and then that even can
Speaker 1: affect what you wind up doing. I mean, you might
Speaker 1: not wind up going to a professional school because you
Speaker 1: have to start paying back these loans, and even if
Speaker 1: you can defer them, it just feels like a big
Speaker 1: load on top of you. So if I have the
Speaker 1: ability to not have my kids have to do that,
Speaker 1: then that's what we've been doing to jobs for you know,
Speaker 1: like my husband and me both working. One of the
Speaker 1: upsides of being a two income family is being able
Speaker 1: to hopefully make some choices like that. So I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean, I know some families there's in the whole
Speaker 1: frugal living community that you know, oh, we don't have
Speaker 1: to pay for kids college because it's good for them
Speaker 1: to work and learn how to do it. I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: you know, you can't really cover that much money working.
Speaker 1: It's not like when people could get a job over
Speaker 1: the summer and pay for the year's tuition. I mean
Speaker 1: it's almost impossible for a kid to do that now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean there are some pretty awesome pathways to
Speaker 2: very affordable public education in our state. I got to say,
Speaker 2: And I think that that's wonderful because we need families
Speaker 2: who don't necessarily have great incomes to have their kids
Speaker 2: be able to get an awesome start. But I also
Speaker 2: feel like if I have the money and I currently
Speaker 2: we're working for that, like, I don't know what else
Speaker 2: I'd want to spend it on. More Like, to me,
Speaker 2: this is like very high on my list of like
Speaker 2: of my priorities. It's really way way up there. And
Speaker 2: I will say my parents, who didn't have super high incomes,
Speaker 2: they covered all of my expensive private college and I'm
Speaker 2: really really grateful for that because I loved my experience
Speaker 2: there and I don't think that was super easy for them.
Speaker 2: But they must have been very much like slow and
Speaker 2: steady put it away, because I didn't ever actually hear anything,
Speaker 2: like you know, it didn't seem like it was hard,
Speaker 2: even though like doing the numbers, I'm sure it wasn't.
Speaker 2: It wasn't negligible, So thanks parents exactly exactly.
Speaker 1: You know, I was very glad to not start my
Speaker 1: adult life with loans as well. So, but obviously there
Speaker 1: are ways to do college cheaper. I mean, my husband
Speaker 1: went to a state school on a full ride. There
Speaker 1: may be fewer of those now, but it was it
Speaker 1: was an option for him back in the day. But again,
Speaker 1: it's like, there are ways to do it if you can't,
Speaker 1: but if you can, we both feel like that's something
Speaker 1: we really want to do for our kids, and that's
Speaker 1: top of our financial goals. So yeah, there you go.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, this has been best of both worlds.
Speaker 1: I've been interviewing Alice Chen about college admissions and life
Speaker 1: skills that kids learn in the process of applying. We
Speaker 1: will be back next week with more on making work
Speaker 1: and life fit together. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 2: You can find me Sarah at the shoebox dot com
Speaker 2: or at the Underscore shoe Box on Instagram, and you.
Speaker 1: Can find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. This
Speaker 1: has been the best of both worlds podcasts. Please join
Speaker 1: us next time for more on making work and life
Speaker 1: work together.