Ep 127: Headed to college? Here's what you need to know. With Jennifer Tabbush, college counselor

Jennifer Tabbush shares her insights and advice on the college application process to help guide students find the best "fit" for their educational needs.  Jennifer founded Headed For College to help families in need of expert educational consulting, college and graduate school counseling, and academic planning.  In this podcast episode, Jennifer discusses many of the questions parents think about as their kids prepare for college. How does a child find the right fit for them? How can colleges be the most cost effective, or is that even possible? What does a GPA mean anymore? Does a student have to be very well rounded to be accepted to college? And what about the personal essay--does it have to be a "sob story" ?!?  Jennifer answers all of these questions and more, overall emphasizing the importance of fit and happiness in college choice.

About Jennifer Tabbush: She received her B.A. in Economics/Business from UCLA, graduating Phi Beta Kappa and Magna Cum Laude.  Jennifer earned her MBA from the UCLA Anderson Graduate School of Management, graduating Summa Cum Laude. Ms. Tabbush began her admissions career in 1990 as a volunteer student reader of applications to the MBA program at UCLA Anderson. From 1990-2008, Ms. Tabbush worked in graduate admissions for the UCLA Anderson Graduate School of Management where she was Associate Director of MBA Admissions. She read thousands of essays, interviewed hundreds of candidates, and represented UCLA Anderson at events in the U.S. and abroad. Jennifer was also a member of the UCLA Undergraduate Admissions and Relations with Schools admissions read team and read applications for UCLA’s freshman class for three years.

To learn more about Headed for College:
www.headedforcollege.com

Dr Jessica Hochman is a board certified pediatrician, mom to three children, and she is very passionate about the health and well being of children. Most of her educational videos are targeted towards general pediatric topics and presented in an easy to understand manner.

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The information presented in Ask Dr Jessica is for general educational purposes only. She does not diagnose medical conditions or formulate treatment plans for specific individuals. If you have a concern about your child's health, be sure to call your child's health care provider.

Transcript

Unknown: 0:00

Hi everybody, I'm Dr. Jessica Hochman, paediatrician, and mom of three. On this podcast I like to talk about various paediatric health topics, sharing my knowledge not only as a doctor, but also as a parent. Ultimately, my hope is that when it comes to your children's health, you feel more confident, worry less, and enjoy your parenting experience as much as possible. Hello, hello, welcome back to the Ask Dr. Jessica podcast. This week, I have the pleasure of introducing Jennifer to Bush. And we're going to talk about the most common questions about how to best prepare our kids for college, Jennifer founded a consulting company called headed for college, which guides students through the entire college application process. Now I know for many of you, myself included, thinking about your kids applying to college seems like a world away. But it's interesting to know what getting ready for college is like nowadays. And I also think really helpful to know that a company like headed for college exists. Now I know Jennifer because my sister works for her as one of her consultants. And my sister tells me all the time how knowledgeable and gifted Jennifer is at helping students find the college best suited for them. So thank you, Jennifer to Bush for coming on the Ask Dr. Jessica podcast. And a quick reminder if you would, before we get started, please take a moment to leave a five star review for the podcast. New reviews really do make my day, Jennifer to Bush I'm so happy to have you on here I have to tell you that I wish I knew someone like you in my life. When I was going through the college application process. I hear so many wonderful things about you for my sister, so much wise advice that I gleaned from her through you. So I'm so excited to talk to you and share your knowledge and advice with my audience. Oh, thank you so much, Jessica. It's great to be with you. So tell everybody, what do you do for work? What is headed for college. So I started a company that offers college counselling for students starting in about seventh eighth grade all the way through high school. So we work with navigating High School selecting classes, standardised test prep, looking for colleges that are a great fit helping kids figure out what to do over the summer. And then as we get closer to senior year, of course, working on a college list and then through the application process. And we work with transfer students as well. So if a student is somewhere and they'd like to transfer a lot of the local community college students work with us, we help with transfer as well. When When do you recommend that most people reach out to you. Because of the way curriculum is aligned with interests, it's ideal to talk to a family in eighth grade for no other reason than just to kind of explain how curriculum works. Calculus, math is a five year plan. So eighth grade math really matters, foreign language in eighth grade also matters. So it isn't a lot of time. But the earlier we start working with a student, the more we can provide information that will enable the parents and the student to make the best decisions for them. So we're not here to tell families what they should do. We provide information and then the families and the kids decide what makes the most sense for them. You know, summer school might be great to get ahead in math, it might also not work because the family has other ideas. Most typically, we start working with students in about 10th grade, sometimes beginning of 11th grade, but every semester that goes by our window of opportunity gets smaller and smaller. And anything that starts in 12th. Grade is it's a little bit late. I hear from so many people that talk about how college has changed since I applied to college, and how it's more competitive than ever. Do you find that to be the case? You know, the number of applications certainly have skyrocketed. But we find that talented students who work really hard and who have initiative and leadership in their extracurriculars really care about their community are still getting into great schools, they're still getting into one of their top two or three choices. But yeah, the Accept rates go down, down down. And that looks really stressful for families to see that a college their student is interested in has a single digit accept rate, but you have to take that with a grain of salt because not every person who applies to a school is actually academically qualified. So the actual accept rates of students who are academically qualified are a little bit higher than what you see published. That's actually good to hear. I went to UCLA and I've been hearing from people you would know better. But the acceptance rate of getting into schools like UCLA is 9%. That sounds so low to me. Yeah, the UCLA accept rate for California students is about 9%. You know, the real issue is the freshman class size is basically fixed. So UCLA aims for around 6500 Incoming freshmen, and that's from California from outside of California, the United States and from international applicants in the last few years. The non California numbers have gone down, but they don't have capacity to significantly expand the freshman class. The University of California is looking at online degrees. We don't really know what that's going to look like. I actually just read that in the paper, I think yesterday or today. So that may be a way that more Californians can obtain a UC education. But you know, the physical plant and living on campus the space is limited. So the population growing application numbers rising, the accept rate is going down. But again, for UCLA, when you apply to a UC campus, you check a box for all the campuses you want to apply to, and each one you pay for separately, so you can check a box and apply to UCLA without any additional work. So again, not every student who's applying to UCLA is actually academically qualified. Doing and that makes sense, the barrier to entry to apply is so low that you're gonna get a lot of applicants and probably a good number of them, it might not be, it may not be the high in their consideration list to begin with. Yeah, UCLA remains one of the top 10 aspirational schools in the country. So if you ask kids where they want to go, UCLA is definitely on that list. For great reasons I went there as well. So you know how wonderful it is. But there are other great UC campuses, Cal State campuses, the way you see does admissions is in the context of the high school. So there's a lot we can do to help families understand UC admissions, I read applications for UCLA when I was in admissions at the graduate school at UCLA, one of my colleagues is currently reading for UC campus. So we really understand UC admissions well, and there's things that we can recommend that will help families understand how UC calculates a GPA and the things that they can do to help their student improve their UC GPA. So I'm curious, you've been working in this space for how many years? Oh, gosh, 22? And have you found that there are any misconceptions when it comes to applying and getting into colleges? I think there's a lot of misconceptions. I think that the most common misconception is that rank means quality of education. So it's important to dig into what the rankings actually are, a lot of them are reputational, and not outcomes based. So just because a school is highly ranked doesn't mean it's highly ranked for your child. There's some great examples like Indiana University isn't a top 10 University overall, but their business school is. So it really depends on what your student is interested in. And rankings are not always relevant. And I think it's so important to find a school that's a great fit, and not really worry about rankings, we believe that if a student is at a college, that's a great fit for them, they'll thrive, if they thrive, whatever that next step is graduate school and job research, it'll be there for them, they can be at a really highly ranked school and be unhappy and not have the outcomes that they want. I think that's such an important point. Because people do look at the rankings. And I think when you do apply to college, you can't help but look at the rankings. So that's such a good point. And so true. Yeah. And I think that it's so important to explore interests. I think a lot of parents believe you can just apply to college. And once the student is there, they can figure it all out. But unfortunately, that's not how it works anymore, especially for engineering and business, you really have to get in as a freshman at most programmes, it's virtually impossible to transfer into engineering, for example, if you start out in Letters and Science at UCLA, so exploring interest in high school becomes really critical, because it is okay to be undecided a lot of places. But in the University of California in particular, it's very hard to move around. So the more a student knows about their interests, the more they can get it right the first time. Because if you're interested in architecture, if that interest develops while you're in college, and the school you're at doesn't offer architecture, then you have to transfer. So we really want kids exploring interest in high school to make sure that all the things they might be interested in are available at the colleges that they go to. Another misconception is that you have to write an essay with a sob story, you have to have something traumatic have happened to you to get into a really good school. And that's definitely not the case. Colleges are looking for, you know, authentic students voices talking about experiences that matter to them. If you have a funny student, they can tell a funny story, you know that the goal is for an admissions officer to learn something about the student that they don't get anywhere else in the application. And personality should really shine through an essay. So we have a lot of tools. Some of them are really fun that students work with us on to help them choose an essay topic. I think choosing the topic is more challenging than actually writing that personal statement essay. But being authentic in the process is so critical. And that's such a good point. I think if I were on the admissions committee, I would want to know what the student is like you want to know what personality are you bringing onto your school's campus. So that makes a lot of sense. And colleges are doing a lot of work trying to assess character. There's an initiative out of Harvard called Making carrying common, and they're looking at assessing character traits in an application. So yes, absolutely. admissions officers want to know who is this person that we might be bringing on our campus? How will they fit in to our campus culture? What are they going to contribute when they get here? And that comes through loud and clear with an authentic personal essay, and if it's authentic and personal, no one else can write it There's no formula. Artificial Intelligence shouldn't write it. No artificial intelligence shouldn't write, although we know that a lot of students are using AI. Colleges are also using AI detectors. It's not a perfect system, but no AI can't write about your experiences and your feelings. AI is great for an outline. So for students that's really struggling to get started with writing that isn't working with an educational consultant like us. AI is terrific. If you ask it for an outline. Here's what I want to write about. Can you give me an outline for a 650 word essay, that can be a great place for students to start, but that's about where I'd stopped with AI. Admissions Officers are very savvy. And it's pretty obvious when an essay is AI and when it isn't. Yeah, it's it's a new problem that we're facing. I feel like the the landscape of what I do changes every year, there's something new in the equation, the Supreme Court decision test, optional, not test optional artificial intelligence, the rules of the game seem to evolve every year. So okay, so you said that students come to see you as young as seventh grade. Now, I have a seventh grader. Tell me in general, what would your advice be for a seventh grader in terms of thinking about college because on one hand, she seems so young to me. But on the other hand, as you said, the process can take time. So I would never mention the C word to a seventh grader, I wouldn't talk about college, even for freshmen in high school, college seems so far away. It's like it's never going to happen. But I would talk to a seventh grader about the things they like the classes that they like, what kinds of things they have as hobbies, just get to know them. And then for a student who's a strong academic student, I would talk about some summer programmes that are geared for middle school students so they can explore their interests, and also the critical eighth grade math and foreign language classes. We really want students to be in at least algebra one, at least the first year foreign language when they're in eighth grade thing. That's interesting. I don't know that my daughter's Middle School offers a foreign language. So if they don't, should I be enrolling her in an outside class? No, because language is sequential. It depends a bit on where you go to high school, but it is possible to accelerate language in high school, a lot of high schools, the AP class is the fifth year class of language. So to get to, for example, AP Spanish language, you need to take Spanish 1234 First, and for calculus, you need to be an algebra one in eighth grade to then be in geometry, algebra, two precalculus. And then finally, AP calculus in 12th grade. So those are the two subjects that have five year tracks at most high schools. So that's why we recommend it. But if it's not offered at your school, it's not offered at your school. Can I ask you about GPA? I hear from so many teenagers that tell me they have a 4.6 or a 4.2? And they're not getting into these really good colleges? What does it mean anymore, because I feel like a 4.0 used to be the goal. And now it's hard for you to assess what a really good GPA is. Well, that's a that's a whole podcast episode to talk about GPA. But in a nutshell, there's a few things that parents need to know first, the GPA that's on your student's transcript is not the GPA that most colleges will use. The University of California, the GPA they use for admissions is 10th grade 11th grade, any classes taken in summers in that time span, and they only consider classes that are on the UC approved course list for that high school. And you see besides which classes are weighted and not weighted, so the high school might weight classes, but the UCS won't. So it's not unusual for a high school GPA to be in the 4445 range and the UC GPA to be more in the four to four three range. colleges will recalculate and GPA. Some colleges only use core subjects so English, math, history, science and foreign language. So it's hard to know what GPA a college is going to use outside of the UCs and the Cal States which are very transparent, but we know there's always a mega metric for rigour. And there's a metric for what the student is taking in the context of the high school. Another dynamic that's happening across the country is rampant grade inflation. It is not unusual for a student with a three five GPA from a good private high school to be in the bottom 20% of the class. That's above a B plus average in the bottom of the class. So admissions officers are seeing these lofty GPAs and they need more context. So for schools that offer AP exams, AP scores are very helpful to support high grades in AP classes. The standardised test scores can also be very helpful. If a student is applying from a high school that has elevated GPAs. With no AP scores and no test scores. It can be difficult for the university to assess the student And that's where the universities relationship with that high school and their knowledge of the high schools grading and curriculum becomes very important, but GPAs that you hear aren't always the ones that are going to get used in admissions decisions. But I get it. It's confusing, and we hear it all the time. It's so interesting to me, because I hear about how LSAT scores and standardised testing is falling out of favour with some colleges. But then as you pointed out, it's obvious that there's different GPAs from different high schools, I have a hard time not not thinking that they should be part of the application process at all. I mean, I'm curious what you think. Dartmouth put together a committee of its own faculty to study this issue. And they reviewed data from Dartmouth admissions of students who were admitted with and without test scores. And they determined that test scores were very important in determining which students would succeed at Dartmouth. They also determined that many students had competitive test scores and didn't submit them, because Dartmouth is looking at test scores in the context of the student and the student's school. So a student may have a 1400 LSAT, which for Dartmouth overall would be low, but that could be an outrageously high score for that individual High School in Dartmouth has that data. So Dartmouth, decided that they wanted to go back to using standardised tests because it was a positive information to have in an application and it was predictive of student's success. I have very mixed feelings about standardised testing, but I think when it's used in the way that Dartmouth uses it and it's very much in the context of the students opportunity to learn and their high school I think it can be helpful for myself when I took standardised tests myself in high school, it never came easy to me and I have friends that did a lot better. With less effort. It was just an easier for them to do well on the SATs, but I have to admit that a correlated with their intelligence. That's just my own subjective finding. You know, there are students who seemingly when they were born, they got sprinkled with pixie dust that makes them extraordinary test takers, but there's a lot that parents can do with younger kids to help them in the future. And the biggest advice I would give a parent of a kindergartener, first grader second grader is read Dear child have your child read to you. It's very obvious to us when a student wasn't a reader as a child. And critical reading scores are very difficult to improve with test prep. You can work on grammar, and sentence structure and math. But Critical Reading is a skill developed over a lifetime. And I think reading is a really, really important thing for kids to do when they're young. And if your kid doesn't like reading read to them, or books on tape are great to just have them process that information, ask them questions about what they read. Why do you think the author made that that character a mouse and have the student explain it because that's what Critical Reading testing is going to be down the road. It'll make them more effective readers. And that's a life skill, not just standardised testing, it's a life skill help them read faster, and with greater comprehension throughout their lives. Do you find that when you talk to kids that do well, in the reading comprehension aspect of standardised testing that they were readers as kids? Absolutely. Yeah, those are the kids that will read even in high school and kids are so busy, they have no time, they'll still find time to read a book a month or two. They just love to read. They're not on their phones as much. They're not watching TV and not watching YouTube. They love to read. And sometimes kids will write about their love of reading. Now it's a it's an interesting set of worlds you can enter if you're an avid reader. So true. My my oldest my 13 year old she's in the middle of the Hunger Games. She's just finishing the second book of the I think it's a three book series. And she's loving it. And so I worry that as she gets older, and she gets more into phones and more into technology, Will her love of reading dwindle. But that's something I'll have to worry about later. I guess he No, I don't think so I feel like a kid at 13, who loves to read is probably going to be a reader for life. Kids usually will either go in one of two directions by about the beginning of middle school because that's when their social lives start to change and their access to technology starts to change in the world just gets so much bigger. Yes. No parents can can read the same book is their child and then talk about it. And we have a lot of parents who do that. And that's a really wonderful family thing to talk about at dinner. Like what was happening? Why did the author choose that? You know, what do you think's going to happen? Those are great conversations that do not involve a screen that's helped me to get into a really good college. Is it true that my kids need to play a really obscure instrument or play a really random obscure sport? Or can they just do what they what they enjoy doing on their own? Well, if they love an obscure instrument and they are great at an obscure sport, by all means they should be participating in that but I Don't think you can construct passion. And to get to the level playing an instrument that you'd have to be at, in order for an audition to be meaningful in college admissions, you have to be very talented. And that requires a huge dedication of time same for a sport. So if a student doesn't love it, if it isn't their oxygen, if they would choose, if they wouldn't choose that over anything else, if they'd rather go to movie with a friend and play in a game, it's not going to be the right thing for them. And those spots in colleges are very limited. You know, for the recruited athletes, there's very few spots. And for musicians, they, they may bring in only one or two musicians on a particular instrument. So again, we feel very strongly that kids need to find their own passions, they need to find the things that matter to them the most. And then they can work to do something about it. And they can work to get really good at it could be research, we have students who do independent research projects, and that's their oxygen, it could be something in the so if your student has something that they care about, I think that is the most important thing, colleges are going to put together a well rounded class. But the individuals in the class are not always well rounded. The institutional need is to have students that are interested in everything the university has to offer academically, athletically, musically performing arts. So once those spots are filled, then they're not looking for students that have that talent anymore, and they're going to look elsewhere to round up their class. So when you give advice to families, and I know it will vary from child to child, but do you prefer that they have a well rounded application with, you know, with a sport and with an instrument or with with an additional hobby? Or do you think they should just focus on one passion? What's your advice with regards to looking well rounded in the application process. So I think a high school student who's well rounded is well positioned to do well in college because they'll have a more diverse social network, they'll have more talking points, they'll be able to move in different directions. But having said that, the more selective the college is, the more likely it is that they don't want well rounded students. They want students who are the term is well lopsided, or Angular, meaning they're really, really great at one or two things, and they dedicate themselves to that thing. It's definitely a misnomer that if you play a sport, you should play all four years of high school, you know, there may come a time when the sport just isn't as meaningful for your student and what they have to give up to play that sport becomes a very high cost, and they would rather do other things. So those are conversations we often have. Now you're playing a club sport, you're playing high school sport, it's year round, you don't have time for anything else. Do you love it? And if the answer is no, then it's definitely time to reevaluate how a student spends their time if they're not going to be an athletic recruit. As I said earlier, I wish I had someone like you in my life when I was thinking about college because most of what I did was based on rumours that other high school students were sharing amongst one another. And so I really need both I would have liked to had me as a college counsellor way back when, yeah, I remember thinking, do I have to do research do I have to be involved in a million school clubs, and some of them I liked, and some of them I didn't like as much. And if I had that mentality to really hone in on what I truly enjoyed, and was passionate about, I think I would have had a better high school experience, truth be told, yeah. So we tell our students, you know, once they get into 10th grade, they really need to start thinking about depth, and their interests and accomplishments and not breadth. So it's not about being a member of 12 different clubs. Maybe it's about being heavily involved in one or two and leading one of them. And when the student graduates from high school, their legacy is going to be imprinted on that high school because what they did was so meaningful in their leadership role, that some of the things they created will persist after they graduate. That's an ideal situation. Being a member of a bunch of different clubs can mean just going for pizza once a month and grabbing a slice of pizza saying, Hi, dear friends and leaving admissions officers are well aware of this. So they're not looking at the number of things that kids are involved in, they're looking at what the impact was that the student had, what was the impact of their involvement. So if you start from a place of I'm doing this because I really like it, and I'm really interested in it. It could be related to what they want to study in college, it could be related to what they want to do as a career, it can be related to what they care about in the community. They're going to want to get more involved in even students who aren't natural leaders will rise to leadership roles that may not be present. Maybe they're in charge of social media, or they're in charge of recruiting new students, because it's so meaningful to them. They want to get more involved. They want to have an impact. That's the ideal situation. Now, there's a question I've been really wanting to to ask you, and I'm sort of afraid of what you're going to say. But I'm so curious about how much colleges cost these days. Can you tell everybody what, what are the ballpark figures we're talking about? Well, for out of state colleges, the tuition room and board is part of the cost. And that can run up to 80,000. But if you're gonna go to Parents Weekend, that's two flights, maybe two or three hotel nights, your students gonna come home, that's more flights, you're gonna go visit again, that's more flight. If your student goes to a college, that's two flights away, visiting a couple of times, and having your student come home a couple of times can make an $80,000 school and$90,000 school, the University of California is mid to high 30s. The California State system is, I think, still below 20. But it varies and families going to qualify for need based financial aid. There are many universities that will award full merit, full need based scholarships, with no loans for families with incomes under $150,000. So it's going to vary very much from school to school, what the actual sticker price is, if a student is really, really talented, and they apply to colleges that are generous with merit scholarships, they could get a full ride. I have a student this year who was offered a 100% tuition scholarship to a very good private university. In my mind, that's, that's part of why using your services is probably so valuable, because you have that information to impart with families, what schools may be more likely to offer financial aid and scholarships, is that right? Absolutely. And it's important for parents to have a conversation with their senior about what they can afford. Very early in my career, I had a student who got into a very elite private university on the East Coast, and her parents said, we're not going to send you because we can't afford it. And it was devastating. And it really impacted their relationship, it would have been wonderful for her to not apply there. If they had just said we just can't afford it. So we also encourage parents to sit down with their student and be very realistic about what they can afford. So kids are not applying to colleges that the parents cannot afford. If they're not going to qualify for need based aid, if there's need if there's need based financial aid involved, then there's calculators that we provide to our clients so that they can run through their basic numbers and see if they might qualify for financial aid. And we refer out to financial aid experts, because it's a very complicated. So we recommend experts in this field as it's just not our expertise, we can provide basic information. But when it comes to filling out the forms, working with someone who does that full time is great. I think that's such great advice about having an open conversation with your kids about what is realistic in terms of what you can afford, because that number is staggering.$90,000 for for college costs for one year after after tax dollars. That's, that's an astounding number. So for your listeners in California, you know, we have some of the best universities in the world and our public system. The University of California campuses, some of the Cal State campuses are extraordinary. And if you think about college as four years, you think about studying abroad, the University of California has a campus in Washington DC, there are schools in the United States, including Ivy League schools that will accept domestic students on a visiting student basis. So you can be at a UC and still have an East Coast experience, you can still study abroad, you can still do a summer programme or a semester at some really elite private institutions. But overall, the four year cost is going to be a whole lot lower than if you were to send your student to an out of state public or private school. I'm still thinking about the tuition cost that you mentioned. It's just mind boggling to me because well that's tuition room and board. So it's it's more than just tuition. But the rate of increase of tuition room and board is staggering. It far outpaces inflation. I think USC is the most it's one of the most expensive schools in the country. So let's grab that number. So tuition this year is 66,006 40. Room and board is about 19,000 and with books and supplies and other expenses, their estimate is actually at 9000. It's not chump change. It is not then you think to what if your child wants to go to graduate school, that's something worth considering. Yeah, and that's a great thing to bring up. You know, you went to medical school so you know how important your undergraduate GPA is as an applicant to a graduate programme. And that's one of the things that we talk to our students about as well because there are colleges that have very difficult grading. It's extremely difficult to get an A in a class, and there are colleges where the average grade is an A minus Harvard The average grade right now is an A minus ditto Stanford. So it does matter where you choose if you want to go to graduate school. So as much as I love UCLA and UC Berkeley, it's very tough to be pre med and are engineering and have the high GPA that you need to go on to graduate school. So there's so many considerations about the environment that a student is going to succeed in. But if we know a student is very interested in graduate school, that's a conversation that we want to have with them while they're thinking about where they're going to apply. And that's a great question to ask on a campus tour. So we help our students with what kinds of things should you ask about on a campus tour? And that's a good one, how competitive is it? What's the grading, like, really get a sense of that environment, because if you're at a really competitive High School, and you're running on a hamster wheel, and you go to a really competitive college, you're just going to have to run faster. And that isn't always the right thing for students. I love I feel like your philosophy for getting into college is transferable to a good life philosophy. We just did a presentation at a public high school on the west side, and the parents were also anxious. And you know, our message is really, your kids going to be fine. There's a college for everyone. There are colleges that would love to accept a student with a 2.0 GPA. So the key is finding the best environment for your student and also making sure your student is going to have the best choices that they can possibly have. And that comes with planning, really understanding the process, and then making decisions along the way. So when I meet with a new family, what I would say is, look, when your student is a senior, we don't want them to look back with regret that if they would have known this, they could have done that they should have done this, no would have could have showed us the choices they have as a senior the ones that they created, and they're happy with all the decisions they made to get to that place. They're happy with what their choices are. That might mean they didn't do a lot of community service because they didn't want to. And that's okay, as long as it's an active choice that they made. Something that I think a lot about is how many colleges there are. And had I seen a lot of those colleges what I have changed my mind on where I applied to college, because you only have so much time realistically to visit college campuses. And so I wonder, is there something I should be doing to expose my kids to various colleges, but I don't think it's healthy to be talking to a sixth, seventh, even eighth grader about colleges, because I'll meet with an eighth grader and they'll say, I want to go to Yale. And I'll say, that's great. Why do you want to go to Yale silence. They don't, they don't know. They just know that it's a great school. And you know, these imprints start really early. So during 11th grade, through 10th grade, we start talking to students actively about colleges. And if a ninth grader is really interested in wants to visit colleges, we can absolutely help that and given them ideas of where to visit. But ideally a junior, we're going to get heavily involved in putting together a list of colleges for them to research and we will always put on colleges that they've never heard of, even for kids who say they want to stay in California will put on some out of state schools because what a 1617 year old thinks they want could be very different than what it actually turns out to be May 1 of their senior year. So we want to make sure that we leave them room to evolve. But we have a lot of tools to research colleges, there's so much great information online, because of COVID. The colleges used to visit high schools, and that was their primary tool for recruiting during COVID. That wasn't possible. So they've all gone to these zoom information sessions. That's one of the things that's led to an increase in applications. Because if your high school didn't get a visit from Northwestern University students may not know about it. But now you can go on their website and watch an information session you can watch a student panel. So there's so many ways for students to learn about colleges, and then decide which ones seem like a really good match that they would want to actually go see. We're not recommend speed dating colleges. It's not go to Boston and see as many schools as you can see, in a day, kids really need to understand what would it be like if I went to the school. And that means meaning students, staff faculty sitting in on classes visiting labs, in the areas of the students interest that could be seeing the ice skating rink, or meeting someone on the club tennis team. It could be going into a research lab to see what the Smith canoe races are looking like. It could be sitting on a business class or meeting with someone at a religious organisation. But kids really need to understand what it would be like for them to go to a school based on their interests. And that comes from almost a full day visited a campus so you have to do your homework ahead of time. Visiting a college over the summer is very convenient for parents, but the students aren't there it's going to be very Hard for teenagers to get a sense of what it'd be like to go to a school if the students aren't there. And the smaller the institution, the more pronounced that becomes. So the Claremont Colleges in California are fabulous. But if you go to Claremont McKenna in the middle of July, you might think it's a really boring place. And it is not. It's a very lively but not in July, I think about this a lot because I went to UCLA, but I was sort of, I was imprinted to think about UCLA from a very young age, my parents both went to UCLA. When, when I was young, at the age of 234, and maybe even five, my parents dress me in a UCLA cheerleader costume for Halloween, maybe we recycle the same costume. But from a very young age, my parents were taking me to UCLA sporting events. And that's where I ended up really wanting to go and I luckily ended up going there. But then later in life, I would visit campus, such as the Pomona campuses, and such as like Cal Poly San Luis Obispo campuses I had never even seen, I couldn't help but think to myself, had I seen those at an earlier stage in my life? Would I have gone to those schools, and I guess it all worked out fine. But yeah, and it's important for parents to understand the selectivity at you know, the IVs of the world, and even the UCLA 's of the world is such that even if a student does everything, right, there's no guarantee that they're going to be admitted, because the bottom line is institutional priorities. And we don't always know what they are. Boston University a couple of years ago has seriously over enrolled. And so the next year, they're accepted, it was very low Rice University add new undergraduate programme in business, so their institutional priority was bringing in students to that major. So, so much depends on how your students puzzle piece fits in to the overall puzzle that an institution is putting together, it's really important to not get too hung up on one school because it might not work out. And if your student is going to be devastated if they don't get into UCLA, and there's no other institution they want to go to, that's really heartbreaking. The rejection is horrible. So we want to make sure that students have good choices that they're excited about, we help them put together a balanced list, it cannot be UC Berkeley, UCLA, and every Ivy League school. That list is way too top heavy, it just doesn't make sense. So we want to make sure that kids have choices. My favourite problem is when a student says to me, I wish I wouldn't have applied to school XYZ, because now I can't decide which one to go to. Because I got into both. And I just smile and say you have my favourite problem. That's a great problem. It's a great problem to have. And I hope to create that for all of our students. And I genuinely believe that wherever you go to college, the key really is to take advantage of all that college has you meet quality friends, if you spend time talking to your professors, and office hours, if you take advantage of the extracurriculars that are available, you really take advantage of all that school has to offer, I agree with you it, it doesn't have to be one particular school to have to have an incredible college experience. I think for most students, Jessica, the student makes the college the college doesn't make the student. And that's where fit comes in. So if it's the right fit, the student is going to have a good social life, they're going to have friends, that will make them get more involved. And that will lead to a much more successful college experience. If you're not meeting friends, the first six, eight weeks of college, it's very isolating. And it doesn't matter what the name on the sweatshirt is, as a mother who had two sons graduate from college, I can tell you if your child is unhappy, and they're 2000 miles away, you're not going to care what the name of the sweatshirt is, an unhappy child is it's just so sad and difficult for parents to be far away from a student who's unhappy. So we want to help kids find a place that they're happy out there. They love coming home for Thanksgiving freshman year, but they can't wait to go back. They miss their friends. They miss the things that they're doing. They miss the new life they're creating. Okay, so Jennifer, tell everybody if they're interested in using services like you provide, how can they find you? So our website is headed for college.com. And there's a contact form there. There's a national organisation called the independent education consultants Association, and any independent education consultant that you would get off of that list is going to be a professional who's vetted, who has signed an annual agreement to uphold the highest level of standards. We work with families all over the world. So we're working virtually, but we're not a la based. We're an LA based counselling team, but our clients are all over. So we have a consultant who specialises in international students. We have a number of East Coast schools where we have many students, but it's also important to find a coach Sultan who can work really well with your student and motivate them. We want students to be the best version of themselves, that we push them to be that we also want to meet them where they're at. Not every student is going to take AP everything and be thrilled about it. So it's finding that relationship where the student will value what the consultant is saying, and feel like that person is a partner in their journey through high school. Can you also help with students that are at junior colleges? Can you help them with the transferring process? Absolutely. We work with a lot of junior college transfers. And for families that are where a four year school, the price tag just doesn't make sense. We have a fantastic community college system in California. And the UC system has a Transfer Admission Guarantee programme with most of the UC campuses with all of the community colleges. So yes, there's a lot of wonderful options. The UCS, it's typically a junior year transfer, but other institutions, you can transfer out of a community college after freshman year and apply as a soft you know, so much. I'm so happy to talk to you all look forward to. I look forward to sending my kids to use your services someday. Thanks, Jessica. I really appreciate it. Thank you for all you do. And thank you for your time and expertise. I really appreciate it. Thank you so much. Thank you for listening and I hope you enjoyed this week's episode of Ask Dr. Jessica. Also, if you could take a moment and leave a five star review wherever it is you listen to podcasts. I would greatly appreciate it. It really makes a difference to help this podcast grow. You can also follow me on Instagram at ask Dr. Jessica See you next Monday.