Predatory Practices In College Admissions

Your desire to see your kid off to a decent college makes you a target for predators.

It really upsets me when students tell me that they've been "selected" for impressive-sounding programs or awards that are actually just glorified summer camps designed to fleece their parents. 

An "Award of Selection for Excellence" from "The Congress of Future Medical Leaders" may seem like an honor, but  pay-to-play programs like this one have little to do with  a students' qualifications and make no impact on college admissions. These are just money-making operations, and there are lots of them.

The same goes for summer programs hosted on the campuses of prestigious universities. Third-party companies do little more than rent space at well-known schools like Stanford and Columbia and charge a premium for their summer camps, capitalizing on the illusion that these programs offer a gateway to the institutions whose names they borrow. These three-week programs cost upwards of $7k and do nothing to help students get into college.

(Don't even get me started on the institutions that quietly earn millions by lending their names to these businesses.)

Be an informed consumer. Save your money and your energy. Encourage your kids to focus on their own initiatives. 

If they need the help, I offer a Passion Project Development Workshop and an Internship Intensive to get them going. Paid programs may sound great, but they don't reflect on a student's curiosity or abilities--and admissions officers absolutely know that.  

Let me know in the comments below if your family has been targeted by these high-cost, low-worth programs!

What Is the #1 Quality Top-Tier Colleges Look For?

When you think of a good student--the kind a selective university would want on campus--what do you imagine? 

Do you think of a student who strives for straight A's? One who actively works to build their résumé? One singularly focused on getting into a top-tier college?

If so, you would be mistaken. 

Students like the ones I described are primarily extrinsically motivated, meaning that they are mostly driven by one of two things: the promise of a reward--good grades, praise, financial success; or the fear of a negative outcome--poor grades, disappointed parents, unglamorous job prospects.

Extrinsic motivation is a response conditioned by social factors, including cultural context and parental pressure. Children who get the message that the "good stuff" in life comes from rewards like money,or recognition are more likely to be extrinsically motivated than those who are taught that the "good stuff" comes in the form of more abstract dividends, like self-knowledge and personal fulfillment. 

I want to be clear that extrinsic motivation is normal and even healthy. Sometimes we need a secondary reason for completing a grueling task. I detest sitting and figuring out what I owe in taxes, but I do it because I don't want to be penalized. And, in my better moments, I remind myself that I do it because I want to live in a society where we take care of each other. 

(Or maybe I'm traumatized by the early childhood memory of my mother telling me, with a significant look in her eye, "You know who finally got Al Capone? The I-R-S.")

Anyway, we're all extrinsically motivated to some degree, and to some degree this is helpful. But extrinsic motivation is limited in what it can aid us in accomplishing.

Most importantly, an individual who is extrinsically motivated is unlikely to go "above and beyond" to satisfy their curiosity or pleasure, curtailing their experience and, as a result, their learning. 

A dancer whose goal is to land a particular role will show up to class and work on his technique as much as he needs to, but not as often as the dancer who loves dancing for its own sake--for the joy of embodying music ever more skillfully. Over time, the first dancer will probably be less technically advanced and less creative than the second, even if the first started out with greater natural ability.

Similarly, a student who wants an A in AP Literature may do her darndest with the books and essays she is assigned, but if she never picks up a book for pleasure, she is unlikely to become a truly skilled reader or masterful writer. 

Moreover, attaching a reward to an activity can cause the opposite of the intended effect. Psychological researchers have observed a phenomenon they call the "overjustification effect," in which young people lose interest in an activity extraordinarily quickly when they are asked to do it in exchange for a reward. Those encouraged to engage in that same activity without the reward are more likely to continue doing it, and happily.

Fewer people overall are intrinsically motivated, and it is this smaller group who are generally the most accomplished in their areas of passion. With greater tendencies “to [spontaneously] seek out novelty and challenges, to extend and exercise one's capacity, to explore, and to learn," intrinsicallymotivated people have more experiences that stretch and grow their abilities. (Di Domenico, Stefano I., and Richard M. Ryan. “The Emerging Neuroscience of Intrinsic Motivation: A New Frontier in Self-Determination Research.” Frontiers In Human Neuroscience, 24 Mar. 2017.)

It's no surprise, then, that colleges look for students who are intrinsically motivated. Lots of students work hard for good grades and make efforts to add impressive lines to their résumés, but many of them struggle to speak and write convincingly about any curiosity or passion that underlies their efforts.
Ultimately, the written applications of highly extrinsically motivated students lack sincere enthusiasm because these kids simply haven't given themselves a chance to identify or follow their interests. They're too focused on making sure they're checking all the boxes they imagine they need to. 

Admissions readers can immediately sniff out accomplished-but-uninspired students, especially because they're being compared to a few kids whose applications, if imperfect, indicate a deep well of enthusiasm for learning.

Encouraging the young people in our lives to follow their curiosities and take joy in learning isn't as easy as offering them rewards or threatening them with consequences. But we can help cultivate their intrinsic motivation in a few ways. 

Here are some suggestions:

1) Give your children and teenagers choices as to the activities they participate in. When they get tired of the activity, remind them that they chose this activity because it's something they love! If they're burnt out, suggest decreasing their commitment or taking a break. If they've reached a point of truly disliking the activity, give them the option to quit--and, importantly, try out something else. 

2) Encourage them to make their own inquiries. It may come as a surprise to the parents of teenagers, but young people tend to buy into our ideas about what's worthwhile and what isn't. 

That's why so many of my students tell me they want to be doctors but can't imagine becoming nurses. Many of the adults in their lives suggest that the most prestigious outcome is always the best outcome--for anyone. Of course being a doctor is more satisfying and rewarding than being a nurse! But is it? Encourage your kids to ask doctors and nurses in various specialties for informational interviews so that they may come to their own decisions about what's best for them.  

3) Praise efforts, not outcome. Young people fixated on outcome over process are much more likely to give up when they fail to meet their own expectations. And teenagers are often aware of this habit; many of them tell me that they don't even try activities they don't think they'll be the best at. It saddens me because they cannot know their potential without stepping outside their comfort zones.

Parents and educators may help counteract these self-imposed limitations by affirming teens for the efforts and progress they make rather than saving their praise for the big wins. In fact, most of us could stand to make less of a fuss about our children's big wins, too. Dr. Wendy S. Grolnick of Clark University and others have observed that excessive praise can backfire by encouraging our kids to hyper-focus on outcome. 

Let me know how these tips work for you!