With intimidating headlines like “college admissions scandal” swirling around, it is a natural to feel overwhelmed and stressed when applying to college is on the horizon. For us, having a high school aged daughter, the college application process has already been a topic of conversation in our home.
This week on the podcast, we spoke to The College Essay Guy, Ethan Sawyer, and he told us that we can not only make the process less stressful, but (gasp) we might even have fun. He compares the process of selecting colleges to a shopping trip of picking schools that are the best fit. (And you know I can get on board with a shopping analogy.)
Reorienting How To Define Success
A large part of college admissions stress comes from the fear of what we think of as failure. Ethan helps walk us through reorienting our thought process of what success and failure really mean in this situation. When we realize what true success looks like, it alleviates the pressure that kids and parents are putting on themselves.
Ethan has tons of resources to help when planning for college applications. These include tips on writing essays, timelines for the application process, and advice on whether you should test or not. One thing we love about Ethan’s work is his 1:1 model – for every person that pays for his service, another person also gets the service for free. So even if you think “I’ll never be able to afford personal help” for getting into college, Ethan’s business has resources to help everyone.
