my senior year of high school
I was sitting in math class when my
guidance counselor came to the door and
loudly interrupted my teacher and asked
to see me
immediately so I follow up to her office
heart pounding trembling absolutely
terrified and she closes the door behind
her and then she turns to me with this
huge smile on her face and tells me that
I’ve been accepted into a prestigious
Ivy League university and she picks up
the phone on her desk and she asks me do
you want to call your mom to tell her
the good news and I say no we can’t
afford it
and she says oh and that was it
I went back to class you see I had only
applied to the school just to see if I
could get in I didn’t think I would
actually go I had seen the ridiculous
price tag at the school charged for
tuition and I knew that there was no way
that my family could afford it and so
instead I kept it to myself and said
nothing I ended up going to our in-state
school on a full scholarship and I was
really proud to do that and not be a
burden on my family and then one day
years later I found out that I could
have qualified for financial aid that
would have reduced the sticker price at
this prestigious school to $0 and I
thought back on that moment in my
counselors office and I felt cheated
I felt cheated at that moment when I
could have made a choice but nobody was
there to tell me that I had a choice to
make for the past 10 years I’ve been
working to help coach students the
college admissions process helping them
refine applications and prepare for
tasks like the SAT and a CT this was a
career that I blindly stumbled into when
I needed a part-time job while working
towards my PhD and I saw a Craigslist ad
for test prep tutors I soon found myself
working with people from well-known
political families Hollywood celebrities
even foreign royalty prepare for college
and my advice did not come cheap many of
the families that I worked with spent
thousands and some of them spent tens of
thousands of dollars more than what some
colleges charge for tuition on college
admissions counseling and test prep
tutoring and
mind boggling as this was I soon
realized that there is a reason that
people believe that this advice is worth
paying good money for it is because
college admissions is a shockingly
subjective process to give you a sense
of this I’d like to give you a glimpse
behind the curtain of essentially how
admissions works at a selective
institution imagine that each of these
boxes represents 500 students so 40,000
applicants for say 6,000 seats in the
freshman class now that is an
overwhelming number of applications so
obviously we’re not going to read them
all we’re going to do an initial
computerized review to weed out
applicants who don’t meet basic criteria
so we’re going to cut 21,000 students
off the bat and we’re going to fast
track a thousand through to virtually
guaranteed admission because the
computer has decided well they look
pretty awesome and so now we have about
18,000 students left who are going to
get a more thorough review by human
beings some of those students will be
sorted in this round and to admit and
deny and the remainder will go to what’s
called committee in committee they will
be discussed in greater detail and a
vote will be taken to decide whether to
admit waitlist or deny each student the
thing is going to committee is likely
good news for the students who know how
to tell their stories in a way that will
positively sway admissions officers
committee members will say things like
but look at how much his essay shows how
much he’s changed or I love how well she
tied together her love of computer
science with her passion for the banjo
and others will nod their heads in
agreement and they’ll vote and if enough
hands go up then they’re in and that is
why students who have access to
resources to polish their applications
to perfection have a serious leg up on
those who don’t those are the students
that often get in and others are lost
behind today I’m feeling really
concerned about the state of college
admissions given what we know about the
links between a college education and
social mobility did you know that in the
u.s. today the unemployment rate is
three times higher for high school
graduates who don’t attend college than
for those who do
that after adjusting for inflation high
school only graduates are actually
making less today than their parents did
at their age now although it’s true that
college may not be the only path to
better socio-economic circumstances it
just by far the one paved with the most
statistical assurance but if you
graduate from college today you are
significantly more likely to be
financially better off than if you did
it
now colleges have done a lot of things
to try to improve access to college for
underrepresented minority students and
low-income students they’ve implemented
affirmative action they’ve made
standardized tests like the SAT and ACC
optional they’ve created alternative
admissions methods but recent studies
have shown that none of these policies
have worked on a broad scale to improve
access for less advantaged students
after years of working in private
college prep I felt that I wasn’t doing
enough to help these students the
students who like me were far from well
versed in the nuances of financial aid
and scholarships or who hadn’t learned
the art of crafting themselves in a way
that admissions officers would perceive
as desirable and so today my work on
college admissions has moved online for
the past three years I’ve worked for a
company whose mission is to make college
more accessible by providing free and
low-cost support online to students
preparing for standardized tests like
the SAT and a CT because I’ve now
created college prep content that has
reached millions of young people instead
of dozens I’ve seen firsthand the
immense power of the internet to scale
the distribution of what was previously
insider information if you have any
doubts about the ability of the internet
to reach young people today allow me to
show you a graph of traffic to our
YouTube channel for SAT prep in the past
year guess where students are the night
before they SAT there on YouTube
cramming now clearly we have a teenage
procrastination problem as well but the
point I want to make is if it’s a small
moment that can make a difference a tip
on a college essay a note about a
scholarship that hasn’t received enough
applicants just think about how we can
magnify the scale of those interactions
through the internet now maybe you don’t
think that you’re an expert in college
admissions
if you’ve gone to an institution of
higher education but I think you are
substantially more expert than the
hundreds of thousands of teenagers out
there who want to do the same but don’t
know how right now you can go online and
you can meet teenagers where they are at
on social media on forums on YouTube you
can answer somebody’s question you can
provide encouragement you can tell them
your story you can take ten minutes and
share something you learned at this
conference today that just might change
somebody else’s life internet culture
would call this crowdsourcing
crowdsourcing means sharing the labor
amongst a large community to achieve a
cumulative result crowdsourcing college
admissions means meeting today’s young
people where they are at online and
finding better ways to help them reach
the resources that they need online the
Internet is a safe space a safe and
anonymous space for students who are
less advantaged to seek help where they
won’t feel judged for lacking the
knowledge and experience that those from
more privileged classes are born into
access to information is a privilege and
if you are privileged enough to have
information that can help someone on the
path to better socio-economic
circumstances then today’s technology
means you have the ability to share it
so my question for you is how are you
using the most powerful information
distribution tool ever invented to help
those who need it the most
thank you
I was sitting in math class when my
guidance counselor came to the door and
loudly interrupted my teacher and asked
to see me
immediately so I follow up to her office
heart pounding trembling absolutely
terrified and she closes the door behind
her and then she turns to me with this
huge smile on her face and tells me that
I’ve been accepted into a prestigious
Ivy League university and she picks up
the phone on her desk and she asks me do
you want to call your mom to tell her
the good news and I say no we can’t
afford it
and she says oh and that was it
I went back to class you see I had only
applied to the school just to see if I
could get in I didn’t think I would
actually go I had seen the ridiculous
price tag at the school charged for
tuition and I knew that there was no way
that my family could afford it and so
instead I kept it to myself and said
nothing I ended up going to our in-state
school on a full scholarship and I was
really proud to do that and not be a
burden on my family and then one day
years later I found out that I could
have qualified for financial aid that
would have reduced the sticker price at
this prestigious school to $0 and I
thought back on that moment in my
counselors office and I felt cheated
I felt cheated at that moment when I
could have made a choice but nobody was
there to tell me that I had a choice to
make for the past 10 years I’ve been
working to help coach students the
college admissions process helping them
refine applications and prepare for
tasks like the SAT and a CT this was a
career that I blindly stumbled into when
I needed a part-time job while working
towards my PhD and I saw a Craigslist ad
for test prep tutors I soon found myself
working with people from well-known
political families Hollywood celebrities
even foreign royalty prepare for college
and my advice did not come cheap many of
the families that I worked with spent
thousands and some of them spent tens of
thousands of dollars more than what some
colleges charge for tuition on college
admissions counseling and test prep
tutoring and
mind boggling as this was I soon
realized that there is a reason that
people believe that this advice is worth
paying good money for it is because
college admissions is a shockingly
subjective process to give you a sense
of this I’d like to give you a glimpse
behind the curtain of essentially how
admissions works at a selective
institution imagine that each of these
boxes represents 500 students so 40,000
applicants for say 6,000 seats in the
freshman class now that is an
overwhelming number of applications so
obviously we’re not going to read them
all we’re going to do an initial
computerized review to weed out
applicants who don’t meet basic criteria
so we’re going to cut 21,000 students
off the bat and we’re going to fast
track a thousand through to virtually
guaranteed admission because the
computer has decided well they look
pretty awesome and so now we have about
18,000 students left who are going to
get a more thorough review by human
beings some of those students will be
sorted in this round and to admit and
deny and the remainder will go to what’s
called committee in committee they will
be discussed in greater detail and a
vote will be taken to decide whether to
admit waitlist or deny each student the
thing is going to committee is likely
good news for the students who know how
to tell their stories in a way that will
positively sway admissions officers
committee members will say things like
but look at how much his essay shows how
much he’s changed or I love how well she
tied together her love of computer
science with her passion for the banjo
and others will nod their heads in
agreement and they’ll vote and if enough
hands go up then they’re in and that is
why students who have access to
resources to polish their applications
to perfection have a serious leg up on
those who don’t those are the students
that often get in and others are lost
behind today I’m feeling really
concerned about the state of college
admissions given what we know about the
links between a college education and
social mobility did you know that in the
u.s. today the unemployment rate is
three times higher for high school
graduates who don’t attend college than
for those who do
that after adjusting for inflation high
school only graduates are actually
making less today than their parents did
at their age now although it’s true that
college may not be the only path to
better socio-economic circumstances it
just by far the one paved with the most
statistical assurance but if you
graduate from college today you are
significantly more likely to be
financially better off than if you did
it
now colleges have done a lot of things
to try to improve access to college for
underrepresented minority students and
low-income students they’ve implemented
affirmative action they’ve made
standardized tests like the SAT and ACC
optional they’ve created alternative
admissions methods but recent studies
have shown that none of these policies
have worked on a broad scale to improve
access for less advantaged students
after years of working in private
college prep I felt that I wasn’t doing
enough to help these students the
students who like me were far from well
versed in the nuances of financial aid
and scholarships or who hadn’t learned
the art of crafting themselves in a way
that admissions officers would perceive
as desirable and so today my work on
college admissions has moved online for
the past three years I’ve worked for a
company whose mission is to make college
more accessible by providing free and
low-cost support online to students
preparing for standardized tests like
the SAT and a CT because I’ve now
created college prep content that has
reached millions of young people instead
of dozens I’ve seen firsthand the
immense power of the internet to scale
the distribution of what was previously
insider information if you have any
doubts about the ability of the internet
to reach young people today allow me to
show you a graph of traffic to our
YouTube channel for SAT prep in the past
year guess where students are the night
before they SAT there on YouTube
cramming now clearly we have a teenage
procrastination problem as well but the
point I want to make is if it’s a small
moment that can make a difference a tip
on a college essay a note about a
scholarship that hasn’t received enough
applicants just think about how we can
magnify the scale of those interactions
through the internet now maybe you don’t
think that you’re an expert in college
admissions
if you’ve gone to an institution of
higher education but I think you are
substantially more expert than the
hundreds of thousands of teenagers out
there who want to do the same but don’t
know how right now you can go online and
you can meet teenagers where they are at
on social media on forums on YouTube you
can answer somebody’s question you can
provide encouragement you can tell them
your story you can take ten minutes and
share something you learned at this
conference today that just might change
somebody else’s life internet culture
would call this crowdsourcing
crowdsourcing means sharing the labor
amongst a large community to achieve a
cumulative result crowdsourcing college
admissions means meeting today’s young
people where they are at online and
finding better ways to help them reach
the resources that they need online the
Internet is a safe space a safe and
anonymous space for students who are
less advantaged to seek help where they
won’t feel judged for lacking the
knowledge and experience that those from
more privileged classes are born into
access to information is a privilege and
if you are privileged enough to have
information that can help someone on the
path to better socio-economic
circumstances then today’s technology
means you have the ability to share it
so my question for you is how are you
using the most powerful information
distribution tool ever invented to help
those who need it the most
thank you
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