How To Build A Strong College Profile| Indian Students@admittedlypodcast

0:00 [Music] [Applause] [Music] The issue is that it's not a race. And I think one of the challenges in the Indian system, for example, is that it is very kind of like hierarchical and score-based. You're not going to win most times by being the best. Admissions officers are usually very highly trained, highly educated people. They see what you're doing. And so what I advocate to my Indian students >> in your experience, how different are Indian students from students uh or profiles that you see across the board?

0:50 Do you see them being similar or being clonish of each other or do you see a lot of diversity or do you see very academic strong academic focus? H how do you define their profiles? You know, it's funny because every time I speak with with um uh you know, somebody who's who's an education expert around the world and they all they always feel like, okay, like our students are completely different and categorized like this. And the reality is that in the broader pool, there are many many students that look alike. And and here's the problem. When you're dealing with highly selective admissions, when your admit rates are, you know, four three four 5%. Right? The issue is that it's not a race and I think one of the challenges in the Indian system for example is that it is very kind of like hierarchical and score-based and so there's this drive to okay if I can cross that line I make it to the next level and and what sometimes is hard for for and not just Indian students every student American students Chinese students whatever to understand that in in highly selective admissions you're crafting a class. So there's no there's no line that you have to get above, right? It's as the head of admissions, you're looking at the pool and saying, "Okay, what is it that I want to craft?

2:11 So I might take somebody with lower scores, but who is deeply interesting in this way, and I think that they bring something to the class, but I might take this person with, you know, outstanding scores because they're going to bring some intellectual horsepower to the class." And so it's building this this class. I mean, think about 1,200 seats on 50,000 applications, right? There's you could fill the class with perfect SAT, perfect ACT, and perfect GPA, but then be a very boring monochromatic class, right? And so, you really want to what the the message that I have for Indian students because we're talking to Indian students is you you're you're not going to win most times by being the best. You're going to win by being unique. And this is one of the biggest challenges that I have sometimes with the Indian students because a the academic system is so intense and so rigorous that it takes up an enormous part of their time.

3:11 >> Yes. >> And then the question is okay, how do I distinguish myself outside of that? And we have this insidious passion project that's kind of pervaded the concept of admissions which admissions officers hate. They tell you they hate it. They tell you don't do it, but it doesn't. And a lot of this, quite frankly, is driven by parents. And I'm a parent, so I get this, right? I have a a high school junior. I have an eighth grader who just went through the boarding school admissions process. And um you know, parents hear things from other parents and and it's peer pressure, right? And and I understand that. But things like passion projects, people see right through that. And what you see then is you see a lot of because these communities are so tightly knit in India for example the you know the top 2% or 1% that that you're working with they're so tightly knit that these rumors kind of gain traction and credibility and so everybody is paying for research and paying for a passion project and paying for a volunteer project and it's like okay admissions officers are usually very highly trained highly educated people, they see what you're doing, but and so then these students get admitted not because of these things, but despite them. So admissions officers are like, you know what, they're really interesting. We see through that passion project, but they have other things that we think are really neat, great recommendations. We're going to take them. But then that becomes a validation for the mythology, if that makes sense.

4:40 And everybody's like, well, >> you know, Monty got in and she did this, so we have to do that. And so what I advocate to my Indian students, the same thing I advocate to all of my students, have courage. Have courage to to take the road less traveled. Have courage to do something that is not conventional and you will stand out far more than the tens of thousands of other students with a similar profile who are grinding out trying to do the same thing better.

5:10 Tell me tell me a profile that really stood out for you for someone who didn't take the road less traveled or someone who did take the road less traveled. um you know I mean whenever I whenever I think about my Indian students um you know there there's one in particular who stands out who's an MBA candidate but I think that the lesson here is is um applicable at all levels and um I got a note from a professor saying hey listen I I know you're in Mumbai can you do me a favor take 10 minutes have a coffee with this young man um he's very unique he seems smart he's blind um but can you just meet him for coffee. It was friend of my wife's and you know it it would mean a lot to me. I said of course I I love doing this. So I sit down with this with this young man for coffee and he blew me away. He was so smart. He had a whole story especially you can imagine India 20 years ago you know accommodations disability accommodations not really at a point that they probably should have been. And so he told this very interesting story, not from a like self-pittitying standpoint, but like okay, here here's what I had to overcome. Here's how I did it. Here's a person that took a chance on me and um you know talked about how he wanted to study at Wharton because there was a learning team modality and he knew he needed that because even though he had all this software to like read the books and do the work, he's like I need a supportive team. So I went back to the school and I said, "Listen, I need faculty committee approval for this because it it's going to be, you know, a different thing." And they all looked at his academics and they were like, "Yeah, I mean, he's super smart, great recommendations. Let's try it." And he came, he was an absolute star and he has been advocating for he he went on to be a rockstar trader in London. He's he's killing it. And um, you know, has gone on to be an advocate for those with with disabilities, with blindness. he's raised a lot of money for that. Just a really thoughtful, intense, amazing person. And so, you know, stories like that where they're they're creating their own path and doing their own thing is um you know, in his case, he was kind of driven to do that um I think resonated really well. And with Indian students, you have kind of also two large buckets, right? You have the overseas boarding school bucket and you have the kind of domestic staying in India bucket. So for the boarding school ones, the one the students that I find that are successful are the ones who aggressively try new things who get to boarding school and they're like, you know what, I'm not going to do what everybody else is doing. I'm not going to do the same things that all my friends are doing. I'm going to try some new things. And they're getting involved either outside of the boarding school or they're trying new sports. Um, I've had I've had students go uh and one young lady in particular, tiny, who were probably 100 pounds, soaking wet, um, decide she was going to row crew because it wasn't something that was available.

8:05 And she was like, "Yeah, I'm going to challenge myself and try that." Ended up on the on the girls varsity boat, ended up being captain just because everybody was like, "We thought you were going to be the coxin, but you ended up being one of the rowers. Never seen anybody work so hard." And um you know it's those kinds of things where they stand out and now they have an interesting story to tell right the um my Indian student uh Indian student for example who in um in India you know you get a lot of family influence right and so it's very hard sometimes to discern what is real and what is not and so the ones who are able to either leverage that really and get real third-party outside recommendation saying yes this young person you know yes there was an introduction But they came, they worked, they earned the respect of the managers, the faculty, whatever it is, they really dug in. Here are concrete examples. Those students stand out significantly because the recommendations really do matter. And the only way you can earn those recommendations is quite frankly by earning them. And I know it sounds weird, but when you've read thousands or tens of thousands of recommendations, you know very quickly the ones that matter and the ones that are written by the student or written by the parent and given to the, you know, important official to sign, >> right? It's interesting that you say that and you said that earlier on that grades matter. Uh but how you packaged the whole thing and your uniqueness or your unique thumbrint matters the most.

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