Jonathan Hughes: [00:00:00] Huh. Are you looking at colleges? Have you given any thought to where you might want to apply? Maybe not a specific school, but what kind of school do you want to apply to? Big school, little school in the country, school in the city. What are you going to study? Do you know?

What about your friends? Where are they going? Don’t you talk to them about it? What’s your major? What do you want to do for work anyway? Have you thought about that? Don’t they talk to you about that in school? What’s the matter? Okay. Now, obviously, I was doing a bit. That was how not to start talking to your students about their college plans.

You’re stressing them out and they’re stressed as it is. And too much well-meaning, but definitely loaded questioning can be counterproductive. What should you do [00:01:00] instead? Funny you should ask. Our old friend, Drew Carter, from College of the Holy Cross, has some thoughts about it. Now, here’s what he had to say about why exposure is better than questioning.

Drew Carter: I think one of the things that we sometimes get wrong as adults is that we think the best way to help is by asking these teenagers, whether they’re a 10th grader or 11th grader, sometimes a 12th grader. We think we can help by basically asking them questions. Do you want to go to a big school or a small school?

Do you want to live on campus or off campus? What do you want to study when you get to college? What do you want to do after college? These sort of questions that we think a- as adults, we think then we can take the list of 4,000 colleges in the US and start to sort them down into a smaller group based on the student’s answers.

But as adults, what we have to remember is we’re asking these students with these questions, we’re asking them their preferences for an experience they’ve never, ever had before. And we’re asking them [00:02:00] preferences with the vocabulary of which they probably don’t understand yet. They don’t really understand what big and small means in college.

They, we’re asking them what they want to study. I’ll use, our flagship university in Massachusetts, UMass. I don’t know, does UMass have 200 majors, 300 majors? I don’t know. But in high school, you study six or seven subjects. So again, we’re asking them questions of, around which they don’t have a vocabulary.

Or preferences about an experience that they’ve never had asking someone who’s never been in a car do you like SUVs or, sedans or sports cars?” It’s not for a lack of care and well-meaning. I think what we really need to do is to provide exposure to these students first-

And hold off on the questions. But what that takes for us as adults is deescalating and in some way reducing the tension and anxiety about what comes behind exposure to colleges. I think sometimes we as adults think you have [00:03:00] to know where you’re going to apply.” And then we’ll call that school and get the admissions office and we’ll schedule a tour and a, “Oh gosh, like, how about we just, we’re on the way back from grandma’s house and we just get off the highway and drive around that college campus for 10 minutes.”

That matters. That’s worth something. And the more of those sort of mini exposures and, under the category of mini exposures, I would list like, okay, a little drive around a college campus on the way home from someplace. Maybe you get out and walk around. Maybe you talk to a neighbor who’s home for the holiday break who’s enrolled at a particular college. Maybe it’s a text exchange with a cousin who’s a recent graduate from a college. Maybe it’s a visit to a website or a social media account or a virtual tour.

Jonathan Hughes: All right. I’m going to break in here for a minute and ask that if you think someone in your life could benefit from this information of what we’re talking about here today, a family member, a friend, a student, a parent, just go ahead and send them this [00:04:00] episode.

I’m also going to be posting a link to Drew’s MEFA webinar, jumpstart to college, where do we even start? This is the re- this is something that I reference from time to time in the interview, and I’ll post that in the show notes. All right, back to it.

Drew Carter: All of these sort of low stakes exposures, they do a few things.

Number one they’re introducing a vocabulary to our high school students. What is big? What is small? What is urban? What does on campus mean? What does off campus mean? And we’re also allowing them to try these things on to start to identify what their preferences might be.

Unfortunately, if we ask them the questions before they’ve had these exposures, sometimes they just fill in answers and they might not be the right answers.

And then we get down a pathway on a college search and application and sometimes enrollment process that has been misguided from the start. So- it’s tough as adults, but I [00:05:00] think fewer questions early, really, and more mini exposures with low stakes that allow the students to develop a vocabulary and a set of preferences that’s more authentic to who they are.

Jonathan Hughes: What about a student who just doesn’t seem motivated, they really maybe don’t know what they want, or they don’t, they, for whatever reason, aren’t feeling motivated to look, or at least that’s the way it seems to apparent.

Drew Carter: Yeah.

Jonathan Hughes: What would you have to say about that?

Drew Carter: I think there are sometimes, I read an article a couple years ago for our website where I talked about I think, especially maybe earlier in the timeline, sometimes it does take a … I know this is audio format and I’m doing a gesture with my hand, but it does take a little bit of a nudge, a little bit of a guiding hand from the trusted adult to, to coax the student along on some experiences.

And then I think you get a sense of okay, what’s going to be a better mode for this student to, to [00:06:00] experience these mini exposures? Is this someone who really does want to get out there and to talk, excuse me, talk to the tour guide or approach the stranger on the college campus? Okay, maybe not.

Then, okay then maybe it’s maybe then it would be if they’re less comfortable with experiences like that, maybe that’s the student who signs onto the webinar that has the students speaking from that particular college- because you can be off camera, and you could ask a question in the chat, and you could just be more of a casual observer, or maybe that’s the student who text their older cousin who’s 24 and graduated two years ago, and you can ask them over text what they liked about the big school they went to and what the downsides were to big schools and what the upside were.

So I think they’re you’re right to ask that question because there is a different level of comfort for every student, and it may change over time. But the more of these mini exposures, and I think also just remembering some are better than others, something is better than nothing.

And if we can just not think of them as so [00:07:00] precious the other thing, I visit campuses and I really encourage people to visit campuses or look at these exposures, even at schools they know they’re not interested in.

Because that 10 minute walk around that campus that’s two minutes from your house or 10 minutes from your house, you might see something that you do like that you would want to look for at a school that you’re more interested in.

Jonathan Hughes: Okay. Not asking too many questions is a good start. Now, there’s another thing that happens, and I am just as guilty of it as anyone.

So I talk to students all the time about fit and which college out of the many hundreds is their ideal fit. That’s academic fit, financial fit, social fit, environmental fit. And if you find a college that actually does fit you like a glove, by all means, go for it. But don’t get hung up on this idea of an ideal fit, Drew tells us why.

Drew Carter: Yeah, I’m just not, I’m not sure I’d buy it. I think [00:08:00] it, it does speak to this idea, from the students part them looking for a school where they might fit. I think it, it’s asking for a sense of internal awareness that gosh, I’m still seeking for as a non-teenager and that’s a pretty high expectation to have.

I think what’s behind that is that we as adults are trying to say, “Where might you be happy? Where might you find success and happiness?” And I think that’s what we’re going for, but we’re going for fit, and then we’re trying to I don’t know, I think narrow these students down into what can be quantified in certain dropdown categories.

I think the intent behind that question about fit from adults and counselors and people like that is is well-meaning. I just think we can change our language a little bit and talk about happiness. And I’m a big believer that most students would be happy and successful at a large number of colleges and universities in the country.

I just think the idea of putting all the [00:09:00] pressure upon finding this school that will deliver happiness and success to you when I think most of that comes from within. And right, there, the truth is we all have so much more in common than folks from the outside world tend to think.

And I think there are, I think Holy Cross is a wonderful school and I think it’s a unique place, but gosh, we are one star amongst a sky full of thousands of stars. And each college university has really many wonderful attributes and many of them we share together. And so it’s about having confidence in that

I don’t like using the word process, but confidence in that process, that discernment conversation that students have internally and externally to find out where they might want to spend the next couple years of their life.

Jonathan Hughes: So there’s probably more than one college that fits, and you don’t have to find the one college that will bring you true happiness and contentment for the next four years, and possibly much longer.

So thank you, Drew, for taking [00:10:00] that off our plates. Here’s another piece of advice for you. You don’t have to start looking with the knowledge of what you want to study. The process of the college search, applying to colleges, is a long one. There’s time. And I feel like the hardest question to answer is the first one, right?

What do you want and what do you want to do and what do you want to be and where do you want to go? Yeah. So how do you recommend students proceed if they don’t know the answer-

Drew Carter: Yeah…

Jonathan Hughes: to those questions?

Drew Carter: It really can impact the search because some schools are going to say to you as an applicant, “You have to apply for a certain major or you have to apply into a certain undergraduate program.”

And for many students, that’s totally fine because either they know the individual major or they know the group of majors or the, the undergraduate college in which they are really looking to enroll, it’s not a problem. Other students either are unsure, are [00:11:00] uncomfortable committing, or are completely clueless, all of which is totally fine, 100% fine because there’s a large range of colleges out there in universities as well that will give students maximum, if not infinite flexibility about what they would study when they enroll.

And so I, I was talking to a student on Tuesday night who said I have a, she said, “I have a problem. I really love Holy Cross, but I really want to be a nurse.” And we don’t have an undergraduate nursing program. And I said to her, “That’s great.” I said you’re only a junior. I think you need to look at schools with nursing programs, and at the same time, I think you need to look at Holy Cross.”

And in 12 months if we’re, if we get to January of your senior year and you say, “Drew, I really wanna be a nurse, then you should go to a school with an undergraduate nursing program.”

Or if you said, “I think I want to be in the medical field, or I’m not sure, I’m thinking about nursing, but I’m not really sure,” then I’d say, “Gosh, you really should apply to Holy Cross [00:12:00] then.”

And I think keeping those options open because the college search process can have such a long sort of tail. It can go over so many months when students are developing and changing and, creating greater awareness. So having a few schools on your list that do require an an, a spoken and identified area of study, and there’s some schools that don’t.

I think having a variety of there so that later in the timeline, you’re in a better position to, to apply to the kind of school that is the best match for where you’re at.

Jonathan Hughes: Now, it’s important to remember that all of this does not happen privately. Acceptances, rejections, wait listing, all of that is hard enough, and we ask our students to go through this process publicly.

Comparing against friends, neighbors, and classmates is a constant stressor. So it’s important that even in those moments with friends, that we find ways to turn the pressure down.

One thing [00:13:00] that I really liked that you spoke about in the webinar is how much you’re silently or not even knowing that we’re doing it expecting of students. In particular, I think we can start with the application process. And I liked when you said it, it’s a very public judgment.

Drew Carter: Yeah.

Jonathan Hughes: So I want to know if you could talk about that a bit.

Drew Carter: It is. I think I actually was speaking on a webinar last night, actually for a community, and I was asked actually, for one final piece of advice for parents and I did make it specific. I said, “I think, I know, again that our heart is in the right place, but when we’re around not just our high school children, but they’re friends- I think we need to stop leading those conversations with, Jonathan, “what schools are you looking at? Where are you thinking about applying? Did you hear that they’re requiring SATs again? Do you think you’re going to apply early there?” And gosh the end result is they’re going to be judged by those [00:14:00] colleges. And I think we need to just be sensitive to the fact that there is an excitement involved with looking at colleges and the future, but in the kids’ mind, there also is a sense of that they eventually will be judged by every school they apply to, and if they acknowledge certain schools to you, then they will know that you know whether you got in or not and, that I sometimes flip it and say, “How would you feel if they just flipped it and said, Oh, Mr. Hughes, what jobs are you applying for right now? You’d say geez, none of your business. And, in some ways that’s what we’re saying. Now, I understand the instinct, right? It’s an exciting moment in their lives. I think we can just pivot that conversation and say Jonathan, if you’re my son’s friend, I might just say “Hey, what an exciting time, what are you excited about for college?”

What excites you about the idea of going to college, if that’s something that’s on your mind and is there anything, something that makes you nervous about going to college and are there opportunities, are you, are there things outside the [00:15:00] classroom? We can make it more personal and much less specific about the actual schools because also remember if a student mentions a school that they’re excited about or a list of schools, they’re also watching your face about how you react to that.

I just think that’s not the best way to lead the conversation. There’s a school I used to spend a lot of time at in Connecticut, a high school. I love this story that Drew’s about to tell. And they had, they did something that lots of schools do in their lunchroom, they would have a French table, okay?

And this was for students who were taking French classes, and there was an immersion experience there at lunch. If you sat at the French table, you’d only speak French. There’d be a little sign there that said French, okay? Not uncommon to find that at certain high schools. They had something similar that the students developed, the French table was from the French teachers.

The students developed something, and it was the upperclassmen, juniors, and seniors, and they made a little sign on one particular lunch [00:16:00] table that said the word college with an X through it. That said, “If you sit at that table at lunch, you are not allowed to talk about SATs, ACTs, and college applications.”

And you would not be surprised that turned from one table- … And two tables into three tables they could not find enough seats. And what that spoke to is that this is a part of their lives that does, tend to carry a little stress and anxiety. And in, in off hours, when they’re eating and when they’re not in school and in the weekends and the nights that they’re around other adults in the community, sometimes they just want to not talk about that thing that’s dressing them out.

And so I think we need to give our teenagers a little grace and understanding, and it doesn’t mean we can’t talk about college to them, but maybe let’s keep the names of schools and the lists and the standardized testing, all that sort of stuff out of those conversations.

Jonathan Hughes: Okay. So last question, imagining a junior [00:17:00] or a sophomore or senior even and maybe their parents listening to this starting, they know that the college search is coming and they need to start. Maybe you’re anxious or clueless or not quite sure. Any final thoughts?

Drew Carter: I’ll just go back to reiterate this, I think the overarching theme, but I think it’s especially at the beginning is to deescalate and not make this so pressure filled or even precious. Let’s just I, this is a metaphor I use in different way. Let’s just start sitting on couches and figure out what kind of couch we like. Let’s just start to get those little mini exposures and don’t worry about if it’s a good school or a bad school, if they got your major or not, let’s just start looking. It comes over time with these little mini exposures that we build the vocabulary, we build the preferences, and let’s

I don’t like to say, “Let’s make this fun, and this should be fun.” But let’s take the tension out of it and the anxiety out of it, particularly at the beginning, [00:18:00] and let’s look at this as an opportunity for an adventure because there is a lot to be learned, and I think about, not just about the outside world, about colleges, but about each of us individually.

Jonathan Hughes: Thanks to Drew Carter. Always a pleasure. And folks, if you liked what you heard, follow us where you’re getting this. Until next time, this is Jonathan Hughes with the MEFA Podcast.