They say the road to success is paved with many failures. They also say that sometimes it gets worse before it gets better. This is often the case when a student starts consulting elsewhere and comes to us. There are many good consulting 유학원 s. But there are also many that lack the quality and expertise to properly guide students.

전ㅇㅇ came to me through a former student. He was enthusiastic and his mom was as genuine a person as I have ever met. Immediately he started to tell me about all the wonderful things he had done. Before he got too far, I interrupted him and asked why he was telling me all these things he had done. That is, everything was going great with his current consultant, why was he here talking to me.

The mom calmly explained that his current consultant was his former SAT instructor and was not necessarily and 전문 consultant. 전ㅇㅇ too wanted some validation as to whether his current focus was right and whether his current activities would actually help. Knowing now, why they were here and what I could do to help them, I opened my file, started taking notes and listened very carefully.

전ㅇㅇ was involved in the following activities:

Music Tutoring Writing an art research paper Planning a trip to Cambodia Working on a business plan through the school’s

business club and 5-7 different activities, all in different areas

I asked the obvious question, “Why are your activities so scattered all over the place? Do you not know what you want to do? Do you not know yourself?” 전ㅇㅇ looked confused and when I asked again, he suddenly looked downcast. He mumbled that his consultant had guided him thus. Then the mom explained that the consultant had told them that 전ㅇㅇ must be “well-rounded” and they had tried to cover all their holes or weaknesses. This philosophy has been around for a long time but died years ago as admissions applications increased and admissions committees permanently changed the way they approached applications.

The idea behind creating a well-balanced application is to show that the student has no glaring weaknesses, that he can do everything and is good at everything. That he is a balanced individual and a good citizen. It’s a nice idea, but it doesn’t work. What that idea creates in the end is a boring student. One that looks like every other student and doesn’t answer the main questions admissions officer are asking.

Theme vs. Well-Balanced

Many consultants, high school teachers, counselors and parents think that because success in life requires a well-balanced approach, so success in college admissions does as well. Not so. This philosophy has been around for a long time but died years ago as admissions applications increased and admissions committees permanently changed the way they approached applications.The idea behind creating a well-balanced application is to show that the student has no glaring weaknesses—that he can do everything and is good at everything. That he is a balanced individual and a good citizen. It’s a nice idea, but it doesn’t work. What that idea creates in the end is a boring student. One that looks like every other student and doesn’t answer the main questions admissions officers are asking.

Admissions officers want to know three things: 1) Who are you? Do you know yourself? What is your identity? Are you self-aware? 2) Why you? Why should we pick you over the other 50,000 applicants? What makes you different? 3) Why do you want to come to our school? A well-balanced student, in most cases, doesn’t seem to know who he is. Worse, he doesn’t answer the second question at all. The only way to answer the questions properly is to create a clear and compelling theme.

Admissions officers want to know three things: 1) Who are you? Do you know yourself? What is your identity? Are you self-aware? 2) Why you? Why should we pick you over the other 50,000 applicants? What makes you different? 3) Why do you want to come to our school? A well-balanced student, in most cases, doesn’t seem to know who he is. Worse, he doesn’t answer the second question at all. The only way to answer the questions properly is to create a clear and compelling theme.

I explained this to 전ㅇㅇ and he started crying. Actually, he was weeping and I was stunned. Then I felt sorry (had I been too honest?). I looked at the mom and she was stunned as well. I tried to comfort him and told him that we still have some time so let’s do our best. The mom asked if I would take him on as a student and I told them that I would think about it over the week. But in the meantime, we could email and for the next few days I would help as much as I could. Honestly, the student’s extracurriculars looked so thinly spread out, I knew it would be hard to create a strong theme, so I was hesitant.

However, over the next few days, the student called, emailed and texted me several times. He impressed me with his conscientiousness, assertiveness and sense of responsibility. He won me over and we decided to work together. The first thing we did was to take out all the little activities that didn’t fit anywhere. Then we discussed his passions, interests, main hobbies and activities. I looked over his questionnaires and talked in detail with both his parents about his personality and dreams.

After a month it became clear that 전ㅇㅇ was a very idealistic student with tons of dreams about the future. He was also quite a leader. We decided to run for student council president. He also took over Red Cross as President. He campaign for student council was “Reaching Out to the World.” And he talked about creating and supporting service clubs that got students involved in global causes not just ones in the school or in the neighborhood. To set an example he started Amnesty International at his school.

In the meantime, he focused on his test scores but it was very difficult. In spite of his best efforts, his SAT I score stayed below 2000. His GPA was continuing to increase and was at a 3.9. So his overall Academic Index looked decent, although not great. We would really have to make a clear, strong and compelling theme to win over the admissions officers.

After a month of hard work campaigning, 전ㅇㅇ was elected student council president. His natural charisma, well thought-out strategies and hard work had paid off. He spent 25-30 hours a week on the three main activities and out of that we developed a “Servant Leader” theme. A leader that doesn’t brag or show off, but one that serves others to create a better society.

Fast forward to application time and 전ㅇㅇ was deferred from UPenn, his first choice. We applied to all schools that look for leaders and students involved in service activities. In April, I got the message that 전ㅇㅇ was waitlisted from UPenn. We got to work again and wrote a long letter reiterating his desire to go to UPenn. We updated the committee on recent accomplishments, e.g. he recently held a cookie drive and got over 200 signatures for an Amnesty campaign supporting free speech in China. Finally, we attached a recommendation from the Dean of Students at his school.

Two weeks later, I was elated and a bit shocked to hear that 전ㅇㅇ had gotten off the waitlist and was accepted to UPenn. He jokingly asked me whether, since he was also accepted to UC Berkelely, which school he should choose.