Crafting Your Narrative: Unlocking College Admissions

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jessie rothwell podcast.m4a

Transcript

Hi and welcome to the You World Order Showcase podcast. Today we have with us Jesse Rothwell. She's the founder of Wavemaker Words LLC, which helps students craft admissions essays out of their individual life experiences. And.

Views her approach is based on the belief that when it comes to college admission essays, well, there may be no new story under the Sun, students can differentiate themselves in their writing with 20 years of experience and more.

Are writing and editing and a handful of publications. Jesse helps her clients to avoid the common pitfalls of sounding cookie cutter and personal riding by getting their hyper, getting them hyper trouble with that word. Today hyper specific and personal and creation of their story. Welcome to the podcast Jesse. It's delightful.

Have you with us?

Thank you so much. I'm so.

Glad to be here.

How did you?

How did you get into being a?

A writing coach for admissions? That's kind.

Of like a.

Really specific thing.

It is, it is and and I you know, the truth is that I don't feel that I want to limit myself to only doing that. But but there is there is a trajectory and and.

It it really, you know, in a way it goes back to me as a kid. I was always I was always a Renaissance kind of person. I was always a musician and a writer and a storyteller. And I think, you know, the things that were most important to me were.

Play and having fun and learning and creation and stories and.

And then sort of, you know what came a little bit after that when I was maybe not ten years old, but a little older was, you know, wanting to connect and and help. Yeah. Right. 10 1/2 was wanting to connect with with people and and help them particularly, you know, give them space.

10.

1/2.

To create and express right and I grew up in a in a very service oriented family. I grew up in a family of teachers and other, you know, kinds of.

Public service workers and I went to you know, I I went to school thinking I was going to study English or psychology, and then I I wound up studying music and I fell into, you know.

After undergrad I I fell, you know, into winding up, you know, doing a lot of composing of music. And then I went to school in LA. I went to school in Los Angeles and.

It was right after grad school that I got a job in the LA Philharmonic as a writer, as a marketing writer for the LA Philharmonic. And.

That was a great fit in terms of, you know, taking the the music knowledge I had and being able to write about it in this very conversational way. You know, some amount of formality, but really trying to write for lay people who were not classical music buffs.

And I just, I loved that form of writing.

And I, you know, I and then then sort of tried to get other writing jobs and it was it was kind of a a brutal harsh world, real world, you know thing because I was never finding the things that were creative and and fun for me and paid right so I could find the things that were creative and.

Done for me and I could find some things that paid but they but they never seem to match up and.

And then I came. So I was in LA for a long time, and then I came back to DC, which is where I'm from. And when I came back to DC, I I I really doubled down and started doing a lot more writing. And I had gone through, you know, a lot of difficult crap I had floated around. I had been through some trauma.

And I started writing essays in a way that I just, you know, I had always written poems and other things, but I had never really written these personal essays. And it felt so revelatory. It just. It felt so good and so necessary.

And to delve into these experiences and to pull up some of the most painful stuff and to write it very plainly and openly and straightforwardly and.

You know, I was always somebody who kept a journal from age 10 or something, but you know, now I was writing these true things and putting them out. And I think that that just that just I, you know, I I feel like it sort of changed the trajectory of what I was wanting to do with other people and I think.

You know, I had this writing teacher around that time who said, you know, telling the truth is, is addict.

It's.

And it's it's just very, very that resonated hugely. And so I think that as I thought you know, in terms of creating my own business, because again, I could never quite find the right, you know, position in terms of creating my own business, I felt like.

Helping people with this particular form made sense and you know where are people having to write essays, you know, in various places? Do I, you know, do I want to help people with their blog posts? Sure. Do I want to help people, you know, put something out on a.

Literary magazine? Yes, absolutely. But that's not, like, necessarily at the top of everybody's list, right versus. Yeah, it should be. You're right, it should be. But if only if only the world just valued, you know, writing essays, but.

Should be.

But kids have to do this. You know, if they're, if they're going to certain not just colleges, but other, you know, if they're applying to private high schools or if they're applying to summer programs or if they're applying.

Going to, you know, internships or whatever, you know, all the. What's that? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. For grants for. Exactly. For grad school for whatever. And and I. And I think that it's such a powerful tool.

Plants or all kinds of things for grants for all kinds of things in the world.

For oneself, for healing and for self-awareness and understanding and and if I can insert that into the process that I feel like you know is the bane of a lot of people's existence, then I get to make it, you know, not necessarily the most fun thing they ever did, but but.

Like.

A journey, right? A journey of discovery and of self discovery.

And and really, you know, this is something that, you know, when I was when I was in high school, I think that there were a lot of kids who maybe, you know, like today hated doing the the college essay stuff. And I loved it. And I couldn't wait to like, you know, think about all of the things that I might want to write about.

I.

But.

I was a kid who struggled with, you know, being shy and inward and quick to feel embarrassment of feelings. A lot of anxiety and.

A lot of you know sort of rejection sensitivity and and stuff like that and.

And overwhelmed with change and and really what I realized, you know, way later after high school, is that I'm very much have ADHD and that if I had had somebody like me now when I was in high school, I just think that even though I loved writing the essay like, I just think that the whole process would have been, would have been better. So.

I think it's an amazing, amazing offer that you're making to people and and kids especially. I don't think they're prepared in high school to to writing an essay is more than just saying this is what happened to me. It's it's about pulling people into a story.

And everybody needs to have personal stories that they tell and in business and in life. And, you know, over the years we.

Exactly.

You know when you get older, you have lots of stories.

And you like to tell them.

To your, your kids and your grandkids when you've got the like trapped at the table holidays. Yeah, but.

But when you're young, you don't really understand that you're you're at the beginning and you need to learn how to tell a story and how to draw the the reader into the situation and involve all their senses so that they can really relate to what you're talking about. And that's the way you're going to get them to notice you over the next person that comes.

So long, and if you've got somebody sitting there saying maybe you need to add some metaphors here and maybe you need to refer to some of this other stuff over here.

MHM.

And let's package it.

Up and there's there's outlines for how to structure these things and you know, yeah, you can Google it, but it's.

It's very different to Google something versus having somebody who knows the ropes and knows the ends and outs and knows how to make it sound like a piece of music. Which is it really does become like music.

If you can, if you can tell a story well.

I love that you said that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love that. You said all of that. I love, you know, especially the obviously the music piece because that's, you know, I am both a musician and a writer. And when I, you know, when I'm writing something for me that I want to publish, like on, you know.

If I'm, you know, if I ever can get published at, you know, the New York Times or the Atlantic or something like that, right, like.

As I'm editing, I am reading it out loud and I am thinking about the the rhythm of the language and the music of the language. So you're, I mean it's, you know, the content of the story is important and the writing makes it the music, right. I also love what you said about.

It does. It's it's like the different threads.

Yeah.

Yeah, I also love what you said about how about kids, not.

Being taught this and and it's really it's something that I think I didn't realize until I really you know, started editing kids essays which is that I think a lot of them sort of think that this is like an English assignment kind of essay or like a.

You know.

I don't know. I don't know all of the, you know, it's been a long time since I've been in high school. Whatever. But so I don't know all of the kinds of assignments that that they have to do in English, but I feel like, you know, this is not, you know, a term paper. This is not, you know, a a book report. This is not, you know.

All these things and and it's also not.

A place for them to.

Sort of. Just list their accomplishments like it's it's.

You know it, it really is a personal essay and the whole thing is that admissions officers want.

Pick one.

To know who you are and.

That's it. And it and it. And and it doesn't have to be. I mean, you know, you said something else about something that I'm forgetting. What you said exactly. But it reminded me that, yeah, it doesn't have to be something major. It doesn't have to be something, you know, huge about your life. And I think that's something that, you know, kids get.

Stuck on ohh my gosh, I'm only 17. You know? What am I supposed to write about? Like nothing has happened right yet.

And then you kind of realized that the essay can be about.

Anything, as long as you're inserting your.

What you care about and your values and your.

You know your essence in as much as you can on the page.

You could write about your future self.

You can write about.

You could make up a story.

Your future self.

About who you want to become and as long as you make it compelling and you know, like you start with.

You can you can.

There I am sitting in this board off the boardroom and there's, you know, the the big table and all these people are around. They're all looking at me waiting for my next comment about whatever The thing is that they want to go to college for. And then you backtrack to. But no, I'm sitting here writing this essay about.

Right, right. Right, right. Yes.

And you know, at my desk and you know, on my on my laptop that I really need to replace before I start college because it's kind of rickety and the the letters are all worn off. Yeah. From rewriting this essay over and over again, you know, it just, it doesn't have to be super serious.

Yeah.

All that has to do is tell the the the the admissions people that, hey, I'm human, which is, you know, they're one of your your phrases. I'm a human being. I didn't get this off the ChatGPT and and I'm. I'm trying to to let you know how quirky.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So exactly, yeah.

I am or how serious I am or or how dedicated I am or you know.

Or.

How hilarious I am, right? Yeah.

Who are you and?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. What's my sense of humor? What's my deepest fear? What's you know, just draw that person in and say, hey.

Yeah.

Look under the hood. This is who I am.

And it just has to be a quick snapshot. It doesn't have to be.

Yeah, it's a snapshot. That's a good way.

Super.

To put it, it's just not.

Super elaborate. You don't have to impress.

Them.

Right, right, exactly. I mean, I've had, you know, I've seen essays where kids wrote about, you know, doing a jigsaw puzzle.

I've seen essays where kids wrote about.

Like fixing a car like they can be about really small snapshot moments. And I actually think that a lot of those really small, small snapshot moments can show something bigger and more universal than if you're trying to tackle, you know, this is my whole life, right.

Like if you're trying to tackle this is my whole life. I mean, God, that's impossible, right? But even even at age 17. But if you're if you're sort of biting off this little this little piece, it it just it can reveal so much.

Yeah.

Way more than if you're trying to tell them the whole story.

Exactly.

And and a lot of it's just drawing them in exactly.

Exactly. Exactly. Yeah, because the admissions officers, I mean, the admissions officers read.

Like thousands and thousands, like 100,000 words in a year or something crazy like that.

And imagine, you know, they just want.

They just want to see something that they don't see time after time after time.

So it's.

And everybody that's applying for college has, you know.

Not to say that.

Their list of things that they have accomplished because you have to accomplish a certain number of things just to get there and everybody's done it. So you don't need to tell them that again. They just assumed that part, they want to know something. What makes you unique, what makes you tick.

Right.

Right. What makes you tick? Yeah. And. And it's not to say that you can't write about.

You know your hobbies, you know.

I don't know. I play piano, right? Like you. It's not that you can't write about that. Even though of course they're going to. The admissions officers are going to see other essays about I play piano or I'm in this musical group or I'm I play soccer or whatever. But they again, you know, the the more you can sort of.

Bring together.

Different things about you that sort of add up to I'm I'm, you know, me the better.

Yeah.

It's taking I play the piano and I play soccer and I do this and I do that and I do the other thing and saying how can I tell them I play the piano without saying I play the piano?

Go from there.

M.

Without ever actually mentioning I play the piano, let them walk away from that.

Piece knowing that not only do you play the piano, but this is what you love about it and this is how it's it made a difference in your life and it has shaped who you are and.

That's the important part. That's the important part. Yeah, yeah.

And that's how you separate yourself from others. And that's why you need a coach. I mean, at 17, your parents aren't going to help you do this because your parents don't know.

And that's, I mean that's another that's honestly a big piece of what I am trying to do is to get the parents to **** out. You know, it's really it can be really hard. First of all, I I do actually like to call myself a mentor rather than a coach, partly because I I.

When I hear Coach, I think, you know, sort of sports coach and for whatever reason, you know, that just doesn't vibe. And I like the word mentor. But in terms of parents.

Uh.

You know that's a tricky 1 because a lot of parents think.

Ohh I I went through this so I can help them right? I I I've done this so I can help them and there are various reasons why.

You know that. It's just, yeah. Why? That's just not a good idea. And and it's not only because they went through it 20 years or 30 years ago.

They're wrong.

So it's also because they're too close to it, right? It's.

And they want you to be like the they want you to brag because the more you brag, the better they feel about themselves in the job that they.

Sure, some of them absolutely want you to brag. Some of them think that you know.

Did with you.

That they can, you know, just sort of make it sound better. Whether or not that's about bragging. They can make it sound better than you can. And and there's just, you know, there's just a lot of reasons why the parents should stay.

A mile away and.

It's.

And it's funny because some kids, you know, some kids won't let their parents come near it. And and that's great. You know that the, the, the kids are able to draw that that line, that boundary and some kids are like Oh my God, I need, you know. Yeah, I need you. I need you and and that's.

Where I try to sort of.

Subtly insert myself and say you know what, if you what? If you know? What if they could see it at the end but not?

Until that, you know.

Yeah, the the whole.

Drawing the picture and putting the sheet over it. Don't be amazed. Yeah, yeah.

I can I.

Can see that and I've I've helped my own kids craft essays and speeches. And the first thing I I always tell them is just go put some words on the piece of paper. I don't care what they say. Just put stuff down.

Yeah.

And the more that you put down, the better we can always pull stuff out, but it's really hard to.

Bad.

So just go start writing.

Yep, it's much.

Easier to it's much easier to take away. Absolutely. And that, I mean, you know, you've just totally encapsulated exactly how I start with kids, you know, which is.

You know, we we usually have like, a conversation about their interests and things like that and.

And and they've, you know, hopefully they I've given them some some stuff to do before ever meeting and so they're coming with some stuff but really at that point you know it is about.

Just going off and writing a bunch of crap and that's how I put it, you know? Go write a bunch.

Crap.

And it's going to be crap.

And.

You know, talking to your phone and then let it transcribe with word or something.

There are prompts.

Yeah. And that's actually another, you know, you're you're really hitting them because that's another thing I exact I say exactly is.

This is, you know, and this gets to one of the things you said in your introduction of me, you know.

This is about a story and you want to tell it the way you would tell a friend you're not. Again, this is not an English paper, right? And you want to tell it in this compelling way. And often.

What are the most you know how how?

If you're feeling scared or stifled or blocked or or or any of these things, you know what are the the best ways to.

Kind.

Of get through that or jump over it is to think about how you talk to your friends. You know, how would you tell a story sitting around a campfire? How would you tell a story, you know, sitting on your best friend's bed when you're.

Having a sleepover, right? That's how you want to tell it and.

It's a great it's a great first kind of run exercise to.

Set up a microphone and recorder and literally, you know, talk to a friend and just tell it.

You know, one of the things I do outside of, you know, outside of work stuff is, is I actually do get up on stages and tell stories like, you know, like the moth.

And these other there's lots of storytelling series and shows and.

And and that's, you know, one of the things about doing that is that it's really better if you never write those stories down because that if you know, the more you write down, the more you feel like you have to memorize, right. And I mean, this is obviously a a different thing than writing an essay, but.

There are. There are ways and it starts there exactly. And so there are ways in which you know, you just sort of tell it and record it and then you tell it again and you record it and you tell it again and you record it. And each time it it sort of polishes.

But it starts there.

Some.

Yeah, I love that. I love that. So how do people find you? And how do you find your clients?

Yeah, that's a good question. So I you know, I I am on social media. I don't I sort of don't have as much of A social media presence as I'd like to. And I'm I'm trying to get there.

UM.

I do have two different websites and the website that you know is is the relevant one in this case is wavemaker words.com. So it's that's pretty easy. Wig maker words.com and really it's a lot of word of mouth this this world.

I you know, I talked to a lot of parents. I grew up in DC, so I and I'm here now. Obviously that doesn't mean I can't help anybody around the world. I can. But in terms of sort of reach out because I went to high school here, you know, I have, I have some.

Connections to teachers and parents here what are other other things you know PTA's.

Other other places where moms hang out, you know, one of the tricky things about this business is that the person.

Who I'm serving is not, not is not usually the person who's paying right. And so it's sort of that, like weird thing where like, I'm talking to the kids. But I'm also talking to the parents.

And you know.

You gotta sell the parents, and then you're gonna help the kids.

Yeah, yeah. And not. And not to say I like, I also want a buy in from the kids. Like I don't, you know, I really don't want the parents to hire me and then have the.

Kid, be like I don't wanna work with you.

Right. But but.

Yeah, yeah.

That being said, you know it's it's oftentimes, you know, the kid thinks I can just do this on my own and then they're not necessarily doing it.

And and that's where you know, I can kind of come in and hopefully like provide it a safe space because maybe they're just.

I don't know. Like freaked out or or embarrassed or or whatever.

And those are usually high. Achieving kids that feel like they should be able to do it on their own. Like, you know, they they haven't reached the point in their life where they understand you gotta have people, everybody that somebody has people and knowing how to hire the right people for the job that you need.

Definitely.

Yeah.

Done. That's like step one in getting places in this world.

Yeah.

That's a really good point. Yeah, that's a really good point. And I think, yeah, that is something that I feel like a lot of, especially kids in this area in DC, I mean, DC is an incredibly educated city. And, you know, lots of private schools and and all of that. And I think, you know, there are so many high achieving kids.

To it. You're right. It they're. They're like, well, this is just something, you know, this is just something I have to do and or, you know.

Schools will help, right? Schools can help and and it's true, schools have resources to help. But.

In bigger schools, they're very stretched. You know, they're very stretched thin in terms of the ability to to give individual individualized attention and.

Yeah. And if you really want to set yourself apart, you're not going to do the same thing that everybody else is doing because you're going to get the same results everybody else is.

I don't know.

That's good.

Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. And and and again, this is not something I like to to, you know, this is the thing about the coaching world is that it can be like I don't I I don't want to be like.

Getting.

If you want to be.

Predatory about it or or sort of used car salesman about it or something, but at the same time, you know it's. It is easy to.

Realize like, OK, you know this kid, this kid is spending X number of hours and effort and whatever on this and this kid is spending like way more. You know who's got the better shot. Right. So it is it is sort of a.

What? What are you going to? How much do you value this right?

Yeah, and.

There has to be some buy in from the kids too, not not just the parents. I mean, there's there's a certain group of parents I would imagine that are just like, yeah, whatever we're going to do to help our kid get into the very best schools that we can because, you know, that means that they're going to have XY and Z opportunities.

Yeah.

And they get out and and they're really, they're really, like pushing on the kid. But unless the kid themselves wants this.

You know, and that that's there's sometimes a big disconnect between what kids want and what parents want for their kids.

100,000% true. And that reminds me. That makes me think of the fact that, you know, this is something that I feel very strongly about is that.

Kids should not not be applying to the schools that their parents want them to apply to because their parents want them to apply to them right and.

You know, I definitely have experienced a lot of parents who are like, OK, you know, my kids going to an Ivy and the kids like, I don't want to do that, you know, like I maybe it's not that they don't want to go to an Ivy, but they want to go somewhere else because of something else. Right. And and that's a.

I feel like as an as a writing mentor or as a as a, you know.

Someone who works with teenagers and young adults, I I think that it's really important for kids to realize.

They do not have to go to an Ivy to get a good education. They do not have to go to a highly selective school.

To come out of that school and have opportunities like it's it's, I don't know, it's it's really something.

You don't actually have to go to college to have good opportunities. Opportunities exist. Yeah, everywhere, all the time. It's just like.

You really don't even have to go to college.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

There's so much opportunity that it's really a matter of just pick one thing and and do it for.

A.

While see where you see where you live. But I do understand that there are a group of people that you know their kids don't have any choice. They're going to college. It's just a matter of which college are you going to go to. And you can have that fight with your parents. But.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Mm-hmm.

You're going because they said so.

Yeah, yeah. And you know.

At least in some cases like I know more parents nowadays than I did back when I was going to college. I know more parents nowadays who are at least saying, you know. Ohh yeah, take a gap year right? Or or do something else for a little bit and then and then you have to go right. But it's true you don't, you know.

This is one of the things about me as a writing mentor or or, you know, a writing teacher or a tutor or whatever that you know, I want to make it clear like.

I wanna help you with with writing and I wanna help you with expressing yourself and I wanna help you. You know, Polish things and get them perfect on the page. But it doesn't have to be for college, you know, it can be. It can be for that summer program or whatever. Like it can or. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

We're getting a job or no.

You do need to have your signature story. Everyone needs a signature story and everyone needs a conversion story, and the two are not the.

Yeah.

That is true.

That is true.

But they need to be stories. That, and you need a handful of them that you tell in different situations so that you know you can.

Help your audience. Whoever that audience is, whether it's an employer or an admissions Rep or or whatever, understand who you are. Fundamentally invite them into your life. Give them a small snapshot.

And.

Yeah.

This is who I am.

Yep.

Let me tell you a.

Story.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's really fun. You know, when you get to.

It's such a privilege to be part of that. You know, for people, I think it's.

It's really special to.

To kind of draw things out of people who might not.

Just have it coming out of them. You know the way that it does that of some people and I'm not saying that I I don't want to help the others as well. It's but it's it's just very.

I.

Cool.

I totally get this and I think it's an amazing thing I I.

Just recently it developed my own signature story and it I've been working on it for like a year and a half.

Oh really?

Wow, that's a while.

I knew a year and a half ago I needed this, and I've been, you know, drafts and thinking about it and doing this and doing that. But it wasn't until I hired a coach and this is how you put it together. And I have a couple of coaches that.

Uh-huh.

Yeah.

OK.

OK.

I talked to and they're like, you know, think about this structure and think about these things and and start here and this is how it needs.

OK.

To flow and.

You know, and when you get all the pieces, then the writing of it.

Yeah.

And the telling of it, it becomes super simple and you don't have to memorize it, memorize it, but you do have certain points that.

Yeah.

You're beach, right? You're yeah, yeah.

You have the beat and and you weave the melody into the beat.

Yeah.

Exactly, exactly. It's a good way to put it. That's so cool. I am. You know, I've worked on signature story stuff as well.

It's, you know, there's different kinds of signature stories and it's it's it's kind of ohh sorry, that's my phone. I'm going to shut that off and it's it's.

I don't know. It's interesting to kind of.

Think about like, what is what are you sort of playing up in that signature story, right, because you it can be like.

Here's the struggle story, and here's the like Soapbox story and those I think those are the two that I think of, right? It's either it's either like on my signature story comes from this struggle that I had and and, you know, versus like, my signature story comes from, you know, this is something I just believe in. Right. And I don't think that they're mutually exclusive.

But it just it's it's interesting.

I have a signature story that's an about an event, a life changing event.

Oh really?

OK. Well, that's so cool.

And it it moves into.

An illustration of the power of something.

Ohh I definitely wanna read that or hear it. Please please please and I'm really curious like how I mean you kind of touched on this a minute ago, but I'm really curious sort of how people drew you, drew it out of you or or you know what, what the coaches that you weren't coach or coaches that?

I'll read.

To you later.

You.

Worked with. You know what they what?

How they helped, I'm just.

You know.

I'll share with you later.

Yeah, I.

Love it. So how do?

People get in touch with you to work with you.

Well, you can e-mail me of course at Jessie. Jess i.e. At wavemakerwords.com. If you go to my website, there's a there's a handy dandy little pop up, you know freebie and that will put you on my.

On my radar mailing list you can find me on Instagram, although that's just that's not my business, that's my name.

And where else? LinkedIn? I'm on LinkedIn.

Yeah, and I'm. I'm lurking. I'm lurking in dark bars, telling stories.

And I love your free offer. It's write this essay. Prove you're human.

Yeah. Yeah. Because again, you know the.

AI World is really.

Yeah.

Really scary for for writers in some ways, and really.

Really, something that admissions officers are.

Taking very seriously. You know, I actually this is a funny little anecdote I heard about this from somebody I know.

Said that, a teacher.

Somehow hid some text on a on a print out of an assignment, right? And the and the text was like hidden in the same color. I guess the text was in white and so you.

So you couldn't see it, but what that meant was that if you copied the assignment and put it into chat ChatGPT.

ChatGPT would.

Spit out something with that text in it, and then the teacher would know that.

That student used ChatGPT.

And it was this kind of gotcha and it was, it was pretty. I was like that's pretty brilliant because how do you know whether students are are using this? And and it's not to say that it doesn't have a purpose ever ChatGPT obviously obviously, but.

But it's just it's so obvious to me when I'm looking at kids essays and editing them. It it just there's this robotic quality.

It's.

UM.

That I'm like, I bet that kid you just chat BT.

Yeah. And on the other side of that, because AI is here and it's not going away, you need to embrace it as an instructor and show people how to use it as a tool and not.

As a crunch.

That's. Yeah, that's right.

That's right.

Yeah. And I'm, you know, and I'm still figuring out, you know, all the ways to use it as a tool or to tell people, you know, how to do that.

But I think.

Yeah, I don't know. It's. There are so many ways to do it without it. That's the point. And and that's what I'm here to.

Yeah. And you shouldn't just like.

Yeah.

There's the Internet exists. It didn't exist when I was going to college and.

Didn't exist when I was in high school.

It it just doesn't.

Yeah, the world has changed so much and and because of it, you know, it's making things like college a little bit more obsolete and.

It might have been back in the day.

Yeah. Yeah. And you know, that is something I I wrestled with. I mean, we were, we had this conversation a little a little bit ago about, you know, you don't even need to go to college. There's all these opportunities outside of college.

I think.

Yeah, it's hard for me as somebody in my 40s now to to really comment on, you know what kids are getting, but I do hope that you know what they're getting is a place to learn how to think critically.

A community.

You know.

A way to learn how to be an adult and be independent.

These are all things that are very valuable. You know, the question is just what you know.

What do you need to?

Are they actually getting it?

Yeah. What? Yeah. And you know what do you?

Can you get those elsewhere right?

And and what at what cost? Because college is not cheap, and sometimes you end up.

Yeah.

Right.

Paying on it for a long time and really don't have the value for it.

Right. And that's another part of, you know, if the parents are so hell bent that the kid go to the highly selective school and the kid is like.

So.

You know what, what if I?

Went to a state school. Yeah.

I'm not paying for it.

Yeah.

There's so many factors, right? I mean, you know, one of the first things and I'm not I I don't. You know, I don't bill myself as somebody who's a a college counselor all around, even though there are things about the whole process that I can speak to, but I really do focus on the essay piece.

That being said, you know I'm learning more and more about the the.

The process of choosing, you know where you're gonna apply and and and I think that there's so many.

Facets of that, you know. Do you want to go to a school in the city? Do you want to go to a big school? Do you want to go to, you know, all these things?

So.

Really getting value for for your money.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

So Jesse, this has been an enlightening conversation. What's the one thing?

Thank you. I I I yeah it has.

What's the one thing you hope the audience takes away from our discussion?

I hope.

I hope that the audience takes away, and I realize that probably the audience are not going to be a lot of teenagers, but I hope that the audience takes away that.

The essay piece of an application.

Can be.

Can open up a process.

Of self discovery and.

Self-expression in a way that I don't think kids are getting anywhere else. I really don't. And I think that.

They're not taught how to.

Think about what matters to them.

What their values are?

UM.

In in in the way that I think we need to be. I mean it's it's.

So yeah, that's I hope that.

I hope that people walk away with, you know, this can be actually a really cool, great process and that.

Someone like me is very honored to be part of it.

I love that.

Thanks for joining me today.

Thank you so much.