Four (4) Characteristics Common to Successful High School Students

The most successful students aren’t always the smartest or most talented people in the room. They are the hardest workers, the most passionate students or the ones who genuinely care. Whoever they are, they find ways to set themselves apart from the rest.

We’ve worked with many successful high school students and have noticed a few common qualities. Here are four traits we see in the students who consistently reach their college admissions goals and beyond.

Quality #1 – Be an Effective Communicator

Successful students learn to be effective communicators. They’re not only good oral and written communicators, but have good people skills and use appropriate body language.

Two great ways to develop communication skills is to join the debate team and participate in theater. Both activities help students formulate clear ideas and effectively deliver those ideas to an audience. We’ve had both shy and outgoing students grow tremendously from their experiences in both. Universities view debate and theater involvement very positively and they know how important it is for all students regardless of their major to communicate well.

Quality #2 – Cultivate a Passion

The most successful students also develop clear passions. We see this over and over – students who pursue their interests remain motivated and diligent throughout high school.

Admittedly, it’s not easy to discover one’s passion, but students should always be going deep in the areas they’re interested in. If a student loves computers, find a computer programmer and interview them to find out why they love it. If a student is interested in gardening, start your own garden and develop it into a hobby. Successful students curiously explore side interests and many times it’s the most engaging aspect on their college application.

Quality #3 – Give Back to Others

Most schools require service hours where students volunteer to serve the community. Unfortunately, for many students, it’s just a box they check off. The most successful students however understand the importance of giving back.

I have a student who works with a 2nd grader who has trouble reading. He helps this child with his pronunciation so he can catch up with the rest of his class. The 2nd grader shares about his family and reminds him that there is more to life than just getting good grades. My student finds a lot of joy helping this 2nd grader and it actually helps him do better in school and lead a more balanced life.

Quality #4 - Manage Stress

Lastly, the most successful students know how to manage their stress. Stress is good in the right context. But in a hyper-competitive environment, too much stress can lead to poor academic performance and compromised health.

With that, many of our students manage their stress by getting more organized. They make to-do lists, set boundaries on their internet use and make study plans for the week. One of our students began limiting his Facebook viewing to thirty minutes a day and it reduced his total study time by fifty percent! Before he regularly slept at 1am and now he sleeps before 11pm. Organized students are more efficient, sleep more and are less stressed.

Our goal at ILUMIN Education is to help students reach their college admissions goals and find success for years to come. We help students find their passions, perform better in school and give back to their communities. Contact us for a free consultation to see how we can help. 

Top-Tier Colleges: What do they really want? (Part 3)

Please note that this is a three part series on what traits colleges are looking for in competitive applicants. Click here for Part 1 and here for Part 2.

Ivy Leagues seek students who develop and pursue their passion

When Drew Faust, the President of Harvard, was asked for her best advice to parents she remarked “Make your children interesting!” Easier said than done—but interesting students only emerge when they pursue their passion.

Many parents dismiss their children’s area of passion as a childish waste of time. Unfortunately, this dismissal develops in students a sense of directionlessness--and may even curtail their success later in life.

For example, a friend of mine was raised in a typical “Tiger parent” household. She was prodded into academic excellence and was finally admitted to Berkeley as a pre-med student. She later attended UCLA for medical school and graduated as an M.D. Yet only a few years into her medical practice, she dropped out completely to pursue a career in graphic design.

In our most recent conversation, she admitted bitterly to me, “I was the perfect child, always doing what was asked of me. But I kept wondering if happiness was real, and why, if it was, I missed it. It wasn’t until I finally left medicine that I realized happiness was real--but that’s after I wasted eight years of my life and racked up $300,000 in debt." 

Unfortunately, my friend is not alone. We see many students who do not pursue a genuine interest, and end up with a resume that blends facelessly in with all the others. However, parents who encourage the pursuit of a passion--any passion--enable their children to shine.

Mary’s mother dreamed of her daughter becoming a savvy business woman--but Mary, an introvert, had other plans. Much to her mother’s dismay, Mary became obsessed with science. She lived and breathed it. She spent her Freshman summer at the UC Davis COSMOS program, and immediately emailed her professor begging that he let her work in his lab for the rest of her summers in high school. She spent three years helping him research the effect of second-hand smoke on rat lungs, and later went to Harvard where she is currently studying Biology.

Our students’ story and the growing voices from Ivy League schools all send the same message: give us students who are driven, passionate risk-takers.

So what can you do to help?

First, empower your child to make his own decisions. Give him choices, and walk him through (without lecturing) each decision’s consequences. Ask good, meaningful questions and leave the ultimate decision up to him. Each decision is an opportunity for growth for your child--if you let it be.

Second, let your child fail. Sit with him as he faces the consequences of his own choices, and support him no matter what. Give him the tools to think logically about how he will do things differently in the future. Let him learn that taking risks is the key to success, and quite possibly, the key to Harvard.

Finally, foster your child’s passions. When they’re young, help them explore all their interests--don’t weed out the ones that you don’t approve of. Look a little deeper. Does your child spend time playing video games? Maybe encourage him to join a video game camp that teaches him how to code and create his own game. Does your daughter love fashion? Consider teaching her how to create goods to sell online. Many parents complain that their child isn’t motivated--but we believe all students are motivated--it’s leveraging what they’re passionate about with a direction for their future.

Top-Tier Colleges: What do they really want? (Part 2)

Please note that this is a three part blog on what traits colleges are looking for in competitive applicants. Click here for Part 1.

Ivy Leagues seek students who are risk-takers

Parents need to help nurture strong decision making skills. This also means allowing children to taste failure. Time and time again. Ivy Leagues often seek students who take risks and aren’t afraid to fail. In fact, one of the Common App prompts reads: “Recount an incident or time when you experienced failure. How did it affect you, and what lessons did you learn?”

MIT is even clearer about it. Their admission criteria of MIT states: “MIT wants to admit people who are not only planning to succeed, but who are not afraid to fail. When people take risks in life, they learn resilience as a result - because risk leads to failure as often as it leads to success.” 

Take Jeff for example. Like Tim, he wanted to help students from a low income community. But his idea was to teach “easy” Calculus to 5th and 6th graders. Though his parents confessed their concerns to us that this program wouldn’t work, and (possibly distract Jeff from his studies), they wanted their son to try. Jeff was certain his passion for math would be infectious, but his program of 15 kids dwindled to a class of four. It was a painful, yet even in his apparent failure, Jeff realized that what were more important weren’t his math lesson plans—it was simply that he showed up each week. He was the only stable adult in the lives of these inner city kids. With that fresh perspective, Jeff brought in math games into his program and slowly built it up again to 13 students. Their teacher later thanked Jeff, since she saw a whole grade level improvement in their math abilities by the end of the year. Jeff took his experience of failure and leveraged it to gain admission to Cornell University.

Unlike Jeff, Cindy didn’t reach her goal. She was aiming to study pre-med. She did hospital volunteering and a bio research summer camp. When we asked if she wanted to try to start a pre-med club at school or do research in a lab she hesitated. She had never done these things before and they seemed outside of her comfort zone. Cindy wanted to stick with what she was already doing--and take no risks.  While she become a lead volunteer and went to two more summer camps--these actions weren’t enough. Even with her perfect 4.00 GPA and 34 ACT score, she was rejected from all Ivy Leagues.

Ivy Leagues look for students who push the boundary, take chances, and demonstrate “grit” in the face of failure. Yet, this level of dedication and direction only happens when the student is truly passionate about the project.

Stay tuned for our final post describing the last and most critical trait colleges are looking for! 

Top-Tier Colleges: What do they really want? (Part 1)

34,000. That’s how many earnest high school seniors applied to Harvard University last year. Only about 2023 of them were admitted. In 2011, Harvard had a 6.17% admittance rate. In 2012, it decreased to 5.92%. By 2013, it dropped to an all time dismal low of 5.79%. In 2014, it went back up to 5.9%.

So what can parents do to help their child enter the ultra-competitive Ivy Leagues? Particularly, what can Asian parents do when every Asian student looks identical: a top violinist who is also the president of the debate club and captain of the robotics club, graduating top of her class with a 2400 SAT score. 

From our experience as college admissions consultants, we’ve discovered a few key parenting trends that help raise an Ivy-League ready child.

Ivy Leagues seek students who are their own masters.

The Stanford admissions website states that “We want to see the initiative with which [students] to seek out opportunities that expand [their] perspective and that will allow [them] to participate in creating new knowledge. These traits of self-trust and drive are often rarely found among Asian students. We coach mostly Asian students, and we’ve discovered how our collectivist values (which stress service, thoughtfulness, and submission) leave many Asian students immobilized.

For example, Paul was one such student. He received his two B’s in sophomore year and his mom was furious.  The next year, she sat next to him for up to six hours a day watching him study and complete his homework. She also cancelled most of his extracurriculars and scheduled him with as much tutoring and SAT test preparation as possible. The result? He never learned to take control of his own learning. He never learned how to make his own decisions and manage his own time. His GPA began to slip, and his lack of extracurriculars and apparent lack of initiative hampered his future. He had barely made it into UCSD after being waitlisted for a few months.

Often these students, who have the raw talent to do well at an Ivy League, do not make it to one if they lack initiative. However, we’ve found that parents who foster a sense of independence and self-trust enable their students to thrive.

One of our students from 2012 comes to mind. Fred and Nina often asked their son, Tim, “Well, what do you think? You decide.” Tim learned to identify a problem and figure out how to solve it on his own.  As we worked with Tim, he was bothered that many students from low-income neighborhoods were not college-bound. Tim started a college-admissions workshop for inner city high school students. Tim planned an entire semester’s worth of curriculum and met with high school students each week to provide academic counseling. Tim was the commander of this project, and owned the process from start to finish. Tim later began his freshman year at Yale University--a place in which the president wrote, “In selecting future Yale students, “I am inclined to believe that the person who gives every ounce to do something superbly has an advantage over the person whose capacities may be great but who seems to have no desire to stretch them to their limit.” “We look for that desire and ability to stretch one’s limits” states another Yale admission officer. That motivation can only come from students who have learned how to think--and act--for themselves.  

Come back tomorrow to learn the second trait top-tier colleges are looking for! 

World Journal Educational Expo and College Fair

Just a quick announcement to share - we'll be at the World Journal Educational Expo at the Santa Clara Convention Center this weekend! We'll be putting on a workshop and sharing about changing college admissions trends students need to know for the coming season. Come and visit our booth at location S4 at the SCC. We'll be doing a giveaway for $50 gift cards to Target and Starbucks! 

World Journal Educational Expo
Santa Clara Convention Center
5001 Great America Pkwy
Santa Clara, CA 95054
Saturday - August 30th - 10am to 3pm

ILUMIN Workshop
"2014 Admissions Trends: What You NEED to Know!"
3:20 - 4:10pm

Best SAT Score BOOSTING Tip: READ, READ, READ

There is one immutable truth in my time working with students. The students who read, score highest on the SAT. Of course reading doesn't necessarily help on the math section. But the students who read well (finish books, peruse good periodicals and are just curious) score well on the English portions of the test and tend to have the discipline to prepare adequately for the math section. My advice to you this summer.... READ.

I wish I read more when I was in junior high and high school. Reading only caught on for me once I got to college. I started reading John Grisham and Mitch Albom and slowly progressed to more philosophical things like Henri Nouwen and Freidrich Nietzsche. I also read Andre Agassi's autobiography recently. CRAZY stuff; I couldn't believe his wig was going to fly off during the 1990 French Open finals! Whatever it is, start a plan and get reading!

A few tips for creating a good reading list:

• Continue reading in genres you like (sci-fi, historical fiction, etc.), but read books that are more challenging with vocabulary, syntax and style. How do you find them? Tip: AMAZON.

• Read good periodicals like the New York Times, The New Yorker Magazine and The Atlantic. Read up on what's going on in the world. The new SAT will test more on critical thinking and historical contexts. You'll be better prepared by understanding the problems in our world and how people are solving those problems. 

• Set goals! At last two articles a day! At least three books a semester! Whatever it is, set a goal and shoot for it. 

Need more help putting together a good reading plan? Contact us here at ILUMIN! Read on!

COLLEGE LISTS: SCHOOLS THAT ARE TEST OPTIONAL

A lot of you are considering what schools to apply for next year. A few of you have your sights set on the big guns: Harvard, Princeton, Yale, etc. But there are a bunch of you out there that may feel held back by poor test scores. You worked hard, have decent grades and good extracurriculars, but you just don't do well on tests. Don't worry, it happens to a lot of us. You're not alone!

There's a growing number of (good) schools that are electing to be test optional. Here are a few really awesome schools that do NOT require standardized tests:

Bowdoin College - GREAT school and super selective. Ranked 4th on US News National Liberal Arts list. Small classes and students love their professors. You have to be stellar to apply, but at least you don't need to send in your test scores.

George Mason University - In 2009, US News ranked GMU the #1 ranked up and coming college. Great for engineering and business (even if you bombed it on the SAT Math 2).

Pitzer College - Part of the Claremont Colleges. You can take classes and take part in any activities throughout the Claremont network of schools (yes, that includes Pomona College and Harvey Mudd). AND nobody needs to know that you're not great with the SAT.

I'll list out a few more schools in another post. Feel free to contact us with any questions or post a comment below! 

Summer Plans: Taking Classes at Community Colleges

Thinking of taking classes at your local community or junior college this summer? Here are a few reasons you should do it:

• Community colleges normally have classes you can't get at your high school. You can explore your interests or take more classes in an area of strength (math focused students taking higher levels of math; history students studying different eras of history, etc.). 

• If you get an A, it may give your GPA a little boost!

• If you do well, it can signal to universities that you're ready for college-level study.

• It can demonstrate to colleges your interest in the subject.

• You can takes classes almost anytime morning, noon and night. You can take classes online through your community college as well!

• It's a good complement to a part-time job.

A few things to be mindful of when taking community or junior college classes:

• You have to WORK! Summer classes are accelerated so you need to stay on top of it. 

• Teachers won't pay as much attention to you, so you NEED to be pro-active with asking questions and seeking help.

• You need approval forms signed by your high school before you register. Start all this paperwork in April and search for the high school enrollment info on each individual community college website. 

• High school students register last... so have a few backup class choices ready!

• California students applying to UCs or CSUs - try to choose UC-approved courses so you'll definitely get the course transferred later on.

Hope that helps! Questions? Comment below or contact us!

5 Great Activities You Can Do This Summer

Students (and parents) often ask me how they should spend their summers. Should I go to summer programs? Should I take SAT courses? Can I just play video games and watch TV? Uh, no, to the last one for sure. 

Summers are important because it provides colleges a glimpse of how you spend your free time. It's also a great time to do things you didn't have time for during the school year. Here are five great options for the summer:

1. University Summer Programs

Yes, lots of students are going to them. No, you won't automatically get accepted to USC if you go to USC's summer program (or any other university's summer program for that matter). However, university summer programs are a great way to focus on a specific interest area (business, engineering, art, etc.). Since most high schools don't focus on career exploration, studying engineering at Johns Hopkins Engineering Innovation program or business at Georgetown's Fundamentals Summer Program may help you learn more about those careers. 

Living on campus will also help you see if you really like the school and have what it takes to handle college life. I had a student whose dream was to go to NYU. But after a summer in New York City, he realized he hated city life and applied elsewhere. I also have many students come back from summer programs way more motivated because they got a better taste of the hard work needed to succeed. Whatever the reason, summer programs might be the way to go.

2. SAT or ACT Study

Yeah it's a little boring, but it's the best time to get it in. You can take an expensive training class or study on your own. Either way, you should do it before your junior year (when you need to be taking them). What's the best way to study? That's another post for another time. All I can say is every good test prep plan requires taking plenty of practice tests.

3. Volunteering (with ONE non profit)

That might seem boring too, but summer is the best opportunity to commit more time to ONE local non-profit or cause you're interested in. Focus more on deep than wide. When you commit more time, you'll develop stronger relationships with the leaders and the community the organization is serving. You'll learn more, have a richer experience and may even help with leading big events or new projects. Summer is a great time to invest more deeply in the organizations you're passionate about. 

4. Independent Projects

Start a cooking class out of your house! Start a weekly fitness group with your friends! Make Youtube videos on how to dance! Do something, anything... but find something you're interested in, set a goal and then go for it. Don't be afraid. There's plenty of time to be scared when you're an adult (401k's, osteoporosis, etc.). Do something fun and challenging and set an awesome goal for the end of the summer. Yes, it demonstrates leadership, personality and all that stuff (blah, blah, blah) to colleges. But more importantly you'll have a great time and accomplish way more than you ever think you could. 

5. READ

You're thinking, "YUCK." But wait. Reading is the easiest way to build your English foundation for the SAT or ACT. The more you read, the easier it will be to fly through those reading comprehension passages. If you read good stuff, you'll pick up good vocabulary and you'll intuitively learn how to formulate good arguments. AND you might just fall in LOVE with reading (your English teacher's wildest dream!). Don't just read anything. Read good, classic literature. Read the New York Times. Read the New Yorker Magazine. Read about what's going on in the news right now and what's happening all over the world. Don't make it chore. Read on your smart phone when you're in the bathroom in the morning. Read on the way home from school. Read when you're waiting for mom to finish her manicure at the spa. It's OK to read what you like, but also read widely and deeply. Set a goal for reading 3 or 4 books over the summer and go for it. I promise you won't regret it. You'll do better on the SAT and you'll discover a world you may never have seen before.

I've got other suggestions including part-time jobs and internships. But that's another post for another time. Develop a plan and go for it. And make your summer both fun and productive. Questions? Comment below. Thanks!