127. Cornell University - Playback Wednesdays - Ian Schachner - Sr. Associate Director

john_durante:

Welcome to the CAPP everyone, the college admissions process podcast. I am your proud host, John Durante, and it gives me great pleasure today to introduce you to Ian Schachner, who is the senior associate director of admissions at Cornell University. Ian, first of all, thank you so much for being here. I truly appreciate it. And how are you today?

ian:

I'm doing great, thanks for the invitation, John.

john_durante:

My pleasure. And again, we can't thank you enough for being here today and giving of your time. So Ian, why don't we start by asking you to just tell us about yourself. How long have you been in admissions and how did you end up in this position?

ian:

Sure. So I've been in admissions for over 16 years now, about 16 and a half years. I wound up going to graduate school at Cornell, specifically for the school that I currently work for, the Industrial and Labor Relations School. So our school studies work. And I actually went there to study the people side of organizations. I went there to study group dynamics, leadership. What makes any organization incredibly successful and ethical and standing for the right things, and then what leads them in the opposite direction. So it was a lot of organizational behavior. It was a lot of human resource management. And really what I wound up finding was I loved that notion of how the people make a place, right? The people who are recruited, the people who are selected, the culture of the place. And that's kind of how I wound up in admissions.  Admissions is kind of the HR of academia.  I loved my experience there and I became very defensive of Cornell. And I said, oh, I'd like to play a role in making sure people like me who really appreciate the place and work hard to get there can get there.

john_durante:

Oh, that's fantastic. And I love the reference to HR of academia. That's terrific. I've never heard that, but it's so true. So I really appreciate it. Now I'm going to ask an obvious question because Cornell university is known throughout the world as one of the top universities that exists. Obviously it's one of the Ivy leagues, but Ian, let me ask you, what is it about Cornell university that makes it so appealing for so many students to want to apply? and ultimately spend at least four years there.

ian:

So big question, right? Anytime I hear a question like that, I do have to, I encourage everyone to kind of step back and say that this process is really about them as an individual. So I can give you a response of, oh, this is what I think is great about the university. But when I do any types of admissions counseling, I always start off by emphasizing, the onus is on the student. to decide that. Is it appealing to me? Is this the right place for me? So here's some things that I think are great about it. At the same time, this process is really about people learning about themselves, what they want out of college, what kind of environment that they wanna be in. So I love it. I think it's great for a lot of people. Might not be right for everyone. No school is. So I always have to start there. What do I think is great about it? To me, what I think... is best about it. One of the things I'm most passionate about, about education specifically at the college level, is that if college does its job well, one of the things that people should take away from it is just how much different fields are connected. Maybe sometimes when people do a search, they go, oh, look at this major, and maybe that one's more important than this one. And I even see it play out in certain pre-professional programs, right? Like in a business school, sometimes you'll have the finance people, and we think we're a little more important than the marketing people.  You see that hierarchy in searches for majors and colleges and all that. But I really do think if college does its job, it helps you realize. just how important every field is and how connected different things can be. And that to me is something Cornell does an incredible job at. Just to use an example, you can be in something that is the liberal arts part of Cornell. You can be in engineering. You can be in the specific school I work for, industrial and labor relations, but every curriculum. really encourages you to go use the rest of the school. And the openness of, you know, we say, oh, there's a thousand clubs, but it's the openness of clubs. And the way that we promote, like I don't care what your major is, go listen to someone lecture about philosophy. Go to a poetry reading. Go sit in on a presentation where a professor and a student are talking about nanotechnology, even if you don't understand it. And I think... I think promoting that and really getting people to understand just how connected fields are to me is probably the best part of it. I think we do a really good job of that and it certainly draws a lot of people..

john_durante:

Well you certainly do a great job on it. And I'm really impressed with that answer because you talked about connectedness, right? You didn't just talk about, like you said, over a thousand clubs and academic majors, we all know that there's a long list of each for Cornell University, but just the idea of going to sit in on a philosophy professor's lecture, going to sit in on a lecture on nanotechnology. These are things that. Most people are not gonna have the opportunity to do it once they leave college. And so I just wanna thank you. I think that's a great perspective, a great answer on the question of why it makes it so appealing. And so it sounds like that's something that is fostered in terms of how connected we are, but making connections not only within your own major, but other majors that Cornell University has to offer. Am I right?

ian:

You are, and I will say it also drives how a lot of times when we speak with students, they speak, oh, what formal clubs can I do? What research can I get involved in? It's great. That can be a part of the college experience for people. But I and some other fellow advisors, I know when we speak to students, we often say to them, also plan in time for completely unaffiliated things. Not everything has to be work. a job, a pre-law society or something like that. From the very beginning when people arrive, we always encourage them. You'll forget this several times throughout your time here, but every so often, every Sunday, just go check the general events list, the general Cornell events list, and just go check it out.  Go to the Friday night free astronomy presentations where they give you access to the telescopes. You know, go take a free photography class in the Arboretum learning about nature photography.

john_durante:

So let me ask you, Ian, how many applications do you actually review a year and do you represent a specific region?

ian:

Sure, so the way it works at Cornell is that Cornell is made up of its separate colleges and schools. For those listening, looking at colleges, right, probably one of the most important things, and I will emphasize this over and over, it is very important to understand the structure of the programs that you're applying to. Some colleges or universities, you apply and you pick a major. Some, right, some you may apply to a particular college or school and that place is like your whole life. Others, it's like us. At Cornell, you apply to Cornell, but you select one of the colleges or schools to apply to. And that is your home base for going throughout all of Cornell. I work specifically for one of the smaller schools, the Industrial and Labor Relations School. So we only have about 1,000 undergraduates. So between our freshman applications, we also get a good number of transfer applications. I read anywhere between 1,500 to 2,000 applications a year. So definitely kind of a smaller group relative to, say, my colleagues in arts. who get thousands and thousands of applications.  Oh, and so to your question, no, in my school, we're not separated by region. As one of the smaller schools, we have a volume of staffing such that we don't have to separate it like West Coast, East Coast.

john_durante:

Terrific, and thank you so much for that insight. I would imagine that most students, Ian, applying to Cornell University have a solid A+ average while taking some of the most rigorous courses their high schools have to offer, and having immersed themselves in so much of what their schools offer outside of the classroom as well. So with more applicants that are worthy than seats available for admission, Can you walk us through the process? What items are you looking at to evaluate a candidate? And how do you make your final decision, again, with so many viable candidates and not enough seats to fill or to give to each one of those candidates?

ian:

Great question. I do have to, in a case like this, I would emphasize, I am speaking mainly for, mostly for my particular school and process. I do know that I can speak for a large part of Cornell in terms of emphasizing certain things like fit, which I'll talk about, but I just mentioned, I just point that out because since you apply to a particular college or school at Cornell, it's just going to their admissions committee. All right, if you apply to the College of Engineering, their committee is reviewing your application. ILR, my school, I'm saying it. So there are definitely some key themes amongst all of them, but anytime any of us from Cornell present, we always have to drive home, but at the end of the day, for the most specific advice possible, get in touch with the admission staff from your targeted school. The best example of that would be, there's the Architecture, Art and Planning College. Okay, they require a portfolio, right? And they require a portfolio interview, like a lot of schools like that. So their process in terms of what they emphasize, that's something that has no role in every other school that you're applying to here, but there it plays an enormous role in things. So just something to keep in mind. So walking you through the process, I guess in terms of key things, what I will say is first, I go to the transcript. Most of my colleagues go to the transcript. It's not. We don't go to the transcript for the reasons people think we do. This is not to see if you get an A plus in everything you've taken since the seventh grade. Really the first thing that I know a lot of us do is just to see if you can do the work. I know that sounds vague, but if you think... There is no magical collection of a record that says you can do the work. For example, sometimes, God, the last few years are a great example of it. If someone dipped a bit in their sophomore year because it turned out there was a plague, all right, what are we gonna do? We're not gonna tear it in some cold way that goes, but this person got an A plus in everything. So context always matters when we're looking at an academic record. So mainly we're looking at the record first to see. And for those schools that still look at things like SATs, yeah, or ACTs, that can play a role. You're looking at the overall academic record to go, is it even responsible to bring this person here? To use my program as an example, we're a very reading and writing intensive program. where an interdisciplinary program mainly focused on the social sciences. If I look at someone's record and I see some blips in the hard sciences and they are crushing the social sciences, we're not knocking that person out of the pool, they can do the work. So that's, I just wanna emphasize, that's really what we look for. The other thing to note about transcripts and all that, because people think that makes or breaks the whole application is, do they follow the guidelines? If we have, say for something like the College of Engineering or any of these pre-med programs, If on their website they have very specific math requirements, science requirements, it's really important to take those or just to show you did your research, right? So for example, if your school didn't offer it, if you weren't able to take it for some reason, just showing this isn't another college I'd click and send on the common application. I'm serious. I'm doing my due diligence. Writing in the application, I understand that your requirements are up to this level. Please note this was not available at my school. I am signing up for the summer. That stuff, that stuff matters. So first thing, just the transcripts. And I will tell you, the majority of my colleagues, we go right onto the essays. If we, I mean, we always do a full read, but if we see you can do the work. We go right on to those essays. And to my earlier point that it's in our structure, because you have to get admitted to a particular school. Those essays can make or break the application. In particular, what I'm referencing is that Cornell has two essays. I'm mainly referring to the Cornell supplement, the one where you write about the particular college and school you're applying to or the major. That is the one that I would honestly say carries the most weight of anything. We really need to see that it's just not a copy paste from another college. If there is some overlap, say at our university, and you can see this is a good example of I think general college advice. If you're applying to a university or a college that may have two majors that seem somewhat similar, take a different approach to a topic, but you have to get admitted to a particular major or college, you really need to show that you understand the difference. between those programs. So yeah, that's what we will go to next. And the rest, we can talk a little bit more about, yes, we look at references, activities, it does matter. You did ask about if everyone has this long list of activities, my last comment here about that will be, everyone doesn't have to have the same background. They don't have to have the same exhaustive list. For example, we're far more interested in why you've done what you've done. than having some exhaustive list or being the leader or captain of five different things. So making sure you can do the work, showing you've done your research to fulfill the requirements of that program, and whether it's through your activities or what you have to say in the essay, showing that you are a solid fit for the program that has to admit you. Not Cornell in general, not for loving Ithaca, New York, where we're based.

john_durante:

Hahaha.

ian:

particular program that their committee is deciding. That's what carries the most weight. That's how we distinguish between a very competitive pool.

john_durante:

Such great advice, tremendous insight, and you touched upon a couple of things that I'm going to ask you about. The first being demonstrated interest.  You also started talking a little bit about essays. So let's unpackage that a little further by first asking you, what are some of the other things that students do to show demonstrated interest? In other words, obviously, if Cornell University is their first choice. What are some of the other things that you've seen them do to make sure that they make that very clear to you?

ian:

I have some very specific advice here, which is quite frankly, like in this age where so many different things get into systems and databases, the one obvious thing is get in their database, meaning request information, get on their email list, just make sure you don't miss something. That can be important. Just in terms of your own research and your own ability to connect to a program, that can matter. I always have a lot to say, I won't go too much about it, but establishing fit, as I explained. Diving into the particular curriculum you're applying to, showing that you've researched it. When questions like this get asked, I keep in mind I'm not speaking about other universities and other colleges. I don't know how they look at things like, well, look, if we have to hit our targets, we wanna see who took the time to travel here. We want to see you not just once, but who spent a summer here taking classes? By and large, we don't do that here because to us that can raise an equity issue. Who has time to travel here? Who has the resources? So I know when our committee reads, we don't think it's fair to look at things, ooh, this person's more likely to come because they already spent a summer here. That stuff, it's a fairness issue with us. So really what I would go back to is if it's your first choice, if you know it's there, show it through connecting to the program. Yes, even with schools that say, oh, look how they came, not just for one, they came for an info session and a tour. I am not saying at many schools that that's an insignificant variable, but I would argue that almost every, for anyone I know in admissions, showing through your research and your writing that program is your first choice trumps anything else you can do.

john_durante:

That's tremendous advice and you keep on mentioning the supplemental essay and I just want to add that students, it's very important to treat the supplemental essay or essays just like the original essay. 

ian:

Yeah, that's right.

john_durante:

I know of a lot of people that spend a lot of time on the main essay and then they say, ah, this school requires two supplemental essays, okay, and they give a short answer. I think it's very You've emphasized it Ian, but I just want to re-emphasize it that it's very important to, like you said, not to copy and paste from another college or university into those supplemental questions, but to really dive deep and really explain why it is in fact that you want to attend Cornell University and answer each question. The first one, the supplemental ones with the same amount of passion, if you will.  Do you agree Ian?

ian:

Definitely.  I think at many schools, forget everything. If you don't do that, you should not bother applying. That's my two cents. I think it doesn't mean that they offer an optional essay or they say, oh, additional information. I don't think John, you and I are talking about that. We're talking about if a school says, here's how we admit, we admit to a major, we admit to a college or school. I mean, even for, to speak quite literally about it, right? We want a full class, right?

john_durante:

Right, of course.  .

ian:

We want a full class and we want students who are not only gonna enter our program, but we really want them to stay there. We're not going to admit you if you can't convince us that you're not only passionate enough to make this your top choice, but to use an example, You can write an entire essay for the supplement, but if it's all about Cornell in general, we're not gonna admit you. Because maybe you'll like our program, maybe you won't, but there's too many other students who understand they're applying to our particular school or college.

john_durante:

Great advice Ian, I truly appreciate it. Earlier we talked a little bit about college essays, so let's dig a little deeper. What are some examples of college essays that really stuck out with you? In other words, when you read them you thought, wow, I really need to meet this candidate.

ian:

For the purpose of I'd say being helpful, being as helpful as possible to anyone who may be a watcher. Listen. I would just say that I definitely have some examples. I'll throw some out, but I will just say, I think the theme of what made them stand out. might be even more useful. In other words, I do think there were some themes to it. What made me say, that's who should be in our classroom. That's who the faculty want us to look for. The best of them, they were things like... They were students who did not, who wrote things that made it clear. They're not finished yet. As a person, as a leader, schools say we want leaders. And I always emphasize this, like you're applying to an educational institution. The whole reason we exist is based on this notion that you're actually not done yet. You still have a lot to learn. You still have a lot. to think about and a lot of ways to grow and all that. And so I mentioned that because, I'm using that example because one of the things my particular program studies is leadership. And so we do get a lot of people, and I know a lot of colleges get this these days, they get a lot of people who write essays. are kind of just emphasizing, I did this, I did that, then I did this. you should, it should be pretty clear to you that I'm very impressive. They're not wrong. So I'm not belittling what the achievements that people write about. It's incredible, we are so fortunate to get this amazing applicant pool. But your questions were about the essays that stand out, make us say, who do we want in the classroom? Who do we wanna run into the hall and have a random hour conversation with? The ones that have stood out are the ones where. Maybe they, and I'm thinking of a few specific ones, they did achieve something impressive. The essay was about the awful process that led there. The questioning along with the screw-ups along the way, the course correcting. And to that, it reminded me of one of my other favorites, and it was about student government elections, and that's how I became the president of SGA. The best ones I ever read was someone who did not, ran an incredible campaign and failed. It was a riveting essay about the judgments you have to make and about... Do the ends justify the means? That made me want to chat. That's someone who should be in our classes. So I hope that gives some guidance. The best essays that really stand out to me, they're about. You're applying to an educational institution. Take us into how, not that you did something great or that you did anything at all. Take us into your mind. How do you learn? How do you think? Show us how you're going to be thinking about and wrestling with the issues that we're gonna be talking to you about here. I'll just end that part by saying, like, yes, I have some examples of, oh, what stood out? I think sometimes when I'm asked that, People want something like, oh, the best one stood out because of creativity, you know, the creative way it was written. And I have some of those, right? There's one I read in one of my first years. A young girl wrote something about her skills and interesting group dynamics and conflict resolution, but she framed it as a story of why, I'm sorry, not why, there was a zombie apocalypse. And she survived it. It was kind of like a World War Z thing. This is when the book was really popular. And so she wrote this essay about being in the Girl Scouts and the sports team she was a part of. And she basically wrote this tale that emphasized why she knew the issues in my school mattered, but through this narrative of, and here's how I survived the zombie apocalypse. Yes, it stood out. That is not, I would, but if we're playing a numbers game, that is not how I would advise you to stand out.  There are more important things to keep in mind about how to stand out in terms of connecting with a program. Does that make sense?

john_durante:

It absolutely does. And I love what you said earlier in terms of “not done yet”. I love that, you know, emphasizing that yes, you've done a lot of great things, but you're not done yet. You have a lot to learn. And maybe it's also recognizing that you're applying to Cornell university, which is obviously something that's larger than all of us. But you want to be a member of that community. And not only do you want to learn, but you want to contribute. You want to give something back and make it better if you can, as great as it is. So I think that's phenomenal advice and I truly appreciate it. And I love hearing you speak about it. Let me ask you a similar question, but on the flip side of things, in terms of college essays, are there essays that stood out, but in a bad way, or are there things that should just be avoided in writing essays?

ian:

Okay, I mentioned the zombie apocalypse one, right? 

john_durante:

Right.

ian:

But here's the thing. You know, at the end of the day, when people are asking me for advice, I have to respond like it's the numbers game it is. In other words, that I can recall an essay from 11 years ago that someone did a creative narrative and it worked. It does not follow that if I ran the numbers, it would show that creativity is the way to do it. So I use this as an example because, and remember this is program dependent. For those people who are applying to say an English major, a writing major, or literature, it might be different. But if you're asking for my blunt advice on the mission, what are some things that stand out on the bad side? I just... This is my personal slash professional response. Honestly, I think it's, we speak to people and they go, oh, my counselor or my friend got in with this. They said, I should write it in a funny way. I should write it in a unique way, like this unique narrative. Man, humor is tough to pull off. It's and and. And you got to think about, I mean, you think quite literally about this process, right? You're going to a committee, a group of people who have to, I'm not telling someone not to take a humorous route. I'm encouraging you to consider all your options and really think about the best way to achieve your goals. And I'm going to give you a horrible reason why. I'm very lucky. I've had phenomenal colleagues in my over 16 years. I've been in the same office for a really long time, had much different staff over the years. All great. Man, I have had some years where people are wonderful, but I have read some essays that were brilliant and so funny. And I like, I've taken them to a colleague who wasn't the assigned reader. I'm like, look at this. And she looked at it and she went, she went, that's crazy that happened to her. And I went, it's hysterical. What are you talking about? So like. So that's what this, I mean, over the years, this became part of my advice. Like, man, these colleagues are amazing. They're just as passionate at higher ed. I wish I could work with them for the rest of their lives. Man, they are just not funny. They're like, they have so many great qualities, but personally I was like, man, your sense of humor is off. If you got me, you'd be fine, right? So like, humor can be tough to pull off, create. Creative narrative, an example would be, the real quick example would be honestly, it's so beautiful, I know it comes from the heart. Sometimes people say, you have to present yourself in a genuine way.  But I'm asking you to consider, are there other ways if you can show it well that way and still accomplish what someone in an admission, let's stick with exactly what we're talking about. You have to convince people of a particular program that you've researched the program and you are passionate about the issues, right? Okay. If you're applying to a labor relations school where we study globalization, human rights, poverty, inequality, applying to the College of Engineering, applying to one of these other things. Your application is going to a person. And one of the pieces of advice I give to people, these are marketing packages. You have X amount of space to convey certain messages. And you have to prepare these things, not like you're the third that'll read that day. You prepare these like they're the 30th application they're reading that day. So back to your question, what are some bad ones? I'm not saying they were bad, but when I speak to people about applying, I'm speaking realistically about the process. you want to successfully go through. And if it's going to me and it's 1.30 in the morning and I'm sitting in College Town Bagels,

john_durante:

Hehehehe

ian:

popular place in Ithaca, and I'm on like coffee five and I'm shaking from caffeine and like rethinking all my life choices, John, I do not wanna have to dive into a poem to figure out what your interests are, right? Like, I just don't, I just, in the fourth paragraph after a beautiful lead in. And it is the 30th one I've read that day. So creativity, humor, things like that can work, but you definitely have to use your team around you to be a check. Tell them what the goals are, tell them what messages you have to convey. I hope I didn't turn off the more creative people, but my goal isn't... My goal when I advise people is not to get them to write the application that they are absolutely most proud of because it represents them perfectly in every way. My goal is to speak bluntly about the process that you want to successfully navigate.

john_durante:

Well, Ian, we appreciate the bluntness because there's a lot of students and parents listening in, so thank you so much for your insight and honesty. We truly appreciate it more than you know. How about teacher letters of recommendation? What are you looking for to help get you a better picture of the candidate? Are there any examples of letters that really stuck out and made an impression on you, Ian?

ian:

Yeah, so you know what? I'm glad this is the next one, because I'm gonna go back and reference something I said before. It's an application, right? Whether it's a job application, college, grad school, it's a marketing package. You are learning about the institution, you learn about the types of things that they may be looking for, and you have X amount of space to convey things to them. You're in your exploration process, you're trying to learn what those things are. And you learn things, right? Like some may say, oh, they like people who have passions outside the classroom and they like people who can handle rigorous curriculums and they like people with a particular passion for global health, right? You learn those things you have to convey. So when I talk to people about references, what I think is most important to note, again, a marketing package, I always use that example because marketing isn't about a good use of space. All right, it's about the best use of space. And I say that because when I talk to people about references... I do think it's important to note, you have to think about what messages you're trying to convey and what those teachers may convey about you. An example would be, the reason I say that is, for the types of messages you wanna convey, and Cornell's a good example, right? We'll go back to the idea that when you pick a college or school, you really gotta show you're fit with that program. You want to show that you're the type of person, not that, oh, I can't wait to use this major or this degree to get me this job. These applications are, you're trying to convince us you want to be a part of this journey, not so much that you want this end goal. No admissions committee wants to feel like, hey, here's how I want to use you to have a good future in this thing, right? It's about that question of, well, how do I convince these people that who I want to... sit around for hours discussing these issues, that I wanna debate these topics, right? And I mentioned that. Because I think when you really think about that, you'd be surprised about which teachers may be able to provide what would be a strong recommendation. And the example would be, you know, sometimes, sometimes to accomplish your goal, you may not want to default to the teacher who you've had a magical bond with because you've had three classes with them. Sometimes it's, sometimes it's the class that maybe, maybe it wasn't even your best class. Right? But there was one project in it. It was the spark. It was the, it was the, maybe it didn't have a magical bond, but you nailed that report, that research project. You went all out. That's when you realize you were so passionate about the Middle East, about a particular type of law, about, uh, sci, uh, animal sciences. So a good reference, if we're thinking about it as a marketing package. It's not just sometimes it can even be, sometimes you may not even actually get a good reference if it's just like, Jonathan is amazing. She's the greatest student. He's the greatest student I ever worked with. Everyone at Cornell will love working with him. Sometimes we don't need that personal stuff. We need someone from two years ago who was like, yes, this is what they did with the project. So I mentioned that because look, at the end of the day, you can't tell. You can't tell a reference what to write. But as someone who has read a lot of references and I've spoken to a lot of high school teachers, you may know this, right? It is tough writing references. It's so tough. And you never, you always want to write more than you have time for. And so my pitch to students is, look, you can't tell people what to write, but you can help. If you really think about how you want to present yourself to a school, what a particular teacher may have to say about a project you worked on, stuff like that, a skill that you have, a specific story, specific story stand out. You can't tell them what to write, but you can hint at it. If you write to a teacher when you ask them to be a reference and you say, Hey, I was just on the college application process podcast and here's what the guy said, or I just visited school and here's what they said. It made me think that you'd be an excellent reference because it was the project in your class doing X, Y, right? You can help them.  The last comment about it, cause you asked me for an example, some of the best examples of references we get. Going back, remember I mentioned an essay, sometimes they're about failure, right? I tried this thing and I didn't do well. Some of the best essays are from classes where students didn't do well, and they were things like... Ian is not a science person. He knows it, I know it, all of Lawrence High School is aware of it. But he came to me after bombing the first test and said, I'm a senior now. It's clear I don't have a talent in the natural sciences. What do I do? How do you develop study skills? I want to get better at this, but it's not a natural talent. What do you do? And we did it. It was an amazing reference.

john_durante:

I love that you talk about the package, the marketing package. I think that is so important because students work for four or five years and more to create that transcript that obviously you're gonna read. They work on co-curricular activities or clubs and hopefully some of them grow into leadership roles. But the teacher's letter is something that is so important. And I love what you said, the specific story is more important than necessarily having the teacher that you've had for three years in a row. But if you get a teacher to write about that specific story, maybe it's some project that made you realize how passionate you are about animal science, about law, about philosophy, whatever it is. I just think that's tremendous advice Ian. So thank you so much for that explanation. I really appreciate it because I know it's going to help a lot of students and their parents give clarity in terms of what to ask. And so you're right, you can't tell a teacher what to write, but like you said, you could certainly hint to them and say, Hey, remember that time that we did this project and we all laugh because I did X, Y, and Z. Could you write about that? Could you mention that in your letter? Right. And I don't think that there's one teacher that would say no.

ian:

I tell students to blame me.  Please, I told you it's really important to connect with us in these ways. Tell them I said that.

john_durante:

And I appreciate that. And again, that is the reason why we're putting these conversations together in this podcast, because we want to give the students the insight. This is a difficult time. It's a complicated process in terms of researching which college or university is right for you. But the reason that we have these conversations, again, with the people that ultimately make the decisions here, such as yourself, is because we really wanna give the best possible advice to students and their parents and to help make it a more smooth, a more bearable process. So Ian, I really can't thank you enough for that. Every admissions officer receives a copy, obviously of the prospective students transcript and activity sheet. I would imagine again that every applicant to Cornell is in the top tier of their high school class in terms of grades and activities they participated in. having immersed themselves again in everything their schools have to offer inside the classrooms and beyond. Is there anything specific you are looking for when reviewing these items, Ian?

ian:

And are you referring to their overall academic record or?

john_durante:

I think we're referring to the whole application, right? As you put it, the marketing package, the clubs, the leadership roles, their letter, their supplemental essays, teacher letters of recommendations, the whole package.

ian:

So I want to flip this a little bit and say sometimes, because I've covered a bit about making sure that the fit is there. So I want to provide a few more examples of ways to go about doing that. Because to your point, we are very lucky. We have a very strong competitive applicant pool. But sometimes people say, Well, okay, then how do I stand out even further? Sometimes what jumps to mind for me are the things not to do. And so what I can tell you, and some of this may be general college application advice, but I can tell you for most of my colleagues at Cornell, this really matters a great deal. I kind of mentioned it earlier. It's a journey, not the end goal. If you think you know what you want to do with your life, that's great. And I'm not saying you can never mention it. but do not make it the crux of your application. We do not, we do not, a lot of us, first of all, don't believe you. And it's not because it's you, it's because it's life, right? We've been here a while, we know what happens. Here is where you explore. Here is where you learn just how complex different fields are. Or my school, industrial and labor relations, we study work, we study the workplace. So there's a joke that we make about our school, which is if there's any one lesson you should take away from our school, is that it is so unbelievably difficult to actually know what someone does for a living. It's so complex. It's not like... I did a summer of it and I spoke to my mom a lot about it because she does it, and I watched the whole Netflix series about it. Like, it's really difficult to know what it means. In other words, sometimes when people write these things, we don't even believe you. We're like, look... So much happens here. You're going to learn so much. Do not focus very much on convincing us you know what you want to do four and a half years from the time that you are submitting that application. So you have to stay away from focusing so much on what happens next. Another thing that's important in terms of standing out is you You've commented on this. It's not an easy process. We know that. Particularly when people are applying to multiple schools. There's so much information, so many different websites. We know you're getting bombarded with emails and all that. So it's not easy. But ensuring that you really are familiar. with the program that you're talking about really matters. And I'll give you just one important example why. There's so much academic terminology. And I went to a great high school with a great college advisor, but even then I didn't understand, I didn't know what major, college, school, concentration, but that's a minor, what's a dean? What in the world is a provost? 

john_durante:

Hahaha.

ian:

There's so much about academic terminology that's very confusing. But if we're having a blunt discussion about, well, if they all have good records and stuff, what are some ways to stand out? So here's an example of why sometimes my mind goes to what not to do. You don't want to, you want to do your, you want to do as, you want to be very careful in making sure you truly understand a program. And that's how you, it's one of the ways to stand out. It's also one of the ways to prevent you from being knocked down in the pool. And it's not because we're, oh, so hoity-toity and critical. It's for a really important reason. If in this battle to try to investigate and find a good fit and successfully apply to five, ten, twenty different programs, if you confuse some of the terms, if you confuse some of the structures, it may convince a committee that you may not have actually done sufficient research. An example would be, if you're applying, Cornell's a good example, My particular school, there's only one major. You can't double major. You can, in some other programs. If you're writing a really good essay, and you have a great record and all that, but you get certain components about the structure wrong, you call a school a college, you talk about your excitement about double majoring, we're not doing it because we don't need you, we have too many better people. We want you to be happy here. We really want this program to be what you want out of it. And so when certain things like that are wrong, We're actually worried that, wait a minute, do you actually get what your opportunities are here? Do you actually get that you don't have the flexibility that you think you do? That can knock you down in a pool. We don't want you to show, we don't have to call you and go, hey, we admitted you, but, or let's think realistically, if we get tens of thousands of application, how many schools are gonna call up and go, hey, we just wanted to check, you know you can't double major, right? So that stuff can really matter.  When you're in a competitive pool, those things can really impact. It doesn't mean you're not going to be a top student, but they are things that can impact the decision.

john_durante:

Well, I think that's great advice. And it goes to doing your research and knowing what's available to you or not. And if you write something about wanting to double major and the school that they're applying to doesn't offer a double major, well, you didn't do your research and maybe it's not the right fit.

ian:

And I'll get a little bit more specific about that. 

John_durante:

Please.

ian:

I again don't want people to freak out about this and all that, you know, about just how much research you have to do, but I'm telling you, scour these websites, get on their lists, pay attention to everything that you're looking and on your lists that you keep, whether it's an Excel sheet or a Word document or something, try to note all of these things, they can matter. And I'm just gonna use another example.  Sometimes people will, they'll try to connect by, we say this, call this Google rule. Don't. Don't try to connect with counselors and other schools may say against this. Sometimes counselors say, oh, I know some people get advice where they say, show the school the names, list the names of the courses that interest you most. A lot of our programs, we don't like that at all. We call it the Google rule. Don't put anything in your essay that just shows you can find the name of something. Google's amazing. You can find the name of anything. So if we're continuing with this theme of a marketing package, it's not about a good use of space, it's about the best use of space. The best use of space is not telling a school about itself. And through exciting classes like intro to conflict resolution and advanced dispute resolution, we know what we teach. We know what we teach. Don't tell us you did your research by telling us about ourselves, show us. show us by connecting with the issues, the topics you'll study in our program. The reason I mentioned that in the context of what we just discussed is, sometimes people will just find the name of something and they miss the part where, man, that professor retired. I mean, he's emeritus, he's not teaching anymore. Or they found the page for a certain institute, but that institute has been on hiatus while the professor, so nothing's been posted about that institute in three years. So sometimes, they find something on the site, they write about it, but they miss that part. So again, we wanna make sure the student's happy and we're like, they can't wait to do research with a professor that's retired for three years, and occasionally comes back to lectures. So we keep them there.

john_durante:

Right, right, right. So again, it goes back to doing your research and putting your best foot forward in this marketing package that we've been talking about. How important are students' grades and courses in senior year of high school? And can you give an example of why a student's senior year performance made you change your mind regarding their admission status?

ian:

Wow, okay. So when you say admission status, the first thing that jumps to mind for that is changing an admission decision if final senior year grades were drastically different than when we admitted someone. I mean, this is an extreme example. Acceptances are all contingent upon satisfactory performance there.  So I can say, this does not happen often, but if there is a case where we admit someone who has very strong senior year grades and then when we do the final transcript check that we all do, we see a significant drop, that's a problem, particularly if we haven't heard from the student. Life happens, things can happen. We will always find out the context. So when you said, such that the status will change, and that extreme example of the final grades after someone has been admitted, the only example I could think of is when in the handful of times across 16 years where we admitted a student, there was a significant drop in almost every class and there was no communication about it. And it was kind of hoping that we wouldn't catch it. But quickly, I will just say, if you're talking about that senior year schedule and maybe the quarter grades or midterm grades, I think of the idea, I can't really think of too many examples where to your question, status was changed. They absolutely matter. We will look at them when submitted. We do want to see that people continue to challenge themselves. To give a specific example of, okay, well, when might it change a status? It can change a status if it gave us that additional information we needed, especially about a particular field. Again, we are not... People often think, oh, they're so selective, their acceptance rate is so small. I got a B minus once. I got a C once. Why would I even bother applying? We're not machines, man. We're not... You know, context matters. Not just because it's not, and I'm not even saying that because it's about, oh, the only people who can get into Cornell are if you did drop in grades, you had some trauma.  We spend the time reading it because you're a person and people learn in different ways. And that maybe sophomore year or junior year, you dropped in one class, it does not follow that you can't succeed in our program. So that's a place where Senior year grades and the course selection could matter. If we see a blip, say in an area core to our field, but then we see the rest of the record is fine, and oh, by the way, they're still crushing it senior year, it gives us that permission to more comfortably go, yeah, they can do the work.

john_durante:

Fantastic. And again, thank you for that insight. So I recently was chatting with a parent and I mentioned that I was going to have this interview and I asked, what would you want to know from Cornell University? And her answer surprised me. She said, what I really want to know is about the social life for students. What do students do socially on campus, whether it be after class is over during the week or on the weekend? she was really more interested to know about just the overall social life. So any insight that you could give us on that would be greatly appreciated.

ian:

Well, so I have kind of just two things that I will respond to that I typically respond to questions like that. The first is, you know, to my earlier point, whether we're talking about what social life like, what's academic life like, what's the university like, to me, it all comes back to that notion of that is an important thing that the student needs to think about in terms of if the school is right for them. Social life is a great example of that, or anything kind of having to do with outside the classroom, right? We're in Ithaca, New York. We're in central New York. We're not New York City, right? This is a rural area.  It's gorgeous. And outdoor activities are popular, hiking, biking, skiing. We're right by Cayuga Lake, which is stunning, all that stuff. But we're not a major city. So sometimes when people ask about social life, what they may be thinking of is, you know, when your peer institutions are in Cambridge and in New York City, it's like, We get that question and sometimes it's, sometimes for some people it's about like, is there any up there? Like when I'm also looking at New York and museums, you know, 20,000 different opportunities, what is there to compare there? So that's where I always have to emphasize that if someone's looking for that type of environment, specifically a city, a huge city social environment, they want 15,000 things that have nothing to do with the university that I can totally detach because it's New York or San Francisco. Well, that's not us. We're in Ithaca, New York. It's a small community of about 30,000 people plus around another 30,000 or so when all the schools are in session. That's not us. Now, there is way more to do than you will ever imagine. ever have time for. So that's the other part of this socially, whether we're talking socially, academically, or cultural activities, that's the other thing to keep in mind is This is a college town. Education is the main economic driver here. There are multiple colleges that are the main areas of employment and main economic drivers are community. So I mentioned that because whether we're talking about social opportunities or academic opportunities, yeah, you have different things in big cities. Great. That's one thing to experience. What I can tell you is that in a smaller community, There are opportunities for some pretty unique social experiences. And by that, I mean the colleges define the town. When we say to people, hey, why don't you go downtown and maybe go to some festivals with some friends, we're talking about the fact that students are heavily engaged in our community. Students are the volunteers who allowed The Chili Festival last weekend, the Apple Festival, the Ice Carving Festival, and the Ithaca Festival.

john_durante:

Awesome.

ian:

When we say to students, are you passionate about politics? Do you wanna get involved? Well, yeah, there's a New York City or a larger city, right, that may have all these opportunities. Here, it's tough to distinguish the students from the city.  A junior in my school just got elected to the common council. Our mayor, our recent mayor, he just stepped down, our mayor was elected at 24.  He was a Cornell alum who got elected while in office. So here, when we talk about academic involvement and social involvement, there's a lot to do. In particular, there are a lot of substantive ways to get very involved in these social and extracurricular things. because of what a big part of our city the colleges are.

john_durante:

Well, that's a great answer. Thank you so much. And I do hope that the parent is listening because she asked about the social life. So I really appreciate that,

ian:

I'll just tell you very quickly. The other thing that I think we have to speak bluntly about, about the social thing is it's college. It's college. There's some type of distribution. I went in this town to Ithaca college, which is much smaller at Cornell and I found a distribution. So whether you go to a small school or a large university, or you're in a large city or a small city, here again, I say the onus is on the student. you'll be able to find the social life you want. There's gonna be people who just aren't social at all. And academics and jobs are their life. There's gonna be the other end that you're like, do you guys ever go to class? Or how is it you keep doing so well in your grades? You don't go to class? And then there's the large middle. So to me, the real answer to the social life thing is wherever you go, find your people. They'll be there.

john_durante:

That's great advice Ian. Thank you so much.  So to wrap up Ian, my last question: What are the three top pieces of advice you would offer prospective students and their parents who are starting the process now?

ian:

Top piece of advice, which is to the students, but it's sort of a warning to the parents, step one is know yourself. And I know that's a big catch all, but it really is about, you have to, this process is about asking someone comfortably honest questions of yourself. To my earlier comment about what people say about jobs, right? Like, I want to do this. I want to be a lawyer. Why? Why do you believe what you believe? What do you do, it's okay. It's okay. I guess this is real, I guess I'm realizing this also connects to where we say you're not done yet, right? You don't have to appear like you're some finished leader ready to change society, even though you may be changing it now in other ways. There's still learning to do. So knowing yourself means you have to be very honest with yourself about what you do and don't like. And why? Really? Are you ruling out STEM? Do you really not like STEM? Did you not connect with that teacher? Or did you get crushed on that Regents exam and it's haunted you? But you might, those things matter. Are you pursuing a major or a profession or some particular college because your parents wouldn't shut up about it? or because you've been caught up in the zeitgeist of rankings and tier one schools or everyone else around you is applying to this, what do and don't you know about yourself? Why do you believe what you believe? What do you actually look for, do you know what a dean is? Do you know what a curriculum is? Or like when you're looking on that website and it says distribution requirements, what does that actually mean? It's okay to not know. And I vent about this because this is very personal to me because on paper, I was not a first-generation college student. And we use those, we use labels and stuff like that a lot sometimes when we talk about it. But I effectively was what's considered, sometimes we go, well, first-gen students, they may not be as savvy or familiar about these things. I wasn't first-gen. I didn't know so much about this. I didn't know what I shouldn't know. So I was, I consider myself effectively a first-gen. I didn't know these things. It's okay to ask. It's okay to ask what a major actually means. What, how a curriculum plays out. It's okay to ask when you call a particular school, is this major right for me? Our job is not to communicate with you when you've already decided you have to give off a great impression because you want to get in. Our job is to help you navigate this. And a lot of that starts with just knowing yourself and for parents, letting... letting your kids be honest about what they do and don't know. The second one's quick, which is, we already touched on it, know the program. You gotta know yourself and you gotta know the program. You gotta really dive in. And what are the terms mean, the structure, what flexibility do you actually have? Are you writing about things that are currently active and still exist? Cornell is a good example. If you know that the particular committee at Cornell is the one that has to admit you. Do not spend 50% of your supplement essay writing about the clubs at Cornell, which are mostly open to everyone, or writing about how excited you are to be in Ithaca, New York. Don't spend half of it writing about things you'd be able to do in any college or school. They don't want to hear that. They want to know why you want to be in their program. And then the last one, just I guess, you said three, three top? Is that three?

john_durante:

You could go more if you wanted, haha

ian:

I can go two more hours, but if you ask me about three tops, there's two kinds of general ones which encompass a lot. Know yourself, know your program. Know the program. I guess the last piece is... I guess this is general application advice, right, for a job or something like that. This can be a charged process, an emotional process. This can be a sensitive process. Find a way to include someone who you don't know and who doesn't know you, and you might not even talk to them. This is my way of saying, and I'm mainly talking about essays, however you go about doing it, whether it's... Some people I know, I've talked about this, they've gotten a friend to ask another friend and they take their name off the essays or ask a parent to ask one of their friends. My point is, it can be very helpful to have your essays reviewed by someone who does not care about your feelings at all. When you're sitting in front of your family member and asking them what they think, or sitting in front of the English teacher who can be helpful with the grammar aspects of it. That's great. But wow, I have- The people who do this, it's not a lot, but the ones who do this go, whoa, that was helpful. When they don't know you and are not concerned about how you will react. And if you just hand them those two essays and get that feedback, say to them, ask someone who doesn't even know it's from you to read it and go, what are your two main takeaways? So just to give an example, if they come back from say the supplement essay and they have no idea what you're interested in, that's a problem. And you need someone to tell that to you. You may even ask them, tell me what I'm gonna study. If they can't do it. You gotta go back to it. And I just, this can be a really charged process and I find it very valuable to somehow work in a harsh editor.

john_durante:

This is tremendous advice and it goes to the theme of the whole conversation which happens to be connections along with many other themes, knowing yourself, knowing the program and having the courage to include someone that doesn't know you to help review your essay and to be humble enough to take that feedback and make sure that you present yourself the best that you package, right? That's the way we refer to it. Ian, this was an amazing conversation.  I truly cannot thank you enough on behalf of the podcast, but more importantly, the students and the parents that are going to be listening. Thank you so much for your time today. We truly appreciate it, Ian.

ian:

Thanks so much, John.