Speaker 1: 0:36

Welcome back to Speak Out Standout. I'm Elizabeth Green and today's guest is Thomas Kalil. Thomas is a former director of MBA admissions and financial aid at his alma mater, the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He's an education entrepreneur, edutek investor and a dad. So, thomas, we're super excited to have you here. Thanks for your time, first and foremost.

Speaker 2: 0:58

Absolutely a pleasure, Elizabeth. Appreciate you having me on the podcast and looking forward to the conversation.

Speaker 1: 1:04

And so what we're talking about today is something unique to our podcast. We've not had this discussion before, but, with your background and being in college admissions, we're going to be talking about ways that we can build our children up now for the career and the future that they might want to have. Particularly, we're talking a little bit about college, but other things as well what we can start doing now to support our kids in this and I mean me personally. My kids are 10 and 14, so I'm really just on the cusp of starting to envision this future, and I might be behind the ball here. So those are kind of some things we want to talk about. When should we start thinking about that? I guess let's start with that as a parent, when should we really start thinking about college?

Speaker 2: 1:47

Well, you know, so fantastic, and I know your listeners some of your listeners right now just had a moment of panic and said wait a minute, why is she bringing on an MBA admissions guy? You know, my children are 10 and 14. And so I think you mentioned this in the intro I am both an admissions professional and a parent, so I have two different perspectives on this. So I think, as a parent, I have a 15-year-old, a 13-year-old and a 9-year-old, so you know right, clustered in that age range, and I think that you know the important thing to remember here is that when we're talking about admissions, we're talking about, you know, there are very different timelines of admissions, right, whether you have children or applying to private kindergarten, private grade school, private high school, college, university or graduate school, the mechanics are different, but the core essence of admission is the same. Now for your audience that are thinking well, wait a minute, right, I'm raising my child to be unique and interesting and they have all these diverse interests and I don't want them to be these kind of like super stressed out automatons that are grinding through their high school years, sleep deprived, and, as a parent, I am 100% behind that, and one of the things that I don't like about admissions and the admissions industry for lack of a better term is that there's a big misperception on the parent and student side of admissions that schools are looking for these superhuman, you know creatures, these kids that you read about in the Wall Street Journal or you know whatever, wherever you get your information or you see on the news, and they like, they've taken 500 APs and built two charities and scaled Mount Everest twice without oxygen to raise money for orphans in some remote corner of the world. And I think what we need to keep in mind is that those are the headline cases, right.

Speaker 2: 3:56

So when I was running admissions at Wharton, if I had to give a presentation to the board, if I was speaking to a reporter from a big news organization or something right, you have your little anecdotes and you say, oh, look at this sparkly, interesting student, because I don't want to take anything away from them. They are amazing, amazing people. I mean these students at the age of 18 or 16, you know have done more than, in some cases, many adults with their life. I mean these are just driven interesting people, right. But when you look at kind of the like a bell curve distribution of any demographic. You have people on the right, you have people on the left and the majority are in the middle.

Speaker 2: 4:36

And so the important thing, you know, as I put my admissions director hat on is that what you're looking for are just unique students, students who are self-aware, students who have done things right. So you can't just not do things and then expect to be admitted to a good school, right, and by good school I mean the best school for you, right? I don't want to be kind of exclusionary, because I think there's this concept of good schools that is the US News and World Report top 5, 10, 15, 20. And then there's an understanding that the best school for you might not be one of those schools and you can be immensely successful no matter what. Your path is right.

Speaker 2: 5:18

So admissions is about really kind of getting underneath the hood and getting past the, the numbers and understanding what's the essence of this human right.

Speaker 2: 5:29

Are they intellectually curious, are they kind, are they involved, are they active in things that they care about?

Speaker 2: 5:37

And that is what admissions is looking for.

Speaker 2: 5:39

And all the things grades and test scores and activity lists and all those things are really just a way to standardize that information.

Speaker 2: 5:47

So, as an admissions officer, I can look at that data and extract what I need right, and how I'm so, and so it's important also to remember that my very favorite question when asked about admissions is my very favorite answer when asked about admissions is it depends, right, because every student comes to the admissions process with their own set of life experiences, and so it is inherently unfair for us to judge a student that grew up in Manhattan with a student that grew up in a farm in Tennessee. Right, two very different life experiences, and so they both might be motivated, intellectually curious, involved in things that they care about, you know, and well-respected members of their community, but how they evidence that is going to be, in some cases, profoundly different, right. That doesn't mean that one is more valuable than the other. It just means that you, as an admissions officer, need to be able to understand the context in which they are achieving things and put that into perspective.

Speaker 1: 6:56

So these are things that are all considered. It's not just looking at a checklist of scores and things like that. You're really looking or trying to get in this as the whole person, as much as you can through paperwork.

Speaker 2: 7:08

Absolutely, and you would be surprised. Honestly, people put a lot of value on the interview and in many cases the interview is meaningless because interviews there's bias on the part of the interviewer. There's some students interview we all know people that are not good in person but are really really good in small groups. So in general, an interview is a fairly ineffective way to gauge what you need for the admissions process. The essays, the activity list, like evidence over time is by far the most you can really extract as a professional, as a trained professional. You can really extract a lot of information out of that if it's done right.

Speaker 1: 7:54

Gotcha Okay, so we should be then encouraging our kids to pursue things that they're interested in. I mean, obviously we want to do this as parents anyways, but from the perspective, of it being important In this realm you're talking. What age? Should we really start to be thinking about what this would look like on a college application, and did we have enough there to put on a college application?

Speaker 2: 8:18

Well, you know, elizabeth. So it's interesting because, right, as a parent, we understand, like our children, they're exposed to so many ideas, right. And sometimes that can lead to kind of decision paralysis, right. And I think back when I was applying to schools, right way back in the age of the Brontosaurus, you know it was, the admissions officers wanted what was known as the well-rounded student, and so we had to have strong academics but also play some sports, do some volunteering and be involved in one or two clubs, right. So that was you needed, to be well-rounded.

Speaker 2: 8:58

And what universities have migrated towards now is more depth, right. So what they've said is okay, if we take a bunch of students who are all well-rounded and we put them together, it's a fairly homogeneous group, right. But if I take somebody who is the best biologist, the best sculptor, the best singer, the best mathematician, the best computer scientist right, and are just deeply passionate about that, then those are really interesting people, and when we put them together, that's where the sparks fly and you know that kind of magic happens, where the sum ends up being great, you know the whole ends up being greater than some of its parts, and that's what you're looking for, and I think it's very easy to get caught up in the perspective of parents and students, like what do I need to do to get in, and not look at it from the perspective of the schools. And what the schools are saying is look, in some cases I have 20, 40, 60,000 applications, so I have the freedom to build, to craft a class, and so what I'm looking for are people that are just genuinely curious and interesting and have evidenced that right Now. Does that mean that absolutely highly qualified students are going to be turned away every year? Yes, right, and that by far, is the worst part of admissions. Pardon me, the worst part of admissions is when you're in the committee room and you're having because of space right, because some of these schools have 60,000 applications for 1000 spots you're pulling people out that are absolutely qualified. It just they are, but you're trying to figure out how to craft the class for that year. And so a lot of people will say well, what about you know? What about grades? What about test scores? Well, in a pool of 60,000 applicants, I would say conservatively that 70% of those students are academically qualified. Right, I mean, the real number is probably closer to 85, 90%, but even if it's 10%. Right, let's say it's 10%. Let's say them wildly long as 10%. That's 6,000 students for 1,000 seats. Yeah, so at the end of the day, you still have this dogfight for those seats, and so is it an unfair process? Absolutely so.

Speaker 2: 11:27

I think, as parents, the most important thing that we can do is build curious, self-sufficient children, and so one of the weaknesses that I see a lot of times from when I'm counseling students and working with families, are students who have been so protected their whole life. They're incapable of making a decision, and so a lot of the work that I do is strengthening that reflex. What do you want to do? We need to know what matters to you. What do you want to do about that?

Speaker 2: 12:01

Because what happens is then they get to the essay. The essay is asking a very simple question who are you? What matters to you? What do you care about? What makes your eyes light up in the morning? And they truly just have no answer, because they've been fed the answers their entire life, and the reason you need to break that is because if they go away to college right, you don't want to be babying your 19-year-old right and holding their hand through university. It's like a painful to let them go and be independent, but also that's how we grow meaningful young adults right. That's our role, I think, as parents, is to prepare them to be successful on their own in the world.

Speaker 1: 12:41

Absolutely Personally. We've been with my oldest being 14, and he's now in high school working through things like that and just encouraging him to. If you don't understand what was supposed to be done with this assignment, then you need to discuss it with a teacher. Mom's not calling a teacher, right, so just little things like that and giving them the authority to speak up and the confidence. But it is definitely hard to let go of. But yeah, it's only a few short years before he's going to be in college and needs to know how to do those things Well.

Speaker 1: 13:13

So a little bit of an offshoot question, but we know that for so many years it was college, college, college. Everybody needs to go to college, right, and it was really pushed on us. It was just expected, right, that if you came from a family that could afford it or you could get loans, you were going to go to college. You should try to shift it a bit and, especially with the evolution of technology and the things our kids are learning today, as a freshman in college, you're going to be wildly different by the time they graduate. Do you think that college is still as important for kids as it was for you and me?

Speaker 2: 13:54

Well, we're going to go right back to my very favorite answer in admissions. It depends, right, but I think it's a very, very good question and there are different parts to that question. The first part is return on investment. So college right now is punishingly expensive, and I think that there are a lot of different ways. So let's say, let's start with the first case I want to go to college.

Speaker 2: 14:22

Okay, if you want to go to college, I think you need to be ruthless about the return on investment. What is the cost? Because going and saddling yourself with hundreds of thousands of dollars with the student loans is a commitment, and there are schools for which there is not a good return on investment. Okay, if you go to Stanford and you take on $150,000, $200,000 with the loans or more, is there a guarantee you're going to pay that back? No, but is the probability higher than if you go to a small private college in Montana? I don't want to pick on Montana as first date that came to mind, but you're not going from that school to work in finance on Wall Street, for example, right? So I think you need to be very, very, very ruthless and clear-eyed around.

Speaker 2: 15:18

What is it that I want to do, right. So if writing is my passion, I want to go into journalism. Journalism at the moment is not a highly compensated profession Right, and I love the passion right. Or teaching, for example, right. So if you want to be a teacher and you burden yourself with a quarter of a million dollars with the loans, that's it. I'm just kind of game over. You're never repaying that, right. You just you can't the way that thing, you know, unless you change careers at some point or something happens. So I think you need to be very clear-eyed around. What is it that I think I want to do and how do I best do that?

Speaker 2: 15:53

And if you're looking at a career that needs a graduate degree, then maybe you look at, for example, a good state school Right, because there are state universities that are absolutely fantastic. You go, you get a good undergraduate degree there and then look, if you think that going to a top, very expensive graduate program is going to help you, then by all means go do that Right. If you're in a state that has a strong community college California has a very strong community college system and culture. Texas does as well. New York does Right Do your first two years there and then go graduate from one of the big UCs or UTs and capture the benefit of that, because I do think that, in many instances, the value of college in terms of maturity, in terms of learning how to think, in terms of learning how to deal with adversity, in terms of the networks that you build, the friendships that you build, all of the good things that go into college, I think are very valuable.

Speaker 2: 16:51

And I think also, you know, everybody likes to bring up. Well, bill Gates dropped out of Harvard and Mark Zuckerberg dropped out of Harvard, certainly right, and every week or so, a couple of weeks, there's a power ball winner, right. So I think you know there are people for whom you know luck, you know, is very much on their side and obviously they're smart and they worked hard at taking away from that. But it's that is not a reason to not go to school, right? Because the reality is, if you want to start a company, you certainly can go start a company, but you're going to hit us a point where you need to raise capital, you need to form a board, you need to approach venture capitalists, whatever it is you need to do, and, whether we like it or not, that diploma matters. It matters in terms of network. It matters in terms of getting your foot in the door and being credible to investors. When you're going out and you're asking people hey, give me $100,000, give me $100 million. Right, that does matter.

Speaker 2: 17:55

I'm not going to debate whether or not that's fair, because it's probably not and in some cases it's not necessary. But the next question then is does everybody need college? And the answer is unequivocally no, and they're right. You can go in the military. You can go into trade school. It always disappoints me that we do not have a system like Germany where trade school is on par with colleges. It's not valid is the wrong word is an encouraged and supported career, and it's something where you can make a lot of money and have a very, very good life. That's great. So I think there are a lot of options out there.

Speaker 2: 18:39

So, yes, education is changing very, very rapidly. Just be careful where you're spending your education dollars. I think a lot of online courses and a lot of online universities. I just disagree with a lot of their premise. I think they charge a lot of money for degrees that are ultimately not well received or well regarded by HR or by companies or by whatever. And so before you go, invest in that, be smart Call. If you want to work in a particular industry. Pick up the phone, call a big company, ask to talk to HR and say hi, I'm Thomas, I'm a high school student and I'm looking at colleges. And if you were to hire me out of college, what would you look for? And I promise you that HR professional has probably never gotten that call before, and if you catch them at the right moment, they'll say you know what? Yeah, let me talk to you about that. This is what we look for and this is how we would evaluate that, and this is what may or may not constrain your growth and development of our company.

Speaker 1: 19:47

That's fantastic advice. I'm a former journalist here, so I'm all about picking up the phone and call it right, that's the best way to get answers is just to do it Well.

Speaker 1: 19:57

So you mentioned earlier. I think this is all fantastic advice. One last thing I want to kind of chat through, especially with our, you know, younger kids. You mentioned they should be. We should find what they really are passionate about and encourage that. But, that being said, there are still certain things that really are a little like they stand out. You know, there's like bright stars, there's tiny stars on application forms that people could participate in, or certain clubs, things like that. What are some of those shiny stars that we think? You know, this would look really good and I could see my kid really enjoying this. Maybe we should try this out.

Speaker 2: 20:35

You know. So, respectfully, I actually have to disagree with the premise, right, because I think that's a and it's a great, but it's a great question because it's a very typical question that I get. And it's a very, again, like, if we think about the two sides, we think about the parent and student side, and we think about the admissions side and the parent student side. There's always that quest like well, susan did Model UN and was a you know, president of the school student council and president of the biology club and she got into my dream school and so I should do those same things. What you want to do is no-transcript, what you know it's. And I understand this is hard. Right, I have a 15 year old and 13 year old boy and there are times when they're deeply passionate about things and times when he truly makes me wonder if you know that that breathing and speaking and walking or automatic functions right and so, and so it's, it's. There is no wrong answer to what you're passionate about and what you want to do, and I think, I think that some of that paralysis stems from this expectation of like, oh, I have to do this, but I don't want to do this, right? So if, if your child loves sailing or drawing or cooking or whatever, it is right, have them do that, but have them get deep in it, have them involve other people. So a great example is here in Santa Barbara.

Speaker 2: 22:08

Friend of mine son Was. He was an athlete right, and so his mom was like, listen, you need to go organize a garage because it's a mess in there with all your junk and I'm tired of it and I'm tired of asking you to go outside and go clean up the garage. So he goes out there and he's looking through all of his old athletic equipment. He was like, wow, this is like there's so much stuff here. So he's like, okay, I'm gonna box it up, I'm gonna take it down to this, play it again. Sports that's, like you know, used and I'm gonna sell it.

Speaker 2: 22:38

We thought about it and he was like you know, maybe do something more because honestly, I come from I'm very privileged, like I'm living a very nice life here. And so he went down to one of the underserved schools and talk to the coaches and he was like look, I've got some equipment, could you use it as a good bad? And they were like, seriously, yeah, we'll take it all. So he called all his friends and he's like listen, everybody, bring your stuff for my garage, we're gonna clean it up, we're gonna sort it and we're gonna bring it to the school. And it grew and grew and grew. He built this great organization. They reached out by the time he applied to college they had about 15 other High schools all through California a couple on the east coast and doing this and replicating this model, right, and so that's something where he really was able to make a genuine difference around something he was, he really cared about. Right, it wasn't big and flashy and fancy and but it made a difference in these Students lives.

Speaker 2: 23:39

And I've had, I've had students who are really interesting, who are interested in cooking or farming or you know, whatever it is. They're just passionate about it and they're and, if they can, they're involving other Other students. You know they're involving their friends, are bringing people in and just doing really interesting things with it. And that is emissions off, because what happens is is emissions officer, when you're reading application after application, everybody's honestly doing the same thing. Yeah, I mean, look at the men, look at the menu of options available To your child in high school. It's all pretty standard stuff, right.

Speaker 2: 24:15

So a lot of students will say, okay, I'm gonna start my own nonprofit, I'm gonna start my own club, but in general, what most of them do is they start it, they don't really build it out, they don't have a succession plan, they don't expand it, and so, as emissions officer, I see right through that You're like okay, like we're not taking away from the fact that you did that, but also we know exactly why you did that. And yes, you raised a couple hundred or a couple thousand dollars and again great, but again Right. So do what it is that you enjoy and I think, giving your children the permission for lack of better term and the freedom to really pursue that thing and then help them understand, like, how do we build that out and make it compelling?

Speaker 1: 25:04

I love everything about that answer and I honestly just already feel like a weight has been lifted from my shoulders and we don't need to be trying to check all the boxes or be a specific person. So I mean, this has been fantastic, fantastic and we're almost out of time. But I do have one more question that I know some people are wondering. A lot of the students that we teach in green communications are homeschooled students. Is that a disadvantage when applying for college?

Speaker 2: 25:34

That is a great question, and so when I was running Wharton MBA admissions back in 2005, I remember we had just started to see some homeschooled students, and I remember calling my associate directors together and I was like, listen, you know how do we read this, how do we treat this? And nobody really knew, so we brought in experts on homeschooling, and this was really kind of the first wave of Home schoolers that were not just like complete, you know, off grid, living their own life. Type of students is parents that were saying, hey, we're gonna take control of our child's education and etc. And so I think that schools now are very familiar with homeschooling. It is incumbent on the applicant, though, to talk about their experience Right, so obviously you need to be studying an accredited curriculum. That's generally the law in most states, so the curriculum is accredited, but in that application, maybe take advantage of the additional information essay To say look, I want to give you an idea of what my homeschooling looks like.

Speaker 2: 26:47

Right, because the universities are not judging whether or not your homeschooled right, there's, there's absolutely no judgment there, and in some cases, you know they love it because it's a more of a non traditional applicant. Their main concern 100% concern is Can this student survive the academic rigor of our institution? Right, because as an admissions officer, some of the most painful cuts you have to make are these students that are so interesting, they're so amazing, they've done such cool things. You might have even talked to them because you read their file and you're like, what, you're really interesting, I'm going to call you and get more, you know information on your story. But you look at it in the end of the day and you're like, look, it's irresponsible for me. I can't admit this student because they just they don't have the academic, the fundamental academics. They won't survive, right, and so it's just incumbent on you, as an applicant, to really kind of get in there and say this is my experience, these are my qualifications, you know.

Speaker 2: 27:46

So for a homeschooled applicant, even though testing is optional now in most schools, I would say you should take a standardized test if you can, because that at least allows you to say you know, I have a 1510 on my SAT. So even if you have questions on my homeschool curriculum, right, you can't argue with that number. Or take AP tests, for example, right, you take the test. Even if you don't take the curriculum, take the test, you might surprise yourself. You know, obviously, study for it, right, don't waste your time and money just showing up and taking it. But if you get a four or a five and this is if you're applying to highly competitive schools right, you may not need that for other schools.

Speaker 2: 28:31

So, and I think to find you know, as a homeschooler, I think why are you homeschooling, right? So what are the core values there? And take a very close look at the schools. Do the schools match that those core values? And in some cases, homeschool students are like listen, I love my homeschooling, I love this. I'm going to University of Miami because I want to be surrounded by 100,000 people and it just I want to go complete different, I want a totally different experience, right. And another student might say you know, I really like this kind of like intensive, personalized focus of study and I'm going to apply to what is my favorite college by far, which is Deep Springs, which is a really cool program. So I encourage your listeners to look it up, you know, and get a very kind of alternative but intensely intellectually rigorous learning experience. So, you know, be thoughtful about how you're choosing your school list as well. So sorry, very long answer to a very short question, I hope educational.

Speaker 1: 29:44

Yes, no, I think very, very helpful. And, again, this has been really, really enlightening to me and I'm sure that some of our listeners are going to be interested in learning more from you. And you do offer coaching. You have tons of free resources on your website and your own podcast and all of those things, but you also do coaching as well, right?

Speaker 2: 30:02

We do. We do do coaching, we have essay review services, our podcast. Admittedly, I go very much into depth into the admissions process because I really believe in democratizing it and making it. There are no secrets right. We want everybody to have the opportunity to apply and find their path. So, and also, you know, were you to have follow up questions, happy to come back on and answer those, because this is, this is something yes, it's a, it's a vocation for me, but it's also something I'm deeply passionate about. It's why I left a career in entrepreneurship and venture capital to go into admissions and it's something that just I love doing. So I'm very lucky to have found that thing in my life that really drives me.

Speaker 1: 30:48

And that's exactly what we want for our kids, right? So finding that, right the same thing. So well again, thomas, really, really helpful. All of this information will link to everything in the show notes, so it's easy to go find his podcast, connect on socials and check out his website for more information. Thanks, everybody.

Speaker 2: 31:04

Thank you so much.