201: Test Optional Admissions 101: What, Why, Where, Who?
The College Essay Guy Podcast: A Practical Guide to College Admissions
Release Date: 04/04/2018
721: Inside the Application Process (Part 1): Introducing Harmony, High School Senior
The College Essay Guy Podcast: A Practical Guide to College Admissions
Hey friends and welcome back to the podcast! I'm Tom Campbell, a former admission officer and now a college counselor and content creator here at College Essay Guy. In this episode, I sit down with one real student and talk through the actual, messy work of applying to college — in real time. That student is Harmony, and I met her backwards: not in person, but through her writing during CEG Live, which are large group essay writing classes Ethan leads every summer for high school students across the US. I was invited to lead a “bonus session” during the program, where I’m tasked with...
info_outline
720: What to Do When You Don't Know What to Do: Practical Exercises for Navigating Ambiguity with NACAC CEO Angel Pérez (Part 2)
The College Essay Guy Podcast: A Practical Guide to College Admissions
Friends, welcome back to the podcast. This is part two of my conversation with Angel Pérez, the CEO of the National Association for College Admission Counseling. The theme of our conversation was navigating ambiguity. In case you missed , Angel and I talked about where our own relationships with uncertainty began, what it has looked like for him to lead NACAC through some extraordinarily difficult moments, and some of the lessons he’s learned along the way. In this second part, we get much more practical. Angel and I wanted to explore a simple question: What can we actually do when we...
info_outline
719: Tools for Navigating Ambiguity in Times of Uncertainty: A Conversation with NACAC CEO Angel Pérez (Part 1)
The College Essay Guy Podcast: A Practical Guide to College Admissions
Hi, friends, and welcome back to the College Essay Guy podcast. This episode is a fireside chat with Angel Pérez, the CEO of NACAC (the National Association for College Admission Counseling), someone who was named by Forbes as the most influential voice in college admissions. Not long ago, Angel was discussing in an interview his book The Hottest Seat on Campus: A Roadmap for Mastering Leadership in College Admission, and he mentioned that if he could add one more chapter to his book, he'd write it on navigating ambiguity. This is a topic that has interested me for the last couple years as...
info_outline
718: Turning the Tide in 2026: Preparing Students for Lives of Caring and Purpose (with Harvard's Making Caring Common)
The College Essay Guy Podcast: A Practical Guide to College Admissions
Hey friends, welcome back to the podcast. Ten years ago, a group at Harvard released a report called Turning the Tide, and it attempted something audacious: getting college admission (of all things) to make caring count. This June, the fourth report in that series came out, written with NACAC's Center for Innovation in College Admission, and my sense is it's the most urgent one yet. Here's a stat that struck me: 34 percent of teens say they have little or no meaning or purpose in their lives. For young people 19 to 25, it's 51 percent. My guests today wrote the report: Dr. Rick...
info_outline
717: A USC Admission Officer on Early Decision, Rural Student Access, and What She Wishes Students Would Ask with Marie Bury Loew
The College Essay Guy Podcast: A Practical Guide to College Admissions
Hi there and welcome back to the podcast! I’m Tillie Gottlieb, a senior college counselor and content specialist here at CEG. I am delighted to be a guest host today as part of our series interviewing admission officers. We’re getting to know more about this hardworking, thoughtful group of professionals whose job it is to build college communities and shape the culture of our higher education institutions - talk about high pressure! Hearing about their own journeys through the education system, their reasons for working with students all over the world, and the commitments they’re...
info_outline
716: Making the Price of College Make Sense with Adam Miller
The College Essay Guy Podcast: A Practical Guide to College Admissions
Welcome back to the podcast! I'm Tillie Gottlieb, a senior college counselor and content specialist here at CEG. This season, we're sitting down with admission officers to hear their real stories. I spent years on that side of the desk myself, and one thing I want listeners to walk away with is this: these aren't gatekeepers deciding your fate. They're people trying to build a class and a community, often inside a system that feels chaotic from every angle. So over the next few weeks, we're getting to know some of them as people, hearing what actually drives them, and along the way, getting a...
info_outline
715: On Becoming: The Art and Craft of Personal Storytelling (Ep 12: The Translator) with Lavon Robinson
The College Essay Guy Podcast: A Practical Guide to College Admissions
Hi, friends, and welcome back to our series, “On Becoming: The Art and Craft of Personal Storytelling.” I’m Tom Campbell, former Pomona and Holy Cross admissions officer, and one of the CEG podcast co-hosts, alongside my lovely colleagues Tillie and Ethan. In this series, we take a close look at personal essays written by real students, talking about why we love them, what makes them work, and how they came to be. In this episode, we break down an essay that we’re calling The Translator. This student, who worked with one of our amazing essay coaches Lavon Robinson a few years...
info_outline
714: A Live Essay and Application Review with Anna, HS Senior
The College Essay Guy Podcast: A Practical Guide to College Admissions
Hi friends, and welcome back to the podcast. Today's episode is a special behind-the-scenes look at a live application review I did with Anna, a high school senior I met last year. We recorded this about ten days before her early deadlines, and she was kind enough to let me walk through her entire application in real time: her personal statement, her activities list, and all of her supplemental essays for Yale. Fun fact: Anna emailed me a couple months later to let me know she actually got into Yale (congrats again, Anna!). In this episode, we get into: What it was like for Anna to pivot away...
info_outline
713: On Becoming: The Art and Craft of Storytelling (Ep 10: The Stomach Whisperer) with Tillie Gottlieb
The College Essay Guy Podcast: A Practical Guide to College Admissions
Hi, friends, and welcome back to our series, “On Becoming: The Art and Craft of Personal Storytelling.” In this series, we take a close look at personal essays written by real students, talking about why we love them, what makes them work, and how they came to be. In this episode, we break down an essay called "The Stomach Whisperer" about a student who used to lie on her grandmother's stomach and wonder if the echoing gurgle I’d just heard was caused by the molasses or by the cinnamon. I'm joined today by Tillie Gottlieb, a former admission officer turned Director of College...
info_outline
712: Empowering First-Generation Student Success: The Warren High School BUS program with David Cha
The College Essay Guy Podcast: A Practical Guide to College Admissions
Welcome back to the podcast! Today’s episode is hosted by Tom Campbell, a former admission officer and now a college counselor and content creator here at College Essay Guy. This show often reminds us that beneath the essays, the deadlines, and the color-coded college lists, this whole thing is really about people — and today's guest is exhibit A. Quick disclaimer: this is a feel-good episode. Very “This American Life.” If you've ever needed your faith in public education restored, cancel your other plans. In a content landscape where some of the loudest admissions "experts" run on...
info_outlineOn this episode we discuss:
- Are standardized tests evil?
- What are some other standardized test myths that people tend to believe?
- To what extent does the SAT or ACT measure what students need to know in college?
- Important statistics from “Crossing the Finish Line,” a book that outlines the research around how well standardized test scores predict actual student performance in life and in college.
- What is the difference between “test optional” and “test flexible”?
- If students don’t submit standardized test scores, does this have an impact on scholarships and financial aid?
- Does applying to a college without a test score hurt a student’s chances?
- Advice for students with test scores that are “just okay”