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A woman’s life is all work and little rest. An age gap relationship can help.

In the summer, in the south of France, my husband and I like to play, rather badly, the lottery. We take long, scorching walks to the village — gratuitous beauty, gratuitous heat — kicking up dust and languid debates over how we’d spend such an influx. I purchase scratch-offs, jackpot tickets, scraping the former with euro coins in restaurants too fine for that. I never cash them in, nor do I check the winning numbers. For I already won something like the lotto, with its gifts and its curses, when he married me.

He is ten years older than I am. I chose him on purpose, not by chance. As far as life decisions go, on balance, I recommend it.

When I was 20 and a junior at Harvard College, a series of great ironies began to mock me. I could study all I wanted, prove myself as exceptional as I liked, and still my fiercest advantage remained so universal it deflated my other plans. My youth. The newness of my face and body. Compellingly effortless; cruelly fleeting. I shared it with the average, idle young woman shrugging down the street. The thought, when it descended on me, jolted my perspective, the way a falling leaf can make you look up: I could diligently craft an ideal existence, over years and years of sleepless nights and industry. Or I could just marry it early.

So naturally I began to lug a heavy suitcase of books each Saturday to the Harvard Business School to work on my Nabokov paper. In one cavernous, well-appointed room sat approximately 50 of the planet’s most suitable bachelors. I had high breasts, most of my eggs, plausible deniability when it came to purity, a flush ponytail, a pep in my step that had yet to run out. Apologies to Progress, but older men still desired those things.

I could not understand why my female classmates did not join me, given their intelligence. Each time I reconsidered the project, it struck me as more reasonable. Why ignore our youth when it amounted to a superpower? Why assume the burdens of womanhood, its too-quick-to-vanish upper hand, but not its brief benefits at least? Perhaps it came easier to avoid the topic wholesale than to accept that women really do have a tragically short window of power, and reason enough to take advantage of that fact while they can. As for me, I liked history, Victorian novels, knew of imminent female pitfalls from all the books I’d read: vampiric boyfriends; labor, at the office and in the hospital, expected simultaneously; a decline in status as we aged, like a looming eclipse. I’d have disliked being called calculating, but I had, like all women, a calculator in my head. I thought it silly to ignore its answers when they pointed to an unfairness for which we really ought to have been preparing.

I was competitive by nature, an English-literature student with all the corresponding major ambitions and minor prospects (Great American novel; email job). A little Bovarist , frantic for new places and ideas; to travel here, to travel there, to be in the room where things happened. I resented the callow boys in my class, who lusted after a particular, socially sanctioned type on campus: thin and sexless, emotionally detached and socially connected, the opposite of me. Restless one Saturday night, I slipped on a red dress and snuck into a graduate-school event, coiling an HDMI cord around my wrist as proof of some technical duty. I danced. I drank for free, until one of the organizers asked me to leave. I called and climbed into an Uber. Then I promptly climbed out of it. For there he was, emerging from the revolving doors. Brown eyes, curved lips, immaculate jacket. I went to him, asked him for a cigarette. A date, days later. A second one, where I discovered he was a person, potentially my favorite kind: funny, clear-eyed, brilliant, on intimate terms with the universe.

I used to love men like men love women — that is, not very well, and with a hunger driven only by my own inadequacies. Not him. In those early days, I spoke fondly of my family, stocked the fridge with his favorite pasta, folded his clothes more neatly than I ever have since. I wrote his mother a thank-you note for hosting me in his native France, something befitting a daughter-in-law. It worked; I meant it. After graduation and my fellowship at Oxford, I stayed in Europe for his career and married him at 23.

Of course I just fell in love. Romances have a setting; I had only intervened to place myself well. Mainly, I spotted the precise trouble of being a woman ahead of time, tried to surf it instead of letting it drown me on principle. I had grown bored of discussions of fair and unfair, equal or unequal , and preferred instead to consider a thing called ease.

The reception of a particular age-gap relationship depends on its obviousness. The greater and more visible the difference in years and status between a man and a woman, the more it strikes others as transactional. Transactional thinking in relationships is both as American as it gets and the least kosher subject in the American romantic lexicon. When a 50-year-old man and a 25-year-old woman walk down the street, the questions form themselves inside of you; they make you feel cynical and obscene: How good of a deal is that? Which party is getting the better one? Would I take it? He is older. Income rises with age, so we assume he has money, at least relative to her; at minimum, more connections and experience. She has supple skin. Energy. Sex. Maybe she gets a Birkin. Maybe he gets a baby long after his prime. The sight of their entwined hands throws a lucid light on the calculations each of us makes, in love, to varying degrees of denial. You could get married in the most romantic place in the world, like I did, and you would still have to sign a contract.

Twenty and 30 is not like 30 and 40; some freshness to my features back then, some clumsiness in my bearing, warped our decade, in the eyes of others, to an uncrossable gulf. Perhaps this explains the anger we felt directed at us at the start of our relationship. People seemed to take us very, very personally. I recall a hellish car ride with a friend of his who began to castigate me in the backseat, in tones so low that only I could hear him. He told me, You wanted a rich boyfriend. You chased and snuck into parties . He spared me the insult of gold digger, but he drew, with other words, the outline for it. Most offended were the single older women, my husband’s classmates. They discussed me in the bathroom at parties when I was in the stall. What does he see in her? What do they talk about? They were concerned about me. They wielded their concern like a bludgeon. They paraphrased without meaning to my favorite line from Nabokov’s Lolita : “You took advantage of my disadvantage,” suspecting me of some weakness he in turn mined. It did not disturb them, so much, to consider that all relationships were trades. The trouble was the trade I’d made struck them as a bad one.

The truth is you can fall in love with someone for all sorts of reasons, tiny transactions, pluses and minuses, whose sum is your affection for each other, your loyalty, your commitment. The way someone picks up your favorite croissant. Their habit of listening hard. What they do for you on your anniversary and your reciprocal gesture, wrapped thoughtfully. The serenity they inspire; your happiness, enlivening it. When someone says they feel unappreciated, what they really mean is you’re in debt to them.

When I think of same-age, same-stage relationships, what I tend to picture is a woman who is doing too much for too little.

I’m 27 now, and most women my age have “partners.” These days, girls become partners quite young. A partner is supposed to be a modern answer to the oppression of marriage, the terrible feeling of someone looming over you, head of a household to which you can only ever be the neck. Necks are vulnerable. The problem with a partner, however, is if you’re equal in all things, you compromise in all things. And men are too skilled at taking .

There is a boy out there who knows how to floss because my friend taught him. Now he kisses college girls with fresh breath. A boy married to my friend who doesn’t know how to pack his own suitcase. She “likes to do it for him.” A million boys who know how to touch a woman, who go to therapy because they were pushed, who learned fidelity, boundaries, decency, manners, to use a top sheet and act humanely beneath it, to call their mothers, match colors, bring flowers to a funeral and inhale, exhale in the face of rage, because some girl, some girl we know, some girl they probably don’t speak to and will never, ever credit, took the time to teach him. All while she was working, raising herself, clawing up the cliff-face of adulthood. Hauling him at her own expense.

I find a post on Reddit where five thousand men try to define “ a woman’s touch .” They describe raised flower beds, blankets, photographs of their loved ones, not hers, sprouting on the mantel overnight. Candles, coasters, side tables. Someone remembering to take lint out of the dryer. To give compliments. I wonder what these women are getting back. I imagine them like Cinderella’s mice, scurrying around, their sole proof of life their contributions to a more central character. On occasion I meet a nice couple, who grew up together. They know each other with a fraternalism tender and alien to me.  But I think of all my friends who failed at this, were failed at this, and I think, No, absolutely not, too risky . Riskier, sometimes, than an age gap.

My younger brother is in his early 20s, handsome, successful, but in many ways: an endearing disaster. By his age, I had long since wisened up. He leaves his clothes in the dryer, takes out a single shirt, steams it for three minutes. His towel on the floor, for someone else to retrieve. His lovely, same-age girlfriend is aching to fix these tendencies, among others. She is capable beyond words. Statistically, they will not end up together. He moved into his first place recently, and she, the girlfriend, supplied him with a long, detailed list of things he needed for his apartment: sheets, towels, hangers, a colander, which made me laugh. She picked out his couch. I will bet you anything she will fix his laundry habits, and if so, they will impress the next girl. If they break up, she will never see that couch again, and he will forget its story. I tell her when I visit because I like her, though I get in trouble for it: You shouldn’t do so much for him, not for someone who is not stuck with you, not for any boy, not even for my wonderful brother.

Too much work had left my husband, by 30, jaded and uninspired. He’d burned out — but I could reenchant things. I danced at restaurants when they played a song I liked. I turned grocery shopping into an adventure, pleased by what I provided. Ambitious, hungry, he needed someone smart enough to sustain his interest, but flexible enough in her habits to build them around his hours. I could. I do: read myself occupied, make myself free, materialize beside him when he calls for me. In exchange, I left a lucrative but deadening spreadsheet job to write full-time, without having to live like a writer. I learned to cook, a little, and decorate, somewhat poorly. Mostly I get to read, to walk central London and Miami and think in delicious circles, to work hard, when necessary, for free, and write stories for far less than minimum wage when I tally all the hours I take to write them.

At 20, I had felt daunted by the project of becoming my ideal self, couldn’t imagine doing it in tandem with someone, two raw lumps of clay trying to mold one another and only sullying things worse. I’d go on dates with boys my age and leave with the impression they were telling me not about themselves but some person who didn’t exist yet and on whom I was meant to bet regardless. My husband struck me instead as so finished, formed. Analyzable for compatibility. He bore the traces of other women who’d improved him, small but crucial basics like use a coaster ; listen, don’t give advice. Young egos mellow into patience and generosity.

My husband isn’t my partner. He’s my mentor, my lover, and, only in certain contexts, my friend. I’ll never forget it, how he showed me around our first place like he was introducing me to myself: This is the wine you’ll drink, where you’ll keep your clothes, we vacation here, this is the other language we’ll speak, you’ll learn it, and I did. Adulthood seemed a series of exhausting obligations. But his logistics ran so smoothly that he simply tacked mine on. I moved into his flat, onto his level, drag and drop, cleaner thrice a week, bills automatic. By opting out of partnership in my 20s, I granted myself a kind of compartmentalized, liberating selfishness none of my friends have managed. I am the work in progress, the party we worry about, a surprising dominance. When I searched for my first job, at 21, we combined our efforts, for my sake. He had wisdom to impart, contacts with whom he arranged coffees; we spent an afternoon, laughing, drawing up earnest lists of my pros and cons (highly sociable; sloppy math). Meanwhile, I took calls from a dear friend who had a boyfriend her age. Both savagely ambitious, hyperclose and entwined in each other’s projects. If each was a start-up , the other was the first hire, an intense dedication I found riveting. Yet every time she called me, I hung up with the distinct feeling that too much was happening at the same time: both learning to please a boss; to forge more adult relationships with their families; to pay bills and taxes and hang prints on the wall. Neither had any advice to give and certainly no stability. I pictured a three-legged race, two people tied together and hobbling toward every milestone.

I don’t fool myself. My marriage has its cons. There are only so many times one can say “thank you” — for splendid scenes, fine dinners — before the phrase starts to grate. I live in an apartment whose rent he pays and that shapes the freedom with which I can ever be angry with him. He doesn’t have to hold it over my head. It just floats there, complicating usual shorthands to explain dissatisfaction like, You aren’t being supportive lately . It’s a Frenchism to say, “Take a decision,” and from time to time I joke: from whom? Occasionally I find myself in some fabulous country at some fabulous party and I think what a long way I have traveled, like a lucky cloud, and it is frightening to think of oneself as vapor.

Mostly I worry that if he ever betrayed me and I had to move on, I would survive, but would find in my humor, preferences, the way I make coffee or the bed nothing that he did not teach, change, mold, recompose, stamp with his initials, the way Renaissance painters hid in their paintings their faces among a crowd. I wonder if when they looked at their paintings, they saw their own faces first. But this is the wrong question, if our aim is happiness. Like the other question on which I’m expected to dwell: Who is in charge, the man who drives or the woman who put him there so she could enjoy herself? I sit in the car, in the painting it would have taken me a corporate job and 20 years to paint alone, and my concern over who has the upper hand becomes as distant as the horizon, the one he and I made so wide for me.

To be a woman is to race against the clock, in several ways, until there is nothing left to be but run ragged.

We try to put it off, but it will hit us at some point: that we live in a world in which our power has a different shape from that of men, a different distribution of advantage, ours a funnel and theirs an expanding cone. A woman at 20 rarely has to earn her welcome; a boy at 20 will be turned away at the door. A woman at 30 may find a younger woman has taken her seat; a man at 30 will have invited her. I think back to the women in the bathroom, my husband’s classmates. What was my relationship if not an inconvertible sign of this unfairness? What was I doing, in marrying older, if not endorsing it? I had taken advantage of their disadvantage. I had preempted my own. After all, principled women are meant to defy unfairness, to show some integrity or denial, not plan around it, like I had. These were driven women, successful, beautiful, capable. I merely possessed the one thing they had already lost. In getting ahead of the problem, had I pushed them down? If I hadn’t, would it really have made any difference?

When we decided we wanted to be equal to men, we got on men’s time. We worked when they worked, retired when they retired, had to squeeze pregnancy, children, menopause somewhere impossibly in the margins. I have a friend, in her late 20s, who wears a mood ring; these days it is often red, flickering in the air like a siren when she explains her predicament to me. She has raised her fair share of same-age boyfriends. She has put her head down, worked laboriously alongside them, too. At last she is beginning to reap the dividends, earning the income to finally enjoy herself. But it is now, exactly at this precipice of freedom and pleasure, that a time problem comes closing in. If she would like to have children before 35, she must begin her next profession, motherhood, rather soon, compromising inevitably her original one. The same-age partner, equally unsettled in his career, will take only the minimum time off, she guesses, or else pay some cost which will come back to bite her. Everything unfailingly does. If she freezes her eggs to buy time, the decision and its logistics will burden her singly — and perhaps it will not work. Overlay the years a woman is supposed to establish herself in her career and her fertility window and it’s a perfect, miserable circle. By midlife women report feeling invisible, undervalued; it is a telling cliché, that after all this, some husbands leave for a younger girl. So when is her time, exactly? For leisure, ease, liberty? There is no brand of feminism which achieved female rest. If women’s problem in the ’50s was a paralyzing malaise, now it is that they are too active, too capable, never permitted a vacation they didn’t plan. It’s not that our efforts to have it all were fated for failure. They simply weren’t imaginative enough.

For me, my relationship, with its age gap, has alleviated this rush , permitted me to massage the clock, shift its hands to my benefit. Very soon, we will decide to have children, and I don’t panic over last gasps of fun, because I took so many big breaths of it early: on the holidays of someone who had worked a decade longer than I had, in beautiful places when I was young and beautiful, a symmetry I recommend. If such a thing as maternal energy exists, mine was never depleted. I spent the last nearly seven years supported more than I support and I am still not as old as my husband was when he met me. When I have a child, I will expect more help from him than I would if he were younger, for what does professional tenure earn you if not the right to set more limits on work demands — or, if not, to secure some child care, at the very least? When I return to work after maternal upheaval, he will aid me, as he’s always had, with his ability to put himself aside, as younger men are rarely able.

Above all, the great gift of my marriage is flexibility. A chance to live my life before I become responsible for someone else’s — a lover’s, or a child’s. A chance to write. A chance at a destiny that doesn’t adhere rigidly to the routines and timelines of men, but lends itself instead to roomy accommodation, to the very fluidity Betty Friedan dreamed of in 1963 in The Feminine Mystique , but we’ve largely forgotten: some career or style of life that “permits year-to-year variation — a full-time paid job in one community, part-time in another, exercise of the professional skill in serious volunteer work or a period of study during pregnancy or early motherhood when a full-time job is not feasible.” Some things are just not feasible in our current structures. Somewhere along the way we stopped admitting that, and all we did was make women feel like personal failures. I dream of new structures, a world in which women have entry-level jobs in their 30s; alternate avenues for promotion; corporate ladders with balconies on which they can stand still, have a smoke, take a break, make a baby, enjoy themselves, before they keep climbing. Perhaps men long for this in their own way. Actually I am sure of that.

Once, when we first fell in love, I put my head in his lap on a long car ride; I remember his hands on my face, the sun, the twisting turns of a mountain road, surprising and not surprising us like our romance, and his voice, telling me that it was his biggest regret that I was so young, he feared he would lose me. Last week, we looked back at old photos and agreed we’d given each other our respective best years. Sometimes real equality is not so obvious, sometimes it takes turns, sometimes it takes almost a decade to reveal itself.

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The College Essay Guy Podcast: A Practical Guide to College Admissions Podcast – Original recording

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On today’s episode, Ethan is joined by Christine Bowman, Assistant VP for Admission at Southwestern University. In part 6 in our series on What Colleges Want, Ethan and Christine get into:

• What is demonstrated interest and how do colleges track it?
• How important is demonstrated interest to a student’s chance of getting in?
• How might students find out if a particular school considers demonstrated interest in their admission review?
• What are some practical ways you can demonstrate your interest to colleges?

Christine Bowman is the Assistant VP for Admission at Southwestern, where she oversees the admission department to set enrollment and retention philosophies. She has a Masters in Higher Ed Administration from UT-Austin, was the Co-Chair for the 2007 NACAC National Conference in and has served two terms as the Chair of the Colleges that Change Lives Board of Directors (see last season’s episode with Ann Marano for more on CTCL’s work). She currently serves on the advisory board of ROCA-NM (Rural Opportunities for College Access) and, with almost 30 years of experience in the admission profession, Christine believes in guiding students to find the right college fit and regularly gives presentations encouraging a stress-free college search process.

We hope you enjoy the conversation!

Play-by-Play

• 2:15 - What is demonstrated interest?
• 5:00 - Why might demonstrated interest be important to colleges?
• 8:22 - What is yield?
• 11:24 - How can students demonstrate interest for a particular school?
• 15:17 - What can colleges track?
• 18:52 - For whom does demonstrated interest matter most?
• 23:47 - How to “break up” with a college
• 27:05 - What are some practical tips for students as they reach out to a college?
• 30:10 - How might an admissions officer use demonstrated interest?
• 32:58 - What ways can students demonstrate interest without visiting campus?
• 37:24 - What is the difference between early action, early decision, and regular decision?
• 40:25 - How important is the college interview?
• 48:10 - What can parents do to support their students during this process?
• 53:02 - Closing advice for parents, students, and counselors
• A Behind the Scenes Look at Demonstrated Interest w/Christine Bowman (Southwestern University)
• What is Demonstrated Interest? A Practical How-To Guide
• Factors in the Admission Decision (NACAC Report)
• How to Decide Whether to Apply Early Action (EA) or Early Decision (ED)
• College Interview Tips and Strategies - The Ultimate Guide
• CEG Podcast Episode 411: Finding Your Why, What a Liberal Arts Education Really Is, and How to Figure out What You Actually Want w/ Ann Marano (CTCL)

On this week’s episode, Tom Campbell (CEG’s Community Manager) sits down with Ethan Sawyer (College Essay Guy) for Part 5 in our What Colleges Want series to talk about some of the other written parts of the application—the activities list, additional information section, and supplemental essays. Tom and Ethan get into:

• How can students write a great Activities List?
• How can you find out what colleges are looking for in the supplemental essays?
• And what even is the additional information section?
• What is a ‘Super Essay’ and how might it be useful?
• How does a student know when their application is complete?

Fun fact: You’ll find the YouTube video version of this podcast on the College Essay Guy YouTube channel.

• 1:09 - What are the other writing components of a college application?
• 5:26 - How can students write a great Activities List?
• 9:33 - Does the order of the activities matter?
• 11:41 - Are activities from 9th and 10th grade worth putting in the Activities List?
• 13:37 - When should students elaborate on Activities in their Additional Info section?
• 17:05 - What else can go into the Additional Info section?
• 23:14 - What are some things to avoid putting in the Additional Info section?
• 24:41 - How should students format the Additional Info section?
• 26:19 - Why do some colleges have supplemental essays?
• 27:31 - What are some of the most common supplemental essays prompts?
• 34:11 - How might institutional priorities impact an individual applicant?
• 44:14 - What is a ‘Super Essay’ and how is it used?
• 49:12 - How does a student know when their application is complete?
• How to Write a Successful Common App Activities List
• How to Use the Common App Additional Information Section: Guide + Examples
• My College List (Research + Essay Topic Tracker)
• School-Specific Supplemental Essays
• Why This College Essay Guide + Examples
• How to Combine Your College Essay Prompts (To Save 20+ Writing Hours)
• What the Heck are "Hooks" and "Institutional Priorities"?
• The Values Exercise
• CEG Podcast Episode 101: Life As an Undocumented Student at Harvard
• CEG Podcast Episode 504: What Colleges Want (Part 4): A Crash Course in the Personal Statement with Ethan Sawyer (College Essay Guy)

On this week’s episode, Tom Campbell (CEG’s Community Manager) sits down with Ethan Sawyer (College Essay Guy) for Part 4 in our What Colleges Want series to talk about the personal statement. According to the latest State of College Admission report – after grades, course rigor, and positive character traits (see previous episodes), the college essay is what colleges care about most. Tom and Ethan get into:

• What is the purpose of the personal statement?
• How do you find a topic, especially if you’re not writing about challenges?
• Why do I recommend students NOT choose a common extracurricular activity as their main college essay topic?
• How do you stand out?
• And how do you know when you’re done?
• 1:38 - What is the purpose of the personal statement in the college admission process?
• 2:53 - How might students use this statement for multiple schools?
• 3:48 - Should students talk about challenges they’ve faced in a personal statement?
• 6:47 - Should students talk about their major or career goals?
• 8:33 - Where is the best place to discuss extracurricular activities?
• 10:20 - Should students explain red flags in their personal statement?
• 11:26 - How can students brainstorm potential topics for their personal statement?
• 17:56 - What is the structure of a personal statement?
• 21:11 - How can students stand out?
• 28:57 - Case Study: What does the process look like from brainstorming to final draft?
• 35:39 - How does a student know when their essay is done?
• 38:27 - Is there a place for artificial intelligence in the college essay?
• 41:47 - have personal statements shifted since the Supreme Court ruling on Race-Conscious Admissions?
• 44:04 - Why does the personal statement process matter?
• 49:14 - Closing thoughts
• YouTube Video version of this episode (504)
• Sample personal statements
• 7 Brainstorming Exercises (YouTube video)
• The “Food” essay (YouTube video analysis)
• The Great College Essay Test
• Why You Don’t Have to Write about Trauma in Your College Essay to Stand Out—and What You Can Do Instead
• Matchlighters Informaiton
• CEG Podcast Episode 404: Race-Conscious Admission Was Struck Down—What Does This Mean and What Can Students and College Counselors Do? w/ Jay Rosner
• Is It “Okay” to Talk About Race in Your College Application and Essays—And If So, How Should You Do It?

On today’s episode, Tom Campbell (CEG’s Community Manager) and Nitzya Cuevas-Macias (Director of College Programs at Downtown College Prep) cover:

• How do students decide which classes to take—and what questions should they ask when deciding?
• Key recommendations for selecting English, math, science, social studies, language, and elective courses
• The most frequently asked questions we get asked about courses and grades

Nitzya Cuevas-Macias was a first-gen college student at UC Berkeley where she studied History and Legal Studies, and earned her Master’s in Mexican American Studies from San José State. She’s been working in education for 16 years where the majority of her time has been in college access and success, in the CBO, non-profit world, k-12 public and charter, and community college. Currently, she is the Director of College Programs at Downtown College Prep, a free public charter in San José, CA and serves as a board member of the Western Association for College Admission Counseling. 

We hope you enjoy!

Play-by-Play:

• 2:21 - Introductions
• 6:02 - What are key things to keep in mind when planning your high school experience? 
• 11:40 - English 
• 16:04 - Math
• 21:34 - Science 
• 28:02 - Social Studies
• 31:11 - Languages
• 33:06 - Visual/Performing Arts 
• 36:17 - Electives
• 37:43 How do colleges evaluate my course grades and transcript?
• 38:22 - Is it important to only get Straight-As to have a chance? 
• 40:29 - How do colleges evaluate my GPA?
• 42:05 - How can students balance a high GPA with challenging courses?
• 44:28 - Should students increase their rigor every year?
• 45:23 - Is it a good idea to take additional summer or online courses?
• 49:43 - How important is class rank?
• 51:19 - Should I pick Honors, AP, IB, or Dual Enrollment? 
• 54:17 - Are AP and IB scores important if my school doesn’t offer AP courses?
• 57:28 - How do I know what classes to take if I don't know what I want to study or where I want to go to college?
• 59:59 - Wrap up / closing thoughts
• Episode 403: AP, IB, Honors, Oh My!: How Admissions Officers View Your High School Courses, Rigor, and School Context - Susan Tree
• Episode 213: Self-Directed Learning (Why You Can Quit HS & Be Okay)
• What are AP classes?
• Easiest AP Classes
• Hardest AP Classes

On today's episode, Ethan sits down with David Hawkins, Chief Education and Policy Officer at National Association of College Admission Counselors (aka NACAC), and they get discuss, among other things: 

• What are the most important factors colleges consider? 
• What significant changes has he seen in the college admission landscape in the past few years?
• How has the emphasis on college essays (aka the personal statement) shifted? 
• Why has the emphasis in standardized testing changed?
• What have the impacts been of the Supreme Court decision to ban race conscious admission? 
• How can students, counselors, and parents use the info in this report to make their college admission process easier? 

For over 20 years, David Hawkins has worked in enrollment management and admissions to alleviate systemic barriers to accessing higher education. Hawkins has played a key role in setting NACAC's strategic direction, which involved hearing and representing the collective voice of NACAC’s more than 25,000 high school counselors and college admission officers. His priorities include making NACAC a more effective learning organization, with an emphasis on ethics and redefining advocacy. 

We hope you enjoy the conversation.

• 2:04 - Introductions
• 3:03 - What is the State of College Admission report?
• 5:48 - How can students, parents, and counselors use this report?
• 9:50 - Which factors of admissions decisions are most important to colleges?
• 13:34 - How are “positive character attributes” assessed?
• 18:00 - What are some specific qualities that are important to colleges?
• 20:46 - How do students show these qualities in their applications?
• 25:33 - How has the importance of the college essay shifted in recent years?
• 27:13 - Which colleges seem to value the essay more highly?
• 28:47 - How does a student’s interest in attending a particular school influence admissions decisions?
• 32:30 - How are counselor & teacher recommendations assessed?
• 33:58 - What are admissions officers looking for in extracurricular activities?
• 37:38 - Why is high school class rank dropping in rank of importance? 
• 39:30 - Do colleges still want to see standardized test scores?
• 42:52 - Quick thoughts on creative portfolios, interviews, work experience, state exam scores, and subject test scores
• 44:49 - David shares predictions on shifts in equity and inclusion in the future of admissions
• 48:57 - Closing thoughts 
• State of College Admission Report
• A List of Activities You May Not Have Considered Including—But That Count!
• How to Ask for a Letter of Recommendation for College: Step-by-Step Guide for Students
• How to Write a Letter of Recommendation: Counselor's Guide + Samples
• How to Write a Recommendation Letter for a Student: Teacher’s Guide + Samples
• Crash Course to Standardized Testing
• 204: What You Need to Know About Standardized Tests and Mistakes to Avoid
• 411: Finding Your Why, What a Liberal Arts Education Really Is, and How to Figure out What You Actually Want

On today’s episode, Ethan is joined by Amanda Miller, who got her start in financial aid through the College Advising Corps at Davidson College in 2014. A few thousand students, several resources, and dozens of financial aid presentations later, Amanda’s an independent financial aid specialist and college adviser who also serves as the financial aid go-to lady for the Matchlighters program and someone we consider to be a part of the extended College Essay Guy family. 

Ethan and Amanda discuss: 

• How do people identify the best ways to pay for college?
• What are some things that people who win scholarships do differently?
• What’s the most important thing a student can do to make college affordable and avoid going into tons of debt?
• How can you learn which colleges are likely to be affordable to you?
• Myths on topics ranging from financial aid appeals to applying out of state
• 1:45 - Intro
• 2:49 - How do people pay for college?
• 4:39 - Where does most of the money come from when it comes to paying for college?
• 5:28 - What are the three types of scholarships?
• 7:28 - How do students win scholarships?
• 10:38 - How does the FAFSA help students pay for college?
• 15:21 - How do students avoid taking on too much debt?
• 19:23 - How do students figure out what kinds of colleges will be affordable?
• 27:30 - What are some of Amanda’s favorite affordability tools for students and parents?
• 29:43 - Amanda busts some college affordability myths
• 37:33 - How can families determine if college is truly worth the cost?
• 41:42 - What is the difference between “cost of attendance” and “net cost”?
• 44:04 - Why should most people still complete the FAFSA?
• 47:57 - What is a reasonable amount of debt to graduate with?
• 50:21 - What steps should students take to figure out their financial plan for college?
• 51:52 - Closing thoughts
• Financial Aid Advising with Amanda Miller (The Counselor Lady) Meeting Request
• Crash Course on How to Pay for College 
• How to Make College Affordable Mini-Course for U.S. Students and Families
• How to Make College Affordable Mini-Course for College Counselors and Educators
• College Scorecard – US Department of Education
• TuitionFit – Mark Salisbury 
• CollegeXpress
• The College Finder: Choose the School That’s Right for You! Fourth Edition – By Steven R. Antonoff, Ph.D.
• Podcast Episodes:
• 121: Which Schools Are the Most Generous With Financial Aid? (US Version) – Jeff Levy, financial aid expert
• 122: Which Schools Are the Most Generous With Financial Aid? (International Version) – Jennie Kent, international financial aid expert
• 411: Finding Your Why, What a Liberal Arts Education Really Is, and How to Figure out What You Actually Want – Ann Marano (Colleges That Change Lives)

In today’s episode, Tom Campbell (CEG’s Community Manager) and Susan Tree (a college counseling and admissions legend with 40+ years of experience) chat about “intellectual curiosity”: a quality that many colleges actively look for in students, yet is a little more ambiguous and nuanced compared to mapping out a high school course plan.

This is part 2 of a series about students’ academic background and interests and how they factor into the admissions process. Part 1 is about all things related to the academic part of a student’s college application— which, at many selective colleges, is seen as the “foot in the door” of their selection process.

On the episode you’ll hear Susan and Tom discuss:

• Identifying an academic superpower and framing it in that way in your college application
• How coming across as "too complete" to colleges (as in, you have no bigger questions you'd like to solve) can actually make your application less competitive
• How to infuse intellectual curiosity into your supplemental essays
• Showing academic and nonacademic alignment for particularly popular majors

Hope you enjoy.

• 1:38 - Reframing your accomplishments as superpowers
• 7:12 - Identifying your learning style among Architects, Gardeners, and Explorers
• 10:22 - Why colleges want different types of learners  
• 13:52 - Why communicating what you’re curious about to admissions officers is a good idea 
• 15:07 - Staying in touch with who you are on your application 
• 19:17 - Understanding the pressure to present a complete version of yourself
• 22:55 - An example of showing intellectual curiosity through supplemental essays 
• 26:44 - The value of curiosity in non-academic spaces
• 32:52 - How highly-selective colleges evaluate quality vs. quantity in their applicants
• 38:51 - What is academic alignment vs. non-academic alignment? How does this impact the way colleges read applications?
• 43:34 - What if your high school doesn’t offer specialized programs to help you explore your intellectual curiosity?  
• 46:49 - Final thoughts
• Episode 403: AP, IB, Honors, Oh My!: How Admissions Officers View Your High School Courses, Rigor, and School Context (with Susan Tree)
• How to Choose a College Major (Step-by-step)
• How to Write the "Why this Major" College Essay

Hey all, today’s episode is a special one. We had one of our rockstar essay coaches, Shira Harris, sit down with two of her former Matchlighter students, Milena Veliz and Sayem Kamal, to discuss their experiences navigating the college application process as First Generation Low Income Students. At the time of the recording, Milena was an incoming sophomore at Macaulay Honors College at John Jay and Sayem was an incoming freshman at Columbia University. They both received full scholarships at their respective schools. 

In the episode, we’ll listen to Shira, Milena, and Sayem discuss (among other things): 

• Milena and Sayem’s backgrounds and how they found out about the Matchlighters program
• The process of working with Shira and some of the most helpful resources they used to write their essays
• Leveraging scholarships to pay for college
• Difficulties Milena and Sayem encountered in the application process and why having a mentor was so helpful
• What Milena and Sayem wrote in their personal statements
• Tips, hacks, and guidance for students going through the process right now

If you’ve never heard of Matchlighters, it’s our 1-on-1 coaching support program where we pair students from low-income households with volunteer counselors. We’re in our 8th year of the program with over 2,000+ Scholars supported from 45 states and 5 continents — with our scholars attending more than 150 colleges and universities.

Shira Harris, whom you’ll meet in a moment, is an alternative educator, mediator, former civil rights attorney and queer activist who received a BA from UC Berkeley, law degree from New York University, and an international masters on migration and mediation in the Mediterranean region.

We hope you enjoy the conversation. 

• 2:20 - Milena & Sayem share their backgrounds 
• 5:13 - How they found Matchlighters and what their sessions were like 
• 9:41 - What resources did they find helpful in the college essay writing process?  
• 12:36 - How did Milena & Sayem start to build their college lists? 
• 15:35 - What was difficult or unexpected about this process? 
• 19:45 - What tips do Sayem & Milena have for students going through this process right now? 
• 23:20 - How did they overcome concerns about college affordability as low-income students? 
• 26:35 -What scholarship resources did Milena & Sayem find in their search?
• 29:29 - How are Milena & Sayem connecting with their college campuses?
• 33:03 - What parts of the application process have stuck with Milena & Sayem? 
• 36:55 - What advice would Sayem & Milena give to their former selves? 
• 38:45 - Resources for First-Gen, Low-Income students 
• 41:11 - Wrap-up / closing thoughts
• Matchlighters
• Corsava Card Sort
• QuestBridge
• Why Us Guides
• Super Essays
• Macaulay Honors
• Where You Go Is Not Who You'll Be by Frank Bruni
• Reddit - r/applying to college
• Reddit - r/questbridge
• CollegeBoard
• CEG Discord
• First Gen Support Discord
• UStrive (mentorship program for FGLI students)

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‘The Death of College Sports Will Be Fast and Furious:’ The Scandal That Could Kill the NCAA

By Guy Lawson

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Sent undercover by the FBI, Blazer offered bribes to high level college basketball coaches in return for the coaches agreeing to surreptitiously steer their best prospects towards his financial advisory company. Some of the leading basketball programs were directly implicated, with coaches slipped hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash under the table to agree to conspire to convince their top players to sign on as Blazer’s clients — in effect, trafficking the kids. Blazer had been wearing a wire, working in tandem with an FBI undercover, ensnaring more than ten coaches in an elaborate plot that revealed corruption in the basketball programs at Louisville, Arizona, LSU, USC and other schools.

Until Blazer received the request to meet with the NCAA, he had never told his story outside of official circles, but now he sat in a conference room in a hotel near the airport in Pittsburgh with more than a dozen officials arranged on the far side of a conference table.

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Blazer told the po-faced regulators the number of coaches he had offered bribes who had accepted: one hundred percent. Every single coach offered a bribe had eagerly accepted the FBI’s money. College basketball best resembled an organized criminal enterprise, Blazer believed, with the country whacked into territories as the Mafia had once done.

Blazer then addressed the perils of an NIL program, allowing players to earn money by making deals for the use of their personas. Unless it was implemented properly, Blazer told the NCAA officials, NIL would only make things worse for student athletes — much, much worse. NIL deals would be the teenage student-athletes first brush with the realities of commerce, with boosters and brands and coaches conniving to convince the best players to sign with them — with virtually no protection from the unscrupulous.

“I told them the key was the regulation of NIL,” Blazer recalls in Hot Dog Money . “I told them that if they left NIL wide open — if NIL became the Wild West — an endless parade of dudes like me would prey on the kids. The top players would probably be okay — the kids who could command national attention from reputable companies. But the midlevel kids would be ripped off and lured into terrible contracts with boosters. The kids wouldn’t understand all the ways a clever businessperson could take advantage of them. The NCAA absolutely had to protect the kids, or it was only a matter of time before the NIL system blows up in their face. The NCAA is throwing students to the wolves.”

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The NCAA’s failure to provide even rudimentary protections for college kids for their NIL rights — surely a worthy regulatory goal — reveals the hypocrisy and greed that will be at the heart of the demise of college sports as currently constructed. With the Supreme Court predicting the end of the monopoly of college amateurism, the recent termination of the monopoly on real estate agent commissions seems an apt analogy for a deeply entrenched American institution that is fundamentally corrupt. The NCAA is squeezing amateurism for every possible billion, but as Ernest Hemingway once noted about the how rich go bankrupt — gradually, then suddenly — the death of college sports will be fast and furious. What comes next isn’t clear, yet, but as Marty Blazer told the NCAA, the desperate resort to an unregulated NIL program won’t fix a broken system. No amount of March Madness can change that reality.

Guy Lawson is a longtime Rolling Stone contributor, his book Hot Dog Money: Inside the Biggest Scandal in the History of College Sports will be in bookstores this June. Pre-order a copy here :

Contributors: Guy Lawson

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