How To Create a Passion Project That Stands Out to Admissions Committees

KATIE: Absolutely. Well first of all, “Go blue!” Thank you all for being here this evening with Glen and me. Passion projects are really a favorite topic of mine and if you book a consultation with us, which we’ll share information with you about doing, you’re very likely to end up on my calendar and I’m happy to talk more with you about your specific goals, whether it’s about passion projects or something else in the admissions process, but just a little bit first about who Prepory is: we are a college admissions counseling firm. So, we are supporting students from 9th grade all the way through 12th grade and through the application process, including transfer students as well, in making sure that they can achieve their goals in this process. We’ve been around for over a decade. We’ve helped over 14,000 students in this process and 94% of our students are admitted to one or more of their top five choice schools.

So, we have absolutely great results with making sure that students are able to meet their goals. And when it comes to top schools in particular, when you work with Prepory, you are 3.38 times more likely to be accepted to a school with an acceptance rate below 15%, so that would be some of the top schools that you might be thinking about here in the audience tonight. And in terms of some of those results, if you click to the next slide, absolutely. Here we are. So just this last admission cycle, Prepory had acceptances to all Top 50 schools in the U.S. You are seeing some of those results here, and of course, many, many more. And passion projects are a huge part of this process. So, Glen’s going to dive into exactly how we support students in that and it’s going to be conversational tonight. So I’ll be popping into the Q&A with you as well and sharing my insights in this process.

GLEN: Great. Thank you, Katie. And thank you for also using that Q&A function. Teresa, please do. Those lines are open. We have people in the background as well answering these questions, so that feedback about my volume is also useful. I will try and speak up, but please use that. What we are going to be getting into are these core questions. We really believe in the power of questions here, that’s why we ask your students a lot of questions. It is what we do for a living: answer the questions that the universities ask of us. So, we’re going to try and model that as much as possible using this inquiry-based model of how we approach this because we know this is what’s also going to help your students to grow as much as possible, getting them to figure out the answers to life’s questions and college questions.

So, the questions we’re going to be diving into today are how passion projects factor into admissions, different types of passion projects, how do you choose a passion project, how to make sure your passion project stands out, and then of course how Prepory can help. And then if you’re like, “You know what, I have even more questions.” Don’t worry, we’re going to save time at the end for some Q&A. But again, don’t necessarily wait until the end. If you’ve got something that’s burning that you’re like, “I need this clarification here,” please drop that into the chat. Do note, we do have a bunch of people in this chat, so we might be grouping your questions together as a catchall. We might not independently answer each one, but also if you have a very specialized question, I will recommend that you sign up for a meeting with Katie.

She would love to talk to you and give you very specific information about your student and help you to get connected with a coach who can help them answer some of those life questions. So, first thing, how passion projects factor into admissions. For those of you who are familiar with the Common App, those seniors who might be in this thing, you probably hopefully have already opened up your Common App. You have started this account, your account there. You will notice that there is no space in the application for you to actively describe the passion project. They’re not a specific question. There is no checkbox for a passion project. What did you do? In the same way that the SAT, there are benchmarks on there. There are these key things that they are helping you, needing you to meet. There is no secret hidden box as well. Sometimes there’s that secret question if you click on the majors of “What is this passion project?” And that’s really because of how the admissions process works.

GLEN: The passion project is about showing the traits that they are assessing. Admissions officers are using the process called holistic admissions, where they are evaluating you on all of these traits. They’re trying to assess your measure of your ability to meet any of these criteria. It’s holistic. They’re looking at the full part of you: your academic ability, your community contribution, your ability to lead, your commitment to stay through, which is kind of important because they want you to graduate in four years like “are you going to stay committed?”, your ability to grow, kind of a big thing within education, your ability connected to that, your ability to understand yourself. These are really hard questions. As someone with a PhD and has tried to research these things, making direct measures of things that are intangible as that is hard. That is why they use a variety of different tools, mechanisms to evaluate them.

Some of those you’re very familiar with. The GPA, the SAT, much clearer cut. They’re very attuned to this academic ability over here. The other parts, this community contribution, this growth, this reflection, this leadership, what they’re going to use to measure those tend to be more the letters of recommendation, but they also really look at those essays and what the essays are ultimately about, the activities. And so, you’re going to have two ways to show that the activities list and the essays in your application, but we want to make sure that you are actually showcasing those with those activities. So, let’s get into the framing of these activities. The best way to show that you have the traits is to make sure that you have activities that line up with these three buckets. So, if you’ve been in a webinar with me before, I love these buckets.

I think it’s very clear, heuristic, there’s a nice little SAT word for you to understand what it takes in order to get into these top schools, you need to have activities that show that your long-term academic interests, your career interests. What are you hoping to do with the major that you study? Why are you seeking to study it? They need to see activities that can show it, not just tell, but show. You need to have activities that are connected to the community, that are related to something that is making a difference in a community that you care about, and you need to have activities connected to this third thing here: creativity and joy that you do for the sake of the activity. They don’t just want a robot that can be really good at business or really good at CS. They want to see a whole person.

They want to see someone that can go into the world and create change in multiple ways. And like I said, there is no checkbox for these things, like, “Oh, what is your dynamism? What is the thing that you’re doing here? Please describe that exactly.” No, because they know there are multiple ways this can show up. It’s a beautiful part of their process that they try and create here. So, you can theoretically do these things through organized activities like at the school club that you are already in. You could be meeting this community impact or this intellectual curiosity, right? You sign up for a summer program, you sign up for COSMOS, you sign up for SRA, you sign up for RSI. I guess to get into those things, that’s an activity that shows intellectual curiosity. But passion projects are a way that you can fill in these buckets in a targeted way, right?

An activity in NHS, like where does the fluid fall? It’s kind of like throwing water at the buckets. A passion project is an independently sustained activity, meaning you are spending multiple months, multiple years in an activity that is meant to fill at least one of these buckets. It’s trying to get as targeted as possible. You’ve seen those sorts of videos where they pass the water between, this is the one where you get all the water into the bucket, so you maximize your chance, which is really important for students who, if you ask ’em what they are feeling most of the time stressed about the lack of time. So, a passion project, it’s not the only way to get into college, but it might be one of the most efficient ways to get into college. So, these activities, be it organized or in our case, which we’re going to focus on, the passion projects, will need to show up in two forms that I’ve mentioned already: one, the essay and two, the activity list. So, let’s get into that to see what this would actually look like.

So, this is a prompt. The seniors in here might recognize this. People who are just way too into this panel also recognize that this is an MIT prompt. There are many different prompts that you can use to write about a passion project. It’s just going to be dependent on what the passion project is trying to do. Which bucket are you trying to showcase to those admissions officers? And if you’re not certain like, “Ooh, I don’t actually know what my buckets are. I don’t even know what could be in my buckets. I don’t know what I’m necessarily passionate about with my academic major, what my community impact is. What is the thing that I can at least do for joy?” If you don’t have a concrete answer for that, the first thing I’m going to recommend you do is you talk to Katie so that she could get you with a coach to help you figure it out.

This is going to be one of those key things. You will see this aligned again throughout this webinar. Knowing who you are is the whole key to this. And sometimes it takes someone with a mirror, a very precise mirror, very introspective mirror for you to get to understand that. And that’s the best part of this job for me is being that mirror for students. So, let’s get into these essays. I’m going to read it first. Don’t worry. I’ll read it out loud. So y’all don’t have to, I’m not going to be like, “Please come off mute and read for you.” No, we’re not going to do that. That would be really rude. I’m going to highlight some of the things in here. So, “How did you manage a situation or challenge that you didn’t expect? What did you learn from it immediately?” Not necessarily aligning these things that we talked about.

So, let’s see how they do it. “I found my brother at the kitchen table staring at his laptop. He received yet another rejection email. The sparkle in his eyes dimmed, replaced by a shadow of defeat. I knew what an amazing, diligent person he was notwithstanding his disability. So, I felt some sort of responsibility to help him find his way. I tried to help by doing things like creating a LinkedIn account for him and reaching out to companies. However, these connections went nowhere. Not only did I expect, not only did I not expect him to have such difficulty in finding work, but I also didn’t expect my initial efforts to be so fruitless.” Well, interesting. We’re already getting some sense of the tone here. So, what are we seeing just within this first paragraph? We see values. That’s what I emphasized from the beginning. We have this one that’s bolded (helpful for you) about responsibility, but we’re also seeing compassion.

We’re also seeing empathy. We’re also seeing care in this story, which is, you know, community contribution. I see that these are values that you want. This is really important to make sure that values show up in your passion project and show up in your essays because this is what AOs are really helping to zoom in on, who are you? So, this is why coaches in your first meetings, we’re really trying to help you to know what these values are so that you can showcase them to the admission officers. The second bold thing is this: “I didn’t expect my initial efforts to be so fruitless,” right? She failed multiple times. She’s already set up that she’s failed, which might be a little bit counterintuitive, like, “Oh, don’t you want to show that you are super successful, that you never fail?” No. They are looking for you to have tried and fallen short because it’s then what you do with that falling short that shows your resilience, it shows your growth, it shows your ability to succeed in college, because anyone who has taken organic chemistry before knows that you’re going to get smacked in the face and how are you going to be able to respond to that? So, showing these things, especially when you can link it to the interests you have, is very important. So, let’s see if they actually do that.

“Our breakthrough came when we connected with a job assistance program for people with disabilities. I realized I could leverage my strengths to make a difference. Just like my brother’s counselor, I decided to develop a platform to connect people with disabilities to jobs. I wanted to center the experiences of people with disabilities. So, I consulted my brother throughout its development. For example, he shared how each job application and polite rejection made him feel invisible. This inspired me to make sure that the companies I included on the platform expressed commitment to diversity and inclusion in their policies and past hiring practices. Our collaboration helped me to realize that impactful solutions not only require dedication, but also the diverse perspectives of everyone involved.” So, what are they doing in this paragraph that really stands out to admissions officers? In this bold thing, “People with disabilities.” First, people centered language. Great, love it. AOs are going to see that, “Oh, this person has probably actually been in these spaces and knows what to say.” That sort of language tweaking, what to say, can be very helpful. So, I loved it. I’m sure the MIT officers loved it; I mean there’s a reason she got in. And then the second but also within that is a clear community that you care about. There’s a clear issue. This student cares deeply about a very particular issue that is personally important to her, which she set up in the previous one and is doing something about it.

There is a clear rationale of why. There has to be a why. The “why” becomes one of the most important things. It should be rooted in the values again, but this sense of why has to be there. This is what we get to help do as coaches is help your kid put words to what that “why” is. Second thing, the bolded: developed a platform. Great. They care a lot. What did you actually do? This person was a CS major. Oh, it’s an applicant who used those academic interests around CS, not just like, “Hey, I want to do CS.” “Why?” “I don’t know. I like programming.” No, I am doing CS because I want to develop better platforms that can make this issue a thing of the past. This is what college education is all about. It’s developing and they want you to have that through line so that they see where you’re going to go and how you’re going to do incredible things in the world, that’s what they’re hoping you to do.

Our goal as admissions counselors here is to get you there, coaches, is to help you to understand what that goal is and make sure that you’re presenting it as clearly as possible. It’s sometimes really hard to find out what are the different interests to me. How can I connect them? What is that key issue? What is the thread? One of our coaches likes to call them a TED post that you wrap the entire application around, but that’s what we specialize. We love finding that in showing kids that this is what you can do. The third thing is this collaboration. I said that the definition of a passion projects, it’s independent. That means that it’s not done with a pre-established organization, right? You’re not doing this as a part of NHS. You’re not doing this as a part of a pre-established biology club, but it doesn’t mean you’re doing it alone.

The best projects often involve other people. They involve mentors who can help you see what you need to do next. Coaches are great at this. They involve friends, they involve parents. They’re often multiple people involved because the work requires multiple people. If you’re solving a problem that only you can solve, it’s probably not big enough of a problem and you’re going to a college surrounded by other people. You’re hoping to recruit people into that, join people. That’s what they’re looking for. They want to see that you can do this with other people, otherwise you should just go do it by yourself and not go to college. So, they want to see alignment on that. But the essays are just one part. The other thing of how it stands out, how admission officers evaluate what they’re looking for is the activity list.

So, do the activities. It’ll show up both in this activity list and then it should be the basis of essence. So, this is the exact same thing. They’re a founder. They created a website to assist people with special needs in job preparation seeking. Oh, interesting. We’re learning this more of just job preparation. So, there’s another twist to it that the essays didn’t share because it’s zoomed in on one part. They’ve partnered with 50 plus companies that employed a hundred different individuals with disabilities across North Carolina. Some things that you should notice about this is that it’s very quantifiable. We want to see that impact. There are outcomes. It’s not just something that you’ve done, and you didn’t make any impact. The reason why that bucket is called community impact is because there should be impact, not just community care, community impact. The other thing I want to name is that impact should have lasting changes.

It should be across multiple individuals, or it should be some sort of larger thing that can help beyond when you are gone. And you’ll notice that this took a lot of time. This is three years of work mainly because she tried multiple ways and they failed. She’s iterating time and time again. She takes something, she learns from it, she grows. That’s what we want to see. And with that amount of time, I would hope that you would get 50 plus companies, that aligns. That makes sense. Cool, let’s do that. So, it’s really important that you are able to outline stats and outcomes that show that you are actually doing this work. So, let’s make sure that we have some key takeaways. That’s weird that didn’t show up immediately. Number one, passion projects show up in activities and essays. That’s your number one takeaway. That is where it’s going to show up.

It’s not going to be a checkbox. It should be in your activity list, and it should be the basis of an essay. Very helpful for those seniors right now. They should reflect your genuine interests, values, your passion, what you’re excited about. So, that is going to be the first thing that you are going to be needing to do as a 9th grader, as a 10th grader, is figure out what you are actually passionate about, what your interests are. And it can’t just be making money. Everybody wants to make money. It’s kind of necessary in the world that we are in. So, lots of ways. What is the way that you’re going to both make money and do something? They should align to at least one of these admissions buckets: intellectual curiosity, community impact, dynamism. They should demonstrate those key traits which would align to the buckets. They should have multiple iterations, they should not be done alone, and they should show this quantifiable impact into the community that you care about. Katie, are there any misconceptions that you often see from parents about, or students, early on in this process that you think we should also address?

KATIE: Yeah, absolutely. I think one of the things that you’re getting at already by talking about the writing is that I think something that a lot of families miss about the passion project process is that they’re really thinking about those tangible elements like the activity itself and not really thinking about how it’s actually going to get articulated on the application materials. And for anyone, parents or students, who have put together any kind of resume, sometimes when you’re going back through your thoughts and ideas and trying to communicate your impact, it was actually easier to do the hands-on work than it was to really talk about it. And the other thing I think is that sometimes students who are just starting out in this process, they think, “Well, I certainly can’t do a passion project before I know what my major is, so I should hold off on this type of process.” Can you speak to what that kind of generative and idea-forming process looks like for our earliest students?

GLEN: Yeah, I’m definitely going to get at that later on as well. But just to answer it right now, it really requires taking this self-assessment about what are the things where you’re spending your time, what are the things that you do get in that flow state, is one of the sort of psychological terms about this, and then the key thing, and this is what I think our coaches do, is what you’re naming is like, “I’m just interested in the activity. I don’t see that long-term goal.” It’s this—and I’m going to come back to this term—it’s the backwards planning that needs to be done where we’re thinking about, “Okay, well how would this actually show up? What are the essays that we’ve spent so many times reviewing?” We’ll know what a 9th grader can get into, but there is no wrong way. The key thing is just to start with something, and we’ll get to this minimal viable product, and then it’s what you do with that and how you iterate on it. That’s going to make a key difference.

KATIE: That connects me to one more thing that’s come up quite a few times. I have had conversations with families and students where they’re saying, my passion project is done. What do you think about that? Can you speak to that?

GLEN: Yeah. So yeah, a passion project should never be done. And you can see this in other essays, definitely if you sign up and your coaches will have a plethora of essays that can show you how passionate projects work out. But often the best ones are like, I came to this point, here are the steps that I still need to take and that I’m currently working on, but I’m hoping that MIT’s resources will be able to make the next step. That is that thing related. And it’s also kind of critical because so many kids these days are deferred and then you have to write this letter and half of the deferral sometimes, some of the times the deferral happens is like, “I don’t know if I trust this kid. Are they going to keep doing the things that they’re doing?” And so, when they have to write a deferral letter of like, “What are you still doing?”, because kids like, “Oh, I stopped doing it.” Like, oh, well yeah, you don’t really care about it. So, it should honestly continue through to college. This should be something that you want to keep doing. And then let me, there was a thing, two other questions that came up. I’m going to answer one of them live. This research one is, “How late is it to…” 11th graders should be starting. That is when I would be really doing this first. The summer is the last time that you want to be starting that. So, let’s get into that thing about well can a research thing because this is actually what are the different types of these projects? And I’m going to go through this, not just to show you the types, but also for you to be asking the questions of, “What is it actually doing? Why did Glen choose this one? What makes it stand out?” Because if you can be thinking about that, it’s more likely that you’ll be able to do it.

GLEN: So projects that center intellectual curiosity. I will note we’re not going to answer raised questions until the end. So, I don’t want you to lose your breath on this one, but if you do have a question, put it in the Q&A and we can answer it that way. So, projects that center intellectual curiosity. Centering is important. It’s not only one way because they should be able to do multiple things at the same time, but these are ones that center. So, building a DIY microbial fuel cell at a local pond based on YouTube research. This one’s very aligned to these sorts of material science, chemical engineering. Makes sense that this kid then went on to UIUC, one of the best material science programs, founding an import export company that experiments with different sustainable business practices, very much aligned in that entrepreneurship, built an algorithm which differentiates demyelinating its nervous system diseases, I think I mispronounced it, with 90% accuracy. Then they presented this at IEEE BHI, an Asian conference on computer vision workshop. So yeah, research projects can absolutely be the sort of passion projects. They are things that should directly align with the major. If you don’t have a sense of what your major is, that is going to be one of the first things that Katie is going to talk to you about if you sign up for an IC. So, if you don’t, I highly recommend you sign up for a meeting with Katie so she can get you paired with one of her coaches.

But you will see that there’s a clear major alignment and you will often see that it is very specific within that major. This is material science, but it’s getting at microbial fuel cells. They’re not just saying, “I built a fuel cell.” They built a very specific type of fuel cell rooted in something that is local to them. They are not just interested in business; they created an import export with sustainable business practices. So, it’s getting into some of those more nuanced concepts that show you have a depth of familiarity with the thing that you are saying you want to study. And this one, it very much screams that this algorithm and they’re presenting. The best sort of passion projects do end as the ones that especially have this intellectual curiosity with some sort of presentation at a conference, at a science fair, or in a journal publication.

So, these are ones that would focus on, oh yeah, okay. The important thing is also if you’re starting this right now as an 11th grader or 10th grader, these things are often the basis of these prestigious summer school applications. Because those summer school ones, the ones that are like, “Oh wow, you got accepted with that acceptance rate.” Like “Whoa, you’re already doing this stuff.” They require you to have done something in the first place. You have to build to it. You are scaffolding your way up. So, you have to have proof of evidence in order to get into SRA, and in order to get into RSI, in order to get into SIP, (this was an SIP application here) that they used to then say, “I’m going to use SIP to do X, Y, and Z things. And then college is the next step.”

So yes, it should end in research. Yes, it should align to research programs, but this is the things that you are doing independently that build to that. And then ideally you have two different publications, right? The ones that you did at SIP and then the ones that you did independently and you’re cruising. This is what an admission officer wants to see. So those are the intellectual curiosity ones. The ones that center community impact, “Founded health literacy club that impacted 510k+ via campaigns, raised $11k for funding and micro-incubation of 200 plus Social Health Entrepreneurs.” “Founded a club to determine preventative medical screenings necessary via Machine Learning. >11,000 presented at Mi4 Institution.” “Organizing community members to lobby and petition the city council to approve two public EV charging stations at a downtown park.” Within these things, we are seeing the centering of community impact, but they are also connected to their major.

They also should show this form of intellectual curiosity. Like this one is very much public health and political science. It could work for either major. This next one is public health and computer science, political science up there. And this last one is engineering. I think they were mechanical engineering and political science, as well. Universities are places where different fields, different subjects matter, intersect. That is why they are bringing you to university. You are showing that you can do work that intersects, that is cross-disciplinary is critical for you to show that you are ready for that college level work. And another thing I want to name is that none of these are tutoring. “What did I do in my passion project to show community impact?” “I tutored a kid.” We love that you want to tutor a kid. We believe in education, but in terms of lasting impact, we want to see things that will live on beyond your time.

When you stopped tutoring that kid, that kid’s not learning anymore. These created systemic structural changes. They literally put in an EV system. They founded a club that will continue beyond them that created this project. They also created this club that will live beyond them and created all these other things beyond the work that they’re at. So yes, launching a club can be a passion project, but it’s more important that the club necessarily is aligned to the things that one of the three buckets or multiple buckets, that’s the key thing. But yes, founding a club, a new club, can be something that actually meets those requirements.

KATIE: I would say also, just to jump in on the club part, I think this is a question that we get a lot. If you just sort of founded the club and started, which is something maybe you could do senior year, would that be enough? What do you want to see come out of that club? What would make it actually stand out in terms of the impact that it’s having on the community?

GLEN: Founding a club is a means, right? The club is the means. The end is what we’re actually looking for, to get Machiavellian on you. The key thing is what does that club actually do? These are the outcomes that matter, right? They created these websites; they’ve created a medical screening device. The club is just a way for you to organize the people in your life in a way that can get those outcomes. But really the thing here is creating a preventative medical screening. So, the thing here that they’re trying to do is get an EV charging station. The thing that they’re trying to do here was a micro-funding site. What are the other ones? The disease here. These are the things the company, technically that’s just a club that makes money and might be actually paying taxes, those the things are what it’s actually trying to do. So, if you start a club, cool. Step one, you’ve got people, yes, but what are the outcomes and how do those outcomes align to the goals? It’s a great question.

Okay, moving into the last part here, the dynamism one. These are kind of my favorite ones because they’re the elements that just show that side of joy, that side of creativity, that thing that makes that person stand out beyond what they’re doing for the community. Yes, you got to have that. Yes, you have to have major, there are schools, but they also want people, the Stanford Quip is like, “You would want to have lunch with this person.” That’s what the AOs are trained to do. “Would I want to have lunch with this person? Is this person interesting? Are they Stanford material? Are they Yale material?”

So, one that we’ve seen creating an Etsy shop selling handmade greeting cards that incorporate impressionist landscape art of their local community. “We’re already seeing this person is interested in impressionist art, but they’re also doing handmade greeting cards, so there’s this community impact. Interesting. But it’s not just any impressionist art. They also are deeply rooted within their community. Wow. You’re doing a lot with one passion project. Cool.” “You’ve translated and remixed traditional pieces of Chinese music, self-published on SoundCloud and Spotify receiving over 3K monthly listens.” “Oh wow. So, people are actually listening to your stuff. That must have some quality to it, but it’s this appreciation of the past plus an ability to remix it in new ways. This dialectic is fascinating.” An AO would like that. They learn calligraphy as a meditative practice to understand and embrace the power of flaws, right?

This is very traits-related. Not all passion projects, and you theoretically could have multiple ones. It’s the thing where is your profile lacking? What bucket is missing water? Oh, you are doing all these research projects but have nothing about joy or self-reflection? Great. We got something that meets that bucket. A lot of water is in there. Or this one. One was one of my favorite kids’ “Memorizing 50 national anthems in their native tongues.” We found out that he did this early on, and I’m like, “Oh you know three, can we maximize this?” And yeah, he just memorized them and now he knows 50, and well, he’s graduated from Harvard at this point. But yeah, he got into Harvard. This was one of his things that he talked about in that application because he talked about why this matters to him. So, they’re just things that stand out, the national anthem, so random.

We kind of embrace the random here. You want to have a little bit of randomness to you. So some more key takeaways on this. The best ones fill two buckets with the same water. That’s what we were naming with this. There are multiple parts of these things here that you were doing. So, it fills intellectual curiosity and community, or it’s filling community and something creative or it’s filling—what’s that third combination of it—whatever the third combination is. They produce quantitative results. We want to see that there are visible outcomes. Katie, to your question, “Is it enough?” No, you need to do something with it. Did you present? Did you make something? Did you have a website? Was there an article published? Did you all work together to do it? And then the key thing is that they’re also aligning to the unique passions of that student. And so, one of the other things you said, Katie, that I’ll return to multiple times was like, “Well, what does a 9th grader do to start? How do they start this process? How do they start the brainstorm?”

GLEN: After that, to answer that question of what you mentioned, it’s kind of what I would call it is a friendly interrogation. One of our coaches, Krystal, that’s what she calls it, is this friendly interrogation where you’re just the coach. Theoretically you could do it yourself by just asking this bank of very different questions, but the key thing is the follow-up questions to that. It’s the “why” questions, it’s the “how.” It’s knowing what to dig into. And that honestly is the first few sessions that you have with the coach is just them asking lots of questions and trying to figure out who you are in that. So, once you have that sense and you have a bit of what you want to dig into, it’s the brainstorming that is the key thing. What could I do?

And I’m not going to lie, AI can be a very useful way to start this brainstorming. What are things that I can do that connect X to Y? And what are some ideas with that? And then it’s how the questions that you answer with this. The problem with AI and how far you get, well, A, it’s a large language model, so necessarily what it’s doing with that, if you have the CS, right, it’s a series of regressions. And for those of anything about regressions, they always regress to the mean, which is like, the mean kid doesn’t get into Yale. You want to make like, “I have an idea. How do I make it unique?” That’s going to be the key thing. “How do I make this special to me?” But the other issue with AI is that you sometimes get in this random, “Okay, you have this now let me then make something like me write my essay about it.

Well, let me write my activity description about this.” And that’s when AI can get you in the issues of plagiarism or it’ll get flagged by the AOs as being potentially AI. And they don’t have to, there’s no, with your schools, you have like, “Oh, is this AI?” “No, look, here’s all my edits on it. Clearly it’s not AI.” They don’t care. They just reject you. There are too many other qualified applicants. So, you want to make sure that you don’t go too far with how you use ChatGPT, but better than using ChatGPT, one of the things that we have at Prepory is Rory. And the thing that I love about Rory is that our lead programmer built in guardrails that if you start drifting into like, “Oh, this is getting into essay writing,” it will warn you like, “This is probably not a good idea. You might get flagged for this and thus your entire application, all that hard work isn’t going to matter because they’re just going to deny you because they think it’s AI.” So, this will help you. Rory does a great job of making sure that you use AI properly and don’t drift into worlds that it could get you in trouble with, but that’s why I love Rory and the fact that it’s Rory, named Rory. Katie, are there things that you want to say about Rory?

KATIE: Yeah, absolutely. I think it’s a great exploratory tool when you’re still kind of ideating about where you’re at, schools and programs you might be looking at. And I think it can also be great at helping you start thinking about project management, how to break things down into manageable pieces and what that is really going to look like and give your ideas for how to do that because you have a lot of competing commitments in high school. We might have athletes in the room here. I know we have some people with a lot of arts commitments as well in the audience, and those things take a lot of time and investment and how you’re going to stay on top of everything involved in your passion project and break that down, I think these are things that Rory can help with. Of course, the follow through is really this can only empower you to start that process and really having an accountability partner can be really impactful to making sure that as you face various roadblocks, you’re able to actually dive deeper and keep up with it as well.

GLEN: Absolutely. Absolutely. Okay. Yeah. Some of the questions that are coming up in the chat, we’re going to get into some more slides here though in a second. Yeah. Can I do a couple? Especially if you’re early on starting a few and seeing where your interests take, as Katie said, yeah, that’s a great way to start. You don’t want to have too many at the beginning because you won’t do any of them well. You want to be strategic with that. And then at initial, that passion project doesn’t have to be the most unique, and we’ll get into that. This is the next slide. Literally, how do I choose a passion project? But the goal is going to be to make it as unique and align to your interests as possible by the end of it. So, the key within this is backwards planning. This is a concept that comes out of design thinking or education as well.

It’s definitely something where you want to be starting with the goal in mind, and this is going to inform everything that we do within passion projects. So backwards planning, starting with the goal in mind, the first thing that we would do is, and this also gets at that question, these are the high level topics in it. There’s way more questions within it. “Who are you? What interests you? What are your values? What are your goals? What is your vision for how you want to use your talents and interests to impact the world?” Right? That’s a big thing that requires a lot of scaffolded questions to make sure that you get to that. Then the other part is this needs assessment. “What are your buckets like?” Is there any water in there? You’re like, “Oh no, we’re in California. It’s dry. There’s no water.”

Which buckets actually need that water is going to be that thing so that we can make sure that we are, you know, you have two to three, sure, but which one is going to be the most important to meet the goals that you have? Which is the next thing. “What are those long-term goals? What do you hope to accomplish by senior year that is aligned with this vision?” Setting up a vision of the world and that what you want to see is going to be important towards this. And now, you might be thinking, “Glen, I just told you I’m in 9th grade. How am I supposed to know what I want to be doing for the rest of your life? That’s a tall order.” Yeah, it’s a tall order. You’re right. I’m not going to lie. It’s hard. But this is honestly what college admissions are expecting you to have, and that is why you shouldn’t do it alone.

You should have someone to help you with this process. And again, I’m going to be like, if that sounds like you, I don’t know what to do, talk to Katie, she’s wanting to hear from you. It is difficult. There was no chance that wasn’t difficult. No doubt that is difficult. And then the next thing is this sort of situation assessment. “Are there organized activities that you can do that might make this easier? Are there ways that you can better align your activities?” We’re trying to make sure, because again, you don’t have to do a passion project. You don’t have to do this independently. It’s just a very strategic way. There might be other ways depending on your time, depending on your situation, what you need to do or there’s nothing else around you. You can’t join a robotics team because you live in rural Alaska and there are no robotics teams.

You’re like, “What do I do because I know I want to study engineering?” A passion project might be something for you. This is all to say there is no one-size-fit-all model that we will put on you. There isn’t one sort of thing that we are going to say like, “Oh, you need to do these exact steps.” Because every student, every situation, is different and we believe in differentiation here. We are educators, we want to make sure that we are modeling or molding our coaching model to the specific needs of the student. So that is what we’re going to do. What’s going to work for you? The next part of this backwards planning is we’re going to brainstorm these short-term objectives, like that minimal viable product, nice little business word for you to have. We want to have that doing a business. And then maybe that shows up in your essays, too.

So, you identify these places to start and some of you had like, is this in the chat? “I’m interested in this. Is this a good place for a passion project?” It’s a great place to start. Yes. Now let’s see how we can iterate on it. The next thing that you’re going to do is this asset acquisition. “Who can you recruit as a partner? Who can you recruit as a mentor to help you along this process? An investor? What resources can you acquire?” Is there an underclassman where you’re like, “Oh, I’ve always wanted to talk to that person. They seem really cool. Maybe I can use this as an avenue to make a new friend.” You want to use strategic planning. There’s the SWOT analysis. My super nerdy one that I love is the SPQR analysis, if you know, you know—to choose your first mini project, you would set the acronyms.

“SIP…” Someone submitted a question about this, “What does that mean?” It’s just a summer program. It might not be the best program for you. These things, if it’s not an important acronym, I’m not naming it. So, you want to set timelines. You want to create these initial steps. You want to sign these initial tasks, but then this key thing is you want to be executing, you want to be reflecting, and you want to be revising. Failure is part of the process. You are going to need to expect to fail, but it’s how you respond to that failure and what you do that is going to make your passion project stand out, and that is why it’s really helpful to have a coach that can help you with this process. So more on that. I’m going to turn that over to Katie. There are things that you also want to emphasize about that.

KATIE: Absolutely. So, passion projects are a core focus and I get a lot of questions about them and how does your specific coach actually help you do this work? So, we’re looking at every single component of the process, but just to specifically speak to how our process works around passion projects. Glen has kind of covered that ideating process early on. So, if you start working with us in 9th and 10th grade, we would be thinking about walking you through that reflective process, diving deeper on your involvements, and making sure that we’re expanding from there in terms of the direction you’re going to go. We also help with that goal setting and project management piece. I think that as you get later in high school, as your coursework gets harder and your involvements are deeper, you’re maybe the president of a few clubs now, all of a sudden, it’s hard to stay on top of your passion project and you’re letting it go to the wayside. If someone is not there to check in with you as you hit those roadblocks and actually strategize with you about how to get around that and how to keep going and be strategic with your time and make space for your passion project, it is something that a lot of students start but don’t really get to a place that’s going to be impactful for their admissions process.

So, in terms of the overall structure of our programming, we have one-on-one coach support with hour-long zoom sessions, and then your coach is also there for you outside of session, for questions, for additional feedback. I think this is really important because things do come up in between sessions. We also build in parent check-ins into this program. It is really important to have the whole family on the same page and make sure that everyone knows at all times where you are at this process. Another huge feature that we’ve been talking about is essay review, and this is not just the granular details, though we do get into that. On summer applications and also, which somebody asked about in the chat as well, we do have unlimited writing support inside our programs, for summer program applications, and then later for your actual college application, essay materials. That is really important. But even before that, starting to do that reflective work about how you are really going to articulate all of the things that you’re doing in your application materials, that is really important. The final component that I think connects to what we’ve been talking about today is thinking about Committee Review. This is something that a parent or a friend is simply not going to be able to replicate because this is what a team at Prepory is going to go through and do a Mock Admissions Committee Review process. And we actually do this every year with students.

So even in 9th and 10th grade, we are doing a Mock Committee Review process. Really important to start practicing putting your materials together, starting that process of understanding what it really looks like so that you are demystifying this, right? You actually understand what admissions officers are really looking for. And also it’s going to be a holistic process. So actually, putting all your materials together and looking at this cohesively, it connects to not just how are you going to do a passion project in isolation, but how does your passion project actually connect to the other elements of your profile, the classes you’re taking, the other clubs you’re involved in, and how is it getting folded into your essays as well. So, we support 9th through 12th grade students with all of these components, and if you’re more curious about that, I’m happy to have a deeper conversation with you about your goals for this process and what that looks like. I know we have a lot of questions in the chat here, so I want to let Glen dive in and get to some of those and I’ll be jumping in with some that I think might be good to answer live, as well.

GLEN: And while we will definitely take the last couple of minutes to answer any of these other questions that are coming through, I will note we are not going to be able to answer all of your questions, especially some of these very specific ones, like the diabetes one or the one about this very particular film and editing project, that would require you to get a meeting with Katie. And honestly, I wouldn’t feel comfortable giving without it because I also don’t want to share your ideas with the other 160 people on this call. I feel like you might not feel that comfortable either, so I want to make sure we don’t share things unless a kid is already into school because we take your kid’s application very seriously. So, if you do have those specific questions, sign up for this QR right here, get on a meeting with Katie, or if you can’t, at least email info@prepory.com.

I think it’s the other thing, it’s not on this list, but that would be the other place if you’re like, “I don’t know if I have the same amount of time for the meeting,” although it would be the most useful, at least ask that there. Getting into some of these other questions that I, “Do you work with private school or boarding school?” Yeah, we’ve definitely, we’ve worked with students everywhere, in all places, maybe not all places, but in all types, right? I’ve had boarding school kids, I’ve had kids internationally, I’ve had public school kids, we’ve had private kids. We love them all. Again, we will differentiate what we think is best for your kid given their circumstances and what they have access to.

Answered the question about having multiple ones. Again, it should be as unique as possible. We are at time. I’m seeing no really outstanding questions, although if you feel like, “Well, I do still have an outstanding question.” Again, sign up, scan that QR code right now. I want to thank you for spending this hour with us, and I think this will get emailed to you afterwards. But thank you for taking the hour to spend with us. We wish you the best of luck. We know this process is stressful, but this process can also be extremely empowering where you as a student or you as a parent watching your student, get to see them develop their values, develop their sense of why, develop who they want to be. And the beautiful thing about this process is that’s what the college admissions officers are looking for anyways, so we all win. Thank you again, if you have additional questions, email info@prepory.com, and you have a beautiful rest of your evening.

KATIE: Bye everyone.