Mindfulness: The Unexpected Meaning-Making of College Admissions

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Hello, welcome to Thought Club. I'm your host, Elisabeth Gray, and here on the show we're trying to figure out how to rethink and reimagine education. I'm here today with my guest, Neil. He's the director of admission strategy at Oxford Tutors USA. Thanks for joining us, Neil.

Yeah, thrilled to be here.

You have a pretty interesting life. You're not only head of admission strategy at Oxford Tutors, but you also have a double life, as I understand it, as a mindfulness coach. How did these pieces go together?

Initially they were quite separate. I started working with Oxford Tutors just in the capacity of tutoring, while at the same time finding mindfulness and meditation. As I started to see kids being as stressed and anxious as they've become over the last 12 years I've been doing this, I started to bring in some of the mindfulness tools in sessions, understanding that mindfulness is really the foundation of starting to understand ourselves. As it relates to admissions, we have this feeling that admissions is data points, percentages, this competitive, cutthroat thing. But our approach at Oxford Tutors is always really student-centered, coming from the place of who are you, what do you want. A lot of that starts with mindfulness, which is checking in with the self. Mindfulness is composed of two things: awareness and non-judgment. Kids can tend, not of their own fault, just from what they're raised in, to have awareness but very much judgment. With mindfulness we try to soften that and lean into self-kindness and encouragement, the things that can bolster young people and help them answer who am I, what do I want, from a place of excitement, engagement, and resilience. Those are the qualities that are going to serve them well no matter where they end up.

Walk me back for parents who don't have kids going through college admissions. What's so stressful now that wasn't stressful when we were applying? I feel like we applied to a handful of schools, took the SAT once, and wherever the chips fell, they fell.

There are some exciting parts of the process now that make it more stressful, which is an abundance of wonderful offerings. But what's also changed is the selectivity. Class sizes have stayed mostly the same, and the applicant pool has grown. At the most selective schools, baseline academic achievement is something we take for granted, and what they're starting to consider is, who are you? That puts an onus on the student to know earlier, who am I, what do I want. When I applied, I really didn't know the first thing about what I wanted to do. I was applying to a liberal arts college, which served me well because I could figure it out. That concept of showing up to a four-year experience and being like, I don't quite know, at the highly selective schools that has gone away.

So the stress isn't only that expectations are incredibly high for achievement, but there's this new expectation, the stress of self-knowledge.

Self-knowledge. Yeah.

For parents or educators supporting kids through this, or students listening, what are some mindfulness techniques for the student who says, I don't know who I am right now?

One of the first things would be just acceptance of that. Students develop at all different paces, and the moment a student applies to college is a moment in time. They'll continue to grow and change, and that's really what the college experience is about. So encouraging that this is not a fixed state, not some destination we're trying to arrive at. Making it a safe space for questioning, because students naturally tend towards, I have to figure this out. Most of the students I work with come to me, even in ninth grade, with a sense of, I'm behind. So you start with a general alleviation of anxiety. A lot can happen in modeling. Most of the students I work with struggle with anxiety, have neurodivergent brains. Slowing down, breathing, there are somatic practices you can model even if a student isn't going to respond. Placing a hand on the chest can be really grounding. Finding your sits bones in your seat. As you start to engage, the student picks up those non-verbal cues and models them. From there, I like to lead with questions. Sometimes parents, because they know their student so well, offer advice: oh, you wouldn't like that school; what do you mean you want to study biology, I thought you wanted to do this. Rather than opening with questions and saying, oh, interesting, tell me more. A lot of it is getting students to use their own words to discover this.

A lot happens in dialogue, which is where some parents can be at a disadvantage, because sometimes kids are like, you're my parent, I don't want to talk to you about this. That's where a counselor or teacher can say the exact same thing, and the kid will be like, that's the most brilliant thing I've ever heard, you totally unlocked this for me. And the parent is like, great, as long as they hear it. It's discovery, curiosity, the qualities we want to help students develop separate from outcome and achievement.

Playing devil's advocate: does it ever happen that a family comes to you saying, we've got to go to Harvard, and then by application season they're looking at a really different set of schools?

Yes. Maybe not as often as I would like. It can take time. There are certain qualifications at the most selective schools where you have to be in the running academically, and that's something parents put a lot of pressure on. So I try to soften that: what's the cost of pushing so hard to go to a school like Harvard? Getting into any college is an achievement. Submitting a college application is an achievement. What I get so excited about is the writing students put forward, which can be so beautiful and reflective. High school kids aren't really given opportunities to contemplate and reflect. Look at the young person putting themselves forward in a pretty courageous way. I give them so much credit.

Is there a world in which frontloading the discovery of self, reimagining this not as being an achievement junkie getting into the toughest school, but a season of refinement and self-reflection, could actually be the best thing that happens to a kid at 16, to say, I'm not going to achieve on someone else's terms, I want to know what I value?

Just as a member of civil society, that sounds wonderful, to have more people asking, what do I want, often paired with, how can I contribute? Those happen to make me a more appealing candidate, but the line of inquiry is really beneficial. What has to happen is there just has to be enough space to ask these things without the pressure of needing a fixed point in mind. College is so expensive, and often the student leaves with the burden of debt. So to have time beforehand to ask, what is the value of this investment, why do I want to go, that can be wonderful. Because achievement is so prioritized and kids are working so hard, we don't have much space for contemplation, which is what Oxford Tutors is founded on. Yes, we want you to get into the dream school, but we're really invested in you developing as a young person who's going to land where you're meant to.

If you were a parent today with a kid going through all this, what would you advise to diffuse the anxiety?

I'll speak personally as someone who often has anxiety. I like a plan. I like a list. I like a timeline. So my first encouragement is a plan, and work backwards, from January 1st or 15th of your senior year, the last opportunity to submit. Some students want a really selective list. We like to say, you're buying lottery tickets, you want to buy as many as you can. Some students max out 20 applications. That's a lot. It would make me feel better if we got that list down. Then figuring out what's manageable, coming up with a visit schedule that clarifies what it actually feels like to be at a school. But again, where are the goalposts? Why does it have to be the most selective school in America? Could we also show you that you'd be happy wherever you land? The first step is wrapping your head around the scope of the project.

What feels right for your student?

The student is the one who has to pick up the ball and carry it. As much as parents want to sign up for all the tours and help with essay themes, the student ultimately has to put that forward. Even if a parent stepped out of line with that, wherever they end up is not where they would succeed, it's where you would succeed, and the student is your proxy.

It makes me wonder if the best path is for parents to say, take on the level of responsibility you can handle at this stage. And if right now that's applying to the local community college for a year, is there a world where the anxiety is reduced through parents expecting that development doesn't happen all at once?

There are so many paths through. Part of it is not placing judgment on the community college path, which is incredible, especially as education becomes so expensive. Why not think of a year where your student can take classes in what they're interested in, and then make the most of wherever they end up for their bachelor's? Every parent I work with just wants the best for their kid. Choice breeds anxiety, so we want to give some structure: here are the options, let's not try to maximize all of them, let's come up with a plan. And ideally it's led by the student, who can say, I only want to apply to six schools. Some students want to research 50 schools, and it's like, wonderful.

There's not a one-size-fits-all to diffuse the anxiety, but there are a lot of pathways through for students to have more mindful journeys.

A big thing students feel is a lack of agency in their educational experience and in the admissions process. It feels so convoluted. A lot of students haven't even thought, what if I took a gap year, what if I went to community college? Just seeing it often helps them say, actually, I do want to do a four-year path. Often my students end up saying, you know what, Neil, I do want to see what would happen if I really applied myself. That's something they came to on their own. Everyone can rally around them and support them no matter what. But it's the student saying, I want to do this, as opposed to anyone imposing it. It's something they can be proud of, because it's theirs. And for a lot of kids, this will be their first experience of something like that.

So let your child own it. That's where some parents, after a session, will be like, why are you talking about that school, I know they're not going to go there. And I'm like, because I want them to discover that they don't want to go there. That's when it becomes valuable.

I love that. Here's to taking responsibility for ourselves and what we want in life. What a call to action for all of us. Neil, thank you again for your time. If you can like us, join us, follow us, all those good things. Thanks for being here with us in Thought Club, where we're trying to figure out new ways to solve the questions in education today. We'll see you next time.