At Kaleidoscope, we are all about helping students find and follow their interests. Itâs whatâs good for society. Itâs whatâs good for individuals. And itâs whatâs good for the college process. Our desire to bring this all together has led us to launch Intrinsic Admissions, a workshop series weâll be running for high school seniors this fall.
Too often, students say they are too busy to pursue an interest. Busy skimming the reading so they can get the grade without spending the time. So they can, in turn, spend the time busy with half a dozen extracurriculars, only one or two of which they actually connect with. Busy in leadership roles that donât involve any actual leading.
And the stated reason for all this busyness? College admissions, a constantly preoccupying thrum. At a high school I spoke at this spring, half of students reported thinking about college admissions on a daily basis. Another quarter reported thinking about it on an HOURLY basis.
The irony is that the college process doesnât reward busyness. It rewards committed pursuit of interest and impact. It rewards ambition about more than yourself. It rewards intellectual vitality.
Through the experiences of our own students (almost 20% of whom now attend a top-10 college or university and half attend a top-25) as well as interviews with College Admissions Officers at top-25 colleges, weâve identified common misconceptions that hurt students' chances of admissionsâand their processes of self discovery.
In our report âIntrinsic Admissions: How to Get Into Your Reach School,â we share our perspective, including the three most common mistakes we see and how applicants can reframe, rethink, and reinvest to yield better results.
The college process rewards those who find the balance between pursuing their interests and playing the game. And this is also what life rewards. No interest and youâll get lapped by those who have it. No game and you donât get to play.
If you want to learn how to strike this balance and stand out in the college admissions process, join us this fall on Sundays from 1-3pm ET (September 11 - October 23) for an Intrinsic Admissions workshop series.
It will be a small group of seniors who want to find themselves in the college process, not lose themselves along the way. Every high school senior has authentic interests, but not everyone knows how to articulate them to themselves or to an admissions panel. In our workshop, weâll help you storyline your experiences and interests in a way that resonates with readers, giving you a chance to put your best foot forward in the college process.
Across our sessions, weâll guide students through each step of the college application process, from finalizing a list of schools to getting excellent recommendations to writing personal statements that showcase who you are. Weâll provide written, personalized feedback on studentsâ drafts, as well as 1:1 coaching throughout.
Our spaced-out sessions will help students proceed with their work at a measured, consistent pace, and weâll wrap up with a little more than a week to spare before the November 1 early application deadline.
You can learn more here.
