#171 Behind the Scenes: What Makes a College Application Fall Flat with Amanda Leszczuk Transcript

THIS IS AN AUTOMATED TRANSCRIPT… PLEASE FORGIVE THE TYPOS & GRAMMAR! xo-Lisa.

 

Lisa Marker Robbins  00:46

Do you wonder what really happens when your teens college application lands on an admissions reader’s desk? Understanding what makes an application truly stand out can feel like unlocking a secret code, especially when your teen’s future seems to be hanging in the balance. Today, I’m thrilled to speak with Amanda Leszczuk. She brings 35 years of educational expertise in a rare insider perspective as someone who’s evaluated college applications from both sides of the desk after serving 19 years as the Director of College and Career Counseling at marymont High School last year, Amanda had the rare opportunity to be an application reader for a major research university, and she now works as an independent educational consultant, as well as teaches future school counselors at the University of Cincinnati. In our conversation, we’ll pull back the curtain on the holistic review process that teens and their parents rarely get to see. Amanda shares what excited her and concerned her for applicants as she reads the applications, the common mistakes that can sync otherwise strong applications and practical tips to help your teen shine authentically among 1000s of submissions with application volumes at record highs and acceptance rates dropping at many schools, understanding how to help your teen craft a compelling and cohesive application has never been more important. Even if your teen won’t apply to college for some time, the insights gained will help support their journey to the day they hit submit. I’m Lisa Marco Robbins, and I want to welcome you to College and Career Clarity, a flourish coaching production. Let’s dive right into a great conversation. Amanda, this long time coming. Thank you, my friend, for joining me on the podcast.

 

Amanda Leszczuk  02:45

Oh, I’m happy to be here. I’m so glad I ran into you a few weeks ago, and this all worked out. I know

 

Lisa Marker Robbins  02:51

so listeners, Amanda and I, many, many we’re going to say at this point, decades ago, we actually worked in the same building. I was a teacher, she was a school counselor, and that’s how we met, and we were having babies at the same time, along with some of our other friends. And then I went on and left public education, and Amanda just completed 35 years, and 19 the last 19 years as a college and career counselor at a high performing Cincinnati Public School, which is so exciting. You’ve been a you teach a college course for those earning their college or their school counseling license, right? Yeah, and this is why I invited her on. We were having coffee at a little cafe nearby just a few weeks ago, and she was talking about her experience last fall as an application reader. I don’t know. Are we allowed to say what school? Or should we not say that?

 

Amanda Leszczuk  03:53

Well, we’ll let it go with this. Okay, we’re

 

Lisa Marker Robbins  03:55

gonna let it keep it quiet. Yep. So at a public research university, she was an application reader, and what she said to me that I was like, ah, parents on the podcast, need to hear this. She said, I read some applications that made me just want to sit down and talk to that kiddo. They were so fantastic. I was fascinated. I was taken with them. It was such an easy yes. And I read others where I went, Oh, you poor thing. This could have been so much better. It missed the mark. And I know that you’re more than this, and I’m like, oh gosh, people need to hear what made you have those thoughts so that they can make decisions on what they can do now, and that’s what we’re going to talk about today. So let’s start with you. You were reading for in most universities are a school that takes a holistic approach to evaluating an applicant. And I think a lot of times, families think this just comes down to GPA and a CT or SCT scores, and it doesn’t. So can. You describe for the listeners, like, you know what the University told you a holistic approach should be as you go into this?

 

Amanda Leszczuk  05:07

Sure, yes. I mean, the holistic approach is really nice, because we do look for many aspects of of the student. We want to know the student, we want to get to know the student. And sometimes I think the kids forget about that. I understand they’re teenagers, but they put their GPA out there. We see their courses, their curriculum, we see their activities. You know, all kinds of things come in to make that holistic review. Of course, the essay is a big part of that. Letters of recommendation are part of that. Sometimes test scores if the university or college requires it, and or the student you know chooses to share it. But we look at everything, everything that the student shares with us, so it is really important for students to share everything they can. When I would say, my advice would be, if a college says that it’s an essay is optional or something else is optional, don’t think optional. You really should complete that application. We we want to read it. And that’s the other possibly little known or unknown secret is that I think some students and parents think that colleges don’t read everything. Every time I read, or I’ve heard of other readers, they always say we read the complete application. And I think that’s very important for students and families to remember.

 

Lisa Marker Robbins  06:32

So every piece, every data point, every word that was written, you were taking the time to look at all of it,

 

Amanda Leszczuk  06:42

yes, and many times twice, you know, maybe I’ll, I’m reading through a student’s application, and then I want to go back to this or that, you know, I start to see a correlation between the the courses they took. Maybe they were very stem oriented, and yes, the the essay did also kind of match that or or a letter of recommendation or something. So sometimes it’s read more than once as well.

 

Lisa Marker Robbins  07:05

Is there? I mean, this is probably hard, because I’m sure you didn’t sit there with a stopwatch for either for each and every one. But would you say there was an average amount of time that you’re spending reading an application?

 

Amanda Leszczuk  07:15

That’s a great question that really depends also on the, you know, the college or university, when I read through them, we, and I think this is common, we were pushed to read quickly. And you do, you do read quickly, but sometimes, unfortunately, it was a five minute read because a student didn’t really give me anything. I found it very, very sad when a student had the opportunity to list up to 10 activities enlisted none. I was shocked. Yes, I couldn’t. Could not believe that. I thought surely they do something right, or they would write about their job in their essay, which is great, but they didn’t put it in their activities. So there was sometimes a disconnect. On the other hand, sometimes, oh, gosh, I could easily have spent 30 minutes on some but I tried to get through them by at least 20 minutes. And that was an incredibly complete application. And you don’t have to have 10 activities, but that student probably had 10 activities with great descriptors of each activity. So I got to, you know, I had a feel for what that student was doing, how involved they were in each of their, you know, different things they’re doing. Got to read that essay twice, because it was so great. I had to go back to it, or a letter of recommendation again, you know, I wanted to read it twice or something. So it does vary depending on how much information the student shares with us. And you

 

Lisa Marker Robbins  08:42

know, it’s interesting. I love your answer, because I have always heard, on average, it’s nine minutes. Like, those are, you know, whatever studies and who know, I can’t even cite a source, but for some reason, I’ve consistently heard this like nine minutes. I’ve even heard six minutes. But, and to your point, you know, of course, the university is pushing you guys to, hey, let’s let’s produce. Let’s get through them. But I’ve never considered the fact, because of the type of students that I’ve always worked with, you know, they’re paying for extra help. They’re paying for extra support. I’ve never considered that part of that equation of the nine minutes is the fact, you know, that’s on average, is there’s some students who give you so little that that’s what’s impacting the read time. That’s fascinating. And so as we were talking, you said, Oh, you cringed for those kind of kiddos, because you’re like, they missed the mark. So when you were having those moments of perhaps it was a five minute read, or maybe it was even a longer read, but it still missed the mark. What are things that stood out as missed opportunities? We won’t even call them mistakes, but it may be, well, in some cases they might be mistakes, but like, what were the times where you’re like, Oh man, you felt for the kid because you knew they could have done better? What? What were those pieces, or the things that happened?

 

Amanda Leszczuk  10:04

One fairly common error, and it was just kind of like the student was being they just weren’t, like paying attention. They weren’t being attentive. There was, and this is a very common thing at many universities, but there’s the Common Application Essay, of course, which is your personal statement, which you the students should write for all colleges, it should be the same, and so forth. And then sometimes there are supplemental essays that each individual college can ask, you know, any other kind of follow up question. And sometimes students would write, they would just cut and paste the same essay. And it was like, Why did you do that? You know, you could have talked more about why you want to major in this or that, or why you, you know, really want to come to this university and so forth, and missing that opportunity to talk more about yourself, kind of breaks my heart. One of my on the other hand, one of my favorite things, I worked with a student a few years ago, phenomenal student, and I’m used to working with, well, I work with a lot of great kids, but, you know, they’re they’re teenagers. I get it, and sometimes they kind of roll their eyes at, oh my gosh, I have three more supplemental essays to write for this particular college. Well, this, this young student. I love how she said it. She said, I’m so excited I get to write another essay for this particular school, and I get to share more about me and my story to them. And I was like, Yay, you’re on it. That’s perfect. Yeah,

 

Lisa Marker Robbins  11:37

it’s an opportunity. I love what you just said there. Well, so we should all say the university that you’re the nameless university that you were reading for last fall. Everybody’s gonna be like, what was that school? We’re not going to tell you people. It does have a required supplemental essay, and that essay does talk about, why do you want to study that major at our school, right? That’s really the heart of that essay, yes. So what a huge mistake to just copy and paste the personal I mean, that’s like zero attention to detail. You know? It makes me also think, like just the second set of eyes on the application. Of course, parents do not. I mean, you probably saw essays where you were like, yeah, a teenager did not write this essay. I would assume. Is that true?

 

Amanda Leszczuk  12:33

Yes, unfortunately, this fall, and I would love to have known if I was correct or not, but there were a handful written that I thought I bet AI wrote that, and I’ll be honest, they were the worst, most boring, generic essays. I didn’t learn anything about the student. They were way too, too general. Oh,

 

Lisa Marker Robbins  12:56

I love that. We have an upcoming episode with my friend Susan from while writing workshops, and we’re going to talk about the role of AI in essay writing. So that’s a that’s a good tip for that. So where you could tell that AI did it, they tended to be in, yeah, well, I mean, you’re not going to know but, but the Just that fact, like a second set of eyes or an encouragement, what about grammar? Poor grammar bug you? Or stand out, or, or do you? Are you forgiving on that?

 

Amanda Leszczuk  13:28

It definitely bugs me, but that’s just me. Yeah, it

 

Lisa Marker Robbins  13:30

would be, you know,

 

Amanda Leszczuk  13:32

I think, I think it bugs the university as well. I mean, again, students, think about what you’re doing. You’re sharing your intelligence with a potential University. They want to make sure you’re a good writer. Use grammar check. Use spell check. Have somebody review your entire application. You know, there’s, there’s things that grammar and spell check Don’t, don’t catch, like, there, there and there, right, right. So all those types of things, but have that second set of eyes, they can catch so much. But for all of us, I mean myself, I know I’ve written things, had somebody look at it, and I totally think I’m telling my story very clearly, or I’ve written these instructions very clearly, and my reviewer will say, Oh, Amanda, I thought you meant blah, blah, blah. No, I didn’t. Oh, I can see now how you think that. So, you know, we all it’s almost like you get caught up in your head too much. Yeah. And so I take Kevin to it well, said, Yes, have that second set of human eyes. Look at it. Yeah,

 

Lisa Marker Robbins  14:43

it, you know, it’s interesting. This brings up, and I’m going to ask Susan about this when she comes on to talk about the AI topic, which we’re publishing, that I think, at the end of April, but that, you know, Grammarly is always my favorite grammar tool as a business. This owner, I pay for premium Grammarly, but that once you have the premium version of it, it is making suggested edits for, like, concise language or to better explain. Or in some colleges actually have policies. I think this is a thing that it’d be interesting, like, if are you still reading in the fall, or do you not know yet?

 

Amanda Leszczuk  15:23

Like, I don’t, I don’t know for sure. Okay, so it’d

 

Lisa Marker Robbins  15:27

be interesting to see how this evolves over time, because I see right now, some universities adopting these policies, like, what is acceptable AI use in writing, and some of them are like, nothing. And it even includes, like, a spell check or a Grammarly changing it. So it’ll be interesting to see how that develops. I mean, I think there’s going to be a lot more to come on that topic. But to your point, just get a second person to read it, not change it for you, but just give you some some feedback on it. So on this idea of, I love the girl that said, Oh my gosh, I get to write another essay. They that’s one more she looked at as an opportunity, right? One more opportunity. I’ve seen kids that I’ve worked with in the past where I’m like, it’s so repetitive that if like you said, we’re going to read every word. So every word better be something new about them, right? Ideally? Yes, yeah, that because I think that has, I think kids miss that. It’s like, it’s so important to them, they want to say it over and over and over, and that’s not great. So can we go back to the zero act? How often do you see, like, not a lot of activity. I mean, was it enough that you’re like, hey, this a consistent issue that kids are not thinking deeply enough about what they’re doing.

 

Amanda Leszczuk  16:45

It was definitely more than I wished I would have seen. I mean, I guess I would stay, I would say it was definitely a handful of students. You know, I was just absolutely shocked when I would see that, or I would see the essay. And of course, there’s a word limit, you know, on these essays, but some of them would be very minimal. You don’t have to go to the absolute maximum, of course. But again, did you get you? Did you get to tell your story and thoroughly and tell us everything that you wanted to tell us? So I’m a big believer that this whole process, you really have to be reflective. You really have to, and it’s, I get it that’s hard for a younger person, but you really have to sit back and think about, you know, what all do I want to share with this college so that after they read my entire application, they can have a sense of, okay, I think I kind of know that person a little bit. Or I know what makes that person tick, or I know what that person’s interested in, you know, those kinds of things.

 

Lisa Marker Robbins  17:45

Yeah, absolutely. So I think that I’ve always said, go into the common app ahead of time, like when you have a sophomore or a junior in high school and look and learn what the supplemental essays are, I know, the supplemental essays you were reading had a 500 word Max word, right? I think it’s 500 for that school. What like you said? Too short? I mean, you don’t expect 500 words, but too short, you just glance at it like, what would you say? A minimum that you don’t think somebody could have fully addressed the question less than, like, how many words do you have a benchmark?

 

Amanda Leszczuk  18:31

I wouldn’t say I have a benchmark a number of words. But again, I think it’s just being thorough about it. You know, if the question happens to be, you know, what do you why do you want to major in this at our school? Do some research. You know, it doesn’t take hours and hours, even 20 minutes, and you should be doing this anyway to see if you really want to attend that school. But go to their website. Why do you want to major in? I don’t know, engineering. What is it about their engineering program that you like? Are there particular courses that you’re so excited to take that look so cool? Are there particular professors that are doing research that you think, oh my gosh, that sounds really incredible. I want to be a part of that. And like I said, you know, students don’t need to spend 10 hours doing this for each of their universities, because I do know they’re busy, and some of them apply to numerous schools, but, you know, even a few minutes, or did you learn something when you were on a tour of the school that you could, you know, throw in there that you really liked, there’s a particular activity or club or something that you want to join that is just all about you, and really show that fit students should be showing how they fit into the university, and that is definitely part of it in those supplemental essays, I

 

Lisa Marker Robbins  19:49

think I’ve heard kids talking about the weather in those essays. Did you see any of that kind of stuff where you’re like that really doesn’t belong in this essay?

 

Amanda Leszczuk  19:59

Yeah. I don’t remember anything about the weather, but I would agree with you, or just something super generic. You know, I used to tease my students. Don’t say that you’re excited to attend this university because they have three Starbucks on campus. Everybody has Starbucks on campus. That’s right for the most part. So what is different and special about this university that makes you excited to attend there. And again, you know, as a student, if you can’t answer that, then you need to do more research. Because why would you want to attend a school that you’re so so about? Yeah,

 

Lisa Marker Robbins  20:35

I think it actually would be smart while kids are I’m all about doing as much of this upfront work as you can, right? Yeah. So if you do a visit, I encourage kids all the time, if you get on campus and you’ve done a visit, you should write your what stood out to you, good and bad at that moment, because it will fade in your memory. Kids have a to your point. You’ve said multiple times, like these kids are busy, I get it right, but if you are writing it down now, while your feet are on campus in real time, you and then you later decide you really are going to apply there. Now you’ve got something to get you started to really demonstrate, like the Fit piece, right?

 

Amanda Leszczuk  21:18

Yes, yes. I used to give my students, when I worked in my in my public school career, a handout, just a list of questions. Probably had 20 questions on there, and I told them, just these are to spark your you know your interest. You don’t have to answer all of them, but write down little things that you remembered in a an appropriate manner. Take pictures when you’re on campus, you know, don’t be on your phone the whole time, of course, but take a picture of a cool statute that you liked or that there’s always traditions that, usually they teach you about and tell you about on a tour that are always kind of fun. Take a picture of a, you know, if you’re going to be an art major and you happen to be in, you know, an art studio and this, or that’s super cool. Take a picture of it. It’ll kind of jog your memory, but I totally agree with you. Students should take notes as soon as they can after that tour, so that they remember things. I also tell them, as they’re doing that, talk to who they went with. A lot of times. It’s a parent, but if it’s a friend, whomever you know what stood out to them, so that they don’t forget some of that too. Maybe they also, oh yes, I did like the residence hall, or whatever it may be to and to make notes of all those things absolutely well.

 

Lisa Marker Robbins  22:29

And these days it doesn’t even have to be like you’re physically with a pen in your hand writing it in a journal. You could record yourself about a voice memo. I mean, I love your idea of adding the picture so like, between the pictures that you take in real time when you’re on campus, and then when you’re driving away from campus, just pull out your phone and then just talk through your thoughts. At these days, you can just then take that voice memo, give it to AI and say, Make me a list of the top things that I liked and didn’t like about this visit. I mean, talking about appropriate use of AI, right? Yes, I you know, I

 

Amanda Leszczuk  23:09

agree. I was gonna say. I always told students, you know that, or take notes in your phone afterwards, you don’t have to write paper and pencil, if that’s not your thing, just whatever works for you. But don’t forget about this tour and what you learned

 

Lisa Marker Robbins  23:21

well, and it’s also so okay, we were talking about what you learned as a reader. But let’s for a second go with your 19 years helping the kiddos through the whole process at the public school. When you’re you know, thinking about the supplemental essays overall the school that you read for last fall asked, why this major Would you say that’s the most popular essay that you saw when you look across the kids that you’re advising at the school or in your independent educational consultant work like what stands out to you? Supplemental essay wise,

 

Amanda Leszczuk  23:59

I think there are two very common supplementals. Why this major which, of course, when students write that for the most part, I mean, they have to tweak it, but they could use, certainly, the same ideas from school to school, if that’s a supplemental at three of their schools. Maybe the other very common supplemental, we call it the why us essay, and that’s meaning, you know, why do you want to attend our university? And I know students get tired, but boy, does that have to be specific to that university. And if it’s not, it really, really shows again, you students do not want to have like a generic essay? Why us? Oh, I toured and it was great, and I felt comfortable and at home, and it had a great dorm room. I have no idea what college you’re talking about, you know, but it should be very specific to those programs on campuses, maybe a professor you met, if you sat in on a class and. Um, possibly the geographic part of the country, if you’re wanting a different kind of cultural experience, and it’s very different from where, you know, where you’re coming from, you know, just all those sorts of things really, again, reflect on so why do I want to go to that school? And hopefully some things will pop out and, you know, certainly do more research, and that should, should help with those supplemental essays.

 

Lisa Marker Robbins  25:23

You know what it makes me think of? Sometimes on social media, I’ll see somebody like post a picture. A lot of times, it’s in a Facebook group of all counselors, but they’ll post a picture of a campus and say, Who knows where I am, or, you know, it’s a selfie of them at a iconic place on a particular campus, and they’ll say, Who knows where I am, and then the other counselors will be like, Oh, for sure, you know that’s Emory University or whatever. And it almost makes me feel like the same thing with this essay. Like if there’s a group of people such as counselors who know a lot of universities well. And you didn’t name the university, but you described why it fits you educated counselors should be able to say, like, Oh, I bet you they’re talking about, you know, Miami of Ohio, right? Or whatever you know, near where you and I are. So it’s almost like a litmus test for that, right? Yeah,

 

Amanda Leszczuk  26:23

yeah. That’s a, that’s a great example. And that reminds me of something that I would tell students of too working on their personal statement is, if somebody reads this, they should know pretty much that it’s about you. If somebody reads it and says, Oh, this sounds like a, you know, typical teenager, blah, blah, blah, blah, then you did not make it detailed and personal enough. So same kind of, you know, parallel.

 

Lisa Marker Robbins  26:47

There’s, I did a live webinar this week with John durante of the college admissions process podcast. He’s also a high school principal up on Long Island at Syosset High School, and when we were talking about the essays, there are great examples that, and I’m sure you’ve shared them with your students before that, but that Johns Hopkins essays that work, and Hamilton college essays that work. Like, if you’re tempted to talk about, you know, just the why the major and the personal statement. That’s a mistake. Like, go look at some of those essays that these two colleges have said, like, Hey, here’s 10 of them that stood out to us. It gives you kind of the flavor of, like, what they’re really they’re just trying to get to know you.

 

Amanda Leszczuk  27:34

Yeah, what? Well, said it. It does kind of set the tone, or give you that flavor, like you said, of, oh, that’s what they mean. And sometimes that example is super helpful, because students don’t always it. This is very new to them. They’ve never written like this. They’re used to writing much more formally for English class or history class or whatever. And now it was all of a sudden we’re saying, Okay, write about you personally, and write about this specific university that you probably don’t know that much about yet, and so I think those examples can be super helpful.

 

Lisa Marker Robbins  28:08

It’s and I know there, there are exceptions to this, but one of my pet peeves is juniors writing their personal statement college application essay and their English class every spring, in May or June, because you just said it best like this is not a research paper. This is not an essay for your English teacher. This is a personal biographical essay. And I think that unless you are in tune with the colleges and the college process, English teachers can miss the mark, not all of them, but it’s it is such a different animal. So you’ve hit a lot of like the kids who the mistakes, and you’ve sprinkled throughout there the things that stood out really well, anything that you want to add to, like the kids who you read the essay and you were like, I wish I could sit down and talk to this kid, or, Oh, I’ve given it 20 minutes. I gotta cut it off and move on to the next one. I wish I could just keep reading, or go back and read their personal statement again. What made those applications stand out? Anything we’ve missed that we haven’t said yet?

 

Amanda Leszczuk  29:20

One other thing, but don’t want to pressure our students. It have fun with it. Be creative. It truly are the creative ones that are fun. You know, when I read the essay about the student who really thought the different colors of M M’s tasted different because of his mood, you know, it was just, it was fun and cute and creative, and kids do all sorts of cool things like that. Don’t, don’t feel pressured to, you know, overthink it again. The, it’s not pressure. But the, the whole gist of this is, tell me about yourself, and we don’t ask you. Our adolescents that very often, and they’re not used to that. So, you know, million ways to say it. Think about the two minute elevator speech. If you’re in an elevator with someone you just met, and they said, How are you today? And tell me about yourself. Seriously, what would you say? And then expand on that, you know, talk to your friends, talk to your teachers, your parents, your coaches. You know, how do you see me? What are some adjectives that you would use to describe me and be reflective? And then hopefully your, you know, your essay will become that personal piece of writing that you’re looking for. I

 

Lisa Marker Robbins  30:34

think that’s a great note to end on. Like, have fun with it and be authentically you. If you have a fantastic sense of humor, like be funny in the essay, make me laugh, right? I’m sure on a day when you were doing nothing but reading college applications, you welcome the opportunity for somebody to bring a smile to your face or touch your heart in a way, if you’re super caring, but just be authentic and have fun. Amanda, this has been fantastic. Thank you. Oh, my pleasure. Now I know you. You’re working with families privately on the whole process. So you’re an independent educational consultants. One of the hats that you wear now, if families want to learn more about working with you, how would they get in touch?

 

Amanda Leszczuk  31:21

Probably just emailing me would be the easiest. I also have a LinkedIn if they want to look up that. Um, so, yeah, I’m absolutely open to talking to people. We’ll put your

 

Lisa Marker Robbins  31:31

email in the show notes, because Amanda’s last name, if we say it, you’re not going to be able to spell it. Yes, so we’ll put it in the show notes. Amanda, thanks for making time. Oh, thanks for having me. It was great. Lisa, great. We definitely are going to do it again, because I already came up with about three more topics we can talk about from the things that you just said, including that darn activities list, because it can be tough,

 

Amanda Leszczuk  31:57

that is a good one. And I think supplementals you talk about forever,

 

Lisa Marker Robbins  32:03

absolutely, you know what I’m going to link to in the show notes as well. I created a video about, I think it’s like two or three years ago. Now we have it on our flourish coaching co.com website that it teaches you how you can go discover these supplemental essays. Now you don’t have to wait until you’re a senior applying to college like go look at for the colleges that you’re interested in. Go look at what those essays are right now. So I’m going to link to that in the show notes, because I think that helps guide what our students are doing now, if they’re forward thinking, right?

 

Amanda Leszczuk  32:39

Good point. Yes. Okay,

 

Lisa Marker Robbins  32:41

thanks, Amanda. Thank you, Amanda, for sharing your valuable insights from the application readers desk. As we’ve heard, the most compelling applications tell a cohesive, authentic story across every component, and knowing what readers are looking for can make all the difference if you’re feeling inspired to help your teen create standout applications. I created a step by step video guide that helps you find the college supplemental essay topics for individual colleges well before your student needs to write them. Visit flourish, coachingco.com, forward, slash, find dash essays. I’ve also linked to it in the show notes. This resource will show your team precisely what they need to write about for specific colleges, giving them time to reflect, gather experiences and craft thoughtful responses, rather than rushing at the last minute whether your student is applying this fall or still a year or two away, knowing these prompts early is a game changer for creating those authentic, specific essays that Amanda emphasized are so important as always. I’m Lisa Marka Robbins, and I want to thank you for joining us on College and Career Clarity a flourish coaching production until next time, remember that with the right information and preparation, you and your team can navigate the college application process with confidence and clarity. You.