welcome to the secrets of college planning on your host anthony hoover and today we're going to get some insight on essays and interviewing my guest today is hilary kale and she is the founder of college entrance edge usually i want to know when did you start thinking about college was a freshman year or senior high school when did it all begin i would say probably around sophomore year so i had an older sister who was four years older so i was aware of the process and i was close to my cousins who'd been through the process at the time i was looking at schools that had good acting departments and i applied to the university of michigan and oberlin northwestern i would have been the first female class at colgate and i also applied to do my parents wanted me to apply to an ivy which i wasn't interested in but i did that for them michigan was always my first choice i visited a cousin of mine during a football weekend and that kind sealed the deal but they also had a lot of a lot of different possibilities in terms of courses that you could take activities that you could get involved with i went to a large high school never sell high school so i wasn't overwhelmed by the large campus there and it was just the right fit for me so give us the process that you took was your mom and dad involved how did you end up picking michigan state  university of michigan university miss michigan state is a rival value well actually my mother went to the university of michigan for a couple of years it's very funny because i thought as soon as i hit campus people would say are you dorothy calles daughter which is ridiculous because it's such a huge school i had also gone to the national music camp and interlochen michigan so i met a lot of michigan people and the university of michigan had a presence there it's called the internet the interlochen arts camp now  used to be called the national music camp so that was my first exposure to the midwest and having grown up a nurse shell new york in the northeast i really liked the midwest it just seemed people were friendlier it just seemed like the right place to go to try applied to except for duke which was in the south and it was so interesting i think that's still important today because you get such a feel for the campus when you go there yeah and that's really important every campus has its feel and you have to i felt good at math at all the places that i applied to so that's an important thing to do i did i did take the time to visit people who were at the school so now you're a university of  michigan what's the school like what how does it feel to you give us a little well the thing about the thing about michigan is that first of all they have a huge alumni so there's a lawns there that come to every football game of course the students heard every football game i never knew anything about school spirit so that was very exciting for me also i was lucky enough to be in the honors college and the advantage there was that you had first choice of certain courses you also had classes with professors instead of just teaching fellows so it was a very good experience for me i ended up switching actually from theater into communications one of my professors said you have a good voice for broadcast so i took a different path my parents insisted that i also have an english major because they felt a communications major wasn't really enough and ironically some years later i ended up at the today show where i was the assistant book coordinator so i was one of the few people i think who used both my degree i was reading galleys or advance review copies for authors that were going to come on the show so that was the english part of it and i was at the today show so that yeah well i feel like i triple threat in this business because i have this background in communications i'm actually a professional writer i've been writing for about thirty years articles and a couple of novels i currently write for publishers weekly i review books for them i'm also a professional interviewer i interview authors and publishing executives who will be appearing at the annual book expo publishers weekly puts out a newspaper called show daily so that's another area that i'm in and also the editing i kind of put together writing and editing i've been editing for years i've edited nonfiction and fiction books i help with a  educational nonprofit institution i edit their p r interviews that sort of thing the other thing is i'm an actress so i'm a professional actress i currently work with without a q productions they do murder mysteries in the area but i've done professional stage work as well and it's important i think in anything you do to be able to take stage to put yourself forward so that's another area that i'm that i'm using now so with the writing and the editing and the acting and the interviewing i felt these skills were very specific to help a high school student with their essay or with their interview yeah absolutely so how did it all get started how did the college entrance get started what did you actually do to start it up well to start it up i started networking with people i did a beta test to see how i worked with high school students and that went very well it's interesting some students really know exactly what they want to write so i was working more as an editor with them some students really need help deciding which of the essays are better fit for them so that i can brainstorm with them and help them come up with what works best for them as far as the interview you know parents can do an interview with their with their student with their child counsellors can also do the interview with that student but it's different when you have an outsider who doesn't know them because they have to get used to working with strangers to being interviewed by strangers and because of my acting experience i can help them achieve a certain comfort level because i know what it's like to take stage and all of that so i decided because i had all of these skills i thought this would be a good business to get into and i decided to launch the business right now as a writing a particular series that every school has what type of the stories are the well you know i have with me the the true twenty seventeen twenty eighteen essay prompts and the one thing that's interesting about the essays this year they have two new ones one is describe a topic idea or concept you find so in gauging that it makes you lose all track of time why does it captivate you what or who do you turn to when you want to learn more that's one new one the other one is share an essay on any topic of your choice it can be one you've already written one that responds to a different prompt or one of your own design so these two are basically giving carte blanche to the student they can write about whatever they want to a lot of students make the mistake of feeling that they have to list all  activities or talk about their achievements and that's not really what the essay is about colleges want to see who that individual is what sets them apart from everyone else college is so competitive now there are a  lot of students who do well and test well they write well they have lots of extra curricular activities that's been something that's been on their mind for years so how do you separate out from the pack well one way to do that is w essay and i find that students need to focus on what they're passionate about if you're passionate about dungeons and dragons then write about dungeons and dragons maybe you get other kids to play with you that shows leadership skills that shows that you're a team player so there are things that you can put in that essay that really make you stand out so so is this common to all the schools have the same as well there are there are a large group of schools that use the common application and the essay prompts are part of that application process so that you have one application that goes out to the group of schools that you want to there are other colleges that have their own essay questions that they may ask you so that's of course a different thing so these are these are the ones these are the women and these are the common app essay prompts yes for kids applying to school in two thousand and seventeen and twenty eighteen they change them every every every other year and this is what they'll be working with the other thing about interviews not all colleges require interviews and some interviews are done with a lot of ny that might be in the local area but that's a different kind of interview than if you actually go on campus and interview with one of the admissions does that as well and it really depends on the school as i said some schools don't require them some schools do it was interesting i went to a college night recently at one hundred in central and there were a lot of colleges there it was interesting to talk to them and also to talk to some of the military schools that were there like west point and they look at things very differently because they're looking for leadership skills so while grades are important and activities are or port an it's really important for them to see that you're a leader so in that case the recommendations that you get would be very important to show that sort of fake interesting oh so so the interviews the whole process interviews it's not every school that's right and i'm not sure exactly why certain colleges feel that they need to have them and why others don't i suspect that the more demanding colleges the more competitive colleges perhaps want to see that student in person and it makes a difference you know it has a certain weight when they look at the whole picture i think having that personal contact can really make a difference the other thing is even for schools that don't require them i think it's important for a kid to make their presence known because it's so competitive so it's very important for kids to go on the campus tours and to let their contact know that they're interested in that school i mean these things are obvious but it's really important for kids to step up and take that so do you help them in the whole entrance process or just the usa and i'm really focus on on the essay and the interview because there counselors are really more have more expertise in matching the right student to the right place that sort of thing off of the financial piece of it that's not something that i know very much about i just i'm very focused on what my skill set is all about interesting  and then is there is there a particular area that you work in or is it you mean fully all your journey everywhere in the united states yeah well around the globe well what makes me different from other services one thing in particular is that i really insist on working in person so i'm happy to go to the students home i also have an office in stockton new jersey so they can come to my office i do have a sort of a travel limitation and if i go out of let's say forty miles from where i live then i will add on a travel theme which which i think is reasonable i don't think it works to do skype i know there are a lot of places that do that i'm not really interested in that i'm really interested in working one on one so i keep it local i'm in one hundred in county i'm a half hour due west of princeton so i have kind of a big radius around me with within which i can work so how do parents and students find you well very easy w w w god college entrance edge dot com that has the information it has information about my background it shows the services and of course i might as well say my phone number six hundred nine three nine seven seven nine six seven that's a way to reach me and test like so give us the whole process of what the colleges are doing with the in the interviewing is there a particular process that you know that the college doing well this is why it's interesting they read every essay i just heard that last year there were thirty five thousand applicants for the university of michigan which had six that and spots and they said every  so as to exactly who reads the essay i'm not sure if it's the entire admissions staff or if they fanned it out i honestly don't know but they actually do read every essay so that's really really an important piece and what's the percentage of so you can put everything else on the application is there a percentage that they do good or you know i honestly don't know what that is but it certainly is something as i said that sets the student apart i did hear a story about someone who was turned down from the school because their essay didn't show who they were all about the essay was more about someone that they were interested in and you know i think that's really sad that it was the essay that that was that made the difference but i think the essay can make the difference in giving you an edge in making you stand out and that's why it's so important to write about something that you're passionate about and what's great about the prompts this year is that they are allowing you that flexibility they're basically saying write about whatever you want it's six hundred fifty words that's really not a lot that's like two maybe two and a half  particular topic well they have these specific prompts you know in a school might have a specific they may say what's the biggest obstacle in your life that you've ever had to overcome so you would have to do that with this kind of flexibility that they have this year you could tell a story about something that happened to you when you were a child that made a huge impression on you you could talk about something you know if you love to cook why do you love to cook who do you feed that sort of thing if you're if you're a cashier at the supermarket you know i see a lot of college kids there and of course i'm i mean high school students i'm passing out my card they're they could write about some of the experiences that they have on the cashier line they need all kinds of humanity in that store and it might not even occur to them that that would be a great thing to write about so that's where i come in to help them yes so so that's that's a big thing do you see the t of topics that the kids write about is there a majority of one particular topic that a lot of kids tend to write about because schools don't want to hear topics like about you know how to fix global warming or anything  i honestly it's a new business so i don't have a lot of experience so that i could say most people are writing about x but what i do keep hearing from the admissions people that i've spoken to is that too many kids write about all the clubs they belong to all of the extracurricular activities they do and even with that i would advise kids don't spread yourself out so if it finds something you really love and stick with it and with the essay as i said finding something that you're really passionate about that's what they want to see because they want to see what makes you different from everybody else if you like chocolate and talk about chocolate talk about the different you like or why you like milk chocolate instead of dark chocolate i mean there are things that you can pin down that will set you apart from someone else one of the students that i worked with talked about being a stage manager for her high school production and how someone was a mentor to her and then she became a mentor for someone else and it was a great little story and she had dialogue and there was really a different kind of essay so she went outside of the box and she did get into her first choice school it's not just because of the essay but i'm sure that that made a difference so let's get into the interview process is there particular questions that they ask at the college level the kids can study up on well there are lots of  websites that list questions but you can bet that they're definitely going to ask you why do you think this college is right for you so that's a definite the other thing is that there are they're going to want to find out what people perceive whether it's your teacher or your parents or your friends what is your best quality what is your worst quality everyone has both and it's really important that a that a child look at him herself or herself and figure out the truth you know if you're a procrastinator own it because you can talk about how you get through that you know if it's hard for you to get out of bed in the morning talk about that if you're hyper on time and you get upset when no one else is on time you know that may be a good thing and a bad thing so it's just important to be honest and to really have a plus and minus about yourself so now do you also teach them how to dress on the interview while i talk about the things that people look for they look for eye contact they look at how you dress that's another thing that was stressed at these college nights when students go for interviews it's important that they dress nicely you're not going to wear the turin jeans in the t shirt with the sayings i mean you'd think this is obvious but it's amazing what kids show up wearing also and i really understand this they don't want parents to be over involved they really want the students to take the initiative but if you see that your kid is wearing something that they shouldn't it's important it's one thing also if you see a typo in your child's essay pointed out to them before it is sent out some some parents don't they just feel like well you know i don't have time i don't want to deal with it or this is their problem you really want your kid to look the best while you know pulling back a little bit and letting your student take initiative now how how  much do the parents get involved do you see the parents getting really involved in your process or it's just the full gamut it's the whole gamut i mean some parents want to be in the room with you while you're doing everything some of them will let you have alone time with their student i f it runs the full range i prefer to work alone with a student i just think it's it's better for comfort level but also that student is going to be alone when they talk to an admissions person so i think it's important to do that also in terms of the writing i want to establish a reporter with a student and really understand what made and different and so i need to spend some time to do that with that and are you hoping the student with writing skills students probably not as good as some of the students writing why if student if a student is having trouble writing i'm not a tutor so i would suggest that i haven't come across that yet most of the students who apply to college or are fairly good writers  if there are certain habits that they have when they write that they might not realize the point that out to them but i don't do the writing for them you know i'm an editor i might say this word is better than that word or you use this word a lot i mean was funny when i wrote my first novel and i had experienced an editor a professional editor for the first time she said you know you have a certain tic that you use when you write i had no idea the word besides i must have had it maybe twenty times within you know two or three chapters and i was shocked because i just didn't realize it but that's why all editors and all writers need editors all actors and directors you need to have someone from the outside and that's another reason why i can be helpful as i said compared to a counsellor or a parent because there are things that i can see and also that i can say because i'm an outsider that that hopefully a student will listen to or connect with so what type of students are coming to you are the eighty students the students average just that you know it's a range it's a range the point of my business is really to give them an edge on the process so no matter where they are if their average student they want to be able to stand out from the other average students if they're really good students they want to stand out from the other good students so it's really a range i haven't come across anyone who who doesn't know how to write well so i've been lucky and as i said i would probably recommend a tutor if they're really having communication problems writing problems now do you also talk to the parents before you take the student on again it depends where the parents are the ones who hire me so yes i do talk to them yeah and i make it clear what i'm going to do and they have questions for me and you know we work something out mutually now do you also go to the high schools do you do any seminars at the high school well i haven't gotten involved in that yet high schools are kind of protective about their staff and their counselors and so i don't want to impede in that process but i've been able to network so at some point when i maybe have a bigger pool of people that i worked with perhaps i might do a seminar but at this point it's just working with parents getting the word out through my website through my contacts through people college well well as i said grades are important how you test is important keeping up your grades is important you know we hear about senior slump that's really not a good thing to do  and not being spread too thin with your extra curricular activities those things are important but it's really the essay that shows your individuality so that's a very important part of it but there are certain schools that they're yeah you know for example if you're a leading person in sports or in performing arts that's going to give you an edge to still have to show that you can write the essay and for example if you're an athlete they don't want to see an essay about sports they want to see another side of you so that's an important area introduce of it yes yeah yeah so we're coming to the end of our show ok usually i asked my guess what advice do you want to give to parents out there that their sons and daughters are  interested in getting more information about essays in interviewing what advice you want to give to those well other than of course hiring me i think it's important for parents to be to help their kids be ahead of the  game people start sending off the applications if there are a senior this fall so if they haven't started working on the essay you have the summer ahead of us they should really start things thing about that now i know there are there are already certain financial information and deadlines that have had had to be met i hope the parents are on top of that piece of the puzzle again you want the student to take initiative but this would be a time to visit campuses during the summer and to make sure they get a feel for a place i've heard some people say it's better not to take an official tour but just to go go to the cafeteria try and meet students because sometimes if you have a tour guide that you don't connect with back and change how you feel about a school and that would be a shame you know but it's important to go there go to a cafeteria talk to the students course it would be best to go out while school