How To Get Your Kids Into Elite Colleges Without Scandals

I am sure you became aware of the college admissions scandal led by ringleader Rick Singer. Mr. Singer and a number of wealthy parents are now in jail. While parents do want the best for their kids, there is a fine line between preparing your kids well vs. being grossly unethical.

Jason Ma, CEO and Chief Mentor, ThreeEQ

This year, the Ivy League schools and other elite colleges and universities have reported their lowest admit rates in history. Meanwhile, in reality, many students lucky enough to attend these highly competitive schools are stressed-out or anxiety-ridden. This is exacerbated by the pandemic, which has wreaked havoc across the entire college prep, admissions, and attendance space.

From an elite college’s perspective, booksmart high schoolers with lots of extracurricular activities are a dime a dozen. Unfortunately, the Ivies, Stanford, MIT, and other very elite schools can accept only a small fraction of their highly qualified applicants (e.g., Harvard’s latest freshmen admit rate: under 4%). I have uncomfortably seen some amazing kids—valedictorians with a perfect SAT or ACT score, a 4.0/4.0 unweighted GPA with strong curriculum rigor, lots of extracurricular activities, and many honors/awards—get flatly rejected by a top Ivy or Stanford.

So, just what does it take to get admitted? How to truly prepare well for college and beyond?

Throughout high school, young achievers must learn how to realize their authentic best self, while navigating the complex and often stressful college planning and application process. My perspective is that college should be an integral part of a much longer journey. I encourage my own private client

families to wisely think THROUGH college (with long-term gains), and NOT just AT college (short-sightedness). It is vital to help kids understand both themselves and the world, express their individuality and passions both in writing and in speech, and develop their mindsets and soft skills—early on.

With over 20,000 hours of elite college, leadership, career, and life success coaching, mentoring, writing, speaking, and applied research under my belt, I would say that, besides academic and standardized testing performance, the success ingredients include:

1. Building good habits. Part of my pattern recognition is that truly successful, high-achieving students have built sound habits. They developed not only time management skills and an ability to focus (despite online distractions), but also a few sustained, genuine interests (“passions”) pursued through the bulk of their high school years. They built strong character traits or a skill set that would add value to and help inspire the community of peers and faculty in college and beyond.

2. Finding your inner voice. My successful students were coachable and committed, and learned to express themselves effectively. This includes writing cogent college app essays, building good relationships with key people, and garnering outstanding third-party recommendation letters. Of utmost importance, essays and rec letters are key opportunities to communicate a student’s values, attitudes, and goals. They give the applicant a personality and facilitate the admissions staff to choose the students they want.

3. Starting early and executing well. These days, applying to ten or more colleges is common. Students end up writing dozens of essays, as well as short takes and detailed college app forms, and engaging in some private school interviews during the college app season. “So stressful” are words I hear often from under-prepared college applicants (especially those who start building their stories and skills late)—while they also attack a heavy senior year course load, AP exams, purposeful activities, and if still not done, the SAT or ACT. To produce authentic, high-quality writings that stand out from the crowd, a student must have life experiences upon which he/she has done deep reflection, emotional maturity, and lots of practice communicating orally and in writing with a helpful support cast.

4. Honing a growth and contribution mindset. The humility to continuously learn and improve is key to a growth mindset. I value integrity, contribution, growth, connection, and a passion for excellence, and help instill these values in my students. I believe in guiding students holistically, strategically, and pragmatically—including the enhancement of their belief system and skills in critical thinking, creativity, communication, collaboration, and leadership—while helping them reflect on their experiences and find their own voice.

I have hacked the secrets to mentoring and coaching achievers for notable success and well-being. Honing students’ pragmatic emotional, social, and leadership intelligence (“3EQ”) is embedded in my own 1:1 mentoring process. I’ve counseled 1-on-1 hundreds of students who were admitted to the 8 Ivy League institutions, Stanford, MIT, Caltech, UChicago, Duke, UC Berkeley, Georgetown, and ALL other top universities and liberal arts colleges. It is heartening to see many are rising in career and in life with joy and compassion as next-gen leaders.

Building a strong character and story takes years. It can’t be conjured up “just in time” during the high school senior year. Learning to think, speak, and write effectively is a slow-cooking process, not popcorn-quick microwaving.

Wisely support your kids to start early, reduce stress, achieve greater success— and learn, work, and live more happily!

Jason Ma

Jason Ma is Founder CEO and Chief Mentor of ThreeEQ, a family-owned, premier education and business advisory firm. He is author of the acclaimed book, Young Leaders 3.0: Stories, Insights, and Tips for Next-Generation Achievers, and is former Forbes contributor on Mentoring Young Leaders for elite college admissions, higher education, leadership, and entrepreneurship success. Jason was a delegate to the Forbes Global CEO Conference for 8 years before Forbes Media was acquired. He is a leading member of the B20, the official G20 dialogue with the global business community, serving on the Employment (Future of Work) and Education Task Force. Known as Chief Mentor of Next-Gen Leaders in Family Office and high-level circles, Jason is also a sought-after speaker. To learn about Jason’s work, visit www.ThreeEQ.com.

Reimagining WEALTH AND PHILANTHROPY

By Mike Scala

As the model of traditional investing is shifting and Family Offices around the world are starting to pivot their portfolios towards impact investing, next-gens are supporting their families in the largest wealth transfer in the history of humanity as we know it. With that said, many families are re-thinking the way in which they approach honoring their family legacy while making a positive change in the world. More principals and next-gens are passionate about philanthropy and sustainable solutions that not only have a healthy ROI but are also good for the planet. With more intergenerational communication, integration, and collaboration occurring within many families, a new model is taking shape aligned with the context of our times and many are looking for more “current” approaches. This powerful shift has fostered reason to come together in a shared pursuit of meaningful futures. Reimagining wealth is a key component in making such intergenerational collaboration possible. What does wealth mean to each different generation in your family? What does the family legacy look like today? How do the children in the family see the possibility of being part of a lasting legacy 30 years from now? One of the organizations leading that shift of reimagining wealth through philanthropy while working to transform the way families align their core values with impact is “The Impact Agency.”

Mike Scala is the founder of The Impact Agency, a private, specialized agency working with families and foundations to maximize their philanthropic efforts, and as a result, reimagine philanthropy while expanding their family legacy. Scala has founded a number of organizations deploying capital globally while implementing sustainable solutions and impact across all sectors. He has led efforts both on the ground and behind the scenes traveling around the world to work with families, NGOs, and the public and private sector. In addition, his work with organizations such as Bankers Without Boundaries with governments, institutions, and cities to mobilize capital applying financial concepts/structuring to public projects aligning them with the investment needs of capital markets, risk reduction, scaling and generation of financial returns, the World Health Organization, SAP, and more have resulted in providing aid and opportunities to millions across continents the past two years alone. He has been recognized at The World Economic Forum and has spoken at some of the top universities and institutions such as NYU, Cornell, BI of Norway, the United Nations, and private family office gatherings internationally. Scala, is often referred to by his peers as “the swiss army knife of philanthropy.”

When COVID19 was announced a global pandemic at the end of March, Mike was approached by a number of families around the world and was entrusted with helping them to deploy aid effectively. Throughout that process he was called upon by various world leaders to support relief efforts. He and his team spent 8 months on the frontlines in countries around the world setting up food supply chains, building teams, working throughout Los Angeles County, Chicago, New York City, and were called upon by members of the European Union to support in leading efforts around community youth engagement, education, public health, messaging and communications, and relief for underserved communities across the US and Europe. Working directly with families, donors, and corporations such as Vivobarefoot, he and the agency were able to provide 25k+ families in the US with food, PPE, supplies, and necessities, increase efficiency of supply chains for shipping of aid to communities in need, provide 10k+ of the homeless population in the US with food, clothing, jobs, and supplies, new facilities for the Watts Empowerment Center, 50k+ units of PPE equipment to hospitals in Chicago, LA, NYC, and Italy, $700k+ worth of educational supplies to underserved communities that do not have access to the internet or tech for online learning during lockdowns, over 10 million impressions and reach on social media, messaging, and engagement to raise public health awareness.

Throughout his work around the world Scala saw funding spent inefficiently, a lack of cohesion and accountability, and found that so many donors, families, and people don’t trust charities. In fact, over 40% of people in America alone don’t trust charities and families and companies waste millions of dollars on philanthropic giving efforts that end up being a band aid to the issue. After seeing that inefficiency, he decided to create The Impact Agency which invests resources effectively so they land where they need to land. Connecting those who are willing to help with those who need the help.

The Impact Agency provides accountability, scale, and maximum return on impact of giving. With a track record of a minimum of 2-5x return on impact, (that is for every $1 million they deliver up to $5 million of good out into the world) they are empowering and supporting the transformation of dynamics intergenerationally. It is the first of its kind as a “one stop shop” with experience in the areas of disaster relief, human rights, youth and community engagement, education, environmental sustainability/clean energy, tech, arts and culture, and more. They help create the project, provide accountability and reporting, vet and find the best-fit beneficiary aligned with the family’s values, have experience on the ground globally working directly with communities, understand cultural dynamics, diversity and inclusion, and create strategic partnerships so that the community has direct involvement in the project creating ownership and protecting your investment. They also ensure effective execution of the project and support sustainable practices to enable its relevance after completion.

In the current state of the world, many families and their businesses not only have an opportunity to make a difference for the future generations of the world, but a chance to change history through their legacy and shared values through impact.

Contact: Mike Scala mike@the-impact-agency.com