When it comes to college admissions, the volume of information available on the web, from school officials, and in the rumor network is overwhelming. Worse yet, most of the information is vague and off the mark.  I have been a private consultant to middle and upper middle class students from the top high schools in Houston, Texas, and all over the globe for the last 15 years or so. My father and partner, Dr. Marshall Shumsky, has been one of the leading college admissions advisors for 30 years. He is a former professor and admissions committee member at 2 elite universities: The University of Virginia and Northwestern University. We have guided thousands of students to acceptance at their dream school including Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, UC-Berkeley, and many more.

Together, we have spent thousands of hours researching, gathering data, and speaking with applicants, families, and admissions personnel over the last 3 decades. Our experiences and knowledge-base has led some to call us, “America’s top experts on college admission.” We’ve been profiled by The New York Times, Money Magazine, and ABC News because of our unmatched record of success. Further, we have been hired to teach and train students and staff at private and boarding schools, as well as in the public school systems of the Los Angeles Unified School District, Houston Independent School District, and School District of the City of New York.

Our information and suggestions are not perfect, but they will certainly go a long way in leading you much closer to admission at your dream colleges and universities. So, without further ado, here is how you make yourself a very good candidate to a top 50 school.

1. Develop your skills and talents to elite level quality:

If you want to give yourself a chance at the most competitive colleges and universities in the U.S. and globally, you need special talents. Your talent need not be elite academic performance, as athletic, performing and visual art skill, and career/vocational skills are equally attractive to college admissions staffs. However, when you are aiming at the most competitive colleges and your dream school, you need to have professional caliber skills and talents to separate your application from the herds of highly qualified others.

What exactly does elite quality skill mean?

If you are an academic talent, then you need to complete independent research and study in your area of academic interest. Publish articles in academic journals or create independent projects or papers of depth and quality that go way above and beyond what you produce for class assignments. For example, one client of ours several years ago was a middling student at his very high quality private high school. However, he was an academic superstar in his favorite subject of physics. By 9th grade, he was a research assistant in the physics lab of a local university. In the summer prior to 12th grade, he co-authored a paper with a PhD student that was accepted by a physics academic journal. Even though he was in the middle ranks of his high school class and his grades were significantly lower than the usual elite college applicant, he was accepted by Princeton and Stanford.

Athletic and performing arts superstars are similarly attractive to top colleges. We have had a number of elite athletes as clients over the years and even though many of them were bright and solid students, only one of them was also an elite academic performer. She, a junior Olympic swimmer, was accepted to and enrolled at Stanford. Others were not quite so outstanding in class, but still had offers from nearly every elite institution in the country. Duke, Harvard, Princeton, Rice, Vanderbilt, Georgetown, just to name a few, have tracked down and rolled out the red carpet for our clients because they were elite athletes who possessed strong, but not exceptional, academic records as well.

Actors, violin players, photographers, and Rock and Rollers, have all found their way to elite universities on the basis of their artistic talent. One female client was a B and C student in the Advanced Placement courses of her excellent public high school. She was solidly in the 3rd quarter of her graduating class and acquired a 30 on her ACT. However, she was a creative writing superstar who had published a book of short stories that captured some national attention, while in high school. She had a plethora of universities that were bidding for her enrollment and she chose Harvard because of the opportunity to work on the Lampoon comedy magazine.

A jazz saxophone player who worked with us some years ago ended up at Northwestern University, despite not taking one class at the honors or AP level in high school. He was a very average student at his solid but not spectacular private high school. Yet, by age 16, he had played with a professional jazz quartet on a summer tour of European capitals. His elite musical abilities gained him entry to the top colleges in America.

Schools like Harvard, MIT, Columbia, Stanford and no longer look for valedictorians and those with perfect SAT scores. There are thousands of such students throughout the U.S. and globally. What the most competitive colleges and universities want are students who are superstars. A perfect academic record is not proof of elite abilities; a track record of exceptional achievements is the way to acceptance.

2. Broaden Your Life Experiences:

There are hundreds of thousands of highly qualified middle and upper middle class applicants to your dream school and the other top 50 colleges in the U.S. Nearly every single application from these students will look the same from a college admissions staff member’s perspective. Each applicant will be in the top reaches of their high school class rank. All will have strong SAT or ACT scores, with most acquiring scores in the 90th percentile or above. Some will play sports, others will have attended college summer courses or traveled extensively for cultural exchange. A portion will have won high school academic or artistic competitions in math, computer science, foreign language, or visual and performing arts. All will have completed community service projects with local organizations like the food bank, homeless support groups, or services for the disabled or elderly.

Many more will be members of student government, speech and debate teams, model UNs, and will write or produce content for student publications and media channels. On paper, these students will look better than their high school classmates and will likely have nice recommendations from teachers, counselors, and adults in the community. Yet, nearly all of them will get rejected from their top choice colleges. What did they do wrong?

First, they made the mistake of doing what everyone else is doing. There are no real secrets in college admissions. Everything that goes on in your high school is going on at every middle class high school in the U.S. All the clubs, activities, and community service work that parents and school staff emphasize all add up to a mass of applications that all look the same. If you want to increase your odds of admission at the most competitive colleges, then you need to break the mold.

Besides being a superstar in academic, artistic, or athletic domains, your best bet at catching the attention of an admissions staff member at a highly competitive college is to broaden your life experiences beyond the usual bubble of middle class life. Very few middle class students have the courage to really challenge themselves and push beyond their comfort zone. But, if you can somehow find the courage and the means, you will be rewarded for your efforts.

What kind of experiences am I talking about?

If you want to improve your portfolio and get accepted by your dream school, then you might begin by working with the most vulnerable and least liked portion of the population. Go to your local jail and start teaching, supporting, or mentoring the inmates. Many of them will be your age or not much older, but will have none of your polish, blessings, or opportunities. You can help them. Give them some of your wisdom, lend them a shoulder or an ear, teach them how to support themselves with basic computer, language, or mathematical skills, so that they don’t end up back in prison after release.

Are you concerned about diversity and the fortunes of our newest immigrants? Then reach out to their communities

and help. Mentor an elementary school student from El Salvador and take him or her under your wing. Spend time with your new buddy, take him or her to a movie, to a ballgame, or invite them to join your friends for a slice of pizza. Help an African boy with his English skills by meeting for a couple of hours each week to tutor him on the basics of communication and American idioms and customs.

Environmental issues are at the forefront of concerns for today’s adolescents. Now is the perfect time to start a campaign for clean water in a rural district of Pakistan or the Congo. Take your passion one step further and recruit some volunteers at school or a local church and plan a trip to install toilets and water fountains at a school in Nicaragua. Start a drive to give used eyeglasses to high school students in the Dominican Republic and go there to deliver the supplies and meet the locals.

Stretch yourself; the planet is vast and filled with people who would love your time, attention, and support. Don’t follow the well-tread path to summer camps, luxury vacations, and safety. Take a risk, start something, light a spark and use your energy for good. You will be rewarded by the results of your efforts in terms of your college portfolio and will also enrich your life with new relationships and experiences. This kind of work expands your perspective beyond the confines of your neighborhood, friends, and family.

3. Push your grades in core academic subjects and take the most demanding coursework you can stand:

College admissions staff at your dream school or any top 50 college no longer put any emphasis on grades in electives other than foreign language and supplementary academic courses like AP statistics, engineering math, AP computer science, and AP environmental science. Years of gamesmanship by students, parents, and school staff has rendered much of a student’s transcript as meaningless. The easy A courses, electives taught by low-quality staff, and the high number of students who choose a course just for GPA impact have led to non-core coursework being dismissed by admission staff at competitive universities.

College admissions staff do not have any reliable way to measure the quality of coursework at your particular school. They can only look at school profiles, average SAT/ACT scores, number of AP classes offered and number of students enrolled in such courses, and rely on the reputation that the school’s graduates have garnered. None of these variables is all that useful in estimating your abilities as compared to the average applicant. Instead, admissions personnel will look to your core courses and grades.

Did you take the most demanding coursework available in science, math, English, and history/social science? Did you achieve a grade of 90 or above? How many grades of 95 or better? Were there any low B’s or C’s on your transcript in core coursework? How many years of foreign language did you take? Did you go beyond the minimum requirements of 4 courses in each core academic area, if courses were available?

Here, SAT Subject Tests and AP tests are useful. If you did well in a core academic area, then you should be able to achieve an SAT Subject Test score on the same subject above 650, with above 700 strongly preferred. Similarly, AP tests scores should be 4s and 5s. If you acquired an A in an AP course, but could not get to 650 or above on the same SAT Subject Test, then admissions assumes your coursework was not of high quality.

Want to impress an admissions staff member? Then you surely will take at least 3 AP/Pre-AP courses in core subjects each year and take a handful of SAT Subject tests and AP tests with very good results.

4. Get to know yourself:

More and more, college admissions staffs at top 50 universities look beyond objective numbers and resumes to look for evidence of maturity and understanding. There is an epidemic of entitlement on American college campuses that stems from childhoods and experiences that have inflated the self-importance of many adolescents. Most students at the elite universities get there on the basis of their maturity and independence. College admissions staff at your dream school prize students who go after their interests with fire and passion and also those who understand themselves and their place in the world.

If you want to attract the attention of college admissions staff, then get to work at learning the truth about you. What are your strengths? How have you materialized your talents and interests? Where and when have you pushed yourself beyond your perceived limitations? Where do you need to grow? What are your weaknesses and what do you regret? These are the kinds of questions that you need to ask of yourself. Some will lead to changes in behaviors and specific actions to be taken in order to live more in tune with the truth of you. Others will lead to realization and insights that will make for great content in college essays and interviews. Know yourself well and others will take notice.

Figure out what it is that you hope to do in the early stages of your career. Which curiosities keep you up at night? What do you want to do to make the world a slightly better place? Get working on these. Make a commitment to yourself today by getting to work on the issues that matter to you. Follow your mind and your heart and you will likely find out more about yourself and the world. The way these kinds of experiences will change you will be subtle, but they will make all the difference.

5. Get to know academic disciplines and the colleges themselves:

Most applicants to elite colleges know very little about their prospective majors, the variety of academic offerings across the curriculum, and the unique offerings and traits of the specific college they are applying to. Usually they are applying because the college is prestigious or they heard it has a good program in some area of interest. These are not convincing reasons in the mind of an admissions person and will likely lead to your dream school application being rejected.

College admission staff look for students who will fit well with the culture of the college and the student body and staff. Do you know the hallmarks of a Stanford (or Rice, or Princeton, or UC-Berkeley…) education? Do you understand why the curriculum and faculty in your prospective major will be appropriate for your academic and career goals? What will you be doing at Stanford to grow and make a contribution to the culture of the school? Why are you the right fit for them? The more specifically you can answer these questions, the more likely your admission. How are your high school experiences and activities connected to what you will do at Stanford? Is there a strong connection?

Did you visit the college while class was in session? What did you find there? Did you talk with current students? Did you sit in on classes and meet with professors? Stay overnight in the dorms to get a sense of campus social and academic culture? Why not? An informed applicant does all of the above to make sure that he or she is choosing the right school for his or her needs. In doing so, you will get a much more intimate idea of what the college is all about and why you are a good fit. When you can establish your strong fit with the college on academic, cultural, and personal grounds in essays and interviews, then you will increase your odds of acceptance.

Follow our guide and success will come

There are many more variables beyond those mentioned above and these steps will not guarantee your admission to Harvard, Stanford, Princeton, the other hyper-competitive colleges and universities with miniscule acceptance rates. However, if you are thorough in your efforts to fulfill the path laid out in this guide, you will be much more likely be admitted to one or more of your dream school choices. Certainly, at least one and likely many more, top 50 college or university will like what they see when they read your application. Good luck!

If you need more help, please give us a call today

If you are overwhelmed by the recommended steps, please give us a call or click here to send us a message.  We have been guiding families and students through high school and onto their dream college and career for 30 years.  We can make it easy for you, just as we have done for our past clients. Please call us today at 713-784-6610 to get started.

Why is consistency so important?

The final habit in our series on the skills and habits of successful students is consistency. Successful students work in a steady fashion with consistent effort over the course of each week and each semester. When characterizing the students who succeed in class and in their personal and social lives, those who make life easy for themselves are the happiest and most productive. Students who operate in a bipolar fashion create horrible stress in their lives. When you move from one pole of doing nothing over days and weeks to the other pole of intensive deadline efforts and late nights, you are working in the worst way possible.

The students that procrastinate and use avoidant behaviors are almost always filled with anxiety, even when engaged in distractions like Netflix, videogames, and social media. Further, they are often sleep deprived and less efficient because they will stay up late to meet a deadline or catch up on missed work. For the next day or two, these students will be zombies who can hardly think straight and have no energy for completing the next set of tasks.

Consistency of effort breeds success. Want to lose weight? Get to the gym 3 times per week.  Want to learn a foreign language? Practice for 45 minutes each day. At school, the slow and steady tortoise always wins the race.

In college, those students who keep pace with steady work each week, find that they can easily maintain strong grades with 10-15 hours of studying each week. This kind of workload is reasonable for even the busiest college students. Take a look at this post for a look at how a highly engaged and committed student spends his week.

College students need not work more than 10-15 hours per week, except in STEM majors

Engineering and other STEM majors like computer science typically have no choice but to put in consistent effort on a nightly basis. The amount of required work (20-30 hours or more) and the intellectual demands of their majors is simply too heavy to put aside for more than a night or two. STEM majors will get too far behind without consistent effort. This is the primary reason why 50% of first-year STEM majors will end up in another major.

Most college students are significantly behind the pace required by their classes. Thus, they find that they are not well-prepared for exams and will usually rush through the efforts of writing a research paper so as to meet deadlines. The all or nothing habit, where you take weeks off from studying then work like a dog as deadlines approach, is the worst way to operate as a student.The stress and anxiety of last minute work minimizes the quality and effectiveness of such work.

When college students read and take notes, attend lectures, and break down projects into realistic and achievable small tasks, the work is easy. Somehow, this message has not gotten through to most college students. The all or nothing efforts of cramming, waiting to the last minute, and procrastinating do not lead to good results in class nor high levels of well-being.

High school students make work more difficult than need be

In high school, nearly any student could be successful with a steady effort over the week. In most cases, there just is not that much work to complete in order to be a solid B+/A- minus student, even in AP and IB courses. Yes, there are schools that are famous for piling on the work (Awty and St. Johns, locally). Even at such highly demanding high schools, most students have no more than 10 to 12 hours of homework, reading, and preparation each week.

It is the expansion of moderately challenging work from 10 to 20 or more hours each week (remember Parkinson’s Law!) because of poor planning, distraction, and resistance, that leads to the late nights and rushed last minute efforts. Suddenly, you are not only completing this week’s assigned workload, but also last week’s as well because you avoided the necessary work. Then you don’t get enough sleep and tomorrow’s efforts become less efficient or get thrown out the window. The vicious cycle continues on and on.

With consistent work each day and across the week, even the busiest high school students at highly demanding schools can achieve solid grades. Twelve hours of high school homework and preparation can be completed with plenty of time for engaging interests and relaxation with friends, if students would use minimal time-management strategies and work consistently from week to week. Take a look at this post for examples of the life and school habits and plans of very engaged and successful high schoolers.

Happy students are well-rested and prepared

Want to have a happier and more productive life? Then you need to start managing your time so that you may work consistently. Work a little bit each day. Remember our friend the tortoise. Start small, shoot for 1 or 2 study sessions of 45 minutes for each day of the first week of your new habit. Try to keep that pace and add an extra session or two during the next week. Are you able to complete all of your schoolwork and preparation? You will find that doing so is not all that difficult and will not make your life devoid of pleasure. If after one month, you find that your new habit of consistency can be added to, then do so. Take time for a self-check, are you feeling better and producing stronger grades?

Cramming and last minute efforts lead to unhappiness and poor results. Your anxiety will naturally rise when you are not well-rested and well-prepared for tests and projects. High school and college work is not overly demanding in most cases! The work simply requires consistent efforts over time. Such small consistent and daily efforts add up to exponential increases in well-being and academic performance over the course of time.

In our series on the habits and skills of successful students, we have covered a host of ways that successful students are different from their peers.  Today, we show how successful students use a weekly review to learn from successes and mistakes.

Weekly planning and time-management is critical to success in school and life. Developing habits and mind-states that support health, happiness, and productivity will improve the lives of every high school and college student. Yet, success in the game of life is not measured strictly by busy-ness, actions, and positive feelings. Ultimately success comes from creating the results one has in mind and reaching the goals that one desires in the easiest way possible. Plans of action are just one piece of the productivity and success puzzle.  Successful students understand that the weekly review is as important as planning in the journey to happiness and productivity.

Getting what you want in life is the aim of any time-management and organizational system. To query your mind for obligations, desired outcomes, wanted actions and feelings each week is the first step in making your dreams come true. When you make your plans for the week ahead, you are in the stage of creation. Next, you must take action to turn plans and ideas into reality. You must open your U.S. History text to the correct chapter and begin reading and note-taking if you are to master the material and maintain a strong grade. Third, you must complete the tasks or achieve the desired mind-states. If your goal is to feel more relaxed this week, you must complete the actions that will lead to relaxation and move from tension to calm.

Consistent productivity, health, and happiness can only be maintained with a habit of consistent weekly review

Most students incorrectly assume that upon completing the prior week’s tasks, the cycle of productivity returns to creating new ideas and planned next action steps. This is a costly misunderstanding and one that constrains your ability to be consistently successful over the long haul. After the stage of completion, successful students do not immediately start with new plans. Instead, they review their actions and compare the prior week’s plan with the reality of what occurred. Successful students do not simply check off tasks on a to-do list, rather they reflect back on the week that occurred and look for insight. Each week, successful students ask these simple but illuminating questions during their weekly review:

What worked well for me? What obstacles did I face? What supported me in reaching my goals last week? What stood in the way of those tasks I did not complete? What might I do differently in the future if I am to be more effective and satisfied? Are there incomplete tasks from last week that should be carried over to the week ahead? How might I acknowledge my failures and reward my successes, so that I may move forward next week with a completely clear mind?

Successful students know that the game of life is not only about action, it is also about learning. By reviewing and acknowledging the week behind, you can gain great wisdom that will lead to further efficiency, happiness, and success. It is not critical that successful students maintain a record of perfection in reaching every desired goal or feeling, but rather that they use their life experiences as tools to sharpen their knife blade as they cut through the obstacles and tasks that are surely to come.

Life is easier and more satisfying when you treat it as an experiment in mastery

Successful students use each week as an experiment to be figured out in order to improve their performance on the next set of experiments. They use the weekly review to focus on the important lessons to be learned as they move forward in the game of life. Yes, prioritization and action are important, as are keeping your word to yourself and others. In the end, the reward is not only achievement, it is the confidence of knowing that you are capable of reaching your dreams. All that is required is close attention to the reality of your life.

We teach and integrate a system for organization and time-management that any teen can use to build a life that is satisfying and productive. Every teenager and college student can learn how to: plan and review for learning, productivity, and refinement, keep track of deadlines, break long-term projects into small, achievable tasks, and to maintain a productive and positive outlook. Our program for high school students, the Teen Independence Program, has helped hundreds of teens build satisfying and productive lives during the transition from childhood to adolescence.  The College Life-Management Program has transformed the lives of hundreds of our clients. We help college students use their time and energy to get good grades, have lots of fun and fulfillment, and to develop a roadmap for a lifetime of success at school, work, and in their personal lives.

 
Over the last several weeks, we have covered a number of skills and habits that successful students utilize to stay at the top of their game, academically and personally. The academic skills and habits and the use of planning and time-management are obvious to most students and parents and therefore are part of any family’s conversation about student performance and happiness. Yet, there is one skill that is less obvious to many and it might be the most important skill that a student can develop. That is the skill of accurately gauging the amount of time needed to complete each obligation and desired outcome that a student is committed to.

A student can plan his or her week in great detail and lay out a perfect schedule for preparation and study, fun, relaxation, and engaging activities, but if he or she does not accurately gauge the amount of time needed to complete the planned tasks, then the beautiful plan is a complete waste of energy. I find that student productivity and happiness is most frequently constrained by vagueness about the specific tasks to be completed. Few students make clear plans as to when and where a task will be completed. Critically, most students do not pay close attention to how much time a task actually takes to be completed.

When I ask students about their homework plan for a specific night or week, I frequently hear a response such as:

“I want to prepare for my English test on Tuesday.”
“I will complete my Pre-Cal homework tonight.”
“I need to read and take notes on the upcoming chapter in my U.S. History textbook by Sunday.”

Some of these responses are at least specific as to what exact task needs to be completed, but they suffer from the failure to specify how long the task will take to complete. When a task exists as an open blob of time, it is less likely to be completed and more likely to take longer than needed to complete. If I give myself until Sunday to read and take notes on my U.S. History text, then I will likely allow the task to expand to that amount of time. Remember Parkinson’s Law! This is the nature of our minds and behaviors as humans. We are natively quite efficient at completing specific tasks within a timed framework (think of an assembly line or a professional sports practice session), but less structured time tends to lead to inefficiency, distraction, and procrastination.

Every task needs details about what is to be done, when and where, and how long to completion

Every task needs a home and part of creating a home for the task is defining exactly what is to be done, when and where it will be done, and how long it will take to complete. Successful students are well-aware of this problem and thus adjust their awareness and their plans in order to work around it. A successful student pays close attention to the details of how their time is spent and thus can reasonably estimate how long a specific homework assignment takes to complete. For larger, multi-step projects this becomes even more crucial. Preparing for a test or writing a paper will likely require multiple tasks in order to appropriately complete the whole shebang. Properly defining each task, including details about what to do, where to do it, when to do it, and for how long, significantly increases student success and efficiency.

If you have not fully grasped the subtlety of this skill, allow me to spell it out in more detail. A task that is left vague is an open and undefined loop in one’s mind. When one says, “I need to complete my History test preparation today after class,” there are many ways to foul this up. If I arrive home from class at 4pm with the task of history test prep in my mind, I may have a fairly clear idea of the steps needed to complete the task. More likely, I may be quite unclear about exactly what is needed to complete the task. The “unknowns”: which steps to take, when, in what order, and for how long. These unspecified details cause an increase in my anxiety and my tendency to procrastinate. An undefined task is like a giant blob that rests upon my shoulders and therefore makes my heart beat faster and my life more difficult. My resistance to facing the task is proportional to the degree to which it is undefined.

Even clearly defined tasks may not lead to desired results

It may be that there is but one step required to properly complete my test preparation. I may have that step clear in my head. For example, I know that I need only review my history notes from chapters 1 to 4 to be properly prepared for my test. Yet, even with a defined specific task in mind, I am likely to make that task more difficult than it needs to be if I do not quantify the time needed to complete the task. Giving myself a defined task and a specific deadline is better than the alternative, but not a cure-all.

If, I arrive home from class at 4pm and guess that my test preparation will take about an hour or so, I thus allow myself to relax, watch a few hours of Netflix, eat dinner, and send some Snapchats. I wake up from my haze and find that the clock now reads: 9pm.

Given that my history preparation task is to review my notes, I know exactly what I need to do. However, I find that I had not done enough pre-work nor been honest with myself as to how long the task of preparing will actually take. I came home from class with an unquantified guess that I needed 1 hour of notes review, but the task in actuality requires double or triple the amount of time. At 9pm, my productivity and attention is not at a high level and the task requires more time than the 1 hour that I guessed. Studying might have required 2 hours, if done at 6pm, but now requires 3 hours because of my increased fatigue and impaired cognition at this time of night. And even though I do the 3 hours of notes review, I may still not perform well on the test because I have created unnecessary stress and anxiety that will likely harm my recall and cognition.

A successful student does not leave tasks unquantified! I need to get good at estimating how long tasks take to complete, so that I may allocate appropriate resources to the task. If I have found that a usual effort for history test prep is 2 hours, then I need to be honest with myself that this is the amount of time that is needed to complete the task. If I cannot estimate the needed time to properly prepare for a history test, then I need to start measuring how long it takes, on average. Whatever the length of time needed to complete the task, I can appropriately plan and respond to that requirement.

I complete tasks by defining them with as much detail as possible, including time needed for completion

With appropriate foresight and honesty with myself, I would have had no problem properly preparing for my History test. After all, I arrived home from class at 4pm with only 1 task for the night! Yet, even though I was specific about the task to be completed (review History notes), I failed myself because I did not specify how long the task required and did not allocate appropriate time to the task. These small but subtle mistakes are the hangnails that bring down giants.

To achieve at one’s true abilities, at school, in one’s personal life, or on the job, it is the details that make the difference. With increased attention and honesty, I can get good at accurately gauging how long tasks take for completion. In doing so, I will be better at allocating my time, achieve better results, and make my life easier and more peaceful.

 
Yesterday, we shared the 7th post in our series on successful students: how to break down projects and large goals into smaller, specific, and achievable tasks. Today, we focus on a more intangible element of success. When it comes to student success, well-being is king. If students do not feel healthy, energized, confident, and content, the basic tasks of life as a teenager or college student are difficult to manage. There is no doubt that teens and college students are frequently misguided in their choices and priorities. Parents are quick to point to habits like over or under-sleeping, over and under-eating, lack of exercise, too much television or internet time, and too much partying as the source of student troubles. These parents are not wrong in taking note of these unproductive habits, but actually the habits are the symptoms, not the actual disease.

Looking at the number of students that are bored, disengaged, and purposeless, one can easily see the epidemic of of depression, alienation, anxiety, and loneliness. The disease of disengagement and the childish resistance to routine and structure is destroying the lives of many in their teens and twenties and limiting the joy and productivity of many more.

Disengagement, boredom, and lack of purpose destroy health and well-being

Some of this unease comes automatically with the vulnerability of the years between childhood and adulthood. But outside of the normal range of ups and downs, the majority students in their teens and twenties should have little trouble maintaining consistent healthy, happy, and productive mind-states. As with time management, fruitful routines for health and happiness do not require a massive overhaul or outrageous efforts. Rather, well-being comes mostly from awareness and a structure to support the habits that lead to positive feeling.

Successful students are honest with themselves and keep their eyes on what is most important. Nothing supports health and achievement like a good night’s sleep on a consistent basis. Changing habits so as to get a minimum of 7 hours sleep per night will transform your mood, energy, and attention. Further, settling on a consistent bedtime and wake-up time gives the body and mind a reliable and familiar pattern that leads to easier and deeper sleep. If you need more, then a late afternoon power nap of 20-45 minutes should do the trick.

Sleep, consistent moderate exercise, and healthy eating habits lead to positive well-being

Because no two students are alike, it is difficult to speak of rules of thumb about other habits and routines that lead to well-being, but here are some of the most crucial elements that my clients have focused upon. First, exercise. Students need not workout 7 days per week for 2 hours to stay healthy and energized. Two or three 30 minute sessions of exercise are a good starting point for most. One need not do more than go for a walk in the neighborhood or at a local park to stay in a decent zone of health and energy. If you are looking for more fitness and intensity, then definitely work that habit into your weekly routine. But by no means is that a required starting point.

Second, are eating habits. Most teens and college students eat too much unhealthy food, though there are also those that do not eat enough. Three solid, balanced meals per day plus a snack is a good starting point for any adolescent or young adult. If you require more calories to maintain health and energy, then feel free to add on. Most will feel more energized by eating more selectively and less often.

Third, are stress relief outlets. Most teenagers and college students try to relieve stress with television and internet usage. The anxiety and resistance to schoolwork and other tasks that motivates such behaviors is worth paying closer attention to. Nearly every student in America would benefit from an extra half hour per day of quiet time to let down.

Exercise is a great stress reliever, but so is a session of meditation, a quiet session of food prep and cooking, time in concentrative practice of a musical instrument, a visit to nature, or time spent on reading for pleasure. Prayer works well as a stress reliever too. What are the outlets for stress relief in your life or the life of your teen or college student? If the answer is time with friends, partying, or playing video-games, then you are probably confusing stress relief with distraction and social engagement.

Find time for favorite activities and pursuits and transform the week

Social engagement and stimulation is critical as well. You must have friends and engaging pursuits in your life or you will not be happy and productive. It is quite difficult to complete the less interesting obligations in your life if you do not have plenty of time for your interests and healthy relationships. Most students actually underestimate how important these life elements are. In fact, if one were to survey the time spent with friends outside of the typical cheap laughs and bull-crap sessions, one would find that most high school and college students do not spend much time each week on the deeper human interaction that is so crucial for life satisfaction.

Further, most students over-prioritize less satisfying pursuits like television, video-games, shopping, and school clubs relative to truly fulfilling interests. The activities that engage the mind and spirit are must-haves for teens and college students. There is significant effort each week to be spent in completion of tasks that are generated by parents, teachers, and bosses. As humans, we need time to work on the pursuits that are most important to us, even if the time is limited. This is the freedom and engagement that most students are looking for when chasing the distractions of television, video-games, and other cheap thrills.

An hour or two spent building a new skill, learning about a favorite subject outside of school, or engaged in spiritual pursuits like service and religious activities, or on the arts can change the course of a week. When done consistently, these pursuits dramatically enrich our lives and make the less interesting work more palatable.

Successful students know themselves well and build in the time for rest, healthy meals, stress relief, social engagement, and fulfilling pursuits. By focusing consistent time spent in pursuit of well-being, these students find it easy to shift gears to obligations like schoolwork, jobs, and chores. There is a lesson here: The better you feel, the easier it is to be active and productive. The worse you feel, the harder it is to complete even the bare minimum. Well-being leads to success and successful students put the appropriate effort in maintaining consistent health and happiness.

In yesterday’s post, we reviewed the process of clarifying important results and how to hold one’s accountable to the task’s completion. Today, we will cover how to break down large goals and projects into small, achievable tasks.

Many high school and college students procrastinate because they are both unclear and overwhelmed by the tasks, assignments, and goals that they would like to complete. Many students that I work with complain that their anxiety rises significantly with projects like research papers, presentations, and portfolios. Deadlines often sneak up on students and these assignments are usually completed in a last-minute rush of fear, over-work, and lack of sleep. Most result in grades that are disappointing and well below the student’s capabilities.

For many teens and college students, the idea of setting a larger life or school goal like getting a 3.5 GPA for the semester or becoming fluent with Photoshop seems too overwhelming to actually consider. Yet, if broken down into weekly specific tasks or habits, these goals are very realistic in most cases. To gain fluency with Photoshop might require 100 hours of self-directed study and practice. In the course of a 52 week year, this is but 2 hours of work per week. If, additionally, one reached out for instruction and assistance with the task, the needed work would likely be reduced further. Most teenager and college students in America can find an extra 2 hours per week to reach a desired goal.

Usually, the work necessary for completing projects or life goals could be easily done with a consistent and routine amount of effort. But, when left ignored or unspecified, these tasks become the bogeymen that scare the wits out of students.

There is a very simple cure for procrastination and overwhelm

There is a very simple cure for this kind of procrastination and overwhelm. Nearly every productivity or general self-help book written in the last 25 years has advised readers to separate larger projects into small, specific actions to be taken, in order that they be appropriately planned for and completed. I recommend one further step: acquire a whiteboard that sits in plain view of your desk or bed so that you can see upcoming deadlines well in advance.

On the first day of school, students should gather the first round of major test and project deadlines and write them out on their whiteboard. Work backwards from the deadline and estimate the realistic needed start date for the project or test preparation effort and enter that date in your smartphone’s calendar app with a reminder to notify you on the start date.

How do I make a realistic plan for my research paper?

On the day that the notification flashes across your phone, spend a nice chunk of time on planning. Ask yourself a question like: “What is the very first step in completing this research paper?” Very often the primary step in writing a research paper is to read the needed/assigned texts in order to have a solid understanding of the issues and ideas in play. Ask: “How long will it take me to read and take succinct, useful notes on the X number of pages so that I can understand the concepts to be written about?” and “When can I complete this reading and note-taking?”

Some teachers and students use outlining as a step in the writing process. Some classes will require that a student turn in a topic, outline, rough draft, final draft, and completed paper as part of the assignment. If required, then an outline must be completed. “How much time will the outlining process take me?”

Research papers are rarely of high caliber when completed in one extended effort. Many students will try to think through and complete the writing of a rough or final draft in a single, multi-hour session. This is a mistake. The mind can maintain high levels of focus for no more than an hour at a time without rest. Cognitive research points to 45 minutes as the average max length of attention before cognition declines. All study or writing sessions should be broken up in multiple units of 45 minutes plus a 5 to 15 minute break in between sessions. One should not complete more than 2 sessions back to back without a longer break unless in an emergency situation.

Instead of shooting to complete a rough draft in one extended sitting, ask yourself, “How many minutes of actual work will the rough draft require?” Let us assume for example, that a classic 5 paragraph essay for high school can be drafted in approximately 120 minutes of solid effort. Breaking such an effort into 45 minute sessions with a 15 minute break afterwards means that the 120 minutes of writing will be completed in 2 hours and 30 minutes. (2X 45 minute sessions of writing, 2X 15 minute breaks, 1X 30 minute session of writing= 90+30+30= 150 minutes).

How much time will each step actually take? When does it need to be completed?

In the case of our assigned high school research paper, a successful student estimates the total writing time on the rough draft to be 180 minutes. He then breaks that task into 45 minute sessions with a 15 minute break afterwards and decides to complete the task over two evenings. Because the due date is still 3 weeks from today, he enters the writing sessions on his calendar for a later date which is several days prior to the rough draft due date.

In planning the work of completing the final draft, a successful student knows that the best final drafts are completed well before the due date, so that they can be re-read and edited prior to the deadline. This successful high school student knows that his History teacher will take several days to read and comment on the rough draft before returning them. So he plans 3 additional 45 minute writing sessions for editing and revision over the course of the days following the return of the rough draft.

Upon submission of the final draft, there should be little work remaining in the days leading up to submission of the completed paper. His teacher will make some final suggestions and return the final draft 4 days prior to the final deadline for completed papers. He believes that 45 minutes of work are required to complete the final edits before completion, so he adds those to his calendar for a date two days before the submission deadline.

Life is easier and grades are better when plans are made and followed

Because this successful student knows exactly which actions to take, in which order, and on which dates, the process of writing the research paper will progress smoothly. Instead of feeling overwhelm, anxiety, and panic, our successful student does not feel worried and does not procrastinate or avoid the tasks to be done. He follows the plan he has laid out, with some small adjustment along the way, and finds that he has plenty of time to complete all steps in the process. His paper is polished and well-written and he rightfully earns the 95 grade that his teacher awards him.

If you or your child is not efficient with time-management, planning, and reviewing, then you need our help.  We can teach any student in America to plan and review each week, clarify long term goals and desires, and help him or her hold their feet to the fire of accountability.  Learning to break down bigger projects and goals into specific actions is the first component of our support programs for teens and college students. Take a look at our Teen Independence Program for high school students and the College Life-Management Program for more information about our time-management and mental performance skill coaching.

Planning each week for schoolwork and fun, which we covered in two posts last week (one for high schoolers, one for college students), is the first step in having a life that is satisfying and full of academic successes. Learning about how long tasks actually take, what one can realistically complete in a week’s time, and how to fill in the key weekly allotments of work, self-care, quiet time, and fun is a challenging but useful step. Many students will find that their lives become happier and more manageable just by adding a little bit of time-structure to their week. Yet, simply structuring each week to spend time on the key areas of life will not necessarily lead to the desired outcomes that students hold in their heads and hearts.

How do you clarify longer-term goals?

Successful students know that the game of life is played on a daily and weekly basis, but is scored on blocks of 6 weeks, semesters, school years, calendar years, and periods of one’s life. Consistent habits on a daily basis will lead to good outcomes in general, but much of our success and happiness is derived from reaching longer-term goals. Here lies a breaking point that separates the successful students from everyone else. Successful students plan and review each week and additionally clarify their priorities and long-term goals. The only way to reach your long-term goals is to get them out of your head and heart, write them down, make a plan, and execute the specific shorter-term steps that lead to the final outcome. Successful students clarify their goals, integrate the weekly steps needed to accomplish the goals, and hold themselves accountable to the outcome.

Instead of simply completing the required tasks and obligations of their lives, successful students are always thinking many steps ahead. They ask themselves: “What do I want this 6 weeks, this semester, this school year?” When a successful student answers these questions, he or she doesn’t leave the goals in the ether of head and heart space, but instead writes them down and keeps track of them. Goals that are written down are much more likely to be achieved than those that exist only in one’s internal dialogue. By writing down goals, you can then figure out the specific steps needed to reach the destination.

Simple, but powerful questions lead to important insights

Let’s take a simple example. Michelle is a 9th grade student at St. Agnes School. She is a solid student, but wants to reach a new level of achievement by acquiring all A’s in core academic classes during the fall semester. If Michelle were to write the goal down on the first day of the new school year, she could then get to work on figuring out exactly how to make the goal become reality. First, Michelle would ask herself, what do I need to do each 6 week grading period in order to score a 90 or above? She could then ask, on average, how many hours per week do I need to spend on each class in order to master the material? Which classes look to be most challenging? For which class(es) might I need a tutor or extra assistance from my teacher? What habits and routines have helped me to achieve strong grades in previous school years? Is there any subject or habit that has been a trouble spot in the past? Is there a habit that I need to change in order to achieve my goal of acquiring straight A’s in core academic classes?

These kinds of simple, but powerful questions help Michelle get the clarity she needs in terms of figuring out how to reach her desired goal. Once clarified, Michelle can then integrate the answers into her weekly planning. For example, Michelle knows that she struggled to reach a grade of 85 in her Algebra I class in 8th grade, so she will likely have similar difficulties in 9th grade’s Algebra II course. Anticipating such difficulties, Michelle is honest with herself and her family and then goes to Mom in order to setup a weekly hour-long tutoring session for Algebra II.

Michelle is gifted in verbal abilities and has always achieved high marks in English courses. While 9th grade will surely bring more challenging works and a faster pace, Michelle knows that completing all reading assignments and taking good notes will very likely lead to a grade of 90 or above in English.

World History is an unknown for Michelle, so she makes sure to look closely at the weekly syllabus and required tests and papers to make an educated guess as to how much time to spend on the course each week. Seeing that there are 3 five-page papers during the course of the fall semester, Michelle writes the deadlines for each on the whiteboard that hangs on her bedroom wall. She knows that she must work backwards from the paper due dates in order to craft a plan to create papers that receive A grades. When she is three weeks from each paper’s due date, she will hash out a step by step plan of action to complete the paper.

Biology is Michelle’s least favorite class. It’s a course that is filled with tests that cover technical terms and definitions and requires a lab report every other week. Michelle knows that she will have trouble with a commitment to spend the time needed on Biology to acquire an A for the semester. She brainstorms for solutions to this difficulty. She asks herself, “what can I do to make sure that I spend the time necessary to master Biology?” A lightbulb flicks on and Michelle has an “aha moment.”

What do I need to do in order to easily reach my goal?

Michelle’s best friend, Anna, wants to be a doctor and Anna is an ace science student. Michelle thinks, “if I spend 2 hours per week studying with Anna, I am sure to complete all of my Biology lab assignments and get all the help I need in understanding the technical vocabulary. So, each week, I will plan a 2 hour study session with Anna.” This a simple and achievable result, but one that only happens if Michelle holds herself to the goal of getting an A in Biology and makes plans that are honest and realistic.

Michelle is very clear about her motivation levels and she knows that if she doesn’t have something to look forward to each week, she loses her drive. In order to get A grades for the fall semester in English, World History, Algebra II, and Biology, she’s going to need a good outlet for fun each week that is not just the normal hanging out with friends. Michelle has always wanted to become a fashion designer and she is not a great sketch artist, even though she loves drawing. Michelle is certain that a weekly drawing class at Glassel School of Art would be something that will bring her a big dose of joy, so she asks Mom to help her register and arrange transportation.

The cycle of productivity must have a place for review, acknowledgment, and rewards

A final step in reaching her goal of acquiring A grades in all core subject areas is planning for a celebration upon achieving the desired outcome. Michelle pulls her Dad aside to talk about her plans. Dad is of course thrilled that Michelle wants to be a straight A student and he agrees that if Michelle reaches such a lofty goal that she deserves a reward. So, Dad agrees to Michelle’s request for a weekend getaway to New York City during the Winter Holidays as a carrot to spur on Michelle’s motivation during the semester. But, Michelle and Dad will only make the trip if Michelle gets the A grades she set out to achieve.

Michelle is thorough, but not obsessive in her planning. She thinks long-term about important goals and lays forth the steps required to achieve such outcomes. While the whole process of self-inquiry, planning, and arranging takes some time, Michelle understands that a few hours of preparation are all that is needed to achieve spectacular results. She’s honest with herself and her family and obtains the needed assistance to arrive at her destination. Most important, Michelle writes down her goal of straight A grades and also keeps track of the steps needed to reach such a goal. Each week, Michelle will incorporate the needed steps in her calendar. She is going to hold herself to the goal and the plan so that she can reap the rewards of achieving strong grades and finally visiting the fashion capital of New York City.

Planning and accountability can be easily learned

Planning and holding one’s self to desired goals in school and life is not overly difficult.  There is some effort and organization required, but such a process is not overly time-consuming.  Work spent in planning and holding yourself accountable will be offset by the efficiency gained when doing so.  There is hardly a student on the planet Earth who cannot learn to: clarify life and school goals, plan and review, and hold him or herself accountable to reaching the desired results.  Any high school or college student can make their life more satisfying and fun by thinking in longer chunks of time and writing down the goals he or she wishes to achieve.  This is not rocket science, but does require different habits and a restructuring of efforts and energy.

If you or your child is not efficient with time-management, planning, and reviewing, then you need our help.  We can teach any student in America to plan and review each week, clarify long term goals and desires, and help him or her hold their feet to the fire of accountability.  Take a look at our Teen Independence Program for high school students and the College Life-Management Program for more information about our time-management and mental performance skill coaching.