I have an embarrassing story from admissions...

Jack Beecher here

I have an embarrassing story from admissions.

It was my first college admissions interview. Not only that, but it was to my dream school, Princeton. So you could say I was a little nervous.

But, for the first couple of questions, all was well. I was crushing the basics: who I am, why I want to attend Princeton, a description of some of my main activities.

Then, I got hit with this exact question I still remember today: "Princeton’s motto is ‘In the Nation’s Service and the Service of Humanity’, how will you serve humanity by attending Princeton?"

Now, to be fair, this question was hard—the hardest question I had to answer throughout all my interviews—but I blanked. I struggled to come up with a great answer on the spot. How can I talk about serving humanity without being cliche and corny?

I ended up coming up with something, but I knew the second I didn’t kill that interview question, my hopes at Princeton were dwindling.

Now, why am I telling this story? Because often, the colleges, through their mission statements, tell you exactly what kind of student they're looking for.

Here are a couple examples:

Notice the common theme: all schools' goal is to create maximum value in the world.

This is key. They are telling you exactly what they want. This means the main goal of your application is to convince the school you are the type of student they are looking for.
Combining all the mission statements together:

Schools are looking for leaders and future leaders who pursue excellence in their field to benefit society
Thus, you need to show the schools three things:

1. You are a leader

2. You have the discipline to chase excellence

3. You care for others

How do you show these qualities?

Well, once you know what they’re looking for and what you need to chase in high school, it should become pretty clear.

You show you’re a leader with your activities. You show you can achieve excellence through your activities, grades, and test scores. You show that you care for others and are striving to benefit not just yourself but your community in your essays and activities.

Obviously, it’s a little more nuanced than that, but you get the point. Once you know what the colleges are looking for, you can reverse engineer your application to show colleges you’re a model student of their mission.
Plus, by knowing the mission statement of your dream school, you won’t slip up like me and be completely blank on a critical interview question like me.

Best of luck with college admissions,
Jack

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