College

Roote's vision is to help the next billion young people live up to their potential. This means I've worked with hundreds of ambitious high schoolers, many of whom are anxious to get into a great college.

This post compiles my top tips for college.

I. The application process is not built for your enjoyment

The college application process is brutal. This isn't because a given admissions officer wants to induce pain, but because the system incentivizes dehumanization, comparison, and rejection.

a. Education is signaling

Why? I think it's helpful to start with Bryan Caplan's Case Against Education. He argues that only 50% of education is building human capital. The other 50% is just signaling for traits that employers want: intelligence, conscientiousness, and conformity (ICC).

This is the game you're playing. Your K12 education and college application signals ICC to college. Your college degree signals ICC to employers. And then, finally, you get to work as a productive member of society.

Each part of the college app signals ICC. SATs, grades, essays, ECs, and letters of rec. They're all different ways to get at the question: is this a smart, detail-oriented person who will fit in?

b. Highly selective colleges are die rolls. Roll lots of dice.

In addition to being excellent learning ecosystems, highly selective universities are a cartel. They restrict supply and increase demand to drive up admissions rates. The most selective universities accept less than 5% of applicants. For example, Stanford had 56,000 applicants and accepted 2,000.

This drives dehumanization (you're judged as one of 50k apps), comparison (it's a zero-sum game vs. your friends), and rejection (statistically speaking, you're likely to get rejected from 10+ colleges).

Just like the power law dictates everything in venture capital, supply restriction dictates everything in college applications. Let's play it out, using Stanford as an example.

56,000 applicants applied to Stanford. They accepted 2,000 students. That's a 3.5% acceptance rate. So you just need to be in that top 3.5%, right? To start, it would be helpful to get a perfect SAT score. Wrong. 70% of students with perfect SAT scores were rejected. The implication here is actually that, as long as you're above a certain threshold, it's a crapshoot. I can't find the source, but I remember hearing/reading that, for Harvard, they could construct seven "ghost classes" after the actual accepted class and they'd all look the same. High SATs, top ECs, great essays, etc.

Here's what that looks like with Stanford, just looking at SATs:

With 56,000 applicants, you could create 27 2000-person ghost classes. What do the SAT scores look like across those classes? Universities don't share the SAT scores of their applicants, just their admitted students. But we can reverse engineer it a bit.

Stanford's SAT scores by percentile are:

  • 25%: 1500
  • 50%: 1550
  • 75%: 1580

We can bucket the 2000 students into those quartiles, including the top 500 students who got a perfect 1600. That gives us the "Accepted Class" in the graph above. But we know those 500 students were just 30% of all students who applied with a perfect SAT. We can take the remaining ~1700 students and divide them among the next 7 ghost classes. Then we can do a similar thing for the 1500, 1550, and 1580 buckets.

What is the implication of this? Yes, the bell curve moves slightly to the left as you get less perfect scores and more <1500s. But if you get a perfect score, you might still be in ghost class 2, 4, or 7. Same with a 1550.

Yes, if you apply with a 1000-1400, you're unlikely to get into Stanford. You're probably somewhere in ghost class 8-27. But even 1550s are just a die roll.

Instead of thinking of an acceptance rate of 3.5%, I think it's more helpful to think of Stanford as having a "top student" acceptance rate of 12.5% (1/8). You can convert acceptance rate to top student acceptance rate by multiplying by 3.5. Pomona? 7% acceptance rate, 25% top student acceptance rate. My alma mater, Carleton? 20% acceptance rate. 70% top student acceptance rate. (If you're a sharp student who somehow learns about Carleton and applies, you probably get in.)

The power law makes VC a bit of a shotgun business. YC funds hundreds of startups a year, then has a couple of outsized winners (AirBnB, Stripe) that pay for the rest.

College applications should be shotgunned as well. Achieve a certain signaling bar. Put your name in the hat. Then roll the 8-sided dice. Each application is another role of the die. To be in the Accepted Class rather than a ghost class.

If you apply to eight colleges, each of which has a top student acceptance rate of 1/8, you get eight die rolls. Eight chances to get a 1. Even here, the odds you get rejected by all of them is (7/8)^8 or 34%.

This dice framing is helpful because it stops you from applying too much causation to your application. Yes, it would be better to have a 1600 than a 1500. But mostly it's just how the die rolled that day. Understand what you can and can't control. You can control your mindset when crafting a great application. But you can't control the pure statistics of highly selective, supply-constrained colleges.

c. Rejecting rejection & comparison

The college selection process forces rejection and comparison. Getting rejected over and over again is painful. There's no denying it. But it's helpful if you: 1) anchor on getting rejected and 2) remind yourself of Churchill's famous quote (and the Unlimited Pursuit song):

Success is failure over and over again without a loss of enthusiasm.

College apps are also tough because they force you to compare with others. What SAT score did you get? What GPA? What college did you get into?

College apps force a one-dimensional stack ranking of us multidimensional humans. It's a one-time experience. Much of the rest of life you are differentiating yourself from others, following your own path, and being happy for others on theirs. In this forced comparison remember:

  • "If you compare, you despair."
  • "Comparison is the thief of joy."
  • Instead think about your own goals (and things you can control), then just compare yourself against your bar, not others. (See How To Find Your Path.)

d. Play a different game

In some ways, the Ivy admission process can be summed up as: Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. Instead, look for ways to "beat the system" by finding less used paths.

  1. For example, remember that Ivies aren't the only way. Twitter (and generally increasing your luck area) is a better way. Play long-term games with long-term people there.
  1. Relatedly: remember that there is spaciousness around the first-year of college. You can get all rejections and that's ok. I know people who took three gap years. Work. Apply for grants. Build something. It's not a one-shot game.
  2. "Don't be the best, be the only." Charting your own path instead of playing the rat race that others play.

No matter what, remember that you are more than your college application, or the college you get into.

Still, let's try to play the game and give yourself the best chance of getting in.

II. Roote College System

I'm not a college counselor. Just a guy on the internet. But here's my recommendation. It's the 5, 5, 5, 15 model.

a. Take 5 SAT practice tests

b. Write 5 essay drafts

c. Follow 5 passions

d. Apply to 15 colleges

These are the main buckets of a college application: academics (SAT, grades), personal (essays, LoR's), and extracurriculars.

It's easy to get down on the college process. But it's actually kind of a cool thing. Learning is fun. Writing is fun. Building things you're passionate about is fun. Enjoy it!

Let's look at each aspect.

a. Take 5 SAT practice tests

The main way to do well on the SAT is deliberate practice. Over 2-3 months, take 5-10 practice tests, fixing your mistakes each time (use Anki?). You'll get better, faster, and more comfortable. Then take the actual test once, maybe twice. Here's Joy's overview:

Here's an amazing self-study guide from r/Sat:

My Guide to Self Studying for the Sat: How I got an almost perfect score!
by u/Beandippperz in Sat

b. Write 5 draft essays

For your Common App personal statement, I recommend an iterative process:

  • The summer before your senior year, spend ~2 hours brainstorming topics and sharing 3-5 options with others for feedback
  • Choose one direction. Write a very rough draft and get feedback. Then write 2-5.

For the brainstorming: Use a formula but don't be formulaic. I've synthesized the advice from Elevated School and College Essay Guy:

  • Brainstorm 20 essence objects (exercise)
  • Brainstorm 20 values/themes (exercise)
  • Then combine them with object + theme + secret theme. That should give you 3-5 essay options to get feedback on.

When writing, here's my piece on How To Write Well.

When looking at your topics or drafts, grade yourself with the VSPICE rubric. Look balanced & agentic, not one-sided & pessimistic.

Two final links I found helpful:

c. Follow 5 passions

ECs are trying to signal conscientiousness and curiosity. Choose a few things you're excited by, do them for a few years, and try to do them well. It's pretty simple. Tenure and impact. Then describe them concisely and with numbers, like you would a resume.

Here are my favorite links on this. From r/ApplyingToCollege:

Look to do ECs that demonstrate genuine passion. Where you can showcase and write about the impact you've made vs simply only doing it for college apps.
ECs should also be quality over quantity. You don't have to do everything, but pick a few where you truly enjoying doing the activity and try your best to stick with it. Longevity displays stability and perseverance, which is what colleges like to see.

Same reddit thread, different comment:

Longer answer: basically anything at which you worked across multiple years, displayed ingenuity/insight, changed gears at some point due to difficulty/new information, produced quantifiable results, and had your efforts evaluated by an existing, trustworthy entity.
But the important thing to remember about ECs is that it's NOT about what you did, but rather why you did it and what that drive says about you.

From College Confidential:

OK, so, first, do what you love. Second, do try to challenge and develop yourself within what you do, whatever that means for that type of activity. And third, think about whether this is just a thing for you–which is fine sometimes–or whether this shows some sort of community engagement that could translate in some way to an active college community.

d. Apply to 15 colleges

Once you have a good application, apply to 15 colleges. Try 3 safeties, 5 targets, 7 reaches.

Or, if you don't want to apply to that many, just apply to a handful of safety and target schools. That's fine too. All of the supplements can be overwhelming.

Remember that you can ask for an application fee waiver. 575K+ applicants received a fee waiver in 2021-2022. $100M in Common App fee waivers were granted in 2021-2022.

e. Other & Scholarships

I don't have great tips for letters of recommendation. Just choose people who know you well, love you, and can write well.

Here are some scholarship links for low-income students:

And international students:

Hope this was helpful. If you'd like more guidance, apply to the next Roote Fellowship and I'll give you feedback on your essay :).