I think the big new ideas in overseas study are all coming out of candidates taking more personal responsibility for the process. They seem more confident in their approach, and have a more realistic understanding of how—from beginning to end—they can get value out of the experience.
[h1]The (Lack-of-)agency mindset[/h1]For years, overseas admissions solutions in China have been characterized by a ‘solve-it-for-me-now’ culture. A mindset had developed that led some people to see something obscure and impenetrable in the process; some candidates, naturally, felt at a loss about how to negotiate it They'd get advice from apparently ‘authoritative’ sources, but some of it would seem to conflict; scraps of know-how, taken out of context, wielded with certainty, would often yield little. And, of course, some agencies charged—and still charge—huge amounts in exchange comforting admissions ‘guarantees’, claiming ‘special knowledge’, and feeding off a sense of impenetrability surrounding the process.
As we now know, these agents were executing a pretty unscrupulous scheme:
- Schools overseas found benefit and convenience in the ability to turn lucrative international student fees on and off, like a faucet. This is irresponsible.
- Agencies dictated which schools candidates would attend based purely on the ‘recruitment deals’ they’d made with those schools. This enabled them to charge both parties… a lot. The English word for this is ‘scam’.
- For candidates, the idea, I suppose, was that if you pay enough money, you make the stakes higher for someone else than they are even for yourself. This is profoundly self-defeating.
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One corollary of this irresponsible and self-defeating scam was even greater mystique around the process. As a result, even more fresh, promising candidates would automatically discount their own agency.
- Confusion
- Ambiguity
- High stakes
- Pressure from family and peers
- A perceived lack of agency
…all add up to one overriding psychological sensation: Pain.
[h1]Why are they torturing me?[/h1]They’re not. You are.
Admissions are designed to assess suitability for progression from one tier of learning to another, higher tier. The essays you write and the letters you send fulfill many functions within this assessment:
- Report facts to the admissions committee.
- Substantiate facts; give the admissions committee tools to evaluate your facts.
- Provide a qualitative hair-splitting device because standardized scores are not enough to distinguish individuals at scale.
- To detect how much you care; if schools make you an offer, it means they hope (for various significant reasons) that you will accept.
- To observe how you address a complex, unfamiliar problem, in what-amounts-to real-time.
[h1]How human beings cope with pain [/h1]Our reflexive response to pain is to seek immediate relief.You put your hand on a hot stove? You pull it away, right? You change the physical circumstances. You don’t call an ambulance and wait for them to remove your hand.
But navigating psychology is tougher than navigating burning fingers away from a hot surface. Our natural psychological reflexes are much easier for others (individuals or society-at-large) to interrupt (intentionally or unintentionally).
When we feel mental pain and we’ve been told the cause of that problem is ‘too difficult’ for us to solve, and someone conveniently offers to solve it for us, suddenly…“Can you give me some advice? I’m feeling all this worry and stress and I want to fix it ASAP!”
Hot stove + Hand = Pain: And, objectively, we’re glad that pain exists because it enables us to preserve our hand by changing the physical circumstances ASAP.You feel mental pain from the looming prospect of an important set of applications? Don’t feel miserable about it. Don’t try to hide from it. You’ll do yourself an injury!
Be glad of it. It’s a signal.
Pain like this functions to tell you to preserve your well-being by changing your psychological circumstances. Because they are the cause of that pain.
Most likely, you need to sit down and clarify your plans for your future, your reasons for applying overseas, and your concise understanding of what you have to offer in your field.
[h1]The Responsibility mindset[/h1]It’s a shift I always try to augment in my work. I encourage candidates to step up. The admissions process is something to which we should step up and say:“Yes please! And, actually—now I come to think about it—thank you, Mr. or Ms. Admissions Officer. Thank you for prompting this set of reflections”.
Well, I certainly do believe in admissions as a powerful and meaningful process in people's lives.. I prize how much they’ve benefitted me throughout my life: Bookends on experiences that have stimulated reflection, caused me to know my worth, and enabled to me to move forward with ambition. I’d love to ramble on about the…
- Distinctive opportunities for growth the process entails... and
- The psychological benefits they will feel very powerfully, if they recognize theirresponsibility and do the work it entails...
But I don’t.
It’s not what candidates want to hear about. Not really…
Candidates want results.
Cultivating this mindset is the best way to get them.
Listening/ seeing what’s right in front of you. That is fundamentally what I aim to get across.“The schools want excellence, right?”
“Right.”
“So why don’t we give them excellence?”
“But my grades…”
Excellence is not entailed by grades or job titles. Excellence is entailed by character, and character is what comes from a sustained process of nurturing perception of, and trust in, the intuitions of our best selves and acting upon them with consistent integrity:“We are what we do repeatedly”
— Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy (1926), p. 76. (neatly summarizing ideas from Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book II, 4)
I have this quote printed on a little card and sometimes I get candidates I'm working with to read it:"Everyone has his own specific vocation or mission in life; everyone must carry out a concrete assignment that demands fulfillment. Therein he cannot be replaced, nor can his life be repeated, thus, everyone's task is unique as his specific opportunity to implement it."
—Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning, p. 131 "OK, OK I know. What is it?
If they describe a reaction like this, what they are describing (and experiencing) is in fact a form of mental pain. I have a piece of advice about that type of pain:"Change your mindset! Change how you're approaching the text..."
This a person—whose life is a complete, beautiful, and horrifying rebuttal of determinism and an affirmation of the power of the human mind, by the way—suggesting one way you could live, should you choose to adopt this mindset and view the world in this way.
It’s not reportage. It’s not scripture. It’s a part of a path to centering on our own individual responsibility and—through that—realizing a path to happiness. If you adopt it, believe it, and follow it through in your actions and choices consistently over time—it will bring you excellence and happiness. It just will.
I’m seeing more and more candidates applying overseas who are using excellence as the wind at their back. It is a very positive development.
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