Ari Schwartz, the founder of Mindful Prep Coaching, helps students "turn down the volume," find their passion, and authentically navigate the admissions process. Check out my interview with Ari to learn why his approach reduces anxiety and improves results - and it's all about finding your thing.
An Interview with Ari Schwartz
Q: What inspired you to get into the work that you’re doing now/to start mindful prep?
SCHWARTZ: I wanted to help teenagers calm down, realize that they’re already crushing it, and then show them a path to yet greater levels of “crushing it” that didn’t involve 2am espresso shots and debilitating stress.
I came out of six years working in elite college admissions consulting. Students were gunning for prestigious schools: the Ivies, University of Chicago, Northwestern, the usual suspects. My colleagues and I would “do” our absolute best to help our students “do” a lot: a dizzying array of school clubs, elite summer programs, and student competitions.
I noticed that in many cases the only thing we were “helping” was to fuel student anxiety. In order to be good enough, a teenager needed to become someone else, and fast, and wait actually they needed to become five “someone else’s”: a research scientist, and a writer, and the head of a non-profit, and club president, and and and. This wasn’t necessarily deliberate. It’s just that stress and fear so thoroughly undergird college admissions culture, that unless you’re consciously charting an alternative path, it’s really easy to perpetuate the status quo. The status quo that says: you’re not good enough.
Even within that culture, there were instances of incredibly meaningful student accomplishment and satisfaction. It’s a really cool experience to watch a 16-year-old do something that they absolutely did not think was possible, be it writing a song, performing their poetry, or interviewing with a professor whose research they deeply admired. It’s this look of incredulity flushed with pride. Smiles all around. It’s infectious. I thought, yea, I want more of that. And I bet that those smiles are happening in spite of the stress, not because of it.
At the same time, I was deepening my mindfulness and meditation practice and noticing how principles of non-doing were actually placing me in closer contact with my values and giving me new stores of energy and confidence to more effectively reach my goals. I thought, if I could merge the best parts of college admissions consulting (that incredulity flushed with pride, that ear to chest to ear smile) with mindfulness, what would that look like?
Q: How does your approach to college guidance work? AND/OR what do you advise the students who work with you?
SCHWARTZ: Give yourself the chance to find your thing. Do it impeccably. Stop doing all that other stuff.
Back in my test prep days, one of the most powerful strategies I had my students use was called the “pre-phrase.” Basically, I’d have a student read the question and then cover the answer choices with their free hand. Before a student would so much as look at the answer choices, I’d have them articulate what the correct answer “should” be. Then, when they’d go to read the answer choices, they’d be on the attack – scouring for those answers that best matched what they knew the correct answer needed to be, and ruthlessly eliminating ones that didn’t make the grade. It gave them agency, put them in the driver’s seat, instead of being at the mercy of the test writers and their notoriously deceptive answer choices. It’s an exercise in being proactive, not reactive. And it is highly effective.
Turns out, a “pre-phrase” isn’t just effective in test prep: it’s effective for sculpting your whole high school life. Very are rarely teenagers given the opportunity to formulate their “pre-phrase.” They’re quickly shuttled into project pipelines – school club, summer program, competition – that may or may not match their particular correct answer. They often don’t even know what their particular correct answer is.
Stop doing all the things you think you have to do. You don’t need to join that next club. You really don’t. You can. You definitely can join – provided it excites you, energizes you.
With the time that frees up, give yourself the chance to make your own “pre-phrase.” You won’t nail it immediately. But eventually you will find the thing. Once you do, keep stripping away what’s unnecessary, and do the thing impeccably.
Q: Your approach seems really different from the standard. Whereas a lot of the college readiness/college guidance “industry,” well intended, as it may be, seems to feed into the anxiety that students and parents are already feeling, your approach seems designed to run in the opposite direction. Has it been your experience that your approach tends to reduce anxiety when students and their families?
SCHWARTZ: After a bit of time, and usually. Here’s what I mean.
Sometimes it can at first feel like throwing away the bumpers. People can think, “Doing a million things is what everyone else does! And it works!” But you’re not seeing the millions of teenagers for whom it doesn’t “work” (if by work we mean get admitted to an elite school), and even those for whom it does “work” are levied with an extremely demanding stress toll.
Sometimes people will say that they like the stress because it helps them get stuff done. And this can absolutely be true. Stress can definitely be a fuel. But it’s the cheap fuel of an energy drink, and after a while, you crash. That’s why reducing stress isn’t the sole end of this process. Released from the stress of doing those million things, upon realizing you don’t actually have to do them, you get the space to find the thing that really excites you. Then we ramp up to pursuing that full throttle. Excitement is also a type of fuel, but it’s one that is far more sustainable, one that is self-replenishing, that you can repeatedly draw from. So it’s one that will actually enable you to accomplish much more in the long run than stress will.
Q: What you’ve described sounds perfect for someone who knows what they want to do when they grow up. What about those students who don’t have any clue what they want to do professionally? How can they help resist the temptation to try to be a generalist who is good at everything by the time they graduate from high school?
SCHWARTZ: I would say that’s the majority of teenagers. And I’d say this is actually most powerful precisely for students who have no clue what they want to do – forget professionally, but right now even. The first thing I say to a student like that is, of course you don’t know. Obviously. You haven’t been given the time, space, and support to discover that. The second thing is, you’re not like an inherently, fundamentally uninteresting person. I promise. It can feel that way. But I promise you’re not. You just haven’t found the thing yet. And that can be because:
You haven’t even had the time/space to explore beyond the million things you’re told you have to do
You do have things you’re interested in, but don’t see how that can be something you dedicate a whole bunch of time to and become relatively expert in
You know the thing, know what it looks like to become an expert, but without having given it a full fair shot, you just don’t think you’re the kind of person who’d be able to pull it off, who’d be able to succeed in that field
And those options, along with the person who knows exactly what they want to do and what it looks like, but they just need support and guidance in terms of follow through, they all just represent different points along the timeline. And you hop on the timeline at whatever point you find yourself right now. And so no matter where you are, there is tremendous upside to taking control of your life in this way, really imagining what that might feel like, and then going for it.
I’d also emphasize that there is absolutely nothing wrong with being a generalist. If when you make your “pre-phrase” and imagine your ideal life, it’s spread across participation in five or so distinct school clubs and activities, then that means that the way you’re spending your time is completely aligned with how you’d love to be spending your time. In which case, that’s amazing. The only question I’d want someone to sit with before deciding that that describes them is: is this your ideal life because after comparing it to the alternate options of really going deep with one thing you love – organizing other students around a social issue, studying the mechanics of car design, etc. – that this more generalist version seems preferable; or is it that you don’t think those options are possible for you? If it’s the latter, I’d want you to give yourself the best shot of testing that belief when you’re equipped with maximum support.
Q: What’s the one thing you wish more people understood about college admissions these days ?
SCHWARTZ: You do not have to do everything, everywhere, all at once. Do less. It’s no use getting into a school like Penn if you’re not ready to utilize Penn’s resources. Make your “pre-phrase”, and then really go for the thing you love. This way, you will know how to find mentors and project collaborators, how to time manage, and have a creator mentality. Basically, you’ll become a really interesting, self-actualized, confident 18-year-old. That happens to be the precise type of person Penn wants, and it’s the precise type of person who can make most use of Penn’s resources.
And lastly: once you’re writing your application, do what makes sense. If it turns out you want to study Geographic Information Systems, and you have no major literary interests, and out of pressure to “stand out”, you’re told to write your college essay in iambic pentameter using the metaphor of a Persian lyre, just no. Don’t do it. It doesn’t make any sense. Be you. Own who you are, what interests you, what grabs you. That is way more than enough. Trust me.
Want to learn more about Mindful Prep and Ari's approach to passion coaching and admissions consulting? Visit his website and start your journey today!
Ari Schwartz graduated from Northwestern University with degrees in Economics and Film. He's spent the last seven years working as a College Consultant, helping high school students tell their stories to colleges.