Quite simply, a good student. However, a good student is not just somebody who gets good grades or test scores.
There are a number of characteristics that define the good student—not just a student in school, but in life. I have worked with all kinds of people, from a sixth grader in Beijing, China to a Google engineer in San Francisco to a retiree in Florida writing the novel he has always wanted to write. I have travelled all over the world to lecture and work one-on-one with students from the hallowed halls of Oxford University to a classroom in an obscure after-school program in Taipei. No matter what the age or where they are, there are certain characteristics that define students who are “successful.” By “successful,” I mean students who are able to achieve what they set out to do and to live their lives with as much honesty as possible. Whether you are ten or eighty, there are common characteristics of a good student.
Authenticity. People who are always worried about appearances, ask me, “What do universities want to read in my application?” Or, “What answers do they want to hear?” Such people tend to be inauthentic and insincerity always shows through in an essay or an interview. There is an animal instinct in us that can smell a phony. When you are authentic, you write about things that genuinely mean something to you. You present vivid, moving, grounded details. A phony chooses the experience that “makes me look good” and writes about it in a stale, clichéd manner with an intoxicating dose of platitudes. Be honest with yourself and respect your audience enough to be frank with them.
Discreet. Having said that you should be honest, you should also exercise discretion. This means you need to judge your audience and consider what you reveal and how much of an experience you disclose. The alert reader who just read the above may think, this is an instance of hypocrisy on my part. But it’s not. The good student exercises discretion. He remembers he is applying to a college, graduate school, job, or award. The bad student writes as if she were talking to her therapist, or tries to make the reader feel sorry for him, revealing things that are inappropriate. The good student keeps it professional, relevant, and real for a college essay or job interview.
Answers the Question. The good student answers the question. That may seem really simplistic, but about 80% of students do not write essays that address the topic. Most of the reason is because they did not feel like doing the homework—the research that is required to answer the essay question. When asked to explain his interest in a school, he will talk about the school’s ranking or the “elite faculty” and “excellent course offerings.”
The good student has researched everything related to her interests at the university: majors, specific courses and requirements, research centers, extracurriculars, internships, faculty, faculty research and books, etc. She demonstrates her research in the essay or during the interview and draws bridges always to how specific things—a research center or faculty member—will help her accomplish her goals.
Take Advice from Authorities. If you are hiring a college counselor or an editor, you are doing so because you trust his or her judgement. They are your hired mentors. A good student recognizes that some authorities have the education, experience, and perspective that they don’t have. That doesn’t mean you don’t trust yourself. You just trust yourself enough to put yourself in good hands. The good student accepts criticism and focuses his energy on doing research and making productive changes to his essays or interview responses. The bad student reacts to criticism by finding other authorities who think differently than his mentor. The bad student argues and gets defensive. The bad student “sticks to his guns,” seeks advice from conflicting sources, and trusts his own ideas about writing over accomplished writers and editors. This is not believing in oneself; it is just being a bad student.
Recognizes Limitations. Americans are taught to “think big” and that “anything is possible.” Please, take that with a pinch of salt! Remember what “thinking big” means to you. It means going to acting school, if that is what you really want to do, with the attitude that if it does not work out, you can transfer your skills to other settings. It does not mean that you HAVE to go to the Royal Academy. It means going to law school or nursing school at fifty because that is what you want to do, and you know there is a demand for people with those qualifications. It does not mean that after a career of indifferent grades and lackluster participation in your community, you are going to become obsessed with getting into a top-ten university. That is self-defeating. Thinking big means that you recognize what your goal is—to become a nurse, or a professional editor, or a financial analyst—and you take the steps to get there. Instead of pouring all your energy into the slim prospect of getting into MIT with your 3.6 GPA, 650 on the Math I SAT Subject Test, and sparse list of achievements in science, the good student keeps focused on her goal. She puts her energy into getting into the best the undergraduate program that is right for her (listen to my podcasts or read one of my blog articles on choosing the right college ). She does not get lost in a forest of “big dreams” or illusions about winning a lottery and getting into Stanford based on some magical college essay or the “right story.”
Accepts Responsibility. The good student accepts his list of accomplishments or failures. There is nothing more off-putting to a prospective university or employer than somebody who is always making excuses. Life happens, and it happens to everybody, pretty much without exception. The good student nevertheless is able to excel even as life throws all its hurdles at him. The bad student writes in his essay asking why he chose a major or why he is applying to that school, “I would have done better if I did not have to take care of my elderly grandmother and make money to pay for family expenses.” In the end, the university will accept the good student who answers the question positively and supported her family, took care of her grandmother, and still had time to get straight-A’s and help the community in big ways. The good student can also score more ordinary grades, but accepts that his string of B’s are, given the circumstances, a real success. Rather than choosing schools whose cut off is well above a 3.0, the good student hones in on the right set of schools and owns his accomplishments. The bad student bemoans all his misfortunes, familial obstacles, or other limitations. The good student embraces having done well enough and focuses on what the essays are requesting, rather than making excuses.
Accepts When Something is Done. When a good student is told by his editor that his essay is “ready to submit,” he moves on to the next project. The bad student second guesses and argues with the mentor or editor. He asks for writing advice from his father and mother, who are not writers. He “polishes” the good essay by degrading it with superfluous (and often misused) vocabulary and adds some clichés and platitudes, because he thinks that makes it sound more solemn and erudite. In the end, he throws in a few grammatical errors for good measure and mars a perfectly good essay. The bad student inevitably complains to his editor that he is afraid that “the essay does not answer the prompt.” The bad student’s parent—also inevitably—chimes in. The bad student is up late at night spinning his wheels, getting frantic, and sending messages to his editor about his worries. The good student knows her limitations enough to accept that if the authority on writing says it is done, it is done. Instead, she makes the productive decision of moving on to new essays and new projects.
Moves On. The good student in life accepts rejections; takes the right lesson out of them; and moves on. If you are working with a good counselor or editor, then you know you wrote the best essays you could. The good student does not blame the failure of the application on not “presenting the right story” or “giving the admissions panel the answers they wanted to hear.” This is a kind of magical thinking and a way of evading the hard work of a realistic self-assessment. The good student accepts the competition may have been more accomplished or represented the demographics the committee was looking for (this is more and more the case with universities, who are looking to fill demographic quotas). The good student analyzes the weaknesses in her portfolio and finds constructive ways to fix them in the future. She adjusts her game plan. This does not mean abandoning her goals, but changing the course by which she will get there.
The good student always remembers that the important thing is keeping a clear vision of his goals, and that while the path is not always a straight one—or even the one he imagined—that by moving on, moving forward, he will get closer to his goal.
