The College Essay Guy Podcast: A Practical Guide to College Admissions

About The College Essay Guy Podcast: A Practical Guide to College Admissions

Practical, up-to-date interviews with experts in college admissions, financial aid, personal statements, test prep and more. Ethan Sawyer (aka College Essay Guy), interviews deans of admission, financial aid experts, and veterans of the admissions field to extract, then distill their advice into practical steps for students and those guiding them through the process. From creating an awesome college list to appealing a financial aid letter, Ethan skips the general advice and gets right to the action items, all in an effort to bring more ease, joy and purpose into the college admissions process.

Publisher

Ethan Sawyer

Category

education · society & culture

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

25 Mar 2017

Latest episode

6 Oct 2026

Latest episodes

57 of 122 episodes have a transcript.

1. 

   6 Oct 2026TRANSCRIPT

   What to Do When You Don't Know What to Do: Practical Exercises for Navigating Ambiguity with NACAC CEO Angel Pérez (Part 2)

   College Essay Guy interviews NACAC CEO Angel Pérez, exploring practical exercises like Q-storming and Murphyjitsu to navigate ambiguity and make better decisions.

2. 

   29 Sept 2026TRANSCRIPT

   719: Tools for Navigating Ambiguity in Times of Uncertainty: A Conversation with NACAC CEO Angel Perez

   NACAC CEO Angel B. Pérez and Ethan Sawyer discuss practical strategies for navigating ambiguity and uncertainty, offering listeners tools for effective leadership.

3. 

   15 Sept 2026TRANSCRIPT

   718: Turning the Tide in 2026: Preparing Students for Lives of Caring and Purpose (with Harvard's Making Caring Common)

   Hey friends, welcome back to the podcast. Ten years ago, a group at Harvard released a report called Turning the Tide, and it attempted something audacious: getting college admission (of all things) to make caring count. This June, the fourth report in that series came out, written with NACAC's Center for Innovation in College Admission, and my sense is it's the most urgent one yet. Here's a stat that struck me: 34 percent of teens say they have little or no meaning or purpose in their lives. For young people 19 to 25, it's 51 percent. My guests today wrote the report: Dr. Rick Weissbourd, psychologist and faculty director of the Making Caring Common project at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and Trisha Ross Anderson, MCC's Senior Director of Higher Education and College Admission Initiatives, who some of you will remember from episode 503 of the podcast. In today's episode we talk about what admission officers, counselors, and parents can each do; why your teen doesn't necessarily need one big passion; and what ten years of trying to turn this tide has taught them. One more thing: the report asks adults to stop demanding a passion from teens and to start asking what they find meaningful. Rick Weissbourd is a psychologist and senior lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and the Harvard Kennedy School, where he serves as faculty director of Making Caring Common, HGSE's national project on raising kids who care about others and the common good. He leads the Turning the Tide college admission initiative, which has engaged more than 300 admission offices in elevating ethical character, easing achievement pressure, and expanding access and equity. He is the author of The Vulnerable Child (named one of the top ten education books of all time by the American School Board Journal) and The Parents We Mean to Be (named one of the top books of 2009 by The New Yorker), and a founder of ReadBoston, WriteBoston, and the Lee Academy pilot school in Boston. His research spans moral development, loneliness, young adult mental health, and how adults can help young people build caring relationships. Trisha Ross Anderson is Senior Director of Higher Education and College Admission Initiatives at Making Caring Common. She has served in leadership at MCC since it was founded in 2013. A former classroom teacher with an Ed.M. from HGSE, she has helped research and write many of MCC's reports, including the Turning the Tide series. With Rick, she piloted the Common App checklist that lets students report family responsibilities, like caring for a sibling or working a paid job, so those commitments count in admissions. She previously joined the podcast for episode 503, "What Colleges Want (Part 3)." We hope you enjoy. Play-by-Play: 02:07 – What's something meaningful in Trisha and Rick's lives right now, outside of work? 04:50 – What does Rick mean by a "moral freefall," and when did he first sense it? 06:02 – What is Making Caring Common, and how did a project about raising kind kids end up shaping college admissions? 07:39 – What's changed (and what hasn't) in the ten years since the first Turning the Tide report? 9:46 – What's behind the striking numbers on teens and young adults lacking purpose? 13:27 – Why has MCC focused specifically on college admissions? 15:38 – What are the six capacities at the heart of the new report? 18:01 – What does caring across differences actually look like for a teenager? 19:36 – How do we keep values like humility and curiosity from becoming one more thing to game? 22:15 – Where does AI help, and where does it get in the way, in the essay and admissions process? 24:15 – Why shouldn't teens be expected to have one single passion? 28:06 – What can parents say instead of "find the one thing"? 31:01 – What's the difference between healthy striving and achievement pressure? 35:04 – How can parents help kids hold onto self-worth, wherever they land? 38:56 – What's the story behind the Common App's new question crediting students who care for siblings or family? 40:38 – After ten years, what has actually turned, and what hasn't? 43:37 – What's next for Making Caring Common? 45:45 – What do Rick and Trisha hope counselors and educators take away? 46:30 – Closing thoughts Resources: Turning the Tide in 2026: Preparing Students for Lives of Caring and Purpose Making Caring Common (https://mcc.gse.harvard.edu/) Nonviolent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg 503: What Colleges Want (Part 3): "Positive Character Attributes": What Are They, and How Do You Show Them in Your College Application? College Essay Guy's Personal Statement Resources College Essay Guy's College Application Hub

Inside a recent episode

What to Do When You Don't Know What to Do: Practical Exercises for Navigating Ambiguity with NACAC CEO Angel Pérez (Part 2)

Published 6 Oct 2026 · Transcript excerpt

[…] So that makes us feel a little bit better along the way. Totally. OK, I want to introduce the second exercise and I want to like do this one together. So this one is called a few different things. Sometimes it's called cue storming. So instead of brainstorming, it's question storming. And the context for this one is rather than sort of rushing to answers, we're going to try something different. And it's actually we're going to see if we can get into different relationship to the question or the questions that we're dealing with. And I think this is important because sometimes I think we're not maybe clear as a team or as a, you know, whatever it is, you know, as a as a duo or whoever is kind of working through a thing on what the actual thing is that we're trying to solve or what the heart of the matter is. […]

Who has been a guest on The College Essay Guy Podcast: A Practical Guide to College Admissions

Names identified in recent episode analyses. Showing up to five guests.

• Angel Pérez
• Marie Bury Loew
• Adam Miller
• Lavon Robinson
• Anna

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

Apple Podcasts (US)

4.5 / 5

236 ratings

Spotify

5.0 / 5

51 ratings

Podcast Authority Score: 57 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

77

Social presence

0

YouTube

0

Engagement

95

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Guest appearances

Books guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.

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