The Uncommon Applicant
Every year, we meet dozens of talented high school students who have spent lots of time outside of the classroom doing amazing things in their community.
But we also meet lots of students who feel like they could have make better use of their high school years. They wish they had taken a few more creative risks, spent a little more time on activities that they were passionate about, or followed through on an awesome idea that they had, but never felt they had enough time for.
With this in mind, I decided to work with a couple of amazing coaches to develop a program to help students develop a self-directed project to teach them life skills while helping them prepare for their college application process.
Program Overview
In this program, students will meet one-on-one with our leadership coaches over the course of up to six months to discover their values, build their leadership capacities, and develop a project that has a positive impact on their local or global community.
We call these self-directed projects and we believe they can not only help students create better college applications; they can, more importantly, help students become better humans.
If a student were to ask me, “Why should I develop a self-directed project?” here’s what I’d say:
You’ll learn a ton about yourself. Building a project on your own will teach you to work outside your comfort zone, discover your weaknesses, develop new strengths, become more emotionally intelligent, and develop your confidence.
You’ll become a more confident leader. As the originator and decision-maker, you’ll learn entrepreneurial skills like how to create a clear vision; build a team; hold others (and yourself) accountable; assess your decisions; pivot; admit mistakes; fail in an environment where it’s safe to fail; get back up to reach your goals in a new way.
You’ll become more intentional in your learning. With a clear goal in mind, your intellectual and creative energy will become even more focused.
You’ll experience a shift in identity. You might go from thinking of yourself as someone who procrastinates and puts things off, to thinking of yourself as someone who regularly brings your creative ideas to life.
(And yes, okay) Your project can help you stand out on your college application. This reason is listed last because “getting into college” isn’t the best reason for doing a self-directed project.
Some examples of self-directed projects from past students include:
Starting a garden or composting program at your home or in your community
Designing a line of up-cycled clothing and selling it on Depop
Publishing a photography website
Producing a podcast about space flight
Renovating a bedroom
Launching a food or clothing drive
Constructing native bee boxes in a local county park
Planting a garden
Hand printing t-shirts and donating the proceeds to racial equity organizations
Designing an online course to teach people how to build their own computers
Petitioning your school board to provide more healthy food options in your school cafeteria
Planning a history field trip to document headstones in a cemetery for your local historical society
Organizing a play, talent show, hackathon, poetry slam, storytelling night, concert, art show
Writing or producing a book, podcast, album, film, app, video game
Designing a line of clothing, jewelry, shoes
Planning a trip, long hike, silent retreat
Building or renovating a treehouse, bedroom, car
Program outline
Every student we work with is vastly different and will have very different goals for the time spent with us.
The outline below provides a rough sense some of the topics that we like to cover with students, but your coaching plan will be adapted to your specific goals and needs. Think of these topics and resources less of a rigid curriculum and more as a series of tools and resources to take advantage of.
Session 1: Building Capacity by Getting to Know Yourself
Clarify and Articulate your Values and Strengths
Problems in the World you Care About Most & How You Might Help Solve Them
Explore Long-term Goals by Creating a Mental Picture of the Person You’d Like to Become
Session 2: Brainstorming Project Ideas, Choosing One
Exercise in Divergent Thinking
How to Create a Mind Map
Why it’s Usually Best to Work on One Project at a Time
Two Tools for Making Difficult Decisions
Session 3: Tools for Getting Stuff Done
How to Write a Vision Statement
How to Use the Internet (Better) to Do (Better) Research
How to Set Achievable Goals by Drafting a Scope of Work
Time Tracking: What Are You Actually Doing With Your Days?
Session 4: How to Avoid the Pitfalls of Perfectionism, Procrastination & Multitasking
How to Be Productive
How to Get Past Perfectionism & Procrastination
Two Great Resources for Organizing Your Time and Energy
Session 5: Recruiting Mentors & Building a Team
How to Write a Mission Statement
Pitching Like a Pro
Tips for Emailing Strangers (and Why That’s a Good Idea)
Session 6: Marketing 101: Getting the Word Out
Visual identity: DIY Logos & Headshots
How to Write a Bio
How to Build Your Following on Social Media & In Real Life
Social Media (What It’s Good for, What it May Not Be)
Sessions 7 - 12: Making Things Happen + Check-in & Problem Solving
Sessions 13 - 18: Making Things Happen + Check-in & Problem Solving
Program details & Pricing
How does it work?
Students will work with their coach over the course of eighteen one-on-one sessions to cover self-discovery and capacity building, brainstorming on project ideas (or ways to level-up an existing project), then creating and executing an action plan to put their passions to work. Students with less time are welcome to start with a six or twelve one-on-one sessions.
Program Cost: $5,400
For students and families looking to start with a shorter, condensed version, we offer a 6 and 12-session version of the program.
6-sessions: $1,800
12-sessions: $3,600
Timeline:
Students and coach will set up a meeting frequency based on their goals, needs, and availability.
Meet Your Coach
Stanford University (BA) History
Konstfack University (MFA)
Hi, I’m Bonnie Swift!
As soon as I arrived in high school, I felt like something was off. My school’s academic and social environment wasn’t a good fit for me.
Luckily, one of my friends gave me a copy of the Teenage Liberation Handbook. It seemed a little radical, but the author was actually advocating for ambitious students to drop out of high school as a strategy for getting into college and pursuing their dreams. I realized that I could probably be more productive outside of school, so I made the leap!
After I quit full-time school, I signed up for correspondence courses, volunteered at a local nonprofit, worked in construction, slung coffee (as we say in Seattle), traveled for several months in Australia and Fiji, learned to surf, taught English in Japan, attended community college, and then finished the International Baccalaureate at an international school in Norway.
When college applications came around, I was accepted to every university that I applied to, with full scholarship offers at most. After taking a gap year, I went to Stanford for a BA in History, then moved to Sweden, where I completed an MFA at Konstfack. I worked for a number of years as a producer with the Stanford Storytelling Project, and now I am back in my native Seattle, working as a writer, editor, and academic coach.
Those un-schooling years were truly formative in my life, and I'm grateful that I took that initial risk of doing something different with my time in high school. While I don’t think that dropping out of school is a good idea for everybody, especially students who are happy, I do think that learning to recognize one’s own sense of purpose and taking action toward fulfilling it can help one live a more authentic life.
That’s my goal with this program: to help you find your sense of purpose, and take action toward fulfilling it. And perhaps it will make your college application more competitive as well.
FAQ
Who is a good fit for this program? Who isn’t?
We are gearing this program toward “doers”—students who want to make a tangible contribution to their community or the larger world. Or for students who just want to dig deeper and explore a budding interest. This is also for students who have a lot of creative ideas, but need some structure and support in order to put them into practice.
But really we’re helping to prepare the next generation of leaders who are coming of age in this highly complex and unprecedented historical moment. In that sense, if you’re between the ages of 14-17, and personal development is your thing, you’re welcome to join us!
Will this coaching program help me get into a good college?
Maybe. Colleges are definitely interested in students who take initiative and this can be a great way to do that. But we don’t think this is the best reason to develop a self-directed project. We hope this program will make you into a better thinker, leader, and human.
What do you mean by “leadership skills”?
We mean the ability to stay calm, grounded, present, and able to communicate thoughtfully, even when your team is in turmoil, you’re close to a deadline, and nothing seems to be going the way you planned. We believe that compassionate leadership rests on a set of capacities that can be learned and reinforced with practice.
What is the time commitment?
You’ll have 6 one-on-one sessions with your coach to help you brainstorm, problem solve, and continue to help with your planning.
You should also expect to spend a few hours each week working to make things happen in between sessions.
What if my project takes longer than six months?
No problem. In fact, that’s a great thing.
Before we wrap up the program, you will meet 1:1 with your coach to create an action plan to complete your project. If you want to continue meeting with a coach after the program ends, you can arrange additional 1:1 sessions with us. But the goal with this program is that you’ve set the stage for an ongoing project that you can continue to work on over the months and years, and perhaps leave a legacy and impact at your school or in your community for the folks who will come behind you.
What if I don’t have an idea for a self-directed project?
That’s OK! You don’t have to arrive at the first session with a project in mind! We’ll spend the first part of our time together developing your leadership skills and honing your ideas.
