Hey friends, let me address the elephant in the room. I've been
sick and I'm trying to get over it, but if you can hang on
through this episode, then I promise we'll get through it
together, and hopefully I'll be good as new for the future. Let
me first start by introducing our two guests for today. Jared
is a public high school counselor, adjunct counseling
faculty and co founder of Forget the Rankings, the values driven
college search. As both a school counselor and licensed
therapist, he understands the impact that the college search
can have on the mental health of our teens. Forget the Rankings
aims to change the narrative surrounding the college search,
to focus on each student's values rather than prestige.
Now let me introduce you to Jen. Jen is a school counselor,
therapist, and teacher who brings over 15 years of
experience supporting students through their educational
journeys. Witnessing firsthand the mounting mental health
crisis fueled by rankings-driven college admissions, she co
founded forget the rankings to transform how students and
families navigate this process. Drawing from her background in
cultural anthropology and extensive work across K-12
education, she emphasizes personal values and authentic
fit over prestige.
The three of us had a really great conversation about the
college search landscape and the effects that this pressure
cooker is having on students' mental health. By the time they
get to the end of their high school careers, students feel
like they're living in this world of competition after
watching each other apply to colleges and sharing who got
into where and who applied where. The whole thing just gets
blown out of proportion, and high school counselors have a
front seat to watching it all unfold. Jen and Jared were
really, quite frankly, tired of watching the same conversations
happen over and over again in front of them, between students
and parents, that they just knew that they had to do something
about it. So listen in as you hear about what they're doing in
their school to combat the mental health epidemic as it
pertains to the college search process and college
applications.
You got into this profession to make a difference in your
students lives, but you're spread thin by all the things
that keep getting added to your to do list. I can't create more
hours in the day, but I can invite you into my Counselor
Clique where you'll finally catch your breath. Come with me
as we unpack creative ideas and effective strategies that'll
help you be the counselor who leaves a lifelong impact on your
students. I'm Lauren Tingle, your high school counseling hype
girl, here to help you energize your school counseling program
and remind you of how much you love your job.
Hey guys, Jen and Jared, thank you for being on the podcast.
I'm excited to talk about college searching and mental
health and values-driven searching. You all have a great
topic that you kind of brought to the podcast, and I think it's
definitely worth talking about. So welcome to the show.
Thanks for having us.
Thank you.
Yeah, let's jump right in. I kind of am curious about the two
of y'all experiences kind of growing up and searching for
college yourself. Like, what did that process look like for you?
Because I know everyone kind of has their own origin story. It's
probably shaping what you're doing now.
Yeah, our stories look really different, but I think both of
them, like really lend well to what we're doing now. So I grew
up in very rural Pennsylvania, like town with one traffic
light, kind of place.
Yeah, where most people didn't go to college. Like it was a
Love it.
farming community. A lot of people, like, stayed and worked
on the farm. Maybe 30% of my graduating class went off to
college. And there were like 120 of us. And I won't forget being
in my school counselor's office and saying, like, I think I
really want, like, a small college, you know, I want to go
somewhere that maybe a lot of people from our high school
don't go. And I remember him saying, like, oh, you should put
Penn State on your college list. And I was like, there's like,
40,000 students.
Like, is that, am I misunderstanding here?
And I said the opposite of that. And just remember feeling like,
oh, okay, like, I'm gonna do this alone. And was lucky that I
had, like, an older brother who ended up at a small, private
liberal arts college, and I knew that that's the experience that
I wanted. But, like, no support from high school at all, and I
ended up at Albright College in Redding, Pennsylvania, that no
one from my high school had gone there or was there. But yeah,
like, it was just not a college going culture, not a lot of
support. Lucky to have a family that was supportive, and I kind
of, we figured it out as we went.
My experience was different than that. I had more of an
experience similar to the school where Jared and I work, a
suburban high school outside Philadelphia, very much a
college going culture, so much so that there was definitely the
right schools to get into and the wrong schools to get into.
And of course, this was like pre social media days, but we, Jared
and I have talked about this before, we had a bulletin board
at our high school, and, like, the big thing was to put your
name up with where you were going, in your college colors.
And it was hard, because, like, it, you know, when early
decision rolled around, you saw students with the fancy schools
being pinned up there, and you felt certain ways if you weren't
up there, or if it wasn't the right type of school.
And that was definitely my experience. Despite getting a
lot of guidance from my counselor, she was wonderful,
but it was very much like what I think most counselors today
still do when engaging with the college search process. And
there wasn't a whole lot of emphasis on, like, how are you
doing with it, or who are you, which we're going to get to
later. But it was hard seeing your friends get into the right
schools. Excuse me doing air quotes, but I'm doing air quotes
everybody ,the right schools. And me not feeling like my
school was one of the right schools, which is just so
different from Jared's experience, because I went to
Bucknell and my friends were going to Ivy League schools. So
it wasn't the same tier, again air quotes, of schools, and it
made the process really stressful and definitely
impacted my view on like, who I was as a person, not able to
like, reach that top tier school as society deems it.
Yeah, and that's so interesting that your set of rankings at
your school was different than your set, Jared, like, so
different, but everybody had this invisible list in their
mind, or that their teachers were saying, or their parents or
their counselors of like, this is the good one. This is where
you should—don't even put that up on the bulletin board because
you'd be embarrassed that you even got in. What? No! But like,
that's a real feeling. I'm sure that people in your grade were
feeling as they were applying to college.
For sure, and it still exists today. And I think, at least
from my experience, the list hasn't changed that much.
Yeah, we're talking about the same places.
And they're not listening to us right now, do you think that
those come from big, just the college ranking kind of,
Newsweek, World Report, like, those kinds of number one party
school number one for this? Like, that's where we get that
from? I think that's where I got it from when I was in high
school without social media.
Yeah. And I think it's like, there's like, a reputation piece
to that, right? Like, so highly ranked, you're talked about a
lot, right? What parents are talking about at soccer
practice, and, you know, in the morning with their coffee, like,
we just keep speaking these same names over and over, and it just
like, takes hold. It's like, the sweatshirt schools, we often
call them. Like, name a school to a parent, they're like, well,
we've never heard of that, and it's like, but it's such a
wonderful place. But if it's not like in their...
Vernacular, in their world where they're talking about it, then
it's, it's nothing.
Right, if my neighbor is not going to be like, Oh wow, when I
say that school, like, I want the oh wow, from the person at
the grocery store, that I want my kid to go to.
Well, and that kind of leads into my next question is, what
kind of trends are you seeing right now today? Like you're in
the schools, y'all work together?
Yes.
Same department. So, I mean, you could speak to the trends at
your school, or even maybe just as a whole, what are you seeing
in the college search process with our students right now?
It is a push for many of our students to the same name
schools that we were still talking about 20, 30 years ago.
And I think, I think you hit the nail on the head that it, it's
coming from the rankings, but it's also coming from the
culture that the rankings have established. So you know, even
if you go on and your family that's thinking like, Okay, we
want a hidden gem school, we're ready to think outside the box
and find something that's off the beaten path. And you throw
that into Google, hidden gem schools that value activism, the
same schools come up, right? Like Google can't even produce
for you those other names. And they exist, though. It's crazy.
Like they are out there.
There's just not a great way to find them. And I think, too, the
trend now has become like, I will apply to as many schools as
possible that are hyper selective, to throw everything
at the wall and see what sticks. And like, when I think about a
student who comes in our office and they're like, I'm applying
to all the Ivy's, it's like they're so different. Like to be
at Dartmouth versus to be at like Penn, they couldn't be more
And could you possibly fit in all those places? Do you want to
different.
go to all those places? No, you just want to say you got in, or
whatever.
It's like, hunting for prestige. And that's where I find like now
we have students who are, you know, tackling so many AP
courses and the college search, but instead of applying to,
like, eight to 10 schools, it's 20, and they all have
supplements. And it just, we create this, like pressure
cooker, that students are already not mentally well when
it comes to all of this, right? So we add all of this on top,
and we, we've, I think, as a, as a country, as a culture of made
students believe that, like, where you get in showcases your
worth. And same for parents, right? I think a lot of parents
are like, my worth as a parent is connected to the school that
my student goes to. And I want other parents to think I've done
a good job.
Right. And you hear those stories like, early and earlier,
like, I'm applying to this prestigious preschool so that my
child can get into Harvard. Like, it starts so early,
they're already thinking about it.
And that's what, I think you just like, mix all of that
together and then you wonder, like, why are we seeing more
students with mental health crises and, like, depression and
anxiety? It's like, Hello. Let's pause for a minute and realize
we're making them feel like everything they do is to achieve
an outcome, versus like, What about like, learning about
something because you're curious about it, or like, doing
something fun in the summer, like working a part time job.
That's good. You don't have to go do, like, research with a
professor.
Unless you're interested in that, and it's a passion and you
want to learn about it, and you're curious, like, no.
So we hit a little bit, I think, of a breaking point. I'll just
And you don't want to see students get to the end and feel
Yeah. It's not for the growth, it's the outcome, the potential
outcome. And I think the saddest part about it, too, is the kids
who, once they get in, like, will sit and reflect with us and
tell the story of, like, how this philosophy came to be with
us. So I had been in my umteenth team meeting where a student
be like, you know, I really, I never really got a chance to
hang out with my friends. I remember one student a few years
ago got in, felt a sense of relief, but then broke down in
came in and said, I want to go to there's an Ivy League school
tears and was like, I never went and got, what did she say?
Bubble tea. I never got a chance to go get bubble tea with my
friends. And that was like the breaking point for her.It's such
a small thing.
like that. So are y'all changing the narrative in your school in
some way? Like, how do you fight against that as a school
counselor?
that's in our neighborhood that they they love to say, this is
where they want to go.
So you got mad, you flipped a table and you said, I'm done
with this.
Yeah, I flipped the table...
And the student was like, No, but I like, really want to go
there.
But I said, why? Right? Like, the question, How come? And
they're like, because it's a good school. What makes it a
good school? It just is, like, they can't get past that, right?
So into jared's office, I marched down the hall, flipping
tables as I go, I'm like, why are we not doing this
differently? And and Jared and I are also both licensed
therapists, So Jared had recently been talking about
doing some career counseling for adults after school, and had
been talking about a value sort. And so I said, Wouldn't it be so
cool if we could rethink our college meetings and we did it
based on values?
So I looked at Jen, I was like, Wait, so you're saying have a
card sort, have values and connect, you know, the values to
a list of schools. And Jen was like, Yeah. And I was like,
we're doing that. And Jen was like, no. But I was like, No,
we're doing that. So for a year, we've, like, built this really
cool counseling tool, and we're using it in meetings that is
focused on that, right? The idea is, what if we forgot everything
else and didn't even make it about college for a second? And
like, of this list of things, sort through these cards. What
speaks to you? Is it creativity? Is it collaboration? Is it
activism? Is it global citizenship? Is it great food,
right?
And then from there, having conversations with students
about, like, how does this show up in your life? How do you
envision this showing up? Well, here's 15 colleges that also
really care about that thing, and now created this, like, new
entry point, and the student has already selected, like, I love
this thing. So it's less awkward to like, then name a hidden gem
school. It's not like we're pulling it out of, like, the
most obscure place. We've done a lot of research. We've used our
experience to be like, This aligns with who you are. And I
think that students and families, even who are, like,
very prestige focused, can't just ignore that. There's like,
an innate, well, if I'm innately curious about this, like, I
gotta see what schools are on this list.
Like, if this is not a match, then, like, maybe I'm not being
honest about my values.
Exactly. So we try, like, there's a bulletin board in my
office, don't forget the hidden gems, and we rotate them out.
But I think we really, it's about like, cracking open your
world view, right? I think beyond what you've heard all
these years about this one school is like the epitome of
success. And I think again, when the gateway in is then they read
this really cool description of, you know, activism at Bennington
College, there's a course I can take this club is doing this,
you begin to, like, see yourself there and a part of that
community in a different way. And we see students get excited.
And a big thing that we talk about, too, is we don't believe
in safety schools, right? I think there's such a negative
connotation of you have to have a backup option, and if you end
up going there, that means you failed.
There are so many schools out there that, like, can we just
apply to all schools that we'd be good fits for, academically,
socially, culturally?
So that's why we say it's about finding comfort schools.
I love that language.
Schools that you would be excited to be admitted to, and
you find something there for you. So it's not that feeling of
like, Oh, I I ended up going to my safety school because it's
the only place that I got in. It's I feel so excited to go to
a school that is aligned with me, and they really care about
collaboration, and there are living learning communities. It
just has reframed the whole conversation.
One of my favorite parts about the process that we've been
experiencing is watching the student and the parent navigate
that conversation. So last year, when we did it with a family, we
have a student sort first, and the parent does it at tandem, at
the same time.
Yeah, I was gonna ask how this works. Is this like in an
individual meeting, and you tell them they're going to be doing
this?
We haven't warned them ahead of time.
Okay, put them on the spot.
We put them on the spot, but we give the students a deck of
cards, and then the parent, or whatever trusted adult is there
with them, and we ask the students to share first, like
their top three to five values, and then the parent goes next.
And those responses have just been so fun to watch unfold.
We've had families start chanting five for five, like
they both picked. But we've also had...
Zero for zero, no matches.
I don't think I've had zero for zero. Even today, I did it
today, there was one there was one aligning match, yeah. And
the cool thing, like, even today, there was some
discrepancies, but the parent and the student turned
independently from me, because I've just facilitated the
starting conversation and had a talk about, like, I didn't know
that you had pulled support. What does that mean to you?
Like, I didn't I didn't know that that was important. We had
it before with environmentalism. Yeah, that mom got very, in a
good way, emotional. Like I had no idea. I can't believe I'm
walking out of here learning about a value that you think is
like at your core identity that I didn't know. And you're 16, 17
years old. The gratitude that you can feel from parents
walking out with this like disarmed conversation. Here is
who my kid is, potentially at the core, and this is now going
to shape our conversations moving forward, when we look at
schools, has been just like, heartwarming and a privilege to
watch.
And it makes it about self discovery. I think so often,
like a, with our juniors, a junior college, meaning, feels
so like, process, and who are your teacher recommenders, and
what SAT score. And I felt like for moments, kids were leaving
our office, and I'm like, they don't know themselves any
better. And now I feel like there's this joy of just leaving
that office being like, I feel like I have a focus now I never
thought about values. This is important to me. So how do I use
this as like a lens for the rest of my search. Or even for like,
what am I going to do this summer, or what courses should I
take as a senior? There's this guiding principle.
And I just love the fact that I think that kids and families are
leaving our offices like we know each other a little bit better.
I know myself a little bit better, because I think that
that's what's gotten lost in this. It should be about joy and
growth and discovery and learning, and it's just about
this relentless push for excellence and like, I'm gonna
take that AP course because I want six AP courses senior year
to get into that school. And it's like, but why didn't you
take a computer design course? Because you love creativity and
beauty, and that means so much to you. You now don't have that
space in your life to, like, live your value and be yourself
and care for yourself, and I think that's part of the
problem.
Have you found a sweet spot for starting these conversations?
Have you just kind of been doing it with juniors? Because that
feels very timely, juniors and seniors, or are you starting
earlier than that, so that they have time to explore those
values a little bit more?
That is such a good question, because we have plans. But for
now, we've been starting with juniors, but we've been also
doing it with seniors as they're trying to decide, like at least
last year, what schools, which school might I want to pick from
out of the ones I've been admitted to. We've revisited
this. But our hope is this is going to start sooner for the
students in our community, because I think some students
can come into a junior meeting, right, and talk values. They're
ready, right? And one of the students that I had in my office
recently, we do some probing questions too, because you can
kind of get to see that look on their face and they're like, I'm
not really sure what you mean by core values. So we roll it back
a little bit. And today, did some work on like, Okay, who do
you who do you admire in your life? Like, what are you doing
outside of school? What sparks joy for you? And that helps, but
we would like to start those conversations sooner.
So building like, we're working to build a pretty intentional
like counseling curriculum at our school. Like, how do we
plant the seed in ninth grade? And I will add not just stuff
for students, like we do evening programs for parents, and we're
starting to infuse this now in sophomore year.
Especially because you can see how meaningful of a conversation
it is between those two students and that the parent is walking
out changed. Like, if you can start changing their perspective
or getting them looking inside in ninth grade, that would be
huge for conversations that are to come.
Yep. And then I think families are having this conversation at
home, because you're also giving parents the tools to be like,
talk about these things. Talk about what lights you up inside,
what are the skills that you feel like you're developing?
What are the clubs and activities that you want to be
doing? And I think that's where, like, the cultural shift comes
in. And it takes time, a lot of time, but I think if we were
working backwards to slowly bring that in, starting as like,
eighth graders rising into ninth grade. Not that everyone will
always subscribe to this, right? You're always going to have
those who think prestige is the most important thing, but.
Is that one of the values in the deck that they could even name?
Yeah, it is.
I love that you asked that.
I mean, then you really get to see, okay, this is important to
them, so let's do it.
But full disclosure, we use these cards that we created,
right on the back, you flip them, a QR code takes you to
this curated list of schools that we've developed. But the
prestige card doesn't take you to them.
Oh, tell me where it takes you. It's like, so you got poked
thing like, this is what we're telling you not to do.
Yeah, right.
Well, we wrote, like, a very heartfelt article that is very
aligned to your first question about sort of where we came
from. Mine was about the bulletin board and high school.
Mine was about, like, I just had a student, you know, talking
about, we should roll out the red carpet for every student and
celebrate all college acceptances. So we both shared
that perspective in this article to offer some tips, then to say,
maybe instead of thinking about prestige, here's another
perspective we want to offer you to consider.
And it's important that they're honest, and they do pull it if
that's how they feel. Because I think the other thing that
people sometimes trip over with us is we're not saying that you
should forget prestigious schools. We're saying your How
Come behind it has to be solid. If there's an Ivy League school
that you want to go to, but that Ivy League school really does
honor your values, and you can demonstrate how come and the
why, if I say, How come you want to go to Penn, Harvard, Yale,
and you've got a good answer besides it's a good school, then
maybe there is value there for you, and you shouldn't cross
that off your list. But it also shouldn't be the only school,
the only type of school on your list.
Yeah, you're able to see the maturity in them, being able to
elaborate on that answer, or kind of point them into some
other directions, of say, hey, let's examine this and see if
that's how you really feel. Like to me, it doesn't sound like
that, because you don't really have answers for that.
Okay, I know you haven't been doing it for super long in your
schools, but take the mental health piece with this. Like,
are you seeing a shift in students' mental health, or it
might be too soon, maybe, to see that, or what has that looked
like since they've been looking at some of the more intrinsic
values than extrinsic in their college search? How does that
affect their mental health?
Yeah, there was a student who came to do it an assignment for
a class about starting to build a college list as a junior. And
I remember coming in, and she's just, like, paralyzed, like, I
don't even know where to start. There's like, over 4200 colleges
feels so overwhelming. I feel like, left out. My peers know
about schools. I don't like, I just don't want to do this. So
we did the card sort and linked her to our like website with all
these school college profiles and everything.
And just to see, like, a student soften in the moment and
shoulders go down and be like, wow, there's like, places I'm
excited about. I can go into my next class and we're going to
talk about college lists. And be like, you know, I looked at this
website, I found 10 schools that I really like, and here's why.
And to think about how that impacts peers, then too, to be
like, here's how I found them. So I think about the intensity
that students feel at the gate, like the pressure of I have to
figure this out, and it feels so overwhelming, choice overload,
to then do it this way, softens it. And you just find students
be like, Okay, this is doable. I can figure this out, and you're
just having a warmer, more heartwarming, fun, joyful
conversation.
I was just gonna say like you as a counselor, are enjoying your
job more because you're having richer conversations. You're not
the robot who's going through the checklist of things you have
to get through, because there are all those things that we
have to get through, but you're getting to have, like, the real
conversations with students and seeing them, like you said,
seeing their shoulders relaxing, their guard come down, that's
really rewarding as a high school counselor.
It really is.
And you're facilitating. Like, I think the beauty of like, using
our counseling skills to navigate complex and difficult
conversations between students and parents and students who
come in carrying that weight. I feel at the end of those
meetings, I'm like, no longer this robot who's like, and now
take an SAT. I'm like, wow, that was using some real counseling
skills, and kids feel better.
Yeah, there was a student this week that I had done it with,
and part of our process is this set of questions. So let's say
the 15 schools that we have on the list for whatever reason,
maybe geographically, demographically, whatever it
might be, size, it's not the right fit for you. So you know
your value is career, let's say, but you're struggling to find a
school beyond our list that might fit that. We have 15ish
questions, 15-20 questions per value for you to take with you
to determine how is this value showing up on a college campus.
So this student this week had their three values, and we went
through these set of questions for each value, and he had
pulled, like, two or three questions from each value list,
created his own question list with his mom, like, Oh, I think
these would be the questions that would really help me
identify. And he was like, I'm so excited to go to colleges now
and make them super uncomfortable and hold Career
Services accountable with these really tough questions on like,
how is career showing up on your campus as a value. And I know
now Mrs. Vallier, if they can't answer it, maybe that's not the
right school for me, because this is, this is hyper important
to me. And I think giving the students that sense of control
and power on a college campus also brings the mental health
into perspective.
Yeah. You put kids back in control.
Because they're probably frozen, again going on these college
tours. It's a big group setting. They're with other parents who
are holding those prestige values up high. And then they
shrink back. They don't ask questions on the tour. They just
blend in with everybody else. If they go in equipped, they know
what questions to ask. They know what questions to ask for their
specific needs. That's going to be a much more meaningful tour,
more memorable. They're going to walk away like, I can either
check yes on that or cross it off my list because it really
didn't align like the website said that it did.
Exactly. And in this meeting, we spend a lot of time talking
about how colleges are trying to sell you and you have to try to
weed through, like, Is this really true for me and what I'm
looking for? And the student had recently been to Goucher, and
was sitting there going, you know what? He gave like a shout
out to Goucher. And was like, they did a great job answering
these questions, and I didn't even realize they were doing it.
But had I had this list, this would have been a great fit for
me. And so I think there's power, yeah, and giving students
control, not only with the colleges, but sometimes with
their families.
I was just gonna say, with their parents, they're able to stand
up for themselves and say, No, this is a good fit because of
XYZ. Like, if they get bombarded at the dinner table with
questions and they don't know the answers to that, then they
shrink back there too. And their parents run the process, and we
all know we want students to be leading this process.
1000%.
I'm sure you'll get the parents filling out the applications and
the scholarships and the...
We'll have a conversation like, well, WE have the SAT this
Saturday. And it's like...
Oh, are you taking it?
Didn't know that allowed that now, but yeah.
We, yes. Like, I get it. You are, you have a big investment
in this, but...
The level of WE, but it's we are not applying. They're applying.
It's the same everywhere, isn't it? That's reassuring. Well, I
feel like we covered a lot of different things. Is there
anything I didn't ask you about that you wanted to touch on
before I have you tell the listeners where they can find
the values cards and and find more about what y'all are doing?
You know, I think, just like one thing, we all remember being new
counselors, and for those of us who are put on the spot to
create a college list your first year or two, that can feel so
daunting.
They want you to come up right there without googling anything
like you've got the Rolodex in your head.
That's right. Jared and I spend a lot of time talking about how
we wish we had access to something like this that's not
as cumbersome as like, the list generators that you'll find
online. This one's more meaningful, and I just think for
a new counselor, this could be a really helpful resource. For a
seasoned counselor, it's a great resource for again, those hidden
gems, to really hone in on mental health and think about
like, let's refresh my practice and how I'm approaching college
meetings.
Yeah, make it fun for you again.
This feels like a real, tangible counseling tool. You said it
came from an idea that you had in private practice, and when
you said that, I thought of a friend of mine who is former
school counselor in private practice now, who does a lot of
career counseling with values cards, and adults still need
help with it, too. So like, let's start that conversation
early.
That's what I was going to say. Like, I've worked with so many
adults who we would do a value sort. And like, they would come
to me because, like, I'm so unhappy in my job, and they're
35, 40 years old. We would do the value sort and I just, they
would always be like, Oh, so this is why I hate my job.
Because it doesn't align with me at all.
So then we're thinking like, Well, then why are we not having
these conversations starting much earlier, teaching the
students, you know, the value in values driven decision making?
And then ultimately, like, I just want kids to be happier and
healthier and then become happier and healthier adults.
That's what this is all about. Like, maybe then we see less
people at 35 or 40 being like, I have to completely pivot and
give away a lot of my time and probably money to maybe go back
to school or pursue a different path, because we just have been
creating this pressure cooker of like, follow these steps, do
this thing. We just want kids to be happier and healthier. That's
what this is all coming from. We want to change that whole
narrative. You're worth more than a college acceptance
letter.
I love that. Before we go, I am curious, what is your number one
value in your values cards? Do you each have one that's like,
this is my number one?
We do. We like, tested each other, but we each, we have, we
have top ones. Do you want to share yours first?
Yeah, oh, gosh, I have to pick one? One? We picked three.
Okay, three. Tell us your three.
Okay. My mine was social connection, fun and adventure.
Okay. And did you feel like your college experience was that? Or
this is like, going forward, if you were to do it again, those
are things that you would know that you value.
I am very thankful for where I went to school. It gave me a lot
and pushed me outside my comfort zone, probably because it's not
where I should have gone. So it made me look for my people that
weren't easily found, and the people that I found are like my
my people to this day. Tthey are not counselors, they will spend
time to listen to this podcast, because they're just my people
now. But I don't think that those values would have led me
there. But what I think it did for me, thinking back on my
life, is I found those values there.
Like they make sense to you now, and they kind of were always
there.
I found them on campus, even though the campus, like, I
wouldn't have put that school in these slots, I would have put
Bucknell in other spots, and it is in other spots, but not in
those slots, but I found them there.
Yeah. One of mine is also social connection. The other is
creativity, and the last is activism. And I think similarly,
I don't know if I went into my search being like, it needs to
be that. But like, for me, a driving force was music. Like,
how can I be heavily involved on campus and music without maybe
being a music major? And that was part of my life, and that's
what I found at Albright completely. And the social
connection piece too. Like, it was small, and I was able to
make some of the best friends of my life there. So again, it's
like, in retrospect, I'm like, yeah, a lot of that was really
present. I wish I had the language or that somebody made
me do this so I could have named it, because I actually picked a
different school. And then my mom made me go back to Albright
for, I don't know if I ever even told you this story. My mom made
me go back for one more tour. And we were standing somewhere,
and I just looked at it. I was like, What was I thinking? Like,
it's here. It's always been here.
That's cool. I like hearing that and just seeing how that has
shaped you as counselors, and then even how you're able to be
reflective when you think back to your time in high school and
your college search process. And it's neat how, like that theme
just kind of ties its way back through and, kind of like our
strengths, like, I think they evolve over time, but I think,
like, we've got these pieces of our personality that make us who
we are, whether they're our strengths or our values, and we
see them nurtured if we spend the time doing that, spend some
time reflecting on that. So your cards are really cool to give
students that opportunity to think and reflect, and really
cool for counselors too, just to be a tangible tool to do more
counseling, because that's what we're always wanting to do. We
want that time with students, and those direct conversations
where we get to feel like we're making a difference. And it
sounds like your values tool is really doing that. So thank you
so much for coming on and sharing about that.
Yeah, we love talking about it. I mean, I think as counselors,
too, we, I don't think we've met a counselor yet who hasn't been
like, yes, we need this, but we also haven't met a counselor
that's like, oh yes, something like this exists yet. So I think
it's a tangible answer to a problem that I think most of us
feel in the field.
Or if they had it, they would go, Oh yes, this is just making
what I'm already doing better.
Yeah.
Well, I will link where they can find you in the show notes. But
do you just want to tell us about website, Instagram,
places?
It's called Forget the Rankings, the values driven college
search. So you can go to www.forgettherankings.com. We're
on Instagram as forgettherankings, Tiktok, you
can find us on all social media.
Okay, we'll make sure all the listeners have that. Thank you
so much, Jen and Jared. This was a rich conversation, and I'm so
glad that we got to meet and talk about this, because I think
it's important for students and counselors.
Us too.
Thank you.
I so enjoyed this topic, and you could honestly just hear how
passionate Jen and Jared were about this. It all just feels
extremely relatable. I know that I always laugh when I hear
conversations happening on the other side of the country that I
know are happening on this side too. It's like we're all in this
together. Cue the high school musical soundtrack. Anyways, be
sure to check out Jen and Jared resources at Forget the
Rankings, and show some love to two fellow high school
counselors who are being problem solvers and go getters in their
school. We'll see you next week.
Thanks for listening to today's episode of High School
Counseling Conversations. All the links I talked about today
can be found in the show notes and also at
counselorclique.com/podcast. Be sure to hit follow wherever you
listen to your podcast so that you never miss a new episode.
Connect with me over on Instagram. Feel free to send me
a DM @counselorclique, that's C, L, I, Q, U, E. I'll see you next
week.