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This is another public service announcement.

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So I've been spending the last few days just combing the internet just because I wanted

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to see what students are exposed to, what other people are exposed to.

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And I honestly personally hate social media.

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I hate being on there.

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I think most of the stuff on there is just complete garbage and should be deleted from

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human history.

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But I came across a lot of people who are, I don't know what to call them, influencers,

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people who are trying to serve as these online coaches.

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Sometimes they have some business associated with it where they'll take on students to

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help them with their college applications or with their study skills, tutors, things

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like that.

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And I have some things I need to get off my chest.

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So what I'm about to tell you, this is actually going to be directed at those very influencers,

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those people who are claiming to be maybe not experts, but somebody knowledgeable enough

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in their area that they are capable of helping students in the way that they claim that they

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can in terms of their studying, in terms of getting their GPA up, in terms of helping

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them get into some of the elite colleges.

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So this is directed towards them.

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But I also want everyone else to listen carefully because the stuff I'm about to say should

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give you insight into who to believe and who to ignore.

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And I am learning that there's a lot of people we need to start ignoring.

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And I've been finding that they all share certain similarities in the kind of things

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that they are doing that becomes a tall tale sign that they're full of shit.

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All right.

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So before we begin, let's talk business ethics.

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All right.

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So this is what it's really about.

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I'm about to call these people out.

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I don't care if their business goes to hell.

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I'm not going to name names, but the things I'm going to say should give you a hint as

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to the kind of people that I'm talking about.

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Okay.

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But I want to be clear on something.

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Okay.

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I am not.

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I am not going to try to assume that you have.

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I'm talking to these influencers here.

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I'm not going to assume that you have any malicious intent.

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Okay.

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I think that's unfair.

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I don't know you.

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I don't know who the hell you are.

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I'm going to, in fact, assume the opposite.

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I'm going to assume that you genuinely want to help other people, that you are not a bad

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person.

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At least that's what I'm going to assume.

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Okay.

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Regardless, regardless, there are some practices that I am seeing that I find personally to

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be downright offensive.

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It's unethical, irresponsible, and honestly should not exist if I had it my way.

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Okay.

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So get ready.

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I'm going to go ahead and call all of you out and either you need to change your business

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practice.

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You need to change your approach or in the ways that I'm going to suggest, or I think

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you should just go out of business.

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It should be one or the other.

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Okay.

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Again, I think you might be well-meaning and you might be doing your best and you might

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have all the best intention, but just because you have the best intention doesn't mean that

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you're not doing something that is extremely harmful.

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And I'm about to lay out exactly what that is.

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Okay.

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So some of the statements I'm going to make may or may not apply to you.

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If it stings and you feel offended, that might be an indication that you are one of the people

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that are doing the things I'm going to say are doing it.

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Right.

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Okay.

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So I'm commenting on your behavior.

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I'm not commenting on you as a person.

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Okay.

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So it's not a personal attack.

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Okay.

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And it might feel personal because I might be attacking your business, but I'm not saying

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that you should be out of business necessarily.

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Again, I think we need to change some of these practices and I want to see more of it going

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forward.

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There are some people who are doing some good things and those people I will always go over

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now.

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I, as I go through this list, if you don't know if I am talking about you or not, and

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you want to have a conversation, feel free to come reach out to me.

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Okay.

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If you are a parent or a student who is trying to look up information, but don't know exactly

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where to start or what to trust.

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And so you might have come across some of these people and you're like, Oh, can I trust

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what they say?

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Just send the link over.

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I will take a look.

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I will vet it for you.

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I will give you the thumbs up or thumbs down.

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I have no problem explaining myself and telling you exactly why I'm going to give the thumbs

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up or thumbs down.

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I'm not going to leave you with an approval or not.

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Okay.

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I'm going to explain.

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I'm going to explain myself because of why here is more important.

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Okay.

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All right.

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So let's get started on this.

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I have like a list of several things, not too many, but several things we need to come

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talk about in some detail.

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All right.

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Number one.

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Okay.

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Please, if you are going to claim that you can help other people, you need to qualify

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your experience and your understanding of the actual content that you're presenting.

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Okay.

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What do I mean by this?

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If you've only read about 200 college essays and you claim to be somebody who could help

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with college essays, okay, then be transparent and let people know that your qualifications

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are limited to the 200 college essays that you've seen and read and reviewed.

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And if you haven't been on the college admissions committee at all of these universities or

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any one of these elite colleges, okay, if you haven't participated regularly year after

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year, if you've just done it once, okay, qualify your experience and understanding

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by acknowledging and admitting that that is the limit of your experience.

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Okay.

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Trying to be vague about it is really misleading.

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It's shady shit.

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All right.

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So I need more transparency if you've only had experience that is limited to a certain

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scope to a certain college, to a certain set of experiences, you need to be very, very

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transparent about it instead of leaving it vague in your description about how you've

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helped so many students.

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Okay.

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Got it?

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Oh, transparency, please.

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Okay.

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At least have some honesty, some decency to be able to give that to the people that are

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listening to you.

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Number two.

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Always be open and direct about your limitations.

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All right.

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Let's be honest.

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Most of the people that I've seen giving advice, you're full of shit.

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And I know you're full of shit because I'm pretty confident given your age and given

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your experience, at least what you provided, you're recently graduated from college or

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some of you are actually even still in college.

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Okay.

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And you are not actually, you know, part of the decision making process.

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You have limited access to this information.

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You are making a lot of assumptions about what did or didn't work, what it is that did,

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you know, that made a difference in a student's application, what made a difference in students

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studying and getting a good grade.

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Okay.

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You do not have all of the expertise on a lot of these areas.

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You need to actually be explicit and acknowledge it.

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Okay.

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Ideally, you don't speak on it at all if you don't have any sort of, you know, expertise

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in that area.

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But at least in the least, in the least, please acknowledge your limitations.

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I will acknowledge it'll be humbling.

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It's humbling for me too.

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Right.

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I often try to qualify the things I'll say like, look, this is based off of my experiences

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and I will give you the specifics of the limitations of those experiences.

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Okay.

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I have not been on the admission committee for all of these, you know, elite colleges,

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but I also, I've been pretty transparent about it.

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I could also care less whether you get into one of these elite colleges.

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I think that whole system is a bunch of bullshit for my own reasons.

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Okay.

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So please at least acknowledge your limitations.

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All right.

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I get that it might not be good marketing, but it is honest business practice.

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And the truth of the matter is that I think people should appreciate you for your honesty.

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And you know, these limitations might disappear as time goes on.

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Right.

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And I think you have, you know, shared like, look, I've started getting into these conversations

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with admissions officers.

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I've been getting into conversations with, or studying up on, you know, the research

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behind, you know, learning.

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You know, if you have those experiences, you've developed a greater understanding through

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those experiences.

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Great.

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You've expanded what you know and what you can speak on.

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Okay.

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But at the moment that you're speaking, you should at least acknowledge some of these

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limitations because people will give you more authority than you probably deserve if you

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just leave it vague.

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Okay.

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All right.

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Number three, please.

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And this is a big one.

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Please do not flaunt credentials that have no goddamn thing to do with what you're speaking

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on.

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Okay.

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One of the biggest things I've seen that I find wholly appalling as a practice.

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Okay.

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Again, not attacking you.

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Just in case you're getting defensive, I'm not attacking you.

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I'm telling you, this is not okay.

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Okay.

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I'm a friend here trying to tell you, look, if you want to live a good life and you want

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to live the right way.

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Right.

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I mean, I'm an ethics professor.

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This is all I do all day.

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Okay.

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This is all I think about.

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So I'm telling you, right, for your sake, at least think about what you're doing.

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Try to change up some of the ways that you approach it.

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Okay.

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But please do not flaunt credentials that have nothing to do with it.

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And I'm specifically speaking to all of you who are flaunting your goddamn Ivy League

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credentials.

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Okay.

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Let me say a little bit more about why.

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Okay.

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Just because your ass got into an Ivy League school doesn't mean that you actually know

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exactly what it is that they're looking for across the board with the range of different

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students that are applying to any of these universities.

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You don't know.

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You just don't know.

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Like I said, unless you're inside that room making these decisions, you don't know shit.

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Okay.

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Your Harvard degree has nothing to do with your understanding of how Harvard decides

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who to accept and who not to.

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Okay.

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Similarly, just because you read a bunch of students essays and you learned about where

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they did get in and didn't get in, it doesn't mean that you know exactly why they got in

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or didn't get in.

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You don't know what of the many factors in their application was a thing that actually

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stood out.

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Now, I will say this.

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The more experience you get, the more likely you'll be able to identify certain trends,

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certain things in like, for example, the writing sample, right.

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The personal statement in the extracurriculars, right.

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You could break down patterns and things that make acceptance more or less likely.

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Okay.

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But again, these are going to be guesswork, educated guesses for sure.

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And you could acknowledge that.

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You could say, look, I don't know.

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I haven't been in these rooms, but I do know from my own research and going into detail

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about all of the evidence that we do have that we at least see that there are certain

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kinds of correlations, right.

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That's perfectly fine.

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Okay.

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But your god damn Ivy League degree has nothing to do with it.

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Okay.

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Another one that I've seen a lot of, okay.

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Just because you went got into an Ivy League or just because you studied really well and

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got a 4.0 GPA does not mean you know what sort of study techniques work just as on principle,

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right.

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Like as a matter of fact, right.

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As an empirical truth.

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Okay.

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You just don't know unless you actually studied cognitive psychology or the science of learning

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neuroscience, like unless you study these areas and actually dove into the details of

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all the I mean, there's decades of research on this.

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Unless you've actually dove into all of that, you should not be speaking on it.

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And I'm going to be very clear.

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So exactly why.

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Okay.

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Just because you got good grades doesn't mean that you utilize ideal, optimal learning techniques.

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Moreover, just because you got good grades doesn't mean you actually know why you got

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good grades.

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You're making a certain kinds of assumptions about why you got the grades you did.

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Maybe you got good grades because you went on read my professor and found the easiest

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professor and went with them.

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Maybe you got good grades because you just work very good at following directions.

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Okay.

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Doesn't mean you're a good learner.

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Doesn't mean that it'll actually transfer over to students in different circumstances.

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Okay.

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And more importantly, I don't see how you're getting good grades has anything to do with

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your understanding what it takes to study well and learn well.

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Right.

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It has nothing to do with it.

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Okay.

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I get that people make this sort of connection, but that is a terrible connection.

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That is not a reasonable connection to make.

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These two things are not related in any significant way.

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And so I need you to stop promoting this idea that somehow you just because of your success

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in these areas, that somehow you have the answer to these questions.

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Okay.

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That's a lie.

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Now, you might believe it, but I'm going to tell you right now, if you believe it, I question

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your ability to think critically.

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Again, not attacking you as a person, but I'm telling you, you might want to work on

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your critical thinking skills because that is not the right sort of conclusion to draw

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based on the fact that you did well.

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Okay.

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You need to know why you need to know why somebody got into college, a college with

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their application.

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You need to know why it is that they got the grade that they did or the reason they did

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so well on the test.

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Okay.

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And the why part requires an understanding of the deeper psychology of the neuroscience

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of the cognitive psychology of learning that you unless you actually have credentials there,

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you don't know shit.

292
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Okay.

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You don't know shit.

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You have a bunch of assumptions based off of your personal experience that is not grounded

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in anything other than just that, your personal experience.

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And it is very irresponsible for you to try to present it in any other light.

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Okay.

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Finally, last thing, please, please stop promoting your own students' success.

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Okay.

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What I mean by this is, okay, so suppose you helped out a bunch of students with their

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college essays and they got into some of these really competitive colleges, okay.

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Stop flaunting their success as if you're fucking responsible for this shit.

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All right.

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I always stress this to my own students.

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I always tell them, look, I can help you the best I can to try to make sure that your application

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from a lot of different angles, right, look the best that they could possibly look.

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But at the end of the day, 99% of the work was done by you, the student.

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It has to do with the totality of your application, has to do with the totality of the work that

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you put in.

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You could be grateful that I helped, but I want you to be grateful to the right degree.

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I am not your fucking savior.

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I am not the one who got you in.

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And I try to dispel that lie because I think it's really, really dangerous because the

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way I think of it is this.

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We already have a lot of anxious students and parents that are desperate for answers

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because the college admission process could be really, really confusing.

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Or they're struggling with their grades and they don't know why they're struggling so

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much with their grades.

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And they look to people who can give them guidance, to the tutors, to the coaches, to

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these influencers and say like, and they're looking for help.

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They're in a position of vulnerability.

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You in flaunting your student's success is you're taking advantage of that vulnerability.

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And I find it to be appalling behavior.

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I need you to stop that shit because the truth of the matter is that the student put the

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work in, the student deserves what the student gets.

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You merely help them along the way.

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You were definitely somebody that they could express gratitude towards.

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And sometimes it gets to our head.

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They are so grateful.

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They just effuse you with praise.

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Sometimes they want to give you a bunch of gifts and shit.

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That's all well and good that they feel that way.

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But you need to be the one, given that they're the one in the vulnerable position in this

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case, right, you need to be the one to be honest with them and tell them like, hey,

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you did most of the work.

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Please express gratitude to the right degree.

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Which means you're not fucking responsible for a student get into a very competitive

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college.

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You're not.

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You're just not.

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You played a part in it, but you're not responsible.

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And when you flaunt their success as your own success, I find that to be an extremely

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misleading way of presenting what has actually happened in the transaction.

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I find it to be just an outright lie.

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Sounds like something scammers would do.

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And this is part of the reason that I'm so worked up over it, is I find it to be a terrible

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practice.

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By the way, everything I'm saying here, this is not just for the online community.

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I have worked in the private sector, like those after school academies, those academies

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that run over the summers and winters helping students with their SATs and all this.

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And I've worked with those students and worked with the administrators in these places.

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And I'm calling all of you out as well.

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Because I know that you engage in this kind of practice as well.

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I've been a part of it.

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I'm ashamed to have been a part of it.

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I'm telling all of you right now, this is an absolute lie that you're telling people.

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You could try to sugarcoat it however, which way you want to.

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You're just saying like, hey, I'm just trying to make my business thrive.

359
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It's a very competitive business.

360
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You know what?

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We need more informed consumers.

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And I will be the one to at least be one of the many voices to try to call this shit out

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so that we have more informed consumers when they're looking for this kind of help.

364
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But some of you need to be reprimanded because this shit is not acceptable.

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Stop using the student success as your own.

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You can be proud of the students.

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You can be proud of them.

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You can say to the right degree just how much help you provided them.

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But please, let's be honest.

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Most of the work is done by the student.

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They're the ones who deserve the credit.

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By the way, one additional point on this, just because I know that it happens at these

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like SAT academies and places where the academies, they try to flaunt that their students got

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into XYZ college or these college consultant places where they flaunt that, oh, they got

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students into the most elite, you know, competitive colleges.

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Any place who does that, I look at them with a side eye.

377
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OK, and there's a reason for it.

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I know that one of the business practices that happen in this arena is that there are

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administrators, right there when they're like looking at these applications from students

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00:18:21,720 --> 00:18:26,560
trying to get into these academies to try to seek help, they will do their best to make

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sure they get the top students, the students who are already top notch.

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And the reason they do this is that they already know that the students have a good likelihood

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to get into a competitive college.

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They already have a high likelihood to get a perfect score on the SATs and they want

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to take credit for it.

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So they want those students to go to their particular academy, even though they know

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that they themselves are not going to be the reason necessarily that they get into these

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top universities.

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00:18:53,440 --> 00:18:56,960
OK, it is a practice that does occur.

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00:18:56,960 --> 00:19:01,120
I'm not going to say exactly where, but it does occur in a lot of places.

391
00:19:01,120 --> 00:19:02,960
I've taught at a lot of these institutions.

392
00:19:02,960 --> 00:19:07,680
OK, it happens and it's shady business practice.

393
00:19:07,680 --> 00:19:10,280
That shit needs to fucking stop.

394
00:19:10,280 --> 00:19:15,360
OK, so this goes out to all the people who are actually serving as influence.

395
00:19:15,360 --> 00:19:19,120
But I'm also, again, talking to all of you students and to the parents, I'm trying to

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00:19:19,120 --> 00:19:23,360
give you the information to make the best decisions.

397
00:19:23,360 --> 00:19:24,680
All right.

398
00:19:24,680 --> 00:19:32,080
Do not do not rely on the dumb fucking credentials that have nothing to do with what they're

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00:19:32,080 --> 00:19:36,880
actually able to provide as a service, what they actually have insight on, what they have

400
00:19:36,880 --> 00:19:38,200
expertise in.

401
00:19:38,200 --> 00:19:42,440
I'm going to tell you this from my experience, there are very few people in this industry

402
00:19:42,440 --> 00:19:45,080
that actually know what the fuck they're talking about.

403
00:19:45,080 --> 00:19:50,660
Very, very fucking few majority of them are just preying on your anxiety.

404
00:19:50,660 --> 00:19:53,120
Now they might not be intending to.

405
00:19:53,120 --> 00:19:55,320
They might be in their own mind.

406
00:19:55,320 --> 00:19:58,920
They might be looking to help students the best they can.

407
00:19:58,920 --> 00:20:01,920
OK, again, I'm not going to speak on their intention.

408
00:20:01,920 --> 00:20:07,060
They might have the best of intentions, but their actual behavior, the practices they

409
00:20:07,060 --> 00:20:10,900
engage in, that shit is appalling.

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So fucking stop.