Ep 70: Straight From the Source: How High School Students Choose and Ignore Colleges

Today’s students are telling colleges exactly what they want. Are we listening? In this episode of Higher Ed Conversations, host and GradComm CEO Cheryl Broom sits down with high school students Dylan and Piper for a candid conversation about how colleges are and aren’t connecting with prospective students. From inbox overload to the outsized role of social media, these students share their unfiltered perspectives on what actually grabs their attention during the college search process.

This episode spotlights why traditional recruitment tactics aren’t cutting it. Gen Z expects authenticity, visual storytelling, and a strong social media presence, and they can spot generic marketing from a mile away. If you’re responsible for enrollment marketing, student recruitment, or brand awareness, tune in. It’s a powerful reminder that the best strategy often starts with simply asking students what they think and being willing to change based on their answers.

What You’ll Learn:

• Why traditional college recruitment emails often miss the mark
• How social media shapes Gen Z’s perception of colleges
•  What students actually want colleges to show them on Instagram and TikTok
•  Why authenticity matters more than polished marketing language
• How colleges can rethink outreach to better connect with high school students

Thanks for listening!

Connect with GradComm:
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Facebook: @GradCommunications
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Send us a message: GradComm.com

Higher Ed Conversations is hosted by Cheryl Broom, CEO of GradComm, a marketing and branding agency specializing in community colleges and public education.

Transcript

[00:00:00] Cheryl Broom: All right. Thanks everyone for joining me. I'm Cheryl Broom, CEO of GradComm and host of Higher Ed Conversations. And I. In here today with two very special guests. I'm here with my son, Dylan Kyle, who's already laughing at me and the wonderful piper.

[00:00:17] Cheryl Broom: Both are high school seniors and are going through the college application process. And we're recording this over holiday break, so that's why I've got my little like holiday jacket on, and the two of them are at home today, and I wanna talk to 'em about what it's been like. To apply to college. So thank you both for joining me today.

[00:00:39] Dylan and Piper: Welcome anytime, mom.

[00:00:43] Cheryl Broom: So I wanna start off by talking to you about when each of you first started thinking about college. How long ago was it?

[00:00:51] Dylan and Piper: Well, our school like forces us kind of to like start thinking about it. I think like sophomore year was when we first were introduced to it, but. Definitely, like looking back at like my junior year, I didn't really know much about it until like I was forced to learn about it.

[00:01:08] Dylan and Piper: I feel like, because I think you kind of like try to push it off for as long as you can. So probably like, I started thinking about it sophomore year, but I didn't really start like, like deeply thinking about it until end of junior year.

[00:01:22] Dylan and Piper: Yeah, mom, by like thinking about it. What do you mean thinking about it?

[00:01:26] Dylan and Piper: Like where you want to go or like just college in general?

[00:01:29] Cheryl Broom: Either one. 

[00:01:30] Dylan and Piper: I go like outside the box. Like I feel like with, for me as like a, as a athlete, that's like trying to play, it was like almost an eighth grade because that's when I started doing my ID camps and stuff. Like my first ID camp was like that eighth grade summer going into high school. I didn't really know, like, college as like I do now when it comes to like acceptance rates and majors. I just thought as college as like a next step as high school, which it is, but now I'm like, obviously like a lot more knowledge with that stuff. But I'd say like, yeah, eighth grade and obviously like every kid thinks about college like.

[00:02:06] Dylan and Piper: If it gets brought up, you probably have like a older like family friend or someone that you know that's in college. So, but yeah, I'd say like eighth grade is when I was really like introduced to like the whole college thing and like started like, you know, really thinking about it.

[00:02:25] Cheryl Broom: I think that's, it's really interesting to hear you both say that because the people who listen to the show, watch the show are generally administrators at colleges and. They start reaching out aggressively junior when high school students are in junior years. But Piper, you started really thinking about it sophomore year, Dylan, you were even earlier because you knew you wanted to play sports in college, so colleges were on your radar a little sooner for both of you than I think most colleges prepare for. Did you guys get any like materials from college or how did you even start thinking about where you wanted to go? Or where you wanted to apply to.

[00:03:06] Dylan and Piper: well, going back again, the ID camps I, it started off by like interest, but like I really started to think about it and I really decided, oh, I wanna stay home. So that really helped me narrow down my, like options, you know, by a lot. Obviously, like I know what's now I know what's like a reach, what's like a reach a target.

[00:03:26] Dylan and Piper: That's what we use in our school system when we're applying. So that helped me like, oh, if something's too far of a reach, like there's no point, you know, like, Yeah, I'd say location comes first and finding out. Or like in helping me narrow and then like acceptance rate too.

[00:03:42] Dylan and Piper: 'cause like if a school's too hard, like I'm not gonna go maybe like division for me, like division one, division two, division three size as well. So like, yeah. But I definitely would start off with location and then use the other factors. So like to narrow it down from there. Yeah, location is definitely a big one. Like I generally wanted to apply to schools that were all in California, but going into, I didn't really know like what those schools were like. I knew like, oh, the ucs, but I didn't know like details about each of them individually. And I think I didn't start like like researching like colleges until my.

[00:04:20] Dylan and Piper: College counselor at school kind of recommended colleges to me, and I'd say like the majority of the schools I applied to were recommended by her. And we kind of like the first few weeks of meeting with each other, like she kind of got to know me and like the things I liked and like what I looked for in a school and not, and then she recommended schools from there.

[00:04:40] Dylan and Piper: And then that's how I like. Research the different schools and then I would move them into like whether I wanted to keep researching them and then eventually apply to them, or if I just wasn't interested. In general,

[00:04:53] Cheryl Broom: How did you research them? What did you do to, for research?

[00:04:57] Cheryl Broom: I have a feeling we're gonna have very different answers here. 'cause I witnessed Dylan's research.

[00:05:02] Dylan and Piper: I am a big fan of ChatGPT. I would ChatGPT, you know. D three soccer schools in SoCal and there goes my list. And then from there, you know, this is a little bit outside of your question, but there I would go grab the college's coach's email and send it. So I'd say ChatGPT helped me a lot. But I feel like also you mom too, I could say helped me a lot with like it because you know, you know like a lot of colleges around, so, but yeah, research was probably.

[00:05:38] Dylan and Piper: GBTI probably use that the most. Yeah, I mean our, in one of our first like college meetings at school, they kind of like recommended us to use ChatGPT by like putting in like all of your interests in like a school. And then they, it would like feed you back like, schools that apply to that.

[00:05:57] Dylan and Piper: And so I, I didn't really use that kind of like further into the process. I think I kind of based it off of like. The sports they had and like the school spirit that the school had along with like the acceptance rate and like the size of the school. So those were like the things I researched the most probably.

[00:06:18] Cheryl Broom: So when you were looking to find out about sports and school spirit, where would you go to find those things out?

[00:06:25] Dylan and Piper: I mean, I would just do like a simple Google search or I would talk to my college counselor about it.

[00:06:30] Cheryl Broom: Okay, so I saw, I would see Dylan go on TikTok. A lot. So a college coach would write him back. I mean, and I, for those who are listening in, in admissions and in marketing, you know, Dylan's journey is a little bit different than Piper's. 'cause Piper, I know you are an exceptional athlete, but you're not planning right now to play sports.

[00:06:54] Cheryl Broom: Right. That's your, you're looking outside of sports. Dylan's looking to play sports, so he would email. Dozens of coaches and the the minute one would write him back, he would go straight to TikTok

[00:07:09] Dylan and Piper: I'd say Instagram

[00:07:11] Cheryl Broom: Instagram. Okay. And what would you look for? What are the things you're looking for on there?

[00:07:15] Dylan and Piper: Well, I, I'd plug in the Instagram, like whatever, Mari Costa Men soccer, I'd say. And I mean, I just see, like, I feel like you could tell the quality of like. A team not, I don't wanna say off their like posts, but like you could see a lot about like, oops. You could see a lot about like their team, like, their culture and their environment.

[00:07:39] Dylan and Piper: Just from like the Instagram, like if you go to one page and it's like, you know, maybe them celebrating a big win, like, oh, they're like loud. And then you go to another Instagram and it's like. Very quiet and like not a lot of posts and not a lot of like things like there's other specific things like you might be like, oh, like, so I'd say like the social media does matter more and maybe like even if that one school like might not look like their Instagram might not be how they actually are and the other ones that vice versa, like I'm still more likely to, you know, be like, dang, like this school looks better.

[00:08:16] Cheryl Broom: Great. Do you feel the same Piper, where you'd like checking out Instagram TikTok?

[00:08:21] Dylan and Piper: Yeah, I think for me, like I kind of took a different approach to it. Like I would look up like kind of like day in the lives of students at the schools. Like for example, like some of my top schools I would like look at like People's Day in the Lives. And I think that was very helpful. Kind of like not only seeing like them going to the class, but like what they do outside of class because.

[00:08:43] Dylan and Piper: That's definitely like a big thing for me is like I wanna be able to like have fun things to do outside of like just my schoolwork, like being involved in like clubs or like going around like the college town and whatnot. So I think that's something that I can't really get from looking, just doing like a simple Google search.

[00:09:02] Dylan and Piper: Also when we would have like college like admissions counselors come into our school, like I would always ask them like, what are your favorite things to do around the school? Because I think that's something that is harder just to find from like a Google search or like a chat response.

[00:09:19] Cheryl Broom: Great. What about websites? Did you, do you bother to go on the websites?

[00:09:24] Dylan and Piper: For me, I would go on them to research like again, like their clubs and programs because a lot of the times when I was writing like supplementals, they would ask me like what types of like clubs I would wanna be like involved in. And like coming from, like being involved in a lot of clubs, I would kind of like research like.

[00:09:44] Dylan and Piper: Good or like what types of clubs that the school has, and then, and I always found those off of the websites.

[00:09:51] Cheryl Broom: Okay. What about you, Dylan? Did you ever spend a lot of time on the websites?

[00:09:58] Dylan and Piper: I feel like I'm spending more time now on the websites, like than I was when I was finding the schools. Like now that I actually have my schools, 'cause like I need to look up specific things that are specific for their application that like will make me stand out more than a student who doesn't do their research.

[00:10:13] Dylan and Piper: So, I don't know, I don't think I've really like, I don't use websites, I'd say more social media, but there is some schools where I've used a website. Yeah.

[00:10:24] Cheryl Broom: This is fascinating to me to listen to you both. I mean, I've been obviously through the journey with you, Dylan but you both are kind of describing almost the same process where you went to ChatGPT to help you kind of make a list, 

[00:10:38] Dylan and Piper: ChatGPT keeps it like simple, you know? And it, and it like might not find that on like a website, you know?

[00:10:45] Cheryl Broom: So I'm interested, like in business soccer in California, what's my high acceptance rate? I want to go somewhere, you know, maybe easier, hard, right?

[00:10:54] Dylan and Piper: yeah.

[00:10:55] Cheryl Broom: And then from there you go on the, on social, you kind of take a look at what, what is campus life like, what's available. Then maybe you talk to a admissions person 'cause they come to your school now you're on their website.

[00:11:07] Cheryl Broom: So it takes you a lot really to get to. It's kind of a website. Seems like it's maybe an end stage. Like now you're, you're ready to apply and now you're getting into the nitty gritty of the programs. Wow.

[00:11:22] Dylan and Piper: Like websites are for old people.

[00:11:28] Cheryl Broom: And what about like, materials in the mail? Like Dylan, you, I've seen lots of things come in the mail. Piper, have you gotten things in the mail?

[00:11:36] Dylan and Piper: Yeah, I think my parents like just kind of throw them away sometimes. They'll definitely keep the ones like for schools that I'm more interested in, but I mean, it's a lot of mail.

[00:11:49] Cheryl Broom: Does it stand out to either of you like,

[00:11:51] Cheryl Broom: like do you like getting it in the mail? Has it helped you make a decision of where to apply?

[00:11:56] Dylan and Piper: Okay. I've gone think three and like it's kind of one of those things where it's like, like, I don't know, one, if one's cooler than other. Like if I get one that looks cooler than the other, like. I'm still like, I feel like that just doesn't tell, say enough about the school even like, 'cause it could be like a bad school sending you an amazing thing in the mail and it, there could be a good school that has like so many people to send this to.

[00:12:25] Dylan and Piper: So, yeah, I don't know. I don't, I'm not letting it influence my, like where I wanna go more than like, so actually seeing it on like social media.

[00:12:34] Cheryl Broom: Okay. Yeah, I found it interesting 'cause I think Piper, last time you were over. I, or maybe we were talking about, we were talking about something and you literally said like, oh, I think my parents just threw that away. It's like, I've been keeping it Dylan, but it's a stack, like I don't think he's even looked at them.

[00:12:52] Dylan and Piper: Yeah, I don't think I've really spent a lot of time looking at them either, but I think it would be cool to get them, like once you're accepted into the school, like I think when I was over, we were looking at his like Point Loma one where it was like acceptance and I think that's cool. But yeah, again, I don't really think it would like influence my decision to apply to it, but maybe if I spent more time looking at it.

[00:13:17] Cheryl Broom: Yeah, for sure. So once you guys had your lists of where you wanna apply, how, how stressful has this process been? Like how, how hard were these applications? What has it been like to go through this? 

[00:13:30] Dylan and Piper: I think it's been very stressful for me. I like just recently finished applying to like all the schools, but I think like from. Me, like I always have this like inkling in the back of my mind that's like, oh, but what if I, there's one more school that I should have applied to, like, what if there's one more that I'm missing out on?

[00:13:50] Dylan and Piper: And I think that's kind of stressful. But like overall applying to the colleges, I think the one thing I wasn't like aware of going into it was like the amount of supplementals I would have to write. Like I think from past like students, they're kind of like, oh yeah, you write your big essay, you have to write your like.

[00:14:08] Dylan and Piper: Activities and then some supplementals. But like I probably wrote, like, I spent like hours and hours writing my supplementals because I just had so many, and maybe that's just from like the colleges I applied to. But, I think that was like a lot more work than I was like, anticipating going into it.

[00:14:25] Dylan and Piper: But I also like, definitely learned a lot more about myself and the colleges and like what I want out of a college through the supplementals, so. Okay.

[00:14:35] Cheryl Broom: What about you, Dylan?

[00:14:38] Dylan and Piper: Yeah, I think Piper hit the nail on the head. Like I, I do the exact same thing where it's like I get my list and I'm like, what if this school, but it's hard with soccer 'cause it's like I could be like, oh, nice, that's my list. Boom, I'll have a random coach email me and now I need to add this school to my applying.

[00:14:58] Dylan and Piper: And it's like, so yeah, it's been stressful. And I'd say like, it's like for me especially, it's like the worst time of the year, it's like winter and like now high school soccer season just started and I'm super busy and it's like all my classes, like I have like my trimester unit tests and like all these college, all this college stuff.

[00:15:15] Dylan and Piper: So it's definitely like a stressful part of the year, like. I was like, oh, I don't know. I don't know why they open like the, the like college thing. So like late, like they should open it earlier in summer so you could start like fingering it out and writing stuff in the summer.

[00:15:32] Cheryl Broom: Yeah. How hard do you guys think it would've been now you, you're both what we would call in higher ed traditional students. So you are coming outta high school, you know you're gonna go to college and you've had parents that have gone to college, and both of you, I think both of your parents, mom and dad, mom and dad on both.

[00:15:50] Cheryl Broom: Both of you have gone to college. How much do you think it's helped to have parents who have gone through this before? Did your parents play a role? Did they help you?

[00:16:01] Dylan and Piper: For me, I would say I'm like kind of more independent. Like I definitely have my parents like, help me. Like I think they were helpful in like the research aspect of it, but with like the writing, I like did all that on my own and I think. They were, they just kind of had to put like the trust in me to like find the schools that I wanna go to and like trust, like have trust in me to like know what I want.

[00:16:33] Dylan and Piper: So, and I think, again, like they applied to college like so long ago and the process I think has changed a lot from then. And I mean, my parents are always like, oh, this is so much more work than I would've done. Like. I don't know. So I think it's a lot different in that sense. I'd say dad hasn't helped at all. Really. I just tell

[00:16:58] Cheryl Broom: He hasn't helped at all.

[00:17:00] Dylan and Piper: No, he was, I'm just like, dad, I, I didn't even know if I've ever even said the word college to dad. Mom, I don't want to put the icing on the cake on you, but yeah, you've helped a lot

[00:17:12] Cheryl Broom: I was just gonna say like, here, I, I'm gonna get glazed right now.

[00:17:16] Cheryl Broom: No, but you actually did tell me, you actually did tell me that you only wanted to talk to Col about college one day a week.

[00:17:23] Dylan and Piper: yeah,

[00:17:24] Cheryl Broom: Like, he was like, I can't handle this anymore.

[00:17:28] Dylan and Piper: Because it was literally like I'd come home after school and you'd be like, what do you think of this? This college? College? Like I just sat through class for eight hours. The last thing I need is to talk about where I want to go to class again for. But yeah, you helped a lot and I feel like you know what's right for me

[00:17:48] Cheryl Broom: Yeah,

[00:17:49] Cheryl Broom: so I think for, for those, and I ask about parents. Because us marketers, we are doing more to include parents than we ever did before. And I think Piper, when you said, when your parents said like, we never went through this when, when your parents are about my age, I think we're actually really similar in age.

[00:18:11] Cheryl Broom: Our parents were not involved at all. Like I don't even think my mom knew where I was applying, like. There wasn't parent involvement and now a parent involvement has become more important. So, you know, I think, like you said, the direct mail, you know, Dylan, that I looked through it all, like, I think that's really for parents to look at more so than kids.

[00:18:32] Dylan and Piper: Yeah.

[00:18:34] Cheryl Broom: I also wanted to know, like I see on Instagram from your school. So we're, we're December, we're a couple days before Christmas before recording this, and I've been seeing on Instagram, your school showing where students have gotten accepted. Does that create more stress for you? Are you guys feeling stressed out now?

[00:18:52] Cheryl Broom: Like how is it waiting to hear where you're gonna go?

[00:18:57] Dylan and Piper: I think like for me, it like. Puts my standards a little bit higher, especially seeing like all of the people, 'cause a lot of the decisions that have came out have been like ed decisions and I mean everyone at our school is getting into some really great schools and I think it's making me think like, oh, should I have applied there?

[00:19:18] Dylan and Piper: Should I have applied there? Like kind of second guessing my like decisions and what colleges I've applied to. But at this like state, I feel like it's kind of like. A little bit late to apply to some of the schools. And I think it's like the comparison of the account that makes it like the hardest and like makes it more stressful.

[00:19:37] Dylan and Piper: But I think just like having trust in like my decisions for the schools I want to go to are because I wanna go to them and like, I don't need to like push myself to like apply to all these like Ivy Leagues just because other people have like gone into them.

[00:19:52] Dylan and Piper: Yeah. I feel like some people care like about where people are going to college, but like, it really doesn't matter at the end of the day. Like I think people, unless you're going to like Harvard or like something insane with like, in doing something, something like insane, I just don't think it mattered.

[00:20:11] Dylan and Piper: I, I, I don't really care about

[00:20:13] Cheryl Broom: And that's really, and actually this morning we dropped off Dylan's car to get his oil changed. And he was like, oh, this girl at my school's been like. Oh, should I go to Stanford or Harvard to Stanford or Harvard and I'm gonna choose Stanford? And I was like, really? She got into both. But, your interesting case, because you are actually considering a community college and it, how do you feel about that at this point of your applications?

[00:20:43] Dylan and Piper: Yeah. Like what do, what do I think are the ups and downs as like my perspective?

[00:20:47] Cheryl Broom: Yeah.

[00:20:48] Dylan and Piper: Yeah. I could compare myself to like, people, so like, yeah. One thing about community college is like, yeah, I'm worried I'm not gonna get as good as an education as my, these other people. But then I think like, well, they're like, I'm not having, I don't really know.

[00:21:04] Dylan and Piper: I'm not gonna have a set major. Right. I'm kind of just gonna be going through my general classes, 

[00:21:09] Cheryl Broom: your prerequisites. Mm-hmm. You're gonna prepare for a major.

[00:21:13] Dylan and Piper: yeah, and now I'll know my major after two years and as a soccer player, I should be able to transfer into a, like a more competitive school. So, for me it's kind of like, maybe while my friends are more like.

[00:21:29] Dylan and Piper: Taking a, a big step, like I'm kind of like taking a, a step, not back, but a step to the side before like a little leap, you know, because now going into my next college, I'll know what I wanna study and hopefully I'll have my, some of my general classes knocked out and yeah. And I mean obviously the is a lot less so yeah.

[00:21:54] Cheryl Broom: Yeah. And Piper, you didn't consider community college at all. Why? Why wasn't that on your radar?

[00:22:00] Dylan and Piper: I don't know. I think I just never really thought about it going, like throughout my whole high school career. And I mean, I think it's a great option for some people, but I think for me, I kind of like. Pushed myself a lot throughout high school with like my aps and like all the clubs and stuff that I've done that I feel like I want to like push myself to like get into like harder schools, I guess.

[00:22:27] Dylan and Piper: But I mean, I think it's, there's a certain path for everyone and I just never really considered it., 

[00:22:34] Cheryl Broom: You know, I asked this question about community college because, when I was. 18. It was not an option. I mean, really community college was really looked down on and I feel like that has changed. And I think Dylan, it's especially changed for athletes because we went and saw some community college soccer games and they are high level competitive games.

[00:23:02] Cheryl Broom: They are. They, they're, they're not that much different than the D two games we went and saw like in terms of physicality and ball movement and strength and, and talent. So that, I think that perspective is changing and it's good to hear Piper say, you know, that it's a great option for students because it is a great option for some students.

[00:23:22] Cheryl Broom: Maybe not an option for all students, but for some it really is. So as we wrap up our conversation, what advice would you two give to colleges? So if you were to talk to, to any college out there, their marketing director if they wanna recruit. High school juniors and seniors to look at their school.

[00:23:45] Cheryl Broom: Maybe not to apply, but definitely like to, to do the journey. You guys went to go on their social, like, what, what do you think they should be doing? How can they get themselves noticed?

[00:23:57] Dylan and Piper: All right. Well first off, these colleges send out the worst emails. It's just like they're so bad. Like first of all, if they're gonna send out emails, it should be first to say, check out my social media page, and then like, instead of saying like blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Be like, here's our Instagram page.

[00:24:20] Dylan and Piper: Or like TikTok or whatever. 'cause. I'd say like 90, maybe more percent of students have social media. So, and that's where, like me and Piper, I think a lot of people could relate to us with seeing like stuff through social media. But I, yeah, just more rely on more on their social media and I mean, I don't really know what else.

[00:24:43] Dylan and Piper: Yeah, social media is very important nowadays.

[00:24:45] Cheryl Broom: So you got emails from colleges and you opened them,

[00:24:50] Dylan and Piper: Yeah. No, no, I didn't open them. I just, well, I, I click on them and it's like always like some, like I could probably pull my mail right now and look,

[00:24:59] Cheryl Broom: it's so funny you say this because my company writes a lot of emails for colleges and I feel like I need to go back and tell all of our writers 

[00:25:10] Cheryl Broom: to stop writing and just 

[00:25:11] Cheryl Broom: send a social, okay.

[00:25:14] Dylan and Piper: I literally have three. Okay. So my top one is University of Hawaii, and it's just about the deadline. So it's like submit your, okay. 

[00:25:24] Cheryl Broom: that's helpful, right? 

[00:25:25] Dylan and Piper: Yeah. Okay. Then I have a one from West Minister College and it's Dylan. We will make this quick. Yeah, we wanted to let you know that we are heading back on break.

[00:25:38] Dylan and Piper: Like that's awesome man. Like, and then all they're saying is take care and happy holidays. Like still nothing about their social media. I got another one, Northern Arizona. This one's using a little bit of I forgot what it's called, but they're like, Dylan, you're among an exclusive group of students I've selected to apply.

[00:25:58] Dylan and Piper: Yeah, I mean, this one's trying to make me feel like singled out. Let's see, I got another one from Temple University that's just like, like, this one's better. I like when they, I'd say another thing is like. Adding links, so like they don't have to look it up. Like if you're gonna send an email, put like links in that they could click on.

[00:26:17] Dylan and Piper: It just saves us time. 'cause we don't want, like, as high school students, we don't wanna spend time having to do the research 'cause we're lazy and we have other important things to do. So if you put the links in, like that just saves us a lot of time. Like, here's the link, blah, blah, blah. Like, Yeah.

[00:26:34] Cheryl Broom: great. That's great advice. What if a school told you what to ask ChatGPT about themselves? Would you do it? If they're like, Dylan, go to ChatGPT. Ask ChatGPT all about our social life. Would that, will you be like, oh, okay, I'll do that. Or would that be lame?

[00:26:53] Dylan and Piper: You know, I, yeah, but you gotta make sure ChatGPT is accurate. I mean, yeah. I'd say the main three things is. Keep it quick, like don't make it that long. 'cause no high school student who has things to do is gonna be like, wanting to read all this. So yeah. And with that comes saying like, make the, make it have links, like little things like that, social media, like, and put like, I like when there's like pictures and stuff.

[00:27:20] Dylan and Piper: Like, I'm a big, like imagery guy. Like, I think a lot of people could agree that like, they don't like to just read, they wanna see pictures. Like, would you rather be read? I mean, maybe I'm not like, you know, like, would you rather read a book all with words or would you wanna see some pictures? Like, I, I like the pictures.

[00:27:37] Dylan and Piper: So yeah, pictures too.

[00:27:39] Cheryl Broom: Okay.

[00:27:40] Dylan and Piper: So keep it short and keep it, creative for sure. Right.

[00:27:44] Cheryl Broom: Okay. Great advice.

[00:27:46] Dylan and Piper: Flashy.

[00:27:47] Cheryl Broom: Okay. What about video?

[00:27:50] Dylan and Piper: I don't even know if you could put a video, like all these ones that I, emails are just so dry. Like they're like, we want, I wanna see like something cool when I open this. I don't want to just see like a plain old email. You know,

[00:28:04] Cheryl Broom: And are you in your email or are you in your score account?

[00:28:08] Dylan and Piper: it is my school email. I get Um, school. Oh wow. Okay.

[00:28:13] Dylan and Piper: Yeah. And I have And you get a lot of them, right? You're getting a lot of emails. So to stand out, you're saying like you wanna see some cool picture right away or something about their

[00:28:24] Cheryl Broom: socials? when I click on the, I wanna like see a picture. 'cause that's going to like, it's like a hook when you're writing in it like an essay.

[00:28:31] Cheryl Broom: And what would you wanna see a picture of?

[00:28:33] Dylan and Piper: like student life, something cool.

[00:28:36] Dylan and Piper: Like one of like a really cool programs, maybe like, I don't know, sports too,

[00:28:42] Cheryl Broom: Great. Okay. Piper, what about you? Dylan just went on like a lesson on how to write emails, which is amazing. What would you give, what advice would you give?

[00:28:51] Dylan and Piper: I mean, pretty much the same, like I think social media, like the more like active, like a TikTok social media account is like, I can't think of one directly that like posts a lot, but I think like being relevant and like up to date with. What, like our generations are like, humor is almost like, would be helpful to see.

[00:29:13] Dylan and Piper: And I mean, I agree with like the emails. Like for me, when I go through my emails, like I'm someone who needs to have like a clean inbox in and when I get like 20 emails from colleges, if it's not one that I've either applied to or have thought about applying to, I just delete it. I don't even look at it.

[00:29:31] Dylan and Piper: So yeah.

[00:29:33] Cheryl Broom: You're a little bit, you're like me, like I don't want a clutter. Dylan I actually, I hate to admit this, and Dylan, when you turn 18, I'm gonna stop, which is in like three months. But I clean out your soccer email 'cause I cannot handle it. I like delete all of your rough assignments and like, I dunno how you function with a hundred unread messages.

[00:29:58] Cheryl Broom: You know, Piper, there's one thing that you said earlier that I loved and that was the day in the life videos. and so I wonder if you could tell us what you like to see in those.

[00:30:08] Dylan and Piper: I mean, the ones I watch aren't like necessarily affiliated with like the college admissions or like the college like marketing. It's just like, like, not even like influencers, like micro influencers who post like just their day in the lives. And oftentimes I'll watch them and they don't even say what college they're going to.

[00:30:27] Dylan and Piper: So, and that's kind of confusing to me sometimes because I'll be like, oh, that looks like a fun experience. And I'm like, I can't find anywhere what college this is. I mean, I think like seeing like the dining halls is interesting, like the food or like the restaurants they have on campus. Like, I think.

[00:30:45] Dylan and Piper: We're both like big food people, so I feel like that's like helpful to see. I'm like the classroom like style is cool and like just like overall like campus life, like Yeah. Seeing if there's like people around, like walking around on campus, if people are like playing out in the lawn or like doing things together.

[00:31:05] Dylan and Piper: Like Activ. Yeah, yeah. Or like sports games. Like if they're going to like a school sports game in the night or something. That's cool too. yeah, we just, I feel like inside per like, we wanna get a perspective of like what it's like

[00:31:18] Cheryl Broom: I mean, I'm even thinking like for you Piper, it'd be kind of cool. Like what if you saw one, like how to be a vegetarian at uc, Santa Barbara? Like that'd be one you'd probably would watch. Like, will you choose to eat and where do you get your snack? Like it doesn't, I'm a, I'm a, it doesn't have to be like an entire, like I did this and I did this and I did this, and it could just be a little snippet of their life.

[00:31:40] Dylan and Piper: It could literally be like what I said, you could click on the email and it could be day Watch this day in the life.

[00:31:48] Cheryl Broom: Watch Dylan's Day of the Life at Santa Barbara City, or watch Piper eat vegetarian food at uc, Santa Barbara. And I hope you both get to go to the schools that you, that you wanna go to. So maybe I'll have you back on in six months once you've made your decisions, we can talk about how you're getting ready for college and how, how people can support you becoming a student.

[00:32:14] Dylan and Piper: Yeah,

[00:32:15] Cheryl Broom: So well this has been so much fun. I hope you guys had fun.

[00:32:20] Cheryl Broom: We went, we were gonna make this a quick take, but now it's gonna be a full episode 'cause you had so many great things to say.

[00:32:26] Dylan and Piper: Thank you. 

[00:32:27] Cheryl Broom: Thank you guys so much for being guests.

[00:32:30] Dylan and Piper: Bye-bye. Thank you. 

[00:32:31] Dylan and Piper: Bye-bye.