⚡ How to Apparate?
Sunday Scoop #40 - For my first delayed issue, I tie in a cheeky bit of Harry Potter to complement my main takeaway from a 3.5 hour conversation.
Hey friends,
My apologies for sending out this issue on a Monday morning instead of Sunday night. Nevertheless, its probably going to be sent out before sunrise so let’s consider my streak continues.
Anyways, the last 3.5 hours of my Sunday night were spent indulging in a fruitful conversation with a close friend of mine (let’s call him K) who despite all odds, managed to secure 3 Ivy League admissions and a UC admission to an extremely competitive program. Endlessly proud of him and I simply can’t wait to see the great things he’ll undoubtedly achieve in the future.
Our conversation mainly revolved around a deep reflection on our respective US applications and what worked for us. He also shared a great deal about his journey and how the dots connected for him.
Since our conversation was the main reason behind the delay in this week’s issue, I figured it would be nice for me to share with you my main takeaway from it.
🔮 Apparition
“The important things to remember when Apparating are the three D’s!” said Twycross. “Destination, Determination, Deliberation!”
The one thing I realized that set K apart from the average applicant was his strategic crafting of his application. In other words, his deliberate planning.
It goes without saying that K is an incredibly intelligent individual with close to perfect grades. However, the same could be said for more than 80% of the applicants to Ivies.
What set K apart was his approach to his application, his careful planning of each of his essays, right up to the miniscule details, ensuring that the Admission Officers were able to fully appreciate various aspects of his personality within 24 pages of paper and envision him as a student on their campus.
That said, K possesses many other admirable qualities and went through incredible experiences that enabled him to craft a beautiful and convincing application. He also contributed a large part of his success to the mentors he came across and of course, luck.
However, it was the countless hours he spent staring at the ceiling, racking his brains on ways to refine his approach that enabled him to weave all his experiences together and draw up a holistic and accurate portrayal of himself.
I’m not going to delve into details because not everyone here will benefit from such an elaborate explanation. (And because I’m going to do my best to convince him to do a write-up on his key takeaways from the US Applications)
However, I think that we can all learn from K’s deliberation in his approach.
Most people have the first two parts sorted.
We want to secure full A’s in A-Levels. Destination.
We know we’re willing to put in the hours required to revise and work through Past Papers. Determination.
Are we deliberate in our approach?
We may scan through PDFs after PDFs of our class notes but never took the effort to iron out the creases in our understanding, the holes in our knowledge.
We may spam years after years of Past Papers but never bothered to mark down the tricky question we got wrong and find the resources required to get it right the next time around.
That’s because, at least for me, being deliberate is the hardest component. Facing what we don’t know is hard. So we convince ourselves that the Exam Questions wouldn’t be half as hard, skip the question and never give it a second’s thought.
Being deliberate is hard, but its what moves the needle, its what is needed to get results that scale disproportionately.
With that said, I hope that this week’s delayed issue helped you rethink your approach to your destination and whether your current method is helping your determination pay off or otherwise.
Have a productive week ahead and let’s get to work.
Jia Shing.