Episode 4: Transcript

"Investment banks with a small school attached"

Doug:

So how you doing over there? I mean we have to talk about Akil today.

Magda:

We do have to talk about Akil today. I had such a great time talking to Akil, Akil Bello who I was working for when you and I met.

Doug (00:06:48):

And who hasn’t aged since then. I mean he has like a few gray hairs in his goatee and that's about it.

Magda (00:06:53):

That's true. It's like he looks exactly the same except for a little bit of gray hair. It's like he's doing community theater and someone's tried to age him by just messing with his beard. But I mean, you know, it's funny because when we met, like we were just both these sort of dopey dorks like sort of bopping around the city and now like you know, he's married to somebody who's fantastic and he has these two really accomplished kids. The unsurprising part is that he's allowed them to be exactly who they are. So it's just kind of cool to see. And he's become an expert, like he's one of the leading experts in his field. It's kind of a testament to how if you stick to your guns, you eventually sort of drift into areas of your industry that you're more comfortable with. Right? Because for a long time he was trying to teach people how to beat the standardized tests and now he's really trying to get people to see how the standardized tests are worthless.

Doug (00:07:52):

Right. But I really enjoyed how when you get involved in test prep, that is a left turn for all three of us. Right. I was working in a law firm and thinking that law school was the next step for me. And I realized I really enjoyed working on LSATs more than I did working on law cases.

Magda (00:08:08):

Well, ‘cause they're puzzles, right? They're so much fun. They’re so much fun. Like for people who don't understand how LSAT would be fun and writing fake LSATs and teaching people to do the LSAT, imagine if suddenly everybody had to do a test that was like 80 Wordles in a row, <laugh> to get into the next phase of their career, the next phase of their education.

Doug (00:08:31):

I love that idea. 80 Wordles.

Magda (00:08:33):

Yes. And so this whole industry popped up of people teaching other people how to do Wordles. Right. <laugh>. Like that's what it felt like to me. The same glee when you get Wordle in three was how it felt teaching somebody how to take the LSAT.

Doug (00:08:47):

And I think what's also interesting is that the whole idea that we all gravitated into that industry, which I had zero idea about, I did not prep in any way for my SAT. I got up, I took it, I went home. The end. And the whole idea of how, ‘cause the investment people put into college and how what you train for, what you decide to train for when you're 18 is going to have this monumental effect on your entire life. It's going to alter your trajectory forever. And it's all nonsense.

Magda (00:09:20):

I think that's something that we understand that our parents didn't necessarily understand. Like it's very easy for us to say, “Let's not sweat what our kids are studying in college. Because what they end up doing probably won't even be a thing until five years from now.” Right. So my point in all of this is that the test prep industry didn't really exist when you took the SAT. By the time you had come out of college and had worked in law for a while, and that kind of stuff, John Katzman had started his company and then after that it became this huge, huge, huge explosion. And now everybody's familiar with the concept of test prep and it is an industry and you know, there's a short, a small group of those of us across the globe who can write a really tight five-answer multiple choice question.

Magda (00:10:08):

But you know, that's not something that existed before. And I think that's a big difference between parents now and parents when we were going to college. They just wanted us to get a great college education and to go someplace that was going to kind of set us up. Not necessarily like “you get into this school and then you have a good life,” but like “you get into this good school and you follow the program and then things are going to be easier for you and things are going to be possible for you.” And I just don't know if parents now necessarily see that linear connection anymore because I don't think the linear connection is there.

Doug (00:10:48):

Well so many linear connections are being either proved false or parabolically bent. There will be all kinds of slack cut for John Katzman ‘cause if not for John Katzman's company, we wouldn't have met and I wouldn't be the father of the boys we have. So I owe him that on life’s big Plinko boards, <laugh>, <laugh>.

Magda (00:11:09):

Okay. So what do we want to say about Akil?

Doug (00:11:10):

What I would like best? I mean he's as funny and knowledgeable as he was when we knew him 20 years ago. He's made a great career helping people just put things in perspective, calm down, and recognize the stakes aren't so high as you think. He's elbow-deep in the data, which is always a good thing for those of us parents who don't have time to study it to the extent he has. And he is got a lot of good advice and I really enjoyed talking to him and catching up with him. Almost as much as I enjoyed your 15 minute recruitment video for Winona State University.

Magda (00:11:40):

Haha. Hey, I mean if anybody's listening to this, take a look at Winona State.

Doug (00:11:45):

Yes. We were not paid for this, but Winona State, if you're listening, here's our Substack link.

Magda (00:11:50):

I'm all opinions.

Doug (00:11:52):

<Laugh>, legs, boobs and opinions. We'll be back next week. Yep.

Magda:

Exactly.

Our weird, royalty-free, vaguely Foster The People-ish theme music fades in, plays for twenty seconds, then fades out as Akil Bello starts talking.

Akil Bello (00:12:16):

Although I am technically 51, I've been “in my fifties” since I turned 50. <Laugh>.

Doug (00:12:21):

Is that some kind of revelatory math?

Akil (00:12:24):

Yes. I just, you know, it makes me amused to make it go up a little bit. I also lie about my height on my driver's license. So, you know, statistics…

Magda (00:12:33):

Don’t we all, though? Come on.

Akil (00:12:34):

My older son's actually taller than me now. I admitted that to him yesterday and made him feel really good.

Doug (00:12:39):

And how old's he now?

Akil (00:12:41):

17.

Doug (00:12:42):

Oof.

Akil (00:12:43):

So yeah, so it's weird. I'm in this really weird place where I've got a ninth grader and 11th grader. My 11th grader might be able to play low D-1 basketball.

Doug (00:12:55):

Really?

Akil (00:12:56):

My ninth grader is a professional actor. So all the things I know about college go the fuck out the window <laugh>.

Magda (00:13:02):

Right, right.

Akil (00:13:04):

Because they're not doing regular colleges.

Doug (00:13:06):

But that's the theme though! That's everything we knew about anything is out the window. That's what Magda and I realized we wanted this podcast to be kind of about, the whole idea of working toward a particular goal and then realizing once you get here, there's no there here.

Magda (00:13:22):

Isn't it kind of a relief though, since you know what's behind all this admission stuff that you're not about to have to step on that particular car of that particular train yourself?

Akil (00:13:36):

I don't know. Because they're going to college. We're going to participate in some level of the rat race.

Magda (00:13:45):

And it's the one you don't necessarily know how to game perfectly.

Akil (00:13:48):

Correct. Right. And, and you know, even “gaming” isn't the right word ‘cause I don't have Varsity Blues money. Right. <laugh>

Doug (00:13:57):

I don't have Hill Street Blues money.

Akil (00:14:00):

Exactly. <Laugh>. So you have to navigate a system, you know, so that's the hard part. Right. It's just, I am brand averse. I often talk to people about obsession of brand, but what's funny is like my kids pointed it out to me that like, I'm actually the inverse. Right? So I was like, “Obsessing with brand is dumb. Like I'm never wearing a Louis Vuitton. They put their logo on you and never buy that crap.” Right. But like, intentionally avoiding brand just because it's a brand is almost as bad.

Magda (00:14:32):

Well it's kind of a flex. Right?

Akil (00:14:34):

Right. So yeah.

Doug (00:14:36):

Well, how does it feel to have been professionally involved in this process for so long and now suddenly to have to walk the talk?

Akil (00:14:44):

I think that one thing that's interesting for me is that like, I've looked at education from very narrow lenses. We started in test prep together. Like test prep and admissions and education are all really different segments of things.

Doug (00:14:59):

Right. But you were calling out socioeconomic bias and test questions 30 years ago. So it's nice to see that that's finally reached the echelon of, of consideration, you know?

Akil (00:15:10):

Yeah. And I think that that's what's sort of what interesting about it all is that like, it's all stages of sort of the same thing, right? Moving beyond testing into the admissions world, realizing that testing wasn't what we were told it was. Because if it was this perfect evaluation of understanding ability, knowledge, blah, blah, blah, test prep couldn't exist. Right. <laugh>. So, so there was that. Then you move on to admissions and you start to realize that, oh, it's not this perfect meritocracy of the best and the brightest and the this and this. There's still some more gaming, and colleges and high schools are businesses. And businesses have demands that go beyond educational needs. And even as a parent, this is sort of a terrible way to phrase it, but like I tend to think about school choices like I wanted my kids to go to a place that I could ignore them.

Magda (00:16:06):

Yeah!

Akil (00:16:07):

<Laugh>, I wanted them to go to a school where like I send them there, the school does their job and I don't really have to track it because they're going to do their job so well that I don't have to be on top of it.

Magda (00:16:19):

I completely get that. I absolutely get that. I mean, our remaining child at home, there have been any number of shenanigans with the administration of his school this year. And it just was too much. It was like, wait a minute, one year left. Just one year, and I have to be paying attention? I sent how many emails to the district to find out basic levels of information, like who's the current principal of his school? Right. And so <laugh>, like just why? Why did I have to pay attention to that? It should be able to--

Doug (00:16:54):

Well, it makes you wonder, we're at this point now we're in this recovery point from Covid, and you think, will we ever really recover from Covid? And if so, how long will it be? Because right now educators are just so burnt out, unmotivated and feeling completely let down by administrations who bossed them around and treated them like dirt. I mean, step one is let's give them maybe a salary they can live off of, but are we going to come back from this? Or are we just permanently changed by how the capitalist approach to schools has beaten down teachers? Just like it's kind of beaten us all down.

Akil (00:17:28):

I mean, the capitalist approach to American society would be really the starting point of that.

Doug (00:17:32):

Right.

Akil (00:17:34):

It's insane that it seemingly has gotten increasingly worse in every aspect. Not only the capitalist approach to it, but the combination of individualism and capitalism, using individualism to tell you that it's your fault and your doing and your work. While capitalism does everything it can to work against you. Things that are fascinating to me is, you know, as over time learning things like the phrase “bootstrapping,” just how illogical that is and the origins of that phrase. Right. But it's become entrenched in what? Like, oh, just “pull yourself up by the bootstraps.” A sarcastic phrase that literally cannot be done.

Doug (00:18:17):

Yeah. Right. Literally, there are no straps on our boots.

Akil (00:18:20):

“Meritocracy” again was a phrase that was coined sarcastically that we've accepted as truth in society. So I think all of these things become really tough to navigate. For me, the simple approach to it is usually like, I'm going to navigate the system I live in while fighting for the one that I want.

Magda (00:18:40):

That’s it right there. We can just be done with the podcast right now.

Akil (00:18:42):

<Laugh>

Doug (00:18:43):

You spoke about colleges and institutions being businesses and you have to allow that to some extent. But then when you look at the flap of Harvard accepting 8 million dollars on a, at least 40 billion dollar endowment and then saying, “Oh wait, they know about this? Well then we'll just send it back!” That becomes a big story. How do you think that affects the overall faith in institutions to do the right thing when no one's looking?

Akil (00:19:13):

Yeah, that's the struggle. I mean, that's the hard part, right? Is that like, and I think that's part of me saying colleges are businesses, right? You don't really expect businesses to do the right thing. Yeah. <Laugh>. Right. Which to me is also why calling out College Board as a business is important, right? Because you say it's a nonprofit, you say it's a school, you say it's education, it becomes “for the children,” and we're doing the right thing. But you say it's a business and then that changes the perceptions of “what they want” should do. Right. And I think the problem with most of our educational institutions, they are nonprofits and they're supposed to, in our heads, work for the improvement of society, of whatever. But they're also businesses. So they have these conflicting drivers. I was going to write a blog to recategorize colleges according to where their revenues come from most <laugh>

Magda:

Oh, wow. I would like to read that!

Akil:

Harvard is an investment bank with a small school attached <laugh>. Most of their money doesn't come from tuition. So what does that mean about who they're serving?

Doug (00:20:24):

Yeah. The spectrum of sociopathy <laugh>.

Akil (00:20:26):

Right, right. LSU is probably, and I haven't looked at their numbers, right, but I would wonder, does LSU get most of their money from sports? So--

Doug (00:20:35):

Isn't that the case? Like every public employee in every state, the highest paid is an athletic coach.

Akil (00:20:40):

Right. Which would be entirely fine if they just ‘fessed up. Right? “We are the”--I don't know—"the NFL Minor League and we happen to have small schools attached so that our employees can go to school while they're playing sports.” If that was the framing, no one would object to it, except we want to pretend we have high morals and these are schools.

Magda (00:21:03):

I saw an article the other day, I'm trying to think of where it was from, we'll put in the show notes that said that the New New Thing was that people were paying to have their high school kids credited as peer reviewed authors.

Akil:

Yes.

Magda:

Right?

Akil:

Yes.

Magda:

And you know, of course the article was like, “oh, these horrible parents!” and “oh, these horrible kids!”. And I was like, “What the hell kind of school would look at a kid who's 17 years old and be like, ‘oh, you're a peer reviewed author, we want you.’?” Right. <laugh> like, why? I mean, oh, like every year there's one of those kids who just like does a science fair experiment and it ends up solving some problem that nobody's been able to solve. Right. But.

Akil (00:21:49):

It sort of makes sense, right? <Laugh> like when you sort of, when you put together all the pieces, right? Admissions staff, especially first readers tend to be young, right? Yes. So two, three years out of college, something like that, right? So you have a young reader who's reading a lot of apps, so they're not actually checking what that means. Like, do you, like you probably know, y'all probably know, but most people, I don't really know what “peer reviewed” means.

Magda (00:22:18):

I didn't know what that meant really, when I was 25!

Doug (00:22:20):

It sounds cool though! It sounds awesome on a resume. It's vaguely academic. So therefore it deserves our attention.

Akil (00:22:28):

It's amazingly academic, right? So you're getting tons of applications, especially at highly rejective colleges, right? They're getting tons of applications with kids that have litanies of impressive-sounding credentials. And when you're getting a hundred applications for every seat, a thousand applications for every seat, of course you're going to pick the most impressive-sounding credentials. So like colleges are almost forced to say yes. It's a weird consequence of the expansion of college admissions. 30 years ago, people largely just applied in their area to three or four schools. Now everyone's applying nationally, applying to more schools, applying digitally everywhere. So now you have all the best 100,000 kids from all the entire country all applying to the same 20 schools.

Doug (00:23:26):

But isn't that part of their marketing though? I mean, that's kind of the vicious circle because the more schools advertise how few students they accept, the bigger the cache and the more acceptances or the more applications are going to receive and the more are going to be rejected. Also, because it's so much easier to apply to a billion schools at once, use the Common App. Yep. It seems like it's a system that's feeding off itself into a layer of despair.

Akil (00:23:51):

Absolutely. And the question is, who blinks first? You know, you hear colleges say it all the time, “This is our best class ever!” which just makes like, where are we going with this? You know, like there was this article on some student from Stanford who like dropped out year one to found some tech something. Right? And to me it's like, of course he did. Because all they admit are fully-formed adults who've been not a child from ninth grade, working under a parent in Silicon Valley angling towards this from ninth grade. And they're just using their admissions to Stanford as the final stamp to go get VC funding. It's like, this was a plan that was in place for a very long time. You know, it's a strange consequence of two things. One is the commercialization of education. There is a consultant to pay to help you with every single aspect. There are businesses whose sole job is to help you gain residency in a state. So you can get in-state tuition.

Magda (00:24:55):

Oh wow.

Akil (00:24:56):

There are consultants. Wait, wait, my favorite, is there are rush consultants!

Doug (00:25:01):

Oh, sure.

Magda (00:25:03):

I found out about those when, remember when #bamarushfit was so hot? What was it, two years ago? And that was like when the entire country found out about the whole sorority rush thing.

Doug (00:25:14):

That's an outgrowth of test prep. That's another parasitic industry. You know, I mean, right. The harder you make a process, the more businesses prop up to help you with that process. And the more ridiculous they get.

Akil (00:25:25):

And again, very American to me, as income inequality has increased access to these services become more stratified and only the most wealthy can pay for all these things. And so that's who gets into college, right? That's who gets into these highly rejective colleges, the 200 of 4,000 that actually admit less than half of their applicants.

Doug (00:25:48):

And you mentioned, you talk about where does this end? Doesn't it end when the mountains of student debt does collapse?

Akil (00:25:54):

Yes and no. My concern for that is the wealthy family is not ever going to stop accumulating credentials because the cost isn't prohibitive. So who does that exclude? It's low-income people who are worried about the debt first. So they're going to stop going to college, which means their access to particular jobs goes away, which means perpetuating a cycle of staying in poverty. But then the second level that I'm worried about, you start with low income and then you go just above low income, right? Like the, the bottom two quartiles are the most concerning because no one funds “not quite wealthy” kids, right? You fund low income kids and the middle gets lost. So that's who's absorbing a lot of the debt.

I just got rejected from a job. Oh, oh, oh. Oh, this is amazing. Something popped up in my LinkedIn feed “remote test prep curriculum development.” Okay, I should qualify, right? I should get like seven interviews. Right? I've done this for 30 years. $200,000 a year. 20 hours a week. Sign me up.

Doug (00:27:07):

Good grief, <laugh>. Wow.

Akil (00:27:11):

Sign me up. So I went through the process, I clicked on the, I'm like, let's do this. Let's see what this is. It sounded like total BS to me. Right? So I click on it. The first thing is like, we're going to give you some cognitive assessment or something, or we're going to run you through some computer algorithm to see if you're qualified. Load it up. When they asked me where did I went to college, I didn't go to their list of 100 colleges, therefore dinged.

Magda:

Oh wow.

Akil:

Get asked the question that said, where do you go to college?

Doug (00:27:42):

Well, but that's, that's the also the idea that it's easier to find a reason to ding somebody that's part of the winnowing process. They just invent these bullshit echelons so that it's an excuse to ding you.

Akil (00:27:55):

Yes. And I'm not sure if this is actually a real job. ‘Cause all the parameters like don't make any fucking sense <laugh>. Right?

Doug (00:28:05):

This is like the Saudi Arabian golf tour of test prep jobs.

Akil (00:28:09):

<Laugh>. Right, right, right. Two hundred thousand dollars to write SAT questions for 20 hours a week. Yeah, no, that's not a thing. <Laugh>.

Doug (00:28:18):

Now in keeping with that talk about finance of colleges it was a big story last December when Colby Sawyer, this tiny school in New Hampshire decided that, you know, another big marketing tool is to talk about how much your annual tuition cost is. And then saying, we also have an aggressive FAFSA program. You know, you don't have sticker shock because we do offer aggressive aid packages, which basically meant that the tuition cost was a sham just to market it. You know, “we tell people it's 50,000 a year, but it's actually more like 20.” And then in December they finally said, “You know what? This is ridiculous.” And so I think the article said that their tuition cost was 46 grand and they said no, you know what, our annual tuition cost is 17.5. And it just kind of eliminated that as a nonsense marketing ploy that wasn't serving them anything. Do you think that's the kind of approach that might get some traction going forward is just being as transparent as possible about what these costs are versus what they end up being?

Akil (00:29:22):

I would love to live in that America.

Doug (00:29:26):

<Laugh> That can apply to so many things. That’s an evergreen comment. I'll definitely put that in there.

Akil (00:29:33):

Right now, I think the last number I saw was the discount rate for colleges is 56%.

Doug (00:29:38):

Wow.

Akil (00:29:39):

Pretty much assume that this is like shopping for a car, right? Whatever the MRSP is that's listed is total BS. Unfortunately, like this isn't a car for 20 grand. This is potentially a college for 300 grand. It's just like, it's a huge number to not know what it is going in, not know what it is until, until you're invested in wanting to go. Even worse than that, like you're asking an 18-year-old to fall in love with a place before they know the cost and then potentially price them out, right? That's tough. So I would love if we found a way in higher ed to move away from the business practice of listing high prices and offering coupons liberally. Right? I think that in the supermarket, that's one thing. Where 70 grand a year potential college, that's a whole, you know, when you're putting the debt on an 18-year-old, that's harmful in a lot of ways. Right? And I also think that that is compounded by these notions of “dream schools” and things like that where people get highly invested in these institutions from a very young age. Which to me again, is just a really weird thing that happens that I just don't understand. You know? I am not invested in any institution whatsoever. I'm not donating to my, you know, alma mater.

Doug (00:31:07):

Well why not? Because it's clearly not good enough to get you a job for 200 grand writing test questions!

Akil (00:31:11):

Clearly, clearly not. <laugh> I also went to school for architecture and I loved my experience there.

Magda (00:31:19):

And I think for architecture, you went to a name school.

Akil (00:31:23):

Apparently.

Doug (00:31:25):

The AI bot that read his resume didn't think so.

Akil (00:31:28):

<Laugh>. So if I, so I went to Pratt Institute and got a bachelor's of architecture, but I got caught up in the test prep deal and never pursued it.

Doug (00:31:37):

Well, how does that affect your appreciation of the college narrative, seeing as so many people go to college to study one thing and end up doing something completely different with their lives one way or another?

Akil (00:31:48):

It's an interesting thing, right? I question a lot of the narratives around education. I don't question the value of any and all education. I loved being in school for architecture. I love designing stuff. I love building models and thinking about all of that stuff. I still use a lot of design principles and presentations and things like that, right? So I feel like I learned a lot in school. Even things that I don't see as directly applicable I did learn. I didn't accumulate a hundred thousand dollars in debt, right? I don't think it would've been worth a hundred thousand dollars in debt. So I think that the notion of college that I was sold on--the learned scholar under a tree, learning for learning’s sake--is a laudable important notion. Because of the debt, the shift has become going to its career services now, right? The shift has become “you're going to college to get a job.” And I get that right? Because if I'm going to spend all this money there better be ROI at the end of the day. Whereas 30, 40 years ago when college was relatively cheap, you could go and just learn some stuff, even if it isn't directly applicable. It's a challenge figuring out is it going to be worth it? Because still with a degree, you still generally have a higher income,

Doug (00:33:07):

But the stakes are so much higher now because you're investing so much more.

Akil:

Correct.

Doug:

The pressure to make the right choice and study the thing that you decided to study at 18 and see that through, based upon the money you're putting in behind it, it seems as though it puts a lot of stress on the kid. If the college student is having any second thoughts about what they're studying, it's like, well when do you decide to stop putting good money after bad?

Akil (00:33:32):

For most kids--‘cause kids change their minds, right--it should be: don't bury yourself in debt to achieve intangible results. You know, I've talked to a student and I've had, you know, students who are like, “I got admitted to Harvard, it's going to cost me 70 grand a year versus I got admitted to Howard or Hunter and it's going to cost me 12 grand a year” and Harvard has a better reputation. Is it worth 60 grand? Probably not. Now if the money's equal, okay, cool. And that's why I think the obsession with brand becomes a problem, right? The notion of a dream school, someone who has their heart set on Harvard and been told since they’re 10, that going to, you know, University of Illinois at Champain Urbana is the be all end all of education and they're willing to take on 50 grand a year in debt. Like that's probably not a thing. Cause you know, I love UIUC, but if Michigan State is six grand a year and UIUC is 24 grand a year, that's a pretty simple decision. And I think most people aren't looking at that way. They get caught up in brand name in these terrible US News rankings, which are just a ranking of prestige, right? So they get caught up in brand and prestige and the velvet rope-ness of it all.

Doug (00:34:50):

And the aggressiveness of the PR firm.

Akil (00:34:52):

Yeah.

Magda (00:34:53):

I can't even believe those US News and World Distort rankings are still around. I mean we've been talking about how bullshit they are for 25 or 30 years, right? And then there was that whole period when all those college presidents were not filling out the forms as a protest and all that stuff. And they're still out there and people are still looking at them! It makes no sense whatsoever.

Doug (00:35:17):

Well it's very pleasantly reductive, right? It's like, you know, if you look at a rank that's the best marketing, especially since, you know, there's a segment of media that wants to create controversy with lists. I mean, Buzzfeed figured that out with listicles, you know, a decade ago to the point where you inspire discussion and you get people upset. “Why isn't this school ranked higher than this school?” And you think about that as an alumnus as well. You're like, “wait a minute, why am I only sixth? That's bullshit.” You know, and it's just, it's meant to get people riled up.

Akil (00:35:47):

Yeah. It's the brutal simplicity of numbers. And I think that in so many different ways in education we're inundated with meaningless data. The difference between a 1200 on the SAT and a 1230. Like we all know that that is a meaningless distinction. But like people buy into it. The distinction between a school ranked one and 10, like, like arbitrary numbers. Selectivity is literally a ranking of popularity. That's all it means. It means nothing about the quality of school. It simply means “the number of applicants versus the number of acceptances.” And guess what? Acceptances are driven by the number of seats they have available. So if the school gains popularity for whatever reason, their selectivity will go down with no changes in their actual educational quality.

Doug (00:36:38):

It makes you wonder, just to cause discussion, one of these years US News is going to say “The number one school in this country is the University of Wyoming.”

Akil (00:36:48):

They won't.

Doug (00:36:48):

Yeah. But the point just to get people upset about it, just to get people like what, what are you talking about?

Akil (00:36:54):

No, they actually have said that they do the inverse. There was one year, maybe it was Caltech, maybe it was, something public became number one and they got some kind of blowback and they've never allowed it to happen again.

Magda (00:37:11):

It was Caltech, I remember that. Everybody was like “wait a public school?? How is that possible?”

Doug (00:37:16):

So it was a blow to their credibility, I guess. They figured, you know, people aren't going to pay attention to us that we're just pulling stuff out of the air.

Akil (00:37:22):

They literally said it last year with the Columbia controversy ‘cause they found out Columbia was juking the stats. And a professor at Columbia came out and was like, “Yeah, these numbers that are published don't match up anything I know about my university” <laugh>. So he wrote a blog about it and showed all the numbers that he thought were wrong. And so US News basically said,” y'all are lying about your stats. You're not going to fix them in time. We're dropping you from two to 18.” Somewhere in there they said something like, “We didn't drop them further because if we did people would question our rankings” <laugh>. So, so they were like, “We're willing to bump you down because you are a liar, but not so far that you'll hurt our clicks.”

Doug (00:38:07):

Well eventually it's all marketing isn't it?

Akil (00:38:10):

It is.

Doug (00:38:11):

That's a good segue point I thought. Tell us what your background is. Tell us why you aren't an architect <laugh>,

Magda (00:38:16):

You know why he isn't an architect. The same reason I’m not a PhD in Comp Lit.

Doug (00:38:19):

And what Fairtest is and why you're actively looking for other jobs. <Laugh>.

Magda (00:38:25):

Yeah. Just like what do you want the parents of the world to know right now?

Akil (00:38:31):

Oh, let's see if I can make all of this short. I'm Akil Bello. My current title is Senior Director of Advocacy and Advancement at Fairtest, which is the National Center for Fair and Open Testing. It's an advocacy organization that argues for more reasonable, more limited use of standardized tests. In my second year of college, at my second of three colleges, ‘cause I attended three colleges in order to secure one degree ‘cause I do things efficiently. <Laugh> I started working in test prep with you guys. And I did that for 10 years before I went off and started my own company, my own test prep company. And then I moved more into educational policy and access. So my career has basically had three phases. The first essentially being helping students do well on tests and understand tests. The next being helping institutions navigate testing.

Akil (00:39:30):

And then the third being addressing the system of admissions and testing, dealing more with policy and systems and things of that nature. It's been a journey over the years recognizing things like when people say “SAT” they think they mean one thing, but what they actually mean is something that has changed 22 times since it was started. And something that its inventor claims measures one thing, but somehow a paper-based test that's four hours is somehow exactly the same as a coming computer-based test that's two hours, because these are the exact same measurements of ability <laugh>. So it's a weird world we live in recognizing that a lot of the beliefs and myths that we have around education and its associated pieces are proxies that are not the core of what education is.

Doug (00:40:37):

Because of course you'd be a much better college student if you know what the word “regatta” means.

Akil (00:40:41):

Wouldn't we all? <laugh> My favorite SAT analogy word to remember is “stevedore.” And I don't know if I ever looked it up, but it was in the second season of The Wire and that was the only time I saw it in the wild. Right?

Magda (00:40:56):

In the wild! I don't think I've ever seen “stevedore” in the wild. Ever.

Doug (00:41:00):

Same thing with the mean words that sound like the opposite. Like “enervating.” That's someone getting off on making kids struggle.

Magda (00:41:08):

Okay. But don't you think on a certain level, like the idea that you could memorize a big vocabulary and do better on the test is kind of charming now? I mean like at the time it seemed like a big barrier, but I feel like having gotten two children to adulthood, if I could say to them, “Here's this list of a thousand vocabulary words. If you can learn these, you're going to do better on this specific weird test, you're going to go to a better college and then your life is going to be set”?

Akil (00:41:41):

There's so many problems that I have with that phrase, right? Like, like what I love vocab, right? Like, like I love words. But to test them is ridiculous. Absolutely <laugh>, right? Like so there's that. The second part is that like, if that's how you do better on the test, then what's the value of that test? Especially in a modern society. Maybe in 1900 when access to information was really hard, that might have made sense, right? But in a modern society where we're a click away from the definition of all words

Magda (00:42:14):

And the pronunciation too!

Akil (00:42:16):

It kind of makes no sense.

“Better college” and “set for life” is also questionable and problematic.

Magda (00:42:25):

Do you think there ever was a time when going to the right college did make you set for life? You know, like there's that whole Harvard Grant Study that studied those white guys who went to Harvard and the ones who sort of fell off by the end were the ones who were drinking too much. Right? But barring that, do you think there was a time when the college that you got into determined your fate?

Akil (00:42:50):

“Determined” I think is too strong a word. I think that this country likes brands as a simple proxy for meaning, and knowing that these highly rejective colleges have already vetted kids on the way in. You have no idea what they did with them while they were there, but you know they vetted them on the way in. Some employers choose to use that as a metric to let them vet who they invite for interviews. It's lazy but makes sense. How much it matters is questionable. And I think one of the things that makes that problematic to assess is forever the most highly regarded colleges, especially the private ones, have been affiliated with wealth. They had the network going in. So the whole argument of like, “you go to these places and you get this amazing network,” it's not actually true for the majority of these students who got in because of their network and are probably going to get jobs because of their network and the degree is the cover used to confirm that we're hiring daddy's friend anyway.

Akil (00:43:56):

Does it matter for some students? Absolutely. Is there a network there? Absolutely. How much it matters? I don't know if it matters whatever the cost is associated with going there. So I think that that's the challenge is that these are ill-defined qualities and values and benefits to attending these places. And we don't actually define the thing that we're supposed to be going there for. There's nowhere you can go to tell me do they teach math better at Georgia Tech or at Michigan State. You can tell me who has more money in the bank.

Doug (00:44:30):

Well that's another case about the intangibles. And one of the things I do discuss with the boys is one of the aspects of college that people don't stress enough is that it's a great place to meet people that are going to be your friends for life or that you're going to network with. Most of my best friends are people I met 40 years ago. But at the same time--

Akil (00:44:47):

And I actually am not sure about that. Because, and I think part of that may be racial demographics, I know two people who I went to college with, who I stay in touch with simply because of Facebook. My strongest connections are actually former students.

Doug (00:45:01):

Well, we can't all be teachers for 40 years Akil.

Akil (00:45:04):

Right! <Laugh>. So that's the challenge, right? But I'm also kind of a weird college student. I didn't live on campus in the school I graduated from. So that may be part of it. So there's a lot of different things in play there. I definitely think there's definitely value in the relationships you establish when you're living and working next to someone. I wonder whether it has anything to do with the place itself or it's just the nature of living and working with people.

Doug (00:45:32):

It's funny you mentioned racial dynamics, too, because I mentioned “regatta” because that's one of the most commonly referred to analogy questions that indicates socioeconomic bias. However, I like you love words, love vocabulary and I get the sense that analogies were invented just because schools want to address how well you communicate or recognize that your ideas aren't really worthwhile unless you can communicate them in some way. And the level that you do communicate is a big part of your education and your ability to grow. So if we take analogies out of a test like that, how do you think would be a better way, and a socioeconomically fair way, to help people express how well they communicate ideas on a standardized test? Or does that even exist?

Akil (00:46:18):

I don't think so. I think that we're asking too much of standardized tests. If we stop with “this is testing a fixed set of information and your performance in a particular set of circumstances,” then that's about what you know. I know less math than the vast majority of kids I tutor for the SAT. My older son started ninth grade math. They did vectors week one, he asked me for help. I was like, “I don't know what this is.” <laugh> Like he was doing geometry like in his ninth grade class. I'm like, “I dunno what a vector is.” What's fascinating is what I found out when I started, ‘cause now vectors were on my mind. I noticed it on the ACT tutoring it soon thereafter. Right. But what I found out was that like the way it's presented on the ACT, all I had to do was like I could guess my way to an answer really reasonably, even though I had no real understanding of what a vector was.

Magda:

See, that’s the kind of standardized test I love.

Akil:

<laugh>. Exactly right. I mean, it says something about my abilities to guess my way to that right answer. But it's so sort of quasi meaningful. And I think that like if we were more transparent and honest about what it actually told us, they could be more useful than they are. But the way that standardized tests are currently treated as if they convey, like, real knowledge is problematic.

Doug (00:47:44):

Well that's how we figured out that they were bullshit because we knew that the techniques were in most cases more useful than the knowledge.

Akil (00:47:51):

Yeah. And things like vocabulary. The problem is that so many of these things go down weird rabbit holes. Like, I know I tweeted at some point an analogy from like the SSAT, which was “silks is to jockey” <laugh>

Doug (00:48:04):

Again. Yeah.

Akil (00:48:06):

Like, yeah. It's like, what?

Magda (00:48:07):

I don't even know what “silks” are as a plural noun.

Akil (00:48:12):

You're clearly not college ready.

Magda (00:48:15):

Wow.

Akil (00:48:15):

It feels to me like these are like, they took a set of books that all the kids in these private schools read and they took the words from them.

Magda (00:48:23):

How much do you pay attention to the nitty gritty of admissions in any given year? Or are you looking at it mostly from the test side and really just looking at the highly rejective colleges? By the way, that's the most brilliant phrase. I love that you coined it. People I don't know at all are using it and I'm like, “haha, Akil came up with that.” It's just, it tells the truth of the situation.

Akil (00:48:49):

I mean it's, it's sort of fascinating. So I'm always in admissions data in some way, shape, or form. Like, right now I'm digging into scholarships and how many of those are tied to test scores. So I'm pulling up all kinds of data to play with that. The highly rejective thing is interesting ‘cause it was a random tweet. Again, I like words <laugh>. So I like words and I hate brands. And that's kind of what led to that. But I also recognize that it is reductive. It's flipping a term and making it negative aggressively. And it's still unfair. Education is nuance and if we're not having nuanced discussions then it's just wrong. Right? I don't think University of California is highly rejective. They have some really low admissions rates, but that's simply because California has a huge population and cheap college and therefore everyone in California applies to college in California and they can't take all the students even though I believe they've grown their capacity. So when I say “highly rejective” and I let it broadly apply to any school with less than 30% admit rate, that's unfair to California. Because I don't think California relishes rejecting students. Whereas I do think there are other places that really like to reject students.

Magda (00:50:09):

Yeah. I also think that there's some schools that just sort of become the It school to apply to suddenly, and I wouldn't say that they really deserve the term “highly rejective” either. I think some of them are kind of floundering because suddenly they're getting a lot more applications and they have to deal with them and they don't have infrastructure to deal with all that influx of applications. I also think that the yield numbers, sometimes.

Akil (00:50:34):

That's what I was thinking about some of these. Some of these places get huge applications and their yields are terrible.

Magda (00:50:39):

Yeah.

Akil (00:50:39):

Yeah. I think the number over the last 20 years, the average number of applicants, maybe it's over the last 30, but something like that, has gone from like four to maybe seven. So 20 is high. Right. And the problem is the media likes hyperbolic stories.  They just ran a story of a kid who I think applied to 168 colleges.

Magda (00:51:00):

What is the point of that?

Akil (00:51:02):

Yeah, it's weird. So Common App I believe limits it to either 10 or 20 applications. So you actually can't apply to that many. But there are a few different systems that you could. If you did, you can do the Common App for 20, you can do the Common Black Application, which is like 64 schools. So you can get there kind of quickly.

Magda (00:51:20):

Yeah. Well, that's what I was thinking about. I was thinking--It's called the Common Black App? I know there was a special one for HBCUs but didn't know what it was called. But that to me is concerning because it's not helping the yield rate of the lower tier of schools that it goes to.

Akil (00:51:38):

The school cares about getting applications from people who will never come. But a student doesn't. Now I think there's two different things that go on there. There's one, kids who are applying because they're like, “I don't know how much this is going to cost me so I'm just going to apply everywhere and hope that somebody gives me something affordable.”

Magda (00:51:57):

Right.

Akil (00:51:58):

Now that may speak to are you getting good advice. If you're legitimately thinking “I'm going to apply to a hundred places hoping to get into one of them,” then potentially you need better adult advice. ‘Cause you should be able to get your results that you want applying to 10 places or less. Right? But the story that I saw recently, one phrase that jumped out of me that I don't think got enough attention was they mentioned “he set a Guinness record,” which I think that was his entire point. Which I'm fully in support of. Like, if that was whole story, this was your sport for the week, great. If you're doing it as a legit applicant strategy, I have a little bit more trouble with that.

Doug (00:52:43):

He can put on his application he was a varsity troller <laugh>.

Akil (00:52:47):

Right. How about “I'm a varsity college applicant.” <Laugh>,

Magda (00:52:50):

Right. But I think part of that also is the fact that recording on anything that involves numbers I think is always just horrible. Right? So the whole reports were like, “This kid is just such high quality and he got 3 million dollars of financial aid.” Well, it's not like he can use all 3 million at the one school he attends. Right?

Akil (00:53:11):

That’s not true. I have 17 Bed Bath & Beyond coupons. So I'm going in there and they're going to give me things for free.

Doug (00:53:17):

Wow. That is a very troubling analogy. <Laugh> <laugh>. Higher education and a bankrupt, outdated institution. Woof. <Laugh>.

Magda (00:53:30):

Okay, so I'm going to switch topics again. Back to admissions and yield rates. So you know, the pandemic disrupted everything. And so we got kids who were deferring and kids who were going for their first year and then there was some huge number of transfers from one place to another. And somebody was asking me like, well, do you think they just all made the wrong decision? And I was like, no, they were miserable because the colleges didn't know how to manage the pandemic in any way. And they thought the way to be happy was just to leave and go to the place that they hadn't chosen the first time. But I also noticed that last year's admission cycle for the kids who are just finishing their first year of college. There were kids coming in who didn't have grades for a year, kids weren't able to do their activities, all that kind of stuff, the College Board canceled a number of test administrations, all this. And so it seemed like the schools were just kind of freaked out by things and a lot of them calculated incorrectly and were not getting the yield they thought they were going to get. And so one of the college groups that I'm in, everybody was just being very honest with each other and they were saying, wait a minute, this school that my kid got wait listed on, the director of admissions called to ask them to commit. And it seemed like the schools were just completely scrambling. And then I just thought, wow, this is a, what is this?

Akil (00:54:52):

One problem is parent blogging or parent Facebook groups, which are full of a very particular type of person. <Laugh>. So--

Doug (00:55:06):

I will vote for you for any political office you seek because you are, your tact is extraordinary. Please go on.

Akil (00:55:15):

So it's a little of a bit of an echo chamber that projects onto all colleges, things that very few colleges do. I would also say another issue is the need to predict from the parent student part of it. I don't think you need to predict

Magda (00:55:31):

Well, but you have to predict to know what schools to apply to in the first place, don't you?

Akil (00:55:35):

Nah. You have to be reasonable. I can take any kid, give them 10 schools, they'll get into one of them. Unquestioned.  If they're reasonable. If you accept that admissions rates are not additive. Only, what is it, 70 colleges admit fewer than 30% of their applicants. So people who are freaking out about “it's impossible to get in” are looking at those 30 colleges and kind of--

Doug (00:56:05):

Isn't that also a symptom of volume just because there are so many more people are applying for spots. There just are no room for.

Akil (00:56:12):

Right. So you applying to those, it gets really hard. But there's some really good--Michigan State admits about 78% of their applicants. I'd be thrilled if my son went to Michigan State. I think it's a great institution. Michigan State also graduates like 84% of their students. That's a school that's doing what it's supposed to be doing.  Let's 'em all in, gets 'em all out. It's like, hey, right. This is kind of what I want college to do. You know, don't let nobody and don't graduate nobody. Like we talked high admissions and high graduation. So I think the obsession about a particular set of schools, and not only about getting into those places, but predicting the outcome before you apply, creates these unnecessary stresses. And then ignoring that these are businesses. That student they're chasing down for, you know, on May 5th, whatever it is, my bet is they're probably full pay.

Akil (00:57:10):

And the school has made a calculation of, “oh you wanted to come here? If we give you six grand, you'll spend 300 grand. Let's go ‘cause we haven't hit tuition revenue yet.” They've had formulas for years and years and years of how to calculate their yield, tuition, revenue and all of these things were disrupted by the pandemic. So prediction is a lot harder in the pandemic, but what if, and I'm just saying as a parent, what if I stop trying to predict? I'm going to encourage my child to apply to places they'll be happy and I am going to monitor that we don't apply in such a way there's a very slim chance of me getting in.

Doug (00:57:49):

So what do you think, speaking of the pandemic, I think we're still in a correction phase. Do you see a time where we might kind of get back to business as usual in the next however many years?

Akil (00:58:00):

I don't know. Well, no, it won't be the same. But that was happening anyway. Colleges are talking about the “demographic cliff” because the number of children graduating from high school is going down. I believe the number of children being born has gone down. So like those things are changing college calculations.

Magda (00:58:18):

It's the kids who I think are freshmen in high school right now. That's the first year of the admissions cliff.

Akil (00:58:25):

Okay. So there's the admissions cliff to deal with. Right?

Doug (00:58:28):

And the narrative about college is changing too. I keep thinking about, remember when Rick Santorum said, “President Obama wants everyone to get a college education? What a snob.”

Akil (00:58:37):

Yes. Yes. So the narrative is changing. So perception of necessity of college degree, you have competition from credentials and those sort of things. And tech certifications. So the world of achievement and credentialing to get to the next thing to get to the job was shifting anyway. And the influences of that was shifting anyway. And then you add on a pandemic, right? Which accelerated “test optional,” which increases applications at some places, right? It accelerated a lot of other things. Gap years and this and like this. So all of these things probably didn't change as much as we've been told. Transferring probably didn't happen as much as we were told. Gap years didn't happen as much as we were told it was going to. A lot of those things were folks making predictions that often didn't come true, but they certainly happened to some level. But to me what it all adds up to is: shit changed. So all of the predictions we try to make or that we're using past data to try to make are much less reliable. You have to find your peace in uncertainty.

Doug (00:59:45):

And that's what every college-age parent wants to hear.

Akil (00:59:48):

<Laugh>

Doug (00:59:50):

Come to peace with the unknowable. And that's what makes these Facebook groups all that more full of anxious and under-informed conjecture. Well, which makes the whole process feel like you're just in one of those booths trying to grab as many $1 bills as possible before the timer goes.

Magda (01:00:04):

All right, so I think that this is the point of what Akil is telling us because the whole story of this episode of the podcast is “How did we think we were supposed to go into this college admissions process with our kids?” And I know that for those of us who went to college 30 years ago or 35 or 40 years ago, we sort of were sold this narrative that the thing to do was figure out how to game the admissions test, figure out how to game this, figure out how to game that, figure out how to put your kid out in the best light, and then it's a formula. But what you're saying is “shit changed and shit is changing and make your peace with uncertainty.”

Akil (01:00:52):

It has never been as certain as we wanted to believe. Every year you can find stories on “This kid didn't get into the school we were certain he was going to.” Institutional priorities have driven admissions forever, but it was never highly predictable. What hasn't changed is “Present your child in the best light possible to places you think he will be happy and successful,” and those are the things you can control.

Magda (01:01:15):

All of parenting to me has been about figuring out how to be okay with the fact that my kids are less similar to me than I thought they were going to be. Like, you have this idea that you're going to, kids are going to be like you if they are genetically related to you. And then they're not. And it sometimes is a hard pill to swallow. Right. You know, like Doug and I love math and then both of our kids struggled so much with math in elementary school and we were like, how can this be? You just like, I don't know, it was just a long elementary school slog with kids who just inherently did not like math. And Doug and I were like, “What are you talking about? Not like math??”

Doug (01:02:01):

Yeah, I used to teach calculus and the whole point is, you know, shit changes. That's what calculus is and it's a whole idea of like, you have 20 bucks in your pocket, is that good or bad? Well, it depends. Did you have 10 before or did you have a hundred before?

Akil (01:02:14):

That's funny ‘cause your explanation of calculus I think is kind of beautiful. I learned four months ago what calculus was. So I was reading a report on how calculus is overused in admissions and the first line actually defined calculus and I stopped and I went, oh yeah, I don't actually know what it is <laugh>. Like I didn't know, like I knew it was hard math, but I couldn't go any further than that until I'd actually read this report. They defined it as “infinitesimally small change over time.” I was like, oh that could be useful to know!

Doug (01:02:49):

And actually I had to create a class for the school I taught in ‘cause it was a small school and it was either the seniors took stats or AP Calc, but there were people who wanted to learn calc but didn't want to study L'Hôpital's rule and all this arcane bullshit no one ever uses in order to do the test. Right? So we made this calculus class that was based on medicinal doses.

Akil (01:03:11):

So that's, what's interesting in all the things you're saying here is that like you're saying what schools should do, which is very contrary to what most schools do do. They have the option of statistics, AP Calculus, which has a very, very specific focus and particular curriculum, and then the created calculus, which is about understanding change. And having those options equally in front of students is education. Having a school focused on AP Calculus because colleges will think that looks good is the opposite of good education.

Doug (01:03:43):

The answer to this question has already been filtered through many of the things you've discussed so far. But if there are parents out there who are, you know, have kids in their early teens or just looking at this down the road, if you could distill some basic advice to parents in that situation, what might you tell them?

Akil (01:04:01):

Throw away the notion of a dream college. Throw away the notion that one place will define success in any sort of absolute way. Let go as much as you can of the notion of certainty of outcomes. And start the process with what the kid wants and needs. Right? So I want to find colleges not that are the most selective or highly ranked. I want to find colleges where my child will find what he wants to pursue and study, and that all indicators say they'll serve them well. My goal is that college is a pass-through on the way to the rest of their life. So as long as that pass-through happens well and with as little debt as possible, I'm good.

Doug (01:04:51):

And so we all look forward to Akil's upcoming title Zen and the Art of College Application.

Akil (01:04:57):

<Laugh>. <laugh>.

Magda (01:04:58):

Okay. I'm going to tell you for Adam, here's the most underrated school in the United States, in my opinion: Winona State University.

Doug (01:05:07):

Oh, for heaven's sake. All right.

Magda (01:05:09):

Okay, come on, Doug. You don’t know anything about it.

Doug (01:05:10):

You just want more people in your grandmother's basement.

Magda (01:05:13):

All in, if you get no financial aid, tuition, living, all that kind of stuff it’s like $21,000. They're the only composite materials engineering program in the country and they've got really strong physical therapy and sports programs. They've got strong nursing, that kind of stuff. And it's just a lot of really nice kids, big sports culture, 6,000 undergrads, D2. It's sort of like being at a private school with public school infrastructure, if that makes sense. And somebody ranked them like “the number one football game day experience” because it's such a small school and they're playing these--

Doug (01:05:51):

Well that person is, I'll have what they're having.

Magda (01:05:54):

They're in this really beautiful town.

Doug (01:05:58):

It is a lovely spot. You can major in Winona Rider if you want.

Magda (01:06:02):

No, you cannot. You can major in sticky buns and coffee if you want. <Laugh>. Do you have strong opinions about AP tests? Like if we want you to do another episode in like four or five months?

Akil (01:06:14):

Yes, I have strong opinions on everything probably.

Magda (01:06:17):

Okay. Well, because I feel like APs right now specifically are being oversold and I also think that issues with access in the past haven't caught up to the way they're being used now, and it's turned into a big pyramid scheme.

Akil (01:06:32):

Actually I was on a thing last night about AP African American studies. I was on a webinar about that with Kimberle Crenshaw. That's my homie. Just so that you know, I'm fancy.

Magda (01:06:42):

I know! Well, you were listed on that brochure right next to her!

Akil (01:06:45):

I was first. I was first, I'll have you know. I was above--

Doug (01:06:49):

The joy of having AB as initials.

Akil (01:06:51):

Hey, hey, hey! We're not saying WHY I was first. We are simply mentioning that I was listed above Kimberle Crenshaw and Al Sharpton. <laugh>. So the African American studies thing has been interesting, but AP as a whole is always an interesting discussion.

Doug (01:07:08):

Well that's, I really appreciate all your answers. I think that's a really useful answer. I think there's a lot of, just, resists how we're being riled up in the world and try to calm down and let the information speak for itself. Find trusted sources, find people who've been at this for a while and can understand the trends and that can extrapolate where it's going, people like yourself. So I know you're very active online, you're on social, you write for Forbes. So where can people find you online to learn more about your advice and your overall view of what's going on?

Akil (01:07:40):

So the best place to find me unfortunately is the worst place. I am on Elon's Twitter far too much <laugh>. I'm just @AkilBello. That's probably the first social thing I update. I also have AkilBello.com, my own website where theoretically I blog, but that happens about once every six months or so. So we'll see what happens.

Doug (01:08:03):

You're really underselling this. <laugh>

Akil (01:08:05):

<Laugh>

Doug (01:08:08):

Again, I know you don't like branding and marketing, but now's your chance to defy that ethos and just, you know, brag on yourself. <Laugh>

Akil (01:08:15):

Twitter is the best place to find me where I spew all the important information and facts that you want to know. <Laugh>

Doug (01:08:23):

Tune in for my morning drive show on 102.7 The Morning Zoo <laugh>.

Akil (01:08:28):

Exactly.

Doug (01:08:30):

Thank you so much Akil for being here with us today. I think college applications are, have become a real thicket for parents our age and I think we rely upon the opinions of people like you who just have been at this for a long time, who know which trends are worth worrying about and which ones are less so. And it's just great to connect back with you after all these years and thanks for doing what you're doing and I really appreciate the time today.

Akil (01:08:54):

It's my pleasure. It was great talking to you and it's always fun to reconnect.

Doug (01:08:58):

All right, thanks for listening everybody. This has been episode four of the When The Flames Go Up Podcast with Magda Pecsenye and Doug French. And we will see you next week. Thank you.