The Secret to College Admissions with Julie Kim

Julie Kim is an L.A.-based college admissions counselor who helps young people gain entrance into America’s most selective colleges. In this conversation Julie pulls back the curtain on the college admissions process and shows young people how they can not only get into selective colleges, but how they can be happier and more excited as they do it. 

Julie Kim is the founder of Julie Kim Consulting. She has helped her clients gain admissions to the nation’s most competitive colleges, from Stanford to Yale, using her foundational strategy: the Passion Project. Julie developed the idea as a burned-out high school student and used it to gain admission to USC and later Harvard. In this conversation she turns the conventional wisdom about college admission on its head and shows how doing it the right way not only works, but also yields happiness and positive mental health. 

We cover a lot of territory including: 

1:50:  Steve offers two important disclaimers 

4:51: How social media around college admissions harms students’ mental health 

7:13: The great misconception about being a “well-rounded student” 

9:42: How to identify your “passion” (interest + action) 

10:26: Julie’s personal journey as a student 

12:05: Selling out your childhood for a fallacy 

12:39: An example of a student’s passion project 

14:23: The story of a friend’s son who didn’t get into his top choice college 

16:07: How to figure out your passion (or how schools need to change) 

17:49 Why project-based learning is so powerful 

18:59: The enormous power of connecting with adults 

24:17: The view from a college admissions officer’s seat 

27:07 How colleges look for intellectual curiosity. Hint: experience matters 

29:42: Julie and Steve reimagine what’s possible in schools 

31:52: Julie’s surprising advice to teenagers  

My favorite quote from this episode: 

“(When students work on a passion project) I think they feel refreshed that there’s another way to navigate life as an adolescent… A lot of my students tell me…no one told me that this was possible for me. So I think they feel like this is refreshing, and a little hopeful as well .” (21:50) 

Julie Kim’s website: https://juliekimconsulting.com 

About Experience Matters

Experience Matters with Steve Shapiro invites guests to reflect on the most profound learning experiences of their youth and to consider how we can reform American schools. Each episode provides clues about how parents and educators alike can engage young people in powerful, sometimes transformational experiential learning. Education can take many forms, but whatever form it takes- experience matters.