Interview with Admissions Consultant and Education Planner Stef Mauler, MBA

This episode is a little bit of a deviation from talking exclusively about college students academics, mental health, and career. I've had so many parents reaching out describing the wheels coming off BEFORE freshman year of college so I reached out to Stef Mauler for some insights into what's going on with high school students preparing for college.

Stef is owner of The Mauler Institute, a Certified Educational Planner and a professional member of IECA, HECA, AICEP and NACAC. She and her team serves students in 8th through 12th grades by providing one-on-one coaching, small group workshops and a self-guided step-by-step program for admissions coaching and planning. She's the author of The Complete Candidate, which gives tools, tips, and tricks helping students succeed in gaining admission to target schools.

Here are our show notes with links to the people, places, and things we referenced.

The Mauler Institute
The Complete Candidate: A Comprehensive System for Solving the College Admissions Puzzle
US News and World Report College Ranking
Nassim Taleb - Super smart author of several books on economics including Antifragile: Things that Gain from Disorder
The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness - Jonathan Haidt
The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business - Charles Duhig
Supercommunicators: How to Unlock the Secret Language of Connection - Charles Duhig
Leonard Sacks - Fantastic author focused on gender, boys, girls, and insights for parents

https://www.youtube.com/channel/motivatecounseling
https://motivatecounseling.com/

https://motivatecounseling.com

Transcript

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Rob Danzman: All right.

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Rob Danzman: Steph. Thank you so much for joining me this morning. I'm really looking forward to hearing more about what you do. Your business all the details around it, as well as some of the kind of personal path items that we were talking about just a second ago. So if you're all good. Let's start questions.

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Stef Mauler: I'm so delighted to be here, Rob.

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Rob Danzman: Excellent. So let's jump right in. What do you do?

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Rob Danzman: Where do you work? Name of the business? Everything like that, and maybe give some details about the specifics of what you do, as comfortable as you are with that.

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Stef Mauler: Sure. So I'm an independent educational consultant, which basically means I work with high school students starting 8th grade through 12th grade to help them develop and execute successful college admission strategies. So it includes everything from high school course, planning summer activities, extracurriculars. We do all kinds of assessments. And then, of course, as we're getting into developing college lists and executing those applications.

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Rob Danzman: Excellent. And do you work? You said Independent Ed. Consultant

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Rob Danzman: Do you work on your own? Do you have your own business? What? What does that look like.

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Stef Mauler: Yeah. So I have my own business. It's called the Mahler Institute. So it's myself. I've got a team of amazing writing coaches. I've got an assessment specialist, and of course our director of student success, who just make sure all the trains are running on time, but independent in that I don't work in partnership with any particular college or school. I'm not an enrollment manager. I'm not an agent. We are working just with families.

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Rob Danzman: Okay. And so just to let everyone know we will put any websites, any links, any books, any any references you make? We'll put in the show notes

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Rob Danzman: at the at the bottom here. So

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Rob Danzman: do you. Do you have any financial ties to any higher ed institutions, or is it completely separate? I mean, is it okay?

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Stef Mauler: Completely

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Stef Mauler: independent. We work for families on behalf of families to help families navigate this process to help those families achieve their goals.

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Rob Danzman: Okay, how?

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Rob Danzman: How do you? How did you decide to start the kind of the the grade zone? 8th through 12? th Why not 7th graders or 6th graders, or only 9th graders or 10th graders like, how did you decide that age range.

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Stef Mauler: Well, 1st of all, I think 6th and 7th graders need to be 6th and 7th graders.

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Stef Mauler: And I often actually, I just got a call from a 7th grade parent, I said, call me next year. So the reason I start with 8th graders, and I'm not working with my 8th graders as intensely as I'm working with my juniors and seniors. But in many schools 8th graders are starting to take high school classes, and it's an 8th grade where they need to select their 9th grade classes.

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Stef Mauler: And so, with all of my 8th graders, we have a 4 year high school plan which we revisit every year. But I want to make sure that those students have the high school classes that are necessary to be admitted to any school in the country because some of those decisions in 8th grade can have lasting repercussions.

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Stef Mauler: Furthermore, it's the summer after 8th grade where colleges start looking at resume items. So summer planning becomes a really big deal, and if you think about it, for most students in the Us. Summer is roughly 3 months long, give or take.

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Stef Mauler: So a student who leverages all 4 high school summers has a full year of development growth, learning versus a student who just kind of sits and stares at the wall.

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Rob Danzman: It all. Yeah, it sounds like

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Rob Danzman: It sounds like you were thinking about it from a developmental perspective. 1st of all, your comment about like, let's 6th and 7th graders be 6th and 7th graders. Maybe it's too young to get them stressed out about thinking about college.

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Rob Danzman: And it also sounds like developmentally that that summer after 8th grade is, I think that's what you're referencing. That's a good time for the process to begin, because these higher Ed. Institutions are. That's where the clock starts ticking in terms of accumulating data that influences their decision making.

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Rob Danzman: Are are there ever students that you see that.

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Rob Danzman: do you? If a parent comes to you and says we want our kid, because presumably it's not the 9th grader that's contacting you, it's the parents

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Rob Danzman: are there parents that ever bring a kid to you, who you think? Maybe college is not the best path for them?

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Rob Danzman: And if so, how do you?

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Rob Danzman: How do you frame that response to parents because they're the ones paying you? And they're the ones saying like, we want our son to go through your process. And we

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Rob Danzman: and and we want everyone to go to the ivy's or a fantastic state school, or something like that. What does that conversation sound like?

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Stef Mauler: So, 1st of all, let me be clear. I don't think everybody has to go to college.

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Stef Mauler: There are many paths to success colleges, but one of them. It just happens to be the one that I work in.

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Stef Mauler: So when I meet with families 1st of all, I won't meet with a family unless the student is there.

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Stef Mauler: So I require the student to be in that 1st meeting because it's the student who needs to choose the process, and the student needs to choose the partner.

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Stef Mauler: And there are times where and in every single meeting I asked the student, do you want to go to college.

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Stef Mauler: and sometimes they say I don't know, and I think that's a really worthwhile conversation to have. Typically speaking, the families who work with me are not the ones necessarily where the student should not go to college, but maybe is not ready to go to college just yet, and so I'm a big believer in gap year programs

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Stef Mauler: as long as they are productive gap years.

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Stef Mauler: So again, sitting and staring at the wall or playing video games for a year is not productive, but going learning a language, getting a job, trying an internship, you know, doing some exploration, very productive.

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Rob Danzman: Steph, I have to disagree with you. There are lots and lots of kids who think that playing video games is a very productive use of their time.

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Stef Mauler: Well, to be fair. My husband was in the video game business. So I'm very.

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Stef Mauler: Oh, man, okay.

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Rob Danzman: I can't tell you how many times I've heard students like, say, Rob, there's research on the hand eye coordination of playing video games. And I'm like, Yeah, dude, I know, I know. But like, let's look at how many doors does that open? You know. Yeah.

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Stef Mauler: Big industry.

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Rob Danzman: It. It is a big industry.

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Stef Mauler: We'll try to. We'll.

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Rob Danzman: Very good to me, so we'll we'll try

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Rob Danzman: tread lightly. We'll tread lightly through talking about gaming. So you talked about a Gap year program and how

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Rob Danzman: you're a fan of gap year programs and not all students. I like what you said about not all students should start immediately.

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Rob Danzman: What tingles your spidey sense when you get a student, because you're not acting as a clinician, you're not acting as their therapist or psychiatrist or psychologist. What what do you see from your perspective where you're like, oh, this kiddo.

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Rob Danzman: maybe not ready to start. Fall semester after senior year of high school. Yeah, what what do you? What are you seeing when when that comes up.

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Stef Mauler: Well, if we just remove the obvious, you know, health issues that kind of thing that needs to be addressed.

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Stef Mauler: You know, I'll have students who come to me say

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Stef Mauler: fall of senior year, and they just haven't done the work that's necessary to get to the kinds of colleges that

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Stef Mauler: they would like to target. They don't have basic things like standardized test scores. Or perhaps they made a misstep in some classes and maybe need a little bit extra time to reduce some things.

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Stef Mauler: you know. Some are coming to me saying, Hey, I'm really thinking about community college, which is a really great path for some students, and I think, well, why community college? Why not take a year? Grab a job? Let's rethink this application. So some students just need a little bit extra time, and I don't know why. In the Us. In particular, we're all in such a rush. I don't know what the what the end goal is that we're all speeding toward in Europe. Gap years are very common.

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Stef Mauler: so I don't know why we haven't normalized it here.

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Rob Danzman: I know that friends and colleagues of mine that are in Australia. It's a cultural norm after high school to take a year to the point where many parents will kick their kids out of the house and say, you need to go travel for 6 months or a year before we're going to put any money towards higher. Ed.

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Rob Danzman: so yeah, that it seems like the Us. Is one of those outliers. I wonder?

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Rob Danzman: Maybe maybe this is too much of a rabbit hole to go down. I wonder if it's because Higher Ed has a vested interest in

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Rob Danzman: not not enthusiastically supporting gap. Years

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Stef Mauler: Yeah. But I wonder if we might have more successful outcomes for freshmen going to college if they had an extra year of growth and maturity and experience, and really understanding why it is they're there.

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Rob Danzman: Right.

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Rob Danzman: I agree. Yeah. The recidivism or return rate. Spring semester of freshman year seems to be dropping, especially among young men over the last few years, even before Covid.

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Rob Danzman: obviously, I'm biased on clinician. I wonder if you see any quasi or suspected clinical issues that are popping up with your high school students that you're working with

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Rob Danzman: where it may not be academics. As you said, you know they it may not be about a class that they need to retake or they didn't do certain testing. I wonder if there are some mental health, behavioral health, even medical issues that you see kind of popping up on the radar that might be better addressed rather than kind of going into freshman year.

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Stef Mauler: I mean, and I am not a therapist. I'm not a clinician.

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Stef Mauler: however, and I'm this is not news to anybody. I mean, anxiety is off the charts. And I think that there are a lot of things that are feeding into that you know, this is a generation that's grown up on devices.

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Stef Mauler: Everything is recorded in perpetuity.

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Stef Mauler: They're marketing themselves all the time.

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Stef Mauler: Nobody can have a bad day or a zit.

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Stef Mauler: and on top of all of that. And I'm seeing this actually bleed into the academics and the quality of the applications as well.

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Stef Mauler: because we've got devices all the time. Nobody has the time to be bored.

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Stef Mauler: And because that people now I think the level of critical thinking skills is really on the decline.

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Stef Mauler: because people just don't have time to sit and think.

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Rob Danzman: I like that a lot. I like the B word a whole lot, because humans for well, hundreds of thousands of years it was the default setting was to be bored, and we started sharpening sticks and stones, and it got us to.

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Stef Mauler: Creativity.

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Rob Danzman: Right.

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Stef Mauler: Right. That's where it evolves when you've got nothing else to do.

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Rob Danzman: Also brain development, not just in terms of creativity, but also abstract thinking skills and making connections, thinking abstractly about relationships and

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Rob Danzman: where do. I want to go to college, you know, if we're kind of bored on a walk, we imagine our future.

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Rob Danzman: But if we're always being stimulated, we may not have access to thinking abstractly about our future. So I like it that you brought that up. How do you again? I'm going to go back to. How do you frame these conversations with parents? Because I can't imagine that it's always like super lovely, comfortable conversations that you're having? Sometimes there may be some uncomfortable truths with the parents or the student.

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Stef Mauler: So this is

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Stef Mauler: a really big topic, and it's a conversation I have among my colleagues across the country.

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Stef Mauler: it's a really big challenge. And I think there have been so many things that are leading into this anxiety. And quite frankly, I'm really concerned about a number of students in my client base this year

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Stef Mauler: because they have these expectations

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Stef Mauler: of getting into these fancy ex schools, and they have expectations for decent reason. 1st of all, since Covid grade inflation has been rampant. Everyone's got an a average.

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Stef Mauler: Everybody. That's why schools are going back to standardized testing.

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Rob Danzman: That's a good point. That's.

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Stef Mauler: So everyone's got an a their parents see all these straight a's

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Stef Mauler: so, of course Stanford is in play for them.

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Stef Mauler: and it's Stanford and Harvard and Yale, and Brown and Penn and Cornell, and never mind that. Nobody who would be really happy at Penn would also be really happy at brown.

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Stef Mauler: So they're not even looking at what these school experiences are. They're not looking at what the educational philosophies are. They're not looking at what the opportunities are, I mean, totally different educational philosophies at these schools.

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Stef Mauler: But they're applying to all of these fancy schools. And I'm trying. I try to have these conversations with parents and with students. I try it 1st from just straight data. Right? Okay, you're looking at a 3% acceptance rate. Well, let's take 12% off the top for recruited athletes. And let's take another 13% off the top for international kids. And you know the numbers, just it's just a math problem right? Far too many great kids, not enough spots in these schools.

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Stef Mauler: Well, when the data doesn't work, then I try to approach it from sort of the emotional intellectual anxiety perspective, which is hey? Little Katie is working so hard and has worked so hard throughout high school, and really wants you to be proud, and I would really hate for Katie to get the unintended message that unless she gets into Crazy School X, she's somehow a failure or a disappointment.

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Stef Mauler: and I have to tell you, Rob, like this year. These arguments are not landing, and I am about to have a number of students who have swung way above.

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Stef Mauler: you know.

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Stef Mauler: I think that we're going to have a lot of disappointment. And furthermore, these are students who have always been used to achieving.

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Stef Mauler: And it's going to hit really hard. I'm really concerned about the mental health impact of having these outsized expectations in the college admissions process.

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Rob Danzman: I think that's such a good point. I see it.

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Rob Danzman: I see the

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Rob Danzman: I see a few clicks down the path for these students where they they're hitting sophomore year.

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Rob Danzman: and it's just not working, and often they are in a business school somewhere.

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Rob Danzman: They are in over their heads.

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Rob Danzman: And when, after the rapport has been built, after they have felt comfortable enough to share what? What do they really want to be doing? Not their passion. I can't stand the P. Word.

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Rob Danzman: Thank you, not not no passion, no, no, no!

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Rob Danzman: What we need to be focused on is ability, interest, and compensation. That's the sweet spot, I think.

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Rob Danzman: And so when we when I start having that conversation.

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Rob Danzman: 75% of the time. And it's especially young men now, they are saying,

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Rob Danzman: I don't want to be here like, and and not just in my office, you know. We're a Zoom Meeting, but they don't want to be in that B school.

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Rob Danzman: They don't want to be in those classes. They want to be doing something else.

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Rob Danzman: That's not not

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Rob Danzman: not poetry or English class or anthropology, but like they want to be doing something else that's productive, but not living out this expectation from their parents. But the expectation feels different than it did 10 years ago.

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Rob Danzman: It just has a different flavor to it from my angle of things.

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Rob Danzman: and and one of the things that I communicate to my clients.

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Rob Danzman: almost all suffering, unless it's traumatic brain injury or trauma from childhood is.

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Rob Danzman: we can we can see a proportional relationship between suffering and the gap between reality and expectations.

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Rob Danzman: The problem is whose reality and whose expectations, and often that's where the biggest misalignment is.

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Rob Danzman: And and then on top of it.

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Rob Danzman: there's no communication in families there is no communication. There's little communication between

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Rob Danzman: parents. There's little communication between parents and student, I mean, and and we can go kind of like all around the system. So. And it sounds like you are seeing that

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Rob Danzman: on the onboarding side, because you're seeing you're you're in very early in the conversation around like, you know, what are we going to be doing for the next 4 years? So

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Rob Danzman: yeah, I, yeah. And I like that. You pointed out. They're not curious about the school experience, because Brown is very different than Penn. Very different, very different.

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Stef Mauler: Great schools, but very.

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Rob Danzman: Right? Yeah, interesting. So how?

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Rob Danzman: So, what are you doing? Differently?

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Rob Danzman: What are you doing? Differently in terms? Because you're you're you're owner. You get to decide

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Rob Danzman: how you work with parents and students, are you doing anything differently? Or is it really just kind of updating skills in terms of how you communicate, but you're letting parents kind of drive the kind of drive the ship towards like what they want.

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Stef Mauler: Well, I mean, keep in mind. Parents are paying me.

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Stef Mauler: So there is that I do have in my contract, though, so I work with students on up to 12 applications, and I have in my contract that I get to pick 2.

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Rob Danzman: Oh, that's interesting. I like that.

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Rob Danzman: And sometimes on occasion, it's a kid who maybe isn't pushing themselves far enough.

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Stef Mauler: But more often it's the kids who, you know. I want to make sure that every kid has great options. And you know, in this process, which is so, you know.

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Stef Mauler: anxiety producing.

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Stef Mauler: I often encourage parents

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Stef Mauler: to have at least one school. That is a mental health play school. So I typically start working with students. January of Junior year on applications for an October November submission. So that's 9, 10 months.

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Stef Mauler: And so we work feverishly for these 9, 10 months, and we submit, and then they have to sit and wait.

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Stef Mauler: and waiting is excruciating

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Stef Mauler: and depending on where they apply to school just because of the way the deadlines work. They might in some cases have to wait until March, April

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Stef Mauler: depending on the schools.

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Stef Mauler: and so there is something to be said, for submitting an application to a school where they're either an auto admit, or that has a rolling application, which means they review applications and make decisions in the order in which they are received to a school, even if it's not their top choice.

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Stef Mauler: but a good choice, so that cause waiting with an offer in hand

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Stef Mauler: makes for a much happier household

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Stef Mauler: than waiting when you're, you know, have no idea of what's happening or what's going to come in until March of Senior Year.

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Rob Danzman: This interview is not going to go well, because I keep thinking of more and more and more questions for you. Oh, man, okay, I'm going to try to get the release. Do you see a trend

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Rob Danzman: in the degrees that people meaning parents?

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Rob Danzman: Are kind of over indexing towards.

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Stef Mauler: Yes.

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Rob Danzman: Because years ago I would say maybe 7 to 10 years ago, and then earlier

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Rob Danzman: degrees were not really all that much of a focus. It was more like the school was the focus, and then choosing a major or degree. Once you get in there.

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Rob Danzman: are you seeing something change in that? Are you seeing a change in the programs, if not specific degrees, but like a program like a business school, we're going to aim for that. And then we're going to decide. Is it

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Rob Danzman: finance or real estate? Or you know, whatever the kind of like specific degree track is?

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Rob Danzman: And then I'm going to pile on a whole bunch here.

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Rob Danzman: do you see a difference in gender? Like how people are applying? Do you see more

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Rob Danzman: women, men, young women, young men, or transgender. And do you see people more comfortable, or feeling compelled to

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Rob Danzman: kind of articulate gender as a focal point?

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Rob Danzman: And then the last part of this is.

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Rob Danzman: how have the personal essays changed over time?

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Rob Danzman: So that was a really easy question. You'll probably be able to spit out an answer. Really.

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Stef Mauler: Yeah. So part of this might just be a little bit

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Stef Mauler: myopic, just because of the the client base I serve. So I would say most of my client base are

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Stef Mauler: families, either

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Stef Mauler: very, very highly educated from very, very fancy schools in the Us. Who are now kind of trying to help their kids get in. And and of course the landscape has shaped has changed

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Stef Mauler: or families who were educated outside the Us. Who are very educated, but their children are now 1st generation us quite frankly as I am, and so I think that a lot of those clients come to me. I grew up in Canada, so I grew up British system and came to the Us. For school, so I very much understand the differences and the difference in expectations between British system schools and American schools.

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Stef Mauler: I think because of that.

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Stef Mauler: Yes. So a lot of computer science.

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Stef Mauler: a lot of my families come from South Asia. So that's kind of been their ticket to come to the Us with visas. And they've done well. And so that is why computer science now is the most competitive major in the country.

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Stef Mauler: In my client base. Just because of my background, I have a business background. I tend to work with a lot of business kids, pre-med kids, engineers, computer scientists. I in my client base don't work with a lot of artists performing our visual. It's a whole different area of expertise. So I tend to refer those out. So my perspective might be a little bit skewed. Nationally, of course, yeah, women are going to college in much higher numbers than men.

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Stef Mauler: and are staying and graduating in much higher numbers. And if you haven't, I'm sure you're probably familiar with Dr. Leonard Sachs and his work, brilliant Guy, and studies the growing gender gap between men and women.

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Stef Mauler: I'm now forgetting the rest of your questions.

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Rob Danzman: Well.

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Rob Danzman: piggybacking on the gender question in terms of like the percentages. But also I injected in there the transgender part, that is.

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Rob Danzman: I think it's it's it's come up over just the last few years.

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Rob Danzman: And it seems like a very messy topic for so many different reasons. And I wonder if you're seeing anything with that? Or is that just not really a factor.

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Stef Mauler: It, it is, but in smaller I would say more.

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Stef Mauler: in again in my client base. And this might just be a question of sort of location geography, I mean, certainly more than 10 years ago, but not in large numbers, I would say interestingly, during Covid I had a lot of students come out as gay.

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Stef Mauler: and particularly women.

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Rob Danzman: I had the same experience.

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Stef Mauler: Yeah, it's interesting.

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Rob Danzman: Experience.

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Stef Mauler: Any thoughts as to why?

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Rob Danzman: I'm going to sound like I'm 80 years old now. I think that there was. I think there was a social media aspect to it. I don't think that it was the

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Rob Danzman: the only factor. I think it was a dominant factor, and the reason why is because there were there were several variables that were consistent among all of the clients that I worked with.

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Rob Danzman: and this is going to sound very specific.

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Rob Danzman: and it's actually leveled off. Since then

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Rob Danzman: I would have clients that either needed a higher level of care with their parents, contacting me, looking for residential treatment, or an Iop or Php.

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Rob Danzman: Sometimes they were trying to find, like medication management.

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Rob Danzman: There was a trend where the the individual, the client, would change their name

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Rob Danzman: and they would change their hair color.

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Rob Danzman: they would change the length of their hair, and this sounds very specific.

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Rob Danzman: I had dozens and dozens and dozens of clients from all over the country

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Rob Danzman: within the span of 3 or 4 years before that.

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Rob Danzman: Not I mean, maybe once a year, maybe every 2 years, I would have something like that. There was something that was happening, and it started during Covid, and I can see it very distinctly, like, you know, if I were to go back through all of my intake forms.

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Rob Danzman: There was this very distinct line, and it's trailed off since then.

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Rob Danzman: and and in terms of like other factors.

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Rob Danzman: Hey, there! There was an opportunity to explore, I think because if I'm imagining experimenting with my identity.

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Rob Danzman: or if I truly believe that I am something different.

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Rob Danzman: it's much safer for me to do that, presumably in my home

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Rob Danzman: rather than out and in school.

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Rob Danzman: And so I think that there were. I think there were just so many kind of factors, but I think that those were kind of some of the dominant ones.

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Rob Danzman: The last part of my question was about the personal statement and some of the essays that need to be written.

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Rob Danzman: And and I'm not even going to bother asking about Chat Gbt, and all that, because we already know, like don't do that. And even though people are still doing that, and whatever what's changed

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Rob Danzman: in terms of personal statements.

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Stef Mauler: So.

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Stef Mauler: And this is probably practice specific. So

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Stef Mauler: when we work with our students and personal statements, we try to push our students to get to what we call second order insight.

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Stef Mauler: So 1st order insight is like high school level thinking. It's the thinking that anybody in that situation would have. So it's the my soccer team is going to the State final, and we haven't won. And we're down 2 points. And you know the Star Kicker sprained his ankle and is off on the sidelines, and you know.

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Stef Mauler: with a minute left we we managed to, you know, win so 1st order. Insight is, you know.

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Stef Mauler: persistence teamwork. It's very boring.

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Rob Danzman: Right.

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Stef Mauler: So we always push our kids to get to second order. Insight, which is the what is the insight that only you had in that moment.

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Stef Mauler: like, maybe it was something about how the star Kicker led while wasn't on the team. Or maybe there's some insight about Wow. Sometimes a good leader actually has to take himself out of the situation so that other leaders can emerge. Or maybe it's like, what is the thinking? That's only you, so that you can show admissions that you have a different level of thinking, and you can push your future classmates to think

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Stef Mauler: so. That's what we always strive for

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Stef Mauler: it has been harder to get there. The lack of critical thinking has been very

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Stef Mauler: difficult. I thought that it would change once we got rid of the Covid kids.

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Stef Mauler: So this is the 1st year that students, you know, did high school in school.

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Stef Mauler: and we're not seeing it. I thought it was going to turn around this year, and it hasn't. I think it gets back to that. Everyone's getting A's. I think teachers are tired and they're not pushing kids as much in school, and it's the lack of boredom.

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Stef Mauler: So.

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Rob Danzman: I think there's the challenge.

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Rob Danzman: There's no necessity to examine deeper.

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Stef Mauler: Yeah.

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Rob Danzman: There's no reward for examining deeper. There's no reward on Tiktok for explaining the why behind the what.

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Stef Mauler: It's not even that. It's it's even just the amount of attention students are putting to just basically reading feedback

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Stef Mauler: because we live in a headline world.

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Stef Mauler: So they're not even reading the article. They're just not even getting the amount of feedback. So it is extending the number of drafts we're doing with our students. I'm not sure that there is much difference in terms of topic selection, but there is difference in

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Stef Mauler: how we are working with students. We're finding. We have to take more time to teach them. How do you structure an essay? How do you put together an outline? How do you plan what you want to say like these are things that should be taught in school. And they're not.

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Stef Mauler: I mean our students. Typically for a personal statement, they're doing 20 drafts.

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Rob Danzman: It.

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Rob Danzman: I'm going to make a statement and then ask a question. It sounds like, really what you all do. The roles that you

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Rob Danzman: satisfy or or need to really embrace, are that of consultant English teacher.

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Rob Danzman: quasi therapist? Because that question, that second order question.

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Rob Danzman: whether you like to hear it or not. That sounds like a therapist, I mean, that is fantastic.

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Rob Danzman: That is how you get to something real. You know that authenticity like.

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Rob Danzman: Don't give me this Bs about like, you know, like, Oh, we need to overcome. You know, this really hard thing like.

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Rob Danzman: no duh, you know. Yeah, what was I love that part like oh, what was what was the insight? Only you could have in that moment which really pushes someone

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Rob Danzman: to to dig deeper the questioner.

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Rob Danzman: And I'm gonna lead this away from the topic of kind of the content of what you do. And then more towards like the the personal side of like

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Rob Danzman: how you got here.

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Rob Danzman: what differentiates you, and and you can make this as sales pitchy as you want. What differentiates you because you're you're not the only one doing this. There are plenty of other

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Rob Danzman: individuals, groups that are doing, Ed consulting and coaching that know how to edit, and they know how to ask like thoughtful questions.

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Rob Danzman: what differentiates you from everyone else?

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Stef Mauler: So my background is squarely rooted in business.

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Stef Mauler: Right? I have an Mba that's my background. And I approach this from a business perspective. I am a certified educational planner, so I have all of those credentials. A lot of my colleagues are former teachers or counselors who are no longer in the school system for one reason or another, that is not me.

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Stef Mauler: And so what differentiates me is, I use proven business principles and strategies to help students identify what differentiates them from everybody else. What's the unique value proposition that they offer to schools? And we use that that application to communicate it.

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Rob Danzman: I don't know if you do this already.

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Rob Danzman: It sounds like it could be a scaffolding infrastructure or a template for what students use

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Rob Danzman: junior year when they're applying for internships and when they're about to get into career. I mean, it sounds

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Rob Danzman: virtually the same.

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Stef Mauler: It's so funny you say that. So I have.

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Stef Mauler: So I have. So my juniors. In spring of junior year. I believe the most important part of this entire college admissions process

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Stef Mauler: is to identify what makes each and every student unique. What's the impact they want to have in business? We call it an elevator pitch.

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Stef Mauler: Right? I will have students in spring of junior year. I mean, they'll spend a month working on 3 sentences.

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Stef Mauler: And it's really funny what you just said, because I just saw I was speaking at a panel actually at Harvard Business School about college admissions, and one of my former clients who's now at Uchicago was there, and he was sitting in the audience, and he came barreling up afterward, and he's like Staff Staff. I just use my elevator pitch to get the best internship. So it's the same elevator pitch he used in high school to get into college. He's now using to get internships and jobs. So it's exactly what you're saying.

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Rob Danzman: Students are so poorly prepared from high school to college, and so poorly prepared to for

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Rob Danzman: in internships, and resume building and interviews.

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Rob Danzman: And then starting a career. I mean, it's just absolutely amazing to me. And these are students that are in business schools.

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Stef Mauler: Well, and it's so ironic, too, because their whole life on social media is curated.

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Stef Mauler: So you would think that they would be better positioned to market themselves than we were. You know we were kind of fumbling our way through. So you would. So it's a little bit ironic that they spend their lives curating their tiktok, their insta, and everything else. And yet when it comes to

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Stef Mauler: presenting themselves in person, it's it's an interesting.

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Rob Danzman: That's a good.

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Rob Danzman: Yeah. I think that's a really great insight.

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Rob Danzman: Yeah, that that is the the contradiction, because they're so poorly prepared.

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Rob Danzman: Yeah. I also take, I take schools to task because they're not.

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Rob Danzman: in my humble opinion, especially business schools, not preparing students like they. It's almost like they're

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Rob Danzman: The information they're working from is from like the late nineties or early 2 thousands in terms of like resumes and Cvs and interviews. And it's just not updated

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Rob Danzman: for what students need.

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Rob Danzman: Steph, you made mention? I'm going to switch gears. You made mention to being in the corporate world for a little bit. I wonder if

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Rob Danzman: if we could really move. Go in the way back machine and talk about like

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Rob Danzman: How did you get here? And let's start with like undergrad. If you're cool with that, how did you choose? Did you have someone working with you? You mentioned that you came up through the British system in Canada.

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Rob Danzman: Yeah. So what was your path? And how did you land here?

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Stef Mauler: It's a very long and windy path. I'll actually go a little bit further back. So my mom was a World War, 2 refugee from Ukraine.

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Stef Mauler: and so ended up in Canada, which is where I was born and raised. And.

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Stef Mauler: as is the case for every immigrant refugee family, it doesn't matter what your country of origin is. The story is the same, and that is, education is supremely important

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Stef Mauler: as it was in my family, and so I was interested in some of the highly selective schools in the Us. I also, the Canadian system is, as I mentioned, more similar to the British system, which means you really have to track what you want to do from high school, because you are applying to a specific faculty. And if you want to switch faculties. You basically need to start over from the beginning. There is no liberal arts.

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Stef Mauler: sort of philosophy, no general requirements. So you really need to understand what you want to do. Quickly. I went to a pretty small

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Stef Mauler: boarding school 84 students in my class, so I didn't have access to all kinds of different things. So I was interested in some of the selective schools in the Us. I did my undergrad at Penn.

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Stef Mauler: and it was so interesting to me, coming from a system that was so quantitatively based. I couldn't understand why there were so many kids who are class valedictorians, perfect test scores not being admitted to their top choice schools. And then there were kids like me. I mean, I was smart. I was not my valedictorian. I couldn't even take my sats in Canada to meet the deadline. So I had to drive 13 h to Princeton, New Jersey, while I had a cold, armed with only a book because it was Pre Internet, and I took my sats at Princeton High School during their homecoming parade.

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Stef Mauler: and they were not good. But I was admitted, and so, to be perfectly honest, I started volunteering in Penn admissions. When I was a freshman in college

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Stef Mauler: I started out as a tour guide, walking backwards, avoiding potholes, and eventually grew my role. And I worked there for a lot of years, and I loved it. But it was also really frustrating, because for every kid who was admitted there were easily 7 or 8 more who would have been at least as selective. We just didn't have the space. And so I looked for patterns. What were the patterns that distinguished the kids who got in from the kids who didn't found a pattern used it on myself and I applied to graduate school again without a 4.0 Gpa. Or an 800 Gmat.

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Stef Mauler: Or the ability to donate a building which helps sent us legal bribing crew coaches, not legal donating buildings. Legal. Couldn't do that, though, but I was admitted to every Mba program to which I applied. So I did my Mba. At Harvard, and then Post Business School followed a more traditional Mba path and ran a few divisions of a consulting firm in Washington, DC. In the supply chain manufacturing space.

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Stef Mauler: But off the side of my desk, because I was like working with super smart, interesting young adults. I was kind of the unofficial graduate school counsel for all of my colleagues who were doing their obligatory 3, 4 years of work experience.

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Stef Mauler: And so everyone who used my system ended up in top programs in the Us. Handful in the Uk. We moved from DC. To Texas for my husband's business, which was, he was with gamestop. So video games. I got tired of flying back and forth to DC every week, and so I went back to school to Uc. San Diego, which is one of a handful of schools that offers a graduate program in college counseling. And so that's kind of how I got here.

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Stef Mauler: And and it makes sense when you look back on it.

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Stef Mauler: But I mean there were, you know, after after undergrad. I did go to Wall Street I worked at, you know, hated it, went back to work for an undergraduate professor, and actually ended up teaching part of the Exec Ed program at Wharton before applying to Wharton. So that was a good letter to have my application. So it's it's been a. It's been a long and windy road, but I find that most people, probably in my age. Group, do you have a long and windy road.

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Rob Danzman: Thank you.

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Rob Danzman: Why why start your own business, though? Because there, I mean, you could have worked other places you could have, I mean you could have worked in academia. You could.

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Rob Danzman: I mean that long and windy road could have led you towards a provost or chancellor? I mean.

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Stef Mauler: Yes.

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Rob Danzman: Realistic.

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Stef Mauler: It was actually looking in that direction.

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Stef Mauler: and I met, you know, various. Through various connections, I met with a woman, an amazing woman who was previously the Dean of Admissions at Uchicago Law School, who now is an independent educational consultant, and within 10 min she spoke to me, and she said, you are absolutely. Do not have the demeanor or the patience to work in higher. Ed. That sounds like a compliment. You're absolutely right.

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Rob Danzman: That sounds like a compliment.

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Rob Danzman: So let's put aside the

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Rob Danzman: the consulting portion of getting into college.

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Rob Danzman: What advice or insights do you have for

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Rob Danzman: current college students based off of your path.

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Rob Danzman: Let's it could be as informal or personal. Yeah, what?

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Rob Danzman: What are people not seeing that you wish they could see.

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Stef Mauler: That's a great question. So

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Stef Mauler: I think that there are a few things. So one is, you know, in my generation

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Stef Mauler: it was predicted that the average person would have between 3 and 5 completely distinct careers, not jobs, careers. It's certainly true for me. So I started out in finance. I went to consulting. And now I'm in education

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Stef Mauler: for my child, who is now a junior. Going through this process. High School Junior. It is predicted that their generation will have between 5 and 7 completely separate careers.

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Stef Mauler: So building those.

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Stef Mauler: you know, foundational skills, the critical thinking skills, the inductive deductive reasoning skills, the ability to spot opportunities and capture them will be vastly more important even than in our generation. Which is why I'm still a big believer in a really solid Liberal Arts Foundation.

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Stef Mauler: So I think in my client base, and I think there are a lot of students who have a lot of anxiety about knowing exactly what they're going to do for the rest of their lives.

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Stef Mauler: And I would just tell him to kind of like, take a breath

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Stef Mauler: and look at various opportunities, and.

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Stef Mauler: you know, raise your hand and take the opportunity, and also, when you are in the workforce.

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Stef Mauler: is to be the person who volunteers.

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Stef Mauler: If there's a project nobody wants to do be the person who volunteers.

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Stef Mauler: So, having a bias towards

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Stef Mauler: yes, if you just say yes, you will become the person who not only gains more experience, gains more relationships. But is the person who, your superiors will say, give it to that guy, cause that guy is always up for doing the extra work.

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Stef Mauler: I think that's how you distinguish yourself now.

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Stef Mauler: because so few people do it.

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Rob Danzman: What concerns do you have? And you might have a little bit of like insider knowledge because of what your husband does. But also it sounds like you also have colleagues in a lot of different industries and sectors. How is AI

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Rob Danzman: going to eat?

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Rob Danzman: I mean, everyone's doing computer science.

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Rob Danzman: I think about it from the angle of computer science finance. Even consulting anything that's data focused

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Rob Danzman: seems like eventually is going to be eaten up by AI.

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Rob Danzman: What? What are your thoughts on this in terms of like the insights for? Like what skills to acquire? Because in in 1890, if my parents had said, like you should totally go into a buggy whip manufacturing industry. I'm like, Oh, yeah, that sounds great. Well, within a few years, like there were cars everywhere, and the buggy whip industry was gone. So I wonder? Like.

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Rob Danzman: yeah, how is AI going to change?

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Rob Danzman: What recommendations you give to students.

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Stef Mauler: You know I can't even wrap my head around. AI. I keep trying to.

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Stef Mauler: I just

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Stef Mauler: well, I mean, first, st I think every student needs some level of digital literacy. Regardless of what you do.

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Stef Mauler: But I think it's gonna change industries in ways that we can't even

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Stef Mauler: acknowledge. I'm not sure, though, yet how many

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Stef Mauler: companies have figured out how to make it profitable? It will come.

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Stef Mauler: You know. There are so many different schools of thought on this, and I've talked to different admissions. Directors about this, you know there are. Certainly. I think it's going to come to AI as a tool much like a calculator as a tool or a computer as a tool.

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Stef Mauler: And we need to figure out how to leverage it.

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Stef Mauler: So I think, actually, your critical thinking skills become more important, not less important.

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Rob Danzman: Sounds like taking classes in philosophy and.

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Stef Mauler: Well, I'll tell you. I have a a good friend of mine, who is probably

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Stef Mauler: one of the, if not the world's expert on stadium financing.

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Stef Mauler: and one of her most recent hires for her team history, Major.

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Stef Mauler: And I said, why? Because, speaking personally, because I, my son, is a junior and wants to study history and is terrified. He'll never get a job, and I'm like, No, just go study history. You'll be fine. So I asked her why, history, and she said, You know I've got models and spreadsheets. I can teach math. Math is easy, but give me somebody who can read vast amounts of information, distill it down. Spot trends. That's the person I want. I'm like, Okay.

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Rob Danzman: That's a really I've never. I've never thought about history majors in that way before. I think that's a really good point.

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Rob Danzman: It it that strikes me as why I,

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Rob Danzman: when when sometimes clients will ask about like going into behavioral health or healthcare, and they ask about

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Rob Danzman: oh, can I get a Master's degree to do. Blah blah, I'll say like, no, that's really not a great idea unless you want a terminal degree, for you know, ending here. An undergrad degree is more valuable than a master's degree because of the

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Rob Danzman: the classes in research and reading research and being able to understand what's going on with it, even if you don't conduct research, being able to understand, it is one of those skills that

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Rob Danzman: is just really hard to teach. But once you have it.

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Rob Danzman: It differentiates you from a lot of other people.

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Rob Danzman: What are the biggest obstacles? I'm going to switch gears again. What are the biggest obstacles right now

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Rob Danzman: for you doing your job.

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Rob Danzman: and and let's say, like your company, the folks that work with and for you, your own stuff like what are the biggest obstacles.

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Stef Mauler: Nope.

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Stef Mauler: Well, one we've already touched on is just truly expectation. Setting and helping families really understand what the landscape looks like.

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Stef Mauler: and how it might have been how? It's very, very different from when they went to school.

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Stef Mauler: So just the level of competition in these various schools.

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Stef Mauler: And it's not to say that their kid isn't great. They're all great.

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Stef Mauler: But I think expectation setting, and also an understanding that

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Stef Mauler: you're going to get a great education at a lot of schools.

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Stef Mauler: you know, it doesn't have to be the same 20.

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Stef Mauler: So I think that's really really important in terms of just business operations, and I'm sure you you face this in your business as well. It's just, you know.

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Stef Mauler: It's how do I serve more kids? There's only you know one of me, and unlike a lot of my colleagues, even though I have a team with me who are amazing, I still work with every one of my students individually from 8th grade to graduating high school. And so it's, how is it that I can offer more, better

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Stef Mauler: and help more better

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Stef Mauler: is the like. Every year. This time we're kind of finishing up college applications hopefully in the next few weeks, and my team and I will do a postmortem, as we do every year to say, Okay, what can we do better? How can we offer more value, you know? Can we take on more students? Because I hate telling a family. No, I'm so sorry. I don't have capacity to help you.

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Rob Danzman: I I live that every day.

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Rob Danzman: What do you wish you? You talked about

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Rob Danzman: what? What you wish parents understood to some extent. What do you wish?

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Rob Danzman: Colleagues, mental health providers, schools.

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Rob Danzman: high schools, private schools, what do you wish? All of the colleagues out there, and professionals and providers?

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Rob Danzman: What do you wish they were doing differently, or what do you wish? They understood.

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Stef Mauler: In terms of college. There seems to be a great.

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Stef Mauler: and I will actually separate out mental health professionals, because I think they do understand this.

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Stef Mauler: But schools, parents, the rest of us.

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Stef Mauler: There is so much emphasis that is being placed on. How do we get you to the right school.

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Stef Mauler: and not a lot of emphasis on what will it take

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Stef Mauler: to be successful and get through that grade school?

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Stef Mauler: And so I have a lot of families who come to me and say, Okay, what do we need to do in 8th grade or 9th grade to get

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Stef Mauler: our daughter into school X. Versus we appreciate it

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Stef Mauler: with my son is, let's really look at who your kid is.

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Stef Mauler: and celebrate who your kid is, and then find the environments where they're going to be most successful.

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Stef Mauler: I mean it astonishes me, astonishes me that when we start talking about college lists

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Stef Mauler: it astonishes me how many people just go to these, you know, rankings which we can discuss. Why, they're invalid, but nobody. Nobody spends any time thinking about. How does my child learn

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Stef Mauler: what is the right classroom environment.

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Stef Mauler: And so, like we do a version of Myers-briggs with our juniors so that we can understand. Are you going to excel in a large lecture hall in a small discussion based class. Are you somebody who can sit and talk philosophy and theories for 4 years? Or will that drive you? Cuckoo? Do you need a project based or a co-OP program?

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Stef Mauler: So people are leading with Brand perceived prestige which I actually think might be changing

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Stef Mauler: and they're not actually thinking about. Okay, what does my child need?

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Stef Mauler: And where are they going to be most successful?

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Rob Danzman: So it sounds like what you're talking about is shifting from an outcome orientation to a process orientation.

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Stef Mauler: Yes, and again you will get great outcomes

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Stef Mauler: at so many of these schools.

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Stef Mauler: and presumably and arguably you'll get better outcomes if you're at the top of your class

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Stef Mauler: in a less ranked lower ranked school than if you are, you know, struggling to keep up.

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Stef Mauler: you know, at a fancy school with a 3% acceptance rate.

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Rob Danzman: It's better to be in the top 10% at

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Rob Danzman: a lower tiered school rather than the bottom 10% of an ivy.

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Stef Mauler: Agreed.

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Rob Danzman: If you could rebuild higher. Ed, yeah.

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Rob Danzman: I'm I'm I'm going there. I'm going there.

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Stef Mauler: Not trying to save the world or anything. Here, Rob.

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Rob Danzman: Unlimited resources.

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Rob Danzman: You can't change politics, or, or, let's say, like out

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Rob Danzman: the the pull of gravity and some other like natural forces. But you had unlimited

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Rob Danzman: resources in times in terms of time, money, energy.

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Rob Danzman: what would you do? And and I and I like, I like this question, even though it's a painful question for people, because

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Rob Danzman: it's not just about what you do for work and a living, and and how you connect with parents.

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Rob Danzman: It also communicates a little bit about your values, too, because there are lots of people that I talk with, who

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Rob Danzman: they still want, or they still agree with society kind of being broken down into these tiers, which is not good or bad. It's just like, Oh, yeah, like, we still need to be

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Rob Danzman: pushing students into the the highest education formats possible.

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Rob Danzman: Let's forget about whether or not like there are enough jobs waiting for them afterwards.

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Rob Danzman: Other people. They want to break the system down and say, like, we need more plumbers, you know, we need more electricians. And so

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Rob Danzman: if you imagine recreating higher, Ed, what does that look like?

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Stef Mauler: You couldn't have given me this question to think on, like in advance or in our session. Well, so I Oh, gosh! It's a we could have a whole other, you know, 3 h conversation about this.

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Stef Mauler: So if we're going to reimagine the system that we have one is I I would want

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Stef Mauler: to completely do away with all things rankings, marketing, which also then means we get rid of like rock climbing walls and beach pools, and not to say that we can't have fun. But there is. There is this

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Stef Mauler: fever to get kids

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Stef Mauler: wanting to apply to your school, so that your acceptance rates go down and your rankings go, you know, up, and I think if we do away with all of that, then we also start to do away with these uncontrollable costs.

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Stef Mauler: Tuition costs.

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Stef Mauler: So that's a beast that needs to be tamed.

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Rob Danzman: Because it sounds like you're looking at some school like you're looking.

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Stef Mauler: Up. We're approaching half a million dollars at schools like Uchicago, which is insane.

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Stef Mauler: So I think you need to tame that beast and then with that, that means we've got resources to make education more accessible, more affordable

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Stef Mauler: to those who want to go down that path. We also need to celebrate the trades.

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Stef Mauler: I mean, I had a kid come to me a few years ago, and I said, Oh, what are you interested in doing? Well, I want to go to business school, but only if I can go to one of the top 3 business schools. And I said, Okay, and I said, and what if not? Well, then, I want to go to Med school, but only if I can go to one of the top 3 Med. Schools. And I said, Well, explain like.

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Stef Mauler: And I'm looking at this kid's activity. I was like, you haven't done science fair. You've got nothing like Tell me why. And he said, Well, I just want to make a lot of money. And I said, Well, that's fair, that's a fair goal, I said. But let me tell you from my perspective.

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Stef Mauler: I come from Canada national health care.

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Stef Mauler: It's not a fast ride to making millions of dollars.

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Stef Mauler: and when 2,008 hit.

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Stef Mauler: I went to arguably one of the best business schools on the planet, and when 2,008 hit more than half my class was unemployed.

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Stef Mauler: and I said, so you want to make the surefire. And I said this. No joke, I said, Surefire bet to make money

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Stef Mauler: become a plumber. I can never get my plumber.

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Stef Mauler: He charges, you know, 2, 50 an hour, and he's got a wait list months long.

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Stef Mauler: So I think that we need to celebrate the you know the plumbers, the chefs.

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Stef Mauler: you know the trades absolutely. And I think I would. In this environment we need to instill what I think used to be higher. Ed, and somehow we've gotten away from it. And that is to require

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Stef Mauler: every student to have a minimum of classes that are Socratic method discussion based with various viewpoints.

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Stef Mauler: not just to expose yourself to different viewpoints, but to be able to craft your ability to articulate and think through different issues, regardless of the topic.

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Rob Danzman: Yeah, those classes don't exist anymore.

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Rob Danzman: Although ironically, there, there's a movement in many States

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Rob Danzman: for State level institutions. There's State legislature going on being enacted where

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Rob Danzman: they're trying to force universities to have more viewpoints respected.

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Rob Danzman: But there, there is some evidence that it's actually to silence certain faculty members.

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Stef Mauler: Interesting.

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Rob Danzman: And so it's being framed as like

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Rob Danzman: students are not able to have their 1st amendment rights like supported.

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Rob Danzman: But it might be something different going on. And so it seems like there is a

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Rob Danzman: like a you know, a hat nod to that. But in in practicality it's actually not going in that direction.

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Rob Danzman: You've mentioned several times about the or a few times about the the rankings, can you? Can you talk about that for a second? Because you said like, Oh, yeah, the rankings of these universities. What do you know about the rankings? And some of the popular ones are

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Rob Danzman: Princeton Review, I think, has.

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Stef Mauler: World, report.

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Rob Danzman: Yeah. Can you talk about like, where do these rankings come from? They're not. You mean to tell me they're not objective, you know, like.

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Stef Mauler: So the rankings started to like, sell magazines.

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Stef Mauler: That's it started us news and world report started. So it wasn't an edu. It wasn't like a data

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Stef Mauler: house, a think tank and so

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Stef Mauler: and there's a lot of fallacies in the rankings. You can game the rankings, and I think the rankings

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Stef Mauler: is to blame quite frankly for a lot of the problems that we have in admissions now. So lots of numbers go into the rankings. I also don't see how you can rank one entire institution versus another. You can rank a program. You can rank a faculty, you can rank social life. How do you rank a pen versus a brown.

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Stef Mauler: Right? They're entirely different institutions with different philosophies.

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Stef Mauler: But because of the rankings, you know, we have this drive for

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Stef Mauler: colleges have this drive to bring down acceptance rates and increase yields. Those are the 2 biggest numbers that go in. So

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Stef Mauler: to bring down acceptance rates. They're now marketing. Their marketing machines are unbelievable. The number of kids who are getting emails apply to Harvard, apply to Harvard, apply to Harvard are now fueling these expectations and many schools, saying, Apply no application, fee, no essay, no this, no, that which is also drumming up the volume which is putting even more downward pressure on acceptance rates

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Stef Mauler: this move, then, to yield, which means of the students, I admit how many come, is also fueling all of these games that colleges are playing with binding early decision and restrictive, you know. And so it's just it's fueling, even more anxiety, more disappointment.

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Stef Mauler: It's just it's not healthy. And then they forget that they're dealing with in many cases. 17 year old kids.

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Rob Danzman: It sounds so remarkably similar to what happened in 2,012,

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Rob Danzman: when when research was being done. Looking at the

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Rob Danzman: specifically mental health diagnoses of young women.

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Rob Danzman: anxiety, depression, eating, disorder, substance. Use all these metrics.

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Rob Danzman: Kind of bopping along, going up a little bit.

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Rob Danzman: 2,012.

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Rob Danzman: There was just this rocket ship that went up.

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Rob Danzman: and the thing that happened in 2,012 was Instagram.

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Rob Danzman: and it wasn't anxiety or depression that went up. It was eating disorders.

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Rob Danzman: and it sounds so similar to what's going on in terms of like applications with these prestigious universities.

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Rob Danzman: Knowing knowing

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Rob Danzman: that like. Oh, yeah, there there is a there is an unintended consequence of people feeling bad about themselves.

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Rob Danzman: but we have a business to run.

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Rob Danzman: We have an endowment to keep shoveling money into. And so like, we're really sorry that, like you might want to jump off of the garage building because you got denied to Princeton or Harvard. But like we've got business.

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Stef Mauler: Yeah.

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Rob Danzman: Oh, man! That sounded cynical.

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Rob Danzman: Oh, wait so. I get to sound cynical if I want to.

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Rob Danzman: Shifting shifting gears again.

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Rob Danzman: you probably consume a lot of content from a lot of different sources, people, places, things. Are there any podcasts, books, articles, interviews that you've come across in the last few weeks, months, years, that just really stand out for you, that you love telling parents about, or colleagues about.

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Stef Mauler: Yeah. So I mean, quite frankly, for this time of year, I'm reading college applications and essays as my source of content right now. So I'm very much looking forward to Thanksgiving break because I've got books on my list that I'm excited to get to.

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Stef Mauler: You know, I don't do a ton of podcasts. Most of the podcasts I listen to are about sort of college counseling. So the business of college counseling, brooke dailies. Is one, that is probably one of the top ones.

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Stef Mauler: I read a lot of just business books. I like business books, so my classmate, Charles Duhigg. The power of habit is a great book. I actually have his super communicators on my list for next week. To read.

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Stef Mauler: Arthur Brooks from strength to strength, is fantastic. We already mentioned. Dr. Leonard Sachs is one who I'm a really really big fan of.

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Stef Mauler: He's got great stuff, so.

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Rob Danzman: I'm I'm sort of old school. I like books.

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Rob Danzman: I'm right there with you. Also, all the research from a biopsychological perspective. Books are really good for our brains. It's not a moral or ethical issue. It's just really good for us to slow down and

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Rob Danzman: have a little bit of a gap between between like the content and our brain processing information. So right there with you.

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Rob Danzman: Steph, it's been such a pleasure talking with you. What is the best way for people to get in touch with you. Is it snail mail? Is it email? Is it your website? Is it.

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Stef Mauler: My website. Everything comes to me through my website. So it's simply www. Dot the maullerinstitute.com. So it's THEM. A ULER. institute.com.

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Rob Danzman: Great. And, as I said at the beginning of the show, I'm going to make sure that all of these, all the resources, are posted in the show notes. So, Steph thanks so much for joining me today.

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Stef Mauler: My pleasure. Thank you so much.