Admissions Officers: True Early-Stage Investors
While angel investors and early-stage venture capitalists invest pre-revenue or sometimes even pre-product, university admissions officers are the true early-stage investors: they invest pre-idea! When you think about it, it’s actually striking how similar admissions officers are to VCs: they invest in people, they (the university) hope for large returns in the future (by way of donations), it’s an expensive investment on both sides, and a stamp of approval and access to the network of a cream of the crop ‘investor’ is highly valuable.
As much as I bash universities for not providing the right educational experience for students and allowing enough room for experimentation – most of my learning definitely happened outside of the classroom –, there is no denying that my Harvard diploma has opened doors that would have been a lot harder to maneuver into without. That stamp of approval – similar to an investment from Kleiner or Sequoia – has made it a lot easier for people to have faith in me at a young age. And of course, my peer-group at the universities I’ve attended has also been a huge factor in my success.
Are universities paying enough attention to who they hire as admissions officers? Probably not: it’s not exactly the most prestigious and sought-after employment position, and I’m sure it does not pay anywhere near what a venture firm pays. As a result, the people they hire are not anything like the world-changing rock stars they should aspire to admit. A similar argument can, should, and has been made for teachers, but this seems like a much easier issue for universities to fix - an issue that directly affects their top line.
When I say ‘fix,’ I mean universities should hire admissions offers good enough to identify passion, creativity, tenacity, and a big vision, without simply relying on easily-gamed, non-representative indicators like GPAs, standardized test scores, club memberships, and application essays. Wake up, Harvard - you’re hiring poor investors and it’s going to hurt when you’re the last one in the room to figure that out.
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What Not to Do out of College
When I graduated, the majority of my classmates took one of two jobs: consulting or investment banking. The pay was top-notch, the competition, fierce, and the learning and “networking” opportunities, seemingly abundant. What’s not to like for a type A personality?
A year later and most of my friends who took these jobs are miserable, bored, exhausted, and wondering whether $400 bottle service is really a worthwhile price for entry to mediocre clubs. Quite simply, their approach to maximizing their life - an idea most of us have had hammered in from the womb - was a complete failure. Why? I believe it’s due to the local maxima, or “hill climbing” problem.
A good way to understand the local maxima problem is to imagine being blindfolded in the middle of nowhere, and told to find the highest point around you. It may take a while, but you could do it: simply feel the ground around you and move in the direction of elevation. You reach the top of that hill, however, only to remove your blindfold and see that out in front of you is a valley and a huge mountain.
Recruiting sessions, expensive dinners, and pressuring parents led my classmates - and me, for a time - to believe that a higher starting salary meant a better outcome for the future. Unfortunately, this is entirely false. If you think about it, the point of graduation is for most people the time in their lives when they have the least responsibility and expectations. It is therefore the best time to take risks that could potentially lead to great gains for the rest of their lives. So why not take a risk and head for the valley first? The common response is that one needs to learn a skill-set out of college, and that such a job is just a stepping stone. Complete bull. Some of the greatest entrepreneurs, world leaders, and people who just generally enjoy their lives, have relied on less than a high-school diploma. Learning from doing is exponentially more useful - because you learn from failure and are forced to survive. And failure is much easier to stomach when there’s nothing to lose.
So to those with the luxury of youth: take a risk, and do something you’re passionate about. Preferably something that creates much more value for people other than yourself.
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Juventas Fugit is designed and written by Justin Wohlstadter, who, when not writing in the third person, can be found in a coffee shop talking about startups, thinking about the future of education, and generally procrastinating something important.
- Passions: startups that positively affect the world, education innovation, good design, learning, and meeting those with an equally insatiable curiosity.
- Play: director of product design at Enterproid and partner at BOLDstart Ventures.
- Previously: built the early-stage venture arm of Penny Black. And many other crazy, less successful ventures involving fire extinguishers, measuring philanthropic impact, and creative spaces.
- Pedantry: most of the important stuff I taught myself or learned from friends, but I’m fortunate to have (barely received) degrees from Harvard and Oxford. At Oxford I wrote my dissertation on how internet innovation will disrupt access to higher education.
- Procrastination: can be found on Twitter, Linkedin, AngelList and other web spaces, and be reached via email at my first name at this domain.
