November 21, 2024 • 39 mins
In today’s episode, I sit down with Jamie Beaton, founder of Crimson Education. Jamie shares his impressive academic journey and dives into the complexities of college admissions.
Bio
Jamie has earned Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees at Harvard, as well as Master’s degrees at Stanford, UPenn, Princeton, and Tsinghua, a PhD at Oxford, and JD at Yale Law School. He has grown Crimson into the world’s most successful university admissions consultancy, having assisted thousands of students worldwide in gaining entry to the most competitive universities in the US and the UK. Follow Jamie on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamiebeaton
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Jamie Beaton (00:00):
I think it is a, it's a really challenging one,
(00:02):
because it strikes the heart of,you know, should you have an all
public education system? Shouldthere be entrepreneurship and
sort of for profit mechanisms atplay in a kind of clean
meritocracy? What's the role ofcoaching? You know, should there
even be private schools orprivate tutors, or any of this
stuff?
Sheila Akbar (00:28):
Hi folks, welcome back to the podcast today. I've
got an old friend, Jamie Beatonon the podcast, and just a
couple of weeks ago, he had afront page spread on the Wall
Street Journal about hiscompany, crimson education and
the kind of work that they do.
And of course, it's a hugesuccess story. Jamie grew up in
(00:52):
New Zealand, didn't have a lotof academic resources available
to him, but absolutely tookadvantage of every opportunity
he could find and made it toHarvard, and since then, has
been collecting just the mostimpressive credentials and
degrees and helping a lot ofstudents through the college
admissions process, both in theUS and abroad. And I wanted to
(01:15):
have him on the podcast, becausehe and I think about the college
process in pretty differentways, but there are certainly
things that we can agree on. SoI think you'll find this
conversation very interesting.
I'll let you take a listen, andthen we'll chat on the other
side. Well, Jamie, thanks somuch for joining me today. I'm
(01:39):
excited for this conversation.
Jamie Beaton (01:41):
Me too. It's a real pleasure.
Sheila Akbar (01:42):
Yeah. So I always like to start with your
educational journey, your story.
So I know you grew up in NewZealand. How did you decide to
come to the States for college?
Jamie Beaton (01:53):
The first trigger that I can remember was picking
up a book called what they teachyou at Harvard Business School,
at a second hand bookstore inthe city called Hamilton in New
Zealand. And I picked this up,and I'd sort of vaguely heard of
Harvard and movies, and I readthrough this, you know, it was
actually about the MBAexperience, but it was still
very captivating, this idea ofthis university full of, you
know, ambition and differentintellectual pursuits, all these
(02:15):
exciting opportunities, guestspeakers coming on campus, and a
real energy about the place.
Then a couple of years later, Iwas in a train out from my high
school, sitting next to a boycalled Ben cornfield, who was an
American fellow had gone intoYale, and he said to me, Hey,
Jamie, you know, you shouldreally think about considering
these overseas schools. So fromage 13 to 18, I began really
focusing on this wacky collegemissions process. But that was
(02:37):
that was some of the key triggermoments. And probably the last
thing that really got me firedup was visiting Columbia with my
mum when I was 15, and that wasprobably our first time visiting
New York City. But it just feltlike some sort of surreal magic
land. So they were the thingsthat really got me motivated to
think about the US as adestination for college.
Sheila Akbar (02:56):
And of course, we'll get to what you do now in
a minute, but like, let's, let'stake it to the next step. Now
you went to Harvard, and thenyou've pursued many, many
degrees since then. And it'sfunny for me to say that,
because usually people say thatabout me because I have an
undergrad, a master's and twoPhDs. And people are like, Why?
Why'd you overdo it? But then Ilook at you, and I'm like, Okay,
(03:17):
I'm in good company. Tell uswhat you did after college.
Jamie Beaton (03:22):
So actually, in college, I really loved the
liberal arts experience. As a USundergrad, I took all kinds of
wacky classes in areas likegothic fiction, renewable
energy, entrepreneurship inChina, alongside the classics
like math, econ, statistics andfinance. But as I left my
undergraduate degree, I reallythought that it was important
that I pursued some more studyand developed some more focused
(03:43):
skills in certain areas. So Iheaded off to business school,
which I think was probably themost vocationally focused degree
that I went for, where I reallythought as a young founder of my
company, crimson, I wanted tolearn about marketing and sales
and strategy and leadership, andI felt like I had garnered some
insights from working as aninvestor, but a business school
experience would really roundthat out. So I pursued that
(04:05):
Stanford MBA, and then I alsodid an education master's
degree. And you know, for me,I'd been working in the
education space for some time,but I think, you know, and
you've seen this too, when youinteract with educators, there's
a high bar, I think, for aneducator to really look at you
and feel like, hey, you know,you know what you're talking
about. You've got some insightsto offer. And I think as a young
college kid, it was important tome that I actually received some
formal training in education. Sothat was probably the next set
(04:28):
of academic pursuits. And then Iguess I touched on a couple of
other ones, but probably anotherinteresting one was my PhD in
public policy, which I did atOxford. And when I was there, I
actually researched what drivesstudent outcomes and student
satisfaction in online schools.
And it was funny, because when Ibegan this PhD, they told me
this topic was almost too niche.
But then COVID emerged, andonline schooling became this
(04:49):
kind of global obsession, youknow, was it good? Was it was it
bad? No longer a niche. Yeah, nolonger a niche. And so, you
know, that certainly made thetopic very interesting for my
thesis advisor and I, and that.
Became a big focus for severalyears, and then I've continued
pursuing a range of differentgraduate studies over the last
several years. For me, you know,I've really found academic
studies a source of great joyand fun amazing folks at these
(05:10):
different universities, andcertainly helps with what I do
at Crimson as well.
Sheila Akbar (05:16):
Well, that's a great segue. So give us a kind
of overview of what crimsondoes, and what you feel your
mission is there.
Jamie Beaton (05:23):
So I started crimson, because as a kiwi in
New Zealand, I thought it wasincredibly complicated to figure
out how you go from New Zealandhigh schools to these top
universities. And I had manytalented peers that they rocked
the chemistry Olympiad or theMath Olympiad, or they had great
academics, but they applied tomany of their schools and
weren't so successful. And so Ithought I could leverage some of
(05:44):
my experiences going to thesetop schools, helping kiwis,
initially in New Zealand, goingabroad, we had some fast success
there, and by about 2016 threequarters of New Zealand's Ivy
League students were trained byus. And then we began expanding
to more international countries,from Australia to the UK, to
Thailand, and have since builtout a great practice in the US
as well. And in general, youknow, we focus on the tippy top
(06:07):
US universities, the reallycompetitive schools, typically
the US top 30, with more than1000 kids now that have received
offers to the Ivy Leagueschools. So we're generally
known for a pretty highintensity style of College
Counseling, where we begin niceand early, and we help the
student find their intrinsicsparks, and then really work
with them to build their profilepretty intensively over several
(06:27):
years, mapping out how theymanage their time and different
projects. And, you know,academic pursuits really with
the goal of getting into one ofthose top schools that I think
is a real enabler for theirfuture. And then as far as our
mission, it's really toeliminate the barriers of
geography to an amazingeducation and subsequent career
pathway. And I see this in myyoung Kiwis for our early years
(06:49):
at Crimson, students like Zong,who grew up in a public school
in New Zealand, came throughcrimson, has gone off to Cal
Tech, then to NASA, to Tesla, toWaymo to MIT, or folks like
seyun, who grew up in Sydney andthen headed off to Princeton,
and it works at a quant hedgefund called Jane Street, and is
soon actually enrolling MIT forcomputer science. It's very hard
(07:09):
to get into many of theseincredible career pathways if
you don't go through a USundergraduate education. And so
I see crimson really being thisglobal enabler for these
ambitious kids to get there. Andof course, any kind of private
education company has its flawsand that not everyone can use
the service all the time, but wedo have a huge scholarship
program for lower incomestudents and a lot of financial
(07:30):
aid and other ways and contentthat students can leverage, even
if they're not one of our payingclients to get into these
schools. So that's a bit aboutcrimson and sort of the mission.
Sheila Akbar (07:38):
And Crimson is not just college consulting. You
also have an online school,right? Tell us about that.
Jamie Beaton (07:45):
Yeah. So we've got a fully accredited online high
school called the Crimson globalAcademy. I launched this as I
was finishing my PhD at Oxford,and my insight was that there
were schools in North Americathat cater to some students,
like the Stanford online highschool, but around the world,
there was a real gap for a worldclass private school that
offered a levels and AP that wasalso flexible, and kids could do
(08:08):
part time alongside theirphysical high school or full
time as a full schoolreplacement. And so we've
launched that we have about 2000students, and the school is now
actually the third highestranked on their high school in
the States, and top 10 for STEMand we've been really focused on
academic excellence, and then,of course, aiming for those top
schools. So it's been reallygood fun. And I love CGA, or
crimson global Academy, becausewithin college counseling, we
(08:30):
often spend several hours a weekwith a student. But through CGA,
we're spending 2030, hours aweek with our students, and we
can make an even more, you know,magnificent impact on their
trajectory. So CGA was a sort ofnatural evolution of our core
college mission support.
Sheila Akbar (08:45):
Okay, so I'm thinking about, I have so many
questions for you, but thereseems to be a real emphasis on,
let's say, the higher end of thespectrum of achievement, at
Crimson, which certainly, youknow, there are kids who want
that, who need that, who willthrive in those sorts of
(09:07):
environments. But obviously inthe United States in particular,
but all over the world, thereare all kinds of institutions of
higher learning that are not soachievement focused, right? And
I guess, to put a finer point onit, there are the majority of
colleges in the United Statesexcept the majority of
(09:28):
applicants, right? When we talkabout, you mentioned the top 30
or even the top 100, that's whenwe start talking about schools
that accept less than 50% oftheir students, and in many
cases, only single digit numbersof applicants. So what are your
thoughts on on that? I mean,that seems like you've carved
out a niche for yourself at thisother end of the spectrum. But
what about people who who aremore interested or maybe perhaps
(09:51):
more suited to one of thoseenvironments?
Jamie Beaton (09:55):
So I think that in the broad landscape of College
Counseling, there's a. Fine linebetween sort of an insidious
undermining of a student's realpotential and supporting them to
a best fit school. I think aboutone of my old partners at
Crimson, David fried, who was ata public school in Texas, and
the college counselor said, Hey,there's no point. You're
(10:15):
applying to the Ivy Leagueschools. You know, you have no
shot, even though he then wentoff to Harvard. So I think that
what I find really upsetting iswhen you have a system that sort
of assesses a kid when they're12 or 13 or 14 and begins
telling them, Hey, you don'thave what it takes. You're not
actually able to do academicsthat well. You need to settle
for certain schools and settleearly. Now, if a student
(10:37):
actually, genuinely wants to goto a given school that is
particularly unselective and theschool suits them, for some
reason, all good, but I thinkwhat typically happens is you
have progressive waves ofstudents who sort of give up
trying throughout high school,and only a very thin sliver of
students are continuously told,Hey, you can do it. You can do
it. We believe in you. And a lotof students are told, hey, you
(10:58):
know, take it easy. Just twoother paths. So I guess I don't
really think it's like you'vegot this thin sliver of kids
that can ever possibly competeagainst top schools. I think the
base of students that could giveit a crack is much higher than
people probably think, andthere's some conflation there.
But let me say to the point ofall these schools, you know, we
send lots of students to a widerange of US schools we have, you
(11:19):
know, other units of crimson,like college wise, that focuses
on a broad range of US colleges.
And many of these schools aregreat. There are some US
universities that areunselected, that I think aren't
good institutions. They act likethey're as good as these top
schools. They charge the sameprices, and they don't deliver
the graduate outcomes. And thenon, the more dangerous end you
have the you know, for profit,universities that you know,
exploit things like student loanmechanisms and uninformed
(11:42):
students to settle them withhuge amounts of debt with
terrible student outcomes. Andthe overarching context I've
given you is, as a student inNew Zealand, you can pursue an
entire degree for the cost ofhalf one semester at most US
colleges. So my starting pointis that most US higher education
is, like, extremely overpricedand, like, crazily expensive,
and that only a certain portionof the country's universities
(12:04):
actually give the students thepromise they preach, which is,
you know, a brighter future anda pathway through to, you know,
real prosperity for theirfamilies.
Sheila Akbar (12:14):
Well, you know, that brings me to the thing that
I invited you here to talkabout, and I'll set the stage
for that a little bit, but justto recap kind of what you're
sharing there, I think you know,while you and I may differ on
the specifics, but you know,you're calling out under
matching right students beingencouraged to Aim lower than
they might be able to achieve ifgiven the right supports and
(12:37):
encouragement. You're callingout the ROI of higher education,
right? What? What are theoutcomes that colleges can
actually deliver, and who's overpromising, and then the third
then is obviously the cost ofthis whole thing. But you know,
your answer brought me tothinking about the larger issue
(12:58):
that I want to discuss with youis you have this international
perspective. You've you grew upin another country, you've gone
to institutions in the US andabroad, and obviously now you
work with families who arelooking at all kinds of
different institutions. So Ithink, and you've studied this
at the academic level, as I'mreally interested to hear your
sort of comparative perspectiveon this, because I think in the
(13:20):
United States, the collegeadmissions system really hits a
nerve, a very foundationalnerve, in our society, and I
think that's evidence in a lotof the reaction to the article
that was about you and crimsonand what you've achieved in the
Wall Street Journal recently,right? I know that was very
(13:40):
exciting for you, right, to haveyour success highlighted in that
way. But I also know there was alot of sort of backlash, people
talking about how this is, youknow, a side door for the
wealthy, and how broken thecollege admission system is. So
I'm curious to hear yourthoughts on that. I guess I
asked you a couple of differentquestions as I'm rambling here.
But your your thoughts on thesort of comparative perspective,
(14:03):
and then why this hits such anerve here in the US.
Jamie Beaton (14:07):
Absolutely. So I think, firstly on the
comparative perspective. So Ithink the US emissions process
is actually the best of the manyflawed options that exist. And
if you think about the world, Ithink about China, India, the
UK, New Zealand or the US. Justbriefly, let me give you some
comparisons. So starting withNew Zealand, in New Zealand, the
bar to get into university ispretty low. You pass university
(14:28):
entrance often two years out offinishing high school, and the
bar is not high to hit thatuniversity entrance. What this
does is it removes all incentivefor kids to try hard in the
final years of high school, andso you have the system where,
basically the majority ofstudents, in fact, the vast,
vast majority, have no incentiveto really try hard in school.
Now you can say that everyoneshould have magic, intrinsic
(14:49):
motivation, and maybe some do,but a lot of the time, if you
tell a student, hey, you justneed to pass, you'll be fine.
The student will aim to pass,and that's what happens across
an entire country. And then whatyou. Is basically students
heading into university thatcould have tried a lot harder in
high school, they could have hadstronger foundations, but
instead, you've got sort of aweak national curriculum
followed by low entry standards,and then this dangerous loop.
(15:12):
Moving to Australia, you have aslightly more rigorous system
where there is actually anational ranking percentile, and
certain competitive programs,like medicine law have much
higher interest standards thancertain degrees like commerce or
arts, and there's a realmarketplace of options, from
highly selective programs likeMonash medicine to uncompetitive
schools across the country likesay, Bond University, that take
(15:35):
basically everybody. And I thinkthat's slightly more well
functioning, but the problemthat exists there is basically a
lot of these degrees. There's noflexibility to take different
classes. You're committing tolaw as an 18 year old or
medicine as an 18 year old, orcommerce as an 10 year old. And
so your ability to sort ofdiscover the career path that
really suits you and theacademic field that really suits
(15:56):
you is more limited. But still,there's some good options in
Australia, and it's gettingbetter. The UK, I think, has
many amazing institutions. Ifyou think about the London
School of Economics, or Oxfordor Cambridge or Imperial College
London, these are all greatschools with big reputations,
fantastic alumni. They delivergreat outcomes for their
graduates. So I would say, onthe whole, great schools. The
(16:16):
big critique you could make ofthese universities is they're
not particularly good atfundraising, and as a result,
they have bad financial aid forinternational students. So most
the international students atthese schools are paying full
tuition, and there's no greatalternative. There's some
scholarships. For example, mycoo akesh Patel had a Meyer
Scholarship, which was a fullscholarship to Cambridge
University, enabling him to gofrom New Zealand to this amazing
(16:39):
school. But most students can'tdo that. So you have basically a
fairly diverse UK pool ofstudents, but the international
students at Oxford and Cambridgeand stuff are generally from
pretty high income families.
Then briefly you've got Chinaand India, which is almost like
The Hunger Games, where you justsit the Gaucho or the respective
assessments in India and yougrind and just take a single
score your academics, and that'swhat determines who gets in.
(17:01):
Arguably, that's, you know, it'sactually very, it's a very fair
system, and that it's just likea huge academic competition. But
it does create immense stress,and it also creates the flip
side of the New Zealand problem,where kids are obsessed with a
single test score and singleacademic process for basically
five to eight years, and it kindof consumes the high school
experience and crowds everythingelse out. And then finally, you
(17:21):
have the lovely world off the UShigher education system, where,
basically the scoreboard enablesyou to perform across academics,
extracurriculars, leadershipessays, interviews. You can try
different interests. You canspecialize in astrophysics. You
can try 10 different majors, andall of that can be shown on the
application. So ultimately, Iwould say the US process is the
(17:41):
best enabler of number one, itincentivizes kids to try hard
and to hustle and to work hard,but but also, number two, it
lets you kind of be who you wantto be a lot of the time and
still build a fantastic profilethe schools recognize. And then
three, there's a real sort ofmarketplace of choice, so you
can really choose from a varietyof institutions that suit you.
And then finally, putting on myinternational hat, this huge
(18:03):
financial aid for internationalstudents. So many of my kids
from low income backgroundsaround the world can land at
places like Harvard and have alltheir flights, winter coats,
food, accommodation, tuition,all covered, which is a bit of a
game changer. So that would be,I would say, my take on sort of
the comparative dynamics. Andultimately, you know, the US is
winning the world's highereducation marketplace, and it is
the most desirable, and kids allaround the world choose it as
(18:27):
the number one destination. SoI'll stop there, and then we can
touch on your second secondquestion.
Sheila Akbar (18:32):
Yeah, yeah, let's, let's pause there. You know that
that was a really nice kind oftour around the world, and I'm
not going to debate you on thedescription of any of those
systems. But one thing that I amreally curious about, and
listeners probably already knowmy thoughts on this, but I want
to hear yours, is that HungerGames dynamic that you mentioned
(18:54):
is so prevalent in China andcertainly in India, has somehow
made its way into America forthe populations that are
interested in the most selectiveuniversities, it's absolutely a
hunger game situation. And mythesis on this is a little bit
of, well, it is a scarceresource at those schools,
(19:15):
there's a very limited number ofseats the you know, the
competition is so high, ofcourse, it's going to be
somewhat Hunger Games II. Andthe other piece of this is, you
know, especially with theclientele that I am typically
working with, tend to beimmigrant families, and they are
used to that system, and theybring their expectations of that
system to here, and then that itplays out in their parenting and
(19:37):
the choices that they make fortheir for their students. But
I'm curious what you see as whyit sometimes feels like The
Hunger Games in this US system,which seems to encompass some of
the things from all of thesedifferent places that you've
just described.
Jamie Beaton (19:51):
Yeah, so great question. So I think as far as
answering this, and I'll be asblunt as I can, if you're in a
country like New Zealand, andeveryone's just pretty relaxed
and high. School, then theresult of that is no one has to
really try that hard, becausepeople's content preparation for
exams isn't that high and peoplearen't doing that many
activities. In New Zealand, it'svery interesting. You've had a
lot of migration from both Chinaand India, and at the biggest
(20:14):
school in the country byacademics, it's a school called
Auckland Grammar School. Theyhave a streaming system where
basically, kids are ranked fromtop to bottom in a variety of
classes, and every term based ontheir academic grades. You move
from class to class. So you canimagine, you know, it's a bit of
a pressure cooker. Andinterestingly, in the top class,
nearly the entire class comesfrom China, with some Indian
students. And then basicallyyou've got more diversity
(20:36):
throughout the rest of theschool, but you essentially have
this top class, which is in NewZealand, a country that has a
15% Asian population, but theydominate that entire top class.
And what you've seen over thelast 10 years is that basically,
with more and more migrationfrom both China and India and
also Korea and Japan and stuff,you have academic cultures being
imported basically from thesehigh competition call it Hunger
(20:57):
Games markets. And what thatdoes is it means that you can no
longer just chill and be okay.
You have to actually startworking harder and harder and
harder in high school. And youknow, what you see in New
Zealand is that 75% of the kidsof the country's top 10 scholars
in a given year on average, comefrom the Chinese or Indian
community. And you have thismassive academic outperformance
and over time, that just meansthat more and more society has
(21:19):
to engage with academics reallyformidably. Otherwise, they're
left behind these reallyambitious immigrants that bring
their cultural focus to NewZealand. So now thinking about
the US example, if you were tosimplify this and just dial it
down to you've got differentcultures with different academic
expectations. Generally, recentimmigrants have a hardcore
willingness to compete in thesetypes of academic adventures.
(21:41):
And they're coming from cultureswhere they're used to hard work
in terms of grinding from ayoung age in their education
systems, they migrate toAmerica, they have put in hard
yards to get there, and you betthey want the next generation to
do better. And so you have anincreasing proportion of
students at schools like Harkerin California or some of the
magnet schools across Washingtonor Texas that come from these
(22:01):
immigrant groups. I think aboutsome of the events we run in New
Jersey, for example, that aredominated by folks from
immigrant communities. And Ithink this can largely explain
why there's been an increase in,quote, unquote, a high intensity
academic focus in America,because you have more and more
of this cultural influence fromChina, from India, from India,
from other parts of the world,entering the country. I think
(22:21):
that's that's one part of it.
The second thing, just from abeyond kind of cultural group
phenomena, is you have the prizehas never been higher. So if you
get into a place like Stanfordor Harvard, you basically can
automatically raise a multimillion dollar seed fundraise
for your startup if you want todo that. And many of our crimson
alumni, more than 15 have raisedmulti million dollar seed rounds
(22:43):
having finished their degrees.
If you want to work on WallStreet, the fastest way to get
there is to go through these IvyLeague schools. If you want to,
for example, get to a top lawschool. The best way to get
there is, you know, again,through a strong undergraduate
school. So you have on thesupply side, a lot of the big
jobs that, you know, base theirhiring off this kind of
education ranking system. So Ithink there are a couple of
(23:03):
dynamics that I think contributeto this. And the final thing is,
as more information gets outabout the college admissions
process and what the top kidsare doing, that lifts the bar
for everybody else, it meansthat while there are more
applicants applying to Harvardtoday than 30 years ago,
actually the average quality ofthose applicants is way higher
as well. So there are a coupleof the reasons why things have
gotten more intense, buthonestly, they're not that
(23:25):
intense in America. People feelthat way in some pockets of the
country, but if you compare themto Korea or China, or even some
of the Chinese communities inAustralia, it's still largely
not that intense. And so I wouldsay we're extremely far from an
environment where it's likeunhinged, and of course, it
always feels more intense thisyear than last year in America,
(23:45):
because every other competitiongets higher, but it's still two
to three times easier to get infrom America than for many of
these international countries.
And in general, you know, it'ssofter competition. So I would
say, yes, it's getting hotterand more intense, but it's far
away from being crazy in myopinion?
Sheila Akbar (24:03):
Yeah, well, I just hope we never see that. I hope
it just doesn't get there. Butlet's get to my second question
is like, Why? Why do you thinkthere is such a reaction to
something like your spotlight inthe Wall Street Journal the
other day?
Jamie Beaton (24:20):
I guess there are a couple of things, you know.
The first is that we've beenreally effective at sending, you
know, more than 1000 studentsnow to these Ivy League schools.
Last year we had 294, to the IvyLeague. So I guess when folks
sort of see firms that have seena couple here and there to these
top schools, that's one thing,but doing it at pretty
substantial scale, which isbecoming a, you know, meaningful
percentage of the incoming classof these schools. Obviously,
(24:42):
people want to wonder, you know,what is the process? What is the
culture of training? How doesone approach this, to actually
get in? And I think what peoplefind pretty intense is like the
resumes of the kids who actuallyget in, and perhaps just the
level of focus we take totraining students for these top
schools. You. There are somestats in that, in the article
about how our average league kidtook 10 APs. Or, you know, a lot
(25:05):
of our kids do projects andpodcasts and other initiatives
to build their leadershipskills. I think the other thing
that really gets people going isthey think, Man, this like
destroys someone's childhood.
It's like so bad for theirability to be a child and relax.
And I actually think this is acrazy argument. I think
actually, if you think about ourcrimson students, and you
actually meet them, and a coupleweekends ago, I was at Stanford,
(25:25):
and I had an event with 30current Stanford kids that are
crimson students, and we had anoff site retreat for them to
give them some strategies aroundhow they can best succeed in
college. When you actually meetthese students, they're some of
the most curious, electrified,excited, passionate kids on the
planet. And if you compare thesekids who are so intrinsically
passionate about learning andalso being ambitious and
(25:47):
successful to a typical kid inAmerica, they're actually far
more enthralled by the educationprocess. And so it's an
interesting thing where as anoutsider, you look at this and
you think, man, these kids mustbe having a horrible time, but
then you meet them and they'reactually loving the journey. And
so I think there's that desirefor many parents who probably
haven't engaged in this kind ofintensive training, to say,
actually, that kind of style ofparenting is terrible. You know,
I would never do that. Thesepeople are crazy doing this, but
(26:10):
often those parents are thensending us an inquiry, and also
they, at the same time, aren'tquite grasping that the college
process in America fundamentallyincentivizes good behavior. It
incentivizes you to be a betterleader, pursue more academics,
manage your time better,articulate yourself better in
essays, and all these traitshelp you to be a high performer
in the future, and it thenproduces amazing results for our
(26:31):
graduates, as far as all the allthe companies that go to work
for. So I think that's anotherpart of the nerve center around,
sort of this tension aroundparenting styles and sort of who
these kids are that are gettingin. And then finally, probably
the pricing and tuition cost ofsome of our services. The Wall
Street Journal certainly wantedto highlight some of the more
comprehensive programs we offer.
But a lot of families acrossAmerica, across a variety of
(26:53):
states, jumping into crimson forpretty standard prices in our
industry. And a lot of familieschoose to leave private schools,
and they use crimson plus publicschool when they get better
results. And you know, privateschools in America can cost 40k
per year for five years of highschool. That's a very big cost.
And if you can instead pay for amore targeted service and then
go to your public school, youmight get a far better return on
(27:15):
investment for your educationdollars. So there are a couple
of kind of reactions andthoughts that I think I would
say, from the article, but happyto hear your thoughts as well,
from from your community.
Sheila Akbar (27:24):
Sure. And you know, I want to preface this by,
yeah, I consider you a friend. Ihave a lot of respect for you,
but I think we have verydifferent philosophies about
this. And of course, I've met, Imean, I don't think I've met any
of the students from crimson,but I've met students like the
ones you're describing, who,who. I mean, I think you are one
of them, right? Who just want todevour every academic
(27:45):
opportunity that is in front ofthem. Learning is so meaningful
and so enthralling to them. Iwas this way in high school,
right? I know that thesestudents exist, and I know that
their parents aren't forcingthem to be this way, right, but
I think the place where I findthings get a little bit blurry,
perhaps dangerous is when thatnarrative becomes the media
(28:10):
narrative about collegeadmissions, because it has such
a downstream effect of evenstudents who may be that you
know, excited about learning andthat motivated and all of these
things without parentalpressure. It puts pressure on
those students to do more. Theirparents hear it, and their
(28:32):
parents are already anxious,uncertain about their their
child's future, probably notbecause of anything that has to
do with their child, but moreabout the times we live in.
Right the way society hasstratified itself, the certain
you already mentioned this, someof the jobs that are accessible
through certain pathways ofeducation, and some that are
(28:54):
not, and essentially socialmobility and stability in
today's world, we're recordingthis the day before the
election, so that anxiety isquite high. But parents hear
that and don't, don't reallyclock that. You know, the
students for whom that modelworks are the students who are
(29:15):
already on that path in somesort of mental way. And then
they start saying, Okay, we needto do this. We're competing with
those students. And then itbecomes a Hunger Games at that
level. And then it also has, Ithink, an effect on students who
may not maybe they're not evenconsidering college, maybe
they're the first person intheir family to ever even
(29:36):
consider College, and this justreinforces the message that
college is not for them. Theyaren't seeing this as Oh,
Harvard or Stanford or this. Youknow, small slice of colleges
wants this or that, or tends toaccept these kinds of students.
They see it as Oh, all Collegewants that, and I'm not that, so
I've got no chance at college.
So why should I even try? Right?
(29:57):
It has a demotivating effect.
Opposite of the one that youwere you were referencing as
motivating. So I'm not sayingall of that is your
responsibility, certainly notyou're, you know, you run a
business, but it's the societywe live in, and I think that's
the that's the thing that I'mreally interested in
investigating further. Like thissystem is one that I think as
Americans, we pin A lot of ouridealism on right. It is a part
(30:23):
and parcel of the foundingmechanism of how a democracy
should work. Right, a greatpublic education system that
allows for social mobility, thatallows for people to study as
much as they want, go as far asthey want, do whatever it is
that they want, and an educatedpopulace is essential to making
(30:45):
our democracy work. And at thesame time, we think that the
process should be fair the waywe believe democracy should be
fair. And I'm using air quotes.
I know we don't move on, butobviously we know that this
process is not fair, right?
There are certain people who canaccess advice from you or me.
There are people who can access,you know, athletics or their
(31:07):
families can make big donations,or they have legacy status, or,
you know, any number of thingsyou can point to that show you
very clearly that this is not apure meritocracy. Nothing
actually is. But we like tobelieve that this should be more
meritocratic than other systemsin our society, because this one
is so foundational to oursociety working. I'm curious for
(31:31):
your thoughts about that.
Jamie Beaton (31:35):
First of all, beautifully articulated. Let me
try and respond to some ofthose. The first thing that I
would say, and I opened this wasAmerica system is the best
sports system we have. And Icome at this from the lovely
soft land of New Zealand, whereit's a beautiful country, but
the education system is brokenbecause there is no incentive
for anyone to really try at ahardcore level, if you're
(31:57):
looking at domesticuniversities, and if you look at
the AB test of the Americansystem, first, the New Zealand
system. Today, I can tell youcomprehensively that if you
could just click your fingersand shift the New Zealand higher
education system to be similarto the US. One people would do
that in a heartbeat. So onething that's worth noting is,
while we should always be tryingto improve us higher ed it is
(32:18):
not by any means the worst oreven the second best, I would
say it's the best, but again,acknowledging that it is, of
course, got its own flaws. Toyour point of meritocracy, I
agree it's hard to actuallyengineer any kind of perfect
meritocracy, really, anywhere, alot of competitions, I think
about even gaming, for example,take the case of a computer game
like Call of Duty. In a gamelike this, you know, maybe it's
(32:40):
a pure meritocracy if you allhave the same disc, but if
someone's on the right Discordserver and has access to certain
techniques or interestingcombinations of attachments for
their character, they'll dobetter. And it doesn't have
anything to do with the abilityof these two kids to play the
game. But it's really about sortof information discovery. So
anyway, a silly example, but thepoint is that I would say it's
(33:01):
very hard to create any kind ofpure meritocracy. But what we
can do in the US system is tryto make it as merit track as
possible through things like,for example, you know, more
broad based need, blindfinancial aid, more transparency
into the emission system. Thething that I would probably draw
a line on is, I think what Idon't like is a system that is
(33:22):
not a fair competition. But whatI don't mind is intense
competition. And I thinkactually it's really good for
there to be intense competition.
And if you think about us versusChina, geopolitical dynamics as
a country, if we have baduniversities and America no
longer attracts top talent fromaround the world, we're at a
huge disadvantage in terms ofthe next 50 years versus a very
(33:42):
ambitious country like China. Ifthe US can attract hardcore
academic students from allaround the world, can take the
top kids from India, the topkids from New Zealand, top kids
from Vietnam, and bring theminto America, sort them with
American values, and have themcompete as Americans, and really
build out the US economy. That'smuch better for Western
democracy than a world in which,you know, America sort of wants
(34:04):
to have a participation trophysystem where anyone can sort of
do okay without trying that hardcompetition is frowned upon. And
you know, meanwhile, in China,it is the Hunger Games to get
into Tsinghua and Peking andbeta. And you do have people
that are four years ahead ofAmericans in terms of STEM
education, you know, by the timethey're 18, that's, I think, a
far, far worse alternative. So Iwould say I would look for
(34:26):
anything that can make thesystem more meritocratic, but I
wouldn't want to do things thatundermines the competitive
intensity of the system, becauseultimately, this is not like
people are doing, like a hot doggetting competition, and it's
bad for all of them to compete.
You know, if you, if you do moremath, and you, you know, you
learn math earlier, or you begincoding earlier, or you try a
Leadership Project earlier,where you read more books for
(34:48):
Columbia's, what did you read inthe last two years? Supplement,
all these things are net goodfor you, and the alternatives,
like Doom scrolling on ticktock, or getting involved with
drugs in high school, or, youknow, not trying as a high
school student. Student, oractually, in a case like New
Zealand being truant and notactually going to high school
and tapping out of the system,those things are all much worse.
So I think if kids are competingon the landscape of academics
(35:10):
and extracurriculars andleadership, that is great for
the country. And of course, youneed to mitigate their stress,
and you need to make sure thatthere's other ways for them to
feel success. And for kids whocan't or don't want to compete
in sort of this higher educationtraining. You know, there are
other pathways, great, but Ithink it's, it's really shooting
a missile into the heart ofwhat's made America so
successful. To begin, you know,ripping apart the system that
(35:32):
has created 15 of the world'stop 20 global universities that
every year, imports the world'ssmartest young minds to America.
It would be disastrous to unwindthat, in my opinion, and the
talent would just go to othercountries. And ultimately, would
worsen the democracy that you'reworried about.
Sheila Akbar (35:47):
Yeah, I mean, I don't, I don't think anyone's
proposing, like, burn it alldown, but I do think we need
some guardrails. And I think, toyour point, you said this, but
didn't focus much on it, but Ithink it's like, so true is the
transparency, I think, thecommunication between the
gatekeepers of higher ed and thestudents who are going to apply
(36:11):
to it, or their families thatcommunications. There is no
system of communications. It'sso fragmented, it's so
piecemeal. There's so muchincomplete information,
misinformation, purposefuldisinformation. It's just a real
mess, and I think that may be aplace that we can start. Okay,
well, I think you and I couldprobably go on about this for a
(36:33):
very long time, but we'll spareour listeners that debate. I
thank you, Jamie, for your time.
This is a really greatconversation.
Jamie Beaton (36:39):
Super fun and always happy to discuss more.
Yeah, I think, I think it is a,it's a really challenging one,
because it strikes the heart of,you know, should you have an all
public education system? Shouldthere be entrepreneurship and
sort of for profit mechanisms atplay in a kind of clean
meritocracy? What's the role ofcoaching? You know, should there
even be private schools orprivate tutors, or any of this
stuff? And, you know, it's sortof a messy one in the middle,
(37:02):
you know, how much is too much?
What kind of support should beenabled? What are the role of
external advisors in this kindof process? It is a thorny one.
And I would say it's, it's not aperfect world to have no
training at all. And China triedthat. They banned all for profit
tutoring temporarily. And itcreated sort of a national
disaster with black markets andparents, it actually created
more inequality, because thehigh income families could still
(37:23):
find their black market tutorsand everyone else couldn't. So I
mean, I definitely probablystick to the line that it's the
best, flawed system that exists.
We need to keep working on it.
But it's definitely far frombroken, and it's working okay
with you know, recent thingslike banning affirmative action
being quite exciting, probablyin some ways, but also
(37:43):
horrifying in others. So it'stough, but I think we've got to
keep tinkering with it, andhopefully you and I can play a
good role in making it better.
Sheila Akbar (37:52):
Yeah, all right, that's a great place to leave
it. Thank you again. Jamie.
Jamie Beaton (37:56):
Thank you. Bye.
Bye.
Sheila Akbar (37:59):
Well, I definitely could have gone on with him for
many more hours, and, you know,maybe at some point we'll have
him back to do some more of thatdiscussion. But I hope you found
that enlightening as to how somepeople see the college process
and how I see it. And of course,both points of view are valid,
but I think we need to thinkabout, you know, I personally
(38:20):
believe we need to think aboutwho are we serving, and what is
the purpose of education in ourcountry, and how can we design a
system that serves that goal?
But I'll leave that there. Wehad a lot of interest in last
week's live coaching episode. Mystudent, Roger, we called him,
was very excited to share theepisode, and I hope that you
enjoyed it as well. And as I'vesaid before, we are pivoting in
(38:43):
the new year to a live coachingmodel. So if you have a question
that you want to get answered,whether you're a student or a
parent or someone who works withstudents, please submit it via
the links in our show notes, andwe'll have you on to discuss.
And it's okay if you don't thinkthe question is worth 3040,
minutes of discussion on itcould be a very short one, and
(39:04):
I'm happy to take it offline aswell, but please do reach out,
because it's an exciting newformat, and I want people to be
able to take advantage of it.
We're going to take a shortbreak here to take Thanksgiving
off, and we'll be back inDecember with, you know, some
new content for you, and I wantto take a moment to just thank
you for being a listener, forcaring about this stuff and for
(39:27):
doing all the things that youdo. So thanks, folks, and we'll
see you not next week, but theweek after. Take care.
I think it is a, it's a really challenging one,
(00:02):
because it strikes the heart of,you know, should you have an all
public education system? Shouldthere be entrepreneurship and
sort of for profit mechanisms atplay in a kind of clean
meritocracy? What's the role ofcoaching? You know, should there
even be private schools orprivate tutors, or any of this
stuff?
Sheila Akbar (00:28):
Hi folks, welcome back to the podcast today. I've
got an old friend, Jamie Beatonon the podcast, and just a
couple of weeks ago, he had afront page spread on the Wall
Street Journal about hiscompany, crimson education and
the kind of work that they do.
And of course, it's a hugesuccess story. Jamie grew up in
(00:52):
New Zealand, didn't have a lotof academic resources available
to him, but absolutely tookadvantage of every opportunity
he could find and made it toHarvard, and since then, has
been collecting just the mostimpressive credentials and
degrees and helping a lot ofstudents through the college
admissions process, both in theUS and abroad. And I wanted to
(01:15):
have him on the podcast, becausehe and I think about the college
process in pretty differentways, but there are certainly
things that we can agree on. SoI think you'll find this
conversation very interesting.
I'll let you take a listen, andthen we'll chat on the other
side. Well, Jamie, thanks somuch for joining me today. I'm
(01:39):
excited for this conversation.
Jamie Beaton (01:41):
Me too. It's a real pleasure.
Sheila Akbar (01:42):
Yeah. So I always like to start with your
educational journey, your story.
So I know you grew up in NewZealand. How did you decide to
come to the States for college?
Jamie Beaton (01:53):
The first trigger that I can remember was picking
up a book called what they teachyou at Harvard Business School,
at a second hand bookstore inthe city called Hamilton in New
Zealand. And I picked this up,and I'd sort of vaguely heard of
Harvard and movies, and I readthrough this, you know, it was
actually about the MBAexperience, but it was still
very captivating, this idea ofthis university full of, you
know, ambition and differentintellectual pursuits, all these
(02:15):
exciting opportunities, guestspeakers coming on campus, and a
real energy about the place.
Then a couple of years later, Iwas in a train out from my high
school, sitting next to a boycalled Ben cornfield, who was an
American fellow had gone intoYale, and he said to me, Hey,
Jamie, you know, you shouldreally think about considering
these overseas schools. So fromage 13 to 18, I began really
focusing on this wacky collegemissions process. But that was
(02:37):
that was some of the key triggermoments. And probably the last
thing that really got me firedup was visiting Columbia with my
mum when I was 15, and that wasprobably our first time visiting
New York City. But it just feltlike some sort of surreal magic
land. So they were the thingsthat really got me motivated to
think about the US as adestination for college.
Sheila Akbar (02:56):
And of course, we'll get to what you do now in
a minute, but like, let's, let'stake it to the next step. Now
you went to Harvard, and thenyou've pursued many, many
degrees since then. And it'sfunny for me to say that,
because usually people say thatabout me because I have an
undergrad, a master's and twoPhDs. And people are like, Why?
Why'd you overdo it? But then Ilook at you, and I'm like, Okay,
(03:17):
I'm in good company. Tell uswhat you did after college.
Jamie Beaton (03:22):
So actually, in college, I really loved the
liberal arts experience. As a USundergrad, I took all kinds of
wacky classes in areas likegothic fiction, renewable
energy, entrepreneurship inChina, alongside the classics
like math, econ, statistics andfinance. But as I left my
undergraduate degree, I reallythought that it was important
that I pursued some more studyand developed some more focused
(03:43):
skills in certain areas. So Iheaded off to business school,
which I think was probably themost vocationally focused degree
that I went for, where I reallythought as a young founder of my
company, crimson, I wanted tolearn about marketing and sales
and strategy and leadership, andI felt like I had garnered some
insights from working as aninvestor, but a business school
experience would really roundthat out. So I pursued that
(04:05):
Stanford MBA, and then I alsodid an education master's
degree. And you know, for me,I'd been working in the
education space for some time,but I think, you know, and
you've seen this too, when youinteract with educators, there's
a high bar, I think, for aneducator to really look at you
and feel like, hey, you know,you know what you're talking
about. You've got some insightsto offer. And I think as a young
college kid, it was important tome that I actually received some
formal training in education. Sothat was probably the next set
(04:28):
of academic pursuits. And then Iguess I touched on a couple of
other ones, but probably anotherinteresting one was my PhD in
public policy, which I did atOxford. And when I was there, I
actually researched what drivesstudent outcomes and student
satisfaction in online schools.
And it was funny, because when Ibegan this PhD, they told me
this topic was almost too niche.
But then COVID emerged, andonline schooling became this
(04:49):
kind of global obsession, youknow, was it good? Was it was it
bad? No longer a niche. Yeah, nolonger a niche. And so, you
know, that certainly made thetopic very interesting for my
thesis advisor and I, and that.
Became a big focus for severalyears, and then I've continued
pursuing a range of differentgraduate studies over the last
several years. For me, you know,I've really found academic
studies a source of great joyand fun amazing folks at these
(05:10):
different universities, andcertainly helps with what I do
at Crimson as well.
Sheila Akbar (05:16):
Well, that's a great segue. So give us a kind
of overview of what crimsondoes, and what you feel your
mission is there.
Jamie Beaton (05:23):
So I started crimson, because as a kiwi in
New Zealand, I thought it wasincredibly complicated to figure
out how you go from New Zealandhigh schools to these top
universities. And I had manytalented peers that they rocked
the chemistry Olympiad or theMath Olympiad, or they had great
academics, but they applied tomany of their schools and
weren't so successful. And so Ithought I could leverage some of
(05:44):
my experiences going to thesetop schools, helping kiwis,
initially in New Zealand, goingabroad, we had some fast success
there, and by about 2016 threequarters of New Zealand's Ivy
League students were trained byus. And then we began expanding
to more international countries,from Australia to the UK, to
Thailand, and have since builtout a great practice in the US
as well. And in general, youknow, we focus on the tippy top
(06:07):
US universities, the reallycompetitive schools, typically
the US top 30, with more than1000 kids now that have received
offers to the Ivy Leagueschools. So we're generally
known for a pretty highintensity style of College
Counseling, where we begin niceand early, and we help the
student find their intrinsicsparks, and then really work
with them to build their profilepretty intensively over several
(06:27):
years, mapping out how theymanage their time and different
projects. And, you know,academic pursuits really with
the goal of getting into one ofthose top schools that I think
is a real enabler for theirfuture. And then as far as our
mission, it's really toeliminate the barriers of
geography to an amazingeducation and subsequent career
pathway. And I see this in myyoung Kiwis for our early years
(06:49):
at Crimson, students like Zong,who grew up in a public school
in New Zealand, came throughcrimson, has gone off to Cal
Tech, then to NASA, to Tesla, toWaymo to MIT, or folks like
seyun, who grew up in Sydney andthen headed off to Princeton,
and it works at a quant hedgefund called Jane Street, and is
soon actually enrolling MIT forcomputer science. It's very hard
(07:09):
to get into many of theseincredible career pathways if
you don't go through a USundergraduate education. And so
I see crimson really being thisglobal enabler for these
ambitious kids to get there. Andof course, any kind of private
education company has its flawsand that not everyone can use
the service all the time, but wedo have a huge scholarship
program for lower incomestudents and a lot of financial
(07:30):
aid and other ways and contentthat students can leverage, even
if they're not one of our payingclients to get into these
schools. So that's a bit aboutcrimson and sort of the mission.
Sheila Akbar (07:38):
And Crimson is not just college consulting. You
also have an online school,right? Tell us about that.
Jamie Beaton (07:45):
Yeah. So we've got a fully accredited online high
school called the Crimson globalAcademy. I launched this as I
was finishing my PhD at Oxford,and my insight was that there
were schools in North Americathat cater to some students,
like the Stanford online highschool, but around the world,
there was a real gap for a worldclass private school that
offered a levels and AP that wasalso flexible, and kids could do
(08:08):
part time alongside theirphysical high school or full
time as a full schoolreplacement. And so we've
launched that we have about 2000students, and the school is now
actually the third highestranked on their high school in
the States, and top 10 for STEMand we've been really focused on
academic excellence, and then,of course, aiming for those top
schools. So it's been reallygood fun. And I love CGA, or
crimson global Academy, becausewithin college counseling, we
(08:30):
often spend several hours a weekwith a student. But through CGA,
we're spending 2030, hours aweek with our students, and we
can make an even more, you know,magnificent impact on their
trajectory. So CGA was a sort ofnatural evolution of our core
college mission support.
Sheila Akbar (08:45):
Okay, so I'm thinking about, I have so many
questions for you, but thereseems to be a real emphasis on,
let's say, the higher end of thespectrum of achievement, at
Crimson, which certainly, youknow, there are kids who want
that, who need that, who willthrive in those sorts of
(09:07):
environments. But obviously inthe United States in particular,
but all over the world, thereare all kinds of institutions of
higher learning that are not soachievement focused, right? And
I guess, to put a finer point onit, there are the majority of
colleges in the United Statesexcept the majority of
(09:28):
applicants, right? When we talkabout, you mentioned the top 30
or even the top 100, that's whenwe start talking about schools
that accept less than 50% oftheir students, and in many
cases, only single digit numbersof applicants. So what are your
thoughts on on that? I mean,that seems like you've carved
out a niche for yourself at thisother end of the spectrum. But
what about people who who aremore interested or maybe perhaps
(09:51):
more suited to one of thoseenvironments?
Jamie Beaton (09:55):
So I think that in the broad landscape of College
Counseling, there's a. Fine linebetween sort of an insidious
undermining of a student's realpotential and supporting them to
a best fit school. I think aboutone of my old partners at
Crimson, David fried, who was ata public school in Texas, and
the college counselor said, Hey,there's no point. You're
(10:15):
applying to the Ivy Leagueschools. You know, you have no
shot, even though he then wentoff to Harvard. So I think that
what I find really upsetting iswhen you have a system that sort
of assesses a kid when they're12 or 13 or 14 and begins
telling them, Hey, you don'thave what it takes. You're not
actually able to do academicsthat well. You need to settle
for certain schools and settleearly. Now, if a student
(10:37):
actually, genuinely wants to goto a given school that is
particularly unselective and theschool suits them, for some
reason, all good, but I thinkwhat typically happens is you
have progressive waves ofstudents who sort of give up
trying throughout high school,and only a very thin sliver of
students are continuously told,Hey, you can do it. You can do
it. We believe in you. And a lotof students are told, hey, you
(10:58):
know, take it easy. Just twoother paths. So I guess I don't
really think it's like you'vegot this thin sliver of kids
that can ever possibly competeagainst top schools. I think the
base of students that could giveit a crack is much higher than
people probably think, andthere's some conflation there.
But let me say to the point ofall these schools, you know, we
send lots of students to a widerange of US schools we have, you
(11:19):
know, other units of crimson,like college wise, that focuses
on a broad range of US colleges.
And many of these schools aregreat. There are some US
universities that areunselected, that I think aren't
good institutions. They act likethey're as good as these top
schools. They charge the sameprices, and they don't deliver
the graduate outcomes. And thenon, the more dangerous end you
have the you know, for profit,universities that you know,
exploit things like student loanmechanisms and uninformed
(11:42):
students to settle them withhuge amounts of debt with
terrible student outcomes. Andthe overarching context I've
given you is, as a student inNew Zealand, you can pursue an
entire degree for the cost ofhalf one semester at most US
colleges. So my starting pointis that most US higher education
is, like, extremely overpricedand, like, crazily expensive,
and that only a certain portionof the country's universities
(12:04):
actually give the students thepromise they preach, which is,
you know, a brighter future anda pathway through to, you know,
real prosperity for theirfamilies.
Sheila Akbar (12:14):
Well, you know, that brings me to the thing that
I invited you here to talkabout, and I'll set the stage
for that a little bit, but justto recap kind of what you're
sharing there, I think you know,while you and I may differ on
the specifics, but you know,you're calling out under
matching right students beingencouraged to Aim lower than
they might be able to achieve ifgiven the right supports and
(12:37):
encouragement. You're callingout the ROI of higher education,
right? What? What are theoutcomes that colleges can
actually deliver, and who's overpromising, and then the third
then is obviously the cost ofthis whole thing. But you know,
your answer brought me tothinking about the larger issue
(12:58):
that I want to discuss with youis you have this international
perspective. You've you grew upin another country, you've gone
to institutions in the US andabroad, and obviously now you
work with families who arelooking at all kinds of
different institutions. So Ithink, and you've studied this
at the academic level, as I'mreally interested to hear your
sort of comparative perspectiveon this, because I think in the
(13:20):
United States, the collegeadmissions system really hits a
nerve, a very foundationalnerve, in our society, and I
think that's evidence in a lotof the reaction to the article
that was about you and crimsonand what you've achieved in the
Wall Street Journal recently,right? I know that was very
(13:40):
exciting for you, right, to haveyour success highlighted in that
way. But I also know there was alot of sort of backlash, people
talking about how this is, youknow, a side door for the
wealthy, and how broken thecollege admission system is. So
I'm curious to hear yourthoughts on that. I guess I
asked you a couple of differentquestions as I'm rambling here.
But your your thoughts on thesort of comparative perspective,
(14:03):
and then why this hits such anerve here in the US.
Jamie Beaton (14:07):
Absolutely. So I think, firstly on the
comparative perspective. So Ithink the US emissions process
is actually the best of the manyflawed options that exist. And
if you think about the world, Ithink about China, India, the
UK, New Zealand or the US. Justbriefly, let me give you some
comparisons. So starting withNew Zealand, in New Zealand, the
bar to get into university ispretty low. You pass university
(14:28):
entrance often two years out offinishing high school, and the
bar is not high to hit thatuniversity entrance. What this
does is it removes all incentivefor kids to try hard in the
final years of high school, andso you have the system where,
basically the majority ofstudents, in fact, the vast,
vast majority, have no incentiveto really try hard in school.
Now you can say that everyoneshould have magic, intrinsic
(14:49):
motivation, and maybe some do,but a lot of the time, if you
tell a student, hey, you justneed to pass, you'll be fine.
The student will aim to pass,and that's what happens across
an entire country. And then whatyou. Is basically students
heading into university thatcould have tried a lot harder in
high school, they could have hadstronger foundations, but
instead, you've got sort of aweak national curriculum
followed by low entry standards,and then this dangerous loop.
(15:12):
Moving to Australia, you have aslightly more rigorous system
where there is actually anational ranking percentile, and
certain competitive programs,like medicine law have much
higher interest standards thancertain degrees like commerce or
arts, and there's a realmarketplace of options, from
highly selective programs likeMonash medicine to uncompetitive
schools across the country likesay, Bond University, that take
(15:35):
basically everybody. And I thinkthat's slightly more well
functioning, but the problemthat exists there is basically a
lot of these degrees. There's noflexibility to take different
classes. You're committing tolaw as an 18 year old or
medicine as an 18 year old, orcommerce as an 10 year old. And
so your ability to sort ofdiscover the career path that
really suits you and theacademic field that really suits
(15:56):
you is more limited. But still,there's some good options in
Australia, and it's gettingbetter. The UK, I think, has
many amazing institutions. Ifyou think about the London
School of Economics, or Oxfordor Cambridge or Imperial College
London, these are all greatschools with big reputations,
fantastic alumni. They delivergreat outcomes for their
graduates. So I would say, onthe whole, great schools. The
(16:16):
big critique you could make ofthese universities is they're
not particularly good atfundraising, and as a result,
they have bad financial aid forinternational students. So most
the international students atthese schools are paying full
tuition, and there's no greatalternative. There's some
scholarships. For example, mycoo akesh Patel had a Meyer
Scholarship, which was a fullscholarship to Cambridge
University, enabling him to gofrom New Zealand to this amazing
(16:39):
school. But most students can'tdo that. So you have basically a
fairly diverse UK pool ofstudents, but the international
students at Oxford and Cambridgeand stuff are generally from
pretty high income families.
Then briefly you've got Chinaand India, which is almost like
The Hunger Games, where you justsit the Gaucho or the respective
assessments in India and yougrind and just take a single
score your academics, and that'swhat determines who gets in.
(17:01):
Arguably, that's, you know, it'sactually very, it's a very fair
system, and that it's just likea huge academic competition. But
it does create immense stress,and it also creates the flip
side of the New Zealand problem,where kids are obsessed with a
single test score and singleacademic process for basically
five to eight years, and it kindof consumes the high school
experience and crowds everythingelse out. And then finally, you
(17:21):
have the lovely world off the UShigher education system, where,
basically the scoreboard enablesyou to perform across academics,
extracurriculars, leadershipessays, interviews. You can try
different interests. You canspecialize in astrophysics. You
can try 10 different majors, andall of that can be shown on the
application. So ultimately, Iwould say the US process is the
(17:41):
best enabler of number one, itincentivizes kids to try hard
and to hustle and to work hard,but but also, number two, it
lets you kind of be who you wantto be a lot of the time and
still build a fantastic profilethe schools recognize. And then
three, there's a real sort ofmarketplace of choice, so you
can really choose from a varietyof institutions that suit you.
And then finally, putting on myinternational hat, this huge
(18:03):
financial aid for internationalstudents. So many of my kids
from low income backgroundsaround the world can land at
places like Harvard and have alltheir flights, winter coats,
food, accommodation, tuition,all covered, which is a bit of a
game changer. So that would be,I would say, my take on sort of
the comparative dynamics. Andultimately, you know, the US is
winning the world's highereducation marketplace, and it is
the most desirable, and kids allaround the world choose it as
(18:27):
the number one destination. SoI'll stop there, and then we can
touch on your second secondquestion.
Sheila Akbar (18:32):
Yeah, yeah, let's, let's pause there. You know that
that was a really nice kind oftour around the world, and I'm
not going to debate you on thedescription of any of those
systems. But one thing that I amreally curious about, and
listeners probably already knowmy thoughts on this, but I want
to hear yours, is that HungerGames dynamic that you mentioned
(18:54):
is so prevalent in China andcertainly in India, has somehow
made its way into America forthe populations that are
interested in the most selectiveuniversities, it's absolutely a
hunger game situation. And mythesis on this is a little bit
of, well, it is a scarceresource at those schools,
(19:15):
there's a very limited number ofseats the you know, the
competition is so high, ofcourse, it's going to be
somewhat Hunger Games II. Andthe other piece of this is, you
know, especially with theclientele that I am typically
working with, tend to beimmigrant families, and they are
used to that system, and theybring their expectations of that
system to here, and then that itplays out in their parenting and
(19:37):
the choices that they make fortheir for their students. But
I'm curious what you see as whyit sometimes feels like The
Hunger Games in this US system,which seems to encompass some of
the things from all of thesedifferent places that you've
just described.
Jamie Beaton (19:51):
Yeah, so great question. So I think as far as
answering this, and I'll be asblunt as I can, if you're in a
country like New Zealand, andeveryone's just pretty relaxed
and high. School, then theresult of that is no one has to
really try that hard, becausepeople's content preparation for
exams isn't that high and peoplearen't doing that many
activities. In New Zealand, it'svery interesting. You've had a
lot of migration from both Chinaand India, and at the biggest
(20:14):
school in the country byacademics, it's a school called
Auckland Grammar School. Theyhave a streaming system where
basically, kids are ranked fromtop to bottom in a variety of
classes, and every term based ontheir academic grades. You move
from class to class. So you canimagine, you know, it's a bit of
a pressure cooker. Andinterestingly, in the top class,
nearly the entire class comesfrom China, with some Indian
students. And then basicallyyou've got more diversity
(20:36):
throughout the rest of theschool, but you essentially have
this top class, which is in NewZealand, a country that has a
15% Asian population, but theydominate that entire top class.
And what you've seen over thelast 10 years is that basically,
with more and more migrationfrom both China and India and
also Korea and Japan and stuff,you have academic cultures being
imported basically from thesehigh competition call it Hunger
(20:57):
Games markets. And what thatdoes is it means that you can no
longer just chill and be okay.
You have to actually startworking harder and harder and
harder in high school. And youknow, what you see in New
Zealand is that 75% of the kidsof the country's top 10 scholars
in a given year on average, comefrom the Chinese or Indian
community. And you have thismassive academic outperformance
and over time, that just meansthat more and more society has
(21:19):
to engage with academics reallyformidably. Otherwise, they're
left behind these reallyambitious immigrants that bring
their cultural focus to NewZealand. So now thinking about
the US example, if you were tosimplify this and just dial it
down to you've got differentcultures with different academic
expectations. Generally, recentimmigrants have a hardcore
willingness to compete in thesetypes of academic adventures.
(21:41):
And they're coming from cultureswhere they're used to hard work
in terms of grinding from ayoung age in their education
systems, they migrate toAmerica, they have put in hard
yards to get there, and you betthey want the next generation to
do better. And so you have anincreasing proportion of
students at schools like Harkerin California or some of the
magnet schools across Washingtonor Texas that come from these
(22:01):
immigrant groups. I think aboutsome of the events we run in New
Jersey, for example, that aredominated by folks from
immigrant communities. And Ithink this can largely explain
why there's been an increase in,quote, unquote, a high intensity
academic focus in America,because you have more and more
of this cultural influence fromChina, from India, from India,
from other parts of the world,entering the country. I think
(22:21):
that's that's one part of it.
The second thing, just from abeyond kind of cultural group
phenomena, is you have the prizehas never been higher. So if you
get into a place like Stanfordor Harvard, you basically can
automatically raise a multimillion dollar seed fundraise
for your startup if you want todo that. And many of our crimson
alumni, more than 15 have raisedmulti million dollar seed rounds
(22:43):
having finished their degrees.
If you want to work on WallStreet, the fastest way to get
there is to go through these IvyLeague schools. If you want to,
for example, get to a top lawschool. The best way to get
there is, you know, again,through a strong undergraduate
school. So you have on thesupply side, a lot of the big
jobs that, you know, base theirhiring off this kind of
education ranking system. So Ithink there are a couple of
(23:03):
dynamics that I think contributeto this. And the final thing is,
as more information gets outabout the college admissions
process and what the top kidsare doing, that lifts the bar
for everybody else, it meansthat while there are more
applicants applying to Harvardtoday than 30 years ago,
actually the average quality ofthose applicants is way higher
as well. So there are a coupleof the reasons why things have
gotten more intense, buthonestly, they're not that
(23:25):
intense in America. People feelthat way in some pockets of the
country, but if you compare themto Korea or China, or even some
of the Chinese communities inAustralia, it's still largely
not that intense. And so I wouldsay we're extremely far from an
environment where it's likeunhinged, and of course, it
always feels more intense thisyear than last year in America,
(23:45):
because every other competitiongets higher, but it's still two
to three times easier to get infrom America than for many of
these international countries.
And in general, you know, it'ssofter competition. So I would
say, yes, it's getting hotterand more intense, but it's far
away from being crazy in myopinion?
Sheila Akbar (24:03):
Yeah, well, I just hope we never see that. I hope
it just doesn't get there. Butlet's get to my second question
is like, Why? Why do you thinkthere is such a reaction to
something like your spotlight inthe Wall Street Journal the
other day?
Jamie Beaton (24:20):
I guess there are a couple of things, you know.
The first is that we've beenreally effective at sending, you
know, more than 1000 studentsnow to these Ivy League schools.
Last year we had 294, to the IvyLeague. So I guess when folks
sort of see firms that have seena couple here and there to these
top schools, that's one thing,but doing it at pretty
substantial scale, which isbecoming a, you know, meaningful
percentage of the incoming classof these schools. Obviously,
(24:42):
people want to wonder, you know,what is the process? What is the
culture of training? How doesone approach this, to actually
get in? And I think what peoplefind pretty intense is like the
resumes of the kids who actuallyget in, and perhaps just the
level of focus we take totraining students for these top
schools. You. There are somestats in that, in the article
about how our average league kidtook 10 APs. Or, you know, a lot
(25:05):
of our kids do projects andpodcasts and other initiatives
to build their leadershipskills. I think the other thing
that really gets people going isthey think, Man, this like
destroys someone's childhood.
It's like so bad for theirability to be a child and relax.
And I actually think this is acrazy argument. I think
actually, if you think about ourcrimson students, and you
actually meet them, and a coupleweekends ago, I was at Stanford,
(25:25):
and I had an event with 30current Stanford kids that are
crimson students, and we had anoff site retreat for them to
give them some strategies aroundhow they can best succeed in
college. When you actually meetthese students, they're some of
the most curious, electrified,excited, passionate kids on the
planet. And if you compare thesekids who are so intrinsically
passionate about learning andalso being ambitious and
(25:47):
successful to a typical kid inAmerica, they're actually far
more enthralled by the educationprocess. And so it's an
interesting thing where as anoutsider, you look at this and
you think, man, these kids mustbe having a horrible time, but
then you meet them and they'reactually loving the journey. And
so I think there's that desirefor many parents who probably
haven't engaged in this kind ofintensive training, to say,
actually, that kind of style ofparenting is terrible. You know,
I would never do that. Thesepeople are crazy doing this, but
(26:10):
often those parents are thensending us an inquiry, and also
they, at the same time, aren'tquite grasping that the college
process in America fundamentallyincentivizes good behavior. It
incentivizes you to be a betterleader, pursue more academics,
manage your time better,articulate yourself better in
essays, and all these traitshelp you to be a high performer
in the future, and it thenproduces amazing results for our
(26:31):
graduates, as far as all the allthe companies that go to work
for. So I think that's anotherpart of the nerve center around,
sort of this tension aroundparenting styles and sort of who
these kids are that are gettingin. And then finally, probably
the pricing and tuition cost ofsome of our services. The Wall
Street Journal certainly wantedto highlight some of the more
comprehensive programs we offer.
But a lot of families acrossAmerica, across a variety of
(26:53):
states, jumping into crimson forpretty standard prices in our
industry. And a lot of familieschoose to leave private schools,
and they use crimson plus publicschool when they get better
results. And you know, privateschools in America can cost 40k
per year for five years of highschool. That's a very big cost.
And if you can instead pay for amore targeted service and then
go to your public school, youmight get a far better return on
(27:15):
investment for your educationdollars. So there are a couple
of kind of reactions andthoughts that I think I would
say, from the article, but happyto hear your thoughts as well,
from from your community.
Sheila Akbar (27:24):
Sure. And you know, I want to preface this by,
yeah, I consider you a friend. Ihave a lot of respect for you,
but I think we have verydifferent philosophies about
this. And of course, I've met, Imean, I don't think I've met any
of the students from crimson,but I've met students like the
ones you're describing, who,who. I mean, I think you are one
of them, right? Who just want todevour every academic
(27:45):
opportunity that is in front ofthem. Learning is so meaningful
and so enthralling to them. Iwas this way in high school,
right? I know that thesestudents exist, and I know that
their parents aren't forcingthem to be this way, right, but
I think the place where I findthings get a little bit blurry,
perhaps dangerous is when thatnarrative becomes the media
(28:10):
narrative about collegeadmissions, because it has such
a downstream effect of evenstudents who may be that you
know, excited about learning andthat motivated and all of these
things without parentalpressure. It puts pressure on
those students to do more. Theirparents hear it, and their
(28:32):
parents are already anxious,uncertain about their their
child's future, probably notbecause of anything that has to
do with their child, but moreabout the times we live in.
Right the way society hasstratified itself, the certain
you already mentioned this, someof the jobs that are accessible
through certain pathways ofeducation, and some that are
(28:54):
not, and essentially socialmobility and stability in
today's world, we're recordingthis the day before the
election, so that anxiety isquite high. But parents hear
that and don't, don't reallyclock that. You know, the
students for whom that modelworks are the students who are
(29:15):
already on that path in somesort of mental way. And then
they start saying, Okay, we needto do this. We're competing with
those students. And then itbecomes a Hunger Games at that
level. And then it also has, Ithink, an effect on students who
may not maybe they're not evenconsidering college, maybe
they're the first person intheir family to ever even
(29:36):
consider College, and this justreinforces the message that
college is not for them. Theyaren't seeing this as Oh,
Harvard or Stanford or this. Youknow, small slice of colleges
wants this or that, or tends toaccept these kinds of students.
They see it as Oh, all Collegewants that, and I'm not that, so
I've got no chance at college.
So why should I even try? Right?
(29:57):
It has a demotivating effect.
Opposite of the one that youwere you were referencing as
motivating. So I'm not sayingall of that is your
responsibility, certainly notyou're, you know, you run a
business, but it's the societywe live in, and I think that's
the that's the thing that I'mreally interested in
investigating further. Like thissystem is one that I think as
Americans, we pin A lot of ouridealism on right. It is a part
(30:23):
and parcel of the foundingmechanism of how a democracy
should work. Right, a greatpublic education system that
allows for social mobility, thatallows for people to study as
much as they want, go as far asthey want, do whatever it is
that they want, and an educatedpopulace is essential to making
(30:45):
our democracy work. And at thesame time, we think that the
process should be fair the waywe believe democracy should be
fair. And I'm using air quotes.
I know we don't move on, butobviously we know that this
process is not fair, right?
There are certain people who canaccess advice from you or me.
There are people who can access,you know, athletics or their
(31:07):
families can make big donations,or they have legacy status, or,
you know, any number of thingsyou can point to that show you
very clearly that this is not apure meritocracy. Nothing
actually is. But we like tobelieve that this should be more
meritocratic than other systemsin our society, because this one
is so foundational to oursociety working. I'm curious for
(31:31):
your thoughts about that.
Jamie Beaton (31:35):
First of all, beautifully articulated. Let me
try and respond to some ofthose. The first thing that I
would say, and I opened this wasAmerica system is the best
sports system we have. And Icome at this from the lovely
soft land of New Zealand, whereit's a beautiful country, but
the education system is brokenbecause there is no incentive
for anyone to really try at ahardcore level, if you're
(31:57):
looking at domesticuniversities, and if you look at
the AB test of the Americansystem, first, the New Zealand
system. Today, I can tell youcomprehensively that if you
could just click your fingersand shift the New Zealand higher
education system to be similarto the US. One people would do
that in a heartbeat. So onething that's worth noting is,
while we should always be tryingto improve us higher ed it is
(32:18):
not by any means the worst oreven the second best, I would
say it's the best, but again,acknowledging that it is, of
course, got its own flaws. Toyour point of meritocracy, I
agree it's hard to actuallyengineer any kind of perfect
meritocracy, really, anywhere, alot of competitions, I think
about even gaming, for example,take the case of a computer game
like Call of Duty. In a gamelike this, you know, maybe it's
(32:40):
a pure meritocracy if you allhave the same disc, but if
someone's on the right Discordserver and has access to certain
techniques or interestingcombinations of attachments for
their character, they'll dobetter. And it doesn't have
anything to do with the abilityof these two kids to play the
game. But it's really about sortof information discovery. So
anyway, a silly example, but thepoint is that I would say it's
(33:01):
very hard to create any kind ofpure meritocracy. But what we
can do in the US system is tryto make it as merit track as
possible through things like,for example, you know, more
broad based need, blindfinancial aid, more transparency
into the emission system. Thething that I would probably draw
a line on is, I think what Idon't like is a system that is
(33:22):
not a fair competition. But whatI don't mind is intense
competition. And I thinkactually it's really good for
there to be intense competition.
And if you think about us versusChina, geopolitical dynamics as
a country, if we have baduniversities and America no
longer attracts top talent fromaround the world, we're at a
huge disadvantage in terms ofthe next 50 years versus a very
(33:42):
ambitious country like China. Ifthe US can attract hardcore
academic students from allaround the world, can take the
top kids from India, the topkids from New Zealand, top kids
from Vietnam, and bring theminto America, sort them with
American values, and have themcompete as Americans, and really
build out the US economy. That'smuch better for Western
democracy than a world in which,you know, America sort of wants
(34:04):
to have a participation trophysystem where anyone can sort of
do okay without trying that hardcompetition is frowned upon. And
you know, meanwhile, in China,it is the Hunger Games to get
into Tsinghua and Peking andbeta. And you do have people
that are four years ahead ofAmericans in terms of STEM
education, you know, by the timethey're 18, that's, I think, a
far, far worse alternative. So Iwould say I would look for
(34:26):
anything that can make thesystem more meritocratic, but I
wouldn't want to do things thatundermines the competitive
intensity of the system, becauseultimately, this is not like
people are doing, like a hot doggetting competition, and it's
bad for all of them to compete.
You know, if you, if you do moremath, and you, you know, you
learn math earlier, or you begincoding earlier, or you try a
Leadership Project earlier,where you read more books for
(34:48):
Columbia's, what did you read inthe last two years? Supplement,
all these things are net goodfor you, and the alternatives,
like Doom scrolling on ticktock, or getting involved with
drugs in high school, or, youknow, not trying as a high
school student. Student, oractually, in a case like New
Zealand being truant and notactually going to high school
and tapping out of the system,those things are all much worse.
So I think if kids are competingon the landscape of academics
(35:10):
and extracurriculars andleadership, that is great for
the country. And of course, youneed to mitigate their stress,
and you need to make sure thatthere's other ways for them to
feel success. And for kids whocan't or don't want to compete
in sort of this higher educationtraining. You know, there are
other pathways, great, but Ithink it's, it's really shooting
a missile into the heart ofwhat's made America so
successful. To begin, you know,ripping apart the system that
(35:32):
has created 15 of the world'stop 20 global universities that
every year, imports the world'ssmartest young minds to America.
It would be disastrous to unwindthat, in my opinion, and the
talent would just go to othercountries. And ultimately, would
worsen the democracy that you'reworried about.
Sheila Akbar (35:47):
Yeah, I mean, I don't, I don't think anyone's
proposing, like, burn it alldown, but I do think we need
some guardrails. And I think, toyour point, you said this, but
didn't focus much on it, but Ithink it's like, so true is the
transparency, I think, thecommunication between the
gatekeepers of higher ed and thestudents who are going to apply
(36:11):
to it, or their families thatcommunications. There is no
system of communications. It'sso fragmented, it's so
piecemeal. There's so muchincomplete information,
misinformation, purposefuldisinformation. It's just a real
mess, and I think that may be aplace that we can start. Okay,
well, I think you and I couldprobably go on about this for a
(36:33):
very long time, but we'll spareour listeners that debate. I
thank you, Jamie, for your time.
This is a really greatconversation.
Jamie Beaton (36:39):
Super fun and always happy to discuss more.
Yeah, I think, I think it is a,it's a really challenging one,
because it strikes the heart of,you know, should you have an all
public education system? Shouldthere be entrepreneurship and
sort of for profit mechanisms atplay in a kind of clean
meritocracy? What's the role ofcoaching? You know, should there
even be private schools orprivate tutors, or any of this
stuff? And, you know, it's sortof a messy one in the middle,
(37:02):
you know, how much is too much?
What kind of support should beenabled? What are the role of
external advisors in this kindof process? It is a thorny one.
And I would say it's, it's not aperfect world to have no
training at all. And China triedthat. They banned all for profit
tutoring temporarily. And itcreated sort of a national
disaster with black markets andparents, it actually created
more inequality, because thehigh income families could still
(37:23):
find their black market tutorsand everyone else couldn't. So I
mean, I definitely probablystick to the line that it's the
best, flawed system that exists.
We need to keep working on it.
But it's definitely far frombroken, and it's working okay
with you know, recent thingslike banning affirmative action
being quite exciting, probablyin some ways, but also
(37:43):
horrifying in others. So it'stough, but I think we've got to
keep tinkering with it, andhopefully you and I can play a
good role in making it better.
Sheila Akbar (37:52):
Yeah, all right, that's a great place to leave
it. Thank you again. Jamie.
Jamie Beaton (37:56):
Thank you. Bye.
Bye.
Sheila Akbar (37:59):
Well, I definitely could have gone on with him for
many more hours, and, you know,maybe at some point we'll have
him back to do some more of thatdiscussion. But I hope you found
that enlightening as to how somepeople see the college process
and how I see it. And of course,both points of view are valid,
but I think we need to thinkabout, you know, I personally
(38:20):
believe we need to think aboutwho are we serving, and what is
the purpose of education in ourcountry, and how can we design a
system that serves that goal?
But I'll leave that there. Wehad a lot of interest in last
week's live coaching episode. Mystudent, Roger, we called him,
was very excited to share theepisode, and I hope that you
enjoyed it as well. And as I'vesaid before, we are pivoting in
(38:43):
the new year to a live coachingmodel. So if you have a question
that you want to get answered,whether you're a student or a
parent or someone who works withstudents, please submit it via
the links in our show notes, andwe'll have you on to discuss.
And it's okay if you don't thinkthe question is worth 3040,
minutes of discussion on itcould be a very short one, and
(39:04):
I'm happy to take it offline aswell, but please do reach out,
because it's an exciting newformat, and I want people to be
able to take advantage of it.
We're going to take a shortbreak here to take Thanksgiving
off, and we'll be back inDecember with, you know, some
new content for you, and I wantto take a moment to just thank
you for being a listener, forcaring about this stuff and for
(39:27):
doing all the things that youdo. So thanks, folks, and we'll
see you not next week, but theweek after. Take care.
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