Learn Strategic Thinking to
Choose the Right College for You!
"Nothing in the Hand Not First in the Mind."
Think deeply about what you want in a college.
Then apply to a wide range of schools that would be a good fit for you.
Eric Tipler
What You'll Learn
You'll Learn How To . . .
- Understand and use your remarkable mind
- Clarify what you really want in a college
- Think backwards from the vision to the plan
- Gather relevant and reliable evidence
- Establish evaluation criteria
- Understand the interests of the college
- Develop options that satisfy your interests
- Weigh tradeoffs among alternatives
- Use AI tools properly and ethically
- Prepare for and conduct your campus visits
- Choose the College that’s Right for You!
Results You'll Achieve
You Will Be Able To . . .
- Gain Clarity and Control Over the Process
- Overcome confusion and anxiety
- Trust your own judgment
- Reduce “buyer’s remorse”
- Become confident about big decisions
- Create a smarter college list
- Craft a more compelling and authentic application
- Navigate family conversations about college
- Ace college interviews and visits
- Develop greater resilience and self-reliance
Click the button to hear Kate and Ken discuss the course.
Your Roadmap to a Confident Choice
Module 1: How Your Marvelous (and Unruly) Mind Works
We see colleges as we are, not as they are. And they see us the same way.
Get to know the remarkable—and sometimes unruly—mind you'll be using to make this big decision. We'll show you how to manage your own mind to see the whole elephant instead of just a single part.
Key Topics:- Why you are more important than the college you choose.
- Navigating the "buzzing, blooming confusion" of 3,900+ colleges.
- Fast vs. Slow Thinking: Taming your emotional "Elephant" with your logical "Rider."
- Recognizing how your perceptions, biases, and emotions can influence your choices.
- An introduction to educating your intuition for better decision-making.
Module 2: How to Make Your Mind Work for You
Use a proven method of goal-directed thinking to clarify what you really want, discover the relevant facts, setting SMART goals, establishing your decision criteria, assessing your options, weighing the alternatives and tradeoffs, and choosing the college that's right for you.
Key Topics:
- Clarify what you really want from your college experience with a "Strategic Why" and envisioning.
- Discover and assemble the relevant facts about colleges and you--money, academic programs, campus life, well being, and more.
- Think backwards from your compelling vision and create path forward using SMART goals.
- Establish your Decision Criteria: Setup a personalized rubric to measure what matters most to you in the college you want.
- Use your criteria to evaluate your options: How well does each potential college choice stack up?
- Weigh the alternatives and tradeoffs
- Create a short list of good, better, and best colleges for you.
Module 3: The Right & Wrong Way to Use AI Tools
Colleges want to admit real people, not AI-generated personas. Your genuine voice, experiences, and perspectives are your competitive advantage. Used wrongly, AI tools can destroy your authenticity. But--like other mindwork tools--, used properly, they can extend and support the mental work you need to do to find the right college for you.
Key Topics:
- Using AI as a Research Assistant ("What are the key differences between liberal arts colleges and research universities?)
- Data Analysis: Comparing statistics across multiple schools
- Question Generation ("What questions should I ask during my campus interview?")
- Application Review: Checking for typos and clarity (like a spell checker)
- Practice Partner: Rehearsing interview responses with AI feedback
- Advanced assistance with decision criteria
Module 4: Negotiating Your Best Deal with Colleges
Most colleges want and need you. They spend significant time and money trying to persuade you to choose them. To enroll, you must commit to spending a large chunk of money. In this module, you'll learn 7 elements of negotiation that will help you work out an agreement that meets your interests better than your best walkaway alternative.
Key Topics:
- Communicating with the colleges: Emails, phone calls, and campus visits
- Establishing a mutually respectful relationship
- Understanding their interests and how they overlap with yours.
- Developing options for agreement that satisfy your and their interests
- Identifying the standards of legitimacy that apply to this decision
- Identifying your best walkaway alternative college
- Committing to the college that will work best for you
The Full Course for Only $950 $380
An Investment in Your Future, at an Unbeatable Price
Strategic thinking is one of the most valuable skills you can develop. This course is an investment that will pay dividends throughout college and beyond, enabling better decisions, reducing stress, and building well-founded confidence.
The standard price for this course is $950.
For a limited time, we are making this transformative course available at a special price to a foundational group of students.
College prep companies charge $595 to $3,595 for help with the application process.
Mindwork: Strategic Thinking for College-bound Students consists of four live online sessions plus 4 modules of video presentations, quizzes, an eBook and workbooks to help confirm and consolidate learning.
The August 11 cohort is limited to 12 students.
We expect this cohort to fill quickly.
Reserve your spot now with a deposit of $190.
Equip Your Mind to Seek Truth
The Goal of this Course
To do well in college and life, you need strategic thinking skills.
Strategic thinking will help you get into the college you want. Knowing and skillfully using the knowledge, tools, and methods of strategic thinking will help them want you.
The goal of this course is to equip your mind with the knowledge, tools, and methods of strategic thinking that will help you choose the right college and help them want you.
Imagine you want to climb a high mountain. You will need to be physically and mentally fit. You will need a basic understanding of the terrain. You will need boots and a helmet and may need ropes and other climbing tools. And you will need some basic mountain-climbing skills. Knowledge, tools, and methods--the content of every art.
Pursuing knowledge and mental skills in college and beyond requires its own set of knowledge, tools, and methods. To do it well, you need to become skilled in the art of evidence-based reasoning.
We want you to enter your first college class confident in your ability to think clearly, reason effectively, and argue persuasively.
You'll be prepared not only for college assignments and exams but also for a future career as a lawyer, business leader, teacher, health care professional, engineer, scientist, or community advocate.
In this course, you'll also meet some of the greatest thinkers in history—including Aristotle, Francis Bacon, David Hume, Immanuel Kant, William James, John Dewey, Karl Popper, Jean Piaget, Daniel Kahneman, and Robin Hogarth.
Your Journey in this Course
Evidence and Truth
Learn to identify and weigh reliable evidence, establish facts, and understand the role reliable evidence plays in sound judgments.
Clear and Logical Thinking
Become familiar with the basics of logically valid arguments.
Logical Fallacies and Cognitive Biases
Learn about reasoning pitfalls such as confirmation bias, emotional influences, and common logical fallacies.
Persuasive Argumentation
Learn how the best thinkers construct compelling arguments using Aristotle's three-part structure of credibility (ethos), empathy (pathos), and reason (logos)—an essential skill for success in college and beyond.
Overview
Mike Palmer holds a doctorate in philosophy and social sciences from the Free University of Berlin, a law degree from Georgetown University, and certificates in negotiation and mediation from Harvard Law School. He practiced law for 25 years, first with Jenner & Block in Chicago and then as head of his own firm in Vermont. His extensive teaching experience includes philosophy, logic, conflict management, ethics, negotiation, and dispute resolution courses delivered to college students, business professionals, and practicing lawyers.
Mike is the author of books on professional ethics and dispute resolution and has written extensively on the subject of good judgment.
In Mindwork: Strategic Thinking for College-bound Students, Mike is making a life-time of study and practice available to young students to help them excel at every venture they undertake.
Can't Make this Cohort?
Let us know if you'd like to participate but a conflict prevents your joining this cohort. We'll reserve a spot for the next offering. And we can get you started with the video course as well. Just complete the form on the right.
Contact Us
Let your friends know about this unique opportunity. They will be glad you did. Tell them to let us know they heard it from you, and you both will get a 10% discount on the course.