SOUNDBITE by Sara Harberson promises to share "The Admissions Secret that Gets You into College and Beyond." Harberson has more than twenty years of experience in the field, having served in admissions offices at private colleges (University of Pennsylvania, plus Franklin & Marshall) as well being a Director of College Counseling at an elite high school. She now takes private clients and also shares information online through various sites, including AdmissionsRevolution.com and Application Nation. In her new book, Harberson titles the first chapter "Four Years Reduced to Four Minutes" and stresses that "colleges can spend years cultivating a student to apply, only to spend minutes reading their application and seconds deciding their fate." The next several chapters in Part 1 deal with "Understanding the Soundbite" and being honest about strengths, telling your story, etc. Part 2 is about "Crafting your Soundbite," complete with a long list of rules like writing in first person, being bold and concise, and using nouns and verbs. Finally, in Part 3, she reviews "Living your Soundbite" and concludes with some helpful exercises and examples. Harberson's conversational tone and active encouragement to pursue "self-awareness, intentionality, and story-telling," finding what is essentially a unique selling proposition, make this text worth a look. Granted, there is a bit of a "self-promotional" aspect, but the concrete nature of specific examples and short exercises will be helpful to students and families, especially those new to the admissions process.

Soundbite is an enjoyable read with enough information to make it a must-read for high school juniors and parents of children who are nearing college. Harberson has a wealth of experience as an Admissions Officer and gives readers inside-baseball tips and anecdotes.

One minor gripe is some of the information is new, but some of this information is stuff a reader can find elsewhere. For better or for worse, the target audience is clearly students applying to elite schools. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with that, and there’s plenty of information to recommend to anyone applying to college.

Harberson brings great insight to the soundbite. She worked at a time when college applications included the option to include a personal picture and unfortunately, the sad reality within her office is people’s applications included some judgment of the picture as part of the evaluation process. Thankfully, things are different today. Harberson also offers great tips on how to essentially craft a brief “elevator pitch” in a way that will give the applicant the best chance of gaining admission. She goes through specific examples were a particular vision may be a good start but might need greater focus and detail in order to separate from the pack. At some of these schools, admissions officers have about five minutes to judge an application and compare it with 100s of similar applications. So, she has strong ideas on how to stand out.

Again, any high schooler looking to get into a competitive school is advised to give this a read. There is valuable information here, even if some of it is familiar territory.

I have mixed feelings about this book. I love the concept of the soundbite, or a concise representation of who you are and what it is that makes you uniquely special. It's like a logline for books or movies, or a brand statement for a product. We should all have a soundbite, but having one as your guiding focus as you apply to college is an invaluable way to target your extra-curricular efforts and course selection, select your college choices, and keep your application consistent. My struggle with the book is how wordy it sometimes gets. High school students and their parents are anxious and impatient about college applications--it's stressful! It's confusing! There's so much we don't know! (I just went through this twice in the past two years, so I know!) Harberson's experience and approach are top-notch, but the text gets bogged down in personal anecdotes and repetitive information, when all I wanted was her to tell me exactly what to do.

The thing is, she does tell us exactly what to do. I'd just love to see a stripped down version of this book. The workbook-style elements it has are valuable for college applicants to work through the self-analysis necessary to come up with the "soundbite", and I particularly liked that Harberson included sample completed versions of workbook questions.

If I had the budget to hire a college counselor, I would definitely hire Harberson. I can see that she not only helps kids get into schools they might not have been able to get into otherwise, but also that the mere process of working with Harberson will help a teen gain self-confidence and a fuller sense of who they are.