Jess here. My guest this week is Jeff Selingo, an author and speaker I’ve admired for a long time. His work on college, college admissions and the transition to work and life in emerging adulthood are essential reads for anyone looking to understand what want and need in higher education and life.

His books, There is Life After College, Who Gets In and Why: A Year Inside College Admissions and his forthcoming book, Dream School: Finding the College That’s Right for You are all essential reads for teens and emerging adults as well as parents of teens and emerging adults. I adore all three, but I wanted to talk with Jeff about a few aspects of his writing: how he created a speaking career, finds his topics, and how on earth he gets people to talk about topics that tend to be shrouded in secrecy behind very high walls (such as college admissions). Check out Jeff’s newsletter, Next, and Podcast, Future U

KJ here, as you probably know, to tell you that if you're not listening to the Writing the Book episodes Jenny Nash and I have been doing, you should be. Jenny's working on her latest nonfiction, and I'm working on my next novel, and we're both trying to do something bigger and better than anything we've done before.

We sit down weekly and dish about everything—from Jenny's proposal and the process of getting an agent to my extremely circular method of creating a story. We are brutally honest and open—even beyond what we are here. Truly, we probably say way too much. And for that reason, Writing the Book is subscriber-only.

So I'm here saying: subscribe. That's a whole 'nother episode a week, and always a juicy one—plus all the other good subscriber stuff: the First Pages: BookLab, Jess’s From Author to Authority series, and whatever else we come up with. (It varies enough that it's hard to list it all.) Plus, of course, access whenever we run The Blueprint—which, I don’t know, might be soon.

That's all I’ve got. So head to amwritingpodcast.com, get yourself signed up, and come listen to Writing the Book. Then talk to us. Tell us—tell us about your book writing and what's going on. We really want to hear from y’all.

Thanks a lot. And Subscribe!

Transcript below!

EPISODE 465 - TRANSCRIPT

KJ Dell'Antonia

Howdy, listeners—KJ here, as you probably know—to tell you that if you're not listening to the Writing the Book episodes Jennie Nash and I have been doing, you should be. Jennie is working on her latest nonfiction, and I'm working on my next novel, and we're both trying to do something bigger and better than anything we've done before. We sit down weekly and dish about everything from Jennie's proposal and the process of getting an agent to my extremely circular method of creating a story. We are brutally honest and open—even beyond what we are here. Truly, we probably say way too much, and for that reason, Writing the Books is subscriber-only. So I'm here saying: subscribe. That's a whole other episode a week, and always a juicy one—plus there's all the other good subscriber stuff: the First Page Booklab, Jess' From Author to Authority series, and whatever else we come up with, which kind of varies enough that it's hard to list out. Plus, of course, access to whenever we run the Blueprint, which—I don't know—it’s going to be soon. That’s all I got. So head to AmWritingpodcast.com, get yourself signed up and come listen to Writing the Book, and then talk to us. Tell us—tell us about your book writing and what’s going on. We really want to—we want to hear from y’all. Thanks a lot, and please subscribe.

Multiple Speakers

Is it recording? Now it's recording. Yay! Go ahead. This is the part where I stare blankly at the microphone. Try to remember what I'm supposed to be doing. All right, let's start over. Awkward pause. I'm going to rustle some papers. Okay. Now, one, two, three.

Jess Lahey

Hey, it's Jess Lahey, and welcome to the Hashtag AmWriting Podcast. This is a podcast about writing all the things—short things, long things, poetry, proposals, queries, nonfiction, fiction—all the stuff. In the end, this is the podcast about getting the work done. And in the beginning of this podcast, our goal was to flatten the learning curve for other writers. So I am super excited about who I have today. Oh—quick intro. I'm Jess Lahey. I'm the author of The Gift of Failure and The Addiction Inoculation, and you can find my work at The New York Times, The Atlantic and The Washington Post, as you can find the work of my guest there too. So my guest today is someone that I have looked up to for a long time, and someone I use as sort of a—to bounce things off of and to think about how I do my work and how to do my work better. Jeff Selingo, thank you so much for coming to on the show. Jeff is the author of a couple of books that I'm a huge—In fact, I can look over at my bookshelf right now and see all of his books on getting into college, why college is not the end point. He has a new book coming out that we’re going to be talking about—really; it’s coming out real as soon as this podcast comes out. And I’m just—I’m a huge fan, Jeff. Thank you so, so much for coming on the pod.

Jeff Selingo

Just the same here—and I'm a huge fan of this podcast as well. It’s on my regular rotation, so...

Jess Lahey

Oh yay.

Jeff Selingo

I am thrilled, as always, to be here.

Jess Lahey

It's—it’s changed over the years, and now that we have four different, you know, co-hosts, there’s sort of different takes on it. We’ve got, like, Sarina—the business side, and Jess—the nonfiction geek side, and KJ—the fiction side, and Jennie—the nuts-and-bolts editor side. So it’s been really fun for us to sort of split off. But what I wanted to talk to you about today are a couple of different things. Your book Who Gets In and Why is—um , on the podcast, we talk about dissecting other people’s work as a way... In fact, I was talking to my daughter about this yesterday. She’s writing a thesis—what she hopes will be one chapter in a book. And I was saying, you know, one of the things you can do is go dissect other books you think are really well constructed—books that are reaching the same, similar audience. And your book, Who Gets In and Why, I think, is essential reading for anyone who's writing interview based, and specifically nonfiction around attempting to get their arms around a process. And a process that—for you—what I’m really interested about in this book is a process that’s usually, you know, guarded and kind of secret. And no one wants to let you in for real on all the moving parts and how the decisions are made, because the college admissions process is—it’s an inexact recipe. It depends on where you are, it depends on the school, but everyone wants the secret. Like, Jeff, just get me the secrets of how to get in. So how do you approach people who are, in a sense, some ways, secret-keepers and guardians of the secret sauce—to mix metaphors? How do you get those people to agree to be a part of a book—not just to be interviewed, but to actually put themselves out there and to put the sausage-making out there in a book, which can be a huge leap of faith for any organization or human being?

Jeff Selingo

Yeah, and I think it's definitely harder now than it was when I did Who Gets In and Why. I think it's harder than when, you know, other people have been inside the process—whether it's, you know, <a href="https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/fast-food-nation-eric-schlosser/1100465443?ean=9780547750330" target="_blank