From Community to Campus: Turning Civic Engagement into Admissions Success

Webinar Transcription

2025-09-23-From Community to Campus: Turning Civic Engagement into Admissions Success

Lydia: [00:00:00] Hello everyone. Welcome to, “From Community to Campus, Turning Civic Engagement Into Admissions Success.” My name is Lydia Hollon and I’m gonna be your moderator tonight. I’m a senior advisor here at CollegeAdvisor and been with the company for about four years now. And in addition to advising students, I’m also a proud co-captain of our essay review team and a graduate of New York University.

Lydia: To orient everyone with webinar timing, we’re going to start off with a presentation, then answer your questions in a live q and a on the sidebar. You can download the slides and start submitting questions in the q and a tab. And we’ll also be recording the session so that you can review the webinar again later.

Lydia: Now let’s meet our presenter.[00:01:00] 

Jahnavi: Hi everybody. It is so nice to meet you. My name is Jahnavi pronounced, like the name John, and then, uh, I’m forgetting her name and then the letter V. And I am the president and founder of New Voters, which I’m so excited to tell you guys more about. Um, and. How you can use your civic engagement experiences that you might already have, or if you are not yet doing one, hopefully convince you to do it because not only does it look great on your college applications, it’s also something we desperately need more of and we absolutely need you to be doing it as a young person.

Jahnavi: Um, so just in terms of like my ethos pulling out the AP language, but uh, in presenting here, uh, well, my name’s Jovie. I graduated from Harvard College in 2023. Um, and I started New Voters when I was a junior in high school as a high school club. Uh, and it was pretty central to my application. But [00:02:00] the kicker is I actually didn’t start doing it until my, like end of my junior year slash beginning of my senior year.

Jahnavi: So. It’s never too late. If you’re watching this and you’re like, oh my gosh, I’m going into my senior year of high school. It’s not too late. It is never too late to do something that matters and that’s good. Um, and especially not right now. So you can see that really embarrassing photo of me from high school as well.

Jahnavi: That was actually my headshot in my school newspaper where I wrote very bad opinion articles. Um, this is a question for all the folks who are watching just to like kind of orient us. Um, there’s, and I’m sure you guys have heard, like just a kind of really untrue sentiment about young people that, you know, young people don’t care.

Jahnavi: I, you know, I’m 25. Some would consider me young and I find that me, my friends and all the high school students that we work with, not only care, they care a whole lot. So would love to hear from you. [00:03:00] In the chat, what is a challenge in your community that you wish someone would fix? Or this is just like an issue, or cause you care about, like, things that can be shouted out, like the environment or, you know, your roads or like guns or animals.

Jahnavi: Like truly whatever is something that speaks to you about, you know, challenges in your community. Community or, or things that you, you care about broadly. So, uh, feel free to to shoot those in the, i in the, uh, chat if you can. Thank you Madeline. I, there’s a huge, um, you know, opportunity for per people of color to be represented in medicine and preventing misdiagnosis.

Jahnavi: You clearly have your research in hand about how, how that affects people. So, um, but yeah, that’s absolutely a challenge. Needs to be fixed and one that [00:04:00] I hope that you tackle in as well as all the other folks who are, are putting things in. So we’ll start with my story. Um, when I was 16, the 2016 election happened.

Jahnavi: Um, and I’m figuring many of you, and I was too young to vote. I’m figuring many, if not all of you, were in the same boat with the 2024 election. You know, I remember sitting on my couch and watching the election results and knowing that I wasn’t part of them because I was too young to vote. I remember going into school the next day in my famously purple hometown of Chester County, Pennsylvania, right outside of Philly, go Birds, and seeing my friends on both sides of the aisle kind of walking around in a haze.

Jahnavi: And the resounding opinion from people, regardless of their political ideology, was that this was the most talked about event of our entire lives. And it felt like we had absolutely no say. So we [00:05:00] went to our local elected official. We said, Hey, me and a couple friends, and we said, Hey, we’re 16. We care about our school, we care about our neighborhoods.

Jahnavi: Like how can we get involved? What can we do? And they said, come back when you’re 18 and old enough to vote. However, I wasn’t gonna be old enough to vote until after I graduated from high school, ’cause I’m a Gemini. My birthday’s late. And I was like, so I just have to wait. But then I realized there’s a bunch of people in the grade above me.

Jahnavi: And I was a junior at the time who were old enough to vote. Um, and so then my senior fall when I was still too young to vote, we ran a registration drive and in three days we registered 85% of our senior class to vote. Um, and you can see this photo here, me with my really short haircut in the middle.

Jahnavi: This was our group. Uh, and this was the morning of our first drive. And it was, it was one of the most incredible experiences of my life. And we used the tactics that were tactics that only someone who was in high school would’ve known to do and informed [00:06:00] by like me and my friends. But like we went into every homeroom.

Jahnavi: We got extended homerooms. We were, we like went to homecomings, we like stood outside of the field hockey locker room after the game. And like we had a list of every single eligible student in our gr like by age in our grade. And we essentially like used like community organizing, like peer to peer relationships to get every single one of them to register to vote.

Jahnavi: Uh, from there we, you know, registered our senior cost to vote. We received the Pennsylvania Governor Civic Engagement Award, which is still around, um, and is an award that they’re, that is given to high school students who run re voter registration drives in their schools. In Pennsylvania. Awards like this actually do exist in other states, in multiple states, um, across the country.

Jahnavi: So like your state might have an award like this as well. Uh, we got featured in the Philadelphia Enquirer, which is like the big newspaper for Philly. Uh, and the secretary of State of Pennsylvania came to our school. In the top left, you can see, and did like a [00:07:00] whole presentation with us in the state senator.

Jahnavi: Um, we got invited to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania’s capital. Uh, and from there, New Voters has really grown so that the registration drive was the only thing that happened before I applied to college, that first registration drive in my high school. Um, and that. So it wasn’t a nonprofit, it wasn’t some big thing.

Jahnavi: It was one registration drive that I ran at my school. Um, and it was, you know, me sharing my intention to grow it. And what do you know? It grew. So in the eight years since New Voters has grown to a lot, it’s run drives we’re, it’s now my full-time job, which is a crazy thing to say. My high school club is my full-time job, but we’ve run registration drives in over a thousand high schools across the country with this explicit, um, mission of making sure high school students have the belief in themselves and the tools to know, to, like, behave and act as the, [00:08:00] the change makers and leaders that they are, that you all are.

Jahnavi: Um. So you can see across the page some random photos from our 2020. We did a vaccine hesitancy, teens get the vaccine thing with the former director of the CDC. We did statewide summits with the guy from 13 Reasons Why, and Lauren Rege, who’s right now on Dancing With the Stars. Um, and a whole bunch of other really fun stuff.

Jahnavi: Uh, and our vision, like I said, is that every single high school student registers and votes finds their voice in politics and becomes a lifelong civic participant adding 4 million New Voters. 4 million people graduate from high school every single year. Um, and that’s enough to be the deciding voice in any election, regardless of political side.

Jahnavi: Um, and this is a little bit about our reach to date. We now just, I think we’ve nearly hit 400 people on our team all and then. We’ve had some awards. I was just put on the Forbes 30 under 30 list and got something from L’Oreal, and we were recognized as a United Nations youth Solution. [00:09:00] But all of this started from an idea in high school, and I think that the thing that is a common narrative is people starting clubs to get into college.

Jahnavi: Um, but I think that like the, something that people don’t talk about is like that club, if you care about it, if it’s a cause you really care about, you can take it to be even more than that. Even It can be part of your life. It, it can be something that makes a difference in other people’s lives and it can follow you.

Jahnavi: Maybe it, maybe it won’t be your full-time job. Maybe you care about something in high school and you stop caring about it when you go to college, which is totally fine, but maybe you don’t. Um, but it’s to say that your ideas that you have right now can become big. And to be clear, this was due to the kind advice and guidance of many people.

Jahnavi: And you’re already part of the CollegeAdvisor Network, so you can get that advice and guidance. Um, and most notably for this webinar, I, uh, started, I became a student at Harvard. I got, I wrote about, uh, my drive that I led at my high school in my, as one of my, as my Harvard specific statement. [00:10:00] Um, and I got into Harvard early, and then I applied to Princeton, Stanford in the spring, and I got into those two.

Jahnavi: And I’m not here to say that I know exactly like everyone. If anyone, your experience is so unique to you. I’m just here to give you the, the pluses of how your civic engagement can enhance your thing. I will say, I and, and you are what’s gonna make your application incredible, not like. Any sort of like formula, um, or something like that.

Jahnavi: But I can absolutely help share what I’ve seen as best practices and in the last eight years of leading New Voters and working with over 400 high school students, one-on-one as our interns, and you know, writing letters of rec, what I’ve seen as successful. But, um, at the end of the day, like you are, you’re gonna be incredible and successful no matter what, no matter where you go.

Jahnavi: And this is just some icing to add to whatever you’re [00:11:00] doing. Um, so when it comes to what I wrote about in my application, and like I said, I wrote this in my personal statement, the Harvard specific one, not the common app essay. Um, I highlighted the leadership that was a part of this. The, you know, I ran meetings, I recruited my classmates, I talked about the community impact.

Jahnavi: Um, registered 85% of our senior class in three days. The skills that I built, the recognition. But I think the big thing here, uh, that’s not a bullet on here, but was the. Absolute through line, through all of it was why I cared. I started exactly as I started this presentation actually, and it’s crazy because it remains my start when I speak anywhere, but I literally wrote my I essay.

Jahnavi: It was called Fure Before, during, after, and it literally started with, I remember sitting on my couch and watching the results of the election and that every single issue I cared about and feeling like I had absolutely no say. And [00:12:00] the reason I share that is not because I, it was like riddled with grammatical errors, which I do not recommend.

Jahnavi: But the reason I share that is because, because no matter how, like the, it was one registration drive at my high school, like I mobilized my friends to do something, but what I wanted to get across as much as possible was how I cared and how I refused to sit on the sidelines when I was told I had to.

Jahnavi: And I think that that was what I was trying to get across was that I. That I, I truly cared about the representation of my generation. Um, so I think that when you’re thinking about the causes that you care about, like they’re not the means to the end, they are the, the end, right? Like the thing that you care about, like is what is going to, is what makes you an interested and exciting person.

Jahnavi: No, in college applications and jobs, but also in your friendships. Like the things that people care about are absolutely beyond compelling and very telling as to, to who you are. [00:13:00] So what can you do and f about me? What can you do? Well, first off, a poll to send out to the peoples. Are you involved in a civic activity in your community or school?

Jahnavi: Um, civic activity, I feel like the term civics is not super well defined, but it can literally be, um, as that poll is out, it can literally be. Working at a nonprofit in your area, being part of a school club, being at a political campaign, interning in your local government, conducting research for impact.

Jahnavi: Um, incredible. Incredible. Well, as you guys are an incredibly civically engaged group, which makes sense ’cause you chose to come to this webinar. Um, but there’s a ton of opportunities that you can do to, to be civically engaged. Um, and when it [00:14:00] comes to what you can do right now, it, I’m sure that you are already part of an organization.

Jahnavi: You can, and you can really dig into it. And that’s what we’ll talk about in a little bit. But as an opportunity, um. Well, we can skip through this one because, we’ll, we’ll have more time about this at the end. Some opportunities that, New Voters that you might be interested in that you don’t necessarily, you absolutely don’t have to do.

Jahnavi: But if anything I’ve said resonates with you, you can intern with us. You can conduct research for impact through a summer research program. You can run a registration drive or at minimum, if you would like to. No pressure. Wanna offer as many opportunities as possible. Is our substack where we share these opportunities?

Jahnavi: ’cause our internship and research opportunities are not open right now, but running a registration drive is. So I wanna share with you a little bit about running a registration drive, both to, if you guys want to, it’s a huge opportunity to make an impact in your school, but more so to show you how you can conceptualize any sort of [00:15:00] organizing movement in your school.

Jahnavi: So the term organizing. I say it a lot, my mom’s like, does that mean like organizing your room? I’m like, no, that’s not what I mean by organizing. But it’s what we’re usually taught it means. But organizing is actually the practice of creating change or movements by mobilizing people. Um, and what I mean by that is like, are we able to get people to come to care about a co?

Jahnavi: Maybe they already care about a cause the way that you do, or maybe they are eager to make an impact in their community and don’t know where to start. Or maybe they just don’t know that they can do anything. It’s not something that’s occurred to them. The practice of organizing is getting people from.

Jahnavi: Different backgrounds, different places to come together to make change. It’s not necessarily [00:16:00] like digital, it can be, it’s not necessarily like writing policy. It can be, but it always has to do with people. So when you think about how we run a drive at New Voters, which I’ll go through now so that you can think about it, it’s a very similar practice.

Jahnavi: So when a student wants to get registered to vote, that’s a really easy thing to think about, right? Like that’s a way to be civically engaged is, you know, take Jess on top, she is outta high school, New Voters is at, she registered to vote through a drive, she’s reminded to vote via text, and then she continues to vote every single year.

Jahnavi: But then you have a politically in inclined high schooler or civically inclined high schooler like Akila in the bottom. She expresses interest in New Voters. She’s paired with a personal college mentor, which is what every student who runs a drive with us gets. And they register 85% of the students in their school to vote.

Jahnavi: They become a repeat informed voter. They became a government major. Um, she became a new voter’s mentor, [00:17:00] and also in our case, she went on to actually attend Harvard. Um, it was a very bizarre scenario because she was someone that I had mentored as a high school student. Um, but she received the Pennsylvania Governor Civic Engagement Award and she continued her civic engagement in college.

Jahnavi: She actually took time off college to lead the work, and she, you know, ran a drive at her school through New Voters. Um, and if you want to run a drive at your school, your New Voters, you’re more than welcome to. Um, I’ll have the QR code up at the end again, but we, you will receive prizes and plaques and things like that.

Jahnavi: Uh, and also just in terms of. I think a strong thing with civic engagement is that you can affect change through direct actions. Like if you care about the climate, you can, you know, remove invasive species from your local park. If you care about, you know, health, [00:18:00] you can volunteer at your hospital. If you care about hunger, you can volunteer at the soup kitchen.

Jahnavi: But there’s another broader perspective to this, which is political organizing. And we’re totally non-partisan, which means that we don’t support people of a set any co, of any political side. We’re non-partisan. Plus we don’t like even talk about like, like bills that are on, like, you know, going to be passed and things like that.

Jahnavi: But when it comes to affecting causes you care about, a really, really effective way to do that is to mobilize people to vote. And you might be thinking like, well, I don’t know how much of an impact I’m gonna, we’re gonna have on like the presidential election. And one, don’t count yourself out. There are definitely states and electoral districts that are decided by what would amount to one high school’s eligible voting population.

Jahnavi: Um, but in addition to that, there are many instances of like state level or city level races being [00:19:00] decided by one vote. Um, in my county, Chester County, there are so many ties in elections that they have a process, which is that if there’s a tie, they call in all the Tide candidates and they use a bingo ball machine to, and every candidate takes a bingo ball, and whoever gets the highest number on the bingo ball wins the election.

Jahnavi: Like that’s crazy. That’s a crazy thing that happens. So when you know, thinking about causes you care about and creating change on them, registering people to vote for that. Cause no matter what, if it’s like your environmental club or your host at club or whatever, like registering people to vote is such a meaningful way to make change in that regard.

Jahnavi: So in terms of the numbers, 90% of seniors are eligible to register to vote by the time they graduate. 40% of them voted in 2020 as compared to 75%. 75% of people over the age of 60 voted in 2020, but less. Almost half [00:20:00] that percentage of 18 to 24 year olds voted. And 18 year olds have the lowest voting rate of any age group in the any age in the country.

Jahnavi: 18 year olds. Which is really sad if you think about it. ’cause it’s like when you get your driver’s license when you’re 16, everyone’s rushing to get their car. I mean not, I mean hopefully, but everyone’s rushing to get their license. But when you are old enough to register to vote, you might not be rushing to, to register to vote.

Jahnavi: And that is not the fault of people not wanting to One in Yeah, five young people who didn’t register to vote, had difficulty registering. They didn’t know how to register. They missed a deadline, they had triple the application. There are specific laws in place and there are specific provisions of the ballot that make it particularly hard for first time voters.

Jahnavi: Um, and more than that there, it’s not young people’s fault that they don’t believe voting matters. It’s a fault of how we see things work and how, you know, you got, like, we’ve lived our [00:21:00] lives like with such a state of like unrest and political gridlock, and that’s why at New Voters. Our goal is to eliminate that barrier to voting as much as possible by A, making it logistically as easy as possible, but B, making it as motivational as possible, making people want to vote, and c, how it relates to the causes that they care about.

Jahnavi: So every student who signs up to run a drive with us is matched with a personal mentor, um, who walks ’em through every step of running a drive. We have state specific toolkits for every state, and we get, um, we support them on getting 85% registration at their school. Um, when you’re thinking about any organizing campaign in your school, think about who are the micro influencers in your community.

Jahnavi: The captain of the football team, the drum major in marching band, the, the president of NHS, and go where people are. So like, whenever there’s such, people often are like, I’m gonna do a table at, we had a thing called [00:22:00] cornucopia in the fall, which was like our fall fair. Like, I’m gonna table at cornucopia and that’s gonna be my outreach.

Jahnavi: It’s like actually a lot of students don’t go to cornucopia, or if they do, they’re sitting in the corner and they’re playing spike ball. Like what you wanna do is go where people are. And that’s the one thing that I really wanna get across is that a, you are able to do a successful mobilization movement in your school.

Jahnavi: And the reason for that is because you go to your school, like, you know, your school better than anybody else. So for whatever co like you are able to get people to pay, buy tickets to your musicals, to show up to your, like, um, to show up to your club meetings, to do study groups with you and study for tests together, you can definitely get them to fill out a five minute voter registration form and you can definitely get them to care about the cause that you care about and take action on it because.

Jahnavi: Especially right now, people really, really want to feel like they’re contributing to [00:23:00] something in a meaningful way. And just because you’re not old enough to vote yet does not mean that you can’t do that. Even if it’s not registering other people to vote, you can provide public comment, um, which is when they open like certain bills or, or issues for public comment, and they’re like, is this piece, is this law working in your community?

Jahnavi: And you can comment on that. They allow for testimony like the, you can go and testify before the Department of Education before you’re 18 and talk about what curriculum is missing from your school. Um, like these are all things that you can do to make a difference and are made only more powerful by having more of you show up, even going to your school board.

Jahnavi: The school board, depending on your school and depending on your state. But most often the school board votes on school policy. And if you show up with even 15 of your friends. To talk about an issue you care about. They will listen to you because so few people do that. And if you’re researched, which I know all of you are, [00:24:00] you absolutely can make a difference.

Jahnavi: Um, and you wanna, you wanna make sure you’re whatever cause you’re caring about, you wanna make sure it happens year round. Obviously this is framed in the form of voter registration drives, which naturally twice a year. But like I said, don’t wait for the pep rally, don’t wait for prom. Have a constant cadence.

Jahnavi: These issues and causes that you care about are only gonna be embedded in people’s brains if they see it often and not in an annoying way. And you guys know what an annoying way is, like a way that you would wanna see it. That’s a great way to think about anything you do with regards to other people in organizing is like, would you wanna attend this meeting?

Jahnavi: Would you wanna see this poster? Or would you wanna go to this event? And that’s how you get people to actually show, show up. Um, and then this is, this seems obvious, but you would be surprised, you wanna. Collaborate with your administration and with your professors and your teachers and your, your staff and your, you know, front desk lady and, you know, you wanna, you wanna [00:25:00] integrate it into your check-in, like your, your first day of school checklist, your assembly on the first day of school, your homerooms and extended homerooms, and so on and so forth.

Jahnavi: Um, and this is a little bit about what New Voters provides and how students don’t do much, but, and also I do recommend, regardless that you guys register to vote, um, if you’re able to. And if you’re not able to set the calendar for when you can, and it might be earlier than you think some states have preregistration, but it’s a great way to have your voice heard.

Jahnavi: Um, but it’s definitely not the end all, be all. Uh, and it’s definitely not, I, I would say it’s a great beginning. It’s not the end by any means. So when you have some civic experience in your life, where can you talk about it? Um, in your application, well, your personal statement like I did your activities list were, I also did.

Jahnavi: And your letters of recommendation. It was a big thing for me that my, um, advisors [00:26:00] were like, the people who wrote my letters were also the ones who were talking about my work with New Voters. They were able to validate the leadership that I talked about earlier. They were able to validate the impact.

Jahnavi: And you also can talk about it in your interviews. Um, I would say mine was all four of these, um, New Voters was definitely the biggest part of my application. I also did music, which was a separate thing, but the, the voter registration drive was definitely like a really, really big part of my application.

Jahnavi: ’cause it was spanning all four of these, um, and how to talk about it. Well, number one. Well, not, this is, this isn’t kind of reverse order, but you wanna talk about your impact. You wanna be like pretty tangible and quantifiable. ’cause I, here’s the thing. College admissions officers are literally trained to smell out any sort of falsity or exaggeration.

Jahnavi: So, and you don’t need to exaggerate, like I wasn’t sitting here saying, I ran three registration drives a week and [00:27:00] I, because of my work, like the school board was run by a youth candidate. Like I was like, we ran a drive and it was the best experience of my life and. We registered 85% of our senior class to vote.

Jahnavi: And we were at Homero at homecoming, and it was like really talking about the tangible impact. And if you do have these nice to haves, like awards like the Governor Civic Engagement Award or press or you know, New Voters gives you a plaque or things like that, talk about ’em. But also those will come through in your award section and it’s nice to be able to illustrate it, but the impact and the impact on people’s lives, that’s a big thing.

Jahnavi: Like if you, if I were to write my essay again today, I would include a story about a student who I talked to who was not gonna register to vote and did because of my work. Like that kind of stuff. Like the personal is so Mo so me. Like, you’re, you’re the same thing goes, right? Like, is this something you want to read then Great.

Jahnavi: And you wanna read [00:28:00] stories. You know, we’re not sitting here watching the summer. I turn pretty for the scenery, right? Like we’re watching it for Belly and Conrad and not Jeremiah. So, um. Number two, you wanna talk about your leadership, uh, often, and this does not mean you have to start your own organization often for all of the students that I, you know, support with their successful college applications, like most of them don’t start their own organization, but they do lead whatever it is that they’ve joined or whatever it is that they have, you know, accomplished.

Jahnavi: They take it to the next level by being a leader. And being a leader doesn’t have to be, like, if you’re an introvert, that’s totally fine. It doesn’t have to be like standing up on a stage in front of everybody. I feel like we have these like very archaic definitions of leadership in some ways, right?

Jahnavi: Like, we’re very. It’s a man in a suit, on a stage talking to a [00:29:00] lot of people and waving a fist. Like it does not need to be that like leadership can be in so many different ways. My friend Tara was too nervous to go into other homerooms to rush for people to vote, but she came to me and she was like, I still wanna help you.

Jahnavi: Like how about I like take the lead on the data collection and the tracking and things like that. And she was a leader in that way behind the scenes. So, but leadership is really important, um, and is something that I feel like you will be able to, if you care about the cause, find in whatever you’re doing.

Jahnavi: And then the last and most important thing of all is the personal. Why does this matter to you? Why were you the right person to do this and how does this shape your goals? Um, and what I mean by that is like how I was talking about when I started my essay and when I started this presentation leading with why.

Jahnavi: Is it that you care about this? Why was it that you are compared compelled to action? [00:30:00] Why is it that you, you feel, you feel the, that your, your work matters? Um, that’s what, you know, when you’re accepted into a college. They don’t accept me. They didn’t accept me because I did New Voters. They accepted me.

Jahnavi: They didn’t, you know, they weren’t like, oh, I’m gonna, she’s gonna keep doing New Voters and make it her full-time job. No, it’s like this person cared. And again, they’re, I’m not trying to talk myself up, but in, in terms of just like, why would they select you? It’s not because of some impact you have though, that helps all of these things help in illustrating you and illustrating your passion, your, like what makes you want to do something?

Jahnavi: What makes you want to. To act and can they believe that you will continue to act, that you will continue. And that’s something that comes through in your, in your you. [00:31:00] And so that’s why it’s so important to be so unbelievably honest in all of this is because you are pretty incredible. Like you are pretty impressive and you are no matter what someone who cares.

Jahnavi: And if you can get that across, that’s so compelling. Um, and I wanna, I wanna share as well that when you’re thinking about, um, you know, the impact, the leadership and the personal as you’re talking about it, like how do they connect together? How is that impact? Why does that mean something to you? Why does being a leader in whatever way it is, whether you’re an extrovert or an introvert or whatnot, like why does that matter to you?

Jahnavi: Um, and I see that, you know, when we’re, we’re talking about breaking this down and say you. Run a registration drive at your high school. Um, not even like you start a club, like you’re, you sign up to run a drive with New Voters and you decide to run a drive at your high school. How [00:32:00] could you frame this?

Jahnavi: Okay, well, what compelled you to action? Were you not old enough to vote in the 2024 election? Were you, were you like, is a neighbor of yours running for city council? Is your school board doing something you don’t like? Like why is it that you, you on this call, care about political activity? Why is it that you care enough to do something about it?

Jahnavi: Is there a moment? Is there a, like a moment in your life where you went from being like maybe you always cared about politics your whole life, and then suddenly you realized that there was an opportunity to make a difference because of your, by nature of being a student, by nature of being young, you can mobilize your peers like.

Jahnavi: Or was it that you never even occurred to you that there was something you could do? Talk about that moment. Talk about why you care. Talk about how you got to what you wanted to do, [00:33:00] whether, you know, in the case of running registration drive, did you make a team? Did you court? Like, how did you mobilize people to join your team?

Jahnavi: How did you inspire people? What about you was integral to that process? How did you, you know, if you were more of an introvert, how did you lead behind the scenes? How did you lead, you know, as a thought leader? Um, and then an impact, like how did your impact, how did your work, like, make you, make you wanna make an impact in your community?

Jahnavi: Um, and that would be, that’s really, really critical to talk about is how, like, the stories, the people who, who came up to you and said, Hey. I wanted to run a registration drive and I didn’t. What does, what does that mean? Um, so when you’re thinking about whether running a registration drive with New Voters or doing some sort of civic engagement on your own, thinking about these three [00:34:00] things is really critical.

Jahnavi: Um, so now we’re gonna move into questions and I, uh, I see we have a few in the chat. So, hi Anna. 

Anna: Yes. Hi, Jahnavi. Um, Lydia had to, had to hop off, so I’m swapping in. Really happy to be here. Um, just so everyone knows, I’ll do a little housekeeping vie before we go to the questions. Um, reminder that you can download the slides from the link in the handouts tab so you can see all of this helpful information going forward.

Anna: Uh, it is time for our live q and a As we get to each one, I’m gonna read it out loud and then paste it in the public chat so everyone can both hear and see the question Before I turn it over to our panelists for her answer. As a heads up, if your q and a tab is not letting you submit questions, please just double check that you join the webinar through the custom link in your email and not from the webinar landing page.

Anna: So you might need to. Close out, come back in [00:35:00] through the link you got in your email. Um, if, if your q and A tab isn’t working, this is being recorded and the recording will be emailed to you afterwards. So no worries. If you have to do that, um, about missing any content, it’ll all be captured for you. All right, let’s dive into these questions.

Anna: The first one is from Madeline, from the Bronx, New York. She wants to be a physician assistant in dermatology and also participates in civic engagement and social, social justice programs. She’s wondering how could she mix those passions on her common app? You are muted. 

Jahnavi: It’s like eight years into this and I still, um, well, thank you so much, Anna, and thank you Madeline.

Jahnavi: Um, I, this is really, really critical ’cause I feel like. It feels like some of these things [00:36:00] are separate, right? Like how can being a physician assistant and caring about civic engagement and social justice be related? But they are so related Because here’s the thing, every, every, like when we were talking about organizing earlier and we’re talking about how it’s a matter of mobilizing people and getting people to, to do things, while things like the, the issues that impact people in the healthcare profession are really impacted by policy.

Jahnavi: Like I’m, there’s been a lot of stuff in the news about this recently. Um, but even beyond like the FDA and these big national organizations, there’s things in your local community that are impacted by social justice and by civic engagement. And we’re talking about in the public chat about, uh. Like representation, like diversity in medicine to prevent misdiagnosis.

Jahnavi: Like those are the kinds of things that are impacted by, at a school level, even like are schools opening responsibilities and [00:37:00] opportunities to people. So I think a, there’s an obvious link between like, I’ve always cared about other people, like I wanna dedicate my life to being in the healthcare profession.

Jahnavi: And I not only do that on a, wanna do that on a micro level of like one-to-one with a patient. I want, I do this on a macro level. I do this through so like I care about other people. Um, and so even if your social justice experience is completely removed from, you know, the healthcare space, that through line of caring and caring enough to do something about it and dedicating your life to it is absolutely there.

Jahnavi: However, I think another way to also think about it is how is your social justice and your civic engagement. Potentially related to health. Is there a way that you can, you know, if you are really passionate about some area of healthcare or representation or something like that, how can you talk to your school about increased diversity in your [00:38:00] pre-med programs?

Jahnavi: Um, if your, my high school didn’t have pre-med programs, but like, say your high school has some sort of club that does, like healthcare, you have HOSA at your high school. Um, how are you like thinking about social justice and recruitment in that way that furthers your, you know, civic engagement passions?

Jahnavi: Like, is there a way that you can marry the two? So, for me, for a very long time, I just wanted to be a musician. I was planning to go to a conservatory and then I got the political bug my senior year of college. But I still wanted to like, you know, apply to non-music schools. And I, I cared about social work, uh, like public service work.

Jahnavi: So I was able. To host benefit concerts for causes I cared about. So I was able to do my singing and get my music friends to do stuff, but it was also to benefit the environment, which I always cared a lot about. So there are ways for the, like how can you, you know, marry your social justice work or your, you know, public service [00:39:00] work with, you know, local hospitals?

Jahnavi: Like, are you able to volunteer? Are you able to do some sort of program where you match students from your high school with students from like mobilize people? Um, but all that to say there isn’t, there’s absolutely a link you care about people. That’s why you wanna go into the medical field and you care about people.

Jahnavi: That’s why you do social justice and civic engagement work. So they’re absolutely connected and I think you have a whole wealth of opportunity to connect them in your, your common app or otherwise. 

Anna: Absolutely. I always tell my students all of activities you do, no matter how disparate there is a connection.

Anna: It’s you, right? There’s something in you that has led you. So I did chess club and I did musical theater. Very different, right? But I ended up, when I’m not college advising, I’m an attorney. So there’s the analytical thinking, there’s the presenting in court, there’s skills you’re getting from your social justice work and that are gonna make you a much [00:40:00] better pa.

Anna: Um, so absolutely. I love that answer. Jahnavi. Uh, okay. Getting some more questions. Okay. Someone says, it seems like a lot of work to run a voter registration drive. Can you speak about the time commitment? What does it take from students and what do you think is the biggest challenge when they first start?

Jahnavi: Yeah, no, I totally get it. That is very reasonable given how we’ve been talking about it. So I wanted to quickly slide back to the slide. Um, first of all. Things are what you make. You know, you can be in your, I did musical theater as well. You can be in your show and you can, you can spend every second thinking about it and doing it all the time, or you can do it and get it done with, and that’s totally up to you.

Jahnavi: But in terms of what running a drive with New Voters looks like is we actually provide a personal mentor to walk you through every single step of running a registration drive. We support you with all the materials. You get a swag bag, you get prizes afterwards, you get a [00:41:00] plaque, you get in a wall of water bottle.

Jahnavi: Um, and also, uh, we’re able to, we really can, if you want to, you can get your registration drive done in two weeks. And it’s maybe like a few hours of calls with your mentor or like an hour call with your mentor and then an hour meeting with your admin and maybe your team that you make. Um, but I will say that running a drive with New Voters.

Jahnavi: Very much is what you make of it. So if you want it to be a quick thing, it totally can be. But if you want to really like dig into, like, like for, for example with my drive, we did it in two weeks. Um, but I will say like, and we ran the, the drive was three days at my high school, but we went into every single homeroom.

Jahnavi: We had an extended homeroom, we went to every home room. We stood outside of the field hockey locker rooms during, after practice we went to homecoming. I cold called Peoples from my elementary school phone book. I cold called ’em. I said, did you know your son’s not registered to vote? [00:42:00] And they got them to register to vote.

Jahnavi: And I will say that that effort made it meaningful for me. And I think that you guys all know that like the things that you care about, you put the most time into and it doesn’t, you know it’s work Yeah, obviously, but also it doesn’t feel like work in the way that other things that maybe you don’t care about as much feel like work.

Jahnavi: So. That’s my answer is that you can make it as quick as you want and we make it as easy for you as possible to make it as quick as you want. But if you wanna really like go above and beyond, I can speak from personal experience that it is well worth your time. 

Anna: Uh, thank you. You mentioned in the presentation, uh, that New Voters is in 42 states.

Anna: Is there a plan to get to all 50? 

Jahnavi: Yeah. Obviously that’s one of our plans for 2025. Um, we, I think there’s a lot of debate between like national organizing and state-based organizing. And I personally [00:43:00] probably fall more on the state-based side of things. Like I think it’s really, you know, the, the fact that you are as a high school student able to run a really good registration drive in your high school because you go to that high school.

Jahnavi: And the same goes for organizations. Like they’re able to do really great work in a state because they have people who work there who are in the state. And that’s especially true for voting work because like. I’m sure you went over this in law school, but like every single state has completely different voting laws.

Jahnavi: Uh, it’s honestly kind of insane. So being able to like really know that is really important. However, we honestly, I think we’re pretty much on track to hit 50 for 2025, uh, which is really exciting. We just, we have the schools recruited, we just need to, to land the ship with them. Um, and if you wanna help us get there, you should totally sign up in your schools.

Jahnavi: But, um, moreover, I, I really think that getting 50 states sounds really cool and I’m really excited about being able to say that in our presentations and things like that. But I really care about like, if you can register all of the high schools [00:44:00] in one county to vote. Like if you get your county, like I’m in Chester County, if I get Conestoga High School and Marble Newtown High School and BD Ruston High School, and that is enough high schools to make a difference in your county elections.

Jahnavi: You know, so, so localized impact really does make a difference and I think that that’s really important, especially. In high school to think about because you can make such an impact in your high schools. But 

Anna: thank 

Jahnavi: you for 

Anna: asking. Yeah, absolutely. So I think just to put a real fine pin on this, high schoolers, if you’re here and you don’t see New Voters as in your state yet, sign up, right?

Anna: Help bring them to your state. Is that what I’m hearing you say? 

Jahnavi: Oh yeah, big time. And if you bring us to your state, we can really help you get a lot of press around that too. Um, so even if you don’t, like, if you go above and beyond in any sort of way, we have like a lot of press and award opportunities for you.

Jahnavi: So [00:45:00] 

Anna: that leads really naturally into another question we got, uh, which is about awards and press. You, you mentioned highlighting those on your application. How can students get that sort of recognition and how might New Voters help with that? Yeah, 

Jahnavi: so it’s two, I guess it’s like kind of two separate questions in that like for your own venture ventures, how do you get it and then through New Voters.

Jahnavi: So I’ll start with the New Voters one ’cause it kind of overlaps a little bit. New Voters will you have a mentor and they will absolutely help you. Like writing op-eds, like if you have an interest in writing, like we have a Substack and we work with like the Aspen Institute and we work with like the University of Maryland and they often post our student written op-eds.

Jahnavi: We’ve also had students like place op-eds in like the Los Angeles Times and in like various different, um, like local and Nat and like statewide. I don’t know if there are statewide publications, but like local and citywide publications and relatively big ones as well. [00:46:00] Um, and that’s a matter of like, we have a comms manager who’s really good at.

Jahnavi: Um, like media and able to reach out to folks and, and place those things for you. And we also have our pretty extensive, um, substack, which is very widely read by professors and nonprofit leaders. But when it comes to your work, it does feel really daunting. I remember it was something that I, for a really long time, could not figure out for New Voters.

Jahnavi: I was like, we’re doing all this work. We’re not getting any press about it. We’re not getting any awards, like, what’s going on. And I think one is that it actually didn’t matter. Like no one actually cared, like in a, in a really big way. Like there were certain people who were like, oh, it’s really cool.

Jahnavi: Like maybe, we’ll, but I will say like when I applied for college, I didn’t have any press about New Voters that I could point to. Like it was just a club at my high school. And I think that there are things that we think are really, really. Important that maybe our lesson, we think so. However, it’s still nice to get, and if you’re trying [00:47:00] to grow your venture or your organization, it is helpful to get the word out.

Jahnavi: So one thing that was really helpful at my school, I had no idea this was a thing, but definitely depends on the school. Our, I, our admin, like our v vice president, principal, oh my gosh, our vice principal emailed me and she was like, we have like a press person at our high school and she wants to help get the word out about your drive.

Jahnavi: And I went to her and she like was our, also like our athletics coordinator, but her job at the school was to literally like place articles about like, not place like she, but it, it was, it was really simple. Like there’s a website called patch.com that does like local news and she just wrote up a little report about New Voters.

Jahnavi: And the drive at our high school and posted it on patch.com, and then it got picked up by other school, other publications too, but also it can just live as that publication. So patch.com is a great resource because it literally, you can like publish press, like press releases on [00:48:00] it, and you can just be the one who wrote it and publish it.

Jahnavi: And maybe your high school has that resource. Um, but if they don’t, I will say, I think that newspapers are interested in student op-eds. Um, and you have a really awesome resource, which is your incredible, like English teachers, um, who can, who can read them. And, and you know, the folks here at CollegeAdvisor, I’m sure like the, your opinions on the causes and issues you care about are always interesting.

Jahnavi: But right now, I think especially interesting to a lot of these. Uh, news publications, like it’s a pretty talked about time in history. Um, and New Voters also, uh, gives everyone who runs the registration drive with us a plaque, uh, for your school, which lives in your big display case with all your Sportsplex and awards.

Jahnavi: Uh, but then there’s one about being a voting school and, uh, like I said, your high school might have, your state might have a civic engagement award. So the Pennsylvania Governor Civic Engagement Award, [00:49:00] um, in Texas, there’s an award in California. So a lot of states have awards that are managed by the Secretary of State or governor’s office or something like that.

Anna: That’s really helpful. Thank you for that answer. Um, I get this question from students a lot or a version of it. Um. How do I stand out? What makes it unique? If other students are also register, register registering students to vote at my school, how do I make my participation in that unique for my application?

Jahnavi: Yeah, no, that’s definitely, uh, really tricky question. But I think that Anna kind of hinted at this. What makes you unique is you like, why do you do this? Like your reason for registering someone to vote is probably completely different than someone else’s reason for registering someone to vote. And like it could be like, I really care about the music funding at my [00:50:00] school and I am registering people to vote because I know that our school board decides on our music budget or yours could be.

Jahnavi: I felt really unheard and voiceless and helpless in the last election ’cause I was too young to vote. And so I registered people who were old enough to vote because that’s a way of being heard even before I can vote myself. Um. I think that like there’s a billion different, I I could talk about different reasons why you’d wanna register someone to vote for.

Jahnavi: Like your parents took you to vote when you were a kid and it inspired you. You watched Parks and Rec. Like, there’s so many different reasons why you might want to vote, but they’re also unique to you. And like Anna said, they probably relate, relate to something else that you do. Like the, your care for this probably also is related to your care for your athletics career, your music, or whatever it is.

Jahnavi: Um, the other thing though is like stepping up. Um, and like I said before, you don’t need to be an extrovert to, to [00:51:00] be a leader, but when you’re running a registration drive at your school, how are you being. How are you applying your personal experiences and your knowledge of your school to, to make it better?

Jahnavi: And that’s something that uniquely you can do. Like for example, at my school’s drive, I was a music kid and I was able to say like, Hey guys, I got everyone in the marching band and the choir and the orchestra because I know all those people. And like, how are you able to step up And like my, my friend who, you know, Tara, that I was mentioning before who was too nervous to go and talk to other people in classrooms, like she was able to take the lead on data and, and tracking things and, and the numbers and how are you thinking about your specific skillset and using that to, you know, it’s, it’s a kind of a, a nice, like a, you, you get two birds with one stone.

Jahnavi: You can demonstrate your skillset and how you use your skillset uniquely to contribute where you uniquely could. 

Anna: Yes. And I, [00:52:00] as someone who reads hundreds of application essays every cycle, I love, especially where you started about telling the story of why, why did you join New Voters at your school?

Anna: What got you interested in voting? And then keep the story going, right? What, how did it feel when you got your first registration? How did students react? Were they excited? Would they have not done this without you? That makes it so unique because while other students at your school might be registering voters, they’re not having that exact experience that you’re having.

Anna: That’s unique, that’s special. Uh, so I love that. Alright, sorry, I could talk about. Essays all 

Jahnavi: day. Um, the same, I feel like it’s become like a secondary role of mine at New Voters, which I love is like helping students with essays, so. 

Anna: Oh, that’s lovely. Um, okay, just wanna make sure I get to [00:53:00] some more questions.

Anna: What happens to a student after they graduate high school and are no longer a new voter? Are there ways they can stay involved with your org? 

Jahnavi: Absolutely. We have a pretty extensive alumni network, first of all. So, uh, we recently just did a very fancy dinner with donors, uh, in DC and we were able to bring three of our alums who were in DC to the dinner and like, and they were able to share about how they did New Voters as high school students, and they continued doing it.

Jahnavi: There’s always like, we had like a, like a l. Like a mixer at a local restaurant for alums, uh, in New York. Uh, and like alums are able to do skill building workshops for students who are currently in the program. But the biggest way that people stay involved, um, is one, uh, becoming a college mentor. Like I said, every single high school student who signs up to run a drive with us becomes a college [00:54:00] mentor.

Jahnavi: Those are paid positions who work directly with high school students to help them essentially troubleshoot running a drive in their school. Like you can imagine, like someone’s administration is like, no, you’re not allowed to do voter registration drives. Which to be clear is like actually illegal in a lot of states.

Jahnavi: Like, you can’t block people from doing nonpartisan voter registration drives, or they’re like, oh, the I am, you know, I went into every homeroom and I only got three forms back. Like, what do I do now? Like this mentor helps troubleshoot and like, if you’re someone with like a creative. Problem solving kind of brain that might really appeal to you.

Jahnavi: Um, also we have interns in the program. Uh, we’ve had almost 400 and students do things like run our nationwide teens, get the vaccine campaign. They wrote a bill and introduced it in our state house. These are all high school students by the way, but we also have students who are college students who continue working in, in New Voters.

Jahnavi: So, um, opportunities as an intern, as a mentor, as an alum. Um, we have a whole research network, so we have research assistants who are paid. [00:55:00] Um, and believe it or not, yesterday we actually had our comms manager start full-time with us and she went to my high school and did New Voters, and now she, eight years later, is a full-time employee with us.

Jahnavi: So you can always come back afterwards and hopefully join the team. 

Anna: Oh, I love that full cycle. Uh, I think we have time for, I’m gonna try and combine two questions that we got, and then I wanna make sure I leave time for you at the end, uh, to remind folks how they could learn more and sign up for New Voters.

Anna: Uh, we have two questions about the personal statement. One is, could you share an example of a good one you’ve read that you think talks about civic engagement and then a personal twist. How did you incorporate your why for civic engagement in your personal statement if you did? 

Jahnavi: Yeah, those are great. Um, [00:56:00] I’ve seen a lot, excuse me, really good personal statements that talk about, um, civic engagement and.

Jahnavi: The thing that they all have in common is exactly what the second question was. Like they had their why. They, you know, maybe they ran a failed campaign at their school to get all of the utensils to switch from plastic to biodegradable. Operative word failed. Like you might think, I can only write out something that succeeded.

Jahnavi: This person didn’t. And it was a great essay. And I, they got into the school they wanted to go to, um, and it’s like they talked about how they’d always cared about climate change and they talked about how they wanted to, to make a difference. And then they were at a frozen yogurt shop and they were eating with this spoon, and they were like, this spoon is funky.

Jahnavi: And like, it was like there were these personal details. They were talking about how like they went to their school administration, the things they tried, how they felt, how they got other people onto their team, how those people felt. And it was very much around that like, kind of [00:57:00] like personal experience with it.

Jahnavi: Um, and it didn’t matter. It didn’t work, but it mattered that they tried and it mattered that they cared. Um, and I think that that’s really, like the huge thing is like, I feel like there’s a lot of emphasis in high school and in college applications to feel like you need to like do some big flashy thing that’s gonna like magically take you over the finish line.

Jahnavi: And the reality is the big flashy thing is you, and it’s like your passion and care for stuff. And, and if you can illustrate that even with a campaign that never worked out, then I’d say you’re, you’re pretty, you’re successful in my book. Um, and then in terms of how I, I like folded in. I will say I wish I did it more.

Jahnavi: Um, like I was like, I wish that I had talked about the stories to be clear. I think applying eight years ago, it may have been easier than it has to apply now. Um, but I started the whole thing with the exact words. I remember sitting on my couch [00:58:00] and watching the election results and colors on the screen.

Jahnavi: Numbers on a map and knowing that I wasn’t part of them, I felt helpless. I wrote, I felt helpless, I think four or five times throughout my college essay. And then I ended with it with, now that I’ve registered my classmates to vote and I’ve seen them like find that passion and go from not voting to voting, like I no longer feel helpless and I’m committed to dedicating my life to making sure other people don’t feel helpless again.

Jahnavi: And I think that it was, you know, being able to talk a lot about the why I did this. That was the successful part of that essay. Quite honestly. Like other parts were kind of boring. Like I talked about how I did research and like, I don’t actually know if that was, I, like, I reread it in preparation for this and I like low key, skipped that part.

Jahnavi: Like the parts that were like a. I felt helpless, I felt voiceless. Like those were the parts that [00:59:00] were really compelling. And I’ll be so candid here in my pitches for funding for New Voters, for my full-time job, for fellowships, for Forbes 30, under 30 for all these things that I’ve gotten. I have started with the exact same story, like your, your Pivotal moment, which I am unfortunate to say, there’s a lot happening in your guys’ high school career.

Jahnavi: There’s a lot been happening in the world since you were like in elementary school. So your pivotal moment might have, may have likely already happened the moment you felt call to action. And I’ll say mine is still that mine is still the 2016 election. Um, so like, don’t, like count out, like whatever calls you to action right now is pretty compelling and it, it, who knows, it might still be compelling and getting you to raise money like eight years from now.

Jahnavi: So. Yes. 

Anna: I love how many times now we’ve come back to you. It’s you. The answer is you. What they’re [01:00:00] looking for is who you are, uh, vie. Thank you so much for your time. I think we have another slide, right? To um, show folks how Oh yeah. 

Jahnavi: So if you’d like to sign up to run a registration drive with New Voters, you can feel free to by scanning that QR code.

Jahnavi: I’m also putting it in the chat, uh, so you can run a drive if you’d like to stay up to date with what New Voters is doing and any opportunities to intern at the organization or otherwise, you can subscribe to our substack and my email is on there in the New Voters website where you can get all this information as well.

Jahnavi: Would love to be a resource to you guys as you’re thinking about this, but know that like you are resource full, you are full of the things that. A, the change you wanna make, you have that skill. Like if there’s one thing you guys walk away from from this, it’s that you as a high school student are uniquely positioned and situated to make a difference in your high school because of [01:01:00] the fact that you go there.

Jahnavi: The fact that you occupy a space there that no one else does, and, and that you know your peers and how your high school works. And that goes for running a registration drive. But that also goes for whatever kind of change you wanna make. So remember that no matter what, like you have innate skills by nature of being a young person and, and that is incredibly valuable.

Anna: What a beautiful note to end on. Thank you so much. Vie reminder, this will be emailed to you, uh, in case you don’t have. Time or the phone to scan the QR code. Now. You will be able to scan it later, but whenever you do, please give it a scan. Learn more how you could join with New Voters, awesome efforts.

Anna: Thank you everyone for your time tonight, and best wishes on your applications. Yes, 

Jahnavi: good luck everybody, and thank you so much, Anna. 

Anna: Thank you. Bye.