Written by: Erin McCubbin, Executive Director of Student and Graduate Success, Mount Vernon School and Jared Colley, Chief Innovation Officer, Mount Vernon School
Futures thinking begins with a mindset shift: we are not in the business of prediction.1 The lines of sophomore parents outside our offices may illustrate that parents wish we had a crystal ball, but that would be letting someone else control the premise of our purpose within this profession. The reality of futures thinking is deeply at odds with the college admissions landscape, which is often dominated by confident forecasts, tidy narratives, and the promise that there is a “right” path if you can just decode it.
As college counselors, we are immersed in that noise.
We hear constant debate about grade inflation and which courses are “really” the most important. We worry about yet another iteration of standardized testing, hot majors, if winning seasons will lower future acceptance rates, and what winning combination of extracurriculars is interesting enough. This noise is compelling because it offers reassurance, it’s familiar and everywhere we look, providing a sense that outcomes can be engineered if we make the correct moves early enough.
But using a futures thinking lens encourages us to reframe what we are actually helping students achieve. Begs us to consider what really lasts.
Signals, unlike noise, are quieter and more structural. They point to how systems are changing over time, not just how they appear in a given admissions cycle. Consider the workforce: resumes are evolving. Employers are placing less emphasis on what someone memorized or even what they majored in, and more emphasis on how they think, create, collaborate, and adapt. The workforce increasingly cares less about what prospective employees know and far more about their curiosities and the skills they have to tackle them.
This same signal is showing up earlier in the educational pipeline.
Across K-12 education, there is growing momentum toward competency-based learning, experiential programs, and skill development. Project-based learning, internships, design challenges, research, and applied experiences are no longer extras on a resume; they are becoming core to classroom learning. The schools at the front of these trends recognized the signals a decade ago, their “future literacy” mindset was at the forefront and prepared them to act rather than react.2
As college counselors, if we focus too narrowly on optimizing an application, like the “right” classes, the “right” major, or the “right” school, and we may help students succeed in the short term while leaving them underprepared for a future that will not look like the present.1
So how do we help students see the opportunities ahead of them?
We start by acknowledging that there is no right path, only the next step forward.
We help students recognize that a science lab builds more than content knowledge, it builds hypothesis testing, collaboration, and resilience. And those skills might lead them toward medicine or it could help them become an incredible officer in the military. Right now, we can give our students the gift of naming the skills they’re building and celebrating them.
We also shift the conversation from outcomes to impact. Not just “What classes are you taking?” but “What are you learning how to do?” Not just “What major are you choosing?” but “What problems do you want to solve?”
The noise in college admissions will always be there. Rankings will change. Trends will cycle. Parents will always want us to predict. Futures thinking doesn’t eliminate uncertainty, it simply reframes it. By focusing on the durable skills students are developing and reinforcing that there are many paths to success, we help students prepare not just for college, but for a future that will demand flexibility, agency, and purpose.3
Signals don’t shout. But if we listen carefully, they tell us exactly where to invest our attention.
References:
1 McGonigal, Jane (2022). Imaginable: How to see the future coming and feel ready for anything-even things that seem impossible today. Spiegel and Grau. p.xxviii-xxix
2 Bleeker, Julian, Nick Foster, Fabien Girardin, and Nicolas Nova (2022). The Manual for Design Fiction. The Near Future Laboratory, p. 56
3 Colley, Jared et al. Mount Vernon Ventures Transformation R&D Report, Vol 4, Spring 2024
