Why students need to find their inner CEO

A company has a CEO who oversees its operations and delineates its strategies and direction, ensuring that it sets and achieves its goals. 

What if we had someone – or something – to perform the same function for our thought processes?

In fact, there is one and its name is even similar to “CEO”: the executive functions is a set of cognitive skills that are involved when an individual manages essential tasks such as making plans, solving problems and adapting to new situations. The executive functions are also involved when one plans, monitors and successfully executes one’s goals.

Executive functions are not only used in daily life but also with university applications. And adolescence is a time when individuals develop these essential skills. Understanding what they do and how students are harnessing them when applying to university can be helpful for a college counsellor.

What are executive functions?

Three examples of well-known executive functions are: working memory, cognitive flexibility and inhibitory control.

Working memory 

Working memory is the ability to hold and manipulate information in your mind for a short period of time. For instance, when someone says their phone number out loud, and you repeat it in your mind as you write it down, you are using your working memory.

Inhibitory control 

Inhibitory control is the ability to suppress automatic responses – so, self-restraint. Visualise a toddler who has a really hard time not grabbing things in the toy store – this is because their inhibitory control is not fully developed yet. 

Cognitive flexibility 

Cognitive flexibility is the ability to switch between tasks, strategies and mental sets. Imagine walking down the hallway and bumping into a few students and staff, all with different questions for you. Quickly answering them one after the other would require cognitive flexibility.

Some researchers would cite these three as the main executive functions; others would list more, because there isn’t a single agreed-upon number. The following abilities are also identified as executive functions:

Self-awareness means understanding one’s own thoughts, feelings and behaviours. This can be interpreted as being able to pay attention to yourself.

Emotional regulation is the ability to identify, understand and manage your own emotional state. 

Self-motivation is the internal drive to sustain tasks even when there’s no external reason to do so. 

Planning/problem-solving is the ability to identify and come up with solutions to novel or complex challenges. It can be the result of putting new ideas together creatively.  

And working memory is sometimes further broken down into non-verbal working memory (holding visual imagery in your mind) and verbal working memory (holding an internal monologue). 

This graphic captures executive functions visually.

Are adolescents able to use their executive functions?

Do you remember being particularly good at inhibiting your impulses or regulating your emotions when you were a teenager? No, neither do I. Teenagers can be notorious for being impulsive and moody, which is understandable given their still-developing brain. 

Executive functions are housed in the frontal lobe of the brain. And this frontal lobe doesn’t stop developing until your mid-20s. So it makes sense that teenagers can sometimes struggle with executive functions, especially in early adolescence.

However, we should not discount their potential. Teenagers, especially in late adolescence, can be incredibly self-aware, and are able to plan and inhibit and achieve a great deal of things – oftentimes more than adults. As with all skills, there is individual variability. In adolescence, particularly as a result of the developing brain, you will encounter a diverse range of skills.

Why are executive functions important in university applications?

A successful university application requires all the executive functions. This section will link different aspects of the application experience with the executive functions we learned about above. 

Pushing through distractions 

In 2025, there are so many distractions (much more than when I was a teenager). A teenager needs to suppress the impulse to reach for the phone and bed rot, and instead engage in productive activity, thus enacting inhibitory control.

Understanding all the requirements 

An application via Common App requires a lot of moving parts, which a student needs to effectively hold in their mind, and then transfer into long-term memory. They’re using working memory to do this successfully. 

Applying to multiple countries 

If your student is applying to universities in multiple countries, they need to switch track between systems, effectively. A personal statement might look different depending on whether it’s for the Common App or Ucas or for an individual university. Cognitive flexibility is required for this.

Writing essays

The Common App main essay requires deep self-awareness, or self-directed attention, which is also an executive function. 

Deadlines 

Meeting a deadline is impossible without executive functions. It requires planning/problem-solving, especially as a student is most definitely balancing deadlines for university and school assignments.

Challenges of a university application

A university application can be really frustrating. There might be technical issues, the essay might be hard to pull together and, even with your best intentions, you might be rejected. The essential executive function for getting through this experience is emotional regulation. 

How can counsellors help students develop their executive functions?

A university application is like a boot camp for executive functions. Whether it’s a one-to-one session explaining how to use a calendar or a group workshop where you demonstrate how to break the looming deadline into short-term and long-term goals, college counselling requires students to use their executive functions. 

Knowing this, we can easily apply existing resources on how to train adolescents on using their executive functions to the college counselling curriculum. 

The following are some examples, with more resources available here and here. 

1. Using spreadsheets

Applying to university is the ideal time for students to start learning how to organise data using tools such as Excel or Notion. Provide templates that they can start filling out, and point out how they can use the same tool to organise job searches as well. Balancing school and university deadlines effectively would necessitate knowing how to properly use a calendar as well as how to plan ahead. 

2. Breaking down goals

When we are handling a multifaceted, complex application such as the Common App or applications to Korean universities, counsellors naturally break these down into manageable goals. This is actually a suggestion in all executive function handouts that involve planning.

3. Finding similarities 

For students applying to universities in multiple countries, the various application systems may feel overwhelming. But when you point out the underlying logic and similarities between applications, it can allow students to shift between these frameworks more effectively.

4. Providing multiple reminders across multiple platforms 

It didn’t take long for me to learn that announcements communicated once on one platform do not suffice for the message to be transmitted fully to all students. Things slip out of working memory easily for a teenager (or an adult). Counsellors need to repeat important announcements and deadlines across multiple platforms (visual, verbal, written). Enlist the help of advisers to ensure that multiple adults are reminding them, creating  a wide net of communication.

5. Teaching time-management techniques

It’s easy to resolve to block out distraction (inhibitory control) for a shorter time (25-minute blocks) than a longer time (2.5 hours). The pomodoro technique is a proven way that this knowledge can be used to help students focus and use time more effectively. Look up other, similar time-management techniques and, if possible, practise them together.

6. Encouraging exercise

This might sound irrelevant, but exercise is really helpful for mental output and development of the brain. Plus it can help relieve stress. 

7. Encourage self-reflection

Essays require self-awareness. These metacognitive questions can help.

This article was initially inspired by a conversation with Nathan Rayman.