Dear Nina: Conversations About Friendship

Admissions counselor, Alexis White, on why 'fit over flex' should guide the college search
The college search puts a lot of pressure on families to find the “best” school. But the highest-ranked school (the hyper-focus for many) is not necessarily the place where a particular student will be happiest, most successful, or most likely to find their people.
My guest this week is Alexis White, an internationally recognized college admissions counselor, founder of A-List Tutoring Services and alexiscollegexpert.com, and host of the podcast Admit It with Alexis White. I love following Alexis online because she is candid, practical, and willing to say what many families need to hear: Choosing a college should be about “fit over flex.”
Alexis walks me through the five factors she considers when helping a student build a college list: size, location, academic offerings, philosophy, and vibe. We talk about why those factors matter not only academically, but also for making friends, building community, and feeling at home.
We also get into Greek life, competitive clubs, audition-based activities, and the reality that getting into a college does not guarantee getting into every community within it. What happens when a student expects to join a sorority, fraternity, business club, theater group, or sports team, but it does not work out? Alexis explains why students need more than one possible path to friendship and belonging.
Alexis also offers an important reminder for parents: Grades and scores are only part of the picture. A student’s resilience, independence, willingness to try new things, and ability to handle discomfort may tell us just as much about where they will thrive. And because social media makes everyone else’s freshman year look effortless, we talk honestly about how awkward and difficult that first year can be, even at the “right” school.
This episode will help families look beyond acceptance rates, rankings and prestige during the college search process!
 
LINKS:
Find Alexis on Instagram @collegexpert and TikTok @collegexpert!
Previous episodes of Alexis's podcast I especially liked: "College Rankings Don't Matter," "Brainwashed Into Choosing Your College"
Previous college admissions episode on Dear Nina: Episode #112, "Navigating Friendships During the College Admissions Process" with Kate Proger, #177: The Myth of Instant College Friends with Dr. Janice McCabe
Harlan Cohen on Dear Nina: Conversations About Friendship! Episde #143: "The Law of Rejection in Friendships",
I brought up Gretchen Rubin several times in the episode, one of my favorite authors, podcasters, and thought leaders. Gretchen was my guest on episode #96.
 
Meet Alexis White:
Alexis White is a Los Angeles–based college admissions consultant and the founder of A-List Admissions and Tutoring and Alexiscollegexpert.com. Alexis has spent more than two decades guiding students and families through college selection, applications, essays, testing, and the many decisions that come with the admissions process. She has appeared as a college admissions expert on CBS, ABC News and elsewhere. Alexis is also the host of the podcast Admit It! with Alexis White and she gives admissions advice on social media to many thousands of followers on Instagram @collegexpert and TikTok @collegexpert.

ALL THE DEAR NINA LINKS + CONTACT INFO

!! Catch up on all Dear Nina episodes on Apple and Spotify
📢 How to promote your service, business, or book on Dear Nina
🔎 Information on any upcoming "Dear Nina Live" events
🎈 Celebrate your friend on the show by dedicating a week of episodes!
📱 Subscribe to my newsletter “Conversations About Friendship” on Substack
❤️  Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, & the Dear Nina Facebook group
📪  Ask an anonymous friendship question
📪 email: dearninapodcast@gmail.com
🔎 Want to work with me on your podcast, your friendships, or need another link? That’s probably here.

Special thank you, as always, to my assistant producer, Rebekah Jacobs!

Group dynamics, feeling left out, and not waiting around for invitations
We have all felt that sting of not being invited. You see the pictures, hear about the dinner, find out there's a group chat, there was a weekend away—and you were not included. It can hurt, even when we know intellectually that every gathering cannot include every person. And even though we do not personally want 15 people at every thing we do.
This episode is a replay of a conversation I had with friendship educator Danielle Bayard Jackson, author of Fighting for Our Friendships: The Science and Art of Conflict and Connection in Women’s Relationships and host of the Friend Forward podcast. Danielle has such a clear, honest way of talking about the harder parts of female friendship, and this topic needed her voice.
Danielle and I spoke about why not being invited can feel so personal, why it sometimes has nothing to do with us, and why some gatherings are built around a specific purpose, convenience, shared history, or a smaller dynamic.
We also get into the harder question: are there times when our own patterns make people less likely to include us? Maybe we often say no, cancel, talk about how busy we are, dominate the conversation, make people feel judged, stay glued to our phones, bring too much conflict into group settings, or make planning harder than it needs to be. This is not about blaming people for being left out. It's about giving ourselves choices beyond spiraling, assuming the worst, or waiting around to be chosen.

In this episode, we discuss:
Why being left out hurts at every age
Why not every plan is meant to include every friend
Friendship patterns that may be worth examining
How to stop spiraling and start making plans yourself so you're not waiting for invitations
My visit to Danielle's podcast, Friend Forward, "Picking Your People: Choosing the Right Friends to Prioritize and Pursue" Apple, Spotify 

I'm SO grateful to Danielle for tackling this topic with me. It's a hard one—and she was exactly the right guest for it.

Meet Danielle Bayard Jackson
Danielle Bayard Jackson is a friendship educator, speaker, and author of Fighting for Our Friendships: The Science and Art of Conflict and Connection in Women’s Relationships. She is the host of the Friend Forward podcast, the founder of Tell Public Relations, and the director of the Women’s Relational Health Institute, where she conducts research and creates training to support stronger female relationships. Find links for working with Danielle and all of her social media links at betterfemalefriendships.com.

ALL THE DEAR NINA LINKS + CONTACT INFO

!! Catch up on all Dear Nina episodes on Apple and Spotify
📢 How to promote your service, business, or book on Dear Nina
🔎 Information on any upcoming "Dear Nina Live" events
🎈 Celebrate your friend on the show by dedicating a week of episodes!
📱 Subscribe to my newsletter “Conversations About Friendship” on Substack
❤️  Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, & the Dear Nina Facebook group
📪  Ask an anonymous friendship question
📪 email: dearninapodcast@gmail.com
🔎 Want to work with me on your podcast, your friendships, or need another link? That’s probably here.

Special thank you, as always, to my assistant producer, Rebekah Jacobs!

How age, loss, and experience can change the way we see friendships from the past

This week I’m joined by one of my very best friends, Rebecca Kotok, a public school counselor in Maryland and one of the most popular guests in the history of Dear Nina.
Rebecca was first on the show in episode 34, where we talked about our friendship breakup in our 20s and our reconciliation. This time, we’re talking about a different kind of friendship shift: the way approaching 50, loss, and life experiences can soften how we think about friendships that faded, old hurts, and the stories we’ve been carrying for years.
This episode is not about ignoring bad behavior or letting every person back into your life. But Rebecca and I talk about the peace that can come from no longer needing to prosecute every old friendship case in your mind over and over again until the end of time.
 
We talked about:

• Why friendship breakups and faded friendships can carry so much shame
• How midlife can change the way we understand old friendship disappointments
• Why some friendships fade without anyone being "the villain"
• The difference between being right and being at peace
• How grief and life experience can make us more generous toward other people
• Why you don’t have to reconnect with someone to think about them more positively
• How gratitude, reflection, and therapy can help if a softer, more positive mindset does not come naturally

One of my favorite ideas from Rebecca was that she now attributes perceived slights much less to someone’s character and much more to what that person may have been carrying. That feels like a wiser and "softer" way to move through the world.
 
Previous episodes mentioned:
Episode #34: The breakup and reconciliation (with Rebecca Kotok) 
Episode #125: The 10% Rule in Friendship and the Negativity Bias (with Ann Imig)

ALL THE DEAR NINA LINKS + CONTACT INFO

!! Catch up on all Dear Nina episodes on Apple and Spotify
📢 How to promote your service, business, or book on Dear Nina
🔎 Information on any upcoming "Dear Nina Live" events
🎈 Celebrate your friend on the show by dedicating a week of episodes!
📱 Subscribe to my newsletter “Conversations About Friendship” on Substack
❤️  Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, & the Dear Nina Facebook group
📪  Ask an anonymous friendship question
📪 email: dearninapodcast@gmail.com
🔎 Want to work with me on your podcast, your friendships, or need another link? That’s probably here.

Special thank you, as always, to my assistant producer, Rebekah Jacobs!

My friend, Jill Smokler, touched so many lives. If you loved Jill, I hope hearing her voice is a comfort. If you didn’t know her, I hope this episode gives you a glimpse of why countless longtime followers, fans, and friends felt deeply connected to her candor and warmth.
This bonus episode of Dear Nina is a replay of a conversation Jill asked me to record with her in the summer of 2024, soon after she was diagnosed with glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer. Jill died on June 22, 2026, and I’m sharing this conversation again around what would have been her 49th birthday.
Jill was a certain kind of famous—not movie-star famous, but very known in a way that mattered. Her work and her support of so many writers and readers helped women feel less alone starting with her groundbreaking blog, Scary Mommy. She continued in that supportive role after she sold Scary Mommy and publicly figured out her next move, which included her podcast and online magazine, She's Got Issues, which gave an honest voice to midlife.
I knew Jill first from Washington University in St. Louis, where we met as freshmen, but our friendship and professional relationship grew much more in adulthood. We collaborated in our work over the years, and I credit Jill with helping me understand what writing on the internet could be.
Jill was proud of this conversation we had two years ago. You will hear her humor, her honesty, and her way of making room for the awful and the absurd at the same time. Jill spoke frankly about her diagnosis and what it felt like to receive an outpouring of love from people who knew her in every era of her life: childhood, college, parenting, work, and of course from her massive online community.
We also discussed what friendship looks like in a crisis: what helped, what didn’t, and what she wished people understood. Jill was especially clear about the value of brief, consistent check-ins with no expectation of a reply and the practical relief of meals and DoorDash gift cards.
Jill also reflected on her children, her best friend, the friendships she built over a lifetime, and the future she felt robbed of getting to enjoy. It's a heartbreaking, funny, blunt, generous, and "pure Jill" episode.
Thank you for listening, and for helping me honor Jill.

Links mentioned:

Jill's official obituary where you can leave comments for her family to read.
The June 23rd, 2026 NYT piece about Jill (gift link)
The today.com piece I mentioned in 2024 about Jill's diagnosis and the rise of Scary Mommy
Jill's books: Confessions of a Scary Mommy, Motherhood Comes Naturally and Other Lies, and Scary Mommy's Guide to Surviving the Holidays
My visits on She's Got Issues mentioned in this episode: "Friendship-- Mistakes & Hard Lessons Learned" and "Friendship Breakups: Accepting When a Friendship is Over"
Jill's previous visit to Dear Nina: "Old School Blogging Friendships"
Kate Bowler's book, No Cure For Being Human (And Other Truths I Need to Hear)
 

ALL THE DEAR NINA LINKS + CONTACT INFO

!! Catch up on all Dear Nina episodes on Apple and Spotify
📢 How to promote your service, business, or book on Dear Nina
🔎 Information on any upcoming "Dear Nina Live" events
🎈 Celebrate your friend on the show by dedicating a week of episodes!
📱 Subscribe to my newsletter “Conversations About Friendship” on Substack
❤️  Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, & the Dear Nina Facebook group
📪  Ask an anonymous friendship question
📪 email: dearninapodcast@gmail.com
🔎 Want to work with me on your podcast, your friendships, or need another link? That’s probably here.

Special thank you, as always, to my assistant producer, Rebekah Jacobs!

How small talk, "loose ties," and everyday conversations help us feel more connected
For episode #200 of Dear Nina: Conversations About Friendship, I’m joined by Dr. Gillian Sandstrom, an associate professor in the Psychology of Kindness at the University of Sussex and author of Once Upon a Stranger: The Science of How Small Talk Can Add Up to a Big Life.
I came into this conversation a little wary. Do I really want to talk to more strangers? On airplanes? At Trader Joe’s? When I’m trying to get through my errands and keep moving? But Gillian’s research—and her very practical way of talking about it—made a strong case for why these small, low-stakes interactions matter.
This episode is not about forcing every stranger into a future friendship. It’s about remembering that every friend was once a stranger, and that talking to people we don’t know gives us practice with the exact skills good friendships require: handling uncertainty, risking rejection, asking better questions, listening, ending conversations kindly, and staying open to other people.
Gillian also explains why small talk is not as pointless as it can seem, why people usually like us more than we think they do, and why even brief moments of connection can change the way we move through the world.

WE TALKED ABOUT:
• Why talking to strangers is connected to making and keeping friends
• The “liking gap” and why we often underestimate how much people enjoyed talking to us
• How strangers can be lower-stakes practice for friendship skills
• Why small talk can feel awkward, boring, or inefficient—and why it still matters
• Gillian’s “QUICK” method for starting conversations: questions, in common, and kindness
• How to politely end a conversation without pretending you need to take a call
• The difference between strangers, acquaintances, weak ties, loose ties, and “fringe-ships”
• Why we sometimes disclose more easily to strangers than to close friends
• The awkwardness of reaching out to an old friend who now feels like a stranger
• Why talking to strangers can make the world feel safer, warmer, and more human
 
One idea from Gillian I especially loved: not every interaction has to be transformative to be worthwhile. Like movies, not every conversation will be "amazing." Some will be forgettable and will be average, but over time, these small moments add up to something meaningful. In a world that often feels increasingly impersonal and distracted, I found that idea pretty convincing.
 
Meet Dr. Gillian Sandstrom: 
Gillian Sandstrom is an associate professor in the psychology of kindness at the University of Sussex and author of Once Upon a Stranger: The Science of How 'Small' Talk Can Add Up To a Big Life. Her research has been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and The Atlantic, and has been covered by other outlets around the world. She has been interviewed for major podcasts and radio shows, including Hidden Brain, NPR's Life Kit, and Claudia Hammond's All in the Mind. She lives in Brighton, England. Find her on LinkedIn and Instagram. 

ALL THE DEAR NINA LINKS + CONTACT INFO

!! Catch up on all Dear Nina episodes on Apple and Spotify
📢 How to promote your service, business, or book on Dear Nina
🔎 Information on any upcoming "Dear Nina Live" events
🎈 Celebrate your friend on the show by dedicating a week of episodes!
📱 Subscribe to my newsletter “Conversations About Friendship” on Substack
❤️  Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, & the Dear Nina Facebook group
📪  Ask an anonymous friendship question
📪 email: dearninapodcast@gmail.com
🔎 Want to work with me on your podcast, your friendships, or need another link? That’s probably here.

Special thank you, as always, to my assistant producer, Rebekah Jacobs!