Admissions Beat

AB's third annual open-ended conversation with applicants and parents at Dartmouth's admitted student open house offers insights and tips from those who have just navigated a successful college search. AB host and Dartmouth Dean Lee Coffin and recurring cohost Jacques Steinberg field wide-ranging comments and questions about admissions-induced procrastination, the value of authenticity in storytelling, and stress management in the face of looming deadlines and decisions. As one student observes, "Trust yourself, because you know yourself best." 

Extracurricular activities, which are essential ingredients of any college application, yield lessons and skillsets that animate a student's story. Reflecting on his own experience in the drama club at Shelton High School in Connecticut, AB host and Dartmouth Dean Lee Coffin welcomes Gary and Fran Scarpa, the longtime directors of Shelton's drama program, for an unusually personal conversation about what Coffin learned from being actively involved in their productions. "You made me an extrovert," he tells them. The trio reflects on how lessons from the stage—or from a playing field, lab, or church youth group—inform the discovery phase of a college search and provide rich material for the application narrative. Although everyone wants to be a winner, "you don’t aways get the part,” Lee advises applicants. “You’re not all going to be the valedictorian of your class. How do you perform, learn, grow from what you have? Why are you doing what you do when you are not in class? How does it enliven the story of you? Bring that forward.”

Veteran college counselor Doug Burdett, from Brunswick School in Connecticut, joins his longtime colleague and AB host Lee Coffin as they ponder the lessons from their 30-year careers on both sides of the admissions counseling desk. Drawing from those innumerable interactions with students and parents, they muse about the unintended pitfalls that can misdirect a college search just as it gets started. Burdett advises prospective applicants and parents to "focus on community, not the name" as the impulse to "dream big" is balanced against a more pragmatic need to proceed with a sense of what's responsible and realistic. "A terrible list," warns Burdett, "is imbalanced." And if you don’t like an option after exploring it, Burdett says that's "fantastic," because "everything you learn helps test your assumptions about what you like.”

Marcia Hunt, past president of the National Association for College Admission Counseling and the longtime dean of college advising at Florida's Pine Crest School, joins AB host Lee Coffin as he recreates his "Advice to Parents" presentation from Pine Crest's junior kickoff in January. As he shares his tips for successful admissions parenting, Hunt offers context for what he advises as she channels her work with literally thousands of families over the course of her long tenure. She also shares thoughts on how to be a cooperative parent and how to maintain a happy home as a college search kicks into high gear. "Children will listen," Coffin muses as he highlights a memorable passage from Sondheim's poignant musical, Into the Woods. "They do," Marcia concurs.

College admission decisions for the high school class of 2025 have landed, and now it's time for seniors and their parents to assess those outcomes and move towards an enrollment decision by the National Candidate's Reply Date on May 1. Chris Gruber from Davidson College in North Carolina and college counselor Kate Ramsdell from Noble & Greenough School in Massachusetts join AB host Lee Coffin to guide students through April with confidence and a sense of purpose.

Twenty-five years after New York Times education reporter Jacques Steinberg, author of The Gatekeepers: Inside the Admissions Process of a Premier College, spent a year observing at close range the selection process at Wesleyan University, Steinberg joined admission officers at Dartmouth for a day inside its selection committee. After his "fly on the wall" day in Hanover, he quizzes Admissions Beat host and Dartmouth dean Lee Coffin about what he saw and heard as applicants from California entered the admissions spotlight. "I would smile when a student would take the time to tell you something that really made them a person, where you could actually almost see and feel having them there. And you all got that message, surfaced it, talked about it. It became part of the discussion," Steinberg tells Coffin, reassuring applicants that the time and care they put into telling their stories to colleges is well worth the effort.

For any college admissions officer, reading and evaluating an application is the work of the work. It is the heart of the admissions process itself, its most essential task. Reading season is the moment when recruitment yields to selection, when assessing merit and potential becomes a blend of reflection and decision as each application is evaluated and a class is shaped. The Dartmouth-based cast of last year's "Learning to Read," AB's most downloaded episode, reunites for a second, heartfelt conversation about their work as admission readers in a most selective admissions environment. The trio offer insights into "what counts" as each moves from file to file, and each reveals the invisible humanity that animates the work of the work.

Many people ask, "What counts?" as they ponder the elements of "merit" in a college application. This week, two Ivy deans tackle this perennial query as Brown's Logan Powell joins AB host Lee Coffin from Dartmouth for a wide-ranging conversation about assessing merit and where it is discovered. They consider the numbers and the narrative--the quantitative as well as the qualitative information--that emerges from a college application. Both deans channel a wise adage from Albert Einstein: "Not everything that can be counted, counts; not everything that counts can be counted."

Discovery is act one of every successful college search, and it should reveal as much about the searcher as about the places being explored.  AB host and Dartmouth Dean Lee Coffin leads a “junior kickoff” deans panel that includes Elena Hicks from SMU and Karen Kristoff from Colorado College as well as college counselor Darryl Tiggle of Friends School of Baltimore. The quartet of admissions veterans offer advice and tips for juniors and parents about assessing personal interests and “non-negotiable” priorities that will frame the search; developing a list of college options that sync with those personal considerations; planning in-person or virtual visits to explore those places; and then assessing reactions as early ideas about college become more tangible. Dean Coffin advises, "You have to figure out who you are before you can figure out where you want to go." And when that happens, “You will discover your options with purpose.”

Season 7 of Admissions Beat gets underway at just the right time to give this year's high school juniors a preview of what's to come, as they look closely at themselves, survey the college landscape, and weigh options in higher education.  Host Lee Coffin, Dartmouth’s dean of admissions and financial aid, and recurring co-host Jacques Steinberg, author of The Gatekeepers: Inside the Admissions Process at a Selective College, and co-author of The College Conversation: A Practical Companion for Parents to Guide Their Children Along the Path to Higher Education, offer calming, concrete advice about how to get started on a search for the school that will best fit each applicant's abilities and aspirations.