Shaping Community, Finding Your Fit
Lee Coffin:
From Columbus, Ohio, I'm Lee Coffin, Dartmouth's vice president and dean of admissions and financial Aid, and this is Admissions Beat.
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Hello, listeners, if you're paying attention, you notice I am not in Hanover, New Hampshire as I usually am. I'm in Columbus, Ohio for the annual conference of the National Association for College Admission Counseling, AKA NACAC to those of us who do the work. And we've gathered a all-star group of former guests of Admissions Beat. When we come back, my recurring co-host, Jacques Steinberg and I will referee what we hope is going to be a lively conversation.
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Hello Jacques, welcome to Columbus.
Jacques Steinberg:
Hello Lee. It is a pleasure to be here. And just for listeners, if you can imagine us sitting around a rectangle with a dozen colleagues who truly are an all-star team of folks who work both on the admissions side and the high school counseling side, the community-based organization side, and for a number of them they have touched a number of those bases and I'm so looking forward to this conversation.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, I am too. And what's interesting about the group who have joined us is we've got some civic deans of admission, we have a former dean of admission, we have a group of college counselors, three of whom have been college admission officers, and we have people who are in schools and community-based organizations working directly with students. So I love that mix of perspectives as we get going. For listeners, Jacques, my co-host is former New York Times reporter on the higher ed beat, author of The Gatekeepers, author of The College Conversation with Eric Furda, former dean at Penn and maybe somebody in the room with us right now. And I say Jacques is a former reporter, but you seem to freelance. You popped up in The New York Times a couple of weeks ago with Dan Rather and I thought he's still doing it.
Jacques Steinberg:
You just never know.
Lee Coffin:
You never know. Jacques is everywhere. So let's say hi to our guest. So we'll go around to do a quick introduction and then we'll jump in.
Chris Reeves:
Lee, thanks for having me. Chris Reeves. I am a college counselor at the Craft Academy for Excellence in Science and Mathematics in Morehead, Kentucky. Also co-host of The Reeves and Ford podcast, a college admissions podcast for all.
Lee Coffin:
And where do you find that?
Chris Reeves:
You can find that on Apple, iTunes.
Lee Coffin:
Wherever you find your podcast.
Chris Reeves:
Wherever you find your podcast.
Lee Coffin:
There you go.
Chris Reeves:
Yes, sir.
Lee Coffin:
And Chris, just as we meet you, your school is a public boarding school.
Chris Reeves:
It's public. The best way I can describe it, it's a two-year STEM residential dual credit high school. So our students apply from all over Kentucky. We have a lot of Appalachian students and they live on Morehead State's campus and we throw them to the wolves.
Lee Coffin:
Oh.
Chris Reeves:
No classes are set aside for our student. It's very rigorous. We have really cool kids. It's an awesome place.
Lee Coffin:
Awesome. Thanks.
Karen Kristov:
I'm Karen Kristof. I'm the Dean of Mission at Colorado College.
Lee Coffin:
And repeating her second episode this season.
Karen Kristov:
I know. I'm so honored to be here.
Lee Coffin:
You're almost Jacques.
Karen Kristov:
Oh, if only.
Lee Coffin:
If only.
Steve Soud:
Good morning and thanks for having us. My name is Steve Soud. I'm the Director of College Counseling at the Isidore Newman School in New Orleans.
Marcia Hunt:
Good morning. I am Marcia Hunt, Dean of College and Academic Advising at Pine Crest School in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. We're an independent school of about 2,500 students with two campuses in South Florida.
Ronnie McKnight:
I'm Ronnie McKnight from the Paideia School in Atlanta, Georgia.
Lee Coffin:
And you were a former admission officer.
Ronnie McKnight:
I worked at the very well-known Presbyterian College in Clinton, South Carolina and at Emory University.
Sherri Geller:
I'm Sherri Geller. I'm from Gann Academy in Waltham, Massachusetts, which is a co-ed pluralistic Jewish high school.
Lee Coffin:
And also former admission officer.
Sherri Geller:
Former admission officer at Brandeis University and a short stint at Northeastern University.
Eric Furda:
Good morning. Eric Furda. I'm a college counselor at the William Penn Charter School. We're the oldest Quaker school in the world, 1689.
Lee Coffin:
Wow.
Eric Furda:
And former admission dean at Penn and Columbia and have a great honor of being a co-host with Eileen Cunningham Feikens on Sirius XM Radio, The Process on Channel 132.
Erica Rosales:
My name is Erica Rosales. I am the Executive Director of College Match, a community-based organization in Los Angeles, California. And we help high achieving students from low-income communities in Los Angeles get into highly selected colleges across the country.
Matt Hyde:
My name is Matt Hyde. I'm Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut.
Ben Baum:
My name is Ben Baum. I'm Vice President of Enrollment at St. John's College, the Great Books College with campuses in Annapolis, Maryland and Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Dino Koff:
I'm Dino Koff and I'm the Assistant Vice President and Executive Director of Financial Aid at Dartmouth College.
Lee Coffin:
So I want to start the conversation with a definition. So part of the idea we're going to discuss is that a college shapes its community. It doesn't just admit students to the class, it's thinking about the class as a whole and how does that class compliment the place itself. So Matt Hyde, you often talk about intentional communities. I think I borrowed this phrase from you. When you do a panel, you talk about building an intentional community. What do you mean by that?
Matt Hyde:
Admissions is not a meritocracy based on achievement academically. We can assign merit to whatever we want and we have the good fortune and honor to sort of represent our respective communities and we need to learn them. We need to understand the lens that we're looking through at these amazing young people and what they're bringing to the table. We understand that just because a student is admissible doesn't mean we needed to admit them and that we're getting beyond and well beyond the data and trying to find the humanity in these students, that each and every student has a narrative, has a story, has a voice, has a distinct presence on this earth. And it's our job to sort of envision them as taking shape on our campuses in our communities.
Matt Hyde:
So in my time in the college space from Tufts to Lafayette now at Trinity, I've had very different lenses and where I sit now at Trinity, we're looking for students who lean into life and learning with the right kind of energy and attitude that fits Trinity, open mind, open heart, desire to learn and to think and act beyond themselves. That can take lots of different shapes, but we're looking for that and that is very subjective. So that intentionality of understanding your community first, the lens that you're looking through and then making choices that honor sort of your mission and your goals as an institution. So that's how you're thinking about shaping a class with intentionality.
Lee Coffin:
Yep. Trinity is a liberal arts college, so is Colorado College, so is St. John's. Does that mean you're all shaping the community in the exact same way?
Karen Kristov:
Hi, Karen from Colorado College. I'll take that one, Lee.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, go ahead, Karen.
Karen Kristov:
Thank you. And really it's knowing your own institution, understanding your values, your priorities, understanding what makes you distinctive. Liberal arts colleges are not a monolith, right, and there's so many ways in which we think about who are the students that thrive. I think it's also important that students hear us say there's a lot of different kinds of students that could thrive in our campuses. Right. So it isn't about fitting a box.
Karen Kristov:
When we tell students be authentic in how you present yourselves and my colleagues on the school side know this so well, be authentic, be honest, be yourself. It's because we're really dying and eager to know what makes you tick because you could bring something to our communities maybe that we already have and really value or we don't have and would really like to lean into. And so I think that piece of really presenting yourself, using your opportunities in the application to make that case I think is really important. You don't need to know what are the top five things the Colorado College Admission Committee thinks about, but do think about what are the things that you've noticed in your search, that you've noticed as you've visited campus, as you've done your research that really sing for you because very likely that's going to resonate for us as well.
Lee Coffin:
So Ben, you introduce St. John's as a Great Books curriculum. So as you shape that community, to what degree does that play into how you shape?
Ben Baum:
Everything. Everything. We need to find students who are the right fit for what we do. And what Karen says I think is 100% right, that idea of the institutional identity matters so much in this process. The reality is there's a college for every student who is out there. And the trick is to find that right match, that right fit sometimes we describe it as. And the job of the student is to try to identify those places that would have that fit. And the job of us in admissions is to make our presence known in the world, to share that fit and then to help winnow the pool of students who apply to those, ones who are really going to thrive at our institutions. And so at a place like St. John's where we have this Great Books curriculum, we draw students who want to read about 200 classic books from the last 3000 years, who want to be in small classes every day talking about these books.
Ben Baum:
Those kinds of students are out there, but we're not for everyone. And that's okay. Those students who are the right fit for St. John's should be applying to St. John's. We're going to admit those students who are the right fit for us. But there are other excellent students who would thrive better at Colorado College or at Trinity. And all of our jobs, the students, the staff in the admissions offices at our colleges need to help find that right match.
Lee Coffin:
So as you read a file, are you looking for evidence of a reader? Is that how you shape?
Ben Baum:
Absolutely. And so we ask a question on our application, tell us about a book that you love and how it's influenced your thinking in some way. And that matters to me more than virtually anything else that the student submits.
Jacques Steinberg:
So Lee, let's stay on the student side of this equation for a moment. I'm imagining the students in our listenership, their parents, it may be a foreign concept to them, the idea of you all as deans creating community, shaping, Lee's word community. Let's think about the student shaping and shaping that story that helps them explain to you how they might fit into your community. What advice do you have for students in terms of telling their story of what they would bring to the community you are shaping, particularly for those of you who are counselors?
Marcia Hunt:
Marcia Hunt from Pine Crest School. Going back to using the authentic voice, it's so important. And as a student, we talked to the students often about how they're writing their essays and they want to write their essay in their own voice, not the 45-year-old lawyer's voice.
Marcia Hunt:
I had a student a couple of years ago who wrote an essay about working on a chicken farm and the first day they were there, they had to kill a chicken that was going to be sold. And this student actually wrote this beautiful story about how it just tore him apart. And so he's got this great narrative going and all of a sudden it says, "And it reminded me of when I was president of my freshman class." And you're like, I said, "Where did that come from?" And he said, "I told my father you weren't going to like that." So I think it's keeping other people's voices out of essays and it's one of the hardest things we do. I'm sitting next to Steve Soud who taught English on the college level and is a wonderful writer and I'm sure you deal with this all the time.
Steve Soud:
Again, Steve Soud, Newman School in New Orleans. There are a handful of sort of mantras we have when we're helping guide students through the essay writing process. One of them is there are over 30,000 high schools in this country. Writing about something that's distinctive within our senior class, it's certainly not going to be in the broader national conversation is one of our mantras. Another one is be vulnerable and it's okay to be vulnerable. And when we talk about building community, that's the building block of trust, right, is if you can be vulnerable with one another.
Steve Soud:
And so in terms of, I think when students realize, hey, we can be vulnerable, not exposing weakness, the parents don't think like that Marcia, as you pointed out. On the reader's end, I think that helps you all say, hey, this would be a great member of our community because they're going to help build, by building trust and building relationships and so forth. And I had a young man, wrote a beautiful essay. He had some challenges in his family. Just mentioned offhand, "Yeah, I know this neighborhood grocery store. I know my way around it." Unusual for 17 year old. I said, "There's an essay." And he wrote this gorgeous essay because he's been cooking for himself because of family dysfunction for several years and he literally knew his way around a grocery store and wrote moving essay.
Lee Coffin:
But what's interesting is you both share these examples of essays, is they're giving you a peek into the kids, that they're people who are going to be parts of these communities that we're shaping. And I think that gets lost a lot, is that part of the storytelling is to be 17, 18. Help us see this is the person who will enroll in the fall, who will sit in the classroom or residence hall in some way and how does the diversity of voices come together and make that place dippy as someone said recently. I love that word dippy. Eric, I keep thinking about your experience at Penn and Columbia, so much bigger campuses than Trinity, St. John's, Colorado College. Does this happen there too? Is a process that is larger also open to this kind of storytelling as a shaping mechanism?
Eric Furda:
Once again, Eric Furda from William Penn Charter School and former dean on the college side. So just hearing everybody around the table right now is, and I'll take Penn and Columbia as examples because I want you to think about the students. Here we are sitting at our national conference in September. They have a Google Doc right now of all the colleges they're applying to and they're cutting and pasting the essays that Dartmouth has put together, that Trinity's put together, that all the colleges have put together and they start seeing patterns. Oh, here's the community essay, here's the academic essay, here's the identity essay. So I could write this once and I'm good to go, right? And it's no, because it's the community at the school that you're applying to. It's your voice, it's your unique voice, but you might be a fit at one school but not the other even if you compete in the same athletic league. And so just to give an example, the core curriculum at Columbia may be much more similar to St. John's than applying to another Ivy League school.
Eric Furda:
So to the students, it's yes, it's the community essay, but it really is about the community at that school that you're applying to. Now I'll add one other piece to the deans around the table here, and I say this to the students all the time, "You are sending signals about this intentionality and community with the essays, the prompts that you're putting forward." And so we'll highlight the keywords saying what are they really asking you here? And on the other side, what are they communicating about the values of that institution? Because you all sit around the table thinking about those essays and say, what should we ask the students? So what are you communicating to the students about the type of student body you're trying to create?
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. You're sharing really important news you can use. Those supplemental essays are clues about what the college is trying to do and share. You've nodded as Eric has been saying that, so the community essay kind of resonates with you.
Sherri Geller:
So Sherri Geller from Gann Academy in Massachusetts. I was also thinking as you're talking that I talked to students, whether it's supplemental essays or the main essay about that colleges are reading for both the content of the essay and the voice in which you're writing it and your word choice. And I tell kids if they're usually funny, they can be funny in their essay, but if they're not typically funny, then this isn't the time to try that out. And the same thing with using big words. There are some 17-year-olds who sound like 40-year-old lawyers and others who I read an essay and I say, who suggested this word to you? Because I know that that wasn't your word and I can tell just from reading it. So as you were talking about specifically the supplemental essay in which the schools are asking, I think that connection between the content of the what, but also how the student is portraying it and answering the question in their own words is really important.
Jacques Steinberg:
So another word for community I would argue is vibe. What's the vibe of a place? And as Lee often says, how do you suss out the vibe of a place? And I think it's fascinating, this notion that you all as deans are leaving clues, you're leaving breadcrumbs in the questions you ask in those supplemental essays that ultimately come down to the question often of why our school. But imagining students who are listening and who want to learn more about the vibe of that community, where else can they go for clues? How do you learn almost in a journalistic way, what makes a place a particular place? And let's involve some who've not spoken yet. Chris?
Chris Reeves:
Chris Reeves from the Craft Academy. We go straight into the about page and the mission and vision. It's the part of the website everybody skips and I go on there with my students in my college training for juniors series. That's where we begin. I think that-
Lee Coffin:
Why?
Chris Reeves:
It's the clues. We're trying to find clues on what matters. And it's really, I don't know if you all even dig into your own a lot because it's out there. If you do what you're going to start seeing are the same words. So we'll start scrolling and be like, oh, there's that word again. There's that intellectual promise. Intellectual promise. You'll see it like seven times as you keep scrolling down. So this is a school that cares about these three or four things. It's kind of surprising sometimes how different they are. So that's where we start finding-
Lee Coffin:
Well, that's another example. So intellectual promise pops out. I look at Ben as you say that. I'm guessing St. John's about page probably pushes that a bit if you're looking for a Great Books enthusiast.
Ben Baum:
I'm taking notes right now and thinking I need to go back to my about page and make sure it's conveying what I want it to convey. But yes, I am certain are about page sounds very different than the about pages for the other colleges in this room right now. It should because we're really a different kind of institution. Each one of us is very different. If we aren't conveying that vibe, then we're failing to bring the kinds of students who would thrive in our environment. And so that about page I would argue is probably one of many different pieces where we try to convey that sense of identity so that the right students are drawn to what we do.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. What other buzzwords do you see?
Chris Reeves:
Community, world changer. Oh, I wish the other counselor maybe could help me out on some of these, but you start to see, you just start to see the patterns.
Jacques Steinberg:
Erica, I'm thinking about the work that you do at College Match.
Erica Rosales:
So with College Match, so what you need to imagine our group of students, the majority of our students are first generation college students. That means that their parents haven't gone to college. We find them when they're juniors. Right. So we are recruiting students junior year of high school. So I always think to myself, I have a very limited amount of time to help these students really get to know themselves because I think as a 17-year-old, you haven't taken the time to really reflect on what's important to you. So for us the first step is who are you? What type of person are you? We know you want to go to college, but why do you want to go to college? Besides the social mobility piece, besides hearing your immigrant parent always telling you you have to go to college, what else is there? Is it that intellectual curiosity? Right.
Erica Rosales:
So we let them start doing that type of research. And then College Match is a nonprofit organization. We invest a lot of the dollars in college visit. So every year we take 150 students across the country on four different East Coast trips. And we're doing this not to show off certain colleges, but really so students can get the vibe, like what is it about this campus? But it's really difficult because you're dealing with 17-year-olds who have a certain idea of what college they want to go to because of the name brand recognition. And trying to get them beyond that is a challenge. And I have that limited amount of time to go from visit to what was it about that college that you really liked and what quality can you find there, can you find somewhere else? We spend a lot of time on that college list and doing research and teaching them how to be intentional with their research and then matching their personal preferences to those colleges.
Chris Reeves:
Thank you so much. Because, Chris Reeves again, because as we started talking about essay type things, I wanted to back up about six to eight months because our students are not asked to do a whole lot of reflective thinking and reflective writing. If they don't understand themselves first, how are they going to make a college list? So a whole lot more energy needs to go, in my opinion, in my business to developing the college list because then you're not just trying to be authentic and hope it sticks to St. John's Versus Trinity. You know that St. John's is a fit for you. But you have to, even in English classes, I think they're doing different types of papers versus the reflective writing we try to do. But that reflective thinking, reflective writing, you then understand as a high school student who you're becoming and who you are as a person is the key to figuring out a good list. So you research yourself first, then you research colleges and then you find the matches.
Jacques Steinberg:
Ronnie McKnight, as you listen, what comes to mind?
Ronnie McKnight:
So I want to acknowledge something, that we're kind of talking about ourselves. For the listeners, there's an element of this that is difficult to discern because there's an element of that vibe that colleges are always completely transparent about. And what we're talking about is as important as the academic programs that a school offers, it's as important as size and locations, all the sorts of kind of fundamental characteristics that we quickly kind of have an opinion about a school. And that's that impression that you get when you simply walk onto the campus and looked around and see who is there. Because colleges have very different fields based upon the students that are on campus.
Ronnie McKnight:
And students when they visit, quickly determine that. I have kids that come back from college visits and they say that school was too, T-O-O, right? Too "blank." Right. So if you're the Georgian that goes to a school in Washington state and you're the only Georgian there, is that a fun adventure or is that scary? Right. And so there are things about geography, about background, about socioeconomic diversity, about racial and ethnic, religious, you name it. And there are sorts of characteristics that are sometimes you're able to find in a school's profile, but other times you're not. You go to a school and it has that sort of everyman feel, like you know there's a great deal of diversity on campus in that way. In the same way that you might go to a school that feels very STEM-y or very artistic. All of those sorts of vibes are sometimes very well articulated and sometimes they're not.
Ronnie McKnight:
It's really hard to get an impression without interacting with school's campus, without interacting with someone often who isn't a part of the admission office that will tell you the vibe that you're looking for. Because if you're the admission counselor, if you're the Georgia school and you get lots of Georgians, maybe you want all those kids from Washington state. You don't want to admit that you don't have very many kids from Washington state, right? You want that diversity on your campus. And so sometimes it's nice to talk to an alum, current student, be on campus, get that sense of vibe that you don't always get from websites, or statistics, or admission brochures.
Lee Coffin:
As we talk about community, what's interesting about where you're leading us is you're pointing back to people. You were telling me when you walked in that you did some campus visits before you came to Columbus and you described one place as quirky and creative and wonderful. And I'm wondering how that characterization hit you as you visited.
Ronnie McKnight:
Quirky and creative is, right?
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. But you saw that when you were on campus.
Ronnie McKnight:
And kids see that when they... That's what they come back with the impression and some students are looking for certain communities and then other students are looking for not to put any pressure on you college guys, but they're looking for a perfect utopia. Right. They're looking for that perfect balance of everything, of majors and of interest, and of geography. And if they come back in a school is too skewed one way or the other, then for some kids maybe that's what they're looking for. And for other kids, that's not what college would look like. Right. They have the expectations. And so knowing yourself to know what you're looking for as a student I think is also important. Do you want to be the Georgian with a lot of other Georgians or do you want to be the only Jewish student on campus, or do you want to be on a campus with a large Jewish community? Know what's important to you and then to look for schools that provide that.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. No.
Ronnie McKnight:
That's one process.
Lee Coffin:
That's another way. I mean, you used the word quirky, which I love and I'm reminded of. A couple of us worked at Tufts and 20 years ago it became a place that people described as quirky. And I don't know that as we were doing the admission process there, we were intentionally trying to create a quirky campus, but it took on a life of its own. Right, Matt? I mean, quirky became kind of the thing.
Matt Hyde:
Well, it did. This Matt from Trinity, but my eight years at Tufts, it was a lot of fun for us to redefine in our space what Tufts was and why Tufts was. I think when I arrived there, Tufts was at this moment of trying to sort of get out of the shadows of its neighbors and trying to assert itself much more effectively in the national landscape. And what we realized is we needed to put a stronger message out about what Tufts is. That we are not just, hey, that's an excellent university outside of Boston. Well here's who we are and why we are and why you want to love us. So we put that message out and we talked about purveying vibe at Tufts and so it might not have been intentional to sort of put this, sort of that quirky intellectual, sort of globally minded vibe out there, but we did and our student body came to reflect that pretty quickly.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, I think the vibe is this living thing. It is out there and a campus has a personality. I mean college counselors, how do you guide families through that kind of feeling part of this? Because it's hard to be quantitative when you're talking about vibe.
Steve Soud:
Let me say a couple things. This is Steve Soud from Newman School in New Orleans. There's something I like to refer to as institutional DNA.
Lee Coffin:
I love that.
Steve Soud:
And it very often goes back to the school's founding, believe it or not. And you look at Bates College up in Maine, for example, founded by abolitionists. And to this day they have that very, very strong social justice culture that's woven through so many things. Look at Texas A&M, other side of the country, founded as a military institute. And if you go there, there is this spree decor about the university and still a little bit of a military presence there and it shapes that experience. We're going to stand up for the entire football game because that's what we do. And Presbyterian colleges, looking at Ronnie, they were founded by Scotsman and sort of the Scottish Enlightenment. And there's usually a strong intellectual component around schools that were founded by Presbyterians, whether it was Princeton or Rhodes or San Antonio, wherever it happens to be, that's important.
Steve Soud:
The other thing I would say, the hard part as we talk about kids figure, it's really hard when you're 17 to figure out who you are. You've got parents telling you who you should be. High school is a world in which most kids are just trying to fit in and duck and cover and not really think about who I am. And the joy in our work, whether it's what Erica is doing a College Match or any of us at the private schools around the table or this wonderful public magnet school in Kentucky. Helping kids figure out who they are and find their voice is maybe the most important thing we do.
Lee Coffin:
Where do you, finding your voice building community, thinking about life experience, kind of broad macro topic including socioeconomic access and diversity on a campus, where dos that, I'll start with Dino. Bring a financial aid perspective in first. Where's financial aid and affordability and socioeconomic diversity? How does that fit?
Dino Koff:
This is Dino Koff from Dartmouth College. It's incredible as I sit in this room and have heard people talking about shaping and looking at the about and the mission, and I'm sitting here thinking on the financial aid side, how important being able to see where I could fit on this campus if I was a high school junior and being able to say, can I have the experience that I want at this college? And what that experience could be is different at every college. And being able to see, can I take advantage of off-campus programs? Am I able to, if a school is saying that 60% of the college is going on off-campus experiences, I want to make sure can I afford to do that if I'm a student who will qualify for financial aid. And how can I take advantage of off-terms or off-semesters in the summer? If I want to be a theater student, can I go have an internship? Are there experiences for me?
Dino Koff:
And so when I was sitting here thinking about, okay, Erica talked about the junior year. We're taking people into this program and counseling and seeing can I take advantage, what is out there for me and being able to see all of this and trying to compare every institution. So thinking about the fit from the lens of can I take advantage of everything? And being able to see that and if I can't see it on a website, being able to have a conversation and reaching out to the school and feeling comfortable saying, I really want to go to London and study theater. Is that possible? Financially, can I do this? That's important. We need to start asking these things early because this is, as I hear the admissions side, we need to be doing a lot of work on the financial aid side. Just saying, yep, this works. I can do this. I'm excited about this program. There is financial feasibility and I think that's important to check out early.
Lee Coffin:
Well, as I think about shaping community, most colleges today have a clear and growing commitment to low-income access. That has become a gold standard for our identities. I'm looking at the deans and wondering how you want to talk, let's talk a little bit about shaping community from a socioeconomic rainbow so that as we're reaching out into rural communities in Appalachia or the LA Public Schools with a lot of low-income, often immigrant kids, like how does that fit into shaping? And then concurrently to those of you who work at schools where generations of these families have gone to college, where do they fit?
Karen Kristov:
Yeah, Karen from Colorado College. I think socioeconomic diversity is incredibly important because it makes for better experiences all over campus. The classroom's better, the soccer pitch is better, the dorm is better when there are opportunities to have conversations around difference. There's probably, it is the rare un-outdoorsy person who looks at Colorado College. I think our reputation at Colorado College is one of the things you love to do is to be outdoors if you come to our campus. So that is sort of the profile. If you looked, maybe not on our about page to Chris's point, but it's there.
Karen Kristov:
But I think one of the things that we have talked with our outdoor education folks about is what if you had somebody, because the outdoors turned out to be very equitable, everybody can access the outdoors. And what if you tried not to just think about this as a place where if you're a good skier, you can become a great skier if you come to Colorado. But that if you've never put on a pair of skis before, that you should because this is a place where you can grow and thrive. This is a place where you might stretch if you're, for example, one of Erica's kids from LA. Right.
Karen Kristov:
And so we have what's called at CC called Snow Day. And Snow Day is not what you think. I remember snow day when I was a kid. That meant I got to stay in bed and read instead of go to school. But Snow Day is for students who have never been on a mountain before and it's a weekend where students who have never skied before all get on a bus together with really nice gear and figure out what that looks like. So I think that's a really important piece even at places that have a strong identity in one way or another to think about the ways in which your values can extend to encompass new and better ways of thinking about. Skiing is one of those things that everybody can do. Hiking is one of those things that everybody can do and really think about using what you have and what makes your identity and mission so critical, whatever it might be, really expand to accommodate a number of students because that's when it's interesting, that's when the learning is really robust. That's when the conversations in the dining hall are really...
Matt Hyde:
I mean, that's key. This is Matt from Trinity. We talk a lot about creating dimension in our communities and socioeconomic is I said, primary in that space. We need to recognize that these 17, 18 ish year olds are not fully formed adults. They come to our tables with lots of ideas and assumptions and it's our goal to help them want to inform sort of their understanding of the world and they need to connect with peers who've had different kinds of experiences, culturally, ethically, socioeconomically. We're trying to create and mix together this space where students will connect and care and lean into life and learning in a more collective way. That's where the learning really has happened.
Matt Hyde:
I love the fact that Trinity, this college in Hartford, Connecticut has applicants from 142 different countries, almost all 50 states. So there's a kid in Mumbai and a kid in Milwaukee who could have something in common and could be Trinity. Two very different lived experiences that we want to draw together. So that's why I love my job. That's one of the reasons, is these two might meet each other and boy, I hope that they do.
Lee Coffin:
Erica and Chris, you both work with access oriented populations. Do they understand that their identities are part of this intentionality? Do they see that as kind of part of their storytelling?
Chris Reeves:
Chris from Craft Academy. Mine do. We talk about Appalachia is hot right now, so it helps. My lower income kids will apply and go anywhere that they can afford with amazing financial aid that's out there and that dedication you said. My middle income students will stay in Kentucky because the affordability and middle income is just completely different right now. And then of course I don't work with very many upper income families, but my lower income kids, my Appalachian kids, they know.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah.
Chris Reeves:
They know that they might not be the only people there, but they're looking to expand and they understand that they are kind of part of a diverse college campus.
Erica Rosales:
They know, but after they've had time with us. I don't think they knew before college. So a big part of our job is to build up that confidence and help them develop the confidence to tell their story. Because many of our students, they live in a monolithic world, so everybody around them looks like they do. So they take that for granted. Don't think there's anything special about them. So a big part of our work is telling them how special they are and why they are a value to other communities.
Steve Soud:
We don't pay enough attention to the words alma mater, which means the mother of our soul.
Lee Coffin:
Wow.
Steve Soud:
And when we get to a certain point in our lives, we look back and we realize how our educational institutions shaped us and the things we bring to it and the things it brought to us. And to go back to this phrase, intentional community, we're trying to build that and to have it shape us in deeply fundamental ways. That's why we use the word matriculate actually when they enroll. And so those are words that we need to remember and they do get to the core of building an intentional community because as Matt said earlier, you want those two kids to meet.
Lee Coffin:
You are like a linguistics dynamo as I listen.
Jacques Steinberg:
So I'm struck Lee, as I look around this room and as I listen to these folks. I mean, we talk about you all as an all-star team. You're also kind of the ultimate college counseling office. I mean, if we were Admissions Beat high school and this were a morning meeting of the college counseling team, boy would our students be well-served. And so Lee, I don't want to let these folks get away quite yet without tapping them for a little more-
Lee Coffin:
Yeah.
Jacques Steinberg:
Perhaps more generalized advice. And so the word anxiety has not come up in this conversation at all this morning. It's always a part of the college counseling process. I would argue that perhaps this fall it's even more elevated. Marcia, Eric, as we talk about anxiety, as students appear in your offices, families and their anxiety level, their temperature level is where it is, what's some of your best advice about sort of lowering the temperature, particularly this fall?
Lee Coffin:
They're pointing at each other. Marcia, go.
Marcia Hunt:
So we try to give students as much information as we can so that they'll be educated consumers. And I think it's difficult because the students often understand the information we're trying to give them and they go home and they're happy after our meeting and then they talk to their parents and they come back and whatever. At schools like mine, parents have very big aspirations for these kids. And the kids feel like they're not good enough. And they were totally content to be going to my alma mater, Syracuse and then they come back saying, "Oh, my mom think Cornell is a better fit." And it's not a better fit, but it's dealing with parental expectations.
Marcia Hunt:
Dino, I heard you talk one time about having those conversations with students way in the beginning of whether or not they can afford the school. And it's so sad every April to sit with kids who have decided that Trinity, they've gotten into Trinity, Trinity's where they're going and their parents say, "Oh no, you're going to stay in the state of Florida. We can't afford it." And that conversation should have taken place months and months, a year ago with their student. But cost even in places like mine is a big worry for these families. But Dino, I don't know, do you want to comment on the appropriate time to have those conversations?
Dino Koff:
This is Dino Koff from Dartmouth College. Marcia, when you just said that, my first thought was we always are trying to talk about feasibility from day one of college. Not that one can't apply to a school that might financially be, oh, I need aid to make sure I can enroll there. And so there should be no surprises now in terms of families have access to calculators. Many of the more expensive private schools, you'll see scary sticker prices. And it's really important to be able to see what is the net price for, if this was me saying, what is the net price for me and my family? How much is it actually going to cost us?
Dino Koff:
And so having those conversations early, if you're looking at a school, you have a resource to be able to go on the financial aid or the college website, fill it out, get an estimate, even contact the school saying, "Okay, this is what it looks like. I filled this out, I've done this. Could you just go over this with me?" Schools will do that. And then you know that, oh, this is still going to be a reach. We're still going to keep going through the process. But having that conversation early is wonderful and it leads to less tears knowing that, okay, I may not be able to go here, but boy, I'm going to give it a try.
Jacques Steinberg:
So Eric, Marcia's word worry, Dino's word tears. What sorts of worries and tears are coming into your office this fall? And to the extent you can at least address and acknowledge them, if not quite quiet them.
Eric Furda:
Eric Furda from William Penn Charter School. Jacques, I think a lot about the book that we wrote and talking about guardrails with parents and having those conversations very early on as part of the college conversation. And so maybe I'll flip this a little bit. There should be some anxiety about this, right? There should be some excitement about it. And this may be the first time that students don't get exactly what they thought they would. But that's our role as college counselors and the admissions deans too. They'll listen to you more than they'll listen to us and to them, you are the voice and the students on your campuses when we're talking about what that campus visit is like as well. So I want to take some of that anxiety and anxiousness into excitement to really think about and reflect what are my priorities? What am I really looking for in this college search and how can I take some of that anxiety and make that into maybe some positive energy as well?
Eric Furda:
And so for high school students, we use this word fit. That doesn't mean we want the students to fit in. We want their voice on your campus. You want their voice on your campuses. So when I was in front of admitted students, I would say, hundreds of students in front of me admitted student days, I would say, and I would kind of get up into a student's, not in their face, but in front of them and say, "If you don't come to building your school, this campus will not be the same without you." And they look around like, well, there's hundreds of kids around me. What do you mean if I say no to your offer of admission that this place won't be the same? It simply cannot be the same without you on that campus.
Eric Furda:
So take some of that anxiety and say, I have a great deal of self-worth and the schools that deserve to have me on their campus are going to be different because I'm here. And so we'd love working with students. Right. You could tell my excitement probably right now. My hands are going all over the place. Sitting down with students when they are anxious and helping them take that and put it into positive energy, I think is one of our responsibilities.
Lee Coffin:
Well, I think you're being really reassuring too about fit is part of intentionality. So the worry that we've been talking about flows from this idea of selectivity and scarcity, and I want something that I might not get, but my experience has been when you have focused on the fit between you and the place, however you define that tend to get in more often than not because you've shown the place that you are a good match. And I think one of the questions on the supplemental application that helps you get there is the why X, this little question that the colleges pose around basically why did you apply? And let's talk about that a little bit because I don't know that we've kind of hit that part of intentionality. You have applied to, I hope not more than 10 places, but each of those 10 is an intentional choice by the applicant. Say, I see myself here. Deans, please talk about that.
Matt Hyde:
This is Matt from Trinity, and we're very deliberate about trying to tease out these students and their voice and their presence. So our question essentially is the experiences that you've had, the identities you claim, the challenges you faced and so on, that they present the backdrop for your lived experiences that you're going to bring to our campus. Choose one and share it with us. The greater depth of what you want to explore on any front, because we are really trying to figure out who is this student and Bantam by Bantam at Trinity, we're building this class.
Matt Hyde:
And we're looking for a dimension. I want those students who strike me as a St. John's kid, that's like this is a really intellectual student. They found a fit in Trinity. This is a wonderful home for them. But this is something that we're reaching for. We want more students who have sort of that life of the mind and that's core to their being. But we also want that student that wants to lean in and be that spirited cheerleader. So we're trying to tease out and present them an opportunity, like who are you? What's your deal at this moment in time knowing that you're not fully formed?
Lee Coffin:
Well, and one of the things about Trinity is my alma mater, that I've heard the former president talk about is Trinity is liberal arts with an urban pulse. I think if you're shaping a liberal arts campus in a city that's going to be different than the Snow Day at Colorado College. Both intentional.
Matt Hyde:
Sure.
Lee Coffin:
Both very local but different. And so a student who steps up to you through the why Trinity question and says, I see an opportunity to study political science in the capital city of Connecticut and do an internship in the state legislature. Ding.
Matt Hyde:
Yeah.
Lee Coffin:
That's fit in this example. But it's also something you could respond to as you're building a campus perhaps of politically oriented students who want to capitalize on urban.
Matt Hyde:
Yeah. I mean, their eyes need to be open to the world and they want to front row seat to it. Most liberal arts colleges tend to be a little more isolated and removed from the world and bubbled out from it. We're in the thick of it and we love it.
Karen Kristov:
I also think, I always tell students when you approach a supplemental essay, break it down for sure, but also put yourself in the mind of the admission officer. They get a little squirrely, but also kind of they get excited, wow, I could be an admission officer for 10 minutes. This is cool. Let me do this. And what do you think we are getting at? So our question this year is related to our block plan, which is this very intensive three and a half weeks for one class. I won't go into too many details, but basically we're asking students, when was the last time you were in, for lack of a better term flow state, when you were so occupied with something that time sort of passed, you didn't realize it was now 1AM, 2AM. Tell us what was going on and why you enjoyed that.
Karen Kristov:
And our hope is maybe they will then figure out, well cool, maybe I'd consider a campus where you take a semester long class and you do it in a three and a half week sprint. And that focus and that immersion that they might begin to identify, is that for me? Or maybe I can give you an example. But then I started to realize maybe it wasn't exactly the place that I'd want to do college. Or when I think about that example, I could definitely see myself having that singularity of focus and that immersion. So that intention, like we're being very, when you talk about directors and deans saying what's on their minds, very, very clear about who we are and what we want.
Lee Coffin:
The college counselors help me kind of parse this because, maybe Sherri's going to go there, but it's like you've got an urban liberal arts college, you've got a Great Books liberal arts college and you've got a college in the mountain on a sprint block system. Those are really different versions of the same idea.
Sherri Geller:
I was going to say something related but a little bit different. Sherri Geller from Gann Academy. Eric mentioned a little bit ago about students trying to use the same essay over and over again. They said, oh, this is, as you said, the community one. This is the identity one. I think these why us essays, students think, oh, okay, all of my schools are large and urban and have some other quality that seems to be, and they all have great science programs, whatever. And they think, oh, now I can use that same essay for all three schools when it says why us? And that gets back to the original conversation about vibe and fit and feel, is students really thinking about in those supplemental essays going beyond. The schools know that they're large and urban and whatever specific qualities, and now where is it about you and the fit rather than just that the school offers these things and why would you be great on a large urban campus that has a great science program?
Sherri Geller:
But I see students all the time saying, oh good, now that I've written this and I like it, I'm just going to use it and tweak a word or two and eh, maybe not so much. Could be much more effective with going to those about sections that Chris mentioned, reading a little bit more. And even for a student who can't visit or hasn't visited, colleges put a lot of money now into virtual tours and YouTube videos and ways to get to know a campus, whether it's vibe or what the school culture is, things like that. And using those things as they work on these why us essays.
Ben Baum:
This is Ben Baum from St. John's. I just think, I come back to something that Eric said a moment ago about channeling that anxiety into excitement. And I think to these questions, what we hope, we know this is an anxiety inducing process. We know not every student wants to write college essays at the same time that they're trying to do all of their work during senior year in high school. But we hope that when you read the question from Colorado College about the block plan or you read the question at St. John's about the Great Books, that you're actually excited to answer it and that excitement should be the clue that this is a place that could be the right fit for you.
Ben Baum:
And I think the essay question is one place you might find that, but there are other places as well. We try to send materials, for instance, that reflect who we are so that when a student receives a publication from St. John's in the mail and it's a platonic dialogue when Plato has sent you the Meno to read, that's not going to resonate with every student. But that student who's the right fit for St. John's is going to see it and they're going to be excited about this process and not just anxious.
Sherri Geller:
Well, relatedly, this is Sherri from Gann Academy again, when students get excited when a school doesn't have a supplemental essay, and sometimes I, fair enough, but on the other hand, sometimes I say to them, if you really wanted to go to that school, you wouldn't care because yes, it's a little bit more work, but you'd be really looking forward to sharing with that school more about yourself and more about your fit.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. Ronnie, what's the supplemental Purpose?
Ronnie McKnight:
You're asking me. I'm on the high school side.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah.
Ronnie McKnight:
I think every student should be savvy about why is this college asking the supplemental question? They never do it because they want to read more. Anyone that's ever been on the college side does not want to read more. They're already reading a lot. And so they're asking something intentionally because they're seeing how you, well, the subject of our conversation today, they're seeing how you fit in their community. Sometimes they're seeing how you fit within their academic program. Sometimes it's an academic focus or sometimes it's an activity focus. They're seeing what you bring to campus as far as your activity, your interest, but they're gathering more information about you that's just not standard on the Common App. And there are great schools that don't ask any questions, and there's some phenomenal schools that do.
Lee Coffin:
I think that for the listeners who are filling out the Common app or the Coalition App, that's a universal platform. The supplement is local.
Ronnie McKnight:
Right.
Lee Coffin:
And the supplement gives each student a way of helping fit that story into this intentional space. So Jacques, you want to take-
Jacques Steinberg:
Yeah, I have the unenviable task of bringing this conversation to a close. It's been terrific. And I wish we could keep it going, but before we let you all go, let's do a lightning round if you will. And we'll just go around the horn starting to my right with Chris Reeves. Each of you sort of a go-to tip that has served you and students and families well in the course of your many years of work in this area.
Lee Coffin:
Chris has this look on his face that says, you picked me first.
Chris Reeves:
Chris Reeves, Craft Academy. Sure, I'll go first every time. No, it's something I've been thinking about, but I felt like I already talked too much. Now I get to say it, which is, it just kind of goes back to something Eric had said earlier. But I like to look at a student as far as the anxiety piece and just say, look, your future's intact. Your future's intact. You own your future, it's intact. You're going to be fine. It doesn't matter where you go. Just like to look them right in the eye and just tell them you're awesome and you're going to be fine. We're going to do this together and I'll help you the best I can. But it doesn't matter what happens in this process. Your future is intact.
Karen Kristov:
Yeah. I have so many, Karen from Colorado College, so many. I guess I'm going to lean on something that I said recently on this podcast, which was about sort of embracing uncertainty, but anticipating a good result. And what I meant by that, because it was a lightning round, so I'll be a little bit faster, was to say that this isn't always an easy process. This isn't always a process that looks very clear from start to finish, but we who have been doing this work for a long time, I've done it as long as Lee Coffin, maybe even a little bit longer, is that there are great results on the other side and all of the effort and all of the worry and all of the anxiety is absolutely worth it. We get a chance to have the honor of seeing students get admitted than seeing them cross the stage at graduation. And there is nothing more amazing than that.
Jacques Steinberg:
Steve, what's a go-to?
Steve Soud:
If this were a true lightning round, I would say it's not where you go. It's what you do when you get there. But I'm going to speak a little bit longer. Today marks the 15th anniversary of my son, Jonathan's passing from leukemia. He was diagnosed June 1st, 2010, and happened very fast. Never left the hospital except for two days towards the end. During that period, there was a point where he was in the ICU and I was leaning over his hospital bed. He looked at me and he said, 12 years old, said, "Dad, I have never not felt loved." And in that moment he became my greatest teacher and he transformed my understanding of parenting. And so I say to all the parents who are listening, your job as parent is for your child to walk out the door at age 18 never having not felt loved. And I hope all of us can remember that. That will decrease everyone's anxiety. It's not much about where they're going, it's about how they feel, the feeling of being loved when they get there. And I'll leave my comment with that.
Lee Coffin:
Stopped the room.
Marcia, how do you follow that?
Marcia Hunt:
So that's something we all have to keep in mind because so much more in life that's more important than writing a great essay. I went to the opening convocation at Syracuse University because my grandson was going there a couple of weeks ago, and the Chancellor said to the students, "Don't try to reinvent yourself. Your job is to go and find your own people here." And I just thought there was such great advice to those kids, and you could have heard a pin drop in that huge dome. It was fabulous.
Ronnie McKnight:
This is Ronnie from Paideia. I want to put a plug in for a certain set of schools. I think most kids when they visit campuses, I suspect they probably look for those sort of utopian campuses that we were talking about earlier. And I want to acknowledge that that ability to create that sort of community is in many ways influenced by the depth of a school's application pool and by their financial resources. And there's some really, really wonderful schools in the world that are wonderful places and are financially sound, but they just don't have that same depth of application pool and the same financial resources to create that kind of perfect community. And yet they're still really wonderful educational institute. So for the families as they look around, if they go to the campus that's not quite that perfect utopia, just know that that's influenced by those two factors and that those schools are nonetheless great places.
Sherri Geller:
Sherri Geller from Gann Academy. My piece of advice goes back to this topic we've mentioned several times about essays and supplemental essays and about my piece of advice is to really answer the question asked. So often students have a particular thing they want to say or they think they can morph one essay into another. And schools do have nuance. Sometimes it's just why Dartmouth? Why whatever school? But often there's much more nuance to that in terms of what the question is really asking.
Sherri Geller:
And even with the Common App essays, I'll read essays and I'll say to a student, "Well, what was your topic?" And they'll say, "Oh, I did the topic of your choice essay." And I'll say, "Well, but what was your topic?" And they say, "I have to choose one?" I said, "Well, you don't have to write it down, but I can't quite get it. What is your topic?" And for a few years, the Common App actually eliminated that question. And I think I read better essays then because I think really reading the question and knowing what you're answering in terms of a prompt can make for a much stronger essay.
Eric Furda:
Eric Furda from William Penn Charter School. I'll plug a prior episode of Admissions Beat. And it was one where you brought your listeners into the committee room at Dartmouth College. And so for the students and for the families, despite all the noise around us in the college process and you hear the volume and the single digit admit rates at some places, there's great schools that have much higher admit rates. And so to your point earlier, that it's really important that you have this list of characteristics that you want while also understanding that different schools can deliver that.
Eric Furda:
But here's my point. You're a student on one side writing your essay, you're putting your heart out there, you're putting your application out there. Here's a plug at our conference. There are humans on the other side in that committee room who, whether you're admitted or not, are going to give you the time to hear your story. Whether that fits with the size of that class or any other characteristics that are needed in building your college community, that put your heart out there. And there's other people on the other side who are going to listen despite or regardless of the decision that's made. They'll listen to some prior Admissions Beat podcasts in the committee room.
Lee Coffin:
Thank you, Eric for the plug.
Erica Rosales:
Erica Rosales with College Match, and I lead everything with love. And one thing that I was thinking about as we're talking about community, and it sounds so idealistic, but I also like to tell my own children, that building community can also be a little inconvenient sometimes. So that kind of goes with going beyond your comfort zone because yes, you get in, you go to college, it doesn't feel comfortable. You have to put yourself out there. So when you lead with love, meaning you love yourself, and you know who you are, you are going to put yourself out there.
Matt Hyde:
This is Matt from Trinity College. I would encourage the students who are endeavoring into the space to not make it about an outcome. This is not a process to be endured. In my mind, this is a rite of passage moment to be celebrated. And for these students, I think Chris, to your point, like take a good hard look in the mirror. Think deeply about who are you at this moment and what matters to you and why. What identities do you claim and how do you explore them and celebrate them. And so this is more of an experience of owning your reality and finding confidence and caring about yourself and loving yourself, and then putting yourself into the space and great things can and will happen, but don't make it about the outcome.
Ben Baum:
This is Ben Baum from St. John's. And I love that, Matt. And in fact, I think what I was going to say in some ways is in the same space, there's a temptation maybe to make this process a transaction where you are trying to get into the most selective place you can get into, or you're looking for the place that's highest in the rankings, or you're listening to all the other people around you who are applying to the same 10 colleges. So you also need to apply to the same 10 colleges. And I'd encourage students to make it less of a transaction and to find more meaning in this process, to look more into themselves, to find the things that they really value, and then the colleges that reflect those.
Dino Koff:
This is Dino Koff, Dartmouth College. It's incredible hearing everybody's lightning round. And the only thing I'll add is don't be scared away by sticker prices as you continue to do searches. You've heard people talk about different anxieties. Do the research. At many of these schools, 45 to 50% bend the sticker price. What's the price for you? Go find out. And you can do that on websites early.
Lee Coffin:
Jacques, take your own advice. What's your tip?
Jacques Steinberg:
I'm going to reiterate the comment that was made far more eloquently than I can make it here of keeping this all in perspective and that this is for parents four, five years in the life of your child. For students, this is not going to define who you are and who you will be. Chris's point about your future being intact, regardless of the where really resonates with me.
Lee Coffin:
And my parting thought is so much of the buzz around the work we do in selective college admissions focuses on data. So your GPA, your SAT, the admit rate, etc. And the truth of it is when we get into the committee room, as Eric was pointing us back towards, those conversations are about people and it's much more qualitative. And we say yes to the degree that we can based on the whole person we have met, not just a data profile. So my advice is the data is foundational. You have to be able to do the work on the campus where you have applied. And more often than not, the answer is yep, you could do the work. But the shaping of the class is a qualitative, organically subjective, but not random process. And so your goal as you fill out the applications over the next several weeks is fill in the blank.
Lee Coffin:
Tell us who you are. Tell us how you fit. Tell us where you see yourself in the intentional community. You have dust out on our campus because you followed Chris Reeves advice and you're poring over those about pages and giving some sense. It's a good tip. Who are we? What are we talking about? What matters? Don't be the round peg trying to jam yourself into the square hole if that's not a good fit for you because the community you've met is different. Or be open to that brave journey where you see a new experience for yourself. And you got to tell us that. You may not be the snow person, but you're ready to try something new. You grew up in LA, but you want to be rural and you want to take this for your window and do it.
Lee Coffin:
So Jacques, everybody, thanks for a wonderful conversation. I think this was the second, I guess, annual roundtable at NACAC. I'm guessing we'll be back next year from Minneapolis for the third edition of Admission Beat live at NACAC. But for now, I'm Lee Coffin from Dartmouth College. Thank you for listening and thanks to all of you for joining us today.