Season 1: Episode 4 Transcript
The Common App
Lee Coffin:
Dateline: a campus near you. Read all about it, press releases, articles, blogs, news feeds, rankings, books, tweets, posts, podcasts. The head spins and swims in admissions updates, news, spin, list, commentary, gossip. So much buzz, too much info, so many opinions.
I'm here to help. When the beat is loud, I'll turn down the volume. I'm Lee Coffin, Dartmouth's Dean of Admissions, welcome to the Admissions Beat, the pod for news, conversation and advice on all things college admissions.
Well, everyone, welcome back to the Admissions Beat. This week we will have a conversation with the Executive Director of the Common Application, in an attempt to go macro, and to think about the platform that serves over a million students a year around the world. When I looked at their website, they elegantly offered me a way to introduce this episode. They write, "More than 40 years ago, a small group of colleges and universities got together to reimagine the college admission process. One application, 15 forward thinking institutions. What began as an experiment to simplify the admission process has evolved into a global college access movement." Today we'll talk about that global access movement with the President and CEO of the Common App. But first, let's go to the newsroom with Charlotte Albright.
(Music)
We're in the admission beat newsroom. Hi, Charlotte.
Charlotte Albright:
Hello, there.
Lee Coffin:
Is it just me or does this Fall seem like there's a lot of news on the admission beat?
Charlotte Albright:
There is a lot of news on the admission beat, and some of it is breaking daily news. Other pieces are more trend pieces. I wanted to ask you about one of those, because in previous episodes, of course, we have talked a little bit about the sharp increase in applications that took you by surprise and a lot of other deans of admissions at selective colleges as well. But we should really also say that enrollment overall at U.S. colleges and universities is on track to fall by another nearly 500,000 undergraduate students this fall. So there are colleges that are seeing a decline. NPR is one of the major outlets that's reporting that. The colleges that are seeing decline are often community colleges. That makes me think that there's going to be some sort of achievement gap that's worrying. Are you worried?
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, I think it's another pandemic storyline. We talked about the free application for federal student aid and the declining number of students who are completing it. I think there's a connection between that topic and this one. There are benefits for being in-person and being able to have the counseling infrastructure helping students navigate the path from high school to college, community college, state university, private liberal arts college, what have you, for first-generation college-bound students in particular where you don't have that at-home awareness of, how do I do this? That's where the counselor's really important and I'm hearing colleagues often in public high schools talk about the struggle to connect with students when the remoteness continues. Even now that we're back, I think there's still some gaps in the way students have been able to engage their post-high school planning. I think what you're seeing on the community college side is a by-product of that.
Charlotte Albright:
Right, there is a silver lining, though, in the pandemic and the new ways that people are trying to solve this problem. An Inside Higher Ed survey recently found that of 206 admissions officials in August, 76% assumed that some or many students would continue to watch videos rather than visit campuses, even though some campuses are open. Is this good or bad?
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, that's the Inside Higher Ed survey of Deans. I was one of the 206, so I'm a data point that now speaks. Yeah, I said yes to that. I think the hybrid platform continues; we built it out during the height of COVID, and it worked. At Dartmouth, between May 1st and December 1st, 2020, we saw a 62% increase in the number of student contacts because we were able to reach more students through this digital platform, and I think Gen Z is really comfortable on a digital platform.
So we talked about that with the former deans, that the current landscape of high school students is very native to these spaces. So by putting more programming out through Zoom, through Instagram, through other social media, through YouTube, we're attracting viewers, they're learning about the colleges in their own spaces. We removed geography as a barrier to recruitment, so students don't need to come to campus to take a tour. They can log on to our websites and tour, sometimes live tour. That's been a plus, and I think that is one of the opportunities born out of quarantine, is just like my podcast, we found new ways to have this conversation with students through different media. That's what you see the deans responding to, is as we continue to reopen, I think the students are still coming to us through these other platforms.
Charlotte Albright:
Meanwhile, another change brought about by the pandemic of course was that a lot of colleges, as we incessantly talked about, went testing-optional, including Dartmouth. One of the unintended, or at least for me, unforeseen consequences of all that is that the testing companies themselves are seeing a lot of financial fallout from that. So I read in the news that the revenues generated for example, by the ACT from Education Assessment declined by $100 million. The College Board is also seeing some red ink. So I'm wondering if when we finally do maybe come out of this testing optional phase and we want to test again, will the infrastructure be there to do that?
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, and it's surprising and it's not surprising, I guess. The agencies were struggling to offer the test for very valid, public health reasons. Many of us went test-optional in response to that, and the revenue dropped. Fewer people took the test, ergo, less revenue, and that's not surprising, it's dramatic to see the scale of it.
I think what you're asking is the sustainability of the testing agencies. Can College Board endure if their revenue stream dries up? I mean, College Board is a not-for-profit, it's a membership organization, all of the member colleges and schools support the College Board. So if there were a financial crisis at the College Board or at ACT, I think one of the paths for it would be for the membership itself. The colleges, universities and high schools to say, okay, now what could we do to either right size this or to create a pathway forward if there's still value in having these organizations serve the membership? Because in an optional test environment, we still need to administer the test. I've heard David Coleman, the CEO of the College Board say it's not just testing, it is also a talent discovery service. When people take the PSAT, we can purchase those names and it's a way of finding kids from places we might not be traveling or cannot be traveling. So there's lots of ways in which the College Board and ACT are service providers to schools and colleges. But the financial wallop of COVID is real on this front, and something that is worth watching as we reopen.
Charlotte Albright:
Right, and coming up though, we'll be talking with somebody who leads an organization that has really flexed, that has really adapted during the pandemic, right?
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, so when we come back, our guest in the round table is Jenny Rickard, the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Common Application, stay tuned.
(Music)
So, welcome back to round table, and this week my guest is Jenny Rickard, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Common Application. As I was talking to one of our first-year students at Dartmouth the other day and I mentioned that, she said, "There's such a person?" I said, "Yeah, she's not the Wizard of Oz, she's a real-life human."
Jenny Rickard:
It's true.
Lee Coffin:
Jenny, it's true, yeah, you're like a real like human. Jenny has a strong commitment to college access and as the former Chief Enrollment Officer at both the University Puget Sound and at Bryn Mawr, and she's also had admission roles at Swarthmore and at NYU School of Law. I learned as I was peeking at your bio that you have an MBA, so Jenny, you're hugely credentialed. Jenny serves on the board of directors for Posse Foundation and College Possible. She joined the Common App in August 2016 and has really made a huge impact immediately. Jenny, welcome, it's so fun to have a conversation with you.
Jenny Rickard:
Oh, thanks so much, Lee, it's really great to talk to you. I'm so happy to be here.
Lee Coffin:
No, thanks for coming on. So I guess my first question just dean to dean, you and I had the same job for a long time. How has that background as a college admission officer and as a dean, chief enrollment officer, how does that inform the way you think about the Common Application?
Jenny Rickard:
Yeah, so Lee, when I was graduated from college it was such a transformative experience for me, that I wanted everybody to be able to go to college. I thought the way to do that was to be to become a dean of admissions. I didn't start off in admissions, although I tried, but when I did start working in admission and I went on my first school visit or a series of school visits, it struck me right away, the inequities in the system. Once you visit the high schools in the United States and you see the disparity of opportunity, it really stuck with me.
While I was an admissions counselor, admission officer, I focused on, how can I help students one by one get through this system, if you will? When I became a dean it was, how can I change the system within the institution to reduce barriers and create incentives and opportunities for students who might not otherwise think about applying to the institution that I was working at? That meant financial aid policies, that meant recruitment efforts, that meant rethinking our admission process and evaluation process, and being able to work with organizations like Posse that really flipped college admissions one its head. When I got to Common App, it was, how can I take the helping students one by one, working within an institution to try to change that system to now, how do I work with all my colleagues out there? My fellow deans? To really rethink this process that has been so ingrained and entrenched for years.
Common App started in 1975 as a paper form to try to reduce the barrier of filling out multiple forms and leveraging the technology of a photocopier. Today, we're leveraging the cloud and the internet, yet at the same time, if you look at the application today and you look at the one from 1975, they are strikingly similar. Our work I think, as a profession, is to rethink that process. It doesn't mean changing it overnight because that won't bring people along, but it means, what do we really need to know? How do we help students get through the process and have the process be more transparent, frankly?
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, well I just wrote down the technology, the photocopier as such a vivid, almost archeological data point to say in that moment, that was amazing.
Jenny Rickard:
It was.
Lee Coffin:
It was, I remember filling out my own applications by hand or typing them and it was a chore, and that genesis of oh, one form, multiple places, wow this is wizardry. Then you jump to the present where everything is so fast-paced and transformational, it's an interesting way to think about it.
I've been thinking a lot about, as we went through pandemic and everything scrambled or paused or was erased, and to me it was also a reset of admissions. What you were just describing, the origin of the Common App in the 1970s, and I think so much of what we all do was designed in that post-war, in that post World War II through the '70s moment and we just keep doing it because we haven't had a moment to pause and say, why are we doing this?
Jenny Rickard:
It's true.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, and has the pool changed, because I look at, just use Dartmouth as an example. The pool we had last year, which was huge, but more specifically, it's more southern and more western than it ever has been. It's more international than it's ever been, it's more public high school than it's ever been. As it gets more pluralistically heterogeneous in all the ways we would track it, how does the application serve that pool? It's an interesting question.
Jenny Rickard:
It really is, and that's something that we've been taking very seriously at Common App is, what role are we playing, perpetuating? Some of the lack of inclusiveness or inequities in the system.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, so tell me about that. So, where do you... what's showing up on your radar as you think about that?
Jenny Rickard:
Yeah, so we started this process last year, we were calling "evolving the application," and it was to take a look at questions on the application that could have a chilling effect for particular students. One of the questions that we looked at, this is just one of six changes that we made last year, was the school discipline question. The data have shown in K12 that Black students are disproportionately disciplined compared to their white peers, and even for the same infraction, more likely to be suspended from school for that same infraction.
When we took a look at our own Common App data to see if that carried through, we found that students in general who had started an application and not yet submitted it, and had indicated a disciplinary infraction, were less likely to submit, complete the process.
Lee Coffin:
Oh, interesting.
Jenny Rickard:
That Black students were more than twice as likely not to complete the process.
Lee Coffin:
Wow.
Jenny Rickard:
Latinx students as well. So although most of our members, college and universities, in a survey had said they wanted us to keep that on the common portion of the application, we felt with that data, both from the K12 arena and from our own data, that we just could not continue to ask it as a common question.
What was exciting is that this year, so this is the first year that it's not on the common portion. I think 60% of colleges and universities, more than 60% are now not asking that question. So it wasn't as common, and I'm also hoping it was an opportunity for schools to begin a conversation on their campus about, do we really need this question at this point in the cycle?
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, and so what I just learned something, which is interesting. So you study the completion patterns of the pool, so students start to work on their Common App and you can go back in and say, okay, of those who never pushed submit, who are they? What do you see when you look at that, the non-submitted group? Are there themes?
Jenny Rickard:
Yes, the non-submitter groups are primarily underrepresented minority applicants, as well as fee waiver and first-generation. So it's the students most underrepresented in colleges and university.
Lee Coffin:
Yep, and that of course ties right to probably school resources as well, and did you see that accelerate during the pandemic?
Jenny Rickard:
We did, what we saw, what was really of concern and it was primarily for the first-generation college and fee waiver eligible students, is that they were most likely not in school, typically in school. They were not applying as early as they had in the past. So in November, I sounded the first alarm that we were down 16% over year over year with first-generation and fee waiver applicants and I was just so, so concerned.
Lee Coffin:
Well, I remember getting that alarm from you, it landed in my inbox and I went, wow, that's a... it's, I appreciated that alert because we then ramped up our own outreach to say, "Help up, let us help you get to the finish line here," but that was a wonderful moment of shared purposed to say okay, this part of the pool is not forming. I think on the FAFSA side it's the same issue.
Jenny Rickard:
It is the same issue.
Lee Coffin:
People out of school and the completion rates were declining.
Jenny Rickard:
Yeah, and I was so grateful, I mean, it was really so gratifying to see the community, the college access community, the colleges, the school counselors, the CEOs, really working to help those students. We basically almost taught, broke even with first gen, but that still means that they weren't as up as non first gen applicants last year, but we did gain some ground, thanks to everybody's work.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, and is that where Common App began texting, because one of the interesting things I saw on the website was this initiative to do text outreach. Tell me about that.
Jenny Rickard:
Yeah, so also to give some background, one of the reasons we've been able to do more of this outreach and also to alert our members is we got a grant from the Gates Foundation to build an equity data warehouse. We launched that, and thank goodness we were able to launch it in October last year, so we've had that for a year and that's what's been able to help us look at the school discipline question and how students are progressing through the application.
So the texting initiative, how that came about is just under three years ago, we joined forces with Reach Higher, which is the college access program started by former first lady, Michelle Obama, during her time in the White House. One of the initiatives that they had was this Up Next text messaging program, and we had a grant from the Mellon Foundation to do some peer-to-peer texting and support for students to see what kind of impact might that have on their college application completion, as well as their persistence in their first year in college because the texting continued into their first year of college.
So we had that capacity, and when COVID came around and it was March, all I could think about were the students who had hopefully gotten into college, had these choices they were going to need to make, and had financial aid awards they needed to navigate. How were they going to do this, particularly that they weren't in school, that their counselors weren't near them, and students who don't even have counselors. What were they going to do? So we got together and decided to, how could we scale that Up Next text messaging program to identify the student that we are most concerned about in this process?
We got that data and decided to work with Admit Hub, which is now called Mainstay, which is, they have an AI chat bot, and then College Advising Corps to reach out to students proactively from Common App. So someone, a trusted source, and say, "Hey, we want to help you. Ask me any questions, here's how you can go about doing it." Then if the chat bot couldn't answer the question, we would then escalate it to a College Advising Corps counselor-
Lee Coffin:
Nice.
Jenny Rickard:
... who could actually connect with the student individually. We had more than a 60% engagement rate-
Lee Coffin:
Awesome, yeah.
Jenny Rickard:
... throughout COVID, and then we got additional grant funding to continue that all throughout last year, it was up until I think just now we're ending that campaign. We got funding from another organization, Blue Meridian, to start a new campaign focused on community college transfer students and students applying to HBCUs, to help them get through the process. We're doing research on, what's the most effective way of interacting with students at scale, because we reached over I think at this point with all those campaigns together, over 800,000 students in the course of, I guess a year and a half.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, so I mean you're expanding the pipeline and you're expanding completion rates and that brings more access. There was a story in the news just today, yesterday, about community college enrollments struggling. Does this initiative you're describing, is the Common App going to serve community colleges to some degree?
Jenny Rickard:
That's one of the directions that we are hoping and planning to go into, is when you talk about equity, our mission at Common App is to promote access, equity, and integrity in the college admission process, and if we're not serving community colleges, we're not serving equity. So we're trying to, we're working with community colleges to see, well, what kind of interaction with Common App would help students get to community colleges?
We have an initiative right now that we're pretty excited about that's focused on community college students who might want to transfer. It's called the Common Transfer guarantee. One of the big challenges with transfer is knowing whether or not your credits will transfer. A number of our college and university members have agreements with particular community colleges or just generally speaking agreements, that if you have a certain amount of credits in one area and a certain GPA, that those credits will transfer and you'll be admitted.
So we have a pile of this 25 colleges right now who are working with us that have given us their requirements, and we're looking at students who've submitted transfer... entered their information in the transfer portal, and identifying their credits and their GPAs-
Lee Coffin:
Wow.
Jenny Rickard:
... and we're letting them know, okay, well these are schools that you actually could get into and your credits will transfer.
Lee Coffin:
That's so interesting. So it's almost like a net price calculator on the credit side, yeah.
Jenny Rickard:
It is, that's a great analogy, Lee. Yeah, I love that, yeah.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, because that is, I mean for all transfers, this is the gummy part of the process where they apply, you admit them, and then college to college I think we all do credit assessments differently, but at Tops and at Dartmouth where I've been, it goes through the faculty. So this specific department gets the transcript and has to look at it and say, "We will give Jenny credit for this number of courses," and what the student is saying is, "Am I coming in as a sophomore or do I have to redo the second semester of my first year, et cetera?" I think that tool is a really elegant solution. It's not to be really specific and say you have X credits, but at least to give them an estimate to say, "Based on what we know, the work you've completed today translates into this class standing at the institution you're considering."
Jenny Rickard:
Yes, and it's trying to make-
Lee Coffin:
That's yeah, powerful.
Jenny Rickard:
…it more transparent for students.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, no, that's great. So you used the word evolving, evolving the application as we're talking and thinking about the way, just the membership has evolved too. So you rewind to the mid-'70s and there were 15 places and if I'm remembering correctly, they were mostly liberal arts colleges.
Jenny Rickard:
They were liberal arts colleges in addition to some larger university …
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, but for the very specific sub-group. Flash forward to today, there's over 900 members. So talk a little bit about that, because it's not just the applicants but the member institutions have evolved as the platform has grown.
Jenny Rickard:
Yes, yes, it has. So over the years, we had 15 members in 1975, and then by about 2000, the year 2000 we had about 200. That's when the internet started to... world wide web-
Lee Coffin:
Oh my God.
Jenny Rickard:
... started to emerge. Common App actually was pretty early on we went online in 1998 but we didn't have that many schools using us. I think in the very first year of Common App, we had 1,000, just over 1,000 applications submitted online in 1998.
Fast forward, but also in the year 2000, the organization made the decision to admit, if you will, public institution, but the public institutions were required to use holistic admission, meaning not more than just test scores and grades. That conversation kept going, and I think by 2005 or so, I think we had 10 public institutions. In 2010, we opened the membership up to schools outside of the United States. In 2014 as part of that access, equity, and integrity mission, we actually eliminated the wholistic admission requirement for any institution, particularly because many schools that don't use wholistic admission actually enroll a tremendous number of first-generation and underrepresented students.
Lee Coffin:
Well, and I remember that decision, Jenny, as being a little controversial in the moment, but you were saying that decision actually opened up the pipeline to a much wider group of colleges and universities, as well as students.
Jenny Rickard:
It absolutely did, and so it gives students exposure to a greater range of institutions. We've been able to expand the diversity of our applicant pool with students using the platform.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, and then we went global.
Jenny Rickard:
And then, yeah.
Lee Coffin:
It just kept... so the evolution just kept going.
Jenny Rickard:
It keeps going, yeah, but yeah, so now we have the membership criteria is, you need to be an undergrad, non-profit, undergraduate degree granting, fully accredited institution. That opens us up to be able to have community colleges be part of our membership but our platform, our product, is not inclusive of them. So that's the next phase of Common App is, how do we build a solution that would make sense for them and the other students?
Lee Coffin:
Well, I think one of the challenges must be is as the membership widens you have places like Dartmouth, where we're very selective and the data we're collecting leads to really precise decision making, just because of the volume and the selectivity. Then you go the other direction and it's not so much about selectivity, it's about access and just capturing the right documents, certify someone's admission, and those are two really different admission frameworks.
Jenny Rickard
They are.
Lee Coffin:
In one document.
Jenny Rickard:
In document, exactly.
Lee Coffin:
But, right.
Jenny Rickard:
So that's something that we are really... So we're moving from the evolution to what we're calling the revolution.
Lee Coffin:
Oh boy.
Jenny Rickard:
So the revolution, and don't be afraid, it's, I call it a positive and collaborative and progressive revolution. Progressive by that means it's not flipping a switch overnight but it is developing a platform that will be tailored to where the student is going. Then also be tailored to what the various... the diversity of the institution, but try to be the most streamlined as it possibly can be because when you think about Common App, one of the things I worry about is 50% of... no, 75% of Common App colleges admit more than 50% of their applicants. We ask for a lot of information and so students are having to fill out a lot of information that may be more than what they actually need to do for different institutions. So even though it's streamlined, it might be more than necessary for certain individuals. So that's something that we're excited to work on with our colleagues.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah.
It goes back to the technology, the photocopier, technology of the photocopier versus we're in the cloud now. Thing are evolving and we have the ability to do things that are much more multidimensional in the way they serve us, interesting.
So last year we had the surge in applications at the very high profile places. I surfed a 33% wave and I thought-
Jenny Rickard:
Wow.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, it was not fun. I didn't see that coming, it was like you're at the beach and you're like, oh, what's that? Then it swamped us. Then there were a lot of places that saw decreases and you were very proactive about alerting us to those trends as they were unfolding and beyond. What do you think happened last year?
Jenny Rickard:
Yeah, at the end of the day, I think it gets down to our system being so entrenched and it starts in March of a junior year, theoretically, and that's when everything shut down. So students couldn't go visit colleges, colleges weren't going to college fairs, students were taking tests to have their name then be part of a search, so all of those systems that we had put in place were not able to move forward. As a result, I think students leaned on brand, so schools that were more well known by either how selective they are or by just their size and scope, were the ones that had the increases in applications.
Also, I think playing into it was certainly the test options, the move to test optional, I think particularly at the highly selective institutions, I think was a lot to do with the increase at those institutions, but you'd be able to tell me about that, yeah.
Lee Coffin:
No, I saw the same. That's how interpreted it too. I think it was the system basically froze, it was like an engine that stopped from some sugar in the gas tank and everything was coughed to a stop. The people I think panicked a little bit and over applied, and then there was the testing piece.
The upside was just the way we all had to do more online recruiting and we were able to reach more students and I think that contributed it too, but here we are late October a year later, and I'm watching the numbers... it's election night, only one precinct is reporting their results, but you can start to see like, uh-oh, something's starting to build again. Are you seeing that? Is this the second year of a wave or is it going to... have we plateaued, do you think?
Jenny Rickard:
Well, I bring my admissions enrollment hat to this conversation about the data that we have so far. I don't have the data for what we call the returning members yet. What we're seeing in terms of applications is a significant increase. We have a, let's see, 1.3 million so far.
Lee Coffin:
1.3 million students who have started an account?
Jenny Rickard:
No, that's 1.3 million applications that have been submitted.
Lee Coffin:
Wow.
Jenny Rickard:
We have 350,000 students who have applied, so unique applicants. That's a 17% increase over last year.
Jenny Rickard:
However, it's only a 13% increase over two years ago. Okay, so because last year at this time we had a decline in applicants at this moment in time.
Lee Coffin:
Same moment in time.
Jenny Rickard:
This is just Common App data, so I also want to throw in some other confounding issues, is that since two years ago, we've added more than 100 colleges and universities to the membership.
Lee Coffin:
To the membership, yeah.
Jenny Rickard:
Some of them are large institutions like Georgia, Maryland, Clemson, that have a lot of applications. So I'm actually seeing that the number of applicants is seeming a little either flat overall, but we'll have a better sense after November [crosstalk 00:36:06] those deadlines because it still is a little too early to tell.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, so you can see, right. No, but you can see the way you model it into a giant pool or not. I'm actually not a proponent of volume, I'm a victim of it to some degree and I have to manage it, but I have historically been someone that says more isn't always the goal. Who, I mean who is represented in the pool, but just to have 10,000 more or 15,000 more is not a healthy construct to the way we think about college admission and access.
Jenny Rickard:
Yes, I know, I completely agree.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, I mean it's one of the narratives I'm trying to redirect and I feel like Don Quixote sometimes saying like, "Why are we all doing this?" But-
Jenny Rickard:
The other data point I can share actually right now is that 82% of our college and university members are either up or flat in their applications. So only 18% are down.
Lee Coffin:
Okay, so your crystal ball shows at least a steady wave, if not a bigger one?
Jenny Rickard:
Yeah, it'll be definitely bigger than last year, right, but it's just a context of, that was an outlier year.
Lee Coffin:
Jenny, I don't like that, but it is what it is, you just have to make it work.
So what else surprises you as you look at... I mean, what gives you optimism and what worries you mid-fall, 2021?
Jenny Rickard:
I think what gives me optimism is we're actually seeing more, an increase in first-generation-
Lee Coffin:
Nice.
Jenny Rickard:
... college and underrepresented students applying. So the increase there is higher than the increases overall, so that's, I'm very encouraged by that. I hope that that persists.
It's interesting to think about this year relative to last year, and so far as the testing, how that's going to play out. In 2019, so two years ago, 77% of our applicants, so students who submitted a Common App, self-reported a test score. Last year, that fell to 43% and it feel even further for first-generation, underrepresented and fee waiver students. What we're seeing this year is that the percentage of students self-reporting is up and I think that's because more students have been able to test.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, what advice would you give to... Let's go back to when you were an admission officer and you were doing the one by one. So let's, we've got a student listening and she's panicking about... she's staring at the Common App and for whatever reason it's intimidating. How do you counsel her?
Jenny Rickard:
How I counsel her is more than 75% of Common Application members admit more than 50% of their applicants, that's one of the things. That it is all going to work out and just to take one step at a time. That first page, your name and address, you know that, you've got that. Then you go to the next one, and ultimately admission offices really want to be able to admit you, they really do.
Lee Coffin:
Sure, yeah.
Jenny Rickard:
It's more the fact that there are only so many places in a class, but at some institutions there are places and they're great places, but we have built a whole system, the admissions industrial complex has built this whole system where there's some schools people think are better for everyone but they're not better for everyone. You need to find the best school for you and you actually are in the driver's seat, and this is a moment in time where students really have more opportunity and agency and deserve great things. They'll be able to get it, but just get through that process and submit that application.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, well, and you're welcome to borrow this way I tell that story is, I say to them that Common Application is a series of sections that invite you to introduce yourself through that part of the application. So there are lots of little different moments of storytelling, any one of which could be the bow on your application. It's, you have the agency that answer those questions and say, how does this section, whether it's the biographical section or the extra-curricular section or the essay or the teacher X, what does this piece tell someone about me? Just break it up, and don't look at it as a multi-page document but say okay, piece by piece. What's the highlight reel of this part of the Common App for me? Does that make sense?
Jenny Rickard:
I love that, yeah.
Lee Coffin:
I love that. No, you're welcome to use it because I think it makes it less intimidating, it's not this big term paper you have to fill out, it's a bunch of little pieces with different parts of you represented. For those who are wholistic, you're represented across all of these different elements. I mean, I think the essay, the personal statement is the one that makes people most jittery, but even that one, it's like, tell the story you want to tell. The questions are often very open-ended and you don't need a perfect piece of writing, you need an insight into your identity that helps us meet you beyond the transcript and the testing and the other elements. This is your open canvas moment to say, "Hello, College, here I am."
Jenny Rickard:
Yes, and it's great, no wonder you have a podcast, Lee. But I would also say that one thing to remember is all these admissions people, they had to do this too.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, yeah, we had to do it and we have to read them. Reading them is both a delight and a chore. I mean, we've got these huge cues of them and you're moving through them one by one and I said to someone the other day, "You never know, you're up to your umpteenth one that day and then you click on it and it's just delightful and you think, well I just met someone really fun. I thought I was tired and then here we are." But yeah, no, I think that's right, I think the Common App as a... it's a platform, it's a multidimensional storytelling opportunity. I think the increasing membership gives students choices to think about, okay, where is my best fit and how do I find it?
Well, Jenny, it's been so much fun to talk to you today about your work with the Common App, and as a member, I'm really very proud that you are our leader. It's fun to watch you move us forward, so thanks for that and for the work you're doing on behalf of college applicants and the colleges that are your members.
Jenny Rickard:
Oh, well thank you so much, and thanks for this podcast to help spread the word and thanks for all that you're doing.
Lee Coffin:
No, happy to, thanks.
We took a week off from inbox, but we're back. Charlotte, do we have a question this week from one of our listeners?
Charlotte Albright:
We do have a question. Tate from Hawaii asks this question, which is perfect for this episode. "I'm filling out my Common App and I'm struggling with the question about my academic interests because I don't know what I want to study and I'm worrying about picking something that I'll have to do for the rest of my life. What should I do?"
Lee Coffin:
So, oh gosh, okay. So Tate, pause, I think for all of you as you're filling out your applications, remember this. Whatever you type on that form does not commit you to a lifetime of connectedness to that topic, so that's important. So there are two ways to go for it. There are some universities where you must apply to a program. It could be a university with multiple schools, and maybe it's a journalism school or a nursing school or liberal arts, and your application is to that school within the broader university. So you do need to be pretty specific if you're applying to the school of journalism, why. Why is that curriculum speaking to you? But then there's this other possibility that you're applying a liberal arts college and we invite two, three answers to this question, what are your academic interests?
So I'm hearing in Tate's question some undecidedness. So one path is to write undecided and you're saying to the college, "I don't know." Another way of saying I'm undecided would be to list three things that are intriguing to you that might not have any obvious connection to one another. So maybe you list theater, physics, and Italian. In doing so you're saying, "Wow, I have three very different points of intellectual curiosity, I'm still exploring," maybe there's a way theater, physics, and Italian in this example connect, maybe they don't. Maybe you just have three really different ways of imagining what you might study in college. That response on the Common App would say to me, undecided but it would be an interesting way of thinking about a student's interests through that multiplicity of interests.
So I would invite anybody to, don't leave it blank, list as many things as of are interest to you. You might also list three things that are very related. You might say biology, chemistry, and pre-med. Your interests seem pretty focused, but that does not mean, Tate, that two years from now when it's time to declare a major, someone's going to come back and tap you on the shoulder and say, "Psst, you said biology and now you're majoring in chemistry," or, "You wrote history and now you've chosen anthropology." College will present new fields of study that might not be apparent to you as a high school student, and that's okay too.
So the question at its root is really giving us a way of understanding where might you go? Then we also are wondering about fits. Do we teach what you want to study? So your answers help us understand why this place is on your life.
Charlotte Albright:
I'll just add a quick footnote to that. You mentioned journalism, that you might want to be specific about that if you're applying to journalism school. If you're applying to liberal arts schools like Dartmouth, you might well end up being a journalist. That's where a lot of journalists come from, they don't all come from journalism schools.
I just met a guy, class of '22 at Dartmouth, a fellow named Danial Lam, who became an intern at NPR this summer, has had five stories on the air at NPR. He's a government major. So even once you've declared your major, you may find that your career route takes a different path, as yours did, Lee. So let's remember that too, but that's a great question, right?
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, it's a great question because I think it's one of those small questions on the application that seems bigger than it is. I've heard people say that they're worrying about that and it's like don't, just answer the question. Just think about what potential majors are on your radar.
So that is this week's edition of the Admissions Beat. Charlotte and I will be back next week with more headlines, another round table, maybe an essay. Until then, have a good week, this is Lee Coffin from Dartmouth College, see you soon.