Season 2: Episode 10 Transcript
Final Tips for Seniors, Part 1
Lee Coffin:
From Dartmouth College, this is Lee Coffin, Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid. Welcome to the Admissions Beat.
So seniors, parents, tick-tock, here we are. We have taken you almost as far as we could drag this sled to get you to the application deadline. So we're airing on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. Students, I think you might have some work to do over that long weekend. So before I hibernate for the holidays, I've invited two pals from the college counseling world to join this episode, to share some thoughts with you about how do I wrap this up? How do I put my best foot forward on my application before I file it on or about January 1st? So we welcome back to the Admissions Beat, two previous guests, Sherri Geller and Ronnie McKnight. Sherri Geller is a former admission officer at Northeastern and Brandeis, as well as being the past president of the New England Association of College Admission Counselors. And Ronnie McKnight is a former admission officer at Emory and at Presbyterian College in South Carolina.
And I start with that because it, you've both been on my side of the desk. You've read files, you've helped shape a community, and now you've had long tenures in secondary school. So hello, welcome back. Nice to see you both.
Sherri Geller:
Thank you. So happy to be invited back.
Lee Coffin:
How can I not invite you back? I mean the two of you last fall had such a dynamic chemistry, I thought, "Let's do it one more time." But I thought as we start this episode around advice, last minute advice, I focused on your pedigrees as college admission officers, but want to give you a chance to introduce yourself as college counselors and really framing this episode around seniors and parents who are still in the regular decision hunt. A bunch of students will have applied already in a binding early decision application. But really thinking about the pool of seniors around the world who have not yet filed an application and for whom that blinking cursor of the common application or the coalition application is still giving them some sleepless nights. So anyway, Sherri, where are you now?
Sherri Geller:
Hi Lee, I'm at Gann Academy, which is a co-ed Jewish High School in Waltham, Massachusetts. I also used to work at Dana Hall School, which is an international all girls boarding school in Massachusetts.
Ronnie McKnight:
So, I'm Ronnie McKnight and I'm the associate director of college counseling at the Paideia School, which is in Atlanta, Georgia.
Lee Coffin:
And you've also worked at another independent school, right?
Ronnie McKnight:
And I also, so I've been at Paideia for about 10 years. And prior to that I was at another independent school by the name of Holy Innocence, which is also in Atlanta.
Lee Coffin:
So collectively I think the two of you have more than 20 years, maybe even 25 years of counseling experience. And if you added up all the students and parents who wandered through your office, a lot of people whose hands you've held, who you've pointed them in the right direction. So we're talking about again, seniors who are still sorting things out and getting their brain around, "I have to apply within the next five weeks." So first, what's their immediate to do? If you're a senior and you're still thinking about all this and playing all this, what's your advice to someone who hasn't quite wrapped their arms around the finale of the search part?
Ronnie McKnight:
One of the things that I would find to be important, because so many final deadlines hit in January, there are some exceptions to that. But because so many deadlines for regular decision hit in January, I would want a student to make sure that their list is nicely balanced at this point. Especially because for some of them, they may have applied to a school early action or early decision, but they won't know those decisions for another few weeks. And so I would want to make sure as I go into the final stretch that I have a nice balance of schools that not only might be more aspirational, but also places that are really good matches for me. And also some places where I'm fairly confident that I'm going to be admitted. So I'd want to make sure that my list is nicely balanced going into January 1.
Lee Coffin:
So you say balanced, it sounds like you're talking about balance around their competitiveness as applicants. Is it also balance around type of institution or is that not part of this?
Ronnie McKnight:
I would want the list to be balanced as far as the selectivity of their admission process, but there are lots of ways that a student might want to balance his or her list. The other really important option is to make sure that it's balanced if cost is a factor. And so for things like having some in-state options versus out-of-state, public, private, all of those sorts of cost factors, even to the point of considering whether or not schools might have merit scholarships. And so that can be a part of the balancing process as well for some students, if they're shopping for merit money. Lots of schools don't use merit money as a part of their process, but there are plenty of schools that do.
And so it can be balanced in many ways, including, I met with a student this week that's looking at a small all-women's liberal arts college as her first choice. And her second choice is a massive state university. Completely night and day different. But she likes both of those institutions and I don't have a problem with that. But there is an aspect of balancing your list as far as the types of schools that you might be looking at, that can be a factor as well.
Lee Coffin:
And Sherri, do you think, does balance also mean don't just charge for it and apply to all eight of the IVs? Just to be able to say, "I applied to all eight of the Ivies," is that a smart strategy?
Sherri Geller:
Yeah, we have four on one end of the seesaw and four on the other end, and that's balance. Absolutely knowing what really other kinds of factors and criteria that feel right for you and a school that's in more rural New Hampshire and a school that's in Cambridge in an early urban environment. Just like Ronnie said, sometimes you like the small women's college and then the large environment of a large public university. But chances are if you're drawn to the woods, you're not also drawn to the city. On a different but related note I think, when students are thinking about their lists at this point, it's easy to get caught up in, "What's my final list? What's my final list?" And what I think is important as we head to Thanksgiving, is even if your list isn't set to still be working on applications. Because no matter where a student applies, they need a well-written application, they need a strong essay, they need to fill out their activities, they need to have all the different pieces filled out.
And the list will continue to come together. But if you wait until you have a list, it could be waiting until the very, very last minute.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, I'll come back to that. So the seniors are working on list cultivation, let's say. Or maybe another way of thinking about it is they're curating their list. What advice do you have about volume? What's a thoughtful number of targets that somebody should be considering, "When I applied, I applied to five," that seems so quaint. I met a student last spring at one of our open houses who told me she applied to 24. And got into 22 of them or something ridiculous. And I think, "Okay, that's too many." What should a student be thinking? And connected to that, how might a parent help the student think that through?
Sherri Geller:
My starting point is usually eight. Some lists can still be only five and some should be 10 or 11. I don't usually believe in lists that are too much longer than that, but occasionally there's a reason for that too. With eight, you have the opportunity to divide it in lots of different ways. If you want to have lots of choices, maybe your eight is a range where five or six of them are pretty likely for admission and then a few are more reaches. If you say, "No, no, no, I want to have several of those highly selective schools," then maybe you have three or four of those but then your other four represent some places that might be a better match academically. But eight is often a nice number. I usually start with the idea of three, three, two within the eight. And in different students and different families, how that's three, three, two might be balanced may vary. But some students definitely go six and two, either to have more choices or to really stretch themselves.
But if they're going to do that on the end where, well, six are reaches and two feel like more likely options, then the students have to be really, really confident that those more likely options are going to be places where they'll really be happy, and they don't feel like if they get six pieces of bad news that those two become a consolation prize.
Lee Coffin:
And Sherri, for a student who's in a high school where there's a college counselor who does not have the same background you do, how can a student or a parent figure out that the place is a likely? What's the special sauce that helps them understand, "My chances here are pretty reasonable?"
Sherri Geller:
Yeah, that's admittedly harder than it used to be as where in an era of test-optional admissions, and an era of demonstrated interest at some schools where there are different kinds of factors that might play into that decision. But one place to start is to look at acceptance rates, and see how many students, are they a place that is looking to admit a high number of their students? Or is it a place where not too many get in? If a school is admitting 25% of its students, that might sound good that a quarter get in. But what you have to remember is that if a school is admitting 25%, that means that 75% of the students don't get in. So you really have to be careful with those acceptance rates and how you interpret them and think about them. Another place that becomes a proxy for competitiveness can be an SAT range. And again, in an era of test-optional admissions, everybody's SAT numbers are going up, up, up because only students with high scores are sending them.
But still, if the college's average is in the 1400's and you've taken the test and your average is in the 1100's, even if you don't send that test it might say something about the kind of student that tends to be admitted there.
Lee Coffin:
And Ronnie, Sherri mentioned demonstrated interest. So to a listener who hears that phrase and thinks, "What does that mean?" What does it mean?
Ronnie McKnight:
Yeah. So in an era where schools get more and more applications, some schools will look beyond just the factors that are a part of the application process, and look to see what sort of contact the student may have had with that institution. So for those of you who may be listening and find that shocking, let me do some reassuring as I break the news that there are plenty of schools out there that do contemplate that sort of thing. So, here's my general advice for any student. So one, schools tend to be very reasonable about those expectations and they simply want to know that a student has done enough research to know that that institution is a good match for them. And so if you've been very thoughtful in your application and if that school happened to ask like, "Hey, why are you applying pretty commonly?" They'll ask a question about, why are you applying to us? The, why fill in the blank name of the institution.
One, it's pretty important to be thoughtful when you respond to that to make sure that you have done your research and you know why that institution is of interest to you and that you're able to articulate that to the school. And then if you've had the luxury of being able to go and visit that campus, then you've met any institution's expectation for the most part. If they maybe visited your area and you went to a reception. Even if you took the time to sit down one afternoon and listen to one of their information sessions online, that's a great way to show an institution that you are doing your homework. And if they care about that sort of thing, then they'll notice that sort of thing that you've done. And I just think it's wise, even for schools... Some schools will be very honest about the fact that they look at demonstrated interest and other schools is something that they don't look at.
But for any school that you're looking at, I would just work on the assumption that it's important for you if you're going to waste your money to apply, don't waste your money. Only apply to schools that are of interest to you and to make sure that they're of interest to you, do some homework. And then by doing so, you've more or less met their expectation for demonstrated interest for the schools that care about that sort of thing.
Sherri Geller:
Ronnie, you make such a good point too about that you can watch an info session online. I think students sometimes think they have to jump through all sorts of hoops. But since the pandemic started and we now have so many resources and opportunities for students to learn more about college right from their bedroom or living room. Logging into an information session can be so easy and help the student really make sure that they should be applying to that school or not. Sometimes you think you know something about a school you're very excited about the name of the school or the city that it's in. And then I've had students watch an info session and say, "Oh, that wasn't exactly what I thought." So beyond the demonstrating interest, that has become such a good tool and resource for students now in ways that it didn't used to be. For students or parents with older kids, it used to be watching an online, anything from the colleges where not so sophisticated and often really boring. And now where so many people are doing their research online, they've become much, much more helpful.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. And this question about demonstrated interest is it's a byproduct of increasingly of the electronic submission of applications where it's easy to get to a deadline and say, "Oh, I'm just going to keep hitting submit." Because you're taking the same application and filing it in multiple places. And I think the danger of that is some of those places may be unfamiliar to you, and that's what generates this question on the college side about, "Who am I meeting? Is this someone who understands the fit between us and you? And you dropped out of the sky on January 1st with no previous history with us." And I think that's where places scratch their heads and panic. But I don't advise anyone out there in the latter part of November to think, "Oh shoot, I don't have any demonstrated interest." And start clicking your way through all these websites to try and rack up little late breaking points.
Ronnie McKnight:
You just said something that reminded me of a conversation that we have pretty frequently in our offices right now. In that, sometimes it does feel pretty simple to keep submitting applications and your list goes from eight to 12 to 15 to whatever. But in reality, I think that is very deceptive and it's actually very complicated to juggle a bunch of applications. And I'll give you the best example. There's some phenomenal schools out there, Mr. Coffin, that a few years ago started taking board scores, self-reported from the common application or from the coalition, whatever application the student used, which we love. Right? That's an amazing thing. But the problem is that not all schools do that, right? If you have a list of 12 schools, it's your responsibility as the applicant to go through that list and dig around on their website to make sure that you know which of those schools will take your scores if you want your scores to be considered. Because lots of schools are also test optional.
But if you do want your testing considered, "Do I report this off of my common app, self-report it, or do I need to send my scores through the testing agency?" And that takes some time. And that's just one example of about five or six other things that you need to do to make sure that each of those applications are squared away and that you're complete. And if your list begins to get too long, chances are there's going to be a school that you don't care about that much that you forget, and then you have wasted your time and wasted your money by applying because you didn't complete your file, because you didn't send your scores, because they're still waiting on your official testing from the college board or from the ACT. And so another reason why you want your list to be manageable and then to very much manage that list to make sure that everything is there, to make sure that your file is complete, that they have your testing if you want them to have your testing, et cetera, et cetera.
Lee Coffin:
So I'm listening to you talk about managing your list and it seems my organizational brains has, should make a checklist or go on Excel and make a spreadsheet and say, "I'm applying to these eight places, here are the requirements, here are the dates..." I mean, do you advise that? Is that an organizational strategy that's useful for somebody who might not be quite as anal as I am about keeping track of deadlines and what needs to go where. Or is that a good parent role in over the next few weeks? Or might that still be something a student should own on their own?
Sherri Geller:
I think it's a combination. In some families it might be a helpful place for parents to step in. But what the student should be doing is after they apply, a school will send them a portal. Which is a place to log in, a website to log in to see what documents the school has received and what documents are missing. And so once the checklist is set up, and maybe the parent helps organize what are the things that we have to make sure are taken care of. It's really the student's responsibility and it should come to the student's email address from where they applied to say, "Oh, okay great, they do have my scores, they have the supplemental essay that they ask me to write. They have the self-reported academic record called the SRA, that some schools ask for. And they have all the different pieces that they need." The portals are also the places where students will ultimately get their admissions decisions. So making sure to check portals with some frequency and making sure the pieces are there, is a really good task and something to put on a to-do list.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. It's like checking into a flight. You log into the airline and there it is, and you can pick your seat and get everything done. And that portal is a really convenient clearing house school by school with all of these different pieces.
Ronnie McKnight:
Just a gentle reminder, in an age where you can log in and pick your seat and it changes instantly. That often in the admission process there's still a human element. And when Sherri submits your recommendations and transcripts and sends them away to the college, sometimes it's a really quick turnaround, like 24 hours later they're checked off. But then other times it's a human process where there's a person that has to process all that information and it may take a few days. And so if you're a student that just applied and if your counselor just admitted stuff, don't panic if on the next day that it's not checked off. Give Lee and his colleagues a few days to process the 10,000 pieces of paper they get every day, in case they need to do that. And some schools do an amazing job and other schools do an amazing job, but just a little bit longer. But it does take a few days sometimes to process.
Lee Coffin:
And you're right, Ronnie. The volume that starts to surge through our server as the deadline approaches is intense. And so just last year as an example, we had 28,300 applicants. We got 15,000 of them in the week between Christmas and New Year's. With escalating volume, the closer we got to the deadline. And it just, you're not sending a text. You're sending a big document, it's really a PDF and you got to upload it, you got to download it, it has to match to your ID number. It's not instant. And why it's important as you pointed that out, when we reopen on January 2nd after our break, we get a lot of panicked emails from people who are on the portal wondering why Mrs. Jones' recommendation from chemistry class is not there. It's there, it just hasn't caught up to your portal just yet.
Sherri Geller:
Well, I had made in preparing for this a few, brainstorm some things about some tips. And my first one was check portals, but don't panic. For this exact reason. So this is a common theme. The other thing is when you say Lee, that 15,000 come in over a certain period of time, that's just the applications. And then each of those students has six, eight, 10 pieces that need to also be matched to it. Every student has at least one transcript, sometimes multiple. But that there are different grade reports from the fall or maybe they've transferred high schools, they have two teacher recommendations, they have a counselor recommendation, they have forms that go with those. At Dartmouth, many of those students have a peer recommendation. They might for some reason have some other outside recommendation. There's information that the high school sends about each applicant.
So, it's really 15,000 times many, many, many pieces that have to get lined up. And Ronnie is right that we're so used to a world where click, it's done. And just like on the high school side, a human has to do the sending on the college side. We know that often a human has to do some of that matching.
Lee Coffin:
Before I forget to say it, one of you mentioned an email that activates an account. And one of the surprises that I hear from parents quite often is, "We're not hearing from the college." And the reminder is, your student is the applicant. So the information goes to the senior who applied, not the mom of the senior who applied. And that's a shift I think from high school, where a parent record is very much part of the way you communicate and the journey into this land called college shifts the primary contact point to student. And so it's a tip to parents, ask your kids to check their email. Because that is where the reminders are landing if something is missing. And if you have a child who doesn't log to Gmail, very often. There's some surprises waiting there as you move from deadline into January and February. And that's often surprising to parents who say, "I had no idea." It's like, "Because you didn't apply."
Sherri Geller:
Right. Well, and we as college counselors or high school counselors, guidance counselors, we also didn't do the applying. So there are some colleges that will alert us if a piece is missing. And we're always very appreciative when that happens to stop any panic. But in a lot of places it's truly on the student. And if the student doesn't let us know that there's a problem, either from something that we've done or something the student has initiated, then we really don't have a way to know to be able to jump in and help.
Lee Coffin:
So as I'm listening to the two of you talk about this, is there a common piece of this application that often gets overlooked? I mean, when you think about the students you counsel, is there something that more often than not is that, "Oops, forgot to do that."
Ronnie McKnight:
I've already kind of mentioned this, but so often testing is the part of the application.
Lee Coffin:
Oh, interesting. Official testing.
Ronnie McKnight:
Because the student takes care of their application, and Sherri and I take care of everything from the high school. But that testing piece, if the school requires official testing, and again, it's important to check for each school to see what their policies happen to be. But that testing piece is not sent by the school typically, that's almost always sent by the student because the student can control what testing, whether or not testing is released, what testing is released if they wish to release that testing. So that's always done by the student. And if it's a small liberal arts college, they're probably going to be a little bit more forgiving on when that stuff arrives. But if I'm a massive state university that has very set cutoff points, and I've given you 10 days after the application deadline to get everything in. And your scores arrive three weeks after that deadline, then your application has been... In early it's moved to regular and in regular it may have been canceled. And that's just not because they're unfeeling but they're dealing with such massive numbers that they have to have very clear cutoff points.
And so for me it's that testing piece because so often students forget that that's something that they need to do because it is a little complicated to figure out which schools need it and which schools don't.
Lee Coffin:
So one more question there for listeners who might again not know how to do that. So they took an ACT or the SAT, how do they send the scores to me?
Ronnie McKnight:
That's such a good question and that is the most common question, Lee. Kids come into my office, they're like, "What do you mean I've got to send my scores?" That used to be just, we all knew how to do it because every school required it. But now because so many schools don't require it really is kind of a lost knowledge. So you go to the testing agency, the testing company's website. So either the college board for the SAT or the ACT company, act.org for the ACT. And there will be a great big link that says, "Send my scores." And you'll do a little search to find out which campus that you want to send it to. Be careful if you're sending it to a state university that has multiple campuses, you want to send it to the correct campus.
If it's a school that happens to have multiple campuses, so you do a search, you find the school that you want to send it to, you put in the code, you pay them a little money, and then they send off your scores directly from the testing agency to the institution, which is still required by some schools.
Lee Coffin:
And what if you don't have the money to pay?
Ronnie McKnight:
Dean Coffin, what a great comment. In this time that you are having to spend money, if that's a factor for your family and it's so commonly a factor. So, of course there are ways to mitigate those costs to you. If you happen to qualify for a fee waiver when you took your SAT or ACT. There are a number of ways that you might qualify. Often if you're out of school with a college counselor or a counseling office, go by and chat with them. But you can request a fee waiver when you apply for admission to most institutions in America. And you can also use that fee waiver when you send your testing to schools if you happen to need to do so. And so that is something, that's a conversation you can have with your counselor if your school has one. And if not, that's also a conversation you can have with individual schools. But when you apply with the common app or the coalition app, you can request a fee waiver.
Lee Coffin:
Does the fee waiver hurt me in the admission process?
Ronnie McKnight:
It does not.
Sherri Geller:
Usually the person reading your application doesn't even know that you've had one.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. Right. Good.
Sherri Geller:
I have another thing on the overlooked list that's a little bit different. It's not necessarily overlooked, it's trying to think of a clever word, but it's not even known. And that's that when students are filling out the supplemental questions to applications, sometimes those are smart fields. So if a student says yes to a question, another window might pop up asking for an explanation or if a student says no or whatever. So sometimes it becomes last minute and a student thinks, "Oh, I looked at the application, it's just going to take me a few minutes to do those questions. Click, click, click." And all of a sudden a window pops up that the student has clicked a certain major or a certain interest and then the school wants to know, "Well, why are you interested in that?"
Another more recent trend that I've seen that I don't love is that after a student applies, a college might follow up with questions in their portal similar to those kinds of questions. So it seems easy on the surface to apply, and then there's a follow up essay or short answer to give some more information to the college before they make a decision. So that's another reason to stay on top of portals, but also something that students sometimes don't anticipate even if it's not officially under the umbrella of overlooked.
Ronnie McKnight:
Sherri's giving great advice.
Lee Coffin:
Good. So we had a listener question come in about choice of major. So something Sherri just said reminded me of this. So the question was, "A lot of the applications asked me the list a major or two or three, I'm still undecided. Should I write undecided or should I write two or three things that illustrate my undecidedness?"
Sherri Geller:
It's a hard question because both tactics can be helpful. In many cases giving some answer to help the college get to know you is really beneficial. This, the college gets to learn, are you more interested in the sciences? Are you more of an artist? Are you more interested in something that's more of a pre-professional track, or what? The challenge becomes when a school is admitting students based on the major area of focus. And sometimes those acceptance rates vary depending on the competitiveness of that particular major or program. So that's kind of a deeper, I'm trying to say succinctly, that's kind of a deeper question. But when it's clear that it's undecided versus saying some things, I usually tell students to say a few things because it just provides more context about who the student is.
The college isn't going to hold them to it, the college isn't going to lock them in to anything. But it may be that the school uses that not only for admission purposes, but to provide an initial advisor or to send some dedicated marketing material. So the student says, "Oh, I really would like to be a French major," and maybe they get some information about their French program and study abroad and other opportunities at that school for language major.
Lee Coffin:
What we're trying to do is balance enrollments across the curriculum so that to the degree we can track that and say, "Okay, here's someone thinking engineering." The practical questions also, does this student have the prerequisite courses on the transcript that point towards success in engineering. That's one way we do it. But it's also trying to make sure, "Okay, we now have 80% of the class in three departments," and then 40 other departments saying, "Where's our student body?" But I agree, I get this, what do I do with undecidedness? You could write undecided and that's a fair, not unexpected characterization of your interest. You could also write chemistry, art history, and political science. And you've given me three different ways of thinking about your curiosity and academic interests that are emerging across three really interesting parts of it. Maybe there's a way of linking all three of those up, maybe not. But yeah, that's my answer to it. But people worry about that little question a lot. What do I write? So, write whatever's true.
Sherri Geller:
That's the thing too with "write whatever's true." Sometimes I think students say, "Oh, well if I apply to be a zoology major or some esoteric-sounding name of a major, maybe they'll want to admit me because they want to have that balance and have more students in that." But if it doesn't ring true in the application, it doesn't feel like the student's checking off a box with a good sense of integrity, then they really shouldn't be doing it to try to gain whatever system.
Lee Coffin:
But to the zoology comment, my guess would be it would surface in other parts of the application. Either in the extracurriculars or in the way the essays are written, or teacher might talk about a particular emerging interest in animals as an animating part of someone's intellectual engagement. So Sherri, you made a really interesting comment about some campuses, usually universities with multiple schools or colleges might ask students to apply to a particular program because they're managing enrollments school by school or program by program. And then they worry, "Well what if I apply to nursing and I decide I want to be a journalist? Am I trapped?"
Sherri Geller:
Like many things in college admissions is a big, it depends.
Lee Coffin:
It depends, yeah.
Sherri Geller:
It depends on when the student makes the decision if they're making it while they're still in high school or if they're making it after they've arrived on that campus. And it of course depends on the college and what their policies are. Nursing and journalism is a little bit more complicated because nursing is such a enrollment-specific major where there's, if they only have room for 80 students to do a practicum, there will only be 80 students in the program. Getting out of nursing to go into journalism though would be a lot easier. Whereas getting from journalism into nursing can be really a challenge. At schools where everything is under one big umbrella, then it doesn't matter so much if a student wants to study politics or theater or Spanish or American studies. Moving around is easy and students are encouraged to explore and check out majors that maybe they've never even heard of.
But if a student's applying to a university that has an engineering school or a business school or a nursing school, and they have subdivisions within the university where there might be different admission criteria, then having at least knowing which school, if not which department is pretty important. So within engineering, it might not matter so much if the student's going to civil engineering or mechanical engineering, but the fact that they want to do engineering is important while they're still in high school.
Lee Coffin:
So we have another listener question is back on the testing topic. We had an episode about optional testing and the use of testing. But it prompted someone to email and say, "You didn't talk about AP scores." So there are the big test, the SAT, the ACT, that's optional. What about an AP exam, and how does that fit into either test optional or what's the benefit of sending scores when you have them as part of the application generally? And perhaps neither one of you has an AP curriculum at your school, but just broadly what's that piece of testing in the process?
Ronnie McKnight:
So the good news is that you don't need to send official AP results at the point that you're applying. You can self-report your APs on your application and schools will be more than happy to consider them there. I think as a good rule of thumb, if you've made a five, congratulations. You should definitely share that five with every single school that you apply to. I think most schools would be more than happy to see a four self-reported. A four is a great score. At my school, the three is the biggest score of question because there are schools in America that will give you credit for a three. And if you're applying to that institution, then I would be more than comfortable to report that, If I'm about to apply to a university that will give me credit for that three that I just made in AP calc, then no harm in reporting threes, fours, and fives.
If you're about to apply to an institution that doesn't award any type of AP credit, then I would probably stick with fours or fives. And at many schools in America, especially the more selective schools that do offer AP credit, they only award credits for fours and fives. And some it will vary by test. But if you're about to apply to 12 schools, that may mean that you look up the AP policies at 12 individual institutions. Which if you want to be precise, then that's what you need to do. Or just default to only submitting your fives or fours, or I think most students feel comfortable submitting fours and fives.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah.
Sherri Geller:
It's also been when you asked about are they optional, it's been very rare. And I don't think at all since we've moved into this test-optional world that a college will go after AP scores. Even if the student took a class in their high school, and so the college can assume that they took the test although they don't know if a student was out sick or chose not to take it or whatever. But unlike SATs or ACTs, if they're required, schools aren't writing to students saying, "Hey, you took that AP test, where's your score?"
Ronnie McKnight:
Right.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. I mean, the only thing I would add to this from the college side is when there are AP scores, either on the application or sometimes on the transcript, it's a helpful way of looking at a grade. Now, maybe someone got a B in AP U.S. history and the coveted five that Ronnie just mentioned. And it's a reflection of, well, that B was hard-earned and that five is a proof point on the strength of the B in that particular school. And as you go school by school and the grading skills are different, APs can be a helpful way of looking across. So let me just point out that since both of you are representing independent schools, there are some public high schools in less-resourced communities where a three is a fantastic score. So the one caveat I would say to listers who might say, "Oh my god, nobody in my school got higher than a three." We know that. We see that on the college side. So there's a norming that takes place school by school.
So, if you're one of a handful of people in a rural public high school that even took an AP and you got a three and you think, hmmm, this is a..." Send it in. Because that is again, another way of knowing the curriculum you had and the grade you got and that score are synced up.
Sherri Geller:
When I was new to the high school side and I was starting to learn more about how test-optional colleges worked at the time, 17 years ago. I asked a school that had recently gone test-optional what kind of advice they were giving to students on whether to send or not. Some are obvious you send high scores, you don't send low scores, but what do you do if you're really close? And the admissions officer at the time said to me, "When it's close, you might ask the student, do they like their scores?" And I think this goes with APs, SATs, ACTs, any test. Because some students are really proud of that three or of whatever the number is on the SAT and they know they did work really hard for it, and it is a high number in their own school context.
And so when they're close, I think that's something to think about too, is you're never going to know exactly what the right decision is to send or not to send. But you might look at, if you get into that college, nothing matters. But if you don't get in looking back, you're going to wish you send your test score or wish you didn't. I think that's a good kind of gut check or litmus test whether to send a score that's close.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. You anticipated the third listener question, which was, "When should I submit?"
Sherri Geller:
Got it.
Lee Coffin:
No, you're really good. You had your crystal ball. So, this week it's Thanksgiving. I always look at Thanksgiving dinner as a particularly hazardous space for high school seniors as they gather with family around a table. And inevitably someone, some uncle you don't see very often or maybe your grandma or cousin says, "So Ronnie, where are you applying? Or, so Sherri, how's your college list going?" What's your advice to the student who's cornered at the Thanksgiving table? I mean, my joke is always, "I'm happy with my options these past the mashed potatoes." But what's the non-fresh way of responding to a well-intentioned relative who starts to opine over Thanksgiving dinner about what your search looks like or how it's playing out?
Sherri Geller:
So that was also on my brainstorming list-
Lee Coffin:
On your list.
Sherri Geller:
... how to get through Thanksgiving? Because I agree it does not come at a good time for school seniors. I'm big on the please pass the mashed potatoes.
Lee Coffin:
Please, pass the potatoes.
Sherri Geller:
I don't even like mashed potatoes, but I'd rather that than talk about a college list. But I also think saying, "You know what, I don't want to jinx anything. So once I know where I've gotten in or where I'm going, you'll be one of the first to know." I think an answer that can work.
Lee Coffin:
Kinds of deflect the question.
Sherri Geller:
But it's hard.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah.
Sherri Geller:
I also think it's important to pre-discuss this question as a family, so that the uncle you haven't seen in a long time asks the question and you don't have one of your parents saying, "Oh, just tell them, what's the big deal? Or that the parent in the kitchen is answering the question while the student is sweating through the conversation at the dinner table. I think agreeing as a family, as a unit, how everyone's going to handle the question over Thanksgiving really takes some stress and pressure away from kids.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. Because I witnessed this in real-time with one of my nieces who shared her plans with another relative and the other person said, "You're a much better student than that." And it set off a chain reaction that took a long time to clean up. Because that response to the list and the option as it was emerging made her back up and say, "Oh, am I wrong?" And I happen to be there and I say, "Hey, hey, this is a well-considered plan you've got." But I do think Thanksgiving and the holidays more broadly is kind of a trap. And it also for, we've been focusing on students applying regular, but I think for our friends who applied early decision, it's also a tricky moment because you've filed an application, there's nothing more to do about it, there's no decision yet, and you're in this really vulnerable space where you don't have an answer to that question. So I think this applies both ways for those who have applied and those who are about to apply.
Ronnie McKnight:
Well, another good way to deflect that question for the student to ask the person who's asking them about their college search, to then return the question and deflect it and ask them about their college experience if they had one. And so to ask the relative, which you may already know since they're a relative. But to ask that person, if they went to college, where they went to college about their college experience. Uncle Joe is often more than happy to ramble on about his college days when given the chance. And so you have to endure a conversation perhaps about a school that you may or may not be looking at, but it does take some of the pressure off of you at that point if you're the student.
Lee Coffin:
Ronnie and Sherri, on this topic of advice, what tips do you have for parents and families that I know you both have pieces of paper that you've been referring to. What have I not asked about that you want to make sure listeners have a chance to know?
Sherri Geller:
I have a piece about the timing. At the very beginning you had mentioned that there's five weeks to go. And I would argue that it's better to plan that there's only three and a half weeks to go.
Lee Coffin:
Oh okay.
Sherri Geller:
So that students send in their applications before Christmas break if possible, depending on the structure of their school and how their vacations fall. Waiting until doing the work during break, leave students with fewer resources in terms of how their school might be able to help them. It also means that it's likely their materials won't get sent until after the break, which will be fine from the colleges, but can be anxiety-producing when those portals don't get filled in. It also means that winter break becomes a time that every day you get up and either someone's nagging about applications or it's nagging at yourself that you have to do them. And so if planning a timeline involves using weekends and free time and evenings between now and December 21st or so, I think that can be a really big advantage so that students go into winter break and can really have a break. And then also when they come back in January, they can go back to being just regular seniors and not have applications hanging over their head if the deadline is maybe January 5th or January 15th.
Lee Coffin:
And you want New Year's Eve to be New Year's Eve. You want New Year's Eve to be a party, not frantic, tapping away on the keyboard to get those last questions answered and then hit submit by midnight.
Ronnie McKnight:
One of my other tips on my list, which is a big conversation but I'm just going to make it a little bit of a reminder, is that as you wrap up your admission process, don't forget to also apply for financial aid.
Lee Coffin:
Yes.
Ronnie McKnight:
If aid is a factor, make sure you understand all the deadlines, make sure you're applying for the financial aid process. So aid. In the act of submitting, schools vary so wildly what they invite a student to submit. And there are institutions that will invite you and welcome you to submit a graded paper or research that you may have done. There are institutions out there that will accept a peer recommendation, which is a really lovely touch for those schools that do that. Resist the temptation to send too much, especially if the school isn't inviting you to do so. And so do not send 13 letters of recommendation. Do not send your graded paper to the school that doesn't invite you to do so. Do what the school invites you to do and they're going to let you know what they're able to evaluate and to review, and just follow their guidance when it comes to. Don't let your anxiety and your excitement translate into 13 letters of recommendation that are suddenly arriving at Lee Coffin's doorstep.
Lee Coffin:
Thank you.
Sherri Geller:
I have a different kind of tip in the spirit of Thanksgiving week. And that's taken the opportunity to express some gratitude for the people who have supported you in this process. Most teachers are not paid any extra to write teacher recommendations or given any time off to sit and do them. And so they have taken time though sometimes even an hour per student, depending on how long it takes them to write or longer, to write a letter on your behalf and to advocate for you in this process. And so sending a note, it can be an email, although handwritten notes go a long way. But to any teachers who have written recommendation letters for you or anyone else who has helped you through the college counseling and admission application process, it's just such a nice touch.
Lee Coffin:
It's kind. Yeah.
Sherri Geller:
It's also sort of a good life skill in terms of relationship building and expressing gratitude when someone has gone really out of their way.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. Well, on that, let me express gratitude to the two of you for joining us on this advice episode of the Admissions Beat. And what's interesting is we've had such a robust conversation about advice. This season finale is now a two-parter. So, next week Ronnie and Sherri will be back to tackle the rest of my Q&A, which deal with the early rounds of the senior year. So for now, this is Lee Coffin with Ronnie McKnight and Sherri Geller. And we will see you next week on the season finale of the Admission Beat part two. Until then, Happy Thanksgiving. See you soon.