Season 3: Episode 2 Transcript
Take an 'Existential Selfie'
Lee Coffin:
From Hanover, New Hampshire, I'm Lee Coffin, Dartmouth's dean of admission and financial aid. Welcome to The Admissions Beat.
Here's the counterintuitive thing about a college search as it takes shape. It's not about college. Oh, sure, you're looking at colleges as you check out a campus and ponder its program, culture and vibe. You wonder if it's affordable, far enough from home, whether its degree will enhance your resume. Those are important considerations, but they lack context as a search commences. An embryonic search requires a much more personal point of reflection as your queue of institutional priorities take shape. High school juniors and seniors need to ask themselves, who am I? What's the best environment for me to learn and thrive? What are my hopes and my aspirations? Remember, a college search is your search. So start with you. Hello, you. I'm not advising narcissism. What I'm advising is that you take an existential selfie of sorts, by which I mean hold up an imaginary camera or a mirror and take an extended moment to pause and ponder what you see and what you're thinking.
Begin by asking yourself what animates your personality, talents, interests, goals. Write those things down. Add a degree of weighting to each of them as a priority of more or less importance to you. And now guided by that vivid somewhat high-res selfie, assess your options as your search begins. So the point I'm trying to make juniors and parents is you don't need to know today what your list will be, where you apply, you're not writing your essays, you're not making an enrollment decision. The first step is to think about what's important to you, what kind of place will make you happy. All those Goldilocks things. A big place, a small place, a medium place, close to home, far from home, but you have to ask these questions first and foremost.
So today I've invited four members of Dartmouth's class of 2026, all admission bloggers on our website, and they will join me from the perspective of six months into their college experience to think about where were they a couple of years ago at the midpoint of their junior year. And with a little bit of college under their belt, what do they wish they'd thought about then that might've helped them get where they are today? When we come back, we'll meet them.
(Music)
Okay, so on today's episode, four members of the Dartmouth class of '26, and I've instructed them, this is not about how they chose Dartmouth. It's about how their search started to get organized a couple of years ago. So alphabetically, let me introduce them to you, and I'm also going to give you a little blurb they have posted on our blog site as a way of introducing themselves and stories they share to our audience. So first up is Andrea Agola. She was born in Kenya and raised just outside DC and she ranks as the oldest of three. I was the first to go to college and she's excited to explore the fusion of sciences and the humanities, thinking about a pre-med track with biomedical engineering and global health as possible major minors. So Andrea, hello. Thanks for joining us on The Admissions Beat.
Andrea Agola:
Hello. Thank you so much for having me.
Lee Coffin:
You're welcome.
Andrea Agola:
I'm excited to get into it.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, and tell me just as we meet you, where did you go to high school?
Andrea Agola:
I went to Robinson Secondary School in Fairfax, Virginia. And so that was both a middle and high school.
Lee Coffin:
Okay, so you were in so broadly suburban Virginia, outside DC ...
Andrea Agola:
Yes.
Lee Coffin:
Okay, great. Next up is Garrett Crouch, who is from Edmond, Oklahoma. During his first year in college, besides blogging, he's hoping to be involved in undergraduate research, the outing club, as well as club skiing when he has free time and we just had a big snow. So I think that's possible for the first time this winter. Garrett enjoys reading sci-fi, listening to 90s rock, playing video games, and he is undecided about a potential major, which is a great thing to be as you move your way through your first couple of years. And Garrett graduated from Edmond Memorial High School. So hi Garrett.
Garrett Crouch:
Hi Lee, how are you?
Lee Coffin:
I'm doing really well. It's nice to have a pod in the middle of reading applications this week so that I can talk a little bit instead of just read. So it's nice to have you here, Garrett. Olivia Koo joined our class from Los Alamos, New Mexico. Olivia is hoping to study sociology also on a pre-health track, and she's excited to supplement it with another area of study, whether it be music or something new. Olivia, so are you a musician?
Olivia Koo:
Yeah, I love to play music. I play piano and guitar.
Lee Coffin:
Nice. Awesome. And have you been able to do music during the first term at Dartmouth?
Olivia Koo:
Yeah, I'm actually in an a capella group right now, the Rockapellas. So it's been a really good time.
Lee Coffin:
Did you sing in high school or did you just discover singing now that you got here?
Olivia Koo:
I never sang in a choir. I always sang kind of for fun, but the a capella audition process was open for everyone, so I thought I would shoot my shot and here we are.
Lee Coffin:
There you are. Okay, well maybe you can sing a little bit as we keep going. And our fourth student is Batuhan Saridede from Istanbul, Turkey. He writes, he is the parent to two adorable cats, self-proclaimed coffee connoisseur and aspiring polyglot among other things. He's passionate about behavioral economics, sonic arts, post-colonial literature, social media marketing, and he has interest in the liberal arts study abroad, LGBTQ life on campus, international student experiences and journalism. And his favorite thing right now is aromatherapy.
Batuhan Saridede:
Hey Lee. Thanks for having me.
Lee Coffin:
You're welcome. What's your favorite smell?
Batuhan Saridede:
It's probably going to be like citrus-based smells nowadays.
Lee Coffin:
And do you have a roommate?
Batuhan Saridede:
No, I don't.
Lee Coffin:
Oh, you don't? So it doesn't matter what sent the roommate might like.
Batuhan Saridede:
Yes.
Lee Coffin:
So there are four students and I wanted to start the four of you off with a little bit of a flashback. So let's kind of rewind all of our timelines to January, February of your junior year of high school. So it would have been early 2021, you're in Virginia, Turkey, New Mexico and Oklahoma looking towards college, but you haven't started to put anything together yet. What do you remember about that moment two years ago? Were you excited, nervous, confused? Were you well organized and you knew what was going to happen? What do you remember about that moment two years ago?
Garrett Crouch:
The first thing that sticks out to me is overwhelmed.
Lee Coffin:
You were overwhelmed.
Garrett Crouch:
Definitely overwhelmed.
Lee Coffin:
Why?
Garrett Crouch:
It just seemed like everyone around me kind of knew what their plans were after high school and I had absolutely no idea.
Lee Coffin:
But you knew college was something that you wanted to pursue?
Garrett Crouch:
Yeah, definitely.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. And you're all strong students, so as you were in your respective high schools, college starts to become that thing where you don't really stop and say, am I going to college? It's the next step after senior year for each of you. But do the rest of you have a similar reaction to Garrett? Were you feeling overwhelmed midway through junior year of high school?
Andrea Agola:
I think I did the International Baccalaureate program, so I was really in the kind of thick of preparing for IB exams and papers, and simultaneously though really kind of unsure about what the future would hold, what would happen next. And I think I was starting to think, starting the search process not too deeply, but there were just so many kind of programs and universities that were interesting. So just like you said, I just knew that I wanted to go to a great university with a great program. And actually really at that point, I don't think I even really knew what a liberal arts education entailed. So I think it was definitely a journey of just continually learning more as senior year came around and as we just led up to the application season.
Lee Coffin:
So it sounds like you might have been a little more chill.
Andrea Agola:
I was in a sense, yeah. I had some idea of, I definitely wanted, I was thinking of some schools in Virginia, in DC, also thinking of some Ivy League schools. So I just had an idea, but I hadn't heavily researched or anything like that.
Lee Coffin:
Which is for anyone listening, that's the right place to be. The junior moment is very much the overture to your college search. It's not even act one. You're like, the music is just ... To go to Olivia's musical talent, the beginning of the score is just happening, we're not in it yet. So how did you get started? Each of you went to really different kinds of high schools. How did you begin to get organized? And connected to that, what advice would you give a junior today about the beginning?
Batuhan Saridede:
I think for me, the first step was deciding whether I wanted to go to college overseas or stay in Turkey. And I was pretty set in stone about coming to college in the U.S. or Canada. So I just got to thinking about why I wanted to take that step and what key features of the U.S. college that was driving me to literally switch eight time zones for college. And I came to the conclusion that liberal arts or just the flexibility of exploring different types of academic departments was something for me and I really wanted to take advantage of that. So that's where I started. I know I wanted to go to a college, but I just didn't know where I wanted to end up at the end. So it was just thinking about what I want for the next four years and just reflecting on it further. And then towards the end of junior year, trying to create a long list of colleges.
Lee Coffin:
So you knew pretty early it sounds like that U.S. or Canada would be a destination if you could do it?
Batuhan Saridede:
Yes. I also did the IB program, so I definitely just co-sign Andrea's sentiments about IB. It was just a little intense over January, February of junior year. So that sort of prepared me to apply, and my school offers IB and the majority of kids at my high school also do IB. So contextually speaking, it was the most expected decision for me to go to overseas for college. So I kind of just went along with that norm at my high school.
Lee Coffin:
Okay. And how about Olivia? What was happening at Los Alamos?
Olivia Koo:
Well, I would like to say that I was thinking about college in junior year, but with COVID and online schooling, it just wasn't really in my mind at the time. And I also found myself a little bit scared about thinking about college. I definitely did not know what I wanted in the slightest. Did I want to go to a big school or a small school? Did I want to go to the East or the West Coast? It was all just very, like Garrett said before, pretty overwhelming. But if I were to think about going through the process again, I think that spending a lot of time in junior year just doing things and then realizing or thinking about why you are doing the things that you are enjoying doing really helped me think about what I wanted out of a college and what I wanted out of that experience.
Lee Coffin:
So the overwhelmed piece, I mean, two of you said that, and I think that's pretty typical of a lot of students when I've started doing programs in the last couple of weeks, this idea of "I'm overwhelmed, I'm a little stressed, I don't know where to start" seems to be what comes up a lot. Step one is this. My advice to students, as I said in the opening is before you start to fill in the list of colleges, you have to really look at yourself and ask, not just who am I? But a more purposeful question around curriculum, where do I do my best work? Big, small discussion, listening. There are some huge places where you're one of many and you're listening to a lecture. There are other places like where we are, we're smaller classes and you have to be able to talk and have a conversation with your professor. But as you each think about the beginning of your search, whether it was the junior, winter or maybe even closer to your senior year in Andrea's case, how did you begin to wrap your arms around the exploration?
Batuhan Saridede:
I didn't really know if I wanted to end up at a small liberal arts college or a mid-sized college, but I definitely did know that I didn't want to be in a big, large research university. I feel like I function well in an environment where there's just less people and more attention towards each student, and also just a discussion-based curriculum. And since I wanted to explore the humanities and social sciences, that's just very important to me that I get to speak and that other people do too, so that we learn from each other as well. So I definitely knew what I didn't want, but I wasn't really sure about what I wanted.
Lee Coffin:
So what didn't you want? You didn't want big?
Batuhan Saridede:
I didn't want a big school where I would be just one among the crowd. I wanted to feel valued at a college, if that makes sense.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, no, that does make sense. So I mean that's a really important way of understanding how you do your best work. You see that conversational relational space as being something really important. Did any of the rest of you think about size at the beginning? Was that part of your ... And you might have thought about it and shifted gears, but did you start to explore? Yeah, Andrea's saying ...
Andrea Agola:
Yes. I think for me, while, I didn't necessarily want a big school as well and agree with Batuhan. I honestly originally was thinking about a city school. I felt like I vibed with that city energy more. And then during the pandemic, that was really most of junior year, all of junior year, I actually really grew to love nature. And so I am in the suburbs that I'm in a nice little pocket that I think has a great exposure to trails and more of the nature-y side. So that's when I started considering, I was like, oh, actually this is really nice. Nature can just really help with stress, with productivity, with just enjoyment of life. So that's when I started considering, oh, maybe I should go up north to the college that everyone says is in the middle of the mountains. So that's when I kind of broadened my idea of what could really be a better fit for me.
Garrett Crouch:
Piggybacking off of Andrea initially, I also felt like I fit in a sort of bigger university. The University of Oklahoma is 45 minutes from my house, 45 minutes north, and 20,000 students I believe is the size. And I felt like my high school especially feeds pretty directly into that school. And a lot of my friends were thinking about attending there. So I thought maybe that might be a good fit. But in retrospect, I don't think I realized how much I thrived in the sort of tight-knit environment. But after I toured the university is when I realized that the bigger sort of campus wasn't going to fit my style.
Lee Coffin:
Garrett, how much did you feel the tide of, not peer pressure, but you said it's a pretty major feeder from your school to University of Oklahoma? Did you just go with the flow initially and think, well, I probably need to look there too because that's what we all do?
Garrett Crouch:
Yeah, definitely. In Edmond at my high school, it's either OU or OSU. So Oklahoma State University is like 45 minutes south, and University of Oklahoma is like 45 minutes north. So it's one or the other, kind of a little rivalry going on. And I guess coming in as a freshman, it's are you an OSU fan or are you an OU fan? Which school are you going to? So yeah, like you said, I definitely felt that peer pressure to, I don't know, at least explore both of those. Those were definitely prevalent options, both of them.
Lee Coffin:
But then you kind of shrugged it off. So it sounds like the visit was maybe a moment of epiphany for you.
Garrett Crouch:
Yeah, walking around the campus and I think my tour guide might have said something like, "I promise you with no doubt you will see someone new every day." And that kind of just blew me away. I don't know. I didn't want that. I knew I didn't want that.
Lee Coffin:
You wanted more of a community where you felt you knew the people?
Garrett Crouch:
Yeah.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah.
Garrett Crouch:
Definitely.
Lee Coffin:
This conversation we're having is a really important part of the beginning because for a lot of students, they probably haven't thought about this. And the idea of big is exciting in a lot of ways. I mean it was a decades ago, but when I was doing my college search, part of it was looking at journalism schools and I remember going to Syracuse for an open house and it was in the Carrier Dome. And so this huge sports arena, and I sat there and thought, oh my God, I am one little blip in this big universe and I didn't like it, it was kind of like your reaction. And I think to people listening, this is part of the try things on and see what feels right. And for some of us that's exciting, it's perfect. And for others, you have to own the truth that comes out around that reaction you're having and scale yourself. Olivia, what happened with you? You were wrestling with East, West, how did you sort that out?
Olivia Koo:
Yeah, so funny story I guess. When I first began my search, I had two priorities, good food and good weather. So those were my two main priorities because I wasn't sure what else I wanted. In terms of the size of the school, I loved the energy of a large school and just knowing that things are happening around me. I really wanted to look for that. And so I wasn't sure whether a small liberals art school would offer that for me. What really got me into the nitty gritty of it was realizing how much I needed both the sciences and the arts in my education. I just could not imagine myself leaning towards one way or the other, especially just an undergraduate education. So that was really my first step.
Lee Coffin:
And that's another important moment of assessment where the program that each of us offers, I mean whether it is liberal arts or maybe you apply to a university with a school of nursing, education, journalism, engineering, and you're more focused in. For our international listeners, that is more than norm than not. I mean a liberal arts experience, this idea that you're going to explore is really uncommon outside the US and Canada. And so you're coming out of high school needing to make a pretty immediate decision about, now, I'm going to this university to study this, and then I will be that. Does that sound familiar Batuhan?
Batuhan Saridede:
Yes, it definitely does. I think our first two years of high school, we don't separate into the IB and the national curriculum. So towards the end of 10th grade, we are asked to decide whether we want to do the IB or not. And that's when a lot of people decide if they want to stay in Turkey. And most of those people generally just know what they want to study. And I changed my major every other day. So yesterday I was a government major. Today I'm doing econ. It changes all the time and I love that freedom and I'm glad that's all my friends knew what they wanted to do, but just that was not me and that's okay too. And I was just up to an exploration of a lot of fields to feed into me as a person or just like me as an intellectual thinker. The liberal arts definitely offered that. So that really does sound really familiar Lee.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. So the IB kind of pulled you towards that. Was that true for Andrea as well coming out of IB? Did you have a more interdisciplinary way of thinking about this?
Andrea Agola:
Oh, definitely. I kind of knew throughout high school that I was interested in medicine, the pre-medical route. But I also loved my theory of knowledge class that was all kind of more philosophical. I loved my IB literature classes because I've loved reading and just that in general. And then of course I also had my cultural anthropology class. So definitely, IB was a great kind of mix. And then a great segue into now when I'm currently so happy that I'm actually doing a research internship in the Thayer School of Engineering, working on joint implants and improving materials for them so that they're more successful in the orthopedic surgical world. And that is giving me some exposure that hopefully will help me decide whether I want to really pursue the biomedical engineering major.
And then I'm also really enjoying my global health and society class. And I love my writing five, which is just about food. We literally talk about food all the time. And writing five is one of the first year required writing classes, but you get a choice of many several topics to choose from. And so I feel like a little kid in a playground just popping from bar to bar, running off to do some engineering research, then writing a paper about food.
Lee Coffin:
And that's like what you're all describing to juniors in high school is this idea of it's not just the name of the college, it's not just where the college is, it's what kind of classes, what requirements are going to be part of that experience. And for some of you, keeping it open ended and flexible is really important. For others you might be like, no, I know I'm going to do computer science and I'm going to start doing that from the minute I get to college and I'm not looking back. So one of the things I always say this kids in high school is forget the major. Think about are you a word person, a numbers person, a visual person, a systems person, analytical, logical, creative, more linear? Given that little menu I just said, what words jump out for each of you about yourself if you had to answer that question?
Andrea Agola:
I would say I think honestly a mixture of a word person, especially from the blog, just writing in general. And then I also like to be a bit analytical and creative and get to explore and research new inventive ways of doing things.
Garrett Crouch:
For me, I would say numbers and creativity, but for the numbers aspect, more so being creative or reading about numbers and not actually doing math.
Lee Coffin:
So that's great. I loved as you were saying that, so you like to play with numbers or maybe use the data but not calculate the data, is that what you're saying?
Garrett Crouch:
Yeah, exactly.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. So you're undecided as you think about what, is that part of this recipe?
Garrett Crouch:
Yeah, definitely. I'm taking an intro computer science course right now, computer science one, and I really enjoy it, but I'm trying to keep my options open, possibly a modified major with something more humanities-oriented. Because like I said, I don't know if I could deal with the sheer amount of calculations involved in computer science but I do enjoy the creative aspects.
Lee Coffin:
See, these are the really important self-characteristics that you have to map out and to give yourself permission to find a place that lets you do that. Because some places don't, some places are much more buckle yourself in and here we go.
Garrett Crouch:
Exactly. I remember a few of my friends junior year, senior year asking me, "What major are you going to apply as?" Well I think on my application when I realized Dartmouth didn't have a section where you apply to a major with something really, really important to me. It was like, oh, I don't have to apply as a major. I can just go to this school and work my way through what I like.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, and again, we're lingering on this topic of program. I always say to juniors, there are three big Ps that are part of this discovery phase. There's program, there's place, and then there's people. And then for a lot of us there's price, so there's a fourth P there. But the program, that first one that we're talking about is all the things we're discussing. Size of class, what kind of distribution requirements or gen ed is someone going to have to take? Is it completely open? You can take anything you want the whole way through. Or there are some places that say, no, we're a great books curriculum and you're going to read all the classics with no option to not. And you might say, oh my god, that's great. So these are the kind of questions I think asking at the beginning make a lot of sense.
Let's go to the place piece because we touched it a little bit. How did you all think at the beginning about where your college list might be? I mean, were you thinking it should be a city? Were you thinking you wanted ... I mean Andrea mentioned nature, but I don't know that that came up right away. How did place, distance from home as well start to frame your thinking at the beginning?
Olivia Koo:
Yeah, so like I said, at the very beginning, food and weather were some of my big choices. So California was very attractive to me just with the nice weather and the big variety of food. But I found myself also just thinking that in the end, place didn't matter as much to me. It wasn't as much of a priority as I thought it would be to my own wellbeing. I imagined myself going to a school in a city. I imagined myself going to somewhere where you could just go to a beach every day. But that's a very big difference to where I eventually ended up and I realized that it was adaptable. And so I felt that for myself personally, place wasn't a deal breaker in any circumstance. So that's my take.
Lee Coffin:
Oh, that's interesting. Did anybody else have a shift on the place front?
Batuhan Saridede:
I think I echo Olivia in the sense that I also saw that I could pull off both, but it was more of a matter of not who I am, but who I want to be, or what I want to do next. So I generally started off as a pretty city person, just live in Istanbul, bustling city. I'm used to it. I could just pull that off. It's the comfort zone if you will. So I started off like that and then I realized how important community is for me at least in a college, and colleges that are community-based tend to be in rural or just suburban spaces. So my colleges sort of shifted away from the city schools into the more mid-sized rural or just suburban schools just for the sake of community, which is having a college that cares about the community it fosters around itself.
Lee Coffin:
So it sounds like you're describing a Venn diagram where you've got on the one hand this interest in being an explorer across the curriculum and be able to choose things as they present themselves, but you've also got a very strong interest in community that brings you to geography.
Batuhan Saridede:
Yes.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, that's interesting. And I don't know if that visual helps people think about this, but you're layering these things on top of one another, and see what places sit in that intersection. Because you might say, I'll just use Dartmouth since that's where we are. Dartmouth, I've heard of it. It's a great place. I must go there. Pause. You have to first think about what we represent may not be what you want, and that first step of mapping out for yourself the things that matter, because I'm going to guess Batuhan that you crossed some places off your list as you got going because they didn't meet your emerging goals.
Batuhan Saridede:
I think I remember my long list was 60 colleges.
Lee Coffin:
60?
Batuhan Saridede:
60, yes.
Lee Coffin:
Wow.
Batuhan Saridede:
And then I ended up applying to half of them.
Lee Coffin:
So around you applied to 30?
Batuhan Saridede:
Yeah, I applied to 34 schools, 33 in the US, 1 in Canada, which is definitely not something I recommend anyone.
Lee Coffin:
Okay, good.
Batuhan Saridede:
It was just a little too much. But I think what I ended up doing was I just looked around just campus, the online tours because one COVID tour, so I was just literally not in the US so just tried to imagine myself being a part of the community or the lack thereof. And then that sort of just guided itself through the whole long list. So it was just very easy to cross off some schools and I was debating over a couple of those and then just tried, saw a correlation of just rural, mid-size schools, like colleges, of universities that really resonated with me and applied to exactly 34 of them. Yeah.
Lee Coffin:
Wow. Anybody else? So we're on Zoom and people are listening, but I'm watching three other people shake their head as they listen to that. Garrett, you have the most dramatic facial expression right now.
Garrett Crouch:
I applied to six schools.
Lee Coffin:
Six.
Garrett Crouch:
Yes.
Lee Coffin:
How many did you start? Like rewind to the beginning. Did you consider 12 and cut it to 6?
Garrett Crouch:
Maybe my initial list might have been 10.
Lee Coffin:
Oh, so you were very focused.
Garrett Crouch:
Yeah, but I knew I just didn't have the willpower to fill out that many applications, so I wanted to make sure get a good solid, I felt like six was a good number.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, you're a throwback. I applied to five, but that's like prehistoric. Andrea, Olivia, how many did you start with as you were beginning this list-making?
Olivia Koo:
If I could go first, I actually think I increased my list as the application deadline grew closer. Yeah, I started off with maybe 13-ish schools and then added on a couple including Dartmouth. So yeah, I found that I hadn't researched enough as I was going through the process. And so as I was writing these applications, I kind of had a clear idea based on the questions about what I might want more. And so then I gravitated naturally towards certain other schools and then I added them to my list.
Lee Coffin:
Well you're raising a really important point, Olivia, about for the juniors who listen to this now. You have moments all the way up to the deadline to continue to reframe, reshape your list and that later stage task, which you just described, you're looking at an application, we each ask questions and those questions can be illuminating in and of themselves. What does it say to you about the institution that we're asking you to talk about something in this way? So Andrea, what happened with you?
Andrea Agola:
I started off with maybe 18 to 20 that I was thinking of, and then it really just solidified to 16 and I agree with Olivia's sentiment about researching. So yeah, I wasn't picking a school randomly and just deciding I was going to apply to it. I tried to put in some time to research each one and scour through the website and then especially the application questions were a great leader in helping me decide if I felt like I connected with the college. And so I think I saw with many of the ones that I applied to, and including Dartmouth, there was an emphasis on wanting to know about our kind of prospective students, our interests in justice and social justice. And so I really related with that.
I think just going back to something you had said earlier about the snapshot of what we were doing during junior year, I was definitely trying to be involved in my community and in my school. So I was in planning out a club during junior year that I really saw the fruition of during most of my senior year, but it was about increasing the representation, diverse representation in the English curriculum at my school. So I felt had very deep feelings for social justice and many questions that and the schools that I wanted to apply to, many of the application questions touched on that or more directly touched on that. And so that was a key factor for really streamlining my choices.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, no, one of the questions I planned to ask, it said climate and that was, I had DEI, weather and location just as three examples because they're all different versions of that word. Olivia has mentioned California from a meteorological way of thinking about climate and that's important. When I recruit in Florida and people ask about winter, I say, "It's a thing." You have to be open to a campus in a different climate and if that makes you go no, then cross us off the list. There's no bubble. But the social justice, the DEI component of a campus and more broadly the community that surrounds the campus are other topics that students need to think about, feel as you're moving exactly through this.
Andrea Agola:
Exactly. Yeah and if I can just add, I think especially when I was researching Dartmouth, I was really happy to find out that there's a social impact center that offers so many opportunities that I'm hoping to definitely try out very soon. But so many opportunities to impact both the kind of upper valley area surrounding Dartmouth, but then also projects that we can do in our kind of back at home whenever we go back for breaks and then of course even abroad and just around the world.
Lee Coffin:
One of the questions I was going to ask all of you is knowing what you know now, so you're six months into college. If I could drop you back two years, is there an aha that you've had, like oh, I wish I thought about this then that a junior might say, thank you, I will think about it now because you just gave me the tip to think? Or have you had any moments where you think, oh, this was lucky that this has worked out the way it has, but it could have been more intentional?
Batuhan Saridede:
If I could go back, I think I'd tell junior Batuhan, I could take a step back and just slow down a little. I think I was putting just too much pressure on myself to figure things out because this isn't what I'm used to. In the system I grew up in education-wise, you were supposed to sort of know what you want to study and work towards that your high school years basically. So not knowing induced that anxiety. It was almost self-induced in the sense that no one really told me why do you not know what you want to study? It was just me getting anxious over things. I definitely now see six months in college that things are a lot more chill than I thought they'd be. I think I'm having a blast in terms of just academics, just studying what I want and just trying new things and saying yes to new opportunities more than ever.
And that's very antithetical to my high school experience where it was more working towards a certain goal and with set boundaries that aren't really just reflective of how multifaceted of an individual I am. So college is definitely not that. So I definitely just sort of first hug junior Batuhan and go, it's going to be okay. And then these admissions offices have been doing this job for a very long time and they'll see through if you'll be a good fit at a school, at a school, X, Y, Z, it doesn't have to be Dartmouth, it doesn't have to be any of the other 34 schools. Someone will see that you'll thrive at their institution and they'll go for you, and then you'll go for one of those offers. So things are going to be fine. It's going to work out some way or another. I'd definitely just say that to myself.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. Olivia, what would you tell Olivia 2021?
Olivia Koo:
I would probably tell her to look more closely at required classes for different school curriculums. I didn't think it'd be as much of a big deal as it was, but I think that I feel both lucky and kind of taken aback by the language requirement here, having to take three terms of a language outright. Or I've been looking at other distributive requirements and it's a very exciting to look at, but it's also something to consider if there's a different goal in what you are looking for in terms of your education. I also feel very lucky that I ended up at a smaller college. I find that I've talked to people who have gone to large universities and just thousands of students in one class, and I am very thankful that I am in a place where you're paid attention to. So those are the two things that I would tell past me to focus on when looking for a college because she did not know what to research or why.
Lee Coffin:
And Olivia, I think you've just given really good advice about what is one of the most overlooked pieces of a college during a search, and that is the general education requirements. So they're called different things on different campuses. We call them distributives, but the general gist of it is what do you need to do to earn the degree beyond the major? And I used to work at Tufts and you think three terms is challenging. Tufts had a sixth-semester foreign language requirement, and there were many students in the time I was there that would say to me, "Wow." I was like, if that doesn't seem like your cup of tea, you need to own that now because this global piece, this idea that we want you to be fluent in a language besides English is legit.
And I think a lot of people didn't give it any thought. They focused on the college's name and the vibe without dialing into another one that would trip some of the humanities because it's like you've got these two quantitative courses like you do. And my niece was there and she waited until her senior spring. I said, "That's not going to end well." But it was that awareness of what are the requirements,. Garrett, what would you tell yourself?
Garrett Crouch:
Piggybacking off of Olivia when she said, realize that you want to go somewhere where you're paid attention to, that definitely stuck out to me. I think junior year, Garrett, I would sit him down and say, "You want to go to a school where you have the opportunity to take your professor out to lunch?" So yeah, definitely the personalization aspect. That was very important to me subconsciously, I feel like.
Lee Coffin:
Andrea?
Andrea Agola:
Yes. Well, I agree with Garrett about taking your teacher out to lunch, and I also agree with Olivia about really trying to look into some of the details that can be easily glossed over. One specific thing I think of is Dartmouth's D plan where it offers great opportunities to be off campus for some time off terms where you can do research or really anything. But it also means that we have 10 week terms instead of semesters. And so the 10-week term can go by very fast. And I think I'm definitely having a much better experience, I kind of understand it more this term being my second term. But first term it was an adjustment to really get my head around with just speeding through, having midterms by week three and four. And so I think to my junior year self, I would say, yeah, think about the personal notes as Garrett said, kind of fine tune the research a bit more. I mean you can do that a bit closer to senior year as well. But I would agree with both of those sentiments. Yeah.
Lee Coffin:
So as we get close to the end, let me bring up another shadow that hovers over a lot of college searches and that shadow comes from a parent or a guardian. And as you're taking stock of your college opportunity and what matters to you, let's talk about parents because parents have opinions and you're all smiling as I said that. And what advice would you give juniors who are just starting their college search about how to include a mom, dad, guardian in this process, when do you say, this is mine, let me do it? What parental wisdom do you have?
Olivia Koo:
I think being open about price is quite important, at least on the upfront. I've had a couple peers who have had experiences where they really wanted to go to a school and then once they got in, their parents didn't let them because of the price range. So I think having that conversation early is very paramount.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, good. That's really good advice. We'll have a whole episode on that in a couple of weeks, but that uncomfortable conversation about cost, what we can afford, which colleges will meet my need and which ones can't. And where does that factor into? You can feel it, but if you can't afford it, it's a problem. So that's good advice Olivia. How about parents who they want what's best for you, but maybe they get in the way a little bit as you're trying to get your own bearings? Did any of you have that experience or witness it with friends?
Andrea Agola:
Well, I would say for me, I had a bit of a different ... Coming from a different background that I'm sure many can relate to where my parents are immigrants. We immigrated to this country when I was three and they didn't really know how the college system worked really. And so a lot of times I relied on my college and career counselor at my high school and I found her to be such a great resource. But my parents did come in when I would maybe ask them to read an essay. And with that though, I would say I definitely heard sometimes some people saying, or heard some stories of some people just putting on a lot of responsibility, I guess, I would say maybe to giving parents some responsibility when it comes to essays, which is really not the way to go.
I think I loved when my parents would just give me feedback on, oh, this sounds like you. They'd read it and try to hear, see if my voice was in there, and then they'd give me some grammatical edits. But that was as far as that went. And so I definitely felt like I had a lot of autonomy with my application process and we were really figuring it out together. I was the eldest daughter as you mentioned, and so we were just figuring it out. I think we went to a few kind of meetings together, like meetings meant for both students and parents. And then it's also really great to try to become responsible and independent through the journey as well. Send your own emails even if you're a bit unsure, a bit kind of scared and reach out, ask for help. And it's a great time to learn how to become more independent as well, the application process.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah,
Garrett Crouch:
I definitely agree with that. I think sitting down with your parents and talking about what you both want out of the process is really important, but that independence that you gain from the whole manual application process by yourself is really, really critical, I think.
Batuhan Saridede:
I was just going to add to what Andrea brought up. I also, I'm not first generation, but I'm the first in my family to have ever been in the U.S. let alone go to college in the U.S. So neither of my parents know English. I was just very much alone in things most of the time. So that can get a little stress, that can induce a lot of stress at times. So what I found that works best for anyone who's going through something similar is just explaining in a very plain way what's going on. Because parents also have common sense, so they can help you with stuff like that. So even if they don't get to read your essays or take part in your application process, they can still sort of resonate with what you're going through because chances are when you go to college, you're not going to be with them as often. So you'd want to include them in the process as much as you can realistically.
So we had a lot of the nights where I was like, okay, this is what SAT is, this is where I apply to college, this is what early application is, just laying things down, psychology 101. And I found that they were very willing to take part in the process of support me in any way they could, and that was enough for me. So they were never really pushy and they sort of trusted my intuition with things and just the fact that I was trying my best and just seeing what happens. So that was just really empowering. So I'd suggest anyone who's in a similar situation to just try to include them with intentionality.
Lee Coffin:
Awesome. We're going to leave it on that happy note of include them with intentionality. Thank you all for joining me on Admissions Beat and it's a busy moment in the term and I appreciate the wisdom and the advice. So as bloggers, you're welcome to pick this up and write about it as well. But Garrett, Olivia, Batuhan, and Andrea, I really appreciate the perspectives you brought to this conversation with juniors who are at the starting line of a college search that's going to go for the next 18 months or so. So thanks so much for that. And for now, this is Lee Coffin from Dartmouth College. I will see you next week on another edition of The Admissions Beat. Thanks for listening.