Season 4: Episode 15 Transcript
Season 4 Finale: 'Twas Two Weeks Til the Deadline
Lee Coffin:
From Hanover, New Hampshire, I'm Lee Coffin, Dartmouth's Dean of Admissions of Financial Aid, and this is the season finale of the Admissions Beat.
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So listeners, here we are at the end of season four. We've wandered from September in our back-to- school moment through Early Decision and those deadlines. And now here we are, mid-December. The holidays are upon us and the college is on break. While we may be taking a timeout over the holidays, applicants have some work to do over the next couple of weeks. And so today's episode, to close out this season of advice and guidance to high school seniors' parents is an encore of our season one finale and it'll have three parts.
Part one will be a headline review with my producer and resident journalist Charlotte Albright, who joins me and Daryl Tiggle, longtime friend of the pod, for a conversation about some of the headlines that are going on. What's interesting to me is the headlines from the Fall of 21 are still the headlines in the fall of 23, so always worth revisiting the news and that old adage, "The more things change, the more they stay the same" is very true in this regard. We'll have a conversation about wellness with my friend and trainer, Mark Anderson from MWA Fitness in Boston. I thought it was important to take a beat and think about the need to take care of ourselves as we go through the college admission process, whether you're an admission officer, a parent, or a student.
And then after that, we'll have a little holiday greeting from yours truly, to wrap up this episode and this season. When we come back, Charlotte Albright and Darryl Tiggle will join me in a segment we called Newsroom. See you in a minute.
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So lots to cover today. Let's go to the newsroom with Charlotte Albright. Hi Charlotte.
Charlotte Albright:
Hello.
Lee Coffin:
We're off and running and we're joined today in newsroom by our friend Daryl Tiggle, the Director of College Counseling at the Friends School of Baltimore. Welcome back, Daryl.
Darryl Tiggle:
Nice to be back.
Lee Coffin:
It's always nice to have you. So Charlotte, what do you see buzzing around the internet as the deadlines approach and what are people worrying about?
Charlotte Albright:
Well, they're worried about the deadlines. Let's remind people, what are the deadlines? What are they looking at?
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, I mean the deadline is generally January 1st or 2nd depending on the college's affinity. They have a deadline on a national holiday. Some of them are January 15th and some even inch into early February. But the big mother lode deadline is on or around January 1st for regular decision. We move through December and lots of high schools and colleges go on break. And so there's this really tiny window between the release of the early outcomes, school vacation and then a deadline.
Charlotte Albright:
And I'm sure that Daryl is doing some of that cheerleading right now, but at some point the baton passes from Daryl to the parents and then they're going to have to be the ones to keep the applicants on track. So what are some tips, really quick tips?
Lee Coffin:
So you're asking how do you give parents permission to be a nag as the deadline gets closer?
Charlotte Albright:
Yeah, and how can you do that in an effective way as a parent, without overstressing the kid or looking like too much of a nag? I mean, are there little calendars you place on your refrigerator? What do you do?
Darryl Tiggle:
That's interesting, you say the calendar on the refrigerator, because we really tried to partner with our families and our office and a couple years ago we literally came up not with a magnet, because we didn't have the technology. But we did, we came up with a checklist that we really did ask that parents put this on their refrigerator and it gave a timeline of early decision, early action, transcript request deadline. And it was a really, really fun thing that they did because going to the refrigerator a few times a day.
If they're my vintage, that checklist is really helpful to them. And I think that's helpful. In the messages that we're giving them now, we're telling them, really don't panic about these looming deadlines, but let's get this work behind us so that we can go into the holidays and enjoy time with our families and away from doing college things. So I think that message in the delivery for parents is probably a good one. Look, I'm so looking forward to spending some time with you. Let me make sure that everything you need done is underway.
Charlotte Albright:
My other question is, there any wiggle room? I mean, if a kid gets sick, is there an extenuating circumstance? Can you contact your college Lee?
Lee Coffin:
Yes. So the deadline is the deadline for the student to submit her part of the application. And this often gets misunderstood too, where it's not the deadline for every teacher recommendation and every interview report and every supporting piece of information has to arrive. It's the student's portion. So the Common App, the Coalition App, the institutional app, that needs to arrive by the deadline to create the record and then the other information flows in the weeks afterwards. If there's something that comes up—I mean, life happens to all of us and there are moments when you can't meet the deadline— it's as simple as reaching out to the schools and saying, "I need an extension." And we grant those. I wouldn't do that as my plan, but when you need an extension, we'll do that.
Darryl Tiggle:
And we give the same exact message that Lee just delivered. But I think families literally do see that deadline as a everything is due at that time. That piece of information I think would let families sleep so much better if they knew, "Hey, I've got my preliminary information in I'm an applicant. The other information can flow in." Because they do spend a lot of time pining away about each box we clicked.
Lee Coffin:
And the other thing that's really interesting just in this fast transactional internet space we all occupy is people presume that they hit submit and it's like a text. It arrives immediately at the destination. When in fact, when you hit submit on the common application, it goes to that server and then it needs to be sorted and downloaded by us. And it takes some days for all of the information to catch up.
And if you look at my pool between December 25th and January 1st last year, about half of the applicants, about 15,000 people applied in seven days. So there's a surge on the server, and occasionally the Common App is not crashed, but it gets a little sluggish as all that volume's going through and that the misinterpretation on the student side or the parent side is frantically checking portals to see did everything land where it was supposed to be?
And then when it's not showing as received, people start to call and people start to worry. And I think my advice on that is it's not a text. Give it some time to be digested on the high volume server where it just landed and be reassured that the colleges will let you know. Usually by mid-January or certainly by the end of January, if something's missing, you'll get an email saying, "Hey, Daryl, we're still waiting for your teacher rec," or, "We require testing. And testing has no right..." I mean, whatever's missing, you'll know about it when we know it's missing, but don't panic now.
Charlotte Albright:
That answers the other question. One of the other questions I'm seeing circulating around, which is, "I keep checking the online portal of the colleges where I'm applying to make sure my application and completed shows stuff is missing. I'm freaking out." And you're saying, "Don't freak out."
Lee Coffin:
Don't freak out. And the other thing that creates this jam is procrastination. You'd be amazed how many applications get submitted on December 31st for a January 1st deadline. And I always think it's New Year's Eve, go have a party, watch the ball drop. But there are students frantically typing away the last parts of the file and hitting submit, and we get questions all the time, "What's the last possible minute I can hit submit?" And it's like, "Well, ideally it's not 11:59," but the longer you wait, the more sluggishness the system has. So if you've got the discipline to file things before Christmas, better.
Charlotte Albright:
Absolutely, the internet could be down at 11:59. You never know what's going to happen with your computer even if you're in control of things. But another question I'm seeing is, what do I do then after I submit the application, other than having the party you just talked about?
Lee Coffin:
Your work is done, it's like submitting a paper and you're waiting for the teacher to grade it. Right, Daryl?
Darryl Tiggle:
That's exactly the way to do it. And I tell my students that to the extent that there is some magic they can inflect on the process, I tell them now that their application has left their hands, don't panic, don't worry. And if they want to tilt the seesaw in one direction or the other, think about winning. Don't think about losing and put some positive energy out there. And then I tell them once the decision arrives, be a good winner or be an eventual good winner. So we try to cue them up to psychologically think about how the decisions will land and what to do in between the time decisions arrive.
Lee Coffin:
The work that still needs to be done, there are mid-year grades that are going to be submitted on your behalf. So stay focused academically because those mid-year grades when they arrive are really central, particularly in the more selective spaces to the way we understand your file. So like a really robust senior year where the grades might sag is not going to look great. So mid-year grades are important. A lot of places use alumni interviewers for the interview component of an application, and that will often happen after the deadline. So maybe we should talk about that a little bit, but those are the two big things that happen next.
Charlotte Albright:
Yeah, let's talk about that because that's a question too that I'm seeing. This whole alumni interview thing, what will we talk about? Do I do the scheduling? They're confused about that.
Darryl Tiggle:
My students, it happens pretty regularly for them, and I always joke, I know it's going on at the Starbucks around the corner. And I tell them to really think of it as an opportunity to add another piece to their application. And when they think about what is the conversation going to entail, I tell them think about it being three chapters. They want to know where you're from. So background, education, family likes and dislikes, where you want your life to go. So to the extent you want to know what you want to study or the environment you want to study in, what kind of life you want to live and why that particular institution will help you get to where you want to go in life. So if you can think of those three themes, you've got the details, you know all the answers to the interview questions. One of the things my students panic about is some might get an interview, some might not, and then they almost always think, "Oh my God, I'm not going to get in. I didn't get interviewed."
Lee Coffin:
It's just they're sorted by alumni volunteers, and the volume means some people are faster than others. I wouldn't say by way of advice about interviewing. It's a conversation and it's about developing the skillset of sharing your story in person. And I think what's challenging for the Gen Zs is they do so much of their work on their phones, that this is an opportunity to hop out of the digital space, even if you might be on Zoom for the interview, but it is a conversation with someone you don't know where you are introducing yourself and creating this personal connection to someone like you would in a job interview someday. It's not a high stakes make-or-break moment, but it is a chance to move beyond the numbers and the letters and to put a personality in the mix from someone who doesn't know you. It's not a teacher saying, "I've taught Charlotte for all of last year and I love her."
It's a newcomer sayings, "Wow, I met Charlotte and she's this bright, funny, engaging person who's really interested in comparative literature," blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I think I chose comp lit on purpose because I think my other piece of advice is be ready to talk about your academic interest. Doesn't mean you have to have a declaration of major, but asking what you're thinking about studying is an obvious question. And if you say political science, you'd better be able to talk about poli sci. If you say you want to be a doctor, why? What is it about medicine that's pulling you towards it as a potential career? So those are the things the alums talk about and that gets shared back with the admission office. So that's probably the homework that happens post deadline.
Charlotte Albright:
Well, Lee, I know you've just met a deadline too. I mean, you guys have deadlines. Daryl has deadlines to write recommendations, and you just read a whole slew of early decision applications. They've gone out at airtime now, and that brings up two questions about early decision. One is, I'm worried that ED outcomes mean that I should just add some more colleges to my list because kids are worried that maybe they need a wider net because they didn't get an early decision. And the other question has to do with something I don't know the answer to. What's ED 2?
Lee Coffin:
So Daryl, tackle the wider net. What do you do when someone has been deferred or declined and they show up in your doorway the next day and all of a sudden they've got 18 to 20 places on their list?
Darryl Tiggle:
We do indeed try to get both ahead and behind that. So as best we can, if they're applying to schools early decision and there's other schools in the mix for which their applications are ready to go, we tell them, "Try to get those out so that when in the event you're applying as a deferred or non-admitted ED student, you've still got the spirit of pushing forward in the application."
So we try to get them to get a few out beforehand, but then as the either bad news or not so good news of being deferred arrives, we'll tell them, "Let's still keep in mind the list that we had before ED. That it was never just about that one school and our fate there. So let's turn our attention to our second, third, fourth and fifth most favorite that existed prior to ED. And if we think that there's a need to add some other schools to the list, let's strategically think about places that we might add to the mix." But letting them know that the window now to add 10 schools is only a month interrupted by the holidays and midterms and the like. So we tell them, "Let's try to still focus on the list we had in mind and just move to plan B, C, D," whatever.
Lee Coffin:
I see this every year for 20 plus years, where there's this moment in mid-December where reality meets the idealism of the admission process. Where there are now decisions landing. And I get it's a natural reaction to be like, maybe you didn't even apply anywhere early, but you see your friends having these outcomes and you look at yourself and say, "Well, if she didn't get in, I'm never going to get in." And that's an overreaction because flooding the universe with multiple applications makes it harder because those pools get really big and then therefore more selective. But it also, I think it starts to dilute your ability to tell your story effectively and authentically at all of those places. And I think take a breath.
Charlotte Albright:
What about ED 2, Lee, what is that?
Lee Coffin:
ED 2 is early decision round two. Not offered everywhere, often in smaller liberal arts colleges, regular deadline with notification sometime in February. So that's the structural piece. Darryl, why would an early round two make sense or not?
Darryl Tiggle:
Yeah, I give two perspectives. I like early decision round two because of its timing. It happens later in life. So students who may not be ready to deliver a sign on the dotted line application in the fall, it gives them a longer time to research and decide if a school is their number one choice. And in terms of practicality, some students might apply to a school early action or early decision, typically early decision at another school and did not make it. It gives them a second chance to make that bit.
Lee Coffin:
That's the key piece. It's a second chance to say that a place, "This is where I see myself."
Charlotte Albright:
One more last minute question, and that has to do with the supplement to the common app. So is that coming up now and what's so important about it?
Lee Coffin:
The supplement is... The best way to think of a supplement is it is the local flavor that gets attached to the common application. So the Common Application serves hundreds of institutions. The supplement is each college's opportunity to ask a set of questions that bring the student more narrowly into our space. So we will ask questions that might be very specific. They almost always have a question that boils down to why us? What is it about this college that speaks to you as an applicant, academically, socially, culturally? What did you like when you got to know us? And I think people overthink. Daryl probably sees this, people overthink that little question a lot like, "Oh, why Dartmouth?" Like, "Oh, why am I supposed to say to that in a hundred words or less?" What do you say, Daryl?
Darryl Tiggle:
And I ask them to really think about what things immediately come to them if they think about that institution and how it compares to others. And if they don't have enough that shines down on them, I go, "Go to the website and find out what the college is saying about itself in terms of its mission. What's on the About page? What are students doing outside the classrooms that fulfill their lives?" So the why each place you can find, you should be able to find from the research and the compulsion you have to apply there. But the good answers to that question you can find in the literature and communication that the colleges are putting forth to communicate what type of student, what class they're trying to build.
Lee Coffin:
But I would say just as one word of caution to what Daryl just advised, don't make it a canned answer. The ones that read in this very scripted way don't really move me as a reader. The ones that are more personal, where a student has thoughtfully articulated a couple of reasons. I'll give you an example from Dartmouth. We have a very deep and strong program in sustainability. So someone saying, "Why Dartmouth? I am a vegan organic farmer who is really committed to climate justice and I see in you a place that shares my value." Boom.
Darryl Tiggle:
Perfect.
Lee Coffin:
I read that and say, "Okay, I understand why you are in this pool," and then I move on.
Charlotte Albright:
Well, Lee, you just said take a breath. And I think in a way you were talking to all of our listeners as well. They could take a breath right now. We'll be back in a moment and you will be talking of all people to your trainer who I understand has taught you to breathe. So come back in a minute.
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Lee Coffin:
We're joined by Mark Anderson, owner and personal trainer at MWA health and fitness in Boston and truth and advertising. He's my trainer. And we're looking at this idea of wellness, and I had the idea while talking to Mark about my own stress—here's a newsflash, Deans of admission carry stress. He's laughing as I say that. And so Mark, as somebody who works with me on fitness and wellness, where do you see me carrying stress?
Mark Anderson:
Everywhere.
Lee Coffin:
Everywhere. Oh, God.
Mark Anderson:
No. But mostly your shoulders.
Lee Coffin:
My shoulders.
Mark Anderson:
Yes.
Lee Coffin:
I agree. My shoulders are always tight. And for those of us who do my work, they get especially tight during the part of the year when I'm doing a lot of application review and I'm typing on my MacBook, 10, 12 hours a day, and I have to be conscious of the way I position myself at the desk around the sofa with the laptop literally on my lap to be aware of how I'm positioning. But does that make sense as you hear me say that? Is that the type of mindfulness that whether you're a student filling out your application, whether you're an admission officer reading it, or right now a lot of guidance counselors are furiously finishing letters of recommendation and we're all typing a lot.
Mark Anderson:
And we're reading something and it's drawing up certain emotions and certain stressors, whether it's good or bad. And so we start breathing from our upper body. Instead of doing that diaphragmatic breathing, we're breathing from the uppers, which we don't want because then it creates all this tension and you don't even feel it, it just happens over time. But the other thing is then we're so front based, we're typing on the computer, we're texting on the phones, we're making dinner, we're doing whatever we do in the front, but we also need to balance that out. And so what you and I are doing. When I release tension from your traps or shoulders, what I'm doing there is very beneficial to not only your exercise you're about to do, but it's also beneficial to your breathing, to your mindset, all of that stuff, because I'm creating less tension in your upper body, but it's also creating less tension going up your neck into your head.
And when all of this gets tight, sometimes we mistake that tension for stress and anxiety, which it can be totally for sure. But when you loosen that up, it's literally like a weight's been lifted off your shoulder. So what I would say, this is a huge tip here, it's breathing. If you can get yourself in a stressful, the most stressful situation ever as a dean, as a student, and you take that deep breath, and if it doesn't work once, you can do it twice. You can do it three times. You can do it 10 times. Whatever time you need to do, however many repetitions you need to do that. But you'll naturally feel your stress levels come down, your nervousness come down, your anxieties come down, and then you can go into whatever you're trying to do and with a clearer mind and better breathing. You're getting more oxygen in, you're able to think clearer and you're not having all that tension anxiety.
Lee Coffin:
So the taking the breath is almost like a little timeout for yourself where you're like, "time to pause." But when you were describing tension shoulders running up the neck into the head, it also feels like that could be a recipe for a headache.
Mark Anderson:
Yeah, and an ongoing headache, which is horrible. If I've suffered from extreme neck pain and I know what that does to you on a day-to-day basis, it leaves you touching your neck, it leaves you touching your forehead, and you don't know why you are like, "What am I doing? I don't know. Am I sleeping wrong? Is it something I'm carrying? Is the workouts I'm doing, what is it?" Just all this stuff. It compounds.
Lee Coffin:
That's the word. I was just thinking as you said that. So all right, so I have the benefit of knowing you and seeing you once a week for a workout. Lots of people don't have a trainer watching them weekly and monitoring stress and fitness, yada, yada. What are some at-home remedies that students, parents, admission officers, counselors, all of us who are connected to this admission process and the deadlines are coming and the workload and the stress is building, what can we do on our own? You said breathing is a tip. What else is a way to reposition ourselves either physically or mentally?
Mark Anderson:
Well, the breathing one is huge. Then on the other topics I love talking about is going for a walk, but just saying, "I'm going to go for a two-minute walk." Most time you go for a two-minute walk, you're going to go for more than two minutes. And you can put something on a podcast, whatever, yeah. Your favorite TV show and walking. Is it sometimes better to go for a walk in nature? Of course, yes. That's all great, but we're talking about getting you going.
So whatever can motivate you to change those habits. And habits don't necessarily change in 21 days. Oh, well, it's 21 days or a week or 14 days. I mean, there's science behind it that says it could take 267 days for a habit to break. So this is again, the long game we're talking about. And I wish I could say, you go for a walk one time and you're going to be feeling amazing.
It might not always be that way. It could be, you could go out there and go, "Yeah, I'm giving myself the time." So I think looking at the mindset and going like, "Okay, what's the number one thing I can do for my mindset?" Go out in nature, go for a walk, get outside, get some fresh air or do something you love to be active.
If you're someone who's always done pushups your whole life, everyone knows what a pushup is. Okay, do pushups, and you do pushups you're like, "Yeah, I feel great." Blood flow to the whole body. There's this rush of energy. I'm awake now, if it's first thing in the morning, whatever it is. But I think looking at those activities you can do, walking, doing active things, and this is the thing that I think doesn't get touched on enough as well.
In your everyday world, walking to go get something, if you're going to get a coffee or something, or you're in your house, your apartment, wherever, a dorm, it doesn't matter. You're doing active things there. So throughout your day you're burning a lot more than you're burning throughout a workout, but it's just the workout is really where you're getting that cellular, the breakdown. So that's great about it and the metabolic effect of that.
But what I'm saying is it doesn't have to be that complicated. And I think that's where the overwhelm comes in. I don't know. I see all these people doing different workouts and this person looks like this and that. I love social media. I'm learning to use it as an educational thing. But for me, what I'm seeing with that is I think it's also a great point to talk about, find someone that you resonate with that's going to get you motivated to do something active as long as it's healthy and safe for you. But if you're just talking about the simplest thing, just yeah, going for a walk does not have to be.
Lee Coffin:
I think in the world of college admissions and the student side, we have a lot of overachievers who work really hard to get an A. I was guilty of being that person and maybe still is, but when you're an overachiever, you want to do everything more faster, the best. And I think what I hear you saying, "Exercise is good, period. It doesn't have to be a marathon. You don't have to run around the track seven times. You don't have to go to the gym and bench press a ridiculous my way. Just be active. And that's a release that benefits your wellness."
Mark Anderson:
Totally. For me, I was a good memorizer of things, so I could memorize facts and whatever, and just I would just cram, cram, cram. That was my biggest stress. So I look at that situation and I go, "How would I navigate that now?" I would look at my sleep. Am I getting good sleep? If you're not getting good sleep, that's a game changer right there.
Lee Coffin:
What does good sleep mean?
Mark Anderson:
Yeah. Well, so I love using devices. This ring I'm wearing right now it tells me my readiness score in the morning. So let's just say it was on a scale of one to a hundred. If it's 20, it's like, "Dude, you need to take a break today. You had a horrible night's sleep." And it gives you all the metrics.
Lee Coffin:
So the ring on your finger is measuring your sleepfulness and the... Is it paying attention to how deeply you're sleeping, how many minutes you sleep?
Mark Anderson:
That's your REM cycles, all that great stuff.
Lee Coffin:
And so when you've had a restless night, it gives you a heads-up on that?
Mark Anderson:
Yeah, it gives you great feedback, is to say like, okay, well I don't beat myself up over, why am I more tired today? I am more tired. I have this pressing thing I need to do, so let me just take care of that. That's like the focus here is going through that and understanding I didn't get a good night's sleep. And then what can I do tonight to get a better night's sleep? Or maybe in a couple days or the weekends coming up and I believe it. You don't really make up for bad sleep, but you definitely can rest your body on certain days.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. Well, and sleep is one of those delicious things. When you get enough of it, you feel better. And I think I know a lot of people who push the boundaries of their day, and I am a morning person. I've always been, I never did an all-nighter as a student because it just wasn't my best space as a thinker and a doer. But a lot of people, they're owls and they're up all night and then they sleep late in the morning. But you get into these patterns of sleep that aren't always very constructive. So if you find yourself being restless as a fitness function, how do you help yourself sleep?
Mark Anderson:
Well, there's a lot of things. It's a great question too, but you got to look at the sleep times you're going to bed. If you're going to bed one night at eight o'clock and then you're going to bed at 10 o'clock the next night, you're going to bed at midnight the next night. We're creatures of habit for real. That is no joke that we are. So if you're going to bed at one night at nine or 10 or 11, 12, 1, you got to go to bed at the same time. And this is not just me saying it, this is what science shows us.
The studies, again, they show before 10 is better. But as a student, just again, as a busy professional, I would say that might be a challenge sometimes. So it's just more about the consistency of when you're going to bed and how much of the good sleep you're getting. And not oversleeping too because another thing we should say is like, okay, well getting 15 hours of sleep is not great for you either because then it throws your body off its cycle as well. But it's the easy things that are sometimes the hardest things to do.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. So I think breathing is something you highlighted as an easy thing for us to do. I think sleep is one of those wellness areas that is easy to overlook. The other area to pay attention to is nutrition. Not just what you eat, but when you eat it and how much you eat. I've learned along the way that some things that I think are healthy are actually loaded with sugar that aren't the best things for someone. All your parents out there… more sugar, not good. The 18-year olds guzzle away because you burn it off. It's probably not true. But Mark, what are your thoughts on nutrition?
Mark Anderson:
I mean, I love the question. It is the most important thing. I think people, "Oh, well, you got to be active and exercise," but your nutrition is what you're putting in your body and it's what your body's going to digest. And that first and foremost is going to go to your brain, on very many levels, chemical, digestive, how you feel, the emotions you feel from foods you're eating, the dopamine, all that stuff. There's a reason why we like to eat those treats.
And what happens when we do eat those treats in excess, we see our body gets signaled, insulin gets, it's like, "Hey." What's insulin? It's a fat storing hormone. So our bodies are like, "Hey, guess what guys? It's time to store fat, time to store body fat." And so it's not a good or a bad thing, it's just the body's doing what it's meant to do, and it doesn't also need to be something we beat ourselves up over.
So when it comes to nutrition, what I love doing is finding hacks. It's saying like, "Okay, let's do an experiment. Let's have you eat potatoes," for example. And what's great about eating potatoes is you fill yourself up in a good way. And you know what? Eat as many as you want. Just eat, stuff your face and have as many as you want and you fill yourself up and you cannot eat any more potatoes.
But if you take that and over time, you're not going to want to eat as many potatoes every day, you'll see there'll be a gradual progression of if you are trying to lose weight. But most importantly, it's keeping your blood sugar even so you don't have these spikes. So horrible, what's going on with me? And it's this processed food journey we're on. And I always just go back to things you see in nature. A potato is something we can grow. A box of wheat bins is not something we can grow.
Lee Coffin:
So a potato, you're not talking about a bag of chips?
Mark Anderson:
Honestly, no, but it's an interesting dynamic too, because in that world where you're talking about on the go world, this is like we need quick. So is it okay to have chips? That's a great question. Thank you for asking. Yes, it is. It depends on what type though. If you're getting chips that they're being prepared and baked in avocado oil, for example, it has a high smoke point. It's not as volatile to your digestive track as something that's deep-fried in whatever. That's okay. Once in a while. Or you could even say more than once in a while. It's dependent upon the person.
But what I like about that is it's a good carbohydrate. Your body knows what it's getting. It's getting a sweet potato that's made from a chip. And I've experimented this with myself, just taking potatoes and slicing them into my own fries, spraying them with avocado oil, sea salt, all this great stuff. I eat as many as I want. And again, it's not the type of thing where I feel like I've gorged myself the next day. I feel maybe full at that meal, but I would stay away from the potato chips. But if you needed something, that's where I'm talking about, it's like knowing the little hacks. Is it better to have a candy bar than a bag of potatoes? I would have the bag of potatoes.
Lee Coffin:
Well, and one of the lessons I've gleaned from you is you use the phrase clean food.
Mark Anderson:
Yes.
Lee Coffin:
Which means?
Mark Anderson:
Clean foods, they're best foods. It's like, am I better off having that candy bar? Or I did buy a carton of blueberries and I eat the whole carton of blueberries from wherever, is it okay? Of course, eat the cold carton of blueberries instead of the bar. And again, it goes back to that same principle. It's interesting when you get your body in the zone, even with stress, even with everything that's going on with a pandemic or our work lives or our personal lives or whatever it is, whatever stresses we have.
Lee Coffin:
So what I'm hearing you say is fill yourself up is a better strategy. Blueberries can be snacks. One of the things I tend to, when I'm being really disciplined, and I will say I do love a bag of chips, but I also have trained myself to go for baby carrots and hummus, have little snacks when I'm feeling hungry. And that does work. But Mark, let me throw some other nutrition things. College students, high school students drink a lot of coffee.
Mark Anderson:
Yes.
Lee Coffin:
Good or bad?
Mark Anderson:
Too much of anything is never a good thing, but sometimes you need it. And coffee, if you're going to pick a vice, I would pick coffee.
Lee Coffin:
How about the value of water?
Mark Anderson:
If you're drinking coffee, if you're drinking eight ounce coffee, balance it off with 16 ounces of water. The caffeine, all that stuff's going to dehydrate you. So you want to understand if you have 60 ounces of coffee, I hope you're having 120 ounces of water to balance it out.
Lee Coffin:
How about juice?
Mark Anderson:
Juice? It can be great if you're not getting a lot of food in a day, and the one thing you have time for is to go to some juice place that has a great organic fresh juice, wonderful. But if you're throwing that on top of the sandwich, the pasta and all that stuff, I mean, you're talking about carbs, you're talking about sugars, again, spiking the blood sugar. It's going to make you feel good in the moment. We also have to understand with nutrition, it is a mind game 1000%.
If that's one thing I could just drive into everyone's head, it is a mind game with nutrition. Your body is going to be stressed. It's going to tell you, "Go for the pizza, go for the beer, go for whatever," whatever the naughty thing is, it's going to tell you to go for it. And what I would say is you can experiment on yourself and say, "Let me just go eat a piece of chicken," because it's in the house or whatever. Or go somewhere and get a salad and eat that or eat three salads and then you eat the salads and go, "What's funny is I don't want that pizza anymore. That was a total mind game."
Lee Coffin:
Well I'm a poster child for this philosophy of eat clean now, because as I have been disciplining myself in that way, I feel better.
Mark Anderson:
Yes.
Lee Coffin:
I am sleeping. I drink a lot of water. And I think in this, well, particularly in the intense parts of my year, and one of them is coming, I'm preparing myself for that journey. And there's a time of day in the Lee world that's called wine o'clock. And so for the admission officers out there who are like, "Wine helps," what's your thought there?
Mark Anderson:
I'd say if you like wine, but you got to schedule it smartly. I think people talk about smart goals. That's a smart goal to me. If you know you love wine, you're going to do it, and it's a way for you to unwind. If you're trying to do that, it's okay. But again, we just talk about it from a logical perspective. If I do this every night and I'm tired, I'm lethargic, I brain fog the next day. I feel like miserable, maybe I may be overdoing it too much.
Lee Coffin:
Well, I hear throughout a lot of the advice you're sharing, Mark, is consistency and patterns. Like go to sleep at the same time, have a snack at the same time. Go for a walk. If you have a glass of wine, do it at six o'clock every night, not at nine o'clock every night. And these rhythms of our day, particularly when we're more harried and don't maybe have the luxury of a fully planned moment, you can disrupt those moments of hairiness.
And I'll speak for myself when I'm in the busiest times of my work life, it feels decadent to take a walk or I think I can't get through my email, I can't go take a nice little stroll and pick up a leaf. But I've tried to do that as a way of disrupting my own pattern. And so I think that's really helpful. So Mark, before we end round table, what seems healthy but isn't? To your average person, they think, "I'm being healthy." And you're like, as a trainer, you're saying, "No, that's not very healthy."
Mark Anderson:
Well, just one thing that just comes to mind is diet soda.
Lee Coffin:
Diet soda. Oh, yeah. Why?
Mark Anderson:
If you want a nuclear bomb, your gut, that's the best way to do it. So a lot of those artificial sweeteners, again, I'm not pointing fingers or whatever, I'm just saying it's a chemical thing that they put in there to make it taste good. And guilty as charged, I used to love Diet Pepsi, but there's chlorine in that sweetener and that chlorine is neutralizing your gut acid. You're getting that sweetness and all these empty calories, so to speak. You're doing things to your gut biome. It's just not cool.
Lee Coffin:
Well, and the sneaky word is diet. Like the diet soda gives the impression that it's healthy.
Mark Anderson:
Yes. And then the other things I would say is looking at those health foods where it's really not health foods. So reading the ingredients, just read the ingredients of something. And if it's three paragraphs long, you probably know even if it is a health food or labeled as that, it's probably not. I mean, I always love when there's like six ingredients in something. Like, "Okay, I know what that is. I know what that is. I know what that is. Okay, we're good."
Lee Coffin:
So Mark, any parting word of advice to anxious high school seniors, their parents or admission officers? Say, "I can't read one more file," and I wrap this around this concept of wellness, trying to point out that the admission process is organically stressful. There are deadlines, there's homework, there are outcomes that don't always go your way. There's work to be done and you got to push yourself through that. So what's your closing coaching guideline to that scrum of people looking pooped as they come towards the admission deadlines?
Mark Anderson:
It is a great question again, and a mantra I think is important. I think having a mantra or having a way to reset yourself and break the pattern, you've got to figure out a way to break those patterns. And you pick the activity and say, "Yoga, walking, working out," whatever it is, "Helps with me with the anxiety, along with this maybe little mantra." Your body can function the way it's supposed to.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. So Mark, thanks for joining us on the Admissions Beat and for this really interesting conversation about wellness and fitness.
Mark Anderson:
Thank you for having me. This has been amazing. I could talk to you for hours, so I love it.
Lee Coffin:
Thank you. Okay, thanks, Mark.
(music)
So in previous episodes, I refer to myself as a wordsmith, somebody who loves to play with language, loves to read, and write. And I guess once an English word nerd, always an English word nerd. And I was inspired to offer holiday greetings for all of you via a re-imagined interpretation of A Visit from St. Nicholas, which is more commonly known as The Night Before Christmas, or 'Twas the Night Before Christmas.
As I was researching this, I learned that it was written anonymously in 1823, so 200 years ago and later attributed to Clement Clark Moore. Wikipedia calls it "arguably the best known verses ever written by an American and largely responsible for some of the conceptions of Santa Claus from the mid 19th century to today." So ho ho ho on that one. It inspired me to reimagine this classic as a seasonal admission poem. So no matter your faith tradition, I hope you'll enjoy my deadline theme spin on this holiday classic.
So here's my poem, which I'm calling 'Twas Two Weeks Till The Deadline. Here we go.
'Twas two weeks till the deadline and all through the house, the senior was stirring coffee, charged fingers on her mouse. Her essays were written and edited with care in hopes that admissions would soon be there. Her parents were nestled all snug in their beds, while visions of acceptances danced in their heads. The tours had been taken. The testing, no fun. The deadline was coming, but her application was undone. The procrastinating senior had work still to do. The Common App beckoned, its word limits poo-pooed. The senior was stymied as she stared at her screen. The last supplemental question seemed especially mean. When out on the lawn, there arose such a clatter, the senior sprang from her desk to see what was the matter.
Away to the window, she flew like a flash. She tore open the shutters and threw up the sash. When what to her wondering eyes should appear, was a queue of admission officers and each tiny reindeer With a gray stubbled driver, so lively and keen, she knew in a moment it must be the dean. More rapid than eagles, his coursers they came and he whistled and shouted and called them by name: "Now Eric, now Erin, now Allie and Meg. On Kevin, on Laura, on Christina and Peg. To the top of the porch, to the top of the wall, we must read all these files, holistically all." So up to her house, to the readers, they flew with their sleigh full of files and the dean up there too. And then in a twinkling, she heard on the roof the prancing and pine of each little hoof. As she drew in her head and was checking her phone, down the chimney he came with a bleary-eyed moan.
He was dressed all in flannel from his head to his foot. While reading, the dean never wore a suit. A bundle of applications was flung across his back, and he looked like a peddler just opening his sack, his eyes, how they twinkled, his dimples, how merry, his cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry. With a wink of his eye and the twist of his head, he soon gave her to know she had nothing to dread. But the senior was anxious. Her application unfinished. She had nothing to give him. Were her chances diminished? "The pools are so big, where do I stand? Everyone's great. High achievers. I worry I'm bland." The dean tapped his bag with a sympathetic sigh as he beckoned her close as she was about to apply. The deadline was coming, that was for sure, but her content was strong and her logic was pure.
She'd done well in school and was very well-rounded. Her recommendations were rosy, not a wee bit confounded. The dean leaned in close so he could be clear, "The application you see is your chance to cheer! Tell your story, be authentic. You've nothing to fear. A yes or a no. There is no way to peek. For now, please stop worrying, keep typing. Just let your life speak." And laying his finger aside of his nose with an encouraging nod, up the chimney he rose. His sleigh stuffed with apps, to his team gave a cue, and away they all flew. There was reading to do. And she heard him exclaim as he flew out of sight, "Happy holidays to all and to all and good night."
(bells)
And on that note, my friends, thanks so much for listening to the Admissions Beat. This season has covered a lot of ground. As always, it's been so much fun to bring you these episodes. To have conversations with my colleagues, with students, with college counselors, with journalists, to help you think about the work I do and the way you intersect with it. It's a treat to have this conversation with you every Tuesday. I appreciate the notes and letters you've sent, asking questions, giving me some suggestions for Season Five, and sometimes telling me that this has been helpful. I really appreciate that feedback because one of the oddities of doing a podcast is you listen to me. I can't see you listening, so I know it's been downloaded. I know you are all around the world listening to what we're saying, but it's great to know that this pod is helping you get through your admission journey with confidence and a smile.
We will be back in late January for season five. We'll start the story all over again at the beginning. There's a new crop of prospective applicants, AKA juniors in high school and their parents beginning their search. We'll start the discovery all over again, and for seniors who are waiting for decisions to land in late winter, early spring, we will keep you in mind as well as your big moment inches closer, and as May 1 brings you to the moment when you say, "I have a college."
Admissions Beat is a production of Dartmouth College, but it is not about Dartmouth College. It is an act of admission citizenship on behalf of us to all of you. It is produced and edited by Charlotte Albright with editorial content casting and marketing support from Jacques Steinberg, casting by Kevin Ramos-Glew, technical support by Sara Morin and scheduling by Peg Chase. This is Lee Coffin from Dartmouth College, signing off. Happy New Year to all. See you in 2024.