Season 4: Episode 2 Transcript
An Admissions Checklist for Jittery Seniors, Part 1
Lee Coffin:
From Hanover, New Hampshire, I'm Lee Coffin, Dartmouth's Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid. And welcome to the Admissions Beat.
(music)
So it's time to turn our focus to our friends in high school, the nervous members of the class of 2024, who, in the back-to-school moment might be looking forward and saying, "Uh-oh, I have to apply to college." And there's a lot of moving parts to that conversation. I thought, let's start with a set of college counselors who can give some wise insights to students, but also to parents, because sometimes I try and empower a mom, dad, guardian with what I call the nag-ometer. When do you need to start pushing to make sure someone gets across the finish line? And when do you need to give somebody the space to crawl forward? So today, we're welcoming back three friends of the pod, all of whom have appeared on previous episodes across our first three seasons. And I'm always excited to say hi to them as we start another conversation with a new crop of high school seniors. So joining me today are Kate Boyle Ramsdel, the Director of College Counseling at Noble and Greenough School in Dedham, Massachusetts. Hi, Kate.
Kate Boyle Ramsdell:
Hi, Lee.
Lee Coffin:
Erica Rosales, Executive Director of College Match in Los Angeles. And for purposes of today, also the mom of a nervous 12th grader, which makes this a doubly delicious casting moment. So Erica, nice to see you again.
Erica Rosales:
Hi, nice to see you too. Thank you for inviting me.
Lee Coffin:
Of course. And rascal-in-chief, Darryl Tiggle, Director of College Counseling at Friends School of Baltimore. Hi, Darryl.
Darryl Tiggle:
Hello gang. So nice to be with my friends.
Lee Coffin:
So September, tick-tock, tick-tock, we're moving closer to October and I feel like October is really the point of ignition for a lot of seniors when they have to roll sleeves up and get to work on putting together an application. But before we get to the what should they be doing, offer some balm to the high school class of '24 at his midpoint of September as college admissions seems to be front and center in their lives. What opening advice to reassure them that it's not too late to get themselves organized? Or what should the starting point be as they come out of the summer? Their discovery period should be winding down, although I would say discovery never ends, but the primary phase of discovery more completed than not. What's your opening thought on this one?
Darryl Tiggle:
I like that you say tick-tock. Because they're always trying to TikTok me and I don't really know what it is or how it works. "Mr. Tiggle, TikTok." And I go, "Yes. Tick-tock, we're moving along in the process now." And the thing that they're most curious about or worried about is, I guess, refining their list and/or writing their essays. So I say, "Look, let's kind of do both of those things right now and let's sit and do that work together if you need to, or come back to me and let's start to engage." But I think that clock, the tick-tock is starting to proceed.
Lee Coffin:
Okay, Erica and Kate, does that sound right as the starting point?
Erica Rosales:
I represent 150 students. That's who's in our College Match class of 2024. 150 students across 31 high schools in Los Angeles. And then I have my daughter, but I give them all the same advice right now at this point, because they kind of need it, school has just started, they're feeling overwhelmed like, "Oh my gosh, on top of college applications I have all these rigorous courses I need to complete." It's like, take a deep breath, look at everything you've already accomplished. 90% of that college application was already done. Now, we need to put it down on paper.
Kate Boyle Ramsdell:
That's what I've been saying to my kids. I totally agree with you. I sort of have a little mantra with a couple of them right now, which is, "You are enough and you've done enough." You're at this juncture, you said it so beautifully, where you can't do more, you don't need to do more. You're just thinking about how am I going to tell my story and tell it well and share who I am. And yes, it's a lot of exactly what you described, helping them get organized and then also just really trying to ramp down a lot of the anxiety that I think they're feeling.
Erica Rosales:
For sure. And then another thing is reminding them that this is a human process. Many times they get so overwhelmed because they're thinking of Dartmouth, they're thinking of these institutions and they forget that there are people who are going to read their applications. It's such a human process and then just remind them, "Yes, you are enough. And guess what? People don't get rejected. Applications get rejected." Because I think they're so worried about that rejection. So let's try to focus on our strengths because you are going to get admitted. We're going to get admitted somewhere. So we need to focus on that.
Lee Coffin:
Okay, we are off and running. This is great. So let's pick up two of the points you just made. So let's start with refining the list. So September, you've sat down with students, parents and said, "Consider these kind of places." And the lists evolve and they explore and they visit and they poke around websites and social media. And now they're back in their senior year. How do you guide them towards the process of refinement?
Kate Boyle Ramsdell:
It's interesting. From my perspective, it depends a little bit on the student and their family or the adults who are supporting them, how open their stance has been to this point to really think about fit, whatever that means. So it could be a cost component, it could be a special interest component, it could be size, distance from home. We've talked about this all with you, Lee, in previous episodes. But I think when they get hyper-focused on selectivity, which in my world a lot of kids can, they can't really build a good list. Their list doesn't make a lot of sense. And so one of the things that they then shortchange that. I leaned into the senior class about this morning and their parents and guardians last night. You can't be reactionary in December if you don't get into that place that you shop for early, it's too late. And I think that's all people want to do is we just want to come up, at least in my world, with an early plan.
And I think we say, we really need to take the long view, we need a comprehensive plan. And the job that I have with you is to create opportunities. That's what we're trying to do, is create lots of opportunities so that if you do get squeezed out of the places that you thought you really wanted to be, that you can pivot pretty quickly and look at other places. There's great opportunities.
Lee Coffin:
So is it too soon? I mean, should refinement be happening in September or is it still time to be sorting?
Darryl Tiggle:
I think like you said before, it's a continuous process and I try to check in with my students maybe in August, September to see what their list looks like, because we may have been out of touch during the summer. And if their list is Dartmouth, Michigan, Amherst, MIT and Berkeley, I'm like, I don't see the synergy. But if it's, Dartmouth, Cornell, Duke and Vanderbilt, I'm like, "All right, you found a brand of schools that you like." And then I don't know if this is a good word, but we strategize and we say, "Look, let's have a foundation, let's have a middle ground and let's have a reach." And your foundation, we've really tried to educate them, it's not your safety because we'll show you data that there's really no safe zone. And the goodness of who you are makes your foundation, makes the place that's really a great match for you, that makes those places great.
The places that you're the best match for are great places. So let's find places like those. So we're going to build it as a house, start with the foundation, then build the middle floors and then we'll reach to the top. A parent, who's a banker, once helped me understand this. So you're saying that, "Look, if our odds are least good at the reach schools, that would be like me putting all of our investment money in the least likely place for it to give return. Where it might be a great return, but you're saying I should maybe think about it like that. Let me spread my effort and my investment of time and energy in a way that sort of matches who I am and what I'm trying to obtain."
So I say, let's think about the strategy upfront and we're going to launch plan A, B, and C at the same time. Like what Kate said, we're not going to wait to see what happens with A and then launch B and then launch C. A, B, and C are beautiful ships, all of them and then we're going to launch them together.
Lee Coffin:
I love the idea of a foundational set of options where you're starting from a position of strength, is what I hear you saying.
Erica Rosales:
I want to add, I believe in empowering students, we want to empower them and that means that they've had the exploratory stage. Our College Match students start this process second semester junior year, but it starts with them. You really need to know your strengths. You need to understand what the classes you've taken on your transcript, what does that translate to? So you need to start looking at majors. You need to think about where you want to live for the next four years of your life. This is really a great opportunity. We tell them because we're trying to encourage our LA kids to leave, to go somewhere else to another part of the country to study some place. You want to leave to learn. And when you're building a list and you start with you, then you want to go and find institutions that match up with your values, institutions that match up with your mission.
And we do break it down to realistic reach, targets likely, and how many should go on each. But it's really important that every single college on that list is a college they're going to be happy to attend. And actually yesterday, because I'm following the same thing with my daughter, although she has a great counseling team behind her, but she asked me yesterday, she was looking at her likely school, she's like "Do you really want me to write out why I have this likely school on here?" I said, "Yes, I want you to write it out and do all the research and just like you have a mission in life, every single one of those institutions has a mission. Does it match? Is that a place where you're going to fulfill your mission?" So that's the way I like to talk to our students about it too. Because if you've done the work, come March, April, you're going to have a lot more successes and It'll be easier to decide where you want to go.
Lee Coffin:
As I'm listening to the three of you, what's striking me, is it's a form of discovery that's moved into a more advanced level of synthesis. It's not just "how does it feel," that's part of it, but it's also "start to bring more definition to what you're feeling and that's logical to me that you would marry the emotion with the pragmatic at this moment in time." Do you have some students who carry dreams that they might need to let go and say bye-bye and let it float away? Or is it still time to have someone carry a romantic vision of their future a little deeper into the fall?
Kate Boyle Ramsdell:
I would say stuff's getting real right now.
Lee Coffin:
Stuff's getting real, yeah.
Kate Boyle Ramsdell:
You can carry that romantic vision. And I think adolescence, I was talking about this the other day, it's very hard for them to think into the future and to conceptualize what it feels like to even be said no to. They're like, "It'll be fine, I'll feel fine." They don't really know. And sometimes what I'll say is, "Can you just accept the no from me with all of the information that I have?" Do you really need the college to tell you no? Because when you do that you're going to give up. As Darryl said, that plan B may actually evaporate because you needed to use your plan B as kind of your plan A. Do you know what I'm saying? I think in the landscape there's just, especially for kids who have interest in more selective institutions, there is such an important strategy piece to it. And I think sometimes kids are... And it's appropriate, a little bit dreamy still, but they don't love it on the other side when that comes down.
Darryl Tiggle:
Never has a comment so quickly been stolen than the one I'm going to take from Kate. I might use it, I might invite some students in to use that now, "Would you rather hear it from me than the school?" That is just brilliant and that's where I am with my students right now and Lee, I'm going to kind of blame you on this, but you were throwing all these numbers at us, lots of data. So that's what I give my students now is the data and Erica, do you guys use SCOIR or Naviance or the like?
Erica Rosales:
We have Naviance.
Darryl Tiggle:
We had Naviance and now we have SCOIR. It helps me sort of show the students and they ask me, "Mr. Tiggle, do you think I might get in?" I say, "Well look, let's go and see what has actually happened over the last maybe five or six years and then let's plan our attack." And I say, "Now that we've got our list of schools let's go and take a look at what's happened for our students historically and then plan out our work."
Lee Coffin:
A step further, for listeners who may not know what Naviance or SCOIR is, or they're in a school where perhaps the guidance has not been as direct to say, "Hey go look at this database."
Darryl Tiggle:
Got you.
Lee Coffin:
Where is that? What is that?
Darryl Tiggle:
So universally they're called Scattergrams on both platforms and they essentially give however many years you want to dial back, 10 years, five years and It'll be a GPA on the X axis, a SAT or ACT on the vertical axis and then you'll get a dot on a screen that sort of lays out how a group of students have done at individual colleges. And one of the things I like about it, and we are privileged to have it, is that a lot of the students and parents' information that they digest, it's aggregate information for the world. And sometimes there might be things that happen a little differently at my school for different reasons or at a school in Texas, because applying to Texas schools, so I say, "Let's look at the data as it's dialed down to our students." And that also helps set free some of the anxiety, because they can see things that have happened and it takes out some of the guesswork.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, so you're saying use data wherever you can find it to start to map a reality check against the dreaminess.
Darryl Tiggle:
Absolutely.
Kate Boyle Ramsdell:
Do you want some publicly available data resources? Do you want-
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, do you have a couple?
Darryl Tiggle:
Yeah.
Kate Boyle Ramsdell:
Sure. You can always use the common data set which every college has to report and it's a little hard to comb through. But it's very helpful and even for me, when I don't have a lot of kids applying to a particular place and I want to find something out. The admitted student profiles for every college, it's both a marketing tool and a reportorial tool for them, but you can kind of mine that for information. And then I also like the College Kickstart blog, that they do a good job of at least parsing out trends in early, trends in regular. And you can't necessarily know the whole story from all three of those things, but those are three places that somebody who's a little data inclined could start.
Lee Coffin:
Okay, let me ask you one more type of data just because it gets in the weeds this time of year. What rankings start to pop up in September as all of the places that send out top 10s, top 50s, top whatevers start to do their thing? Is that noise in the machine as you move through this assessment or is it useful data of a different kind?
Darryl Tiggle:
They look at the rankings, but they're not waiting for the ones that are coming out this September. They looked at the ones from last September-
Lee Coffin:
Last year.
Darryl Tiggle:
When they were building their list and I say look, I kind of get it, it's sort of an evaluation of goodness. Think about how ranking is done. And we do in our junior seminar class around college admissions intel, we break down how US news and World Report does rank. And I say, the things that are given the most weight in terms of determining rank may not intersect the things that are most important to you in having a successful and enjoyable college experience.
Lee Coffin:
Okay. So let's pause and help seniors think about whether or not an early application, either early decision in a binding round or early action in the non-binding process, when is that appropriate? If someone moves through September, October comes, forms start to get completed, when does "early" enter this conversation? And part two, to the student who wanders in your office and says, "I don't think I've found my home yet, but everybody around me seems to be doing an early so I have to too." Two spins on the same question about how to proceed through this first deadline as it draws closer.
Erica Rosales:
I think if a student has found a home and a student has found a place where they know that they absolutely want to be a part of that institutional community, they want to be part of that college, and they've talked to the parents and the parents have signed off and they understand the financial responsibility, I think that's a very important conversation to have, then it makes sense for the students. But the reality is it shouldn't be used as only a strategy. It should be used because you have identified a college that you want to attend and you've gotten the sign-off from your parents.
Kate Boyle Ramsdell:
I agree with that. I want to merge the conversation about rankings with this conversation just with an example that's been kind of turning in my mind, which is cost of college, how that intersects with your process. A kid who might say, "I really like school X." And I have said to this student along the way, "Your only chance really is early to have a real bite at that apple." And then through conversations with the family, come to realize that just the value proposition is not going to work out for them, that they need to explore more. And had a really wonderful conversation this summer with a mom who said, "I know my child wants to do engineering. I know the dream is to look at a place like Dartmouth or maybe an Ivy and frankly, we're not going to get a whole lot of aid there and we can't really afford to do that, and I love our state flagship."
And so she went off and did some research and figured out that for some of the kind of more selective colleges engineering programs, that UMass Amherst was very similarly ranked, that there wasn't a big difference at least in terms of engineering. And so we had a longer conversation about how they have to have a conversation with their child about the cost proposition. But that really in this case, even though maybe from a strategy perspective it could be advantageous to do early decision, it's just kind of off the table. And so I think that's where my inclination, 95% of our kids do something early, not necessarily binding, but I do think you really to be thoughtful, have to get in the weeds around all of those facets of the process, which I know we all try to do.
Darryl Tiggle:
Yeah, I had a conversation with one of our faculty at my school whose child is a senior and that's the dilemma they're in, they have an early decision place that they love, that they're pretty sure they'll not get any financial aid and it would be a significant sacrifice for them to be able to afford that. So it's a lot of the conversation now. One of the things I kind of chuckle and cringe at is when my students earlier on in the process say, "I haven't found my ED school yet. I'm going to ED somewhere but just I haven't found it yet."
So we talk a lot about early decision and I say, "Look, early decision and early action, they kind of sound alike and they happen at the same time. But you have to understand there's two audiences, there's the colleges and the applicants. Human nature, everybody would like to know something sooner than later so that's why early programs are attractive. Only if you love your school well enough to take away the other options should ED be an option for you. So there's a lot a that goes into the early conversation around now till the next several months.
Kate Boyle Ramsdell:
Just a thought about early, which is, over the time that we've all been doing college admissions, let's call it two decades, there's been a real shift in the percentage of classes that are being admitted through early decision doors. And so while it would be nice to have the luxury of time for a lot of kids and the ability to say, "I'm just going to cast a wide net." There is tension there and there is the idea that a small liberal arts college that's taking 80% of its class ED is not really going to have a lot of room in regular. And so if that's a place that you really like, I think a lot of it is just trying to gather enough knowledge to make the best choice that you can in the moment that you have to make it. But I don't want our listeners to walk away from this thinking it's an equal game. That if I apply a regular decision or I apply early, I'm going to be okay because that's just not necessarily true.
Lee Coffin:
Well, you just offered a really pragmatic way of using data. So you've identified a place that's appealing and then whether it's a common data set, institutional website, your guidance office, you determine like, oh, this is a place that does have a higher proportion of its class enrolling via this option versus that option. That informs your thinking, I think to say, "Okay, well if I'm serious about it, I probably need to put my application in play early because that seems to be when the majority comes through." Or a place might be like, "No, yeah we take a reasonable number, but not an excessive number and there's an equal opportunity now or then."
I pointed out to someone last year that in raw numbers, it's like three times as many students get admitted in March as in December to Dartmouth. Because remember, when you're in the spring, it's not a one for one. We know you're applying to multiple places and that gets factored into the way offers are framed. But it also sounds to me like you're cautioning people not to get sucked down the rabbit hole of everybody else is doing it, I must do it. It's hard.
Erica Rosales:
Well because I've been with College Match for 18 years and we serve high achieving low income students. I would say maybe 10 years ago, early decision was not even a conversation we were having with our students. But now it's just becoming more and more prevalent because we look at the data and we see that at some of these institutions they do have a better chance of getting in if they're doing early, but obviously we're not going to push early decision. We don't want to do that, because then that takes the power from the students. I believe in empowering students.
Lee Coffin:
So Erica, let me back you up. Over the last decade, you've seen more of your low income students considering early as a possibility. Work our listeners from a similar background through that confidence build because I think I hear a lot of jitters from financial aid families that early can't be part of this process, because I will disadvantage myself or how will I know? And so you're working discreetly with that community, how do you reassure them that a binding early application is not foreclosing another opportunity or that it's doable?
Erica Rosales:
Well, we work with low income students, the majority of our students' family income is below $80,000. We know that. The other big piece of College Match is that all of our students get to participate in an east coast college trip. So that's another benefit to our students, is that they've actually visited some of these campuses so they can actually envision themselves being on these campuses. And they've practiced leaving home so they know that they can do it and also the parents have practiced letting go. So when it comes time to come up with that college list and there is a college that they've fallen in love with, and let's be honest, oftentimes it is Dartmouth, they will see that they can get a very, very competitive financial aid package and oftentimes that's exactly what they get once they're admitted.
Lee Coffin:
Erica, that was super helpful. So let's, in the spirit of a checklist, let's do a quick definitional speed round here. So you're applying for financial aid. MyinTuition, that's a calculator that you can find on the college websites as well as the federally required calculators that are on all of our websites where you can plug in your personal information and it will give you a projected cost of attendance and a projected family contribution, so you can start thinking about, is this affordable? This college costs $80,000, but the calculator says, oh, we'd only have to pay 11, this is back in play. So that's what a calculator does, but let's do some quick other definitions of FAFSA, F-A-F-S-A. Darryl, what's that?
Darryl Tiggle:
That's the free application for federal students assistance or aid I believe.
Lee Coffin:
And when is it due?
Darryl Tiggle:
It is typically due by January 1st, but this year there's a delay in the release of the federal application for financial aid. So everyone interested in financial aid who's on this call, make sure to look out for the release of the FAFSA. You can get information from your guidance office, you can Google it, but make sure that that is something that you are well aware of as you apply for financial aid for college for next year and ongoing years.
Lee Coffin:
In the non-delayed year, October first is the date when that's available. So start looking October first and every day after that until it comes online, because that is required for all colleges that award federal financial aid. So a Pell Grant for low income students, a loan when loans are part of the financial aid policy, work study so you can have a job on campus, all of that flows from FAFSA. Okay, CSS, Kate, what's that?
Kate Boyle Ramsdell:
I think it's College Scholarship Service, but it's attached to the college board and I am wondering if like the SAT, which used to be the Scholastic Aptitude Test and now is just the SAT. If CSS is just CSS, not that it matters. CSS profile is available through a student's college board account. So if they've taken a SAT, a PSAT, or an AP test, they have one. And if they haven't, they can still set one up to complete the CSS profile. And not all colleges require it. A large number do and it opens on October first still, this fall. I think for a lot of colleges that use it, it's going to be a really good tool for them to predict aid and especially for kids who might be applying into a binding early decision.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, thank you. As we're running through these acronyms in these forms, one of the things a parent might do or a guardian might do as a helpful companion to the student's journey through the application process, make a spreadsheet and say, here are the colleges that are in contention, here are related deadlines, forms, requirements, and just put little check marks as you move forward. It's a useful tool to keep yourself organized, because as we're talking you start to realize, every college does not have the same requirements or the same deadlines. We might all share the common application, but what goes into it may be a little different place to place. And anyway, spreadsheets, I'm a geek, I love them, but I think this is a good moment to turn a checklist into that kind of organizing concept. And Erica, what's an expected family contribution?
Erica Rosales:
So this is what comes out of the FAFSA. So when you fill out your FAFSA, you will get an expected family contribution, which means this is what the federal government determined your family can afford to pay a college. So then colleges use that to decide how much need-based aid a student can be packaged with.
Lee Coffin:
And so would the three of you say for families for whom financial aid is going to be an essential ingredient to the college choice, is this an early senior fall to do? Should they be working on this now as opposed to waiting until later to get this organized or having this conversation parent to child?
Darryl Tiggle:
ASAP, we tell them now.
Lee Coffin:
Another acronym, ASAP. Yeah. Why, Darryl?
Darryl Tiggle:
Well, I mean, for many different reasons, just for budgeting and forecasting what this process will look like. And for my families, and we have pretty good conversations with my families, and if they're thinking about early decision and if they're families who will meet need, they're going to qualify for need-based aid I'll tell them, "You want to be able to ascertain that sooner than later because one of the things that won't change is your wealth or lack thereof throughout this process." So if you get an idea early on in the process, is early decision a yes-able proposition? Then you can move forward. Is it something that we think we need to be able to entertain different type of offers later in the process because the need-based aid is not going to get us where we need to be, so we need to... Knowing that, I think in October is a much more powerful position to be in than later in the process.
Lee Coffin:
So September checklist, get financial aid ducks in order if that's part of the search, and delay does not spell success as your process unfolds. Okay, that's really important. So Darryl, you mentioned in your very first comment that students are nervous about refining the list and writing the essay.
Darryl Tiggle:
Yes.
Lee Coffin:
Let's talk a little bit about, we're going to have a whole episode on writing essays, but for the checklist moment, what should a senior be doing in September by way of understanding the writing prompts that are required? You have the common app, the QuestBridge app, the coalition app, a main body essay and then lots of supplemental essays that gets sprinkled about, but really macro storytelling. How does a student start to think about putting fingers on a keyboard and answering these questions? First of all, I guess the question is, why are they nervous? And then the second question is, what should they start doing now by way of outlining their narrative?
Darryl Tiggle:
I guess I'll go with the why are they nervous part first. So what I think they're nervous about with the common app is telling their story and whether or not it's unique or special or different enough. I tell them, well, I go, "Think about your common app essay..." And sometimes they think it's a little weird. I go, "If you look at the questions, it doesn't mention college anywhere. It asks you about background, or obstacles, or belief system, what have you. Think about a message you'd want to send to someone you're going to spend the rest of your life with. They need to know about your background or what you believe in or what you're thankful of." So think about your common app personal statement as a statement about who you are as a person. And then when you write your supplemental essays, think about how your person intersects with what they're asking about, culture and community, what they're asking about academic direction.
Those essays are meant to tell the college why them? Where your common app personal statement is to tell the world really, why you? Why you're a compelling person. And I say running all those, this seems like it's a lot to do. If you've ever run or swim or taken something that requires endurance, the more you do it, just naturally, the better you get, the easier it is, and the more enjoyable it is. So I tell them, "Look, let's start churning these out because we have to." November one is coming and if you're applying to two schools, you're writing at least five essays. But you're probably applying to five schools, so we might have to write 10 essays, so let's start getting those writing stamina up and running.
Erica Rosales:
Yeah. But I think the most challenging part is getting them to start writing. And I see this with students, they see that word limit and for them it's kind of like a limiting factor. Like, "Oh my gosh, how am I going to write 650 words about me?" So it's really sitting down, this is what our College Match volunteers are experts at, sitting down, getting to know the students, and giving them the confidence that their story is unique. I can guarantee you every single one of my students thinks that everybody goes and helps their parents clean houses or that everybody goes and helps parents sell fruit on a corner. Like no, these are unique stories and obviously it's your life, so we take it for granted. We all take our own lives for granted.
So I need you to put it down on paper so that somebody who's helping you, somebody like me can say, "Wow, this is powerful." And then that gives you the confidence to continue writing about those things. And my daughter, same issue, she just doesn't want... She's like, "I have it all in here." I'm like, 'No, I need to see it on paper. You need to just start writing and forget about the word limit. Give me 2000 words, just write it all out." And one of the exercises that we do with our students is doing a 15 minute free write. And we still do pen and paper. I don't know. I know they love the computer. Now I can't believe I'm saying old school, but yeah, let's write it down on paper. Let's practice that muscle. Then we read it. We have another thing that we do with them, it's called the I Am From poem I'm sure you Google it and it gives them prompts.
They get to tell a little about their story and then when they read it out loud, they realize what great golden nuggets they have in their life that they can write about. Because I also tell them, "You don't want to repeat everything that's on your application." Don't tell us about being president of this. We already know that, it's in the resume. It's like what else are you going to add to your story? Every single part of that application is real estate. And when an admission officer is spending, I don't know, six minutes, maybe 10 minutes, you want to make that there is a new piece of information that adds to who you are and it humanizes you.
Lee Coffin:
Great advice about every piece is real estate that you need to own. Kate, what were you going to add?
Kate Boyle Ramsdell:
I was going to say pragmatically speaking, so less sort of the what, but maybe the how to get organized, I think people think in different ways. You might think in sort of a spreadsheet or a Google Doc or Microsoft Word doc and I say to my kids, why don't you open up every supplement that you're going to have to write and you're going to take that supplement and copy and paste it either into the column on the Google Doc or into your spreadsheet. And actually a little trick that a student taught me this year, which I liked, I've done this in different ways, but I loved his technique is he categorized his supplements into different things. So it might be why, it could be academic, it could be passion or co-curricular or unique was the other word that he used.
And then actually he could sort it, he would put the word count and he would get a real sense of, even though to Darryl's point, I might have 16 essays to write in my mind, when I'm looking at it this way, I have four categories for Dartmouth. I get 250 words, but for this other school I might only get 50. And so how am I going to do that? So it was just sort of a visual calming device in a lot of ways for kids, which I liked.
Lee Coffin:
I love that. And I would add as the college guy in this conversation, the word limits are not meant to be mean. When I was at Tufts, I had a student send me an email and he said, "You're killing me, you're asking me the answer to this question in 100 words or less, that's mean." And I emailed him back and I said, "No, I'm not being mean. It's a signal that this is not meant to be a long form answer and it's a skill to develop the ability to be concise." If it's 650 words or 1,000 words, then the invitation is to go a little longer. But even a 650 word statement is not a term paper. So you're learning how to answer a question in a way that is on point and within the boundaries the college is giving you. And honestly, at Dartmouth, we have a prompt that says in 250 words or less, I don't count. If you go 303 words, I don't know and I don't care.
If you go 803 words, I'm going to notice that that has many more paragraphs than we were asking for. But the word limits are clues about how much information we're asking you to share. But I like the idea of thinking about these thematically because another piece of advice around essays, it is, this is your moment to introduce your narrative into your file in whatever way you want. And Erica gave great points about, don't be bashful about your story, about your experience, about what you love, what makes you curious, your ambitions, put it out there and don't hesitate on, "Oh, I feel like I'm bragging." Go for it. But start writing. I think that's my September advice is don't sit through the night before a deadline. It's like, "Oh shoot, I've got two more essays to write." It's always easier to write 1,200 words and edit it down to 650 than to get writer's block at the buzzer.
Kate Boyle Ramsdell:
And there's going to be a time where you just have to put it to bed. That if you have perfectionist tendencies and you think you can edit and edit and edit and it's just going to get better, sometimes I'll say to kids like, they've written their soul out of the essay.
Lee Coffin:
So not too early to start sketching out essay responses, understanding what's required, testing out. I mean, you might start writing an essay and realize, "I don't like this." And they give you a way of backing up and starting over. Okay, so essays, storytelling, what about testing? So a lot of us are in test optional mode still. So there are some test dates coming in the fall. Should seniors sit for a test between now and the deadlines?
Erica Rosales:
If you have the time to prep for the test. So I would look at it as a commitment. So you're not going to just sign up and then show up on test day without having prep. So if you have the time to prep, then it could be a good use of your time. That's something that I learned through my daughter's high school that at some institutions there is a testing advantage.
Lee Coffin:
Can't hurt.
Kate Boyle Ramsdell:
No I'm with you. And I think you do, you weigh it against everything else you have to do this fall. And you try to think about do I have the time I need, as Erica said, to prep on top of my coursework, my co-curriculars, these college apps I have to write? But for some kids, they still have some gas in the tank and they still have the ability to improve. And for some kids, maybe their best work is going to come in testing. Maybe they got more math under their belt that they didn't have before. It just sort of depends. But I don't think it's a lost cause. I would argue that November is really your last testing date for regular decision and September and October probably for early.
Lee Coffin:
And so for our friends out there who might be from schools that don't have a very well-built guidance department or they're not in an access organization like College Match. How does someone prep? And I was this kid. No one told me to go get a test prep book and practice. So if you're hearing this and saying, "Oh I could prep?" How do they do that? Where do they go? Or is it too late?
Darryl Tiggle:
Yeah, I think as it's been said before, you've got to find out whether or not you have the time. And to the extent that you are self-directed enough that you might be able to use some of the online or free resources, those do exist. They will still take time to accomplish test. Prep does exist at a, you can hire test prep and it's at different levels of cost. But again, it'll still take the same amount of time to do so. So I tell students if they're looking to prep, research some of the organizations or resources around test prep and see if they fit into your schedule and whether or not you can afford to do so. And then just know pre-test prep through Khan Academy, through the college board offering pre-practice tests, those things exist and are available to you.
So I tell students to think about that. But as my friends have said, think about the time that it might take away from the other things that are going to go into your application that might shine more brightly than your next test score. So I often tell my students, for those who can have as frank a conversation with me and they haven't tested yet, I go, "I think we already know if testing is going to be our sword in this journey." And if they agreed with me that it's not, I go, "Go get an A in calculus, go get an A in Spanish."
Lee Coffin:
So this happens every once in a while, gang, where the conversation eats up more minutes than a normal episode would. So—surprise—you're going to be my guests on back-to-back episodes of Admission Beat. And for listeners, my crew of Darryl, Erica, and Kate will return next week for a second iteration of Admission Checklist for Nervous Seniors.
So for now, this is Lee Coffin from Dartmouth College. Thanks for listening. See you next week.
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