Season 4: Episode 6 Transcript
Acceptance: A Conversation with Author Emi Nietfeld
Lee Coffin:
From Hanover, New Hampshire. I'm Lee Coffin, Dartmouth's Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid. And this is The Admissions Beat.
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So we've been talking about storytelling and inviting high school seniors to think about the narrative of themselves they want to introduce into their application so that the colleges on their list get to know the person that accompanies the transcript. So we talk a lot about academic achievement, but we also are shaping communities and we want the people in our classes to bring personality and point of view and perspective, a life story, to the campus we're building.
So last week we had a conversation about the art of narrative, writing your story, bringing yourself intentionally forward. This week we're going to lean into that a little further, and an author joins us who penned a memoir about her own journey from high school and home to the college of her dreams. And she looks back at that experience with some wistfulness, and maybe—I don't want to say regret—but maybe a way of thinking, "Would I do it differently if I did it again knowing what I now know?" And so for our friends in high school, we welcome Emi Nietfeld to Admissions Beat this week to share some thoughts from her bestselling memoir, Acceptance. And when we return, we'll meet Emi and have a really interesting conversation about memoir and essays, narrative, and the perils of overcoming. So we'll be right back.
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So Emi, welcome to Admissions Beat. It's so nice to have you as our very first author on Admissions Beat.
Emi Nietfeld:
Thank you so much, Lee. I'm so glad to be here.
Lee Coffin:
For those of you who have not read her book yet, let me introduce Emi and her book. So she's the author of Acceptance, which was named a Best Book of 2022 by NPR, and it follows Emi's quest to get into college from foster care and homelessness while interrogating American narratives of "overcoming". A former software engineer at Google, Emi writes about inequality, mental health, and education for The Atlantic, The Nation, Slate, and elsewhere. Her New York Times op-ed, "I edited mental illness out of my college applications. I'm not alone," sparked fierce debate in admission circles. A frequent speaker on campuses, Emi lives in New York City with her family.
So Emi, let's start with, I'll turn the mic over to you, tell us a little bit about your origin story.
Emi Nietfeld:
I grew up in Minnesota. My family was middle class evangelical, but when I was 10 years old, everything kind of fell apart. My parents got divorced and that revealed really deep cracks in their mental health. One of my parents moved across the country and I was left with my mom, who really struggled with hoarding. And her problems ended up really affecting me. I was taken to the doctor, diagnosed with ADHD and then depression, and I was prescribed more than a dozen psychiatric drugs in a little over two years.
I wrote my book about this period of my adolescence and high school where I wound up spending my freshman year in a locked residential treatment center, one of those places that you see in movies with bars over the windows where there was really no school and just very punitive therapy. But when I was there, I became obsessed with college as my way out. And for the rest of high school I was in foster care before I won a scholarship to go to boarding school. But during school breaks, I had nowhere to go. I couldn't go home. And so I ended up couch-surfing, sleeping in my car, staying at a shelter.
And the whole time my biggest stress was how am I going to get into college? How am I going to sell myself in these college application essays to really get my ticket out of here? And it was especially difficult with "How do you explain this complicated set of circumstances?" and how am I supposed to handle these mental health aspects of the story. I had really good grades, I had good test scores, but I wasn't the most exceptional student in the world. I knew that I was going to have to give colleges that context in order to be a competitive applicant. And I also knew that I really needed a full ride, and that meant going to one of very few colleges that were going to be able to meet my full financial need. So the pressure was really, really on.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. So you had the pressure both of just getting in, but also being able to afford it while you were essentially on your own?
Emi Nietfeld:
Yeah, which unfortunately is so common.
Lee Coffin:
Very common. And it's why I think this conversation today is really helpful to so many high school seniors who will hear their own story in what you just described, either fully or in part. So let's get a little bit more background. So you went to boarding school, you went to Interlochen in Michigan. How did you end up there?
Emi Nietfeld:
When I was in foster care, my safe space was the photography lab at high school. I was very lucky to go do an amazing public school and my photography teacher let me stay every night while she was there. She was one of the only people at school who knew that I was in foster care. I was very ashamed. I wasn't going to tell anyone, but I had to tell her when there was a fee for class and I didn't have the $30 to pay it.
So one afternoon while we were working together there, she asked me, "Have you ever thought about going to summer camp?" And it had never really occurred to me that that could be an option in my life at that point. But she was like, "There's some photography camps out there and if you want to apply, I'll write you a letter, do whatever you need." And so that got my wheels turning. I knew about this place called Interlochen that has a magical summer camp, and I ended up applying. It was very hard to get there. My foster parents did not want me to go. They ended up telling me that if I left for camp, they would give away my spot. I would have to find a new foster home because they wouldn't be receiving the money for it and they relied on that income as part of their life.
And so I went away, wasn't exactly sure what was going to happen next. But while I was there, I was really encouraged, again, encouraged to apply. "Interlochen has a boarding school, you should go." And after a lot of people telling me to do that, I did. And they gave me a scholarship, and that was the moment when I was like, "Okay, maybe I can go to the type of school that I've dreamed about and the type of place that really can meet my financial need and get me out of this precarious situation."
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. Well, as I'm listening to you share that journey, what's striking is summer camp was a doorway that you walked through and boarding school was another doorway that opened off a summer camp, and then college kind of Lego'ed off of those two. And it's these tiny moments, one by one, are very additive to someone's journey.
Emi Nietfeld:
Absolutely. And just having the adults in your life.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, no, and I think that's all by itself a really important piece of advice for high school seniors and juniors who are listening who may be wondering, "How do I move forward?" And it could be a teacher, it could be someone from your church, could be a neighbor, could be an aunt, could be a guidance counselor. But there's adults around us who I think are resources that don't always come to mind as allies to help you reach for your dreams. Throughout your memoir, you identify college as this aspirational almost lottery ticket, where if you can get it, your life will change. Where did that idea take hold for you?
Emi Nietfeld:
My family had this mythology around college. My mom as a kid had dreamed about going to Stanford, and she told me about this dream all the time. When she was growing up in Minnesota, it was her plan for her whole future. She was going to go to Stanford, she was going to become a doctor, do neurosurgery, and just have this beautiful idyllic life. And then when she did apply, she was rejected. But the narrative that I grew up learning was that she was almost accepted. And whenever anything was going bad in our lives, she would say, "I almost got into Stanford, and if I had gotten into Stanford, everything would be different."
And I think to a lot of people, the story sounds a little crazy, but when you're a kid and your parent's telling a story like this, you really take it at face value. And I think that there was more truth to it than I could recognize where in fact, a lot of the things that were happening in our family, like this divorce and my mom's hoarding, they really were tied to this financial pressure that we were facing as a newly working class family with a single mom.
And so it almost was a no-brainer to me that this is a way out. And I feel very grateful that I have that because a lot of people in my situation who have been in foster care or who are involved in residential treatment centers, they don't have that family history of attending college. And so that's definitely a leg up that I had that most first gen students, for example, don't have.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, no, you're right. Well, and in Slate from August of 2022, there was a excerpt from your memoir and it said, "When I was a homeless 16-year-old, I learned that my chance at upward mobility hinged on marketing. I had just spent weeks bouncing between people's sofas punctuated by several nights sleeping in an unheated stairwell while the Minnesota wind chill dipped to negative 20 degrees. When I'd returned to the boarding school I attended on scholarship, I'd immediately headed to the library more certain than ever that college was my only way out, but equally unsure of how to get in."
First of all, you write beautifully. So I was reading that and I thought, "This is poetic. It's beautiful." So just as an act of writing, the nerd in me who appreciates the quality of writing in someone's application, that really makes me smile. But it also sets the stage. You focused in on what comes next as opportunity. And I think that's a really important word to center this from because I think some people ask, "Why do I go to college? Is it worth it?" And there's many stories bubbling up in the media right now about the worth of college to which my first gen self says it's unquestionably worth it. But even beyond that first gen background, I think for all of us, college is a gateway to your future.
I wonder, Emi, if you could read the next paragraph in that Slate story, because I think it sets up this conversation about narrative and storytelling really well?
Emi Nietfeld:
"There in the library nestled among the test prep tomes, I discovered my new favorite book, Rock Hard Apps, written by an ageless celebrity admissions consultant whose students called her. Dr. Kat, taught me that every successful applicant to the top schools had a shtick, legacy, recruited athlete, organ player. The fictional characters in the book snagged their admissions letters by packaging themselves, transforming their high school careers into attractive narratives. My only conceivable selling point was the awful things I triumphed over with courage and metal. Although I hadn't exactly overcome those circumstances, they were ongoing, yet it appeared that in order to escape my past, I'd need to package it first."
Lee Coffin:
So as you read that and think about it, how do you feel as you revisit those words?
Emi Nietfeld:
I feel kind of sick to my stomach, putting myself back in that situation.
Lee Coffin:
Why?
Emi Nietfeld:
It was just so painful. I mean I was in the middle of a train wreck and I was learning in a way about how cruel the world can be and about the reality of marketing yourself. And I think part of it was so painful because not only was I sleeping in my car or figuring out what friend in what state could I possibly stay with and how am I going to get there and how long will they let me stay, but when you're a teenager, you're kind of obsessed with identity, with authenticity. Those are just normal developmental questions to be asking. But at least for me, I felt like this college admissions process, it demanded me to portray myself in a way that didn't feel completely accurate.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. Well, in the book, you have a line, you say, "Colleges demanded to know who I was. Who was I? I was hungry. I hadn't eaten since the day before, a protein bar after a surgery. Who was I? I wanted to cry. I didn't know." And I read that as a dean, but also as an admission officer for almost three decades, and that question, "Who are you?", is when we ask all the time. We put it out there as something as fundamental as the ABCs. You're an applicant, you tell your story, who are you? And what you're saying back is, "I don't know who I am."
Emi Nietfeld:
And I mean what high school student does know who they are? And maybe a lot too, but having this conversation, it feels like a luxury to be in a place in your life where you can solidly say, "This is who I am." As I was writing Acceptance, I became very aware of the way that going through certain systems made it hard to tell the story because I had been through this residential treatment center, which was a very punitive facility, and it was the type of place where every night we had these group confessions that were supposed to be therapy but you basically had to list, "Here's everything I've done wrong. I take full responsibility for it and not blame anyone else," even when frankly other people are to blame. We were 13, 14, some people were 12 years old, and were victims of serious abuse. But I came from a world in which everything was my fault, and so when I was asked to write a college application where I was this triumphant survivor, it felt very false to the narratives that I had been told.
Lee Coffin:
I want to come back to the triumphant survivor point because I think that's a really important one. But as you think about storytelling and storytelling as framed by a college application, I mean you're several years out of college now, so with the wisdom of your 20s as you look back, I mean do you see a role for narrative in a college application? And if you could go back to your 17-year-old self at Interlochen, would you tackle this question differently or would you do it the same way?
Emi Nietfeld:
I think I would've done it the same way. I just wish that I had known that it's a really big game. And for me, that rhetoric about show the committee who you are, just be yourself in the applications, for me that language was really harmful because I was not in a position where I could honestly do that because things in my life were still so crappy. And so for me, if I could go back and tell my teenage self anything, it would be this is a storytelling contest. But there's a lot of stories that make up a life, and there's only certain ones that are going to work here.
But the fact that it felt so uncomfortable and wrong to me, it doesn't mean that the story was false. In my college application, I ended up telling the story where I had been in foster care, my parents had these mental health problems, but where I wasn't talking about my own mental health problems, where I really was showing "here's the ways that other people's behavior impacted me, and here are the ways that I overcame it and thrived despite these circumstances." At the time, it felt like totally lying. But the interesting thing is in the years that followed, I began to realize the truth of it and that I had kind of inadvertently for myself written this alternate version of the story where everything wasn't my fault and where I really was strong. And I started to identify with that more and more and started to let myself off the hook. So in the end, I'm really glad that I wrote that story because it was what I needed to do to move forward.
Lee Coffin:
And do you remember ... So you found the book Rock Hard Apps, which I think is witty, and it became a resource for you. How did it help get you organized? Again in the advice to high school seniors this year, what did that book illuminate for you as a way of tackling a question that was painful in your example and challenging to do?
Emi Nietfeld:
Primarily, it helped me understand that every applicant has red flags. Every person has done things that they wouldn't necessarily want a college to see, and that it was totally normal to craft an application where you're putting your situation into context and portraying yourself in a forgiving light. And I think a little more practically, I was really, really overwhelmed by having to write all of these different essays for all of these different schools.
But eventually with the help of my college counselor, I figured out, "Okay, I really only need to write two or three essays about two or three different topics, and then I'll just edit those for the word count and everything like that." And it became a lot more manageable to be like, "I'm going to distill down my experience." And in my case, I use the section of the Common App that we called it the Letter of Extenuating Circumstances, where it was a section where it's like, "Give us more context that you hasn't been in your essays and stuff."
And so actually when I wrote my essays, that was not where I gave the nitty-gritty details about my life. Instead, my essays were about like one of my parents came out as trans, what was that transition like for me? And another one was about photography, and it did mention foster care, but because I used that section for circumstances, I was able to express something more positive and more fun for me to write as well in the actual essay portion.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. Well, and you also in both of the examples you gave, you turned it back to yourself. I think one of the traps a lot of students tumble into as they're writing college essays is they write about someone else. And that someone else might be a really important part of your life, but it's not your story necessarily. And even when you used your trans parent as an example, you turned it and said, what did this mean for me? And I think to listeners, a really important piece of this is narrative that is self-reflective is the opportunity. And whether it's a happy story or a challenging story, if you're smiling or crying while you're writing it, what are you sharing about yourself with a college that may become your community next year? Does that sound right as you think back on it?
Emi Nietfeld:
Yeah, that's such a good point.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. I mean what's so striking about your story, Emi, is you had so much going on while you were in high school. The longer we talk and you add another, "Oh, and this happened. Oh, and this happened," and you didn't even get to the "there were dirty feather boas" in your house, which I thought was such a vivid visual when I read it, that part of the hoarding were feather boas. But you have a lot of this color commentary in some ways that could overwhelm your story and you could lose yourself in that storytelling. But you were really focused, I mean you talk about teenage Emi studying hard enough would not be the road to safety, that the story had to be more of a propellant in this journey. Talk about that a little bit, I mean that marriage of achievement with narrative.
Emi Nietfeld:
Yeah. I was always a book person. I loved school. I loved homework. I actually even loved studying for standardized tests. It made me feel so calm, it felt so objective, and I was so aware that, "Okay, I'm sitting here in this locked facility with a library ACT book, but I can still study for this just like a rich girl living next to the lake in Minnetonka can." And so I hoped that that could be my path because it was so vulnerable and people use words like re-traumatizing to really go in there and let me sell my story to try to get a free ride.
And it was really devastating to me when I thought that these grades and test scores, given my circumstances, that that's going to be enough. People will see, "Okay, she was in these places," but it really wasn't. I had to show that I had been made stronger by all these things that had happened to me. And I don't think that this is a problem in particular with college admissions as much as with American culture, where we are really obsessed with the idea that everything that happens in life can be made for the better, and that if you just face your obstacles with enough metal, you will be a stronger person for it.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. Well, I'm nodding because the reviewers of your book often pointed to that, that you were tackling what NPR called "the gospel of grit," that as you overcome adversity, there's this silver lining always on the other side of it.
Emi Nietfeld:
Yeah, absolutely. And I think maybe it would've been helpful to me if I could have framed it a little more as "what does it mean to tell a good story?" And not necessarily a Disney story, but just a story where something happens, someone's changed, where the protagonist has wants and desires and actions, and acts on it that has a satisfying conclusion.
And my main essay, which was about my parent's gender transition, it actually didn't have a happy ending at all. That parent moved away across the country and I never saw her again, and that was how my essay ended. And so it wasn't exactly like Pollyanna-ish in any way, shape, or form, but there was clear growth. And I think that the writing itself had a lot of spirit and that you're sometimes ... I think we can be really obsessed with what does the essay say that I did? Did I write an essay that shows I volunteer or that shows some concrete action that a student took? And I'm not an admissions officer, but as a reader, I think sometimes we learn the most from someone by the way they tell it.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, 100%. It's the telling. There's also some beauty in small topics. I do essay workshops a lot, and on the pod I've been known to say, "Every essay does not need to be all caps, "The meaning of life." It could be I'm sitting here having a cup of peppermint tea as we record this, and maybe the essay is about peppermint tea. And from that beautiful, poignant topic, I learned something about you as an applicant. So I think the danger in narrative is that every syllable of it has to pack a punch, or I wanted to talk a little bit about the point you raised around overcoming, that everything does not need to be overcome, that adversity in and of itself is not something an admission committee expects of every applicant.
It sounded like you thought that though for a while, that you have a line that you have, "The admission committees were expecting me to say something." And I'm wondering where the cartoon character that I can sometimes be in the minds of high school seniors. I mean, what made you think that I wanted, or I'm saying I, I didn't read your application, but where did that idea come from that the committee expected you to say something as opposed to saying what was in your heart?
Emi Nietfeld:
I think part of it was that the reality at the time frankly was pretty bad. Once I started applying to college, it took a big toll on my mental health. And I had struggled with an eating disorder, that really flared up. I was very depressed, and I just knew this is not what people want to choose for their college campus. And so I think that really what I was grappling with is how much of the truth do you tell? And I was like, "If I put all of that out there, that is not going to end well for me."
And I think it's a lot easier when you're an adult to be like, "Okay, I wasn't doing great at that moment in time. It was really stressful. It was a hard period. But on the whole, I have gotten through this. I did get myself to this boarding school. I have managed to get these grades and excel academically despite these circumstances." It's easier to give yourself that credit. And I think when you're a teenager, there's a big risk where all is your life so far. And it hasn't been that long. And I think I was really caught up in how I was feeling at that exact moment and it was just literally impossible to see the bigger picture because I didn't have that lens yet.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, no, and that's it. And knowing that the story you're telling, in whatever way you choose to share it, gives us insights that you may not even realize you're giving us. And a bit ago we tackled the gospel of grit, but grit is not an insignificant quality in any human being or especially a high school student, to be able to pick yourself up and keep moving forward and to ... I hear the story you're telling and I think, "What are the adjectives I would use to describe the person I'm meeting?" and it's like resilience comes through, focus comes through, determination comes through, optimism comes through. Even though your life is pretty "crappy," in your words, you still had a happy vision of what comes next as a possibility. And there's a hopefulness there hiding within some of the things you were wrestling with. Do you see that now?
Emi Nietfeld:
Yeah, I definitely see that now. And talking about this, it seems like there's such a strong role that adults play, whether it's teachers or mentors or parents, in just helping young people to see those positive parts of themselves.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, and to not get lost in the moment. That's probably a poem, Lost in the Moment, where you can overthink the moment and you get immobilized by it. And I think the big danger as we're having this conversation as high school seniors starting to type out their Common Apps literally right now, is the overthinking can be an impediment to a really lovely narrative. And it also I think generates the worry that we've talked about in previous episodes where it's like, "I have to be perfect," or, "I'm 17, I have to have answered the question or overcome the challenge," or, "No, it's an "-ing" moment, not an "-ed" moment. It's happening. It hasn't happened. Because where are you in your life? Like you said, you haven't lived that long, and there's some loveliness to being young and still being able to imagine, "Okay, how do I knit together a plan?"
And through the application, especially if you're applying like you were to very selective places, I mean you positioned yourself in the toughest lane for everybody because of the volume and the odds of admission. And talk a little bit about that to high school seniors who have similar lists and are very focused on places like the one where I work as, "My yellow brick road must bring me there or I have failed." I mean did you ever think that when you were at Interlochen like, "If I don't get into Harvard or one of these other places, this ended poorly for me"?
Emi Nietfeld:
Yeah, I did think that a lot where I felt like I had given up a lot to be at boarding school and be shooting my shot for Harvard and Yale and Penn. In some ways for me, it was really practical where I needed this full ride. I did not want to go into massive debt, and I didn't even know how student loans worked, so I didn't believe I would be able to get student loans if I needed them. And so it did feel like, okay, these are my main options.
Something that was really helpful to me is my counselor really emphasized having reach schools, target schools, and safety schools. And I'm sure this is old news to your podcast listeners, but part of why that was helpful to me is that I really had to dig a little bit deeper in the college lists to find what those target schools and safety schools would be. And for me, that ended up taking the form of women's colleges. So I applied to Smith, Wellesley, and Mount Holyoke, and I actually became really, really excited about them. And so I knew, "Okay, if I don't get into one of these Ivys, this would be a really good option for me that I'm actually excited about." And frankly, that would give me something that Harvard or Yale was not going to give me.
Lee Coffin:
Which was what?
Emi Nietfeld:
The community, the empowerment. I have so many good friends now who went to these women's colleges and I'm like, "I probably would've been happier if I had gone to one of those."
Lee Coffin:
Well, I pushed you there, Emi, because I think that's one of the ... I talked about the cartoon character that is a college admission officer. I think there's a similar fiction around some of the Ivys and places like it that they are nirvana. And that I've said from time to time, Utopia College has not been founded yet, and all campuses have many moving parts to them. And the most important thing you do is an applicant when you're deciding where to enroll is assessing the fit. Where do I feel most comfortable? And sometimes the bright lights of the name don't link up with that comfort. And I think a lot of people ignore that sometimes and say, "I got in."
I'm reminded as we're talking, I was a freshman proctor at Harvard in the late '80s, early '90s, and one of my students came from Minnesota like you, and had turned down the University of Minnesota, come to Harvard, and regretted it. And I said to him, "Why do you have regret?" And he goes, "Ah. I saw myself at UM, but everyone told me I was going to make a big mistake if I didn't grab the lottery ticket." And I raise that now because these are wonderful places so it wasn't like one was a bad choice, one was a better choice, but the personal choice is the thing that matters as part of this admission process.
And I wonder, you were so focused on what you saw as the safety of a place like Harvard, or as a first gen student myself, I know some of my first-gen kin will see that degree as a credibility going forward. You get it and you've been certified. And does that, you got it, you went through it, you ended up at Google. So you were successful by a definition of success, but you looking backwards a little bit and seeing the women's colleges as maybe a happier space for yourself at that point in your life.
Emi Nietfeld:
Yeah. And to be fair, the women's colleges have great financial aid. In my case, it wasn't quite as good as Harvard, but it was going to be doable. For me, Harvard, it did give me that security that I really wanted and needed. Their financial aid programs for students who didn't have family support were not perfect, but they did cover a lot of bases that I hadn't even realized I needed. They have a winter coat fund where they send students on full aid a check at the beginning of their freshman year to go buy rain boots and a puffer. And that was what I knew that I really needed that to feel just as secure as possible. And even once I was on campus, I was obsessed with, "Okay, how am I going to get a job? What is my career going to be? When can I get dental insurance?" But that's not every student's path.
Lee Coffin:
No, but you're raising pragmatic issues. So when I talk about Utopia College, Utopia, you still have to do your laundry and you still have to brush your teeth and you still have to do all the things we do every day. And I think in the pursuit of a dream, people can forget that the dream includes ... I mean, the worst part of the book, Emi, was when you talked about the admission officers who haunted you in your sleep. And I thought, "Oh no, there's these awful, again, avatars of doom hovering around your teenage bedroom." Right?
Emi Nietfeld:
Yeah. I was hanging out with my college admissions officer last week, the person who wrote me a little note saying, "I hope you come to Harvard."
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, and we're not bad people.
Emi Nietfeld:
Some of you aren't. No place is perfect.
Lee Coffin:
No place is perfect. And there's a takeaway here, everyone. You're going into a multidimensional community with, especially today I think as we've all diversified our campuses, with lots of different people from around the planet. You come together in this class, in this community, and that tension that is organically sparked by difference is not a bad thing, but it's something to savor. And I come back to the narrative part of this is it's your job as an applicant to highlight your story. Where does your difference sit, if you have it? What makes you smile? And where have you won and where are you still thinking about it?
I want to go to ... So your book was published by Penguin, and on their website, they have a book group discussion guide that I printed out. I want to ask you a couple of book group questions just to see what you would say. So one of them is, this is for Emi, "Getting into college seemed like her best path to upward mobility and personal agency." Looking back, was it your best path to upward mobility?
Emi Nietfeld:
I think for me it was.
Lee Coffin:
Okay.
Emi Nietfeld:
Yeah. And I think that's a lot about the way America's structured for better or for worse. And I'm so grateful for these conversations about what is college for and what obstacles have we been putting in place artificially for people who didn't go to college? I think those are really important questions. And for me, I really benefited from not only going to college, but going to a residential college that had a decent amount of support and handholding to play the role that my parents were not playing and were not able to play.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. So that sparks a question to you. So let's rewind, I'm guessing your high school class of 2011?
Emi Nietfeld:
2010.
Lee Coffin:
2010. Okay.
Emi Nietfeld:
I took a gap year.
Lee Coffin:
Okay. Okay, took a gap year. So it's 12-ish, 13, 12, 13 years ago. Let's go back in time. So you're at Interlochen and you're looking at college admission. What advice would you give yourself? This ghost from the future comes back and says, "Hey, Emi."
Emi Nietfeld:
I wish I had had a kind mentor figure who could tell me that what I was going through was normal, that all my angst was normal, and also that the ways I had struggled with mental health were normal. Something that was probably the biggest challenge for me was figuring out what do I say about my psychiatric background in these applications?
And I write about it in Acceptance that for the early rounds, I applied to Yale and I mentioned I was in this residential treatment center, I have been hospitalized, I have PTSD. And I was rejected. And so when I applied regular decision, I completely cut it out. I was based on the way my grades had been reported, I didn't have to mention that I had been in that facility and spent ninth grade there. And so it just wasn't a part of it. And at the time, that felt very dishonest to me, but I wish that I had recognized that was my private health information. There were reasons and circumstances that I was going through what I was going through, but I didn't owe anybody my personal details.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, that's true. And someone asked me this question just the other day, how much to share? And my response was, "Whatever you choose to share. If you want this piece of yourself to be part of the application and the way we meet you and you feel it is essential to knowing who you are and how you got here, share it." It's also illegal for us to hold it against an applicant when they do share. But I think the question I always have as a reader is, does this environment set the student up for success? And that's a very tough question to ask and answer case by case, but you're right. What you put in is your call.
And this is true for students who have learning differences. I had another mom say, "My daughter's dyslexic," and I said, "You can share that or not. I'm not looking for that answer, but if you want to put it in because it's part of someone's story and it helps me understand." But as I listen to you recount the Yale outcome, I can imagine based on the windup to apply to college and the hopefulness you attached to it, that was a moment. But again, back to the word grit and resilience, which is perhaps overused, but I think there's an example. You kept going.
Emi Nietfeld:
Yeah.
Lee Coffin:
Did you turn the storytelling in any way though? Did you retain some of those themes but maybe present it in a slightly different way, or did you just delete it completely?
Emi Nietfeld:
Well, I had very little time. I think I had two weeks.
Lee Coffin:
Couple weeks, yeah.
Emi Nietfeld:
And so I removed the diagnosis. I removed being in this residential treatment center. I just said I started high school in the Minneapolis public schools, in 10th grade I went to foster care, and that was it. It was just a little act of omission. And then after that I was like, "Wow, it wasn't that hard. And maybe it's not actually as important to my story as I thought it was."
Lee Coffin:
Mm-hmm, that's interesting. As we wrap our conversation, what's your best advice to students who are listening who come from complicated backgrounds, we'll say, in whatever way someone wants to define that? If you can send them a little note, what would you tell them as a hopeful little tweet from their future?
Emi Nietfeld:
If you've been in situations like I've been in, there have been a lot of times where you've felt that you weren't good enough and that you had done things fundamentally wrong, that you were not the type of person that people would want on campus or in their life. And I just wish for you that you can approach the college application process thinking about the kindest possible adults telling you, "You are worthy, you are a good person. There is going to be a place for you and a place where you feel welcome and you feel wanted," and that no matter what things you might've done that you feel ashamed about, those things do not have to define you or even really follow you into your future.
So I would just urge anybody in that situation to give yourself grace and to recognize that you deserve as much grace as the person who comes from the perfect family at the fanciest school who will have every excuse made for them and be told again and again how wonderful they are. We all deserve that, every single person.
Lee Coffin:
Well, and the title of your book, Acceptance, at least in one definition, is about being accepted into college, but it's also about accepting yourself.
Emi Nietfeld:
Absolutely.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. So Emi, thank you so much for joining us on Admissions Beat and telling your story and for writing such a poignant, beautiful memoir.
Emi Nietfeld:
Thank you so much for having me, Dean Coffin.
Lee Coffin:
Oh yeah, you're welcome. And for listeners who are intrigued, it's Acceptance by Emi Nietfeld, and it is a Penguin book, one of NPRs Best Books of 2022. And as the Cleveland Review of Books said, "In breaking from the Cinderella story convention of social mobility memoirs, Acceptance achieves exceptional candor and beauty," and I would put an exclamation point on that.
We'll be back next week for another episode of Admissions Beat. For now, I'm Lee Coffin from Dartmouth College. Thanks for listening.