Season 5: Episode 16 Transcript
Finishing Strong: Year-End Thoughts and Summer Homework for Rising (and Graduating) Seniors
Lee Coffin:
From Hanover, New Hampshire, I'm Lee Coffin, Dartmouth's dean of admissions and financial aid, and this is the season finale of Admissions Beat.
Final exams, proms, AP exams. Summer, here we are. Schools are starting to wrap up. The beach looks fun. We are at that point in the calendar where, late May, early June means another school year has come and gone. That also means another admissions cycle is moving into its siesta. It doesn't mean we're all taking a nap, but it means there's a little bit of a lull in the process, as people discover, and visit, and ponder, and take a break. Myself included.
This week, we wrap season five with a conversation about how to wrap things up, how to get ready for what comes next when September lands on our calendar and the admission process reignites. Season finale, we will ponder some of the headlines, some of the to-dos over the summer, and some thoughts as the admissions cycle shifts from the high school Class of '24, who should now have a home, to the Class of '25. For those of you doing the math, that's the college Class of 2029. Hello, thirties, you are in the rearview mirror gaining speed. But we'll be focusing on the '25s and how the rising seniors rise to this moment as the college admission process brings you forth. When I come back, Jacques Steinberg will join me once again for our season ending conversation. I'll be right back.
(Music)
Hello, Jacques.
Jacques Steinberg:
Hello, Lee. I love to think of the Admissions Beat, in part, as a brick-and-mortar counseling office. What if we were at …pick your high school… and you as our head of college counseling, and these are your final office hours of the school year. I think of the juniors in your caseload, I think of the seniors in your caseload, and their parents and the other adults in their life. Over the course of this episode, love the idea of you taking stock of also leaving each of those folks with some homework for the summer.
Lee Coffin:
Some summer reading, if you will. Every year, I get to this moment in May and things start to quiet down. It doesn't mean we're fully done. The class is still shifting, as people take gap years and there's some wait list activity from year to year. But more or less, one cycle has completed and another has started, but we also have this end of school, junior year moment where there's other things to do. The juniors are a little busy so they're not on campus. There's a bit of a quiet moment so I'm happy to take stock.
For listeners, I should reintroduce you to Jacques. Jacques Steinberg, former New York Times reporter and editor, author of The College Conversation, with my former colleague, Eric Furda, who was the dean at Penn, a guide for parents on navigating college admission, returns for, I've stopped counting how many times you've popped onto Beat with me. But I'm always happy to have you.
What do you want to talk about, Jacques?
Jacques Steinberg:
Let's start, before we drill down for some of our particular audiences, in the spirit of a year in review. I know you've been taking stock in your role as the dean of admission and financial aid at Dartmouth, and also a citizen of the access world. But others have been taking stock as well.
On May 1st, the New York Times published an opinion piece under the following headline, "This is Peak College Admissions Insanity." The author is Daniel Currell, who is described as a lawyer and consultant, who was deputy undersecretary and senior advisor at the Department of Education from 2018 to '21. I just want to read you the first paragraph, I know you read this piece, and then have you comment on it.
Mr. Currell writes: "Selective college admissions have been a vortex of anxiety and stress for what seems like forever."
Lee Coffin:
Can I just interrupt you, Jacques, and say—talk about an opening sentence. I hear you say it and I read it, I'm like, "Oh, what must we?" But go ahead, sorry.
Jacques Steinberg:
Yeah. "Selective college admissions have been a vortex of anxiety and stress for what seems like forever, inducing panic in more top high school students each year. But the '23-'24 admission season was not just an incremental increase in the frantic posturing and high pressure guesswork that make this annual ritual seem like academic Hunger Games. This year was different. A number of factors, some widely discussed, some little notice combined to push the process into a new realm in which the old rules didn't apply and even the gatekeepers seemed not to know what the new rules were."
Your thoughts? Was that your experience? Was that your reality, sitting where you're sitting?
Lee Coffin:
At the risk of sounding like an old-timey person, poppycock. That is such ... I'm pausing because I'm trying to think of how I want to characterize it. It's too much. I have said on this pod, but people who know me all year, yeah there were moving parts this year. There were some big factors, like a Supreme Court decision that removed race as one factor among many, delays in the free application for federal student aid that really challenged families and colleges to get financial aid awards produced and considered, SATs started to come back into the story, yada, yada, yada. Every cycle has admissions news. It's why this podcast is called Admissions Beat. The beat. The news of the work I do has been part of the work I do since I started doing it.
What has always frustrated me are stories like this one, which families read, especially parents. "Peak admissions insanity, vortex of anxiety, panic, frantic, high pressure, academic Hunger Games, the old rules don't apply." How could you read that and not feel anxious? I think my job, on this podcast and as the admission officer generally, is to turn the temperature back down and to be reassuring, to translate. And to say I understand why stories like this one appear, there are a lot of moving parts. I want rising seniors and their families to know the old rules still apply. That sentence, "The old rules don't apply, even the gatekeepers seem to not know what the new rules are." We do. They're just a bit more elastic than they may have been.
In the framing of selective college admissions, we're still reading holistically, we're still considering merit, we're still meeting students one-by-one, we're still inviting you to tell your story. Some of the elements may have shifted around. But I have said to you on several episodes, I didn't go in and out of this admissions cycle and think, "Wow, this feels really different." Do you remember what I kept saying?
Jacques Steinberg:
Yes. Each time that I might say how fundamentally different this year seems to be, you would gently push back, that the process was actually holding. You mentioned the word "holistic." Dartmouth, like dozens of other highly selective institutions, continues to practice the holistic admissions process.
For somebody who may be joining this podcast for the first time, it may be their first episode, just a quick definition of the holistic admissions process and the degree to which it endures.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. The holistic review has been a practice for a century. It evolved into really the gold standard of selective college admission, where we invite multiple factors through the application for multiple definitions of merit. Something I said last week at a panel I did was the application is a whole document, but that document includes multiple sections. Each section is an invitation to tell your story through it. And to imagine, "What's the storyline I want to introduce through this part of an application?" Then as a college admission officer, we read it, we knit it all together and the whole is comprised of many parts. Merit can live in all of them, some of them, some more than others. You help us understand that and that's how we meet an applicant, one-by-one, through multiple factors. It's not just the data.
People love to go to GPA and testing as the two most important pieces, those are two fundamental pieces. But when you're in a very selective realm, those are two factors among many that often don't determine the final result. But that's for season six.
Holistic means you're a jigsaw puzzle that has a lot of pieces.
Jacques Steinberg:
In a moment, we'll turn to the juniors and their families, and some of your advice for how to wrestle with, make peace with some of the anxiety and stress that is a part of this process.
But let's first turn, if you will, to the high school seniors in our audience, where they're at, and what your advice is for them and their families this summer as they transition from high school to college.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. Seniors. It is May. It is my sincere hope that you have purchased a sweatshirt and are wearing it proudly, saying, "This is where I'm going in the fall," and to embrace that outcome as a happy one.
Some of you may be on wait lists, as we move through May. That may or may not turn into an offer of admission. By definition, a wait list, you're waiting for a space to open. There's no guarantee that it will. You don't want to stay too focused on it. I have a friend who has a son on a wait list. She texted me the other day and she said, "He's really hanging on to that option." I get it. That was, in this case, his first choice. You do want to continue to imagine those opportunities, but day by day, as we get closer to the end of May and to early June, you have to release this expectation of something else and wrap your arms around, "This is where I'm going."
You're going to finish strong. Your offer of admissions said, "This offer is contingent on the successful completion of your senior year," or language something like that. You're going to graduate. You're going to send your final transcript to the college where you have enrolled. We will review it. Almost every time we say, "Check, everything's good, we're done." Sometimes we say, "Uh-oh, something happened that looks different from the transcript we saw in March or February, or maybe December if it was early decision." You get a little follow-up letter saying, "Can you explain this?" You want to put your best foot forward. That final transcript is what goes into your student record at the college. It's where your advisor will start to look at, "What have you had in high school? How does it set up the courses you're going to take in the fall?" At places where there are AP credit granted, you're going to take any APs, you want to do your best work there so that, if credit is awarded to a five, or a four, or a three, you have that five, four, or three to advance place you through what comes next.
That's what happens. But for everybody, college is exciting. It's what we've been talking about for a long time. It's okay, in this moment between high school and college, to take a timeout and have some fun. And be ready for August, September with intentionality because college goes quickly, and you want to be rested and well, and ready for that. Don't question why you got in, how you got in as you start poking around social media and meeting your new peers. You all got in, one by one, in the same way. Be open to those peer opportunities and savor it, because it's one of those transitions in life that is really exciting.
Jacques Steinberg:
Yeah. And a transition for parents too, of course.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, for parents.
Jacques Steinberg:
And other adults. I've been through it twice with two children who are now on the other side of college. For the parents listening, just be prepared for every possible emotion as your child prepares to leave the nest and start on something new. You can expect to feel any of a number of emotions on that path.
But, Lee, you've worked with a lot of parents through this process. What's some of your best advice for parents, as their children prepare to say goodbye?
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, two. There's a practical and then there's a more philosophic.
The practical tip for parents is the enrolling student is the point of contact from the college going forward. That person needs to check her email regularly, has to claim an email from the college sooner than later, too. But there's going to be registration and matriculation, and orientation, and all these other ION things happening that the parent is not going to get in parental inbox.
I've had parents over here say, "Well, I'm paying for this, I should get the ..." I'm like, "No, your child is 18 and this, going forward, is a student to college conversation that you get to run alongside it." But you need your kids to be alert to things like portals and emails, and to-do lists that the college is going to start to say, "Hey, you need to have a physical. Hey, you need to submit your transcript. Hey, you need to start thinking about pre-major advising." Some colleges will have you pick courses now, some will wait until the fall. All of that unfolds through the student's inbox. That's practical.
Just emotional, as parents go through that transition, too. Depending on how many kids you have at home ... I remember I was the first to go off to college from my house. I remember leaving, and my mom and dad, and even my siblings saying, "Lee's gone." I'm like, "Well, I'm not gone. My little twin bed doesn't have someone in it every night." They were used to having me with them and then I wasn't. There's an adjustment on the home front as well as on the student going off to this exciting thing called college.
I think the poignant thing is sometimes they come home again and they're living under your roof, on breaks or after college, and sometimes they don't. I never did. I left and my little wings took me somewhere else. Parents need to be thinking about this family transition, too. And just to prep. Go buy the sheets. Go think about how you're going to get stuff from wherever you are to wherever the campus is. What are the travel arrangements? All that logistical, that's a way of distracting yourself from the emotional truth of you're going to miss somebody.
When we get to the drop-off moment, whenever that is, it's teary and you just have to accept it. I walk around that first day of school every year and I smile as I watch the teary goodbye by the family car, or the arguments as they're unloading the crates. Peacocking [inaudible 00:18:00], the new students trying to impress each other. The parents are looking around trying to be helpful, but you're in the way at that point. Just roll with it.
Jacques Steinberg:
I do want to underscore your advice to take comfort in being of help on the logistics. It can be a little bit of safe space, to the extent your child wants you to play that role. It can be a way to, as you say, distract, provide value, but in a safe space.
Let's pivot to the juniors in your caseload. Perhaps a little bit more for them to do of substance this summer? Help ground us on where they're at and how they can use this summer to do due diligence, to think about things like essays, while also making sure that there's room for joy and a breath.
Lee Coffin:
Juniors, you are morphing into this cartoon persona called Rising Senior. Like bread, you're rising. You have completed 11th grade and you are, week by week, getting closer to your senior year of high school, so you're a Rising Senior. As you rise, you want to do the same thing I said to the seniors, finish strongly. Get 11th grade in the books in the most forward, confident way you can because that transcript, especially if you're applying early somewhere in November, that transcript will be the last snapshot of academic achievement we see. Everything else is a work in progress. Your junior year teachers are often the people who write letters of recommendation for you, so you should start to think about that. Some schools might even invite you to request them now, so that teachers have some to do that writing before those are due. Discovery continues.
I met a student yesterday who was on campus with her dad. She said, "This is my last visit." I went, "Wow." She goes, "Yeah, we got an early start. I used my junior breaks to do all my visiting and now I'm done." I said, "That's amazing." I said, "How does it feel?" She goes, "It feels like a relief." I said, "My advice to you is like a good tea, let it steep." Let these visits gel over time. A month from now, are you still thinking about one, two, three of them? Dial into that. If you're not, maybe you need to look at a couple more places. Keep following along on social media, and continue to just absorb and explore.
For those of you who weren't the early bird getting everything done by May, summer is a chance to get on the road. Campuses are often quiet, not every campus. Some have summer sessions, some don't. But it's your chance to go and walk the campus, get a sense of place. What does civvies really feel like? When you tell your guidance counselor, "I want an urban campus," all right, go. Or you pop into a place that's a bit more rural and you think, "I could do this. This is a vibe I wasn't expecting." That's what you're doing. So that when you get to September and we come back for our next season, we can talk about refining your list. You don't need to refine just yet, you're still adding, subtracting, shifting, listening, following your instincts. Hard to do, important.
He's not my godson, but he's the son of very close friends. He said, "What should I be doing?" I said, "You've got your list and your grandpa's going to take you on the road." Grandpas, grandmas, you can do this, too. Nate's going to go off on some visits. I said, "Just see how they feel." They're going South, because he's a New England kid who wants a different climate, both meteorological and social. I said, "You may love it. You may come back and say to me, Uncle Lee, I'm staying in New England. You don't know until you go do it." That's what happens over the summer.
The other big date for everybody to circle on a calendar is August 1st. Jacques, what happens August 1st?
Jacques Steinberg:
August 1st is when the common application goes live.
That is the application that most of our rising seniors will find themselves filling out to apply to college.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. Between today, whenever you're listening, and August 1st, there's nothing to do. You can't write essays because you don't know what the questions are. But August 1st, we will go live. The new apps will be there, the supplements will be there. If you're really conscientious, you don't have to submit things on August 2nd, but you could open an account, start to fill it out, get a sense of what the questions are and use August to start sketching out your story.
Jacques Steinberg:
We've talked, throughout this season, about some of your essay advice. But for those who may be coming to us for the first time or suddenly, the essay is now top of mind, what's one tip that rising seniors should keep in mind as they're thinking about how to tell their story, regardless of the prompt in the common app?
Lee Coffin:
My early advice to all rising seniors is when you're done with 11th grade and you've got a moment to say, "Caught my breath," just take out a piece of paper or sit in front of your computer, and just type out what I'll call a narrative outline. Who are you, who do you want to introduce? Do you want to tell the story of the environmentalist who is a gardener thinking about botany as a major who runs cross-country? Do you want to tell the story of a political activist who is rolling up her sleeves as the Presidential election comes closer? Are you a budding journalist who is using the student paper and maybe a podcast to bring reporting into the community where you live, but you also love the arts and you're a ceramicist, a dog walker? I'm making these up as we go.
But coming up with that outline of yourself then allows you to get to the common app on August 1st and ask this question. Which section invites me to tell that part of my story through it? Maybe it's the essay. Maybe it's the extracurricular section. Maybe it's a supplement. Maybe you do it in the interview. That's a more purposeful way of looking at the document called the Common App, or the Coalition App, or the QuestBridge app, or the Georgetown app if you're applying there and it's still the institutional file. All of those sections don't need to say the same thing. The essay that everybody gets so distracted by is your main narrative moment. Ask yourself which part of you is best shared there, either as a spotlight, as an amplify, as a new piece of information. Then once you know that, you can start thinking about, "Okay, which question helps me answer that question in my own words?"
Jacques Steinberg:
The last question for this season.
Lee Coffin:
Oh, last question for this season.
Jacques Steinberg:
The last question for the season. One thing that has unmistakably changed since a year ago is the conflict in the Middle East and the degree to which it has flared on campuses around this country. If you are a rising senior visiting campuses, if you're there parents, summer presumably a little quieter. But still, they should assume they may see evidence of students, and faculty, and administrators and citizens of universities wrestling with this conflict and its meaning. How do you factor that into your college search?
Lee Coffin:
I would say they're going to see evidence of protest. Last week, I was in Seattle for a program and my hotel was a block from the University of Washington. I'd never been there. I said, "Let's go well around U Dub." I took a stroll, and I turned a corner and came upon the encampment on the quad at the University of Washington in Seattle. It was huge, pretty quiet on that Friday at 2:30. But there were students milling about, they had signs. I walked the perimeter of it, and listened and looked.
That's what's you're going to do. You're going to get to a campus, and sometimes they'll be an encampment, sometimes not. There might be flyers on bulletin boards. You might see stories in the student newspaper. I think question to ask is how does this feel? It's part of the vibe you're assessing broadly about every campus on lots of different measures, but this is now a front and center one. It's a good reminder that, when we talk about this as the Admissions Beat, beat being a journalism term, current events and college admissions are not mutually exclusive. This is a great example of the world and the college admissions space intersect. We're not bubbled off from what's going on in Gaza and Israel.
I think a way of thinking about it is back to the narrative I'm suggesting you think about with your common app. Are you a protester? Are you a listener? Are you more agnostic? If you're visiting a campus and you encounter a protest, do you have this feeling like, "I want to join. Give me a sign, I want to be part of this." Or does it make you feel like, "This isn't my space." There's wrong or right. But you're finding those same moments as if you were to go to a rural place and realize ... I've told this story on other pods about visiting Upstate New York and saying, "There are a lot of cows here," and realizing that that bovine adjacent space was not what I wanted. I didn't know that until I was visiting.
The visits are bringing you in contact with a campus and its community in lots of different ways. This question you're asking, Jacques, is one of them that the answer to the question, "Can I see myself here," is going to be asked and answered as you visit, as you listen, as you ask the tour guides questions about what's going on on this campus right now. Do global events factor into your decision? They may not. You may be like, "I'm thinking about something else interesting, but not my story." Or, "This very much is my story and this campus has to be a place where that's happening."
Jacques Steinberg:
What you're describing sounds very journalistic. Asking questions, getting beyond the headlines. Acknowledging what may have been that front page news story on a particular day and getting a sense of the degree to which that is representative of daily life at this institution, or was it a one-off? Those questions can be very illuminating. Talk to lots of different folks from lots of different backgrounds and stations.
Lee Coffin:
The advice for everybody on all topics is follow your own compass.
Jacques Steinberg:
What a wonderful way to end our season, to end our virtual academic year, to bring our office hours on the Beat to a close. It's been a privilege, truly, to accompany you and our listeners on this journey. Sending it back to you for a final word.
Lee Coffin:
Thank you, Jacques. As always, I always appreciate having a New York Times journalist join the Beat from time to time. Always behind the scenes, helping with editorial direction. But on air, bringing journalism into my journalism, so thanks for that. I hope your summer brings you somewhere fun as well.
To listeners, before I really pull the curtain on season five, I want to say thank you for listening. One of the things about podcasting that I have found to be really mysterious is I don't see you listening. Like radio, it's consumed without the journalist watching you do it, versus when I've been in a play, I see an audience, I hear them laugh. When I do a talk, same thing. This is different. I'm chatting into a Zoom microphone that will be edited and posted on Tuesday morning. I don't see you download it and listen to it while you're walking the dog or driving your car.
I had a dad come up to me in the Admitted Student program in April and say, "You've been my commute every Tuesday morning for the past year." I'm like, "I love that!" He said, "Yeah, I feel like you're my commuting partner." I appreciate that feedback.
I wanted to share a couple of very nice letters we've received at Admission Beat this year, just to put a point on this. One's a senior, one's a parent, and one's a colleague.
Liam from New York said, "I wanted to reach out and thank you for all that you do. I felt lost in the admission process, unsure of myself and where to start, and then I found your podcast. The way you break down every step and give such helpful insights and assurement of where me and other members of '28 are at in our admission process is so comforting. Listening to the podcast the past couple months has been so calming and it's helped me filter the misinformation about admissions, and center me on what matters most right now. Thank you as well for bringing in voices from all sides of the process."
I love that. I love the idea that a high school senior felt reassured and calmed. I've had people say to me, "You have a really calming voice." I didn't know that until I started doing this, that my voice calms people. I hope that's true.
This one came from a mom who said, "I'm writing to express my appreciation and gratitude for your podcast. I am the mother of a junior in a small private school in Pennsylvania." She goes on to describe what I'll call the noise in that junior class space, students and parents worrying about what was coming. Were they doing the right things? Was it going to be recognized? How to go from here to there and feeling confused. She says, "In a panic, I registered for multiple services, harassed our very nice college counselor, hoping my child would have some chance at a selective school. This only made things worse and then I found your podcast. I listened to several years of old and new sessions over a period of many months. It helped frame the whole process in a better, more reasonable light. It helped make us feel like getting into a good school was not just possible but doable, and what mattered most was finding the right fit."
I love that this mom also felt reassured, and went back and listened to previous episodes. When we record them, we hope they're evergreen, so that topics we might have aired in 2021, three years ago, we try and shift the topics around, tell the story through a different way. But, yay.
A former colleague chimed in to say, "I just wanted to take a moment to commend you on the outstanding job you did with the two most recent episodes of your pod this week. I found Is College Worth It and Admission Moms Who Know Too Much highly engaging and insightful." He talked about why both resonated with him. He said, "I just want to applaud you for being such an accessible and transparent enrollment leader, especially within the realm of ultra selective schools." He added the pods were helping him think about the work he does at his college as well. Colleagues, thank you for listening with us. You are absolutely a part of our audience.
The last one to share was a senior. This one came in right around the deadline. He said, "For all of us seniors frantically typing words, and thinking about clever openers and phrases that describe us, one-liners that we think can improve our lives, you give us hope. It's thanks to you that I know that, while typing this email, I should take a deep breath, relax my shoulders, smile and give myself the wonderful I got this energy. Once I'm done with all of that, it's time to remind myself that the majority of the work is done, and a semicolon over a period is not going to change the outcome of my life. It's time to be happy, finish a strong app that I am proud of, hit submit and smile. Thank you for reminding me and all of my fellow seniors to be calm. As the Brits say, keep calm and carry on."
Keep calm and carry on as you go into your summer. Keep calm and carry on as we reconvene for season six of Admission Beat, sometime in September. If you've liked Admission Beat, please subscribe, please like us wherever you find your podcasts. We use it to understand which episodes have resonated and which ones might have needed a tweak. Your ratings help the rising seniors who have not found Beat to find us. Thanks for that.
Thanks, too, to my behind the scenes sidekick, Charlotte Albright, my producer, who has been with me every second of every episode since the spring of 2020 when we were trapped at home in the early version of this pod through almost 70 episodes now of Admission Beat. Charlotte, former reporter in public radio and television, is my journalist brain teaching me how to do this, editing me when I get too verbose and keeping this snappy and fun. Charlotte, as always, thank you.
To Jacques, my honorary cohost and the editorial director for episodes big and small, including this one, which was delayed a little bit by some unforeseen circumstances in my schedule. Jacques put on his journalist super cape and flew in and said, "Got this," and gave me an episode to close out season five. While also telling me, "You know, you can book big guests, like the CEO of Lumina, and bring a different spin on what we're talking about on Beat." Thanks to Jacques.
Thanks to Sara Morin, who loads every episode onto whatever cloud it goes. I have no idea how it happens, I just talk, she makes it happen. Sara, thank you for bringing Beat to the world and telling me how many times it was downloaded. To Evelyn Ocampo, my admission colleague who manages Dartmouth social media feed for finding snappy quotes to put on Instagram, to help bring more people to our listenership, thanks for that. To Peg Chase, my assistant, who schedules all the Zooms and makes this happen, week to week to week. Kevin Ramos-Glew, an omnipresent cheerleader and finder of talent. To all of you on the team, I appreciate you.
This is such a fun part of my job. It has not gotten old, after all the episodes we've done. While I head into summer with the enthusiasm of any high school kid saying, "Class is done," I will be itchy to get back behind the mic in September for season six, where we'll pick up the story of college admission. We'll try and demystify what's happening as seniors go from beginning of 12th grade to the application deadlines and beyond.
It's been fun. I give you all best wishes for a happy summer. If there's news, I'll be back with a special episode or two. If not, see you in September. For now, this is Lee Coffin, from Dartmouth College. Thanks so much for listening.