Season 4: Episode 1 Transcript
A Guide to Navigating the Admissions News Beat
Lee Coffin:
From Hanover, New Hampshire, I'm Lee Coffin, Dartmouth's dean of admissions and financial aid, and welcome to the season premiere of the Admission Beat.
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Hello everyone. We are back! Season four of Admissions Beat kicks off this week, as we pick up the story of college admission from the point of view of high school seniors and their parents and their counselors in this back to school moment in what is still a steamy kind of summer-like vibe here in Hanover. But the point is to reconnect to our admissions storytelling. When we left season three last May, we'd gotten the previous year's seniors across the finish line, through the enrollment decision on the candidate's reply date. We were awaiting a Supreme Court verdict in students' prepared admission versus Harvard and the second case against Chapel Hill. We now have rulings in those cases that landed on June 29th, which for what it's worth, was my 60th birthday. So happy birthday, Lee, from the Supreme Court. And now we find ourselves in the fall and the high school class of '24 has finished its discovery phase and it's time to lean in and get serious about applying.
But before we get to the application advice, it's always important to kick off the season with a bit of a roundup. Where were we? Where are we? What's in the headlines? How do we make sense of the moment? And how do we give our best guidance to students and their parents and counselors, about the shifting landscape of college admissions in the United States? When we come back, we'll welcome friend of the pod, Jacques Steinberg, who returns for a second season kickoff with me and my pal, Elena Hicks from SMU. So we'll be right back for the season premiere.
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So I am joined for the premier with friend of the pod, Jack Steinberg, former New York Times reporter, author of The Gatekeepers and The College Conversation, and to frequent listeners, our recurring guest on all things, Admissions Beat. Jacques, nice to see you. How was your summer?
Jacques Steinberg:
So good to see you Lee, and just a terrific summer, but lots of distractions as we're going to talk about.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, no, it's always great to have you back for the opening conversation. And we're joined this week by Elena Hicks, the assistant vice provost and dean of admission at Southern Methodist University, AKA, SMU. Elena, always fun to have you on the pod. Thanks for coming back.
Elena Hicks:
Thanks, Lee. Glad to be with you. And Jacques, glad to finally make acquaintance.
Lee Coffin:
I love that, when I bring people together and you know each other, but you've never met. So here we are. Jacques and I were texting earlier today and I said, "I can't keep my head on straight with all the headlines that are popping around college admission today and seems like every day over the last couple of months." So Jacques, I think we're going to have a lot to talk about as we help our friends in high school, and their parents and counselors, make sense of the moment and to reassure them that while there's a lot of buzz, a lot remains true and the same. So I'm going to pass the mic from me to you and you can be host du jour, in this week's conversation. So Jacques, take it away.
Jacques Steinberg:
Well, I look forward to this conversation and if you've listened to the Admissions Beat in the past, listeners, you know that the word that Lee just used, "reassure," is part of our mission statement, if you will. And I hope this conversation—I suspect this conversation—is going to be no different. We're going to talk about a lot of big issues and forces in play in admissions, but for those of you who are going to be filing applications this fall, for some of you who may have already done so, if you're the parent of one of those students, if you're a counselor serving them, hopefully some reassurance comes along with information. But we also want to welcome those of you who are listening to your first episode of the Admissions Beat. There's lots of episodes that have preceded this, that you can listen to as you see fit and have time.
But please know, we will assume no knowledge on your part and there was no homework required in advance of listening to this conversation. So with that, Elena and Lee, let's talk about, in some detail, some of those forces that have been in play in admissions world over the last three months. And let's start with that Supreme Court decision on race-conscious admissions. Elena, for those who may not have been paying attention or who may have been distracted, how would you summarize that decision in just a few sentences and its impact on the admissions process this fall?
Elena Hicks:
The way that we're talking about it here, because there's so many communities that we're talking to, both internal to SMU and external, is that this summer in June, we were told that a final decision had been made: that race could not be used in the evaluation of students for their admission or for their application to college. And so we have become race neutral with this ruling. And I don't want to steal any thunder, but we are dealing with that one subject and that one ruling, wondering what other rulings may come in the future. But in our office, we are training our admission officers—retraining them— on the application. We are masking race. We have some tools that we use that help us understand challenges students might have that have never used race. So that's becoming a bigger part of the landscape for us as well. But at the end of the day, when we are making an admission decision, we will not consider race as a factor.
Jacques Steinberg:
And yet, Lee, you wrote a statement to the Dartmouth community and other deans have written messages to their communities, talking specifically to students from underrepresented backgrounds and inviting them as they see fit, to talk about race, to the extent it has defined their identity and sort of who they are and what they would bring to your community. Help us imagine how an applicant feels and help them try to reconcile whether or not they might talk about their racial or ethnic background or other aspects.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, it's a very timely question, Jacques, because the New York Times Magazine on Sunday had a long cover story called, "Affirmative Action is Over, Should Applicants Still Mention Their Race?"And the sub-header was, 'The First High School Seniors to Apply to College Since the Supreme Court's Landmark Decision Are Trying to Sort Through a Morass of Conflicting Guidance." So I want to start there. I think the morass of conflicting guidance is what jumps out at me as I think about my role as a dean and as the admission officer who's trying to counsel high school seniors about how to tell their story with new guidelines in place.
And to me, the most unexpected part of the ruling in June was the statement by Chief Justice Roberts that said, "A college may continue to consider race, as long as it's included as part of a student's life experience and the way that life experience might enhance or advance the campus that the college is trying to construct." As shorthand interpretation, in my notebook I wrote, "identity – arrow -experience." So I think the previous standard was we could consider race as one factor among the many we consider and could focus on the identity of someone as a consideration, not THE consideration, but as A consideration in the way we evaluate a file.
As we enter this cycle, the consideration has to shift towards a student's experience through the identity she represents and shares. So I think to the morass of conflicting guidance, I think to me it's still pretty straightforward. Tell your story, use the application, which ever one you're completing. And make sure the college knows not just who you are, but why that's important to who you are. Elena, does that make sense to the way you've come to understand this as well?
Elena Hicks:
Most definitely, Lee. And so it puts the emphasis on the student to give us those lived experiences so we understand even better who they are, where they come from. So you're exactly right.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, I mean one of the things I would warn students as they think about this, in this Times story I'm referring to at the end of the second paragraph, a student said, "I'm thinking about adding something about this to my essay: 'I probably have to say that I'm a Black kid from the Bronx, I guess. I think a quick phrase will be enough.'" It's not enough. I read that and thought, "No, no, just saying I'm a Black kid from the Bronx, doesn't move us from identity to experience. You have to build that out a bit more in an essay or an interview or some part of the application where you're bringing that experience as a Black kid from the Bronx, to life in a more full way than just saying, 'This is who I am.'"
Jacques Steinberg:
And you mentioned Justice Roberts, and Justice Roberts made clear in the decision, at least to me, that if you talk about how your race has informed who you are and the experience you would bring to that campus, that is appropriate for an essay, it seemed to me. Elena, is that how you also read it?
Elena Hicks:
Most definitely. Many of my colleagues and I have talked about this not only for universities but also for students, and that is over-correcting.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah.
Elena Hicks:
So let's take the student in particular. What Lee and I are imparting is that lived experience, something that you would like to share with us that you feel strongly about or happy about, but we're also not asking you to bare your soul either. So there's this middle ground where we want students to feel good about whatever that essay or lived experience is that they want to share with us, but not make them feel so overly vulnerable that it becomes a hardship in trying to pull that together.
Jacques Steinberg:
So there are other hot button issues that have been afoot. One constant since the onset of the pandemic for many institutions has been test-optional admissions, standardized test-optional admissions. It's the fall of 2023. For both of you, think about a student who's applying, a parent who's advising them, a counselor who's advising them, how would you summarize the landscape as it applies to testing and how might students practically incorporate that into their applications?
Lee Coffin:
I'd say it's evolving. Elena has SMU shifted its policy?
Elena Hicks:
We are fully test optional and we took out the "temporary." So yes, we are now test-optional without the "temporary" moniker.
Lee Coffin:
So that's a change. And were you optional before the pandemic?
Elena Hicks:
No, we were not.
Lee Coffin:
So see, Jacques, this is interesting because SMU represents a place that evolved through the pandemic from a "required" environment, to a "temporary optiona"l to a "permanently optional." So Dartmouth was "required" before the pandemic. We paused the requirement because of the pandemic. We've had that pause for three full cycles and this year, we're evolving to a recommended policy. So it's still optional, but it's optional but recommended. So maybe that's wordsmithing, but we are signaling to our pool if you have testing, we recommend its submission, but it remains an optional element. So maybe we should both talk a little bit about how we evolved and Elena, what convinced you to recommend a permanent optional policy at SMU?
Elena Hicks:
We spent a lot of time talking, and I love the process at SMU because it included faculty, it included staff, it included key stakeholders around the university. As we began to look at data and to understand how students with tests and without tests were faring at SMU, they were persisting at the same rate. It wasn't anything in GPA or courses that was significantly different for their students. There were a couple of areas that were just a tiny bit lower for the non-submitters, but nothing that said they weren't doing well.
I remember the first time we talked to faculty about it early on…they were supportive, but kind of like, "well, okay, we'll see how this goes." Two, maybe three years later, in that same group, people are saying, "You know what? We're accustomed to this now. We see our students in the classroom, they're doing well. They're asking the questions, they're raising their hand. We have enough information to support us taking the temporary out of the test optional census for SMU." So our partnership not only with the faculty, but also having a great counselor advisory board that could give us information from their view, helped as well.
Jacques Steinberg:And Elena, imagine a student who's listening to this, who's applying this fall, and most of the colleges and universities in this country are still test-optional, whether temporary or permanent, help them understand if they're wondering, first of all, should I take a test and if I take a test, should I submit? Can you provide a little bit of guidance on that?
Elena Hicks:
Sure. We believe that the ultimate decision is between the student, their parents, and their school counseling office. But here's what we say from an admission point of view, that I do believe that students should take the test. I really do. I think that they should take the test, get the results back, take it without feeling (I know they always feel anxiety about it students), but take it knowing that many of your schools are test-optional and see what your score is and what it was like and have that information.
I do always say this: if your standardized test scores don't reflect your GPA and your selection of courses, say for instance, you're an A-plus student, but your test score is not as competitive, that might be a cue that you ought to go test optional. Because typically we recommend that students, if they feel like the test score represents who they are in the classroom and what they've studied and learned, that submitting the score is definitely something that they ought to think about.
The other thing is to look at the middle 50% ranges. I know we're all kind of grappling with how we put it on our website now. Some people are putting the middle 50% range for the students who gave tests and then they give GPA ranges and different things for students who are test optional. So I would say go to websites and see what information is out there about schools and what they're reporting about test optional.
The other thing would be, is a school fully test optional? I keep on saying the word "fully," because whether you are looking at merit aid here at SMU, which would come through the admission office and the application for admission is the application for the merit based aid, we don't need a test score. There are some schools that may want to see a test score for merit aid, but they didn't need to see it to make a decision on admission. We laugh in the enrollment world about a phrase we use quite often about, "Well, it depends." And in this case it does depend on the school that you're applying to and how they are looking at the test optional policy for their institutional goals. I'm happy to say that we're fully test optional.
Jacques Steinberg:
Students and parents, as you're listening, really important to the extent your counselor is in the loop on all this, to ask questions like Elena is raising here and also to put those questions directly to the college admissions offices of the institutions you're interested in, they will answer them and they will explain these fine points to you. Lee, before we talk about test optional but recommended, what would your advice be to a listener who's trying to decide whether or not to take the test, submit a test, whether the SAT, ACT or both, to a school that is test optional?
Lee Coffin:
I agree with Elena's advice, that students should take the test. Taking the test and submitting the tests are different parts of this experience. So for the places that have required testing, you do not have a choice. You have to submit it as part of it. I think Dartmouth is probably in a more unique category in that we leaned towards recommended and that was a signal that given our volume and our selectivity, the testing was proving to be useful as we were evaluating high ability students from high volume high schools. And the testing was a data point that helped us understand academic achievement, and like SMU, we've been studying it and that work is ongoing. So we haven't been able to make a final call on where we wind up, but we're starting to see some difference between test submitters and non- submitters in the first year curricular experience at the college.
So my advice is at this early point in the senior fall, take the SAT or ACT, interchangeably, get the score, see how it syncs up with your transcript, as Elena said. See how it syncs up with the admission profile of the places on your list, as the list comes into greater focus. And I think the thing that people forget about testing is the contextual way we evaluate it. So there was a student last year in our pool who withheld testing, but it was listed on the transcript. So we saw the score even though the student had said, "I'm not using it." And it was a really strong score in context, we didn't use it, but I thought, "You could have submitted this." This score from that high school was a really terrific data point for that person that was lost in the test optional policy and the way some students overthink it.
We look at scores relative to the high school where they're taken, not a national pool. So a student from a rural public high school where a really small percentage of students even sits for the exam, we'll see the testing profile out of that high school, compare a score to the local mean and say, "What's the 50th and 75th percentile in that local context and how does this student measure against that local peer group?" And quite often in our pool, those scores that are perceived as, "low," are actually very strong in the local environment. And so that's an inside admissions kind of perspective, that I share because there's a more nuance here that I think a lot of families understand when they just look at an SAT score and say, "Oh, I'm a 1200, this place has a mean of 1500, I need to withhold."
It's like, "not necessarily," and that's the counterintuitive part of this. But Jacques, I think what you hear Elena and I describing is the evolution of this question. You rewind three years to a pre-pandemic admission landscape. Many of us weren't talking about removing testing, making it optional, it was part of our battery. The pandemic has made us rethink that. And I think as you move through this cycle, what will likely start to happen is there will be places like SMU that adopt a permanent optional policy. There will be places like MIT and others that say, "We are removing the pause, testing has returned." I don't think that's part of this year's cycle. So the reassurance to the high school class of '24, is the pause mostly continues. If you're listening to this as a high school junior or younger, the landscape will most likely resettle a year or two out. We're not there yet. I think for purposes of the current cycle, we're still in an optional moment.
Elena Hicks:
And here's one more thing that I wanted to add, and Lee, you alluded to it earlier, and this is to students. I know there is anxiety and pressure around this. I know that we as your supporters and admission officers are there to help school counselors, but it's not, test-optional is not what somebody thinks, "Okay, I made a score that wasn't as strong. I'm not sending it, so they know I'm a poor test taker." We all have students who make a decision to send a test or not, based on multiple reasons, that they have with their family, with their school counselor. And so there are students who have near perfect scores that sometimes do not submit tests for certain reasons. So there's not this automatic, the student did not send a test score, it means they must be a poor test taker. That's not a part of what we talk about in regard to test optional.
Jacques Steinberg:
Moving on to another big sort of macro force in admissions world, if we were having this conversation a year ago, I don't know that I would've said the phrase ChatGPT or artificial intelligence. And yet here we are. So Lee, would you first, just for those who don't know, how would you define what ChatGPT is and artificial intelligence in general as it applies to writing?
Lee Coffin:
I smiled as you raised this topic, Jacques, because I would've said it the same way. Last September, I don't think I'd ever heard of ChatGPT. It roared into the landscape and it has dominated the conversation to a remarkable degree. There were two stories about this just over the last couple of days in The New York Times, and the idea is, technology allows people to use a computer to answer questions, to literally write responses to questions. And you can call it lots of different things, but what it is, is an automated verbal response that conceivably someone might submit as an answer to a college admission essay, in this context.
Jacques Steinberg:
Elena, both your institutions and hundreds of others have short and longer essays as part of their application. Those that are common to the common application as well as those that are particular in supplements to your institution. I'm a student listening or a parent advising them and I'm wondering, "Can I use ChatGPT or other artificial intelligence to help draft my responses to these questions?" What advice would you give to those wondering that?
Elena Hicks:
I would say to students that if you have an array of subjects, and hopefully you're picking essay topics that really mean something to you, but if by chance you have varied interests, five or six, and you decide to use ChatGPT just to get some feelings of ideas and get you going, we believe the ChatGPT is great for that, just to brainstorm and get initial information. When it comes to sitting down and writing your essay, you and your authentic self, have to be a part of that essay. And I know this may be shocking to students, but many of us have been in the admission world for a very long time and read a lot of essays. And even without ChatGPT, you could tell where a student really was giving of themselves about this subject and it really rang true to them and their experiences.
Looking at the essays that I've seen that have been totally written by ChatGPT examples and those not, you can definitely tell the difference. The emotion is not there, the depth is not there. So SMU has not come up with a policy that is written in our admission language. We do have policies here on campus for our current students and faculty members, but we're going into this year embracing ChatGPT and how it can help students on the front side and that we think we'll be fine in regard to what we need from essays and knowing that they're real and genuine.
Lee Coffin:
I 100% agree with Elena's characterization. I've started reading content produced by AI. I am struck by how bloodless it is. It's grammatically correct almost every time, but it's dull. And when Elena said the emotion is missing, a computer can't yet imbue emotion or personality into the way we write. And I say that as someone who loves to write; I've been a writer since I was able to pick up a pen. And so I have a particular affinity for both writing and reading. And I notice it, just like Elena said, when I read something that doesn't ring true, I pause and say, "Who wrote this?" And I think the question Jacques, because I continue, I don't have an answer to this, people keep asking me, "What do you think? What are you going to do?" We don't have a policy either. I have started to hurumph about this question and say, "Can you just let us do our work first and see six months, nine months later, I'll have a thoughtful answer to you. But we haven't really gone through a cycle yet where this is on my radar."
I suspect it's been under my nose for a long time and I just haven't noticed. I'll notice now. And I keep scratching my head and asking a key question, why do we ask for writing samples? I mean, what are we trying to learn about the student and her ability to perform in our classroom? And also what's the critical skillset called writing? Does that still have relevance in the 21st century? I think the answer is yes. I don't like the idea that we are outsourcing our verbal expression to a computer. Maybe I'm old-fashioned, but to me the essay, the short essays, the long essays, any writing that's part of a college admission process, is both a sample of your ability to express yourself, in English, since we're in the United States, to be able to frame an argument, to be able to think critically through the way you present information.
And that's all part of our discovery as we read a file. And we're also looking to learn something about the student. So that narrative component of the essay is to me, one of the hearts of the file. And I would say the students don't outsource that to someone besides your own brain. And if it's a tool that helps you get yourself organized, great. But I smiled at the end of the article that appeared in the Times today, the reporter who ran a bunch of questions through ChatGPT and then published them, her concluding comment was, "My takeaway, high school seniors hoping to stand out, may need to do wholesale rewrites of the texts they prompt AI chatbots to generate or they could just write their own chatbot free essays from scratch." And I said, "Yes, I agree." So it's a tool. It shouldn't be a crutch.
Jacques Steinberg:
Yeah, and students please remember that if you were to boil down the questions on the common app to a single question, it might be, who are you? What makes you tick? What are the formative experiences of your life and how have they shaped who you are? It's hard to ask a machine to answer that question about you. Similarly, oftentimes the supplement questions are, what is it about our school that appeals? Once again, hard to ask a machine to answer that question for you.
Lee Coffin:
And actually Jacques, that was one of the questions The New York Times had the chatbot run for Dartmouth, was an answer to our supplemental question, "Why Dartmouth?" And the answers were again, formulaic, and not very warm. They were not incorrect, but they felt manufactured, if I might say it that way. They didn't feel like a 17- or 18-year-old typed it out and shared it with me.
Jacques Steinberg:
So one last big news story, thinking about the students and parents again in our audience and also the fact that this is a subject lead that the Admissions Beat is going to come back to in much more depth later in the season, but for a little bit of a preview, if you've been paying attention to the news that legacy admissions are in the news, including challenges to legacy admissions. Let's first start with a definition. Lee, for somebody not familiar with the concept, what are legacy admissions in general?
Lee Coffin:
A legacy is most commonly defined as the child of a graduate of the institution and in many places an undergraduate alum as opposed to somebody who went to the medical school or a law school for example, at a university. And the question is, do those children of graduates get a admission preference as part of the application review?
Jacques Steinberg:
And you talked earlier, Lee, about there being many factors that are considered in the admissions process. Dartmouth is among many institutions, SMU as well, that uses something called the holistic admissions process. At Dartmouth, is legacy a factor among many in that process, currently?
Lee Coffin:
Yes.
Jacques Steinberg:
And for you, Elena?
Elena Hicks:
It is.
Jacques Steinberg:
And so how does it work, Elena? Imagine a student is wondering what does it mean? What does preference mean in this respect?
Elena Hicks:
So Jacques, you mentioned earlier about how holistic review and it's holistic, it's contextual. We look at every part of a student's application, of what they've submitted and can come about not only getting to know the student, but putting the pieces together, this major with this interest and what you've done in high school, that's great with us. And so there are a couple of different things that for us that could be a part of this as well. Sometimes it's legacy, sometimes it's an athlete, sometimes it's a person who's applying to our Meadow School of the Arts in one of the performance areas.
What happens at the end of the day in particular with legacy for us, it's not about taking a legacy student over someone else. One has to be clearly admissible to the university, be able to do the work here and be a part of the community. Now, what's great about legacy is that if you do have family members that have attended SMU, you most likely have gotten to know SMU pretty well and for a longer period of time. So we love that our alumni bring their students back and that those students apply to SMU, but it doesn't mean that those students are taking a spot from someone else who is clearly maybe a better fit for SMU academically, but at the same time, we are honored to have the students apply and to have them with us.
Lee Coffin:
And I agree with everything Elena just said, and I would expand a little bit to say we're building community on our campuses. Alumni are part of the lifelong community, particularly of a private institution. The children of those graduates are often really important members of the community. And the misperception that I often encounter is that someone who is the child of an alum is less qualified for admission than everybody else. And that's not true. And this has been true wherever I've worked, the profile of legacies looks like the profile of everyone else. And the one factor among many, in this example, was a family connection to the institution. And there might be another applicant where the one factor among many was an endorsement from our debate coach, that this is a student who brings really powerful debating chops to our national championship team. That matters.
So I think the complexity of the work we do on our campuses as we sift through pools and build community, considers lots of different factors, and this is one of them, that is not as overt as a lot of people think it is. And it's not as influential as a lot of graduates hope it is for their kids. It's part of the work we do. It is not an overriding part of what we do. And I don't know where I've worked, tiny numbers of applicants fall into this category. It's not like there are thousands of them in any given applicant pool. So that's the issue that's in the media right now. It is a topic that is just beginning to play out across higher ed.
Jacques Steinberg:
And one reason we're talking about it now, in addition to the wake of the Supreme Court decision, is that a complaint was filed against Harvard and its admissions process regarding legacy with the U.S. Department of Education and the U.S. Department of Education is investigating that process. We've been careful during this conversation, Lee and Elena, to always ground our conversation in what it looks like for students and parents and counselors. So let's do that for legacy; there's a big national conversation happening. There's an investigation at the federal level, but while that happens, students are applying. To what extent should applicants from legacy backgrounds, or applicants not from legacy backgrounds, be factoring in this national discussion as they apply this fall?
Elena Hicks:
Jacques, at the end of the day, as Lee mentioned, we're looking for community and we want students that will be academically sound here and be a part of our community and thrive. Apply to the schools that you feel are the right feel for you and those that you want to apply to and don't let legacy tags interfere with that.
Lee Coffin:
Amen. I think this is one of those Admissions Beat topics that has relevance inside the college around policy and procedures, but to an applicant, set this one aside. Testing, you have an action item that relates to you. This one, not something you need to be thinking about right now as the deadlines come closer.
Jacques Steinberg:
So I promised at the outset of this conversation that there would be a heavy dose of reassurance. I know that my heart rate has gone up a little bit as part of this conversation. I can only imagine how those of you are listening, how you are feeling. But it may surprise you given the conversation we've just had, that the lion's share of the admissions and application and search process this fall is very, very similar to what it has been like in years past, and that should be reassuring. Elena, is that a Pollyanna-ish take or is there some truth to the fact that much of this process remains as it was and as it has been?
Elena Hicks:
I agree with you, Jacques. I do believe that much of the process has remained the same. Coming out of the pandemic, one of the things that I loved about enrollment management that became more enhanced was grace. I think that the silver lining in the pandemic and what we were doing with students showed all of us that we could show grace in a greater way. That still remains, and I'm still very happy about that, both from a student and school counseling perspective and from universities as well. We in the admission world, there is always a trend or a theme that we deal with. And even though it may cause us some angst and coming up with new policies or looking at something differently, we all consider it an opportunity, an opportunity to reach more students, an opportunity to do better, an opportunity to explain, an opportunity to be more inclusive. And so I'm excited about the new year and I'm excited about the students that we'll see applying.
Lee Coffin:
And Jacques, I just did the math as I was listening to Elena. This is my 34th admission cycle, as an admission officer, and my 29th as a dean. I shake my head and think, "How did that happen?" But I start with that to put a yellow highlight over what Elena just said. The cycle is going to play out, for me, like the 30 whatever years before it has. Students are going to apply. We're going to read their files in a holistic way. We're going to welcome their story into the way we meet them. We're going to look at the transcript, look at course selection, look at the grade distribution, testing, if it's there, without it, if it's not, knit it all together and say two things. Can this student do the work at this college? The answer is usually yes, to most of the applicants at selected institutions.
Then the bigger question, can the student thrive? That's a finer way of thinking about the same question. As we build community, where does this person fit into the peer group we're trying to build? And this gets back to race and all the other ways in which people are interesting and different. How do we create lively communities and conversations and peer groups that represent the landscape of the United States and the world in the 2023/4? And that's interesting and messy and we're dealing with 17 and 18 year olds and they're interesting and messy.
And so I think the danger of the admission beat and the buzz that swirls around the work we do, is it makes your heart race, Jacques, because it seems stressful and there are elements to it that are complicated. And that doesn't mean the fundamentals have changed. And the way a student progresses through her senior fall towards a deadline, whether it's early or regular, how you make a decision about where you see yourself going to college, is an interesting process. It's why I've done it for all these years, and that has not changed. The volume is bigger in a lot of places. That means selectivity is tighter, that suggests something that's harder to get. But in future episodes when we talk about refining your list, well-considered applications do not land with a thud when they arrive in the admission office.
Jacques Steinberg:
Elena, last question. Lee often talks on the Admissions Beat about the importance of sort of tuning out the noise. What we did earlier in this conversation, importantly, I think, is we turned up the volume a little bit to make sure that we as a listening post, heard some of that noise and sort of filtered it for our audience. But if you're a student really focused on embracing that senior year of high school experience and the application process, what's your best advice for tuning out the noise once you've heard it?
Elena Hicks:
That's a good question, Jacques. I would say this. Once you know the landscape and you know the issues out there, then I would say, to leave them on the side of the road in regard to your application process because you do have supporters, whether it be community-based organizations or school counselors, parents, guardians supporting and admission officers. And if I had to ask students to do one thing throughout the entire process, it would be to be authentic to who they are and to express that not only when they talk to admission officers, but in their essays and in their application. Because if they are authentically who they are, that helps us understand if they are ready for our community and vice versa. If the students are authentically who they are, they could come to SMU or Dartmouth and really say, "This is who I am, this is what I want, how can I partner with you?"
Sometimes students think that we want them to be perfect and that they have to come with their tap dancing shoes on. We want you to be authentically you, so that in that honest interaction, we can both figure out if this is the right match in regard to the next four years of college. And it's not just the next four years of college. We are looking for folks to graduate and be alumni. So really, when you make that match, typically it goes on for your adult life. So it's an important one, but students should reflect on who they are and go with their heart, as well as their academics in this process.
Jacques Steinberg:
Lee, what's your best advice for tuning out the noise once you've tuned in the noise?
Lee Coffin:
My advice to students is, one, enjoy your senior year of high school. As I look backwards, it was one of my favorite moments of my life. I loved being 17 and miss it. And don't rush through it. Give yourself permission to be 17 and to experience all the things that senior of high school, wherever you're in school, the courses are advanced and interesting. You have chance to be a leader in your extracurriculars. I was in the drama club— that meant I got to play a part finally and not to be in the chorus. All of that plays out over the next 9 to 10 months. Don't lose it because you're worrying about what comes after that. High school is not a pass-through.
It is an important moment that sets up the next important moment. And to Elena's wise advice about authenticity, that flows out of living your life in the moment and not always looking ahead and strategizing about the next step. Now, maybe that's too Pollyanna, but that's my opening comment. The other thing I think, and we'll come back to it in next week's episode, is senior year moves quickly. September into October and swoosh, it's Thanksgiving and the New Year and decisions need to be made. So don't procrastinate. Be thoughtful about where we are in the cycle. Keep yourself organized. Think about the story you're trying to tell through the application. Because ChatGPT or not, if you don't know the story you're trying to tell, you can't tell it. So what's the narrative theme you want to connect to your transcript?
I printed out an essay from one of our enrolling students the other day. He wrote about growing up on a farm in North Dakota, living with his grandparents. And his essay was about his debates with her at the dinner table. She watches Fox News, he does not, and learning how to have a dialogue across a generational and ideological divide. And it was really sweet and interesting as he talked about tea time with grandma and how they didn't see eye to eye, but he loved her and she loved him. That was a wonderful, authentic narrative. And we'll talk more about that in future episodes as well.
But think about the story and then start to prepare it while you're concurrently focusing on your options. Letting go of the ones that seem too fanciful, don't feel right, focusing on the ones that you find your brain coming back to and your heart saying, "That one still sits with me." Keep digging. September is early. The calendar flips quickly, but you've got time still, to sort things out and make good decisions for yourself. And that's the best advice around the buzz. The buzz can be distracting and you need to keep your head down, put your phone away and look in the mirror.
Jacques Steinberg:
And I would add, don't forget to breathe.
Lee Coffin:
And don't forget to breathe.
Jacques Steinberg:
It's really, really important. It's a long stretch and that inhaling and exhaling can be helpful.
Lee Coffin:
And finding time to play. I think that's what I miss about being 17, is you had permission to play or eat ice cream or do whatever it is that makes you happy, while you're also working on this thing called college admission and that is me with the wisdom of lots of years doing this, saying, it's important.
Jacques Steinberg:
I want to thank you both for this conversation. Lee, I'm grateful to you for passing the Admissions Beat moderator's microphone to me, and with this, I pass it back to you.
Lee Coffin:
Pass it back to me. So Jacques, always fun to have you on for the season premiere in particular. Elena, as we wander forth, I hope our paths cross on the road again as it did last year a couple of times. And to listeners, we're off. Season four continues next week when a couple of college counselors will join me for a conversation around your senior year checklist. What should you be doing, now that it's September, to make your way to the deadlines in November and January? And that'll be some practical to-dos and maybe the push your mom or dad needs to keep you on track, but that's next week.
For now, this is Lee Coffin from Dartmouth College. Talk to you next week.
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Admission Beat is produced and edited by Charlotte Albright with editorial direction from Jacques Steinberg. Casting coordinator is Kevin Ramos-Klew with support from Peg Chase. And our technical support is from Sara Morin. Admissions Beat is a production of Dartmouth College, but as always, it is not about Dartmouth College. It's about the selective college admission process, as an act of admission citizenship.
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