Admissions Beat Podcast Starter Pack

A photo of Dartmouth student, studio art major Li'ua T '25 working on a sculptural piece for senior seminar

As high school students, you get advice everywhere about college—even when you don't ask for it. How to apply, where to apply, why apply...it can be dizzying.

 

Dartmouth's Vice President and Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid, Lee Coffin, had you in mind when he launched Admissions Beat, a podcast that delivers credible information, insights, and guidance—from the earliest days of the college search, to applications, decision-making, and arrival on campus. Now in it's 8th season, there are over 100 episodes packed with knowledge.

We've whittled that extensive collection down to 10 episodes that will help guide you through the college admissions process.

  • Learn how to make your application materials speak volumes about you, your experiences, and what you'll add to a college campus.
  • Figure out how to identify your college 'fit' and why that is so important.
  • Hear from current students, counselors, and higher ed professionals, all sharing tips and suggestions that will help you through these next few months.

 

Start Your Engines: Accelerating from Discovery to Application

With October on the near horizon, Admissions Beat host Lee Coffin encourages seniors to get in gear and begin thinking about the nuts and bolts of their applications. His guests, Jennifer Simons, Director of Bright Horizons College Coach, and Darryl Tiggle, Director of College Counseling at the Friends School of Baltimore, offer guidance on tackling "the deliverables" of the admissions process—essay drafts, teacher recommendations, testing—with a strategy. Coffin and his guests also discuss the many "on ramps and off ramps" of the search as it progresses, from refining the list of schools to deciphering college rankings to prioritizing college visits to assessing a plan for an early application. As seniors rev their engines and hit the road on the college application process, they can count on the Admissions Beat crew to be there to offer roadside assistance for the length of that journey. 

Start Your Engines: Accelerating from Discovery to Application

A transcript is available for this episode.

 

The Mindy Project: Admissions Edition

Mindy Kaling joins AB for its 100th episode as the multi-talented Hollywood star and Dartmouth alumna remembers her own college admissions process in which "I wasn't thinking about the correct things." A high-achieving "comedy nerd" who had been weaned on "mountains of flashcards," Mindy ponders her journey from home to college as she battled procrastination and a lack of confidence and  faced her immigrant family's high expectations for admissions "success." Mindy candidly muses about "striving to feel special" as she "chased the feeling of acceptance" as a Latin-loving, theater-focused high school student. She shares the salient lessons of disappointment after her initial college ambitions did not materialize as well as her serendipitous "pivot" towards new opportunities as she moved forward. Whether auditioning for a role, creating a script, or penning a college essay, Mindy underscores the value of "authenticity and freshness" in one's storytelling as she advises future applicants to "be unafraid to be yourself."

The Mindy Project: Admissions Edition

A transcript is available for this episode.

 

What Counts?

Many people ask, "What counts?" as they ponder the elements of "merit" in a college application. This week, two Ivy deans tackle this perennial query as Brown's Logan Powell joins AB host Lee Coffin from Dartmouth for a wide-ranging conversation about assessing merit and where it is discovered. They consider the numbers and the narrative--the quantitative as well as the qualitative information--that emerges from a college application. Both deans channel a wise adage from Albert Einstein: "Not everything that can be counted, counts; not everything that counts can be counted."

What Counts?

A transcript is available for this episode.

 

Let Your Life Speak Through Your College Essay

In the 50th episode of Admissions Beat, host Lee Coffin from Dartmouth College welcomes college counselors Sherri Geller from Gann Academy in Waltham, Mass., and Ronnie McKnight from Atlanta's Paideia School for a timely conversation about the college admissions essay as an essential component of any application. The trio of veteran admission experts channels the Quaker saying "Let your life speak" as they share insights and advice for high school seniors about drafting an effective personal narrative as a compliment to the academic data in the application.


Let Your Life Speak Through Your College Essay

A transcript is available for this episode.

 

Data Dive, Part 1: The High School Transcript

In the first of a two-part conversation about the academic data that populates an application, Yale's Jeremiah Quinlan and Emily Roper-Doten from Clark join host Lee Coffin to discuss the high school transcript as "the foundational element" of an application. The trio reflects on an admission officer's assessment of curriculum, grades, and "patterns" as key metrics of academic merit, and they offer "a way of understanding the numbers and letters that dance around a college application, what they mean, and how we use them."


Data Dive, Part 1: The High School Transcript

A transcript is available for this episode.

 

Interpreting Testing: Your Scores May Be Stronger Than You Think

What constitutes a strong SAT or ACT score? What do admissions officers mean when they say they consider scores in context? If a college is test-optional, should you submit your scores, or if it requires testing, are your scores strong enough to apply? The answers may surprise you. To talk through these and other questions, AB host and Dartmouth Dean of Admissions Lee Coffin is joined by Dartmouth professors Bruce Sacerdote and Michelle Tine, whose research helped inform Dartmouth's recent decision to reinstate admissions testing requirements, and Jacques Steinberg, co-author of "The College Conversation," an admissions guide for parents.

Interpreting Testing: Your Scores May Be Stronger Than You Think

A transcript is available for this episode.

 

Lessons from the Stage

Extracurricular activities, which are essential ingredients of any college application, yield lessons and skillsets that animate a student's story. Reflecting on his own experience in the drama club at Shelton High School in Connecticut, AB host and Dartmouth Dean Lee Coffin welcomes Gary and Fran Scarpa, the longtime directors of Shelton's drama program, for an unusually personal conversation about what Coffin learned from being actively involved in their productions. "You made me an extrovert," he tells them. The trio reflects on how lessons from the stage--or from a playing field, lab, or church youth group--inform the discovery phase of a college search and provide rich material for the application narrative. Although everyone wants to be a winner, "you don't aways get the part," Lee advises applicants. "You're not all going to be the valedictorian of your class. How do you perform, learn, grow from what you have? Why are you doing what you do when you are not in class? How does it enliven the story of you? Bring that forward."

Lessons from the Stage

A transcript is available for this episode.

 

Interview Tips: Let Your Life Speak

Sometimes it's required, sometimes it's recommended, sometimes it's optional. Sometimes it's conducted on campus by an admissions officer or college senior, while at others it's at a library or Starbucks with an alumnus. It's an admissions interview. It's also an opportunity to build life skills. This week on Admissions Beat, host Lee Coffin of Dartmouth conducts a mock interview with a high school senior from Los Angeles. They are then joined by Erica Rosales of College Match, a nonprofit, to share feedback and tips, including ways to make an interview feel more like a conversation and less like a dental appointment.


Interview Tips: Let Your Life Speak

A transcript is available for this episode.

Reading an Application: The Work of the Work

For any college admissions officer, reading and evaluating an application is the work of the work. It is the heart of the admissions process itself, its most essential task. Reading season is the moment when recruitment yields to selection, when assessing merit and potential becomes a blend of reflection and decision as each application is evaluated and a class is shaped. The Dartmouth-based cast of last year's "Learning to Read," AB's most downloaded episode, reunites for a second, heartfelt conversation about their work as admission readers in a most selective admissions environment. The trio offer insights into "what counts" as each moves from file to file, and each reveals the invisible humanity that animates the work of the work.

Reading an Application: The Work of the Work

A transcript is available for this episode.

 

Inside the Admissions Committee: The "Gatekeepers" in Action

Twenty-five years after New York Times education reporter Jacques Steinberg, author of The Gatekeepers: Inside the Admissions Process of a Premier College, spent a year observing at close range the selection process at Wesleyan University, Steinberg joined admission officers at Dartmouth for a day inside its selection committee. After his "fly on the wall" day in Hanover, he quizzes Admissions Beat host and Dartmouth dean Lee Coffin about what he saw and heard as applicants from California entered the admissions spotlight. "I would smile when a student would take the time to tell you something that really made them a person, where you could actually almost see and feel having them there. And you all got that message, surfaced it, talked about it. It became part of the discussion," Steinberg tells Coffin, reassuring applicants that the time and care they put into telling their stories to colleges is well worth the effort.

Inside the Admissions Committee: The "Gatekeepers" in Action

A transcript is available for this episode.