Admissions Beat

Kicking off Season Six of the Admissions Beat, host Lee Coffin of Dartmouth welcomes listeners back to school as another admissions cycle commences. Raising the curtain on the admissions process for high school juniors and seniors, as well as their parents and counselors, Coffin and his guests offer a sampler of “news you can use,” with tips on everything from managing the stress of the search and application process to sizing up an institution’s “fit” and “vibe,” to understanding the impact of last year’s Supreme Court decision on race as a factor in admissions. This week’s guests are Charlotte Albright, former public radio host and reporter, and Jacques Steinberg, former New York Times journalist and co-author of “The College Conversation.” Whether you are a first-time listener or an AB veteran, Coffin and his guests have much to offer as they look ahead toward the upcoming podcast season.

As the school year ends, Admissions Beat host Lee Coffin holds his final “office hours” with listeners for this podcast season. For graduating seniors, he advises them to “finish strong” and check their inboxes as pre-matriculation communications arrive from their chosen college. For parents preparing to say goodbye as seniors head to college in the fall, he offers practical and philosophical advice on letting go—and in taking comfort in the logistics of the transition to college. And for rising seniors, summertime is the season to sketch out the stories they want to tell in their applications and to keep exploring. Jacques Steinberg, former New York Times journalist and co-author of The College Conversation, joins Dean Coffin for the season finale.

What if math was a fundamental skill you could develop, rather than something you were simply good or bad at? Engineering programs are designed to blend theory with practice—analysis with practical problem solving. But engineering also spans organically across disciplines into the humanities and social sciences. This week on AB, host Lee Coffin dives into the undergraduate realm of engineering programs with Stu Schmill, Dean of Admissions and Student Financial Services at MIT. They discuss how to begin preparing for those experiences in high school and where a student’s untapped engineering potential might take them.

What advice do this year’s high school seniors and their parents have for those who will follow in future college application cycles? AB host Lee Coffin and Jacques Steinberg, co-author of “The College Conversation,” recently put that question to an audience gathered on the Dartmouth campus for admitted students’ programming. We also asked them what they learned, what they wished they had done differently, what boundaries they established for their respective roles as applicant and advisor, and how they managed the stress of it all. Tune in this week to hear what they told us, in their own words.

The conversations, debates and diverse voices that animate a college campus are essential elements of an undergraduate experience. As seniors visit campuses for accepted student open houses and as juniors follow tour guides for introductory visits, AB host Lee Coffin shares an essay he wrote on the importance of assessing campus dialogue as part of those visits.

“’How will this look for colleges…?’ is the most common question I get from juniors as they select senior year courses,” reports longtime college counselor Eric Monheim. For sure, the quality of an applicant’s senior year program—and the grades achieved in that course of study—is a foundational element of the academic assessment of every application to a selective college. This week, AB host Lee Coffin answers the question: “Does 12th grade count?” as high school juniors select their senior year curriculum.  Guests Elena Hicks, SMU’s assistant vice provost and dean of admissions, and Monheim, the director of college counseling at St. Mark’s School in Massachusetts, give a resounding “Yes!” to that simple question. Senior year counts, so pick your courses wisely.

For centuries, the liberal arts have been foundational to the mission of higher education. But trying to explain the concept of this course of study — and the multifaceted roadmap a liberal arts degree provides for one’s life and work in the 2020s and beyond—can be challenging. And so AB host Lee Coffin called in a specialist: Cecilia Gaposchkin, a Dartmouth history professor whose courses range from the fall of Rome to the Crusades to the medieval kings of France. She was also the College’s longtime dean for pre-major advising.  But the subject matter of the liberal arts—chemistry or history, philosophy or French—is often less important than the skills a student learns: how to think critically, pose tough questions, write clearly and persuasively, and be a productive citizen. “A liberal arts degree is a degree in thinking,” Professor Gaposchkin advises high school seniors and juniors as they consider their options.

Admissions Beat host Lee Coffin considers April the “13th month” of the college admissions calendar. For many high school seniors, April brings a sense of closure, as they move from receiving their admissions decisions to weighing (and deciding) where to enroll. For many high school juniors, April represents a beginning – the official start of their college search. This week, Dean Coffin presents a grab bag of tips and other advice for both audiences, as well as parents and counselors. He’s joined by AB producer Charlotte Albright and Jacques Steinberg, co-author of “The College Conversation,” an admissions guidebook for parents.

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.

What’s it like to read applications at a highly selective college or university for the first time? Not so long after their own college graduations, Dartmouth admissions officers Clarissa Hyde, Will Kieger, Laura Rivera-Martinez, and Jackie Pageau have spent the last few months reading and evaluating hundreds of applications. This week on AB, they join their boss, Dean of Admissions Lee Coffin, to discuss all that they’ve learned during their rookie “reading season.”