Admissions Beat

If you’ve not done so already, many Admissions Beat listeners will soon embark on a campus visit, whether by road, rail, or air, or perhaps via a keyboard and screen. To ensure you’re prepared to get the most from that journey, host Lee Coffin, dean of admissions and financial aid at Dartmouth, has recruited two expert tour guides. They are Elena Hicks, assistant vice president and dean of admissions at Southern Methodist University, and the former dean of admissions at Loyola University, and Matthew Hyde, the dean of admissions at Trinity College, and the former dean of admissions at Lafayette College. They’ve got lots of advice for students and parents alike — including how, during a tour or information session, a parent might quietly deploy a strategically placed “elbow,” which can signal “that might be something you should look into,” while being careful not to express an opinion too strongly at this early stage of the search.

As we continue our focus on supporting high school juniors in the early activities of a college search, Admissions Beat encourages listeners to grab a pen and pad (or open a Google Doc or spreadsheet) to begin drafting a list of colleges to explore. Host Lee Coffin, Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid at Dartmouth,  describes that list as a document that will evolve over the coming months and continue to take shape, “place by place, for you to explore, for you to investigate.” His guests this week are Darryl Tiggle, Director of College Counseling at the Baltimore Friends School, and a former admissions officer at Tufts University and Union College, and Jennifer Simons, senior manager at Bright Horizons College Coach, a company that offers college guidance to corporate employees as a benefit, and a former admissions officer at Barnard, Connecticut College, Northeastern and Tufts. They share plenty of advice on how to get a list started, including likening the early days of the college search to shopping for a pair of jeans. (Spoiler alert: in both instances, the fit is likely more important than the brand name.)

Mainstream media organizations have long covered the admissions process closely. And when those efforts are combined with observations and commentary across the digital spectrum, the results can feel dizzying and overwhelming to prospective applicants as well as parents. In this episode of Admissions Beat, host Lee Coffin and his guest dean provide context and perspective on the big headlines and related issues in the current admissions news cycle — including rankings, test-optional admissions policies, artificial intelligence (as it relates to application essays) and legal challenges to race as a factor in admissions. They also share tips on how to navigate the rush of information and quiet the noise. Coffin, the dean of admissions and financial aid at Dartmouth, is joined by Ronné Turner, vice provost of admissions and financial aid at Washington University in St. Louis, along with two journalists: Charlotte Albright, a longtime public radio reporter, and Jacques Steinberg, a former national education correspondent for The New York Times.

How might a high school junior embark on the journey of self-discovery that serves as the bedrock of the college search process? Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid Lee Coffin, host of the Admissions Beat, recommends that prospective applicants begin by pointing a virtual camera at themselves and snapping an “existential selfie.” It’s an exercise that can reveal values and priorities, as well as guiding questions. On this week’s podcast, he is joined by four guests, all of them first-year undergraduates at Dartmouth, to seek their counsel on the early steps in the college search, including advice they would give to their 16- or 17-year-old selves if they could turn back the clock. They are: Andrea Agola of Burke, VA; Garrett Crouch, of Edmond, OK; Olivia Koo of Los Alamos, NM; and Batuhan Saridede of Izmit, Turkey.

In the opening episode of the third season of “Admissions Beat,” host Lee Coffin of Dartmouth College turns his attention to high school juniors and those who support them in a college search. And just as the opening bars of an overture herald the beginning of a Broadway musical, Dean Coffin encourages students to start the college search on a note of self discovery. To look within, at what they value and prioritize, before looking outward and assembling a list of colleges that might fit the bill. It's a process he likens to taking an “existential selfie,” adding: “You need to focus on you, before you focus on us.” Dean Coffin is joined by Meredith Reynolds, a former admissions officer at Tufts University and currently the Associate Director of College Guidance at the Roxbury Latin School in Massachusetts, and Jacques Steinberg, co-author of The College Conversation: A Practical Companion for Parents to Guide Their Children Along the Path to Higher Education.

In the second part of our two-part season finale, Admissions Beat lays out the decisions that applicants will soon receive in response to early applications they submitted this fall — admit, decline, or defer — as well as various strategies they might consider employing in response. Whether you are a high school senior who applied under a binding program (such as early decision) or non-binding (early action) — or the parent of someone who did so — host Lee Coffin of Dartmouth runs through a series of scenarios, including those where financial aid could be a determining factor. Dean Coffin also shares plenty of “news you can use” for applicants considering applying in the upcoming, early decision II rounds at some colleges. And he and his guests provide words of reassurance for those who chose not to submit early applications. Joining Dean Coffin are two veteran counselors with high school and college experience: Sherri Geller, the co-director of college counseling at Gann Academy in Waltham, Mass., and a former admissions officer at Brandeis and Northeastern, and Ronnie McKnight, associate director of college counseling at Paideia School in Atlanta, and a former admissions officer at Emory and Presbyterian College in South Carolina.

With most applicants entering the final weeks of the college application season, Dean Lee Coffin of Dartmouth has assembled a “home stretch" toolkit of advice for high school seniors and their parents. In Part 1 of the two-part Admissions Beat season finale, the action items include: putting the last touches on a balanced college list; assembling the remaining pieces of an application; monitoring deadlines, and being sure that students register, typically via email, for the application portals that colleges use to request and convey time-sensitive information. But the most timely advice may be for those applicants who find themselves cornered  at their Thanksgiving tables by well-intentioned relatives seeking to pepper them (as opposed to the mashed potatoes) with rapid-fire questions about their college admissions process. Joining Dean Coffin are two seasoned counselors with experience on both the high school and college sides of the admissions equation: Sherri Geller, the co-director of college counseling at Gann Academy in Waltham, Mass., and a former admissions officer at Brandeis and Northeastern, and Ronnie McKnight, associate director of college counseling at Paideia School in Atlanta, and a former admissions officer at Emory and Presbyterian College in South Carolina.

How do admissions officers read and interpret high school transcripts, the official academic record of the courses an applicant has taken in high school and the grades received? And what role do “school profiles” play? They are the narrative descriptions that high school counselors prepare for admissions offices, chock full of context on a school's student body as a whole, and the wider community the school serves, among other details critical to assessing an applicant and application. In this encore episode of Admissions Beat, from November 2021, host Lee Coffin of Dartmouth explains that transcripts are so much more than “numbers,” and that those primary source documents reveal not only how an applicant has performed in the classroom thus far, but their potential to soar in a university setting. Dean Coffin is joined by Calvin Wise, director of recruitment at Johns Hopkins University, along with two experienced college counselors: Darryl Tiggle of the Friends School of Baltimore, a Quaker school, and Candice Mackey of the Los Angeles Center for Enriched Studies, a large public high school.

This week on Admissions Beat, host Lee Coffin goes deep in conversation with three Dartmouth students to elicit their  perspective on the college admissions process, as well as their advice for current high school seniors in particular. In a frank and wide-ranging conversation, the three undergrads touch on the emotional stress of their admissions process, as well as steps to mitigate it. (Each said they wished they had “chilled out” more.)They provide advice on telling your story with authenticity (and without straining to imagine what an admissions officer might want to hear). They share ways to research and consider options for financial aid at various institutions. And they emphasize the importance of being open to self-discovery and exploration. They also reflect on those aspects of the admissions process that are within an applicant’s control, including the unique attributes that each student brings to it. Or, as one of the panelists says: if the admissions process is a puzzle, “you are your own individual puzzle piece.” Dean Coffin’s guests are: Emma Johnson, a junior from Omaha, Nebraska, majoring in quantitative social sciences with an emphasis on theater as a double major; Gavin Fry, a sophomore from Hornersville, Missouri, currently studying earth science, and Daniel Hernandez, a first-year student from Los Angeles interested in studying government and Mandarin language.

On Oct. 31, 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in cases challenging the long-standing use of race as “one factor among many" in the undergraduate admissions processes of Harvard University and the University of North Carolina. While the Justices’ eventual decision is not expected to affect the selection of the Class of 2027, it could have a seismic effect on the processes that admissions offices will use to choose future classes. In this special episode of Admissions Beat, host Lee Coffin, the dean of admissions at Dartmouth College, is joined by James Washington Jr., Dartmouth’s director of admissions for strategic initiatives and the former director of admissions at the University of New Hampshire. Together, they explain how, for a half-century, admissions offices have been legally permitted to consider an applicant’s race and ethnicity as one component in an application — along with grades, teacher recommendations, essays, academic interests, and activities, among other elements — as well as the many reasons why. The two veteran admissions officers also take a few moments to gaze into the future, especially if, as is widely expected, the Court rules that the use of race as one factor among many is unconstitutional.