In the Season Six finale, Trinity College's Matthew Hyde returns to AB to reflect on his own son’s college search this year. As a veteran admissions dean and a first-time admissions parent, Matt shares advice for his fellow parents on the lessons he has absorbed as his parenting collided with his day job in a very real—and sometimes emotional—way. Following host Lee Coffin’s conversation with Matt, Dartmouth’s admission officers offer a “digital carol” as they reimagine ’Twas the Night Before Christmas with an application deadline theme.
In the Season Six finale, Trinity College's Matthew Hyde returns to AB to reflect on his own son’s college search this year. As a veteran admissions dean and a first-time admissions parent, Matt shares advice for his fellow parents on the lessons he has absorbed as his parenting collided with his day job in a very real—and sometimes emotional—way. Following host Lee Coffin’s conversation with Matt, Dartmouth’s admission officers offer a “digital carol” as they reimagine ’Twas the Night Before Christmas with an application deadline theme.
Lee Coffin:
From Hanover, New Hampshire, I'm Lee Coffin, Dartmouth's vice president for admissions and financial aid, and this is the season finale of Admissions Beat.
Sometimes episodes are created at the last moment, and this is one of those episodes. Quite literally, I was on a call yesterday with my friend and colleague, Matt Hyde at Trinity, and we were catching up, and he noted that his son is a high school senior, and that led to a conversation about what's happening in his home right now. And I thought, there's a topic, admission dean as admission dad. We welcome back Matt Hyde, a recurring friend of the pod, to think out loud to this about what he's learned as a dad who has a day job in the same space. Hi Matt.
Matt Hyde:
Hello Lee. Always a pleasure to see you.
Lee Coffin:
Always a pleasure right back. Before we get to what you've learned as admissions dad, I realized, as I was prepping this episode, that while you've been on the pod many times, I have never asked the question I ask most of the guests, which is, what's your admission story? Take you all the way back to being a high school senior.
Matt Hyde:
Fortunate to have had college as an expectation, with, I know the absolute privilege that's embedded there. There was not a whole lot of thoughtfulness, quite honestly, Lee. I was a relatively young 17, 18-year old on many fronts, and didn't have a lot of exposure to the larger world. Actually, full disclosure, my very first college I looked at was Trinity College, but I had a recruiting letter from Trinity College when I was an eighth grader, so clearly George Souter, the cross country coach at the time, probably super bored on a weekend, looking at the Boston Globe results for cross country, and he sent an eighth grader a recruitment letter. Fast-forward three, four years to my junior year in high school, my first college I looked at was Trinity because of that letter.
Lee Coffin:
Wow.
Matt Hyde:
I loved the campus. This is a gorgeous campus. I loved the idea of an intimate, powerful liberal arts college that was ready to challenge me but also create opportunities for me to be an athlete. Full disclosure, country mouse Matt grew up in the woods. When he saw the skyline of a city, he withdrew and retreated way too quickly, which was unfortunate, because I would love to go back in time and say, "Hey, 17-year-old Matt, the discomfort you're feeling is a good thing, because if your education is nothing but comfortable, not an education." Instead, I retreated to what I knew, and had a great college search that was more focused on more rural spaces, and found my way to Bowdoin College. Not because I had a thoughtful search, but because I told my parents, "Hey, I want to go to college in Maine," and they threw the keys at me.
Because I was the third of three, they were done looking at colleges. I went to Maine, but I didn't visit any colleges. I decided to go camping instead. I did cruise through Bowdoin, and Colby, and Bates, and ran into the cross-country coach at Bowdoin, who called me at some point in, I think January, and said, "Hey, do you want to come to Bowdoin?"
I'm like, "Sure."
He's like, "Okay, you apply early decision two," and I did.
Lee Coffin:
So you were recruit?
Matt Hyde:
I was a recruited cross-country runner, yes. In hindsight, not a super thoughtful search, didn't visit a lot of campuses, but it worked out okay.
Lee Coffin:
I've said this before, as other people have shared their admission stories, there's a lot of serendipity that dances around this admission story, and sometimes a surprise happens. You went camping, wandered onto a couple of campuses in Maine, met a coach, saw your stats, you became an instant recruit, and here we are.
Matt Hyde:
And guess what else happened at Bowdoin College, Lee Coffin?
Lee Coffin:
You met your wife.
Matt Hyde:
I met my wife on that whim, rolling through that campus. I graduated college and had a girlfriend that turned into wife, and now the mother of my children.
Lee Coffin:
That's a brilliant segue, because you met your wife, you had two kids. Shocking to me that the oldest of those two is now a senior in high school, because I've known you so long that I remember when you got married, I remembered when you had Sam, and now, here we are. To listeners, Matt has been the Dean of Admissions at Lafayette College. He's now the Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid at Trinity. You've been around this loop many times, but now, you're doing it as a dad. I'm wondering how the dean brain has intersected with the dad brain.
Matt Hyde:
It's been interesting on many fronts, and hard to truly wrap my heart around this moment, because from my vantage point, parents, guardians, what I now call adult hangers-on, have a role to play in this whole experience of searching for and applying to college. I have a very distinct memory, Lee, of you being on stage at Tufts, doing the convocation remarks on the very first day of, I forget which class it was, of their college experience. This was before I was a father. It's the greatest day of an admission counselor's life when you see this class that you created with your teammates there, and they're so excited, they're so fired up about the college experience to come. And then, on the periphery of this experience, you see these parents and guardians that are a hot mess.
Fast-forward, it was that next year when I became a father, and then I realized at that moment, when you have these young people that become a part of you, you would do anything for them, to make sure that they're safe, and happy, and healthy, and lay down in traffic, whatever it takes. That next year, when I was watching you deliver the next year's remarks, I was a hot mess thinking about one day, my son, and now my daughter launching into this space, and having to let go of them into these beautiful colleges, these communities that will be a launching pad for the rest of their life, largely without me.
Lee Coffin:
As you've got a pre-applicant living in your home, and you've watched him go from discovery to refining a list to the fall of his senior year, how do you witness that, and then incorporate it into your day job at Trinity?
Matt Hyde:
It's a great question, and I think I've done it successfully because I've largely been hands off. Sam is an awesome, awesome son, and I think just a terrific human on so many fronts. I'm getting emotional thinking about this, but I trusted him to know what he wanted, and to figure it out on his own accord without me guiding, shaping and blazing a path for him. I did at one point, mid-spring last year of his junior year say, "Sam, you know what I do, right?"
He's like, "Yeah."
"How can I be helpful? What do you need?"
He essentially said, "Just give me the keys," and he went to go look at some colleges on his own. I eventually inserted myself a little bit out of my own professional interest, and he was happy to include me in that space. I've been very laissez-faire and hands off, following his lead, making some encouraging remarks from time to time, some suggestions, but largely letting it play out, because he's fortunate to have a really strong college counseling staff behind him where he goes to high school.
Lee Coffin:
There's a saying, “the apple doesn't fall far from the tree,” and as you're telling us about Sam grabbing the car keys and going off on his own, that sounds a lot like your road trip to Maine years ago.
Matt Hyde:
It does. Well, I didn't let him go for overnights by himself. My parents, I think, just were like, "Just go."
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. Well, it was the '90s. It was a different era.
Matt Hyde:
It was the 1900s.
Lee Coffin:
Do you find yourself thinking, as a dean of admissions, "Wow, I'm seeing things and learning things, as a parent of an applicant, I bring into my work in a more intentional way?" You must have had moments of, "Wow, these brochures are really all the same." What little epiphanies did you have where dad met dean?
Matt Hyde:
Well, it's been terrifying for dean Matt, to tell you the truth, to see how impenetrable 18-year-olds can be sometimes. They don't give you a lot of space in their lives. They don't sit down with that thoughtful email, or that very expensive brochure that you launch in their direction. They don't spend time with it. Parents do, and we're interested, and we absorb, and that does, I think, infuse those moments when we guide and shape conversation around college for our young people. I'm not saying those aren't important, they are, but he will do it on his time, on his terms, and isn't necessarily vocal about it. We do leave piles of mail for him that come, and show, and he just passes right by. That stated, there's a correlation between those that have surfaced in our inbox, and in our mailbox at home, and where he's been poking around. You know he's watching and looking, but he's not really engaging the way that we might want them to be.
Lee Coffin:
Which is funny, because as deans, we spend so much of our job thinking about the strategy, and the storytelling, and the direct mail, and all of the things that go into recruitment. You're seeing, in your own kitchen, a pile of unopened mail.
Matt Hyde:
Walking right past it, but Sam laughs at me, because guess who's saving this? Some of our peers, some that we compete very directly with for students, and others that we don't, but I think are really thoughtful. I'm thinking more for the parent audience at this point, because this generation, and I think the generations at least that I'll be working with over the next number of cycles, the parents and adults in the space have a lot more play than they did when I was looking at colleges. I would argue way too much, but we have to play that game.
When it comes to this high price, high discount space, and the investment that we're asking of these families, we need these parents and guardians to be involved and engaged. I think that's where more and more of our resources are going to go. At least based on my work with Sam, as this 18-year-old who is not paying attention to these things, I'm more focused on the parents and guardians now, and how we invest in that space.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, that's a lesson. Would you tell the parents of juniors, as we come around the holidays and the admission cycle for the class of '30 starts, "Parents open that mail?" I always think, you're a consumer of this information as well, and reading it and updating yourself is valuable. One of the things that came out in an earlier episode was the intentionality of the mail. That's a word you used a lot, intentionally. I don't think families really appreciate that the male that arrives at home in whatever form was not accidental. We are trying to introduce ourselves to you, so to a parent, the pile that's not getting read, read it, and maybe you have an opportunity to cajole a 17-year-old set of eyeballs to take a look at it.
Matt Hyde:
Well, I would encourage my peers who have 15, 16, 17, 18-ish year olds in their homes to recognize that this moment is not about them, but it doesn't mean they can't participate, and that participation can happen on the periphery, where you are leading with love and care, but also, good information, and becoming informed with new information. My peers, if they went to college, it was in those 1900s, where things are different. Whatever lens they're bringing to bear from 1990, whatever it is, into the 2020s, throw that out the window. That is actually massively unhelpful to apply that lens to this landscape, because it is so different. They have an opportunity to mold and shape that lens with new, updated information, with everything that we're sending to their homes and into their inboxes. I'd encourage them to pay attention.
Lee Coffin:
Did you go on any visits with Sam?
Matt Hyde:
I did.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah.
Matt Hyde:
It was awesome.
Lee Coffin:
Well, you were always happy, so you're going to say it's awesome, but you showed up at the admission office with a baseball cap and sunglasses, so you're incognito, and you're on the tour, and you went into the info session.
Matt Hyde:
I did, and at some point, I was at Hamilton College in New York State, with my son on a beautiful, late summer afternoon, and they're doing the info session outside, just eating up a fantastic presenter who knew the audience and played us beautifully. I see over her shoulder, my counterpart from Hamilton, who I know and have come to know well but didn't let them know that I was on campus, and I just let it lie. Sam, I think was clear to me, he's like, "Listen, don't make this about the people that you know, because I don't really care. This is about me figuring this place out."
I did have to bite my tongue, and melt into the shadows a little bit. These colleges are so impressive and thoughtful in how they put themselves out there. I wish I went on more visits, but I did follow my own advice that when we stepped into the car and started to zip home, I zipped it. I didn't say a word. I let Sam start sharing his thoughts, and I reacted very lightly, but I still have not shared what I hoped for, and if it were up to me, where he'd go to college. He doesn't need to hear that. It's unhelpful.
Lee Coffin:
Well, Matt, I love that, because we've been on enough panels over the years where I've heard you tell students and parents exactly that. Go on the visit, keep your own counsel. Let your student bring forward whatever information, and don't jump the story and say, "I loved it. I hated it." You were able to control yourself.
Matt Hyde:
We've been on top of it, based on his energy and what he wants to do, but we're still visiting colleges deep into the fall of his senior year. We visited two a couple of weeks ago, and one, the verve of that campus was speaking to him, and he was lit up, and shared that. I was so excited for him and for that college, because if they grab him, they're going to be a lucky college. The next day, we saw another wonderful place that I loved, loved it, and Sam, he liked it too, but not as much. It was hard for me to not turn his head, that they get all these things that I would love for him to love, but I didn't.
I'm glad that I didn't, because if I stated my claim, and for whatever reason he goes in other directions, for the rest of his life, he might be thinking he disappointed me, and that's impossible. I don't want to set that understanding, that if you don't do this, this or this, then I'm disappointed, because I'm not. I can't wait to see what happens. I don't have control, and I need to be okay with that.
Lee Coffin:
Well, I love that you're sharing this with our listeners, because I think this is that tricky part of navigating the college search. There's an applicant, and how many times have we heard a parent say, "We are applying?" You're not applying, your child is applying. Keeping it focused on the student, not interjecting too much of yourself, but you know so much. This is why I thought this conversation was going to be so interesting. This is your job. You have an inside perspective on the way the sausage gets made, and you're there on the tours. We did an episode last season with three moms who were former admission officers, and they all said, "We have to bite our tongues," or some of them didn't, because you want to jump in and either editorialize or redirect, or raise your hand and ask a question, and you're proving that restraint is possible.
Matt Hyde:
It's possible but not easy, Lee, because here's a fact, and I'm going to come clean here. Knowing we've sat hip to hip on a number of panels before, when you were talking about this college search, you talk about people, program, place, price and prestige.
Lee Coffin:
The four P's, yeah.
Matt Hyde:
I added the five. The five is prestige.
Lee Coffin:
Five P's, yeah.
Matt Hyde:
I added the fifth here, because prestige does not equal quality, we both know that, but it does infuse, especially our generation, thinking around, is this a good college? Is this worth the investment? I've surprised myself and been disappointed when I'm thinking about that prestige space. That is not helpful and, I haven't shared-
Lee Coffin:
You got bit by the prestige bug.
Matt Hyde:
Well, it was hard not to, and again, I don't blame parents when they bring it to the fore. It does have a place in your four P's. It has a place, especially with parents, because they can't help themselves. I have acknowledged it, I've named it with my wife, and I'm keeping it to myself.
Lee Coffin:
You personalized the five P's.
Matt Hyde:
I did. I'm sorry, you never trademarked it.
Lee Coffin:
No, but you took the five P's and added personalized.
Matt Hyde:
Well, I did, and I knew this could happen early on, when Sam first came to us with that college list. He came home, marching in after his practice and said, "I've met my college counselor, and I got my list."
I said, "That's awesome, Sam." I didn't say, "Well, what's on it?" I said, "That's awesome, Sam." My wife said, "Well, what's on the list?" I took a breath, I'm like, "All right, let him share." And then, by the second name of said institution, my wife said, "No," and I said, "Whoa, time out." I had a little huddle with my wife, with Charity in the kitchen, and said, "Listen, we need to take a breath here. I understand why you reacted in that way to this institution, but there's a reason it's there, and we need to figure it out with him and his college counselor on why it's there, and get excited about it. If that's something Sam gets fired up about, we're going to figure it out, too, how to get there."
Lee Coffin:
Did that place fade on its own?
Matt Hyde:
It faded on its own. It absolutely did, yes.
Lee Coffin:
Because he knew it wasn't the right place.
Matt Hyde:
He knew, but I love the fact that he was like, "I've never heard of this place," and my wife and I had, but he hadn't. He knew that he's a thoughtful college counselor that put it there for a good reason, and he was excited, "I'm going to check this place out," because it was in a cool place he'd never really thought about going to college before. It did fade on its own.
Lee Coffin:
Yep, that's a good teachable moment. Last week and the week before, the guests talked about early decision. It's that time of year when we're in the thick of it, and decisions are about to be released. You shared something yesterday that I thought was really worth bringing up, that your son has decided to bypass early and just go into regular decision, and do his applications then. Let's talk about that, because I love that, that he had the confidence to say, "I'm not ready, and I'm going to do my regular apps, and we'll check this out in the spring." Tell us a little bit about how that played through.
Matt Hyde:
Well, I was really heartened to hear that from Sam, because he's at a high school where, I would say 80% of those students are applying early decision somewhere. We visited enough colleges where he could have picked it and stuck it, and he just wasn't feeling it. He's got some very strong choices, but he hasn't put one above the other, and didn't feel like he had to make that choice now, which he doesn't. The enrollment manager in me loves early decision. I love it. It is easy to predict. These are students who raise their hands say, "This is my top choice in where I want to be." I love that opportunity for us, but as a human being, as a father, I really, really do not like early decision. It pushes students way too early to make a big choice, and this is one of the first big choices they're making, hopefully with some guidance and support, but largely, it's their decision. When you rush a student into the space to apply early decision, I think it can create some real problems down the line for their ultimate happiness and success in college.
Lee Coffin:
Did he deliberately bypass early, or did he just get to a moment and say, "I don't have a first choice right now?"
Matt Hyde:
He had a couple of days here and there where he said, "I'm applying ED," and I said, "Awesome, but let's keep looking around," and we did. And then, someone else popped as a top choice, and then that was, "Apply ED here." I'm like, "Well, why?"
He's like, "Well, it's just what you should do if it's your top choice." I'm like, "It can be what you do. It doesn't have to be." It would be different, Lee, if I felt like these are schools where ED absolutely matters, and it's ED or bust. He's a strong student. I think he's got an excellent profile that will play well at lots of places. If he had a top choice that was one of those schools that admits less than 15% of its students, and they have ED, then I would say, "You know what? It's probably ED or bust here." His list is really thoughtful, and I think he has a really great opportunity, admission-wise, at all of them.
Lee Coffin:
I love that. Listeners, I've said that, other guests have said that, so I love that we have a dad of a regular decision candidate, and the dean of admissions, whose child is going to jump into the open-endedness of regular and see what happens. How do you feel about that? Are you Zen?
Matt Hyde:
I am. I think he's not second-guessing himself, but right now, as decisions are dropping, he's looking around. I think he's got the confidence to realize, my time will come, but it's interesting. It's interesting to see who's getting in where for him. I've asked him, is that impacting your thinking on where you're applying? Because some of these students have gotten into places that he's excited about, and now you know who one of your future classmates might be if you go there. I said, "Is that reshaping and reshuffling the deck a little bit?" He's like, "No, these places are big enough for everybody." Full disclosure, I like all these kids, so it's not a big deal.
Lee Coffin:
No, great. Your journey through the college search as a dad seems like it has been balanced and mostly drama-free.
Matt Hyde:
There has been no drama.
Lee Coffin:
Good. Love that.
Matt Hyde:
I'm wondering, should there have been more? Should I have pushed more? Should I have done more? Sam has worked on his essays, and his short responses and his optionals, and has still got a couple more to go. I haven't looked at them yet. He's talked to me about them, and I've read thousands and thousands of these things. I will ultimately give them a look, but I'm not going to come in with a heavy hand at all. Again, I'm trusting him, and I want his voice to shine through. I will share some thoughts, but I'm not going to get the pen and paper out and start writing them for him or with him. That's going to be his words, and his thoughts and ideas.
Lee Coffin:
My last question is really an invitation. As the admission dean who's also admission dad, give advice to your fellow parents based on what you've just learned.
Matt Hyde:
All right, so I could do this, and I'm going to try to do it without getting emotional. Lee, you know that I'm a crier. You know this, right?
Lee Coffin:
Endearing.
Matt Hyde:
What I've come to terms with, and this is something I've shared with parents before, that 90% of the time you spend with your children in your lifetime happens before they go to college. Here I am at this moment, a really exciting one for him, knowing that, and I think as parents, we can decide what energy we bring into this. We could make this moment an anxiety-provoking, stressful one. We could create tension and discomfort for our kids and for ourselves, or we can lead with love, care, interest and support, and to follow their lead.
If they need a kick in the pants, if they need a charge dropped, then yeah, do that, not about this college search experience. Don't make this a process to endure with them. This is an adventure. These are young people at a cool moment in their lives, where they are becoming more aware of themselves and what matters to them on many fronts, but they're also beginning to realize that they have agency over their story, and they're shaping it each and every day with the choices that they make. Provide space for that to happen, and again, if you lead with the love, care and support, in my mind, I think good things will happen.
Lee Coffin:
Amen. Thanks Matt for coming back on Admissions Beat, for a much more personal topic than usual.
Matt Hyde:
Anytime. Well, Avery will be applying in two or three years, so happy to come on back.
Lee Coffin:
All right, we'll do it again.
Matt Hyde:
Awesome.
Lee Coffin:
Okay, thanks. See you later.
Matt Hyde:
Take care, Lee.
(music)
Lee Coffin:
You know how the holidays roll around, and some good old TV shows and movies come back? I love that, and I am contributing to that nostalgia, or holiday rerun by bringing, once again, a poem I drafted a few years ago. I think it was during the pandemic, and I was home and a little squirrely, and I thought, "Hey, let me play around with ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas, and turned it into an admission-themed topic. We're going to have our annual season-ending holiday rendition of my poem, ‘Twas Two Weeks Till the Deadline. When I was originally working on this, I did a little research, and I learned that the aforementioned poem The Night Before Christmas, or ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas, whatever way you want to say, it was written anonymously in 1823, so 201 years ago, and it was later attributed to Clement Clarke Moore.
Wikipedia says it's, "Arguably the best known verses ever written by an American, and largely responsible for some of the conceptions Santa Claus from the mid-19th century to the present." No matter your faith tradition, I hope you'll enjoy my deadline-themed spin on this holiday classic. This year, it is performed by the admission committee at Dartmouth College, from the committee room as we were wrestling around with this year's early decision docket. I said, "Hey, let's take a time out and do a choral reading," so digital caroling, if you will." Here we go.best-known
Well, it's two weeks to the deadline and all through the house, the senior was stirring coffee, charged fingers on her mouse.
Speaker 4:
Her essays were written and edited with care, in hopes that admission would soon be there.
Speaker 3:
Her parents were nestled while snug in their beds, while visions of acceptances danced in their heads.
Speaker 5:
The tours had been taken, the testing no fun. The deadline was coming, but her application undone.
Speaker 4:
The procrastinating senior had work still to do. They beckoned, it's word limits, poo-pooed. The senior was stymied as she stared at her screen, the last supplemental questions seemed especially mean. When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter, the senior sprang from her desk to see what was the matter. Away to the window she flew like a flash. She tore open the shutters and threw open the sash. When what to her wondering, eye should appear, was a queue of admissions officers and eight tiny reindeer.
Speaker 6:
With a gray stubbled driver so lively and keen, she knew in moment it must be the dean.
Speaker 7:
More rapid than eagles, here they came, and he whistled and shouted and called them by name.
Speaker 5:
Now Eric, now Erin, now Ali and Ree, on Kevin, on Laura, on Devonte and Lee, to the top of the porch, the top of the wall, we must read all these files, holistically all.
Speaker 4:
So up to her house, the readers they flew, with their sleigh full of files. And the dean up there, too.
Speaker 8:
And then in a twinkling, she heard on the roof the prancing and pawing of each little hoof.
Speaker 9:
As she drew in her head and was checking her phone, down the chimney he came with a bleary-eyed moan.
Speaker 10:
He was dressed all in flannel, from his head to his foot. While reading, the dean never wore a suit.
Speaker 11:
A bundle of applications was flung across his back, and he looked like a peddler just opening his sack.
Speaker 12:
His eyes, how they twinkled his dimples, how merry. His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry.
Speaker 13:
With the wink of his eye and the twist of his head, he soon gave her to know she had nothing to dread,
Speaker 4:
But the senior was anxious, her application unfinished. She had nothing to give him, were her chances diminished?
Speaker 14:
The pools are so big. Where do I stand? Everyone's great, high achieving, I worry I'm bland.
Speaker 11:
The dean tapped his bag with a sympathetic sigh as he beckoned her close. She was about to apply.
Speaker 15:
The deadline was coming, that was for sure, but your content is strong, your logic is pure. You've done well in school and you're very well-rounded. Your recommendations are rosy, and not a wee bit confounded.
Speaker 16:
The dean leaned in close so he could be clear. "The application, you see, is your chance to cheer. Tell your story, be authentic. You've nothing to fear."
Speaker 4:
A yes or a no, there is no way to peek. For now, please stop worrying, keep typing. Just let your life speak.
Speaker 3:
Laying his finger aside of his nose, with an encouraging nod, up the chimney, he rose.
Speaker 5:
His sleigh stuffed with apps, to his team gave a cue, and away they all flew. There was reading to do.
Lee Coffin:
And she heard him exclaim as he flew out of sight, "Happy holidays to all, and to all a good night."
(bells)
Friends, listeners, that ends Season Six of Admissions beat. I really appreciate the people who follow along and have us in your earbuds, or in your car speaker every Tuesday morning. It's an ongoing treat to record these conversations, to help you think about the nuts and bolts of admission, to bring some interesting guests away, like Matt Hyde today, to help personalize this work. If you're an applicant, or the parent of an applicant, or a guidance counselor, or even an admission officer, to remember, this is a kid-centered topic. On the selective side it's competitive, but it's thoughtful. I hope Season Six helped reinforce that for all of you.
As always, thanks to Charlotte Albright and Jack Steinberg, my producers and editors, for working with me week by week, and helping all of us sound good, and to help me lean into the news you could use of this podcast.
We will be back for Season Seven—unbelievable—where we will rewind to the beginning, and start talking to the high school class of 2026, as the high school juniors begin to think about college. We'll start teeing up some episodes for them, to get going, and for the seniors, as you wait for decisions, we'll have some spring episodes to help you make a decision by May 1st.
I'm Lee Coffin from Dartmouth College. Happy holidays.