From Grey's Anatomy to Bridgerton, Shonda Rhimes is television's storyteller extraordinaire. The Emmy winner visits AB for a lesson on how to channel main-character energy in an essay or interview. "What would you say to a teenager staring at a blank page, afraid their first draft won’t be good enough?," Dartmouth's Lee Coffin asks her. "Don't overthink your story," Shonda advises. "Just be you."
From Grey's Anatomy to Bridgerton, Shonda Rhimes is television's storyteller extraordinaire. The Emmy winner visits AB for a lesson on how to channel main-character energy in an essay or interview. "What would you say to a teenager staring at a blank page, afraid their first draft won’t be good enough?," Dartmouth's Lee Coffin asks her. "Don't overthink your story," Shonda advises. "Just be you."
Lee Coffin:
From Hanover, New Hampshire, I'm Lee Coffin, Dartmouth's vice president and dean of admission and financial aid. And this is Admissions Beat.
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Storytelling is the heart of an application. It's what gives it life. Your grades, your data is fundamental, foundational, they tell us you can do the work, but the narrative you bring into the application is where things really start to sizzle and bubble and where we meet a person. And I know the storytelling is hard because for the first time in the life of a 17, 18-year-old, you have to present yourself, you have to audition, almost, for a seat in the class. And it felt like a moment to invite one of the nation's premier storytellers into Admissions Beat to give you some tips on how to be your own best storyteller.
So this week we welcome Shonda Rhimes to the Beat for a conversation about the fine art of narrative. Shonda, the CEO of Shondaland, the creator of shows like Grey's Anatomy, Private Practice, Scandal, How To Get Away With Murder, and Bridgerton, one of the most popular shows on Netflix today… all come from the fingertips and the brain of Shonda Rhimes, Dartmouth class of 1991. So when we come back, we will have a conversation with Shonda about ways in which an applicant can own her story. How a student staring at a keyboard with immobilized fingers can start to get them moving and create a narrative that helps him earn a seat in the class. We'll be right back.
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Hi, Shonda.
Shonda Rhimes:
Hello.
Lee Coffin:
I'm so excited to have you on Admissions Beat for a really exciting conversation about storytelling. And I'm borrowing one of your Instagram posts from Shondaland here you said, "Channel your main character energy." And I saw that and I thought, "That is the perfect way of talking to high school seniors about how to own their story when they apply to college."
Shonda Rhimes:
You're absolutely right. In a lot of ways, I think that could be helpful.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, because I think for students, they lose track of the idea that their application is their story. Yes, here's data attached to it. But at the heart of it, this person from wherever is saying, "Here I am, meet me, invite me into your community." And I've thought a lot about the parallel. You cast shows. I cast the class. And as students are doing that, the way they lean into their personal narrative really counts.
So, for listeners, I am guessing Shonda Rhimes needs very little introduction, but she's an award-winning television creator, producer, author, as well as the CEO of the global media company, Shondaland. Shonda is the first woman to create three television dramas, Grey's Anatomy, Private Practice, and Scandal, to each achieve the 100 episode milestone. And, Shonda, I watched all of them, so I was part of that audience. She's gone on to produce Bridgerton on Netflix. She won a Daytime Emmy for the documentary Black Barbie. So you are everywhere and your stories are so compelling and we're really excited to have you with us today. But let's start with you. Our audience are high school seniors and juniors and their parents and their guidance counselors. Take us back to high school. I know you grew up in suburban Chicago.
Shonda Rhimes:
Yeah, I went to parochial high school in suburban Chicago. I was always a really driven kid and mostly it was around anything having to do with literature or English or languages. So it was hard for me, math and sciences were hard for me, and I struggled a bit, especially in chemistry. I remember that. But I was still really determined. And I actually was a student who felt and understood because I was a writer that the best way for me to write an essay and get into college was to tell my story. I knew that I could write my way out, to quote Hamilton, into an admission simply because I knew that telling my story was a powerful thing. I understood how powerful storytelling could be. So my essays were really focused on that as best I could.
Lee Coffin:
So even as a high school student, you were writing?
Shonda Rhimes:
Yeah, I've been writing since I could tell stories into a tape recorder and try to get my mom to type them up. Tape recorders are very old-school, but everybody knows what I mean. I wasn't a student who felt like I had to get A-pluses in every class. My parents were academics, so I was also really concentrated on getting the most out of a class and really trying to learn and really having it be about how much effort I put in. I got a lot of A's obviously, but I also, the classes I struggled with, it was about the effort I put in versus being concentrated on feeling like a failure because I didn't get an A.
Lee Coffin:
Tell us about your college search.
Shonda Rhimes:
Oh my gosh. I was so determined to go to school someplace other than Illinois. I wanted to go out of state. I was a reader, so I had read all about all the Ivy League schools and I was sort of determined that I was going to go to school on the East Coast. And we didn't have a ton of money at the time, so I saved up my Baskin-Robbins working ice cream money and got on a plane to Vermont, which is where my brother lived, and he took me to visit all these colleges on the East Coast. And that was really eye-opening for me because I don't even think I knew what I was expecting. I had already been accepted to University of Illinois and those schools, the minute you're a scholar, you get accepted to those. So I knew I had someplace I could go, but I really wanted to explore the unknown.
And so I explored women's colleges, I explored smaller colleges. I remember stepping foot on the Dartmouth campus for the first time and thinking, "This is where I'm going to college." It was so beautiful. But more importantly, every single student I met on that campus was so friendly and happy and excited to talk to me about school, which was not the case in some places. So people were like, "Come and see what my dorm room looks like." It was fascinating. Just random people were like, "Are you visiting? Do you want to see this?" And it wasn't just my tour guide, it was everybody I met and that love for the school that they seemed to have was really exciting to me.
Lee Coffin:
So, on NPR, you were being interviewed and you shared a story about your guidance counselor discouraging you from that aspiration. Tell us that story, because I had a very similar experience with my guidance counselor.
Shonda Rhimes:
Interesting.
Lee Coffin:
He looked at my transcript and he said, "I don't have time for the smart ones. Go back to class, you'll figure it out." And that was it.
Shonda Rhimes:
That's really cruel. I feel like I was on my own a lot in that sense because we had had, not the biggest school with the biggest reputation or anything, we had had one girl who was a friend of mine the year before go to Harvard, and that was such a big deal. That tells you in my school like, one girl went to Harvard and the school talked about it for years. And so when I came to the guidance counselor's office with my little list of schools that I was interested and wanted to apply for, she really just sort of, not cruelly because I think she really thought she knew what she was doing, she said to me, "Shonda, not everybody can be Hannah," which was the name of the girl, "Not everybody can be Hannah. You're not going to get into any of these schools."
And then she sort of handed me some of the state schools that she thought would be interesting. And luckily, I was raised by my parents because at the time my mom was teaching science at another school, and I remember marching out to the payphone and calling my mother at work and telling her that this woman had said to me that I was not Ivy League material and that I would not get in, and my mother literally said, "Hold on." And hung up the phone and I sat in the school lobby and waited. And 15 minutes later, my mother's car pulled up to the school and she went in that guidance counselor's office. And when she came back out, she said, "Go wherever you want to and she's going to help you all you want." My mother being such an advance man for me was amazing.
And I really do think, I think about all the kids who go into a counselor's office and that's what the counselor tells them. And they don't have anybody to tell them, "That's not true." Maybe their parents didn't go to college, so don't have the experience. Maybe their parents aren't as available or even thinking in that way. So, to me, these kids walk in with these big dreams, it should be the counselor's job to support them, be realistic with them, but support them in the reach that they want to go to. And instead, they're told that's not for them. And I'm going to tell the story, I was at a special book reading for Mrs. Obama's book, and it was before the book came out.
And it was me and it was a table full of very powerful Black women, Gwendolyn Ifill, Michele Norris, all of these women who had accomplished amazing things in their life. We were talking about the book, and in the book is a chapter where Mrs. Obama talks about the very same thing happening to her going into a counselor's office and then having the counselor tell her she wasn't Ivy League school material and she would never get in. And when that happened, I said, "That happened to me too." And then all around the table, every last woman with the exception of one said it had happened to her.
Lee Coffin:
Wow.
Shonda Rhimes:
And that was the moment when we sort of said, "Can you imagine? We all had parents who pushed back, but think about all the kids whose parents didn't push back or didn't know to push back or didn't even think that they should tell their parents this, who just lost out on the opportunity." And I think that is something that unfortunately happens to kids of color or kids from not as high-ranking schools. I think a lot of people are encouraged not to try to reach for anything. And I think it's important that kids know that every woman in that room turned out to be amazing, powerful, judges, all kinds of things, and every woman in that room reached.
Lee Coffin:
So, hold your dream, and I am glad you told that story because I was going to note that when I read Michelle Obama's autobiography, that chapter really jumped out at me. And then when I saw you had the same experience, I was about to ask you that very question, so you went there before I did.
Shonda Rhimes:
Yeah, there were so many people who've had that story, and it's frustrating.
Lee Coffin:
So essays are a topic for seniors, but there are juniors who are listening who are about to begin their search. So give them the empowerment to move forward. They're about to start their searches and people may say to them, "You are not Ivy League material. You're not competitive in that environment." Give them permission.
Shonda Rhimes:
I mean, I think it's important to remember that other people don't get to define who you are. You get to define who you are. And that's really hard when you're 16 or 17 years old to think of it that way, but you are the main character of your own story, and everybody else is a supporting player in so many ways. And to let somebody take your dream from you, you're basically handing them the power to handle your life. And I think at the very least, you want to be somebody who tried and it didn't work out. You don't want to be somebody who didn't try and then will never know what would've happened if.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, I think regret is always such a sad thing where you look back and think, "I wonder what would have happened if," and lean into it and accept that maybe it's a no.
Shonda Rhimes:
Right. It could be a no, but you won't know if it's a no or a yes unless you make the effort to do it.
Lee Coffin:
So that brings me organically to your memoir. So you wrote The Year of Yes, which you wrote in 2015, and you did a 10-year anniversary edition in 2025. And you talk about saying yes to the things that scared you. And I'm wondering if we could connect that idea to college admissions and how might a high school junior or senior channel that motto?
Shonda Rhimes:
I mean, it's so interesting because back then maybe you've never left your home state, maybe you've never been in what you'd consider to be, quote, unquote, "The big leagues," whatever that is. Maybe you've never been part of the group at your school where they were considered the top students. Maybe you were somebody who's quietly getting your great grades in the corner. All of those things like choosing to make an adventure out of it and say to yourself, "Okay, I've never done these things, but I'm excited to try them," is so valuable.
I think when you're starting out, you think to yourself, "This is too scary or too big for me," and maybe you don't have anybody to encourage you, but the reality of it is, do the things that scare you in the beginning. I say that in terms of both trying new activities, if you're looking for things to put on your college application, things that you love, but trying something new or finding a new way to do something. And I think about it in terms of looking at schools, it might be terrifying for you to look at a school that's 2,000 miles away from your home, but it also can be such an adventure for you that you shouldn't close yourself off from things simply because you're scared.
Lee Coffin:
And you did that organically, it sounds like, with your brother. You flew to Vermont and you drove around to the East Coast and you explored.
Shonda Rhimes:
Yeah, that's exactly what I did. We got in a little beat up Honda, I remember this, and we drove all up and down the East Coast looking at schools. I value that experience so much because I think if I hadn't had that experience, I would've simply gone to Notre Dame, which was the fancy school right nearby. I would've gone there because I would've been too afraid to go too far. But getting to see it in person and getting to experience it and feel the comfort and the vibes on campuses was a really important aspect of it if you can do that.
Lee Coffin:
I love this interview because you're going right where I was going to go. So the vibe of a campus is also parallel to the vibe of a person. And you have created so many characters in so many wonderful shows. I mean, Grey's Anatomy is still going, so you're inventing characters. Maybe you modeled them on people.
Shonda Rhimes:
No, yeah, I'm definitely inventing characters.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, but you're inventing them. So an applicant to college doesn't have to invent herself, but she just to tell that story, that main character energy. A friend of mine is a college counselor and he emailed me the other day and he said, "Many of my students struggle to believe their own lives are not, quote, 'Interesting enough to write about in college essays.'" As a storyteller, what advice would Shonda give about recognize the power in their own everyday stories?
Shonda Rhimes:
There's so much that's amazing. Things that you might not think are special about you or you might not think are amazing, failures that you've had that you think you should be ashamed of. All of those things are what make you you, and they're also what make you unique. And I think that for so many kids, they're so worried about fitting into whatever model that's being made that they're not seeing it the right way. My daughter, I have a daughter who when she was three, came to me in tears and said she was playing with her cousins and she said, "Mom, I'm not fitting in. I'm fitting out." And I said, "Then fit out as hard as you can." And so that became a little mantra in our house.
So stop trying to fit into whatever you think the model of a Dartmouth student is or a Smith student is or whatever it is, and try to fit out, which means be who you are, and present that. You may not think it's interesting, but the people reading the admissions things are reading the same kind of kid, I mean, this is my assumption, reading the same kind of kid over and over and over again because there's a lot of kids who are trying to just do the thing where they fit into the box. Be the person who stands out, somebody that they can remember when they're done reading the essays and going, "That kid was really interesting." You don't have to be perfect. You have to be you.
Lee Coffin:
What would you say to a teenager staring at a blank screen afraid their first draft won't be good enough?
Shonda Rhimes:
Your first draft won't be good enough.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah.
Shonda Rhimes:
I mean, I think that's the thing to remember. Your first draft's never going to be good enough. Write the down-and-dirty version first where you put in all the things and maybe it seems silly or cliche, put it all in there. And then take a day or two and then go back to it. And then really look at what you've written and why you've written it and what's in there that's good and go from there. And if you don't feel like you are the person able to know exactly what's good, always okay to ask somebody else to read it for you and to give you their thoughts on what's missing or what could be better. I don't do that personally, but I do think it's a really valuable thing for a student to do.
Consider it something that you're honing. It's not perfect the first time out. It may not be perfect the second time out. Do not wait until two days before your essays are due to start writing them, but give it some time. Write what you think is something terrible. Give yourself permission, "I'm going to write something terrible." And then from that terrible thing will come all kinds of seeds of something that's really good. And sometimes the thing you write that's really terrible that you think is terrible isn't terrible at all.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. Well, I think so many students get caught in this moment of overthinking. Their fingers are on the keyboard and they can't start to write because they keep asking themselves, "What does the admission officer want to read?"
Shonda Rhimes:
Right.
Lee Coffin:
As opposed to, "What do I want to share?" And you, on the NPR interview, you said, "I don't write shows thinking people are going to like this. It is a wonderful byproduct of my shows." So talk about that a little bit. You're not worrying about whether someone's going to like it.
Shonda Rhimes:
I only write shows I want to watch. Truly. If I want to watch it, then I can get excited about it and I can write about it. I'm not thinking about the audience until we're basically airing and I'm thinking like, "I hope people like it." It's not a thing that I'm thinking about because I think that hinders your creativity as well. If you are busy worried about all the opinions of all the other people, then you're never going to be able to just sit in the opinions that you have of yourself. I find that really valuable to just give yourself permission to be completely yourself in an interview.
If you feel like there's prompt questions, if you feel like the prompt questions aren't helping you, find a way to break them down into an interesting way. Are you going to start talking about an object? Are you going to start talking about an experience you had? Are you going to start talking about your dog? Whatever it is, find an interesting way into the prompt. It doesn't necessarily have to be the exact thing the prompt is asking, but it has to be in the spirit of that because a lot of people get caught up in the prompt and are like, "I have to say everything that's written in here or else it's not going to work."
Lee Coffin:
Correct. No, that's right. We have a prompt inspired by Kermit the Frog, and since he says “it's not easy being green,” the prompt is about moments when you're different, and whatever way you want to define that, and it's surprising how many people go really narrowly and start talking about Sesame Street and it's like, "This isn't about that."
Shonda Rhimes:
That's interesting.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. This is Kermit channeling green could be environmental, green could be from a diverse background, green could be inexperienced. There's lots of ways you might interpret what seems like a silly quote from a puppet or a Muppet in this case, but the question is an invitation to start to riff and to share.
Shonda Rhimes:
Right. And to show who you are. So when I'm writing a show, my goal is always to create a window and a mirror, a window into a world different from my own and a mirror reflecting me back to me.
Lee Coffin:
I love that.
Shonda Rhimes:
But that's what you want for your reader. So you are trying to give your reader a window into a world that might be different from their own and a way that you're speaking in a way that feels universal, thus empathetically, that reflects a universal thing back to them. That's always the goal.
Lee Coffin:
I saw a post, it was a blog and you were sharing four master storytelling tips. I wonder if I could just say them to you and you can comment. So number one was “be authentic.”
Shonda Rhimes:
Be yourself. I mean, fit out as hard as you can. I really do believe that's important.
Lee Coffin:
I love that. Two is “honor the creative process.”
Shonda Rhimes:
Meaning that it's not a first draft that gets thrown down there. It's not that. It takes time. You make mistakes. There are bad drafts, and you have to give yourself permission and enjoy the idea that you're not going to be perfect the first time out. I know a lot of us when we write papers put so much pressure on ourselves. I remember first put so much pressure on myself when I was writing a paper to make sure that I was getting it down perfectly as I went. That's never a good idea. It really isn't. Write your bad draft first and then write your great draft.
Lee Coffin:
Three, “be inclusive.”
Shonda Rhimes:
I think that can mean all kinds of things. That can mean making sure that your audience really understands what you have to say. It can be looking at the world from a point of view that's different from the general point of view that the world holds right now. So, Lee, guys, if you don't know, Lee is sort of a fortyish, fiftyish white man. Am I complimenting you?
Lee Coffin:
I'm a little older than that, but thank you.
Shonda Rhimes:
Right. But you know what I mean?
Lee Coffin:
Yeah.
Shonda Rhimes:
No matter who you are right now, if you're applying to college, you are not a fiftyish anything. So include points of view that you think the admissions officers haven't seen or don't know. Use your youth as a difference. Use your culture as a difference. Use all of those things as a difference. I think that that's really possible. Use experiences you've had facing biases because of your sexuality as a difference. Use anytime you've had difficulty with disability as a difference. Talk about some rituals that your family holds.
I think it's really beautiful. I have a friend whose daughter just wrote about some of the tribal rituals of their culture, and I thought that was such a beautiful way to encompass who she is as a person and to showcase who she is as a person. It's not about saying, "I'm Black." That's not talking about your culture. It's about saying that, "Here's an experience that I had that reminds me of where I come from." There's also just talking about what makes you you, all of those things are an opportunity to fit out and to share your individualness. Sometimes it can be you grew up without parents. Sometimes it can be you were raised by a grandparent. It can be a lot of different things. You're not writing a, "I want to go to an Ivy League school because I am good at this and good at this and good at this." Don't second guess what you think the admissions officers want to see.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. Number four, “don't limit how you tell your story. Give an idea time to germinate and grow and see where it goes.”
Shonda Rhimes:
That to me also goes into the creativity of how you tell your story. There are plenty of people who will write a regular first-person essay. There are people who will write, I don't know, from the point of view of the tree outside their house, which is an interesting creative way to go. There's a million different creative ways to talk about who you are and a million different ways to approach an essay that aren't the simple standard, "This is an essay." What ChatGPT would call an essay. Don't do that ever. Write about what makes you you, I think you can't go wrong with that.
Lee Coffin:
So you've very openly talked about being shy or introverted, and a lot of high school students are shy and struggle to tell their story through the shyness, and that could be an essay, it could be in an interview. So another storytelling platform is a college interview.
Shonda Rhimes:
Yes.
Lee Coffin:
Help your kindred spirits who are a bit shy, shine.
Shonda Rhimes:
It's really hard to be shy and do those interviews. I remember basically almost feeling like I was going to die in my Dartmouth interview because I was so stressed out about it and wasn't a verbal person. I was like, "I'm a good on paper person. I can write anything, but you want me to talk? That's really hard." And I really used to be that way, guys. It's not something that I just say, it was painful for me to have to stand up in front of anybody and say who I was, but part of what I did was is I practiced, and I don't mean I practice in front of my parents or anything.
What I did was I thought about, "What did I want to convey?" And then I took one or two or three little anecdotes about myself that I wanted to convey. I distilled them down into two or three sentences so that at the very least, even if I panicked, I could just say those two or three sentences that I knew would convey the right thing. You don't have to say the word for word. This is not a memorization technique, but have two or three things about yourself that you want to share, and you can hang on to those versus going in clean and not knowing or having been over-prepared in ways that are just about your GPA.
Lee Coffin:
I advise students to think about their story and what are the three or four elements they want to make sure I know, especially if I've never met them in person. If I'm reading an essay or a recommendation, I start to sketch out the main character through those words. Sometimes there's a recommendation that enhances or fills out the character, but the intentionality of doing this admission storytelling is start with a sketch of yourself and say, "This college needs to meet this person."
Shonda Rhimes:
Right. You are painting them a picture of who you are.
Lee Coffin:
That's right. And I don't know who you are until you tell me. It gets to-
Shonda Rhimes:
If you can't tell them, you're just the numbers on a page.
Lee Coffin:
And that gets to a really delicious comment you made on Call Her Daddy where you said, "Women need to brag more."
Shonda Rhimes:
Yes. Oh my gosh.
Lee Coffin:
And I have so many conversations with high school students, often girls, who say, "I don't like to brag. This application process is stressing me out because I'm not a bragger." And I said, "Every time, you must tell your story. Don't be obnoxious, but you have to. Bragging could be unpleasant or you can be confidently leaning into yourself." So talk about bragging.
Shonda Rhimes:
I mean, I always use that phrase because I feel like that is how it feels internally to talk about yourself for a lot of women. You do feel like, "Oh my God, I'm bragging. This is terrible." And you're trying to be likable. I think the thing to remember is that this is the time to very carefully and confidently toot your own horn. If there's ever going to be a time, it's right here when you're trying to go to college, and I think it's fine to be proud of your accomplishments. I think it's fine to say, "This is what I created or this is what I did." You give a woman a compliment, 99% of the time she says like, "Oh no, not me." You know what I mean? Or, "I was just lucky." This is not the time to brush it off. This is the one time to, if you're going to pick a time, this is the time to really embrace all that you've done. You've worked so hard for this moment. You need to show it off.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. And I think when I imagine the class we're building, if everybody's loud and gregarious, it's a noisy place and quiet has a place in a community. I often go to theater. In my own experience, I loved being on the stage and acting and performing, but the people behind the scenes were often definitely afraid of ever stepping into that spotlight, but it had really important roles. To the shy folks, I say like, "You might be someone who loves ideas and you maybe don't debate, but you write them down, or you're a poet, or you're the lighting tech person, or you're in the orchestra and you're not conducting it, but you're there playing your heart out in a really important, meaningful way." That's a skill we want in any student body.
Shonda Rhimes:
Don't introverts make up, I mean, they have to make up at least 50% of the class.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, of course.
Shonda Rhimes:
I mean, it's not like you're grabbing all extroverts. It's okay to be introverted, and it's okay to tell the interviewer when you get in there, "I'm really nervous because I'm shy." I think it's fine to say that, that it's not this weird unspoken secret, but nobody's mentioned.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. Well, it also, I think for the interviewer, it helps the person say, "Okay, this might be uncomfortable for the other person." And that awareness I think is valuable.
Shonda Rhimes:
It's so interesting because I think about interviewing now and it's like pitching a show, like you're pitching a television show. I always walk in and I say, I set the stage, I'm like, "This is going to be a really dramatic, really high paced drama about X." Or you can say, "This is going to be so funny. You're not going to be able to stop laughing." I like to set the stage because that gives them a chance to figure out what they're expecting and then you can talk them through whatever it is you're talking about or who you are.
You can even say, "I've always been a really introverted person, so this is a big step for me." Or just, "I've always been a really introverted person, so I'm not used to this." It's fine because you're setting the stage for them as to who they're going to be. The person who walks in and is like, "You're not going to believe what life is like once you meet me," that's a different kind of stage they're setting. I'm not sure it's always the best one, but it helps to be honest and to sort them know what to expect from you as an interviewee.
Lee Coffin:
That's great advice. I want to ask a question that's very politically sensitive. It's the role of race in college admissions. You did an interview with the Dartmouth Alumni Magazine a few years ago, and the person writing the story said, "Your shows have some of the most diverse casts on television, and you break every outdated and unspoken rule." And you said, "Everybody gets to be a three-dimensional person. Everybody gets to be fulfilled."
Shonda Rhimes:
Yeah.
Lee Coffin:
Which I loved. So my question is, in the post-Supreme Court space where race is no longer one factor among many in a college application, it is still a person's story and life.
Shonda Rhimes:
Yes.
Lee Coffin:
Encourage a Black girl to tell her story in a race-neutral process. How does she do that?
Shonda Rhimes:
In this new world, kids are afraid to say anything that might suggest their race or orientation in any way, which is fascinating because basically what you're doing is you're making yourself generic for what you think the process needs to be. You're thinking this is supposed to be a generic process. No, I don't think that you can say, "I'm a Black woman," and then write an essay about dolphins. You know what I mean? Unless there's something culturally about those dolphins that has something to do with you. So it's not about announcing your race. What you're supposed to be doing is announcing who you are and how you've been shaped, and the eyes through which you have viewed the world.
I think that is a really important thing to do and to feel like that's an asset. It's not a box to be checked. It's an asset. It helps people understand who you are and when they're making up a class of people, it's so interesting to be able to say, "Oh, these people have these very interesting cultural experiences that they'll be able to share and mix with these people who maybe have not had those experiences, maybe share with these people who had completely different cultural experiences." You're trying to make a class of people, like you said, you're trying to cast a class. You're not trying to get one-size-fits-all of the same thing. You want people to be who they are in all the ways that they can be them. I always say it's diversity in all its forms. It's not about race. Does that help?
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. I mean, because I think you're right, a lot of people don't know what they can and should share, and I was having a conversation the other day with someone who said, "Well, people can't check a box. And I said, "That's right." I said, "But a life is more than a checkbox. The way a story comes through the application wholeheartedly is really important." I am encouraging students of all backgrounds to share their story.
Shonda Rhimes:
A white kid growing up in Appalachia should be able to share that culture as much as a Black girl growing up in the South.
Lee Coffin:
That's right.
Shonda Rhimes:
It's not that it's about what color you are, it's about your ability to share your story and to define your culture in a way that suggests that you have something to bring to the table for the college.
Lee Coffin:
The other question I wanted to ask about channeling your shows, I mean, you've set these really culturally wonderful stories in a hospital in Seattle, in the White House, a law school in Philadelphia, in Regency London. How does place inform someone's story?
Shonda Rhimes:
Oh, I think that's such a valuable thing to ask. Where you are from is part of the fabric of who you are so much. A kid who grew up in the city and a kid who grew up in the suburbs and a kid who grew up on a farm come from very different experiences. Growing up in Chicago is very different than growing up in Texarkana. I think people really need to think about how where they're from has shaped them. Even when you think it's bland, you think, "I grew up in a suburban house, a suburban neighborhood. That's not interesting." But it does make you different from the kids who grew up in the city, kids who grew up in upper middle-class neighborhoods. It's how you define yourself, your place is part of that.
Lee Coffin:
You've never put one of your shows in Chicago?
Shonda Rhimes:
I haven't.
Lee Coffin:
That's interesting.
Shonda Rhimes:
You know what? It is. For a long time, this is simple, I only filmed all my shows in Los Angeles for a long time. Grey's and Private Practice were in California because that's easy to replicate. We did Washington because I knew this was a political show and we never shot in Washington except for the final episode. It's interesting, we haven't ever done Chicago. We've done the places that feel right for those characters. Regent's England was such a stretch because like, "Let's go back in time." But it also was so much fun learning about all of that.
Lee Coffin:
Well, I think people overlook home as part of their story because it's your home and it's what you know.
Shonda Rhimes:
Oh, that's interesting.
Lee Coffin:
It's familiar. And you think, "What's interesting about this place where I am?" And it's such an emotional part of you though, it's like it's always part of you even when you leave it.
Shonda Rhimes:
Right. I think it's valuable to talk about. I always think start with your dinner ritual, for instance, is your family a family where everybody sits down at the table together? Is it a family where everybody sits at the table together and everybody's speaking Spanish or everybody speaking French? Are you sitting down at the table by yourself because your mom's at work and it's just you and her? How are you sitting down at the table? Are you the one who cooks? All of those little things about how you're living your life at home make you and make you interesting. Think about just how different the experiences of all those kinds of kids I just named, where you're from could be the nicest small town in America, or it can be a really sort of dangerous part of the city. But either way, it has shaped you in every way. People don't think about those things.
Lee Coffin:
No, they don't. Especially, high school students who are trying to audition for college, if you will, overlook some really important qualities about themselves, their upbringing. We had a question in our application a couple of years ago, "What makes you happy?" And it brought really lovely answers that people thought, "I didn't really think about that." And they talk about birding and you're like, "I just learned something about you that I didn't see in the rest of the application. Or you're telling me you're really into words and linguistics makes you happy. Let's nerd out. That's really great."
So before I let you go, Shonda, my sister knew we were talking and she sent me a text yesterday that I'm just going to read it to you and just hopefully it makes you laugh. She says, "Can you tell Shonda that she emotion destroyed me when she killed off McDreamy and I haven't recovered yet?"
Shonda Rhimes:
I'm laughing, but one of the reasons why I'm laughing is I have never spoken to a fan, a Grey's Anatomy fan, who hasn't asked that question or hasn't told me that I've destroyed them by killing McDreamy. Or I'll be doing like a Q&A with an audience and we'll be talking about storytelling. And the third question's always like, "What? What were you thinking about your storytelling when you killed McDreamy?"
Lee Coffin:
Another friend of mine who is a sitting dean of admission who used to work with me, she used to call herself Olivia Pope because she said there was a line Olivia used to talk about like, "Some people have bark, some people have bite. I have both." And we just thought that is your, "That's you, Karen." So I wanted to share those two little things with you because your shows are powerful.
Shonda Rhimes:
Can I say one more thing?
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, of course.
Shonda Rhimes:
So a lot of people do, they complain when I kill characters or whatever, and fans write in and they have all kinds of opinions. And I always say that I love that people have opinions. I love that people have thoughts, but my job is to be a storyteller. That's what I'm hired to do. My only allegiance then is to my story. My allegiance is not to the fans or to the actors or to the studio. My allegiance is to telling the story as true and honest as I can. And I think that that's part of how you should be looking at writing these essays. Everybody will have opinions on what you should write about. Everyone will tell you how it's supposed to be done, but have allegiance to your story and how you are going to tell it and feel confident in that because at the very least, you'll be original and that's one of the things that everyone's looking for.
Lee Coffin:
That's great. Thank you.
Where did Dance It Out come from?
Shonda Rhimes:
Oh my gosh, that's a good question. My sister and I used to dance parties all the time when we were younger, but I think it really came from when I was a single mom and I had a three-year-old, and she, bless her heart, has ADHD, and was the most energetic child I'd ever encountered. I'd be trying to cook and she'd be zipping all over and I would turn on music and say, "We're going to dance it out. We're going to dance all the zoomies out." And we would dance it out in the kitchen and I would say 15-second dance party, 15-minute dance party, whatever it was. And that just became a thing, and it's such a stress reliever is what I realized coming home from work. It calmed her and it also calmed me. I still use it with my sister and my kids.
Lee Coffin:
No, I mean, college admission is stressful. Dance it out. Just let it go and don't let it haunt you. Amen, Shonda Rhimes. I really appreciate the time you took to come on Admissions Beat with me, and to empower 17 and 18 year olds to tell their story authentically and intentionally. I think that's the part, it's like be intentional about what you're telling us.
Shonda Rhimes:
Thank you. Great talking to you.
(music)
Lee Coffin:
Well, that was fun. I had a feeling Shonda Rhimes was going to be a special guest, and she was. I'm really so appreciative that she took time out of her very full life to spend time with us on the Admissions Beat. We will have a conversation next week about what happens after the early rounds wrap up. But for now, this is Lee Coffin from Dartmouth College. Thanks for listening.