College admission decisions for the high school class of 2025 have landed, and now it's time for seniors and their parents to assess those outcomes and move towards an enrollment decision by the National Candidate's Reply Date on May 1. Chris Gruber from Davidson College in North Carolina and college counselor Kate Ramsdell from Noble & Greenough School in Massachusetts join AB host Lee Coffin to guide students through April with confidence and a sense of purpose.
College admission decisions for the high school class of 2025 have landed, and now it's time for seniors and their parents to assess those outcomes and move towards an enrollment decision by the National Candidate's Reply Date on May 1. Chris Gruber from Davidson College in North Carolina and college counselor Kate Ramsdell from Noble & Greenough School in Massachusetts join AB host Lee Coffin to guide students through April with confidence and a sense of purpose.
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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A friend once called me the “dean of denial” and he was saying it to be cheeky, but then he kept pushing the point and he said, "But isn't that a better title for you? Well, you say no more than you say yes."
And I keep chewing on that all these years later because it's true. I sit in a seat where the no’s outnumber the yeses, but my title reflects my purpose, which is to find a path to yes. And the no's are a by-product of working in an environment where there are more students than we can accommodate. So yeses and no’s and maybes flow out of a selective admission process as truth. We just can't say yes to as many people as we want to, and it's a version of economics 101. We have demand and we have supply. And when you're the dean, you have to map those two things towards the best outcome we can find.
Or as one of my former presidents used to say, "Maximize the outcomes against the available resources." He was an economist. And those decisions that land over the course of March create lots of chatter, lots of emotional moments, and emotion is always part of college admissions. I mean whether it's nerves, whether it's worry, whether it's excitement, whether it's that tingly feeling when you set foot on campus and find your place or you're disappointed because something you really wanted didn't happen.
And all of that lands in a big boom during the month of March. So this episode will help you think about how to process that. The good news, the bad news, which I'll reframe as the disappointing news. The news that is still fuzzy. And joining me today will be two colleagues, one from a school, one from a college to help make sense of the decisions and how to move into April with your head held high and a plan. So when we come back, we will say hi to this week's guests and think about how to digest admission decisions.
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Hello to recurring pod pal, Kate Boyle Ramsdell, director of college counseling at Noble & Greenough School in Massachusetts. Welcome back.
Kate Boyle Ramsdell:
Hi, Lee. Happy to be back.
Lee Coffin:
Always fun to have you in the pod. And joining us for the first time is our friend, Chris Gruber, the vice president and dean of admission and financial aid at Davidson College in North Carolina. Hello, Chris.
Chris Gruber:
Lee, thank you. Nice to be with you.
Lee Coffin:
Nice to have you. I'm surprised it's taken me this long to finally put you in the rotation, but here we are.
Chris Gruber:
Well, thank you. I've been waiting. I'm glad I made the cut.
Lee Coffin:
So, Chris, you're joining us for the first time, so introduce yourself to our listeners. You're at Davidson now. You've been there for a long time. Tell us about your LinkedIn summary.
Chris Gruber:
Yeah, my LinkedIn summary. I just got one of those anniversary things that popped up because the fact that I just hit my 20th year at Davidson College. So been thrilled to have been there for 20 years and for almost that period of time I had been in Virginia at the University of Richmond. This is the 40th time that I have been in the room when those decisions have been released.
Lee Coffin:
Wow. Hey, Chris, go back to high school. Tell us about your college search and where you ended up.
Chris Gruber:
Home at the time was outside of Philadelphia, so four schools were on my list. They included Richmond, they included Penn State. They included a small fantastic little spot where I was thinking about, believe it or not, baseball called Susquehanna University. And the last one was Boston College. I was very, very fortunate that I had choice in this. I was a regular decision guy and my ultimate choice came. I visited Richmond after I had been admitted and stepping onto that campus with my mother, I had that aha moment and I thought, this is where I'm going to be.
And sure enough, it was a fantastic decision. I remember getting those letters though in the mail and at the mailbox opening those up and seeing the logos for all of those different places on the envelope. It was April of 1981. The excitement was there as hopefully what students feel when they do receive invitations to places that they're so excited about.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, well, and there was something more exciting almost about going to the mailbox and finding the letter as opposed to your inbox, which is the way we all do it now, and you can click it open and that nerves of what's in there was true. Kate, do you remember the decision day or days for you?
Kate Boyle Ramsdell:
I do. I had one decision day, believe it or not, in the fall of 1992. I had applied early decision at Williams College in a very sort of pure and uninformed way. So no gamesmanship, no trying to figure out my odds with the guidance counselor I met with one time throughout the entire process at my public high school. To make a long story short, my mom had gotten the mail that day and the college that I applied to, even if you got in, sent your news on a one-page piece of paper, folded up in thirds in an envelope.
Lee Coffin:
So it was skinny.
Kate Boyle Ramsdell:
Skinny envelope. When my mom got to school, I guess she went to the front desk, I was hanging out with friends in the library. A librarian came to me and said, "Your mom needs to see you. She's right outside." And my heart sank. I thought she's showing up at school, somebody has died.
So I walked out to see her. She's standing there and she says, "Hey, here's your letter from Williams." And I looked at her and I'm like, "Why did you bring it here? It's small." We know we know the answer. And she was like, "Well, I just think you should open it." And I was like, "Okay." And I opened it and typed was congratulations. And I thought, this is crazy. And I come to find out later that my mom had held the letter up to the sun to see if she could see what the news was, and she said, "Do you really think I would've brought bad news to you at school?"
Lee Coffin:
That's a great story.
Chris Gruber:
I love that.
Kate Boyle Ramsdell:
And I said, "Okay, I appreciate that now." But then I was really in my own indignant teenager way, really mad that she had seen the news first.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, I have a story too, and I think for parents listening, this is a reminder to be careful about how you intervene or participate in the decision moment. Like Chris, I only applied to five places, regular, all regular decision, and I mean that was more the norm then. Two of mine were journalism schools. Two of mine were liberal arts colleges and one was the University of Connecticut where I lived. UConn was first, I got accepted and then I got into both journalism schools and then it was down to the two liberal arts colleges. The first one came and I was denied. So I do, listeners, know what that's like to have the sting of being a high achiever who just heard no for the first time in my high school life. But what's really important about this story and parent is my dad and I had the same name.
So my father opened the letter from Wesleyan, which denied me, and I came home from school and he said, "Oh, you didn't get into Wesleyan." And I was so upset that that's how I found out and I forbid... And he said, "Well, my name was on the envelope." And I said, "Are you applying to college, dad?"
So the next day I was at my part-time job at McDonald's and the manager came into the grill area, and he said, "Lee, have a phone call." And I said, "What? Who's calling me at McDonald's?" And I went over to the phone, and it's my dad and he said, "I know you told me not to open the mail, but the letter from Trinity came and I couldn't wait. And I opened it and you got in." So it was kind of a version of what your mother did, Kate, except my dad opened it and then called me at McDonald's to tell me.
Kate Boyle Ramsdell:
Well, and I was just thinking this is a little bit of mild parents behaving badly, right? And I was thinking to myself, this process makes so many parents behave out of character sometimes, sometimes really deeply in character but also out of character. And my mom had a full-time job, she left her job to go home to get the mail. That is not something that would've normally happened, right? Kind of like your dad opening your mail and thinking about, I think that's why I was so nervous that something had gone wrong. Why would she have left work and showed up at school? What is going on?
Lee Coffin:
Parents, stay in your lane. So, Kate, let's take that a step further. So you're in a high school, what's the norm? What do you see in a high school as the decisions come out? When do people open those decisions, and what's your best advice to people who have not yet gone through the final stretch of this process, this week in particular? There's a lot of decisions will drop.
Kate Boyle Ramsdell:
It's interesting, we're on the East Coast, so we operate by East Coast time, and I think for quite a while there was an East Coast time bias from colleges. So almost all the electronic mail that would come would show up between 5:00 and 7:00 or 8:00 PM which was really nice. And then we would say to our kids and our families, "Don't check your phone while you're driving." If you are feeling really emotionally vulnerable, maybe be with somebody that cares about you, like a parent, a good friend, somebody else. I think everybody should be proud when they get in. But also know that there's lots of places you might not get in and certainly you are deserving.
Lee Coffin:
There's a lot of people who will applied to, many of us and get your inbox was ping, ping, ping, ping, ping maybe eight times. Not that I advise that, but I know it happens. Are you telling kids don't open it in the middle of English class?
Kate Boyle Ramsdell:
We are. I mean, our kids can't have their phones in the middle of English class. It doesn't mean they don't try to go to the bathroom and check. But I think what I would say too is one of the interesting things about this period of time and regular decision is February 28th, Tulane and UConn started releasing their RD decisions. And certainly there were other colleges out there too, but those are two of the big ones for us. And from that day until April 1st, or let's call it the 31st of March, colleges will release news.
And so we try to also remind our kids that don't let a lot of bad news at the end of the month negate all the good news that you got leading up to that. Really try to remember how excited you were when you got into school X, Y or Z. And conversely, certainly there are kids who are going to get good news at the end of the month and for a whole bunch of reasons maybe didn't get what they want leading up to it.
Maybe some schools that they thought were more likely are possible, they're getting wait-list to that. And so you almost have to, I don't know, have an unrealistic amount of self-possession to ride this process out as a kid and as an adult who might be supporting a kid through it.
Lee Coffin:
So, Chris, let's flip it from the school to the college. So you and I are both taking a timeout from our respective committees to record the pod. Tell us what's happening at Davidson as March winds down?
Kate Boyle Ramsdell:
As we wind down, we are working to get to that number of admits that we need. Lee, in your opening, you talked about this being an economic process or an economic equation in some ways where supplying demand meet. So by way of what we've already done with early, by way of what we already have of our class that's committed, we are now working up to that number of admits that we believe we need in order to get close to yielding the full class of what we are going to look for. I'm a fan of a wait-list. I love to use it every year. So we work to have that comfort.
So right now we are looking to understand who else is going into our class. That's what I just finished the session a couple minutes ago. That's what we were doing. So we are working up to get those that we believe are going to be the best fits for Davidson and those that we believe will add to our community. I want to really say, "We are looking to understand now who is it that we are looking intentionally to admit? Who is it that we are lifting up?"
And that's what we are doing. We're thinking about who are we adding, who are we getting excited about right now? And there's so many choices that we have the beauty to be able to choose from. We could pull any number, but we're trying to do that right now and get to that ideal number.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, you're being the dean of admission, not the dean of denial.
Chris Gruber:
We try to think of it that way. We've got great kids that apply. It's not a question of could they come and do the work because we sincerely believe that the gross majority, the gross majority, call it 80, 85% could come and have a very good experience and would get through it and wouldn't be struggling. They'd be thriving, not surviving. So, yeah, we're looking to see who do we admit?
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. Yeah. I look at these last days of selection every year as the moment when we shape. Our colleague Matt Hyde at Trinity often refers to an intentional community that we build. And that intention is up and running right now where we're saying, "Big queue of people who are qualified and compelling and that we would love to admit." What's the community we're trying to frame around this surplus of talent and make the best decisions we can to fill the class.
Chris Gruber:
And students often want to know, what have I done wrong? You haven't done anything wrong. It's what did others possess? So your thought, what resonated is the thought of this intentional shaping at this period.
Kate Boyle Ramsdell:
And just quickly, I would say you're both getting at on my side the piece of this that is the hardest for people to understand in the moment. When it's the most emotional, when it sort of feels the most personal, it's really hard for them to take that step back and understand all the forces at play. So that's a big part of what we do is try to get them to sort of, I don't know, lower the temperature and then really lean into that kind of pieces that are outside their control.
Lee Coffin:
Because I think it's a human reaction in a senior class to look to your left and your right and say, "You got in, you got in, I didn't," and you're generally in the same classes and I'm guessing high school seniors today are like high school seniors when I was in high school. You'd come out of AP biology, you'd go to the cafeteria and you'd say, "How'd you do on that test?" And you have a sense of who got the 95 and who got the 85 and sometimes the 85 is one that got admitted.
And you don't always understand the nuances behind that shaping. We were talking about our new arts center that's about to open and it's going to be a big expansion of the artistic footprint of Dartmouth's curriculum. And there was a student who had a dance portfolio and the faculty said, "This is phenomenal." And so we had a long conversation about dance. Now that's invisible to most of the applicants and probably even to the guidance counselors. And Dartmouth is starting to lean into a little bit more of the dance part of its curriculum.
That dancer was part of the intentional shaping of the campus we are building for tomorrow, not the campus we have been before. I thought we should talk about the three decisions that people get in regular decision and just explain each of them. So that if it's like a hand of cards and you're holding three threes, a couple of queens and a jack, you're like, "What do I have here?"
Well, let's start with the happy news. Chris and I are deans of admission. The whole process, this whole podcast is about helping people find a way to an acceptance. However the mail is received, paper, electronic, decisions come in lots of ways and you open that decision and the first word is congratulations usually. I always wondered, does anybody read any of the paragraphs that follow that? But the congratulations comes and, Chris, what is that signal?
Chris Gruber:
I think it signals the fact that we believe that this is a fabulous match of student and place. We have a belief that you would do very, very well here in our academic classroom. You would add, you have the chops to be doing the work as evidenced by what you have already done. Beyond that, we like who you are and how you have represented yourself and how others see you in your current community. And we see that as an absolute fit. You're ready to come, you're ready to come and share. You're ready to propel those classmates around you to be a hall mate and you're ready to learn from them. It matches with us by way of mission. It's our sincere belief that this is a great fit.
Lee Coffin:
And I often say to students, "This is an invitation to join us. It's an offer of admission but it's also an invitation. And some of you will accept the offer and some of you will decline it." But it's an offer that says what Chris just did, that we see a connection between us and you. And I think, Kate, that's probably fuzzy as well on the school side. As much as we talk about match and fit and finding your best place, sometimes we see things the student doesn't.
We were in committee the other day and someone said, "This is an awesome fit. Does she see it?" And the answer back was maybe not, but that's why we have all of our accepted student programming in April.
Kate Boyle Ramsdell:
That's right.
Lee Coffin:
So let's talk about that a little bit. So to families that have not gone around this process before, you get in, what happens between that point of invitation and May 1st when candidates are asked to respond? So what kind of programming, what conversation? Chris, describe April in a typical admission office in a college?
Chris Gruber:
So from the time that we go out, we are on a countdown timer to May 1 because that's when we are telling students, you've got to let us know by then. I love the student that opens their decision at 10:00 AM and by 10:02 they have submitted their deposit. I need more of you. What follows that letter and the other things that a student can see is it's an invitation to learn more. So the thought of that month is really designed all around getting you the types of information that you best need in order to help you. And by ways of making connection with students on our campus, the faculty that you're going to be working with, the services that you may require because you've never been asked to do some things before and you're going to need a different level of care. So it's about that and trying to allow them to find comfort.
Let's be honest, higher education is not a cheap commodity, and how are the best ways to go about looking to afford that opportunity? It's an investment in many ways. So sure you could say it in a business term we're selling, but at the same time we're trying to curate pieces of information that are specific to a student.
When your admission process is truly holistic, it is not a one size fits all. So at a smaller place like us, we are trying to say, "Hey, these are the things that Lee needs. These are the things that Kate needs," and then what else do you need in order to get to that point of comfort?
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, I love that concept of curating information to help the accepted cohort move forward towards a decision. And, Kate, take it from the school side. So the decisions are all in, the students got, let's be optimistic and say a couple or more to pick from. And what do you tell seniors and their parents about proceeding through the next four weeks?
Kate Boyle Ramsdell:
I feel like this is why we called ourselves the band. What I had written down at the beginning of this that I wanted to share was you should meet every yes as an intriguing opportunity to learn more.
And that's basically what Chris said. We start there because again, we come back to this idea that maybe those yeses were the yeses you were hoping for and maybe they aren't. All yeses are good in my mind, but kids will tear them out. I think as parents too, a little parenting advice, if you can initially respond to all yeses as yeses that are opportunities to learn more about it really helps the kid.
So first I think we'll do the, okay, what do we have in front of us? What do you know about these places? Sometimes kids know quite a lot and sometimes they have a lot of ground to make up in the next X number of weeks. And in some ways that idea of getting to a campus and having a boots on the ground opportunity is like that's the ideal, and it can happen for some kids at some places, but it usually can't happen everywhere.
And so I think the fact that you all have thought so intentionally most of the time about how to curate a virtual and on the ground experience for admitted students is really important. And that maybe there's a hybrid way of attacking this that for somebody who can get to a campus that's like a drive that's an hour or two hours, three hours away, they might do that one in person.
Or maybe they've set aside enough or have the resources to get on a plane and fly. Maybe they're coming from Boston down to Chris, but we would say to them, "Let's really think about how to prioritize your visits. Let's have a conversation about all the things you just talked about. If financial aid and merit are on the table, let's really look hard at what you have in hand before you go. And then let's maybe tee up a set of questions you might ask the financial aid person over the phone or while you're on campus."
You're really interested in particular co-curricular activities or engineering or whatever it happens to be. You have a specialty and on the surface of it, one of your schools has that program and another one doesn't. But it offers lots of ways to start to investigate and dig into that thing. You got to kind of go through the menu and you have to be willing to do the work I think to make a good choice.
What I see a lot of the time, and it boggles the mind, is kids will spend more time thinking about the car they want to buy in 10 years than the college they want to go to sometimes, which also drives you guys crazy. Then they're making their decision up until midnight on May 1. I think it's to my mind, it's like you're curating the experience on their end and doing your best to provide what you can. But I think this is where kids and families with the help of people who can guide them might try to really think about what are the most important things to me and where can I find that information?
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, we're laying out a lot of really important information. I think for anyone who has been accepted to just keep reminding yourself, this place wants me to say yes.
Kate Boyle Ramsdell:
Yes, and that I can self-advocate and get answers to the questions that I have.
Lee Coffin:
Chris put financial aid on the table and Kate came back to it and to listeners, we're not saying call the financial aid office as if it were a car dealership and start with a let's make a deal scenario. That some places may respond to you but a place that's need based in the way they've awarded your aid will welcome a conversation about how the aid award came to be, the elements in it.
Maybe there's something that was misinterpreted that you need to have a conversation about. Maybe you a need a payment plan as an element of how you might make this affordable. But the financial aid staff is there to take calls, visits, Zooms to help that. So that's one. And two, to your really good advice about academic program. If you are the marine biology kiddo and you're going to a campus that hadn't been top of mind for most of your search, and you see a professor in biology or environmental science, send an email and say, "I'm an accepted student and you teach three courses that sound interesting to me. Can you answer these questions? I'm going to be on campus at end of the month. Can I come sit in a class?"
The campuses are expecting the potential class to be engaged with us. And the sooner you do that, the more you start to sort your options, I think as opposed to getting to late April and say, "Awe-oh, because I mean sure Chris and I have lots of stories of the calls and emails we get on April 30th asking for an extension.
And the question back is, why do you need one? And if the answer is, well, I didn't have time to do my homework, the big red X comes up on the scoreboard. You had a month.
Kate Boyle Ramsdell:
And I mean I'm going to say in a really generous way to the two of you, they've had 12 to 18 months to get to know the place and do their homework and now it's sort of like rubber sitting the road. They have the choice in hand and maybe it goes, ticks up a notch, but it shouldn't be starting from zero.
Chris Gruber:
None of our places should have been on a student's list if boxes weren't being checked in terms of what a student truly was looking for. Did they start with their own personal list of needs that could range from program and activity that they want to participate in, to location, to something that's related to a family situation that might relate to cost?
So a number of boxes have been checked already. Now it comes down to what more do you want to have? And, Lee, I also want to encourage our faculty love hearing from admitted students. They want the best ones and to be able to have conversations ahead, they love that.
Lee Coffin:
Kate, how do you guide a student and parents from the point of admission where there are multiple offers to starting to narrow that choice down to ultimately one? How does someone start to say, "No thank you," when a place has fallen out of contention? Because to me, I mean Chris pointed out that the kid that enrolls two minutes after we admitted them, that's always fun. On the not fun part is the person that gets to May 7th and never said, "No thank you."
Kate Boyle Ramsdell:
It's funny, I spend a lot of time sort of reassuring them that there's a lot of choices here that would be good and they can only make one. There will always be things that they don't know. It's a lot of deep and active listening and a lot of questions. I'm hearing you say this, is that what you're saying? Say a little more. Kind of mirroring back to them. It's almost like you move into counseling therapy mode, and there's some very pragmatic pieces around aid and merit money and those things that you can really sit down and compare side by side.
And if those are major deciding factors, well then those start to carry the most weight and those become the things that help you move towards a decision. But for the most part, it's really in the gray for kids when they have multiple choices.
I kind of love it because I mean I can't tell you the number of times they look at me and go, "Please tell me where to go. Just tell me where to go." And you're like, "I'm not going to tell you where to go. Come on, please. No, I'm not going to tell you where to go.” But I see this as a part of their growth trajectory as adolescents, right?
They have to start to sit in uncertainty. They have to start to sit in choice-making. These are big kid decisions, right? They're starting to become young adults. And if I truly believe they can't go wrong, that's the stance I'm going to take. If I think there's something about a college that's, let's call it size, right? You get into a really large state university and a small liberal arts college, and you're a kid who has relied deeply on the adults in your high school to make it through.
I might try to point that out and say, "The experience at the small liberal arts college or medium-sized research university is more likely to feel like this place and haven't you really relied a lot on the adults in your life to make sure you're successful?" You know what I mean? So it's a little bit like teasing on the edges and getting them to reflect on who they are and that also are you going to be in a place where you can grow?
And then I guess the last thing I'll say is trying to help them separate out myths and realities. So if I go to a big place, I'm never going to find my people. I think sometimes kids, they're just really worried about the social component, making friends, making that transition. What's it going to be like?
Lee Coffin:
I think it's the trusting the gut that's a first-time experience where if you're letting go of one of your six. It's April 10th and you realize I'm thinking about these four and not these two, I would poke and say, "I think those two are fading." And it's okay to say, "No, thank you," and focus on four and let that college that got that declined be able to know, okay, maybe a wait-list is going to open soon because people are making their own decisions. But the trusting the gut, not overthinking, but let's turn to the disappointing part.
Can we offer a balm to the seniors of the world who open the email, and it says some version of, I regret to inform you dot, dot, dot and it's a decline. And I said in the opening that my one decline stung. I let it go, but I can't say all these years later, I don't remember what that felt like. Chris, what does a decline mean?
Chris Gruber:
It means that a college or university was very fortunate to be in a position where there were a significant number of applicants supplied. Nowhere in the letter did it say, "You didn't have the chops to do the work." Nowhere in the letter did it say, "You're not a good person."
You got caught in what is very likely a number evaluation where we've got this many spots and we're looking to fill it with these students that meet these priorities and others did that perhaps in what we see as a greater light. That's all that it is. There is nothing that can be said in a decision letter that is a no that is going to make one feel great after reading it. But we also look to do that with humility. It is not a statement of who the student is. It is a statement of an institutional number and priority series of issues.
Kate Boyle Ramsdell:
When you're describing it, I'm thinking about it through the eyes of a teenager and it's like maybe the first time they've had a breakup where it's like, “it's not you, it's me.” And I think that's how it feels. I think it's like no matter how nice the language is, no matter how soft the landing feels to the person writing the letter, it stinks and it's okay. I would say, "It's a part of growing up." Where it gets really scary is there are kids in the country who are going to get no yeses. For different reasons, maybe they didn't listen to the good advice they were given, maybe they didn't have access to great advice. If that's the case, it's really, really hard.
I actually worked with a student who was not at my school. I got connected to them by a family. They went to a public school in Mississippi. They were top of their class. He graduated a semester early because he'd done so many APs and other things and applied to the most selective schools in the country the first time. Didn't get into a single one of them. They were dumbfounded, totally dumbfounded. How could this happen to our wonderful kid? And I said, "These are regular decision at any one of the places you applied to, even from Mississippi as the top kid in your high school." It's a tough sledding.
And to make a long story short, we sort of worked together and looked over his stuff and he'd had no advice. He really sold himself short in the way he described himself. And so we talked a lot about storytelling, and how you really help somebody know you, who doesn't know your high school very. And we taught them a lot about how this all works. And so I would say if you get boxed out, you probably need to reset your expectations a little bit, but you might need to learn a little bit more about how the process really works.
But for the other kids, you hope they've got a range of choices and they're going to land somewhere and they're going to make the most of it.
Lee Coffin:
Okay, Chris and I will use the word decline. Students say, "I got rejected," and we have no, you weren't rejected. Is the nuance decline versus rejection lost on anybody who opens that I'm sorry letter?
Kate Boyle Ramsdell:
Well, I think I would say, "Everybody on the college admissions side is trying to give the news in the most respectful way," right? You're really trying to respect your applicants, but a respectful breakup still feels like a breakup.
Lee Coffin:
Stay focused on the admits and don't let the denies get you off track.
Kate Boyle Ramsdell:
Yes, don't let them get you so down that you can't really get excited about what, like the really awesome opportunities that you have in front of you.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. So that brings me to the third decision, which is the in-between decision. So somebody gets wait-listed, so not in, not out. Chris, what's a wait-list?
Chris Gruber:
Wait-list means we like you very, very much. We are hoping that we could have an opportunity to perhaps plug you into the class and we're sincere with that. I also appreciate that in the world of admission decisions that come out, not every college and university treats a wait-list the same way. In some cases it might be a softer no.
Lee Coffin:
What does that mean, Chris, a softer no?
Chris Gruber:
It might be I don't want to say, "No," to the students. So if I say, "Maybe later," but later just doesn't come, you never felt as though you were told, "No." And I think some schools are going to exercise that instead of making harder decisions.
I love the wait-list, but I'm also a place, I only have so many places where I can put a student. You're in the town of Davidson, we've got 12,000 people. Where do we put people if we use up all the space on campus? We don't have room. We just don't have that spot. We see you as viable as the bottom line, and you could be out there and then it's follow directions as to what is a college or university asking you to do in the interim?
Lee Coffin:
What is the answer to that?
Chris Gruber:
Depends on the place. It could be expressing interest. It could be what are the updates that you've got? I'd love to see additional grades that you have. So it could be anything from that expression of interest to sit tight, tell us where you are. I think it depends on place.
Lee Coffin:
Well, there's also an action step that has to happen. So to kids who open a letter that says, "I invite you to join the waiting list, you have to accept a spot on the waiting list." You'd be surprised, listeners, how many people get a wait-list and then don't react to it. They may think they don't need to, but you do. You need to usually click a button saying, "I would like to stay on the waiting list," or, "No, thank you. I'm pleased with my outcomes and I'm moving on." There's a decision there.
And I appreciate in that wait-list space, when a student pops up and says, "I see myself here. I've looked at my options and if you have a space for me, this is where I would come." And that's not required. But if you know it, say it. I think it's a good demonstration of intent. We might have 10 spots open. And how do you pick 10 people? Depends. But I think the key, as I understand what happens in schools sometimes the wait-list is kind of this taunting like that's a better outcome. I didn't get it so now I want it, and I'm going to hold out for that instead of focus on my yeses.
Kate Boyle Ramsdell:
That can be true for some kids. I think for some of them, yeah, the thought that I could get into that school is way more appealing than what I have in hand and we have to talk to kids about that. When colleges are clear about what counts and what doesn't on the wait-list, what kinds of responses matter. So in the early round, UVA says, "If we deferred you, we want nothing. We want your school to send us grades. We don't want a letter. We don't want an additional rec. We know that we are your first choice." That's so much better than schools that say nothing because for my kids who really want to do as much as I can. That's what they would say, "I want to do as much as I can to get in." They will spend hours crafting letters that they want you to read and consider.
And if that's helpful for your institution, I would say, "Just say it." Here's the kind of information that would be really helpful for us as we unpack the wait-list. And actually conversely, here's what we just don't use this. I do think for kids some help around where should I put effort that will matter, and then where could I put all the effort in the world and it would do nothing. So we'll even have families that say, "Well, we'll go down there. We'll go to campus, we'll do the programs, and we'll meet with the admissions officer." And we'll say, "Do not do that. Right now you're not their target audience. They're trying to yield the group of kids that they admitted." It seems to me to be one of the periods of time in this process when the least amount of information is offered to families other than here's your decision.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, it's why I wanted to come to this one. It's a maybe. It's a maybe we have space, maybe we could invite you in, maybe we won't and we don't know. And generally these wait-lists aren't ranked. If there's 100 people, your number 29 out of 100. It's a group. And you might get to May 1st, the national candidates reply date and realize I have 10 spots. And what I do in those moments is I look at the class that just enrolled and I say, "Is this the rainbow we were hoping it would be?" As I look at them, I say, "Well, look, students from Texas didn't come through as clearly as I thought they might. So those 10 spots are going to go to Texas."
Or we're missing people who are interested in computer science. So who's on the wait-list with that academic interest? Or if it's a university, they might say, "Oh, the School of Agriculture is under enrolled. Let's fill it from there." So the wait-list has more of a strategy connected to it.
Kate Boyle Ramsdell:
And I was going to say that the other piece, Lee, that you didn't mention, but definitely can impact certain schools is sometimes they can't offer a lot of aid to students on the wait-list. Depends on the school and then maybe not at your institutions, but that can have a real impact on how you shape the class. And that is truly something out of the control of the applicant.
Lee Coffin:
That's a good point to raise. And so parents, if there's a wait-list opportunity, I would invite you to ask the admission office, are you need blind on the wait-list? Will financial aid be available? And if the answer is no to either of those questions, maybe it's time to pivot. If you need a scholarship and it was offered elsewhere or you can hang in there.
I mean the idea of the wait-list is you will withdraw from the place where you originally enrolled. So you start at Davidson on April 20th and on May 7th you get an offer from Northwestern and you say, "I see myself there better." And so you withdraw from Davidson and you enroll at Northwestern in this example. But that happens May into June. So it's a slower, less precise start stop. So it's not limbo, it's just a less clear final round.
Before we wrap, so this idea of reaction videos is a newish part of our work. As much as I enjoy seeing them from time to time, I often wonder about the student who set up the reaction and the news was disappointing.
I don't know if they're live-streamed, but certainly the ones I've seen, sometimes the whole class is gathered around the computer and they're looking over a student's shoulder. I think that's pressure. So my advice is don't do them. But I'm an old guy at this point who wouldn't share something like that. But, Kate and Chris, how do you see this social media moment this week?
Kate Boyle Ramsdell:
I mean, I guess this generation of kids really lives a lot of their life in that way, right? They're online all the time. They're looking at each other, they're thinking about these things and often it's out of a place of I think, genuine excitement. I don't love them, but I'm too old.
The other thing that I do think about all the time is, I don't know, there's a level of humility in this process that I appreciate the kind of more and more goes by the wayside, right? Sort of the self-promoting, I mean it's happening in athletics everywhere. When you commit, people put up big pictures of themselves with the college in the backdrop. It's the world we live in. The reaction videos are probably here to stay. The thing that I wish would go is colleges compiling them and reposting them on their own accounts. I think the kids should do whatever they want and the colleges should not feed the beast. How about that?
Lee Coffin:
I like that.
Chris Gruber:
I agree with Kate on this, Lee. It's like we're not going to fix it. In a world of full disclosure, I'm fortunate to have lived through this with three kids that had very, very different outcomes. But in full disclosure, Kate, you know what I'm talking-
Kate Boyle Ramsdell:
I know exactly where you're going.
Chris Gruber:
Is the fact that my wife saw our son's acceptance in the mailbox, the big one there. So she calls me and tells me this. So she's like, "You got to come home. You got to come home." So I come home and what does any father do? But you set up a camera outside your bedroom window that highlights the mailbox so when he pulls in, he can get it. The long and short of it is that little thing took on a life of its own as a video. And when all was said and done, and that's been a nice thing for him as well.
I love the idea of excitement. The hard part is, is there are lots of students that don't have that same level of excitement and that's the hard part. I like for kids to be excited. We give them a poster in their packet. We still mail a packet. Hold the sign up, hold the sign up, take a picture of that. Be proud of that if that's something that you want to do. And we share those as well. Then once a student arrives on campus, as well and say, "Here you are." But it's a way for them ultimately to share that once they're in a closed environment of here's the class of 2029.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. Well, Chris and Kate, thank you for having this conversation with me about the decisions and the news that comes. To listeners, I hope you heard, especially from Chris and me, this sigh of truth that we get to the end of March, we get to the end of this round. We're excited about who we've invited. We are not celebrating the bigger pool of people who we couldn't invite. We see it. We know it. Wasn't my purpose.
My letter says, "I thank you for the compliment of your interest in joining us." So seniors, Godspeed. As you go through this final few days of the 2029 admission process, I wish you well. I think Chris will join me in that. And it has been a pleasure to get to know you as applicants in our pools, and you move forward into April.
You had a big decision coming by the end of April. That's exciting. Own it, savor it, and imagine this next step, and go where that makes sense and where it feels good.
Next week we will be back with another episode of Admission Beat. For now, I'm Lee Coffin from Dartmouth College. Thanks as always for listening.