Veteran college counselor Doug Burdett, from Brunswick School in Connecticut, joins his longtime colleague and AB host Lee Coffin as they ponder the lessons from their 30-year careers on both sides of the admissions counseling desk. Drawing from those innumerable interactions with students and parents, they muse about the unintended pitfalls that can misdirect a college search just as it gets started. Burdett advises prospective applicants and parents to "focus on community, not the name" as the impulse to "dream big" is balanced against a more pragmatic need to proceed with a sense of what's responsible and realistic. "A terrible list," warns Burdett, "is imbalanced." And if you don’t like an option after exploring it, Burdett says that's "fantastic," because "everything you learn helps test your assumptions about what you like.”
Veteran college counselor Doug Burdett, from Brunswick School in Connecticut, joins his longtime colleague and AB host Lee Coffin as they ponder the lessons from their 30-year careers on both sides of the admissions counseling desk. Drawing from those innumerable interactions with students and parents, they muse about the unintended pitfalls that can misdirect a college search just as it gets started. Burdett advises prospective applicants and parents to "focus on community, not the name" as the impulse to "dream big" is balanced against a more pragmatic need to proceed with a sense of what's responsible and realistic. "A terrible list," warns Burdett, "is imbalanced." And if you don’t like an option after exploring it, Burdett says that's "fantastic," because "everything you learn helps test your assumptions about what you like.”
Lee Coffin:
From Hanover, New Hampshire, I'm Lee Coffin, Dartmouth's vice president and dean of admissions and financial aid, and this is Admissions Beat.
Sometimes an episode comes to me purely out of a serendipitous moment, where I'm having a conversation, I bump into somebody, and I think "That's interesting." And case in point, about a month ago, I had a call with a long-time colleague and college counselor, and as we were chatting, I thought, "God, I wish I were recording this," because this is a really interesting conversation under the heading "How not to get yourself into college." And I thought, "Let's bring Doug on and do it again." So when we come back, we will meet Doug Burdett, the assistant head of school and director of college placement at Brunswick School in Greenwich, Connecticut, and he and I will chat and see where we go. So we'll be right back.
(music)
Hey, Doug.
Doug Burdett:
Morning, Lee.
Lee Coffin:
Welcome to Admissions Beat, it's fun to have you. Every time I have a call with you or I see you, I feel like it's a really funny, interesting conversation, so I'm excited to actually record one of them.
Doug Burdett:
Thanks for having me. I feel the same way. I think we've been laughing together since we met, I won't say how many years ago, but it was a while. I think recently you called me a cynic, so we'll have to…
Lee Coffin:
Cynics are okay. A good cynical perspective is fun. It's like sarcasm. Sarcasm isn't always mean, it could be really witty. So to listeners, Doug is also an English teacher, so he is a double-dipper college counselor, assistant head of school. I'm guessing that's Junior American Lit that you teach.
Doug Burdett:
Sophomore.
Lee Coffin:
Sophomore Lit, okay. And did you start way back when, as a teacher, and then became a college counselor?
Doug Burdett:
Yes. I started at Brunswick in 1990, as an English teacher, and about three years later, started working in the college office. And we only had 39 kids in our senior class that year, now we have over 100, and three people in the office, so it's grown a bunch. But we met, I think in early-90s. I was just starting out in the college process. And it's one thing worth mentioning, how much I could call Lee at the spur of the moment, behind the scenes, and whisper a nervous question, and he had the answer, or at least he'd give it a good shot. That's another one of the fond foundational memories I have.
Lee Coffin:
We share the same birthdate as professionals. So I started as an admission officer in 1990. You in the school, I was at Connecticut College at that point, and here we are all these years later. So we've done this a long time. I mean, you and I have seen a lot. You've worked with hundreds and hundreds, maybe thousands of kids over those years. As I pondered the conversation we're about to have, I'm wondering are we somewhat relevant Yodas, like we've seen it, we've got a perspective, or are we the two old guys on the Muppet Show up in the balcony, just kind of grumbling about the state of affairs.
Doug Burdett:
I was thinking about speaking with you today, and I was wondering about what lessons stay the same. And just quickly, one that might seem archaic and dated I think has come back to being just as valuable as ever, and I was thinking about why I first liked this job. I think we both share this idea that looking for college, and helping kids consider college, has, at its core, a love of, and a seeking community, the concept of community. I grew up at an independent day school, where my parents were both teachers. They talked about their college experience and the friendships they had with professors and people on the staff and the townspeople. And I went to a small college in New England, where that relationship existed. And I've worked at a school for 35 years, where the foundational element, it's a pre-K through 12 school, the level of community here is actually better than I even thought it would be.
So that theme runs throughout, and I think it might fuel where a lot of this wisdom, if you can call it wisdom, comes from, because it's based in that. And that may have been true originally, it may have seemed to go out of style, the fancier things get in the college world, and I think it may be more true than ever now, that when you're counseling kids speaking about the theme of community, and if they are looking for that, and how they define it in a college is maybe more relevant than ever, the more static there is out there. Just this personal connection, and why do you like the school you're in and what do you want in your next school? I think that it's a long answer to your question, but I think it's important, not just for us as we assess who we are, but how we help kids.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. And you're thinking with something I said on an earlier episode around discovery, that there are three Ps that I always advise students to consider. There's program, there's place, and there's people. Place and people are community, and it has to sync with who you are, is a really big part.
Doug Burdett:
100%, Lee. And not only that, as another level of that, when that concept is mentioned to a junior in high school, as well as to their parents, it tends to calm people down. Because the two perspectives, a kid who's wondering about this mysterious and terrifying next four years, and parents who have, in many cases, been through it, that's a connecting point. They can suddenly say, "Oh, we were worrying about what he was going to major in”— I work with only boys, so—"He was going to major in, and we were worried about size of school and urban versus suburban. And oh, community, that's a nice thing to unite on."
Lee Coffin:
So when we were logging on, Doug, you said that you're in the middle of meetings with juniors and their parents, and you said something interesting, that the kids always start with "Where I want to go," as opposed to "Let's frame a list for myself." And I think under the heading "How not to get into the college of your choice," the title of this episode spins a little more cynical than most of my episodes, but you're with me, so here we are. Talk a little bit about the kids starting with that obvious but not perhaps productive place, of "This is where I want to go."
Doug Burdett:
I find it so interesting. And it's cynical for me... It's only cynical insofar as I choose to point it out and chuckle about it. When they say it, it's anything but cynical. It's sincere, it's heartfelt. If you ask a adolescent male, a junior in high school, it's true with girls too, it's true with everybody I've ever worked with, doesn't matter what school they go to, "What do you want to talk about as a school," they will always mention their first choice school, which is often a dream. Who knows where it comes from, maybe where their parents went to college, it may be their favorite visit. They don't ever start with something responsible, reasonable necessarily. Human nature says they should tell their college counselor what their dream concept is.
And I, and counselors, I think, listening to this might agree, we tend to start with what's a foundational more responsible concept. Eventually, in that conversation, what tends to happen is it's a really healthy back and forth, and one ends up somewhere in the middle. When you explain to kids why there needs to be a balance with targets and safeties and reaches, the next three schools they often mention are also reaches. It's as though they feel as though they must tell me that, and I see that as very normal.
Lee Coffin:
Why do they start at the top?
Doug Burdett:
I think there are a lot of things that go into it. I think they feel like they want to make sure their counselor knows that's what their dream is. That makes total sense to me. It would almost be strange if they didn't, even though I'm picking on it a little bit. And I also think it's to test out... This may be more at the subconscious level, "Is my counselor going to burst out laughing? Is he going to roll his eyes?" And of course, I wouldn't. And also, by the way, it's worth saying, most of the kids I work with are pretty incredibly good actually, at knowing what's reasonable and what's not. If you, Lee, were a kid, and I were counseling, and you told me something that was lofty, either because it's tough to get in, or any number of reasons, sometimes I might say, "Lee, do you think that's reasonable?" And it's amazing how many times these kids, they're so good. Maybe I'm just lucky with the kids I have here, but they're so good at most often saying "No, I know it's not, but what do you think?"
If they don't get there, and this sounds very nasty, but I wouldn't do it unless the relationship had been established. Sometimes I'll say, if they're not getting there, I'll say, "Okay, great. Why would that school take you?" It sounds like a very cynical, mean thing to say, but it's not. And the kids, what is it about what you've done that would make you a good candidate for that school? And remember, a lot of these kids name schools that are lofty with good reason, they've done incredible things, but sometimes that question will help get them to the next level of "Yeah." Then I can say, "Well, here are 10 more schools that have very similar feels to that one, that aren't quite as uphill a battle," and we can get productive conversations working from that initial, "I'll try out this idea with this counselor of mine."
Lee Coffin:
That all makes sense as I listen to it. But I also, I wrote down in my notebook, "Dream versus responsible," and those feel like really different concepts. Who wants to be responsible when you could dream? I mean, that tension seems to be human.
Doug Burdett:
Yeah. And I think probably, that's right. And if you want to use the word "dream" so appropriately, maybe by expressing this dream, this counselor of mine will wave a wand and make it come true.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah.
Doug Burdett:
And so I guess, when I start saying "Let's start more reasonably," that maybe disabuses him of that wand idea.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, so you don't have a wand.
Doug Burdett:
No.
Lee Coffin:
You don't work magic, Doug?
Doug Burdett:
No. And one of the best things you can do is let kids know that I don't. College admissions offices by and large, are so good at reading candidates. College admissions offices, either in the essay or in the recommendations, see the things we counselors hope they'll see.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. Well, we learn how to navigate nuance.
Doug Burdett:
Yeah. And people do that over and over again, at very different schools, even schools you think might... Sometimes they think big universities might get branded with "It's a less personal admissions process." It's a wonderful observations from people who have a huge, huge pile of applications on their plate, noticing a nuance from one applicant. And we just sort of, behind their backs, go, "That's amazing, first of all, and a relief." Now, when it's a bad thing, that's a little different.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, yeah. No, I mean, nuance is a big part of it. And to listeners, it's a good lesson, a good recognition to just keep in mind, you may struggle with this tension between dreaming and being responsible, but at the end of the day, those two things can overlap. I mean, you could dream and be responsible, it just takes a little bit more work. But Doug, as you were saying that, I was reminded of conversations I've had with colleagues of yours in schools, who say people come into these early moments of list prep. One of the topics you had proposed was how to build a terrible initial list, so I want to come back to that. But under the heading, "How to build a terrible initial list," is the response, "But let's see what happens." And the answer you would have is "Well, I know it's going to happen, it's a no," but there's this itch to see what happens.
Doug Burdett:
Yeah. And "Terrible" is the cynical word in that little piece of advice. Terrible list, what's a terrible list mean? I think it means imbalance. And if you point kids toward that, they get it. You need more. "Okay, we can reach for that school if you want, you've done some beautiful things, but for you to avoid the other end of reality is irresponsible. And let's get going, and let's think about what you saw that you might. You can dream, but let's have a nice dose of reality in there too, so that everything works out well in the long run."
Lee Coffin:
I like that phrase, "Avoid the other end of reality."
Doug Burdett:
Yeah. Well, who wouldn't?
Lee Coffin:
Yeah.
Doug Burdett:
I just had this meeting this morning. I had a meeting this morning, where a boy absolutely has a dream school. His mom went there, his brother went there. He is a wonderful kid. He's done incredible work here, and expressed his dream. I knew it was coming, good for him. But then we talked about what about that place do you like so much? It's basic counseling. But "Well, size is right. I don't want to be too far from home. I like that there's a little bit of," you know, back to community, "There's an urban feel, but it's not overwhelmingly so." So then you suggest some other schools that have those exact same traits, and all of a sudden, if the kid is really thinking about it logically, I think, most boys, at that moment say, "Huh, yeah.
In fact often it's, "Oh, yeah, actually I actually visited there already." "How'd you like it?" "I actually loved it. It's great." Sometimes you uncover other things, which is maybe more interesting, which is "Here's the school I really want to have." And you break down why they liked it, and you name other schools, and they don't like it. And then you sort of have a different story. Well, maybe you like that for reasons that aren't as coldly logical, maybe there's more emotion in that recipe than is helpful.
Lee Coffin:
Well, in that, you just went where I was going, this tug of war between reason and emotion. The reasoning is be logical, be pragmatic, follow the evidence. The emotional is romantic, and it's the sweatshirt.
Doug Burdett:
Very much.
Lee Coffin:
It's the idea that I've worked hard in high school and this is the outcome I deserve. And I've heard people say that, like "I deserve this." It's like you're going to go to college, you deserve to go to college, the where, you know, it's getting the list at the beginning to make sense.
Doug Burdett:
A lot of times the deserve thing, or the emotional approach to why I want to go to a school, which those two things overlap, I think, comes from other people, often parents, that you want to make happy. It's a very normal thing. I could be very cynical, and say "You're in this for yourself. You're the one who's going to college for four years." And I do say that, but it's very normal to want to make your parents happy with what you've done. I don't criticize that at all. But parents today, in the last five, maybe to 10 years, but especially five years, in my strong opinion, parents today, that I deal with, are far more reasonable and broader in their potential concepts for college for their child than they were for the vast majority of the time I've done this job.
Lee Coffin:
Why you think that's true?
Doug Burdett:
I think two things are inextricably connected there. One is everybody knows how hard it is to get in everywhere these days, for all kinds of statistical reasons that we all know. Also, going along with that is when I say to parents, "There are 50 schools in this great country of ours where your son can be healthy and happy," they all agree. Everyone gets that, either because maybe they went to one of those schools or they just know it's true. So for a number of reasons, people understand that there's so many ways to achieve healthy, happy four years. And I think mental health is such a constant conversation these days, parents are well educated about that and healthily concerned about it, so that when I say to parents, "I just want your kid healthy and happy for four years. He's lived a pretty good existence, he's getting a pretty nice education, he's going to get a nice job, don't worry." They all agree, they love it. And sometimes it's a big exhalation of "Oh, that's how we feel," and I'm hearing that more than I've ever heard it.
Lee Coffin:
Interesting.
Doug Burdett:
And I think that trickles down to helping their kids approach things in a way that is more healthy.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. No, we talked about that on an episode with Marcia Hunt from Pinecrest School, that students are feeding off their parents' vibe, so it's a good reminder that nothing goes unnoticed. Okay, so how to build a terrible initial list, what's the vaccine for that?
Doug Burdett:
Get out and visit, and see that there are other ways of defining what you think you want. And even the age old wisdom is you have to see a campus when kids are on campus. That's the best, but it's not critical. Because when you go visit a school, you're getting in the car, probably with a parent or two, you're traveling, you're factoring in how far away it is. That's a pro or a con, maybe it's too close. You're getting to a school you've never thought of before, and seeing friendly people, a nice place to get lunch, maybe it's a nice drive with your parent. And so schools that don't mean much when your college counselor names them in a meeting suddenly gain personality. And all of a sudden, even if it happens once, kids start to say to themselves, "There are legitimately other options to what I thought I wanted," either by school name and place, or sometimes by type.
“I want a large state school. I want to go there and disappear in the excitement of that kind of community.” And I will say, "Great. Test that theory." I often put on preliminary lists, I get a little bit of heat for it, on preliminary lists, I think the laziest thing one can do is give kids 12 schools that are just like what they think they want. Because even if they're confident in what they want, they're only 17.
So I say to kids, "You may never even heard of that school. Read about it, visit it. You may like it, but this is the fun part, if you don't like it, fantastic. Because I want you to be able to tell me about why you don't like a school, because it's going to make you a better consumer." And I always tell kids that when they start the college process, they're at the top of a big funnel, and every little thing they learn brings them down to what they think they might really want. And that's often having, for the first time in their lives, the ability to say, "I don't want this and here's why." That's just as valuable as knowing why you like something.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. So I think the advice you're giving makes a lot of sense, because you're testing all these different assumptions. And when you don't test, that's a terrible initial list, like you're just blindly going forward with something you think you know but you haven't really tested.
And to the traveling piece, it's been a few seasons since I've shared the story, but when I was doing my college search with dad, we were on our way to Syracuse because I thought I wanted to go to journalism school, and we were zipping, and we were going to stop at a couple of liberal arts colleges along the way. And I was getting nauseous, not from his driving, but I did not see myself in a rural place. And upstate New York has a lot of cows and a lot of pastures, and it just wasn't feeling like my place. And I didn't know that until the drive with Dad. When I told him to turn around, that was a hard conversation because he insisted that we continue the journey. But I knew, I said... I just had this "Aha, I need a city." And I did not start with that as a recognition in these trips that you're describing, at the beginning, are illuminating. And better to quit sooner than later, because if you wait until April of your senior year, which was the danger zone, you can't course correct.
Doug Burdett:
I love that moment. I love that you still remember now, the cows and the rural. You didn't even need to get to the campus to have a moment that you knew was important and still resonates. That's why one of the many fun parts of my job is kids giving me their examples of what you just said.
I had one recently, where this, and the mom was hilarious and she's wonderful, and she said, "I really hope he likes X, we're going to go visit it, and I know he's not going to." And she had her own reasons, and they made sense. And sure enough, he didn't like it at all, but for entirely different reasons than she had anticipated. And all I was able to say to her was, "Well, that's great. That just means he's thinking on his own. His reasoning can't be wrong." Luckily, she was fantastic, and she said, "I know. I knew it, and I actually kind of thought the same thing, he's thinking on his own two feet." The best parents are the ones who genuinely hear that. I just had a kid come back from a visit to Pittsburgh lately, and his first comment was "Everybody there was so unbelievably nice, from the airport to the hotel to the admissions office, everybody was so nice. I think I really want to keep that on my list." Had nothing to do with the degree, the size of the school, it was all how nice people were.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. And I think what we're pointing our listeners to, is you don't know where the “aha” moment is going to come. It's like when I read a file, I don't know which part of the file is going to pop as I'm reading it, but it happens. Sometimes it's the teacher, sometimes it's the essay, always a transcript, but I discover. And the same thing happens on these trips, as you learn something about yourself, like the story you just shared, where mom thought the reason was going to be X, and it turned out Y was the answer.
Doug Burdett:
That's right.
Lee Coffin:
So you've got three other topics on your "How not to give into the college of your choice." Topic two was how to write a bad essay. So now we're a ways away, so juniors in high school aren't writing their essays just yet, so I don't want to pour gasoline on a topic prematurely, but talk about how to write a bad essay, what makes it bad?
Doug Burdett:
Lots of things make a good essay and lots of things make a bad essay. I think the simplest advice that's most universal is be yourself. And you had a couple of really good conversations about this in earlier podcasts, that I loved. But try to be yourself. I'd say to kids sometimes, "Have you cured a major disease lately, or started a major corporation? No? Well, what have you done?" And often it's incredible stories come out of little things kids think are irrelevant, but that reflect part of who they are, in a way that people like you... I try to say to kids, "Someone who you've never met before is going to read this essay," I simply want them saying "What a thoughtful kid," or "What a good kid," would be nice.
Kids are looking for "What an excellent kid." So I'll how I raised this many dollars for this thing, which could be great, but show a good person. Because you've got the transcript, you've got the test score, you got my school rec, all these things, you don't need to be anything but yourself in an essay. It's only 500 to 650 words, try to be honest. And so to shorten the long answer to your question, do not strategize in your essay, wrong place to do it.
Lee Coffin:
Don't make it up, don't spin it. And the topics, because I'm reading files before we talk, and right as we hang up, I go back to my queue, and the ones that resonate are often unexpected essays. The topic is small as often as it's dramatic. And I tell the story a lot, about when I read a year or two ago, of this boy from North Dakota raised by his grandparents, and they lived on a farm, and that was interesting. But he wrote about having a grandma who did not share his political point of view, and they each watch different cable news shows every night. And the essay was about afternoon tea in the farmhouse, where he and his grandmother had a conversation about what they watched on their respective networks. Really interesting.
Doug Burdett:
Because it was true.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, it was true. And he said, "I love her. I disagree with her. She thinks I'm young and foolish, but tomorrow we'll be right back there having a cup of tea, talking about whatever we..."
Doug Burdett:
I love that.
Lee Coffin:
And I learned so much about him and the kind of voice he would be on my campus.
Doug Burdett:
That makes me think of one. If I could-
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, go. Yeah.
Doug Burdett:
It's a long time ago, a wonderful kid happened to be an exceptionally talented athlete, and was recruited by an Ivy League school for his sport. Really, really strong student as well. And he thought about the essay, and came in one day, and proudly slapped his essay down on my desk. I still tease him about it, he's been gone over 20 years. And he said, "Read it and weep." He wrote all about the excitement he felt on game day and the adrenaline. And I said, "Are you seriously going to tell this school where you're recruited already, about... You just made yourself a one-trick pony. You just made yourself... You're so much." And to his credit, because it could have been a big argument, he said, "Oh, really? I said, "Yeah, why would you tell them about a sport you clearly love and your good? Of course they know you're fired up on game day. Why would you tell them that? You just wasted 500 words."
And he said "Ugh," he thought about it for a week. And about a week later, this reminds me your example of the North Dakota kid, he came in and shared an essay about an argument. I still remember this, an argument he had had with his grandfather three months before, about a disagreement they had had, and how it still bothered him. And I'm like, "Look what you just did. Now you're already probably going to get into that school back then, because you're recruited for that sport and you're a straight A student, and all of this, you're chances are obviously very good, but now you just showed them what a great person you are, and that this still bothers you." And it was a really nice moment, and all he did was speak the truth. Kids want to flex, when sometimes they don't need to.
Lee Coffin:
Right, right, that you don't need to flex. And topic three was how not to interview. I think it's the same theme that you just spun around writing an essay.
Doug Burdett:
Yeah, I'm going to lob this one right back at you, because-
Lee Coffin:
Right back at me.
Doug Burdett:
I only see my perspective on that.
Lee Coffin:
When I have done interviews, and this is a while ago since I worked at a college where we did in-person admission officer interviews, but some students would come in with a script that they had mostly memorized. And I tried to get them off script, and it was sometimes hard to do, because they had six things they wanted to tell me, and they were like boom, boom, boom. And the best ones were these open-ended. They came in, and maybe they had the script, and I was able to trip them, and we went off on a... I used to like talking about baseball. I was a Yankee fan, and that would create sparks of some kind, and we would talk about baseball for a bit. And I remember one boy leaving my office, he goes, "I love this conversation. I had no idea we were going to talk."
He's like, "That baseball conversation was really fun." And I said, "And I learned a lot about you from the conversation we had about baseball, and you did not plan to talk to me about that when we came in." The nerves are real, I get it. My reassurance on that is you need to learn the skillset of introducing yourself in person to someone that does not met you, it's called the job interview. And just like the essay is a version of a cover letter, someday you're going to apply for a job and you're going to have to tell your story, along with your resume, to have someone invite you to the interview. But the interview is a chance to talk and to-
Doug Burdett:
On my end, I'm going to interrupt you there, sorry, rudely.
Lee Coffin:
Okay.
Doug Burdett:
When I see the other end of that, and I ask boy how it went, if they say "It was awesome, I got to all my points," that may be a good thing. It really may not. To your point, when they say, "I don't know, it didn't really seem like an interview, we just talked and we talked." And I tell kids "After an hour, if it's still going, the polite thing to do is say goodbye.” He goes, "I tried. We went for an hour and a quarter, it was fantastic. But I don't think I got to any of my points." My takeaway often, is that was probably a wonderful conversation.
Lee Coffin:
Right. That's right. No, and I think whether you're writing an essay, whether you're having an interview, don't overthink it. You could certainly have topics you want to raise, and the interviewer may go through his or her own list, I don't want to talk about academics or extracurricular, the things you would expect them to, but you may also go way off and talk about sustainability for an hour and-
Doug Burdett:
Talk about a hard thing to coach.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah.
Doug Burdett:
Because that has to happen organically, and the best ones happen organically. And you can't tell a kid, "Well, make it organic."
Lee Coffin:
Yeah.
Doug Burdett:
How do you do-
Lee Coffin:
What do you tell a shy kid? If you have a shy kid who's about to interview, what's your advice to-
Doug Burdett:
I'll tell you, that's a great question, because it happens a lot. Once in a rare while, I've steered kids away from interviewing because it's so shy, it's genuine discomfort. And I know the kid is so fantastic, that that's going to be a misrepresentation. But if kids have said to me, and they'll tell me all this stuff, "I just think I'm too shy." Most of the time I'll say, "I know you, you're shy with me at first too. It's wonderful talking to you." That shyness is not a bad thing in an interview, but in the mind of a shy kid it's a killer. Think about the opposite kid, who's really outspoken and gregarious, that can be off-putting.
Lee Coffin:
Mm-hmm.
Doug Burdett:
If they're too aggressive. And I've had kids come and say, "Crushed it. I drove the whole conversation." And privately, I'm going, "Oh, I hope that went well."
Lee Coffin:
I read a file yesterday, because everything's online, the applicant Googled the interviewer, and came into the interview and quizzed the interviewer about her background, and knew a lot, because LinkedIn, wherever it was. And the interviewer, the report was positive, but it was a little discomforting to the interviewer that this student came at her so aggressively with information that's publicly available, but it's like it was a little overkill.
Doug Burdett:
I was going to ask you that very question, because kids have said to me, "Should I do research on my interviewer?" And I always get nervous about the answer, and the easiest answer is "No, go in and be yourself."
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, it's about you, not the interviewer.
Doug Burdett:
Yeah. But I've had parents say to me, "Shouldn't there be some basic information of what the person does for work?" And I said, "Well, sure." So I think to your example point, at the very least, if you can't resist doing some homework, which I get on some level for some people, be careful how you use it. Yours is the worst example, that's terrifying. But have it in mind. Maybe you want to be an environmental studies major and the person is running a sustainable... That's a nice thing.
Lee Coffin:
That's legit.
Doug Burdett:
And you almost look unprepared if you don't know it.
Lee Coffin:
Right. And that's legit, because then you can talk to the alum about, if it's an alumni interview, "You went to this college to study environmental science, and now you're doing climate research, that's my goal." That's perfect. I mean, that's where you're in the best space for the interview, because you're able to have a conversation, back to that, about your shared interests, and dot, dot, dot, does the college do what you do? So Doug, your fourth and final bullet was "How not to connect with an admission officer."
Doug Burdett:
Well, that's trickier, because there's so much, in quotes, wisdom out there about how to proceed once you've submitted your application.
Lee Coffin:
Right.
Doug Burdett:
That so many schools now say, "Don't reach out to us." Schools that still allow communication after an application is done, I've said for a long time, it's just becoming less and less true as schools sort of outlaw it, "It better be something important that you're telling them." I have a boy, who after he applied, bravely tried out for a musical and got the lead. It's not very often that 47 days later, they've got something new to tell. But it's the inclination that they want to do it, and I understand it. And sometimes I tell them to. We have cum laude awards at Brunswick, and those kids have done amazing things, and first thing they often ask is, "Should I be telling colleges that?" And how can I say no, what an accomplishment. So the answer is a yes, but I also sometimes couch it with, "They probably assume that's something you're going to get. You're at that level."
But yeah, how not to, I mean, I guess six letters to an admissions office that say something that they already knew, that's one. I think one end of the spectrum is you just got a huge award, or you got the lead in the play, or you just did something really notable that I really think a college admissions office should know, and it's going to affect your candidacy. But the other end of that is telling them something they already know three, four or five times. I'm guessing, you tell me that, and I've heard this from other people in your position, "Don't tell us what we already knew." I think you might even have told me this many years ago, "We're not stupid, if you tell us something once we're going to get it."
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. There's not really a need to become a pen pal with the admission officer unless there's something new. I mean, you're right. If you got the lead in the play and you're normally the quarterback on the football team, and that's a shift of role, tell us. You've got something big, tell us. But you don't need to feel compelled to do that. I think trust your application and its quality, and certainly, reach out to admission officers when you have questions.
Doug Burdett:
I have a hard question for you. I think it's a hard question.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah.
Doug Burdett:
Do you still like knowing when a school is a student's first choice later in the process, post-ED?
Lee Coffin:
Yeah.
Doug Burdett:
It's the most common question I get.
Lee Coffin:
So if we're in regular decision, and a student tells us "This is my first choice," I mean often, that comes out in the interview, where someone asks or it's revealed. We don't have early decision round two, but if we're in March and we're reading a file that's otherwise holistically zippy, it doesn't hurt to know that. It's not expected. I mean, I think the idea of going into April and revisiting your campuses, and you make a choice by May one, I mean that's what we're doing. So we're not looking for the declaration of love, but if you know there's no reason to not share it.
Doug Burdett:
I'm glad to hear that, that's kind of the premise we work on.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, it doesn't hurt.
Doug Burdett:
Good. I think that's almost literally what I say. That's very reassuring to hear, and I ask it because it is. I think people will be genuinely... It's an incredibly common question between late-January and all the way up to early-March.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. And I would jump ahead of the calendar even, to April into May, when the wait lists are bubbling. So seniors, you're on a wait list. If you're on the wait list at your first choice, tell the campus. The wait list may not activate, but among the students on the wait list, someone who has said, "This is where I see myself," that's helpful.
So Doug, as we run out of minutes, put a big bow on this. So we're calling the episode "How Not to Get into the College of Your Choice," what's your 30-year college counselor concluding wisdom to students and parents?
Doug Burdett:
Yeah, I think that's such a great question. It's a good question because it's so difficult. There's so many different things different kids can learn and get out of this process. The most complicated, easier said than done piece of advice is how do you learn about yourself during this process in a positive way? Because not only is that healthy, but then you can get strategic. Some parents love visiting colleges with their kids. I've had so many people tell me "That's the most time I've spent with my son in three years, and we had a blast." Sometimes they hear it's the opposite. Find the stuff that is where you're learning about yourself, and as corny as that sounds, it becomes relevant. Maybe that's something I literally had a kid write about in his college essay about visiting campuses with his mom. This was years ago, but it was beautiful. It was funny too. It was really funny about a terrible meal they had, I remember, and how they were late to a meeting, just because I don't think they had gotten lost, I think they'd talked to somebody for too long on campus.
And of course, someone like me is going to say, "That's fantastic." But they were late for an interview, and they were freaked out by it. I really think since so much of the process is stressful, no matter how we try to make it less so, since so much of it is, I think that you try to find the silver lining in such a way that it becomes beneficial. It'll benefit you in the essay. And I guess most importantly, here's better answer your question. Most importantly, it will help you make the best decision about where you shouldn't be for the next four years. If you don't have these honest moments, these healthy, honest moments, you might, when you put your head on a pillow at some campus in a year, say, "How did I get here?" And that terrifies me.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. Doug, it's funny, you ended right where I was going to add "Listen to yourself."
Doug Burdett:
Yeah.
Lee Coffin:
So you said "Honest moments," and I think that's a better way of saying what I was about to, which is you will have moments of epiphany from today, all the way through your college search. And parents, you will witness that. Sometimes they go silent, and you can't get that child to talk. It will happen. Sometimes they keep talking. But the epiphanies are important to recognize when they happen. And if you ignore it, if you're hell bent, I'll use Dartmouth. You're like, "I'm going to Dartmouth damn it." And you get there, and it's like, "It's not feeling like my best place," but you're still focused on it because of some other reason, you're setting yourself up for an unhappy finish. I mean, maybe you go,, and that's not the place you should be. Or if you ignore those little voices or that gut instinct, just be honest with yourself.
Well, Doug, I really enjoyed this conversation. I knew it would be wide-ranging and fun, so thanks for joining me on Admission Beat, and making your pod debut with me. Love to have you back.
To listeners, we will be back next week with another episode. For now, this is Lee Coffin from Dartmouth College, thanks for listening.