It's time for the high school class of 2027 to step into the college search spotlight. As juniors kick off their college search, AB resets its narrative spotlight to the discovery phase. In the ninth season premiere, Dartmouth's Lee Coffin welcomes recurring co-host Jacques Steinberg, a former higher ed reporter at the New York Times and the best-selling author of The Gatekeepers and The College Conversation, and Kate Boyle Ramsdell, director of college counseling at Noble and Greenough School in suburban Boston, for a wide-ranging primer on the college search. The trio outlines key milestones in the search calendar; shares tips on identifying criteria and "non-negotiable" factors; advises the development of an exploratory list as an opportunity to discover; and recommends a family's financial capacity as an essential list shaper. "Let's give you a toolkit to move from discovery to applying with a sense of purpose," Dean Coffin says.
It's time for the high school class of 2027 to step into the college search spotlight. As juniors kick off their college search, AB resets its narrative spotlight to the discovery phase. In the ninth season premiere, Dartmouth's Lee Coffin welcomes recurring co-host Jacques Steinberg, a former higher ed reporter at the New York Times and the best-selling author of The Gatekeepers and The College Conversation, and Kate Boyle Ramsdell, director of college counseling at Noble and Greenough School in suburban Boston, for a wide-ranging primer on the college search. The trio outlines key milestones in the search calendar; shares tips on identifying criteria and "non-negotiable" factors; advises the development of an exploratory list as an opportunity to discover; and recommends a family's financial capacity as an essential list shaper. "Let's give you a toolkit to move from discovery to applying with a sense of purpose," Dean Coffin says.
Lee Coffin:
From Hanover, New Hampshire, I'm Lee Coffin, Dartmouth's vice president and dean of admissions and financial aid, and this is the season premiere of Admissions Beat.
Hello, high school class of 2027, and welcome back high school class of 2026 seniors. You've applied. You are in the winter of your senior year. Your files are being read and by the spring, decisions will be flowing and you'll be well on your way to being a college freshman.
To juniors, parents, guidance counselors, welcome to the admission search. You are about to begin an up to 18-month experiment. It's an experiment because you're testing yourself, you're exploring your options, you're seeing what matters, you're finding new ways of introducing yourself, and ultimately you're making a choice. Maybe one of the biggest choices you're going to make at this point in your life, and that is, where do you see yourself? What college, among the many, many that you have to consider feels right to you? That process to many people feels intimidating. As a longtime dean of admissions, let me reassure you, it shouldn't be. It will be if you let it, but take a breath as the search starts and think about college admission as your chance to explore what matters to you and what's the best place for you to have that experience.
You found Admissions Beat. We are in season nine of our storytelling, and as in all seasons that begin in the winter, we're starting at the beginning. So each episode will explore the college search from discovery to applying to making a decision. But for now, it's about discovery. It's about helping you identify the things that should matter and how you do it. And we're going to do our best to demystify what is often a cloudy experience. And as someone who's a dean of the place with a really tight acceptance rate, I know people worry about college admission, and so it's our job on this pod to reassure you to speak plain English and to give you a toolkit to proceed.
This week, we start our season nine with what we're calling a primer on the college search. My returning co-host, Jacques Steinberg, former New York Times reporter, author of The Gatekeepers and The College Conversation is with us. Hello, Jack.
Jacques Steinberg:
Hello, Lee. It's great to be back for a new season and a particular welcome to those who are joining us for the first time. We don't assume you've been with us before. And as Lee says, we're starting at the beginning, but also welcome to those who have joined us before. We promise you plenty of new information and reinforcing information you may have heard before as well.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. And just truth in advertising, this is a podcast about selective college admissions. That's where I've worked. It's what I know. And I think it's the part of the admission spectrum where there's the most angst about getting in. And so we're going to do our best to explain it and reassure you that this is doable. And we're joined this week by returning potter, Kate Boyle Ramsdell, the director of college counseling at Noble and Greenough School in Dedham, Massachusetts. Hi, Kate. Welcome back.
Kate Boyle Ramsdell:
Hey, Lee. It's good to see you again. And Jack, it's great to be with you too.
Lee Coffin:
We're really thrilled to have you representing the school community as we start this conversation with the next class in the admission queue. Jack, you are going to be the moderator for this episode. So I passed the microphone to you and I will join Kate on the interviewing couch. All yours.
Jacques Steinberg:
Thanks so much, Lee. Kate, a pleasure to see you. I want to begin with an acknowledgement of the emotions that high school juniors and their parents must surely be feeling at the outset of this process. I know that those emotions come into your office multiple times a day, every day at this time of year. How do you help both students and parents address those emotions at the outset and process them?
Kate Boyle Ramsdell:
You're right. Sometimes I feel like I'm a giant sponge for other people's emotions. So part of what I do to help them address them is to think about breaking up this process into manageable pieces. To think about what is it about either the college process or starting something new and sort of unknown or just looking ahead in general makes you worried or anxious, and can we talk about what that is? And I think it differs for different people.
If I think about where my kids and families are at this stage, particularly in the junior class, I would tell you, and I hope this is reassuring to families listening, that kids are all over the map. Some of the kids that I'm working with right now, we're ready to start thinking about the process early, have done some of the self-reflection we're going to hopefully talk about later in this episode, and they might be pretty far along in thinking about what their criteria are.
We're getting on Claude, Anthropic and doing a little research together, which I might talk about later, and maybe well on their way to visiting some college campuses. Whereas a big group of kids I'm starting with, I am literally having to hunt down in the hallways and put time on their calendars to get them to get going. You probably see yourself somewhere in that spectrum, hopefully you do. And I just want to reassure you that all of these kids are going to have the same deadlines next fall and they're going to get there and we're going to get there with them and hopefully you can feel good about that.
Lee Coffin:
Kate, what's the vibe in a high school junior class right now?
Kate Boyle Ramsdell:
Trepidatious excitement, and a kind of nervousness. I think that particularly in a school community where we have seniors who have just gotten college news, I think sometimes that can set the tone for a junior class. They're looking at these kids that they have maybe idolized a little bit, seen as being infallible or just kind of like, "Wow, if that person hasn't gotten in, then what's in this for me?" Or they're watching it unfold and saying, "That is so awesome that those kids that I really look up to are going to be at these different places that I kind of envision myself being someday." So I think there's just a lot of questions, there's a little bit of nervous excitement and there is, I don't know, maybe this existential dread that I'm about to face the semester in high school that everyone tells me is the hardest.
Lee Coffin:
I think that's really helpful though, Kate. For parents, you've just put a little pin in the next two semesters, the junior spring, senior fall as being stressful to the kids in their house.
Kate Boyle Ramsdell:
I think that's right. I think we're just stretching kids to do a lot of things at the same time and they have to figure out how to get it all done.
Jacques Steinberg:
So before we get too far down this road, let's make sure that we arm students and the adults in their lives to ask and discuss this question, which in many homes is no longer a question regarded as a given. Why college? Or to put it in another way, what's the case today for a bachelor's degree and the return on the often sizable investment and expense that it often requires?
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. Jack, that's such an important question and it's one that I never used to have to answer. This is now my 32nd year as a dean and almost 40, which I'm shocked to say, as an admission officer. And if I go back to the early '90s when I started, there was really not a question about college and its worth.
And over the course of the last generation plus, as careers have sprouted that can happen without a BA and as the costs have become significant, my senior year in 1985 cost $8,000. And I remember my dad thinking that was an obscene amount of money. But when I think about what today's students pay, it feels like I got a bargain.
I think the point of going to college is both the subject you study and the degree it confers, but I think there are intangibles like the experience in and of itself and it's the way it teaches you how to think and adapt and work in communities that are perhaps very different from the one in which you were raised.
How do you start to model citizenship and leadership in a community of peers that in many campuses will be leaders in the workplace and in civic life and perhaps even around the world over the next 30, 40, 50 years? That's powerful. And I think there are benefits to all students when they join a community like that.
And there are lots of studies that show the return on investment is significant in terms of earnings over your lifetime. People with a BA make more money over the course of their career than people without one. I was the first in my family to go to college. I talk about this all the time, and I look at my life and compare it to my dad's life, and it's profoundly different. I mean, he had a good life, but mine went in a really different direction as a result of going to a four-year undergraduate college.
Kate Boyle Ramsdell:
I agree that there's a more intangible component that's around community and entering into what I would call the great American experiment. We have these places where we're pulling people from all over the world and all over the country from very different walks of life, and we're asking them to live together for four years, go to class, be on teams, participate in activities, and figure out how to communicate with each other in a meaningful way, and then to lead.
But then I also think that there is a component to this, that college still offers kids access to jobs and industries that without that degree, they would not have access to that. For some kids that I work with, that's not why they go to college. They might actually be able to go to college to think about books and to just learn in community and to maybe even play a sport or do an activity that's meaningful to them, to the tune of whatever amount that's going to cost.
But for other kids that I work with, college represents really a life-changing trajectory for them that they will have access to resources that no one in their family has ever had resource access to. And I think that, that's really important to remember. So I question why in this period in American history when more kids have access arguably to college than ever before, are we starting to send this broad message that college doesn't matter? I think there's a dark underbelly to that.
Lee Coffin:
I think it's the cost driving it too, where people see an annual and a four-year price tag and they think, "Come on." And my way of thinking about it is it's an investment in yourself. You are getting a degree that puts you on a path for a lifetime of purpose.
Jacques Steinberg:
For the balance of this conversation, let's assume that the audience listening to us is satisfied that there's a rich return on that investment, whether it's a parent or a student listening. Let's pay particular attention as we go forward in this conversation to parents whose last exposure to the college process was when they themselves applied to college.
Lee Coffin:
If they did.
Jacques Steinberg:
Yes, if they did. And if they did, it was likely more than two decades ago. So let's start with a curtain raiser. What are the key milestones of the next 18 months in their lives, thinking particularly about high school juniors and their parents, and where do those milestones sit on the calendar?
Lee Coffin:
So let me sketch out the calendar in a couple of broad chapters, or if it were a play, acts, and then Kate can fill in a bit more detail. So the broad outline is the first act of a college search starts now or whenever someone gets ready to start, and that's the act of discovery. It's taking stock of yourself, your ambitions, where you hope to go, and then looking for options that help you honor those thoughts.
And discovery can go for months, and perhaps it never really ends. Maybe act one is part of this process until someone actually enrolls. But strictly speaking, I would say act one goes from winter, spring, junior year, to the beginning of 12th grade. At that moment, act two becomes the act of applying. And through the common application, QuestBridge and institutional application, the coalition application, there's multiple different platforms a student can use.
From September to the deadline, it's time to tell a story and to put together the documents requested in an authentic way that introduces each person to each college. And those documents are both qualitative, things like essays and recommendations and interviews. And quantitative, scores, transcripts, grade point averages, class rank, numbers. And those two things, the data and the voice make the application, and that process becomes act three.
Application is submitted, the colleges pick up the baton, read what's been submitted, assess the elements, make a decision, and then that decision comes back hopefully as an offer of admission, an invitation to join the campus. Sometimes it's a maybe, and sometimes it's a no.
Let's say it's a yes. Then act four, you have to decide where to go. And then flowing through all of this is the question of affordability, and that should be part of discovery, but it's probably a part of each piece of this where a family needs to look at their ability to finance and afford the cost.
We were just talking about this, and that both informs discovery, it informs where you apply, it informs where you end up going. So that's the calendar. Kate, for purposes of discovery, which is this season and that we're the classes, what are the smaller units within that act one?
Kate Boyle Ramsdell:
I would say the place that most of our kids start with our guidance is thinking about what their key criteria are. And so that's sort of a two-part, multi-part process, but there's a component of all of this that can be hard for high school students, but is so important, which is this idea of self-reflection. So in that discovery phase, you're really trying to unpack for yourself, "Who am I today? How do I like to learn? What gets me out of bed in the morning?" I guess the bigger question that an adult might ask somebody is, "What do you need to thrive? How are you going to thrive in college?"
I think the hard part for some kids at the discovery phase is that there's so much abstraction. Maybe they've never been on a college campus. Maybe they've never sat for a standardized test yet. They don't even know what it looks like. They're not even sure what kinds of questions colleges are going to ask them.
And so I think making the process concrete at this stage is really important and giving kids language to be able to start to describe what they want. So you would say, "How do you like to learn? Do you enjoy being in small discussions or are you somebody who loves to take information in from a teacher who's talking?" And then you kind of reflect on it later. You might be a seminar style kid or a lecture style kid. And one of the most important activities for you. "How far from home are you curious to go? What size of school might you like?" So we start to put these building blocks in place to at least begin research. Let's take those criteria. Let's work together to create this exploratory list.
And to your point earlier, Lee, the exploratory list is not where you're going. The exploratory list is your opportunity to discover, to see what's out there, to see what all those possibilities are. It's exciting. It shouldn't be seen as stressful. And then to begin to collect some information. So whether that's from online resources, websites, social media, an actual campus visit, you're going to start to put some meat on those bones and really figure it out. And I say that the self-reflective part goes all the way through the process. You're constantly responding to the inputs like, "I really liked that. I wonder why. That really didn't resonate. That was not my place. Those are not my people. Let's figure out why." And then that can help you begin to shape it. And I think you're slowly, but with a relatively short timeline until next fall, just trying to unpack what it means to start to look at college and do research at this space.
Jacques Steinberg:
So we're all human. I'm a parent who's gone through this process twice. I made lots of mistakes. Kate, what are some common mistakes you see at the outset, whether mistakes made by students or parents, and how can we help listeners avoid falling in some of those traps?
Kate Boyle Ramsdell:
I guess the first thing I would say, and maybe this isn't entirely fair, but it's like I just got sent the U.S. News rankings. It's sort of like taking a set of rankings at the very beginning and deciding that, that's how you're going to create your college list. Some external body has said they're the top 25, so that must be where I should start. I think it's sometimes hard to avoid that. We say rankings equal quality. So I think it's starting to think about what is it that matters to me as opposed to what is it that some outside force is telling me I should care about. I think that, that's a mistake that people make at the outset.
Jacques Steinberg:
Coming back to U.S. News & World Report for a moment, I definitely hear you in regard to students and families using the rankings as their college list. Okay, I've got my one to 10, it's right here. Is there information that underpins those rankings that U.S. News reports that can be helpful as you start to build your college list?
Kate Boyle Ramsdell:
If you know what goes into the rankings and you care about those things, then they can be helpful. But if you don't know anything about how they build them, to your point, you don't know that it's valuing what you care about. I think that if there are things like endowment size or student to faculty ratio or class size, and you've decided that having intimate relationships with professors in a classroom where they're really going to help you learn is important to you, then that's going to matter. You're right. Think about what goes into those rankings and whether or not you care about those things.
Jacques Steinberg:
Lee, what are some common mistakes from your perspective that students and parents make at the outset and how might they avoid them?
Lee Coffin:
I think a common misstep at the beginning of a search is to focus on the statistics as the singular guiding pathway. You go to Naviance, it's a platform many high schools use that show previous decisions from that school to a particular college, and it's an access that shows a grade point average and a test score. So two data points, two foundational data points, but not all by themselves in many places, determinative data points.
And so, one of the misperceptions is that straight As means all admits. I've had friends and families say, "Oh, she's a straight A student. She's going to get in everywhere." And you see one report card from one high school. You have rarely any insight into what are the grade norms in that school and how many people also have straight As. And I'm not saying straight As are bad, but thinking that, oh, I'm a straight A student, or I have straight As with a large test score that you're done, you're not.
Those are important markers that start to frame selectivity. When a guidance counselor says, "This place is in range, this place looks like a stretch," they're using data to norm a projection of forecast, but the data doesn't tell you the story. And Naviance doesn't show you what someone wrote an essay about or what the teacher recommendation said, or that outlier on the grid might've been someone who wanted to study classics and wrote about archeology. And in that particular pool, that was noteworthy and elevated someone "higher" than the statistical profile might suggested. So I think the beginning of the search often gets gummed up by impressions of statistical vitality.
Jacques Steinberg:
So Lee, when we talk about mistakes that parents and students sometimes make, I feel like I've heard you use the analogy of the college admissions process being like a novel and participants sort of racing to the end before they've read the beginning in the middle. Can you unpack that for us?
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. I have friends who read mysteries and they read the last chapter before they start the book. I think, why would you want to know what happens? The parallel to the college search is I think people start the search with some definitive sense of, "This is where I will go." And you didn't give yourself a chance to explore. You're jumping from the preface of the book, which is discovery, to the final chapters. And the story needs to unfold in sequence.
And I think a family needs to have patience to let discovery unfold organically and wherever it brings you without thinking, "I know what happens," because you don't. So I think especially at this early moment of a search, my advice to families is slow down. Take a list, explore it widely, get ready to be attracted to places you've never heard of and disappointed by places that seem like they have a lot of bling. Because what happens is you have this very personal, tactile thing that happens. You visit a campus, you study things online, and the story starts to shift in ways that you don't know at the beginning of the book.
Kate Boyle Ramsdell:
Lee, we would call that in my world, I call it “say no later.”
Lee Coffin:
Say no later. I love that. Yeah.
Kate Boyle Ramsdell:
Say no later. You can get in now and getting into college almost anywhere feels great. And so I think people really underestimate at the beginning of this process that it is not just your dream school when you get in and you sort of really feel elated. I've just watched a whole bunch of kids get in early action to non-binding schools. A lot of them were in the more likely part of their lists at the beginning of this, meaning I thought they had a better than 80% chance of getting in.
And for a lot of them, when they're writing that application or we're talking about those schools at the beginning of the process, they're thinking, "I don't want to apply because I don't think I want to go there." And that's exactly what you're saying, Lee. And what I have just watched over the last week is a dozen kids who come into the office and say, "I'm into college. This is so awesome. I feel so good." And all of a sudden, whatever they thought three months ago when they applied has just totally evaporated. They're thinking about the possibilities that are in front of them. And so I just cannot encourage people enough to think about the sheer relief that kids can feel from having choices. It's really awesome.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. I mean, Jack, I think so many people start a college search convinced that it's going to be an awful experience. They kind of sigh and they huff and puff and they say, "I dread this." And I always say, "This is my job. You should embrace it." Maybe love is too strong, but there are things that you can have fun, you're going to learn a lot. But I think this boogeyman that hides under the bed called college search, it's dominated thinking of students for a long time and they watch their older classmates go through it or maybe siblings and I think that sounds messy and emotional and it could be, but the process in and of itself is not something that should be dreaded.
Jacques Steinberg:
Yeah. I mean, there's certainly the feeling that students have about putting themselves out there and the beauty contest nature of this, of being judged. For parents, they so don't want their children's feelings to get hurt, their dreams to be dashed. I can certainly relate to that feeling. And I think just acknowledging that, noticing it. And then as you say, Lee, not assuming that, that is going to be unpleasant and using it as a teaching moment, particularly helping young people learn about themselves through this process.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. It was almost a year ago, my sister invited me to go on a visit with my niece and we went to an open house and it was her first campus visit. And I watched this kid get out of the car in a very anxious, nervous space. She didn't know what to do. She didn't know who was going to be there. I said, "Just take a breath and just listen and wander around." By the end of the day, she was skipping back to the car and this visit that seemed intimidating, all these little doors and windows flew open and she got really excited. And I think that's not uncommon. I mean, Kate, do you see that same phenomena where people, they start with nerves and then all of a sudden they realize, "I got this?"
Kate Boyle Ramsdell:
For sure. I think it's like anything where you become more comfortable the more you're exposed to something and what can seem intimidating at the outset can suddenly feel kind of exciting. I wanted to give a little, I don't know, have an empathy moment for parents because I think I've been there.
One of the places where I think it can be really hard is this idea, particularly when it's around finances, that maybe something that your child really wants is not going to be accessible to them because of the way your finances line up. And I can't imagine a more difficult feeling than just knowing I can't provide something for my kid. I do think that there are some heavy moments, but maybe also opportunities there to really sit down with your child at the beginning of the process and put those guardrails around the search and say, "You know what? I'd love to be able to spend $80,000 to $100,000 for your education every year." But the truth of it is we can't, and here's why.
We're going to start looking at colleges where you can get merit money and we're going to start looking at colleges that can meet our financial need. And I think that's okay. I mean, it requires a lot of homework on the part of the parent and a lot of ... That's something that maybe in some families people just don't really like to talk about, but I do think the college process is an opportunity. Kids are growing up, they've got to get their hands around some of the realities of what's in front of them, and I think it can teach really good and maybe even sometimes hard for parent lessons. So anyway, I do see joy and exuberance and all of those things in this process. And I also think for some folks, it's really hard. These are hard moments too. And you're letting go of your kids and that's hard.
Jacques Steinberg:
Let's stay on finance for a moment. If we go back to Lee's framing of this is the beginning of the search, this is the beginning of an 18-month process. I'm hearing you say between the lines, Kate, that this is not too early in the process, January of junior year in high school to talk about money. And as you say, this may be the first time a family has ever had a conversation about money where a parent talks about how much they earn, how much they've saved, how much of that savings they intend to spend on college. What's their tolerance for debt? How much do they expect students to spend? How can all those questions and the answers they yield influence a college list?
Kate Boyle Ramsdell:
I think the first piece is really understanding what all of it means. So actually not counting out a place like Dartmouth if your kid is qualified, because you may actually be able to afford it if you use the tools at your disposal to figure it out. So every college has a net price calculator on their site that you can use with a couple of strokes. Even it might take you a half an hour. You probably have to gather your taxes and some other documents to make it as accurate as it can be. But I do think that between that and in Massachusetts, we have MEFA, Massachusetts Education Financing Authority. I'm sure other states have similar resources, but they put out dozens and dozens of great podcasts like this one, or they host a FAFSA workshop, a CSS profile workshop, a how to understand what you might be expected to pay conversation.
So I do think that now's the time. What you might then need to do, let's say your family says, "Well, we can afford $20,000 or $30,000 a year of that full ticket." I mean, automatically that might put state universities and state colleges on the list out of the gate. It could also have you looking a little bit more carefully at places that meet 100% of demonstrated need if it's need-based or saying, "Listen, I love this small college that only gives need-based aid, but actually we're going to be asked to pay close to the full tuition. We can't do that. Let me look at these other similar colleges that are known for offering great merit money."
Your financial capacity should be a list shaper from the minute you start this process, because it also could start to determine things like whether you apply early decision in a binding round or whether you need to compare packages across schools. And for need-aware institutions, it might mean unfortunately that you're not going to get admitted even if you're qualified because they don't have enough resources to go around for all the great kids that are in their pool. And those are things that are outside of your control. So just learning as much as you can and applying it would be my advice.
Lee Coffin:
Kate, I've heard you describe the first step as making a list of the non-negotiables. And you just put affordability right smack on the list of ... For some families, it's a non-negotiable. And talk a little bit about the non-negotiables because I think it's a really helpful way of starting a family out on thinking, "Okay, there's so many places we can explore." You just outlined how to think about affordability and price, but what are some other examples of a non-negotiable? Meaning as the search progresses, these are the things you can't ignore. It could be a veto on an otherwise great option because the non-negotiable doesn't exist.
Kate Boyle Ramsdell:
I go back to that sort of, in my mind, it looks like a pie chart at the beginning and I say you have size, geography, location within a geography, your special interests, the kind of education you want to get and cost. And to your point, Lee, I say to some kids, when you look at that pie chart, cost might actually take up 90% of it. That's your sole and biggest non-negotiable, and then those other things have to fit within that.
But for some other kids, they might say, "My non-negotiable is my special interest in playing lacrosse in college, studying engineering, being within a two-hour drive or a bus ride from home." For some of my kids, it's being able to get home on weekends because I actually still need to help out my family with childcare. So you really have to figure out what those non-negotiables for you are. And it could put strictures around your geography. It could put strictures around, "Hey, I can only play sports at the division three levels. So while I would love to go play football at Indiana, that's not happening for me. I'm going to go to some small liberal arts college in the middle of nowhere because the thing I love to do after school every day is the most important thing to me right now." I think those come into focus either very early or as the process unfolds.
Jacques Steinberg:
Kate, you mentioned earlier the subject of AI. And when we talk about AI, it's platforms that have names like ChatGPT, of course, but also perhaps Claude and Perplexity among others. How can students and parents use AI platforms to do some basic initial research about colleges that may or may not belong on their list?
Kate Boyle Ramsdell:
To date, the most effective activity that I've used, and I'm sure lots of people out there have different ways that they use it, is to start to call out what these criteria are. So it could be school of a certain size, activity or identity that's really important to me, the way that I like to learn geographic strictures. And I've started using Claude with this sort of language.
I'm a student who is really interested in going to a small to medium-sized university where I can do some medical research. I am particularly interested in affinity spaces for queer students, and it is really important to me that I can play on an ultimate Frisbee team that is competitive at a national level. I really get specific. I'll work with a kid to call those things.
Here's a couple of schools that I'm thinking about and I think I'm interested in learning more about. Give me a hot take on each of those schools in language that I can understand about how my criteria fit or don't fit with that school. And actually, I've been getting some really good stuff back. I think for the first time in my career, every kid that I have sat and done this exercise with has said, "Whoa, that was kind of fun." And I was like, "Whoa, research is fun."
I think that's one of those things that kids find so inaccessible. They sit in front of a college website, they have no idea where to start. And what I've tried to say to them is, "Great, now ask it a question." They'll be like, "Oh my gosh, I love how school X has a partnership with a hospital that's down the street. What other schools on this list have something like that?" And then they'll say, "I really want to do an internship or study abroad." I don't know. I've just watched it become much more interactive in a way that I find fun and kind of exciting for kids. And so far, that's the most positive way I've watched kids use AI to great effect.
Lee Coffin:
Kate, I love, as you're describing this, I am very much a novice AI person. I don't even know what Claude is until you said it. I'm guessing it's an app of some kind that you can load on your phone or your computer and it's an AI type of tool.
Kate Boyle Ramsdell:
Yeah, it's a large language model tool, a lot like ChatGPT. Also, I've had kids say, and I've played around with this, I love the sound of these three schools. What else is out there that I'm not thinking about that actually hits all these criteria? And then I guess the last little bit of advice I would give is I like to ask whatever platform I'm using at the end, can you tell me what your sources were? Because again, there's hallucinations. Some of the data can be a little bit old. One of them told me it was using College Confidential heavily, and I said, "Okay, well, in this round, please only use these kinds of stuff."
Lee Coffin:
Oh, that's interesting.
Kate Boyle Ramsdell:
So that was kind of interesting-
Lee Coffin:
The teacher in you was looking for footnotes.
Kate Boyle Ramsdell:
Yeah. And you want to be a good researcher. And also, I guess the last point I would make is one student I was working with, the first hot take on every school was negative. It led her to believe that none of the schools we've been talking about would be a great fit for her. So all we did was respond and say, "Wow, those are all negative points of feedback. I'd love a more positive spin on everything you just said." And then we got really good information. So you have to be a curious and flexible thinker, I guess, if you're going to wade into the world of AI.
Jacques Steinberg:
And I would add the word “skeptical.” I'm a journalist by training and skepticism and your word curiosity have served me well. Make sure you check those facts and look at them potentially as a starting point, but keep it going and kick the tires on where that information came from and how reliable it is.
Lee Coffin:
I would pair skepticism with just an awareness of the noise. Your parents, you're starting an 18-month journey where there are a lot of opinions everywhere you go in the carpool line, at the soccer match, in the grocery store, on social media, blah, blah, blah. Everywhere you go, you have a kid in the tail end of high school, this topic comes up and you could allow yourself to get drawn into that conversational maw and it's all you talk about or you share too much.
My sister a year ago kept posting on Facebook every step of her daughter's search. And I called her, I said, "Keep it to yourself. Don't put this out on the internet." Because she was getting frustrated by how many people were second guessing a campus visit or a test score. And I said, "You put it out there, so keep it to yourself." And she stopped and she said, "You were right." She said then the noise got easier to manage.
But I think more broadly, Jack, we're in a world very different than we were probably when the parents were high school seniors. And there are just so many different inputs to the way we think and process info that you need to be skeptical about the source, but you also need to be discerning about where you're going and you got to make those kind of assessments.
Jacques Steinberg:
So Lee, I know that in the coming episodes and in the coming weeks and months, Admissions Beat is going to go deep on every sort of aspect and element and milestone of this process. For now, I can imagine some listeners, whether parents or students having listened to the conversation we just had, it might feel a bit overwhelming. It might feel daunting. It might prompt questions of how can my child possibly navigate this sort of minefield and get to a point of success and a college that they want to attend and that they can afford to attend. So final question for each of you, starting with you, Kate, how do you address that feeling of feeling overwhelmed or swamped at the outset of this process?
Kate Boyle Ramsdell:
I think if you take it in manageable chunks, you can do this. So if you're sitting here in January of your junior year, you say to yourself, "What do I need to do between now and let's say March or April?" And you need to start to pull together your key criteria, do a little bit of an assessment of your financial situation, if that's going to matter. If you have a special interest that's going to require you to communicate with people on campuses sooner than later, whether that's athletics or music or something else, you're going to get that going.
And then I think you say to yourself, "Okay, then what am I going to do in the middle of spring until the summer?" One of those things that you might start doing is thinking about your writing, thinking about the 650 word essay that you might have to hand in November and get yourself going. I think lots of kids will do things over the summer that are going to help them grow. The summer can be used for your job or your course that you're going to take or however you choose to do that. And I think of summer as the time that you're going to dig into the common application or the other apps you're going to do and really, really get that done before your senior year even begins.
And all the while you're saying, "Well, I've got to pace myself on these visits for the three or four schools I might get to in person, I'm going to work with my family to think about when that's going to be. And for the other dozen schools I'm looking at, I get to set aside an hour a week and do one online." So I do think if you think of this not as where am I going to be 18 months from now as I'm unpacking the car and going to college and taking it little by little, I think it's a really manageable and fun process for families and kids.
Jacques Steinberg:
Lee, what would you say in closing in terms of listeners who might be feeling a bit overwhelmed?
Lee Coffin:
So I'm nodding like a bobblehead as I listen to Kate say that because just chunk it. Take 18 months and break it down into smaller units. So step one, self-reflection, what do I want? What are my non-negotiables? Start a list. Step two, plan some visits even if they're local.
I have a friend who lives in suburban Boston, and my advice to them was that her son wants to do business and marketing. And I said to him, "What do you know about that?" And he said, "Oh, it's what I want to do." I said, "Do you want to do it or you want to study it?" And those are two really different things. We'll talk about this in episode two. A major and a career aren't always the same thing, but I said, "Okay, for argument's sake, you want to study marketing, you live in a place where there's some really great programs nearby." He said, "Well, I don't want to go." I said, "You don't have to go, but you can go visit, listen to what this campus is telling you. You might actually like it and it doesn't matter that it's 10 minutes from home." But if you're sitting in the info session, you realize, "I really don't want to study this." You've just made it an important aha right up front.
So the discovery and the visits happen, the lists shift. I think the other piece of advice I would tell a parent to hold tight is this is elastic. What you think is true today may have shifted by April. What's true in April may be very different by August. And I watched my niece do a complete U-turn at Thanksgiving and I thought, "Well, I didn't see that coming." And they're kids. And I think that's what's really important to remember is you're dealing with a 17 and an 18-year-old and they're going to react in ways that are unexpected, but you don't need to overreact as a parent at the beginning. And you don't have to swallow this whole thing called the search in one bite now, certainly, and let it unfold and it will be less stressful.
Jacques Steinberg:
Well, it's been an honor to hold the mic for the last hour or so. And Lee, I'm going to pass it back to you to both close and foreshadow what's coming next.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. Thank you, Jack, as always for co-hosting this season premiere. And Kate, my pal for coming back on the Beat with your wisdom and thoughtfulness. It's always fun to have you as the voice from the school side.
Kate Boyle Ramsdell:
Thanks, Lee. It's always good to be here.
Lee Coffin:
We have a whole lineup of episodes that build off of this primer on the college search. Next week, we will be back with an in depth look at program. Students often say, "I want to major in biology, French, theater," but miss the bigger topic, which is, well, how does that major sit in a learning environment on each campus?
But many of the things we talked about today will be fodder for future conversations. And we hope by the end of season nine, later this spring, each of you will have a toolkit to move forward from discovery to applying. But remember, you don't need to apply now. You've got many months to go between the beginning of this search and the more transactional part where you need to put fingers on keyboards and tell a story. That's later.
For now, you need to discover, you need to look in the mirror. "Who am I? Where am I? Where do I hope to go? And how do these options flow from that?" So we're excited to be bringing you season nine. As always, I say this is sponsored by Dartmouth College, but it is not about admission to Dartmouth College. It is an act of citizenship by me as the Dean of Admission and Financial Aid at Dartmouth and my team to high school seniors, juniors, and parents around the world to help make sense of what seems like a complicated process.
Admissions Beat is produced and edited by Charlotte Albright. It is co-produced and editorial direction by Jacques Steinberg. Technical direction from Sara Morin and scheduling, which may be the hardest job of all, by my assistant, Peg Chase. For now, this is Lee Coffin from Dartmouth College. If you liked episode one, please subscribe, like us on iTunes or Spotify or wherever you get your pods. We'll see you next week.