Kicking Off Season Six of the Admissions Beat, host Lee Coffin of Dartmouth welcomes listeners back to school as another admissions cycle commences. Raising the curtain on the admissions process for high school juniors and seniors, as well as their parents and counselors, Coffin and his guests offer a sampler of “news you can use,” with tips on everything from managing the stress of the search and application process to sizing up an institution’s “fit” and “vibe,” to understanding the impact of last year’s Supreme Court decision on race as a factor in admissions. This week’s guests are Charlotte Albright, former public radio host and reporter, and Jacques Steinberg, former New York Times journalist and co-author of “The College Conversation.” Whether you are a first-time listener or an AB veteran, Coffin and his guests have much to offer as they look ahead toward the upcoming podcast season.
Kicking off Season Six of the Admissions Beat, host Lee Coffin of Dartmouth welcomes listeners back to school as another admissions cycle commences. Raising the curtain on the admissions process for high school juniors and seniors, as well as their parents and counselors, Coffin and his guests offer a sampler of “news you can use,” with tips on everything from managing the stress of the search and application process to sizing up an institution’s “fit” and “vibe,” to understanding the impact of last year’s Supreme Court decision on race as a factor in admissions. This week’s guests are Charlotte Albright, former public radio host and reporter, and Jacques Steinberg, former New York Times journalist and co-author of “The College Conversation.” Whether you are a first-time listener or an AB veteran, Coffin and his guests have much to offer as they look ahead toward the upcoming podcast season.
Lee Coffin:
From Hanover, New Hampshire, I'm Lee Coffin, Dartmouth's vice president for admissions and financial aid, and this is the Admissions Beat.
Hello, everyone. I'm back after a nice summer of R&R. The Admissions Beat is tapping our drums once again as our season six kicks off this week. For returning listeners, welcome back, and some of you are the parents of high school juniors and I'm sobered to say that crop is the college class of 2030. Dear God, so the 30s are in the house. Guidance counselors, fellow admission officers, as always, welcome back. We're glad you're with us. And as usual, I'm joined for the season premiere by my recurring co-host, Jacques Steinberg, former reporter and editor at the New York Times, author of The Gatekeepers and The College Conversation: A Guide for Parents with former Penn dean, Eric Furda. Jack Steinberg, welcome back to Admissions Beat. How was your summer?
Jacques Steinberg:
It was a restorative summer as I know yours was, and I'm so excited to be here for season six of the beat.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, it's the back-to-school moment. It's September, the leaves are turning here in New England. The school buses are rumbling if you're in morning traffic, and I'm looking ahead going, "And here we go." Excited to be relaunching the beat. And also joining us is Charlotte Albright, our producer, former National Public Radio reporter and TV personality in her own right. Charlotte's been with me for every second of every episode of the Admissions Beat and its predecessor, The Search. Charlotte, here we go again.
Charlotte Albright:
Here we go.
Lee Coffin:
And we thought we'd start with a bit of headline review. Since our last episode in early May, the newspapers, social media, the airwaves have had stories about college admissions as they always do. So, just as a quick catch-up in this first moment I thought we'd start with headlines and then Jack and I will dive into the admissions cycle that is already underway and what our friends in high school and their parents and counselors should be thinking about as things get real. So, what's on the newsreel?
Charlotte Albright:
I'll start. I think I'd like to focus on one headline and yes, it has been a fairly quiet summer on the Admissions Beat overall, I think. I hope all our listeners have had a chance to kick back as you and Jack have, Lee. But in the past few weeks, one story does keep bubbling up, especially in your old stomping grounds, Jack, The New York Times. For example, on September 6th, David Leonhardt devoted an episode of The Daily, the New York Times Podcast, to quote, “the first post-affirmative action class to enter college,” unquote, since the Supreme Court last year rejected affirmative action programs at Harvard and North Carolina.
Here at the Admissions Beat, we did our own bonus episode on that same topic right after the decision came out. You may recall year ago, August, it was on the 8th for those of you who want to find it on our website, dartmouth.admissions.edu or wherever you get your podcasts. At that time, we teased out the nuances of that ruling and explained how applicants may still choose to discuss the impact of race on their own lived experiences in their essays, for example. But this August, a few colleges, MIT, Amherst, Tufts, where you used to work Lee, and I think the University of Virginia reported varying levels of decrease in the proportion of Black students in this year's entering class. So, Lee, let me start with you. What should we make of all that? How should we look at those headlines?
Lee Coffin:
This was the story that all of my colleagues saw coming, that at the end of this first cycle there would be headlines reporting on outcomes. And I would say to all consumers of the news, whether you're applicants, parents, working in a school or working in an admission office, these are new headlines. The first stories that Charlotte just noted have outlined some declines. There are other stories emerging of places that held where their class looks comparable to previous classes.
I think the reassurance would be the following. This was a topic that unfolded over the last year in real time. None of us knew how it was going to play out, whether you were an applicant or an admission officer. I think the results from this first cycle are not necessarily the end of the story. I think we will continue to study and ponder and adjust and to applicants. I think the lesson was and remains, tell your story, honor the words of Chief Justice John Roberts when he says, "Your life experience is permissible and you have the opportunity to share that life experience and whatever way you choose to." But that's the headline, I think, this fall is we start, Charlotte. Jack, would you agree that that seems to be front and center?
Jacques Steinberg:
Yeah, I would say it's sort of the first draft of history as we sometimes refer to journalism. And I would just caution listeners to denote these anecdotal returns almost as if it were an election night. These are early returns from a few precincts as you say sometimes off the air, Lee. And to be careful to not stitch together too many dots. And for those of you who are applying this fall or will be applying next fall, note it and then go back to your own application and search and process. Another news story, it's a little bit of an older story Charlotte, but it will be certainly a story this fall that's very real for seniors and juniors, are those handful of colleges and universities that have gone from being standardized test optional to standardized test required.
The reason we're having this conversation, for those who are new to the process, is that at the onset of the pandemic, virtually every college or university in this country, there were a few exceptions, went standardized test optional. And then last year or earlier this year as the pandemic receded, there were a handful of schools that are now requiring standardized tests. So, Lee, as a school that is standardized test now required for applicants for the class of '29, what's your quick advice on applying to a school that's test required versus applying to a school that's test optional?
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, I think for the majority of colleges in the fall of 2024, optional remains the norm. I think just as a level setting, most applicants in the U.S. and around the world are going to have lots of options on their list where testing may or may not be part of it. And I think for that group, the question is if I have a score, when do I submit it or not? We'll come back to that in a later episode. And then for a still small but very selective subset of schools, testing is back as one factor among many. And I want to underscore that with a yellow highlighter, it's one factor among many. We read testing in the context of the place in which the scores have been generated. If you're applying to a school where testing as part of the mix, go to your guidance counselor and ask this question, what is the average score ACT or SAT at my high school? And then look at your score relative to that local norm.
When you're above the local, that's a strong score. And we read one by one, school by school, place by place. That's the piece here that I've been talking about a lot in the six months or so since we reintroduced testing. One way to help yourself is to let go of the idea that you have to take the SAT three, four or five times to add 10, 20, 30 points to your score. That is not going to be a meaningful change in the way that score gets included in your file. Testing has returned. I think for all of us it is going to be, as it always has been, a supporting piece of information, but you're going to keep hearing us say that. And I will keep inviting you, take a breath. It's valuable. It's a way of giving you more contextual evidence but don't overreact.
Jacques Steinberg:
We've talked about two issues that are new, the aftermath of the Supreme Court decision and some changes in testing. And yet the process that high school juniors and seniors will be using to apply to colleges, whether this fall or next—is it fair to say that that holistic admissions process in which the entire life experience of a student will be taken into account, arguably has that process held relatively steady the last few years?
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, it was tested during the pandemic when volume mushroomed everywhere, but it held. The evidence in a file is multidimensional, multifaceted. And what we'll do over the course of the season six is help students see what parts of the file count. They all count, but in what ways can you maximize the information you share. But yeah, the process held.
Jacques Steinberg:
Is there some reassurance in the fact that this process is time-tested and for however many headlines they might see that might raise blood pressure, that there's a counter argument to be made that the process remains relatively the same?
Lee Coffin:
This is my 30th year as a dean and my 35th as an admission officer. And I say that and go...phew! But that three decades of work in the lead role and almost four decades now doing the work, the job I do today was the job I did. The big change is volume. And for new listeners, this is why I'm podding, is to give you a place to come every Tuesday or whenever you listen to hear me and the other guests lower the temperature, reassure you that this is not the impossible journey, to help you understand that some of the things you're hearing or seeing are noise. You still have your hands on a steering wheel to get you where you're going.
Jacques Steinberg:
In previous season openers, I've used the analogy of this being the overture to a Broadway show. Imagine that overture, it's your welcome, it's your introduction and it's also a little sampler, a little preview of what's to come. Let's talk about two different audiences. Let's start with high school seniors and their parents and their counselors and the other adults in their lives. Just give a little bit of a preview, knowing we'll come back to many of these, of what awaits them in terms of activities and calendar and also emotions.
Lee Coffin:
The calendar moves briskly from this moment in mid-September to the deadline. So, November 1st, January 1st and maybe February 1st, those are the big markers. November 1st is when places that offer early, whether it's early decision binding, early action, non-binding. For people who have identified a top choice, we're about six weeks out from when those come due. And then we'll begin reading them and the first decisions will be announced mid-December. And we'll talk about this next week episode. We will get into this topic of early and whether it makes sense or not and how to manage that.
The advice I would give right out of the gate is “early decision” is not everybody's best move. If you're listening now and you have not landed on a place that feels right, you're looking at regular decision and that is a fine place to be. If you are starting to think you know what one place has emerged as a sweet spot, keep pondering whether you are ready to make a commitment to that place through a binding round, if that's the option, or for the early action places you can apply now, get a decision, make an enrollment decision by May. So, early is the first thing, but before you get to early, you have to take stock of the discovery I hope you've been doing since last winter. Where have you visited in-person or digitally? What have you been reading? How did your junior year wrap up? Grades, testing, awards? Did you end up being captain of the basketball team or not? Did you go to girl's state? Did you go to the prom? What was happening to you as an 11th grader? What carried through your summer?
The Common App went live on August 1st. What are the questions? How are you feeling about that? If you haven't looked, you should look. You download a copy and see what are the questions we're asking. The supplements to the individual places are posted. What are the topics? Getting yourself organized. But the key discovery question is, how did my preliminary list hold up upon campus tours, in-person visits, further exploration? Did places wither and leave the list? Did places excite you and you look for more places like it? So, in this September moment list refinement needs to be underway. The places that just didn't sing to you should exit stage right. Stop. The places that feel like good fits, continue and to keep looking for more. That list refinement, the beginning of sketching out the narrative. What story do I want to tell about myself through the essay when I'm being interviewed? Have I asked the teacher yet for recommendation? All of that homework happens now.
Jacques Steinberg:
What's a tip you have for stress management, the emotion of this process for both students and families?
Lee Coffin:
I smiled when you said that because my promise to myself as I move into this new academic year is to put my own wellness first on my to-do list. So, I'll tell you what I'm doing. I am turning my phone off at 8 p.m. every night. I am going for walks and leaving my phone at home. I am meditating. I don't know that I understand how to do it, but I'm trying, just taking quiet moments to be like, let me breathe. I have asked myself this question: what brings me joy and what can I control and what is beyond my control? And I think all of that applies to a high school senior or a parent going into this college admission cycle. I think what brings you joy is probably not the angst of worrying about what comes next. I read a book, 10% Happier by Dan Harris, former journalist at ABC who had a panic attack on Good Morning America. It was a wonderful story about his journey of self-discovery.
And one of the things I took from that that I think was germane to the question you're asking, Jack, is Dan talked about being present and not worrying about what comes a week, two weeks, four months later, and that might be something you can't control. Control today. What's my to-do list today? How do I keep myself moving towards my goal? But don't let yourself get swallowed up by events adjacent to college admissions that A, you can't control and B, might not happen. To bring an optimism to the way you go into first.... Not a naive optimism. I don't think you're going to the most selective college on your list just because you decided that's where you're going. But allowing yourself as a parent, as an applicant—and my friends who share this work with me, all the things I'm talking about apply to you. Two, give yourself space to pause. That's my post-summer Zen that I'm trying to hold as I move through September.
Jacques Steinberg:
As I listened to you, Lee, one of those areas that test your advice on being present and being in the moment and not focusing as much on outside events is something that takes us back to the newsroom, Charlotte, which is developments in the process of applying for financial aid, for paying for college. So, a year ago, the Free Application for Federal Student Aid was delayed by several months as the federal government, the education department introduced a new, hopefully simpler, process of applying for aid. Charlotte, I'm putting you on the spot. Where does that stand this year?
Charlotte Albright:
It stands in so many different places depending on which places you're trying to apply to and get into. Some colleges have had no problem getting enough information to make these decisions. They don't always rely only on FAFSA to make these decisions, and for some students, business as usual, but in other places, yes, these delays have meant that it was very difficult for students to make a choice by the deadline. And in some colleges those deadlines were extended. So, I think this is a continuing story and we should be following it throughout this season six, because every week is going to bring some news, but I have to say, overall, the helicopter view of this is it's taking a little longer than anybody expected to settle down.
Jacques Steinberg:
In years past. The FAFSA would be available in October and for the second year in a row—fact check me on this you both— it's now not going to be available till December 1st.
Lee Coffin:
That's true. The thing that I would add to the summary Charlotte gave is this is a podcast about selective college admissions more than general college admissions because I think that's where the tension often sits. And for many of the most selective campuses, we require FAFSA as well as the College Board Profile. And what served that selective subset, well last year, is Profile, which is independent from feds, gave us the information we needed. It's a very detailed set of financial aid information. Using Dartmouth as the example. The FAFSA delay did not delay us last year, so we went from our fall rounds into the spring meeting need fully, offering aid to families. We came out of the last cycle with a record percentage of the class on aid and a record scholarship as a result. It wasn't widespread. Where it really hit places are the campuses that don't use Profile.
Charlotte Albright:
When we did a little episode on this last season, Dino Koff, the financial aid officer at Dartmouth, reminded us that once you do start the FAFSA application, it's much more simplified. Even though it's coming to you later, the time it takes to fill it out will be much shorter because it takes in your financial information from the IRS. So, at least there's that.
Lee Coffin:
I think that's right. I think it's been a painful rollout, but the goal remains a good one.
Jacques Steinberg:
Two last points that hopefully are points of reassurance in addition to the points of reassurance offered just now. One is that we will be coming back on the Admissions Beat to dive deeper into this topic. But in the meantime, there are some great resources on the web for this. And I'll cite one former colleague of mine at the New York Times, Ron Lieber, who writes about personal finance. If you Google Ron Lieber and FAFSA, F-A-F-S-A, you'll find some great advice on how to navigate these deadlines and processes.
I wonder if at this point, Lee, given that we're in the overture, that we're doing the review, the orientation, the introduction, whether we should pivot to the high school juniors in our audience and their parents and counselors and other adults in their lives. So, let's try to imagine where they are juniors this fall.
Lee Coffin:
If you're a junior or the parent of a junior, this is pre-season. The 11th grade is an important year from start to finish because by the end, it is the last fully documented year of high school that goes into the college application, that does matter, especially on the academic side in terms of coursework and grades and testing when it's part of it. Start to explore. The discovery really needs to start by February, March of 11th grade, not September, October, November. You can go out and start to visit, go to an open house. Admission officers are on the road right now visiting high schools. Go meet someone, be open to everything is my advice. Here's a game I would say, parents and kids sit down on a piece of paper where you think you're going to college. Don't look at it, put it in an envelope, lick it and stick it in a drawer and open that in May of 2026 and see if you were right.
And my point being, you're going to change your mind. You know what you know now based on some perhaps really clear evidence, but likely more loose understandings of what you want, what the places offer. Name recognition doesn't mean it's the best fit. I remember a conversation with my nephew many years ago where he was like, "I'm going to the University of Miami." He lived in Connecticut. And I said, "Why?" And he knew the football team, but he didn't know anything else. That's a type of name recognition. And it's valuable if you're the University of Miami in this example, but for the applicant, too soon, as a junior, to have any clear definition of where you're going to go. So, start exploring, put yourself on mailing lists, take the PSAT, don't hyperventilate about testing, just take it, see how you do and be a student. Enjoy 11th grade.
Dig into the classes you're taking, enjoy your extracurriculars, whatever they are. Maybe get a part-time job, get your driver's license. Just enjoy being a teenager, and I say that sincerely. Let yourself just be a junior. And parents, you don't need to keep pushing. You want to make sure 11th grade plays out well. But this process called college admission does not need to dominate two years of high school. Welcome to the Beat as an early listener, please subscribe so that we come back for seasons seven and eight. But for now, season six is pre-season. What else?
Jacques Steinberg:
Charlotte, as we look at the landscape from the 30,000-foot view, any major trends, themes that you had seen that we haven't touched on?
Charlotte Albright:
No, I actually love the second question you asked Lee, when you said, hasn't a lot stayed the same? I think the biggest change can sometimes look bigger than it is. The biggest change, of course, is technology. I was thinking when I applied to school, I wrote my application to one college with a green italic pen. I wouldn't recommend that now. So, I think mastering technology is not a bad idea. On the other hand, another theme that I am seeing, to go back to what Lee's saying about wellness, another big story in the news right now is mental health for teenagers. Our surgeon general is concerned about it. There are books coming out all over the place about this.
And a lot of it does have to do with falling down the rabbit hole of social media and being too worried that somehow what you read on social media makes you feel less than yourself. Don't let that happen, because there's no point in going to college if you aren't going to be entering college in a mentally healthy way. So, I really have to underscore that. I think it's been a theme in this particular episode.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. I have repeated this regularly, and I'll say it again to new listeners. This conversation about college doesn't have to happen with anybody besides parent or guardian, applicant, guidance counselor or CBO, if you're in a community-based organization. It doesn't need to be the topic every time parents get together. It doesn't need to be posted in any social forums. And I think you're going to enjoy it more if you keep your own council. That's hard to do in the contemporary life space we're in. But I think the stress that Charlotte is referencing is in part students worrying as this journey begins that they're not good enough and the misreading of selectivity as a marker of doom.
One of the things about selectivity and acceptance rates that, just my inside baseball tip, every acceptance rate is not the same thing. And that may seem odd to you. Some places count only complete applications when they calculate their acceptance rate. Some places invite you to fill out a quick pre-app and that counts as an application. Those two very different ways of counting could create very different acceptance rates that get reported out. And you think, college X has an acceptance rate of Z. What's the acceptance rate for someone like you with a profile like yours? A giant pool filled with students who aren't competitive will create a lot of denials, but students in that pool who are on profile have a pretty good shot of getting in. And I think not letting yourself get distracted by the noise. How do you turn down the noise? Only you have your finger on the knob.
Some things you're going to hear because you hear it, but I think being prepared to step away, and the parents who are coming into this for the first time, maybe you went to college or maybe like my parents, this is a brand new experience and this is going to be the first person in your family to go. If you remember high school from the 1990s maybe, or now early 2000s, the admit rates are different because of the volume. And places have pivoted. Colleges that you knew in 1994, 1998 have evolved and your memory parents needs to be refreshed. So, you're going to have colleges pop up on lists that you've never heard of that are excellent and you're going to have places that you think are excellent. That maybe decomposed a little bit since you last checked in. Be aware of that.
Jacques Steinberg:
Charlotte's mentioning of wellness. It makes me think that another thing that has changed is that it's not only in the news, it's that colleges and universities are focusing on it and prioritizing it and valuing it in a way that is very different in many instances than not too many years ago.
Lee Coffin:
I've been pondering over the last couple of years, what's the intersection between highly selective admissions and mental health? If you're a student in high school with this goal and it turns you into an overachiever who has this on the mind all the time, and then you get to college and... We welcomed the class last week and I said to them, "You all belong here. You emerged from a competitive process because we saw a multidimensional good fit. Don't get haunted by the imposter boogie man or feel like you have to keep living up to that standard." And I think that's part of this, and I think it's incumbent on people in my role to just start saying this and to parents to listen and say, yeah, I want my child to have a successful outcome. But what I've also heard students say when I've done focus groups and surveys, some of the stress and anxiety they bring through this process is a byproduct of what they hear you talking about and the need to make you feel like this has been a win. Jack, have you heard something similar?
Jacques Steinberg:
Yes. I think that apropos of that, coming back to your point about search and discovery, Lee, whether you're a senior at this point in the process, whether you're family or a junior, one of the questions you can ask of institutions, colleges, and universities as you visit or as you kick the tires or as you look at website, what sorts of support services are available to the extent you want to prioritize wellness? To what extent does a campus prioritize student health and wellness? Where does it sit in the org chart? It is a point of differentiation among colleges and universities, and I would argue one of the many definitions of fit.
Lee Coffin:
I would say connected to that, a factor that you should be sniffing out as discovery turns into applying, what's the vibe on these campuses? And that's a harder thing to define. You're not going to be able to have a vibe index that you can easily reference. But when you're visiting or when you're consuming Instagram or wherever you're getting your media, can you detect a vibe with no judgment attached to what the vibe is, but does the vibe sync with your vibe? And that's a, for the first time in season six, I'll say “fit.” You as an applicant have to figure out which campus fits your interest, your personality, your priorities, and parents will have that same sense of where do you see your child fitting in? And that doesn't mean the student is a carbon copy of everybody on the campus you're visiting, but the vibe, the place, the priorities, the degree of intensity perhaps on a campus, some places are a bit more amped up like that and some have a bit more chill. I sound like my younger colleagues.
Where do you fall in that? If you thrive on amped up, great, then you fit. If you don't, if you're chill and you're in an amped up place, you're going to be like, wow, I don't find my people here. Vibe is part of that. I think it's the moment in the search, as you think about vibe and fit, where does geography enter into this? I walk my dog around this campus in a small college center in the woods. It's a different vibe than when I walk him in Boston. Not better or worse, just different. And where do you get your energy from and does that matter as your list matures?
I know the child of a friend who I've been counseling and he went off on a college journey to Ohio this summer and sent me a text with really authentic reactions to the places. It was that Goldilocks moment. This was too big, this was a little too small, this felt good, but I didn't like where the neighborhood was relative to the campus. I said back, "You are being true to yourself. You are not letting your parents push a campus onto your list that's not feeling right. You're also clear-eyed about where you see yourself” and to students try and dial into that. And to parents, listen to them when they dial in. So, if you're arguing about the list, something is gumming up the list.
Jacques Steinberg:
Well, I wonder if this is a good moment to start to bring down the curtain and the baton on our overture or our first preseason scrimmage. I don't know, Lee, whether you have a final thought as we head into the season.
Lee Coffin:
My final thought, just as we've had the conversation, I don't know that I was expecting to talk about wellness as much as we did. That sort of organically popped out of my mouth in real time. And I like that. If you've just joined us, I hope this has intrigued you, and you'll subscribe on Apple, Spotify, wherever you get your podcasts, and we will come back every Tuesday morning with a new episode. What you'll hear me do from week to week with guests pulled from schools and colleges and occasionally others, is to help explain what's unfolding, to reassure you that you're not lost. To give you news you could use, as Jack always invites me to remember, so that there's a takeaway at the end.
I had a dad write me an email over the summer and he said, "My feedback to you, he said, you gave my daughter a roadmap that she didn't have and she binged listened to your entire last season and said to me, 'I got this now.' I'm like, 'Awesome.'" So, you can go back and listen to season five if you're just discovering us. I am not here to proselytize on behalf of Dartmouth or the Ivy League or even very selective institutions. It's where I work, it's what I know. But my guests will be the rainbow of college admissions from the selective sphere to help you think about options, policies, and your control of those.
Thrilled to be back for season six. We're zeroing in on our 75th episode, I think, if I were to tally it all up. Charlotte and Jack and I will be back sometimes with news, sometimes with topics, but always with a smile as we bring you the Admission Beat from Hanover, New Hampshire. Admissions Beat is a production of Dartmouth College, but it is not a podcast about admission to Dartmouth College. It is an act of admission citizenship, helping students and parents navigate the journey from home to college. Admissions Beat is produced and edited by Charlotte Albright, with editorial direction and marketing by Jacques Steinberg, technical assistance by Sara Morin, and scheduling and casting by Peg Chase. Thanks for listening. For now, this is Lee Coffin from Dartmouth College. See you soon.