Like so many things, a college search often looks—and feels—better in hindsight. Parents are important eyewitnesses to a search as it unfolds and concludes, and they have plenty of stories to tell. Two parents from suburban communities full of high-achieving, ambitious students share thoughts and lessons from their children's respective searches a year ago. From the parental POV, they reflect on managing their own expectations and worries, processing the "silent treatment" from a child while "keeping quiet" themselves as they formed opinions and impressions, navigating the chatter of suburbia as well as the instincts of an independent-minded applicant, and planning to do it all again—with lessons learned—as a second child begins an admissions journey.
Like so many things, a college search often looks—and feels—better in hindsight. Parents are important eyewitnesses to a search as it unfolds and concludes, and they have plenty of stories to tell. Two parents from suburban communities full of high-achieving, ambitious students share thoughts and lessons from their children's respective searches a year ago. From the parental POV, they reflect on managing their own expectations and worries, processing the "silent treatment" from a child while "keeping quiet" themselves as they formed opinions and impressions, navigating the chatter of suburbia as well as the instincts of an independent-minded applicant, and planning to do it all again—with lessons learned—as a second child begins an admissions journey.
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.
Parents, it's time to talk to you. In all my episodes, I emphasize the need for the student to be driving the car that is the college search and you are a passenger. Maybe you're holding the GPS, maybe you have a hand on the steering wheel, but the student is driving. That does not mean, parents, that you are unaware of what's going on. I think you're much more than a witness. You are a participant to some degree, if not the primary participant. And what I've learned over the many years of doing this is you are worried about this thing called the college search as it unfolds. To some degree, the best laid search is out of your control even when you've done all the right things, and that uncertainty brings some angst.
Pod by pod, I try and allay the angst as best I can, but I thought, "Let's bring two parents into the conversation this week who are on the happy side of a college admission process." Both of them watched their children go through a search last year, and both of them have stories to tell to help you chill as your own search plays forward. When we come back, we'll meet Sean and Ann, and they will join me in a group hug to get you to the most calm place you can be in the fall of your child's senior year. We'll be right back.
(Music)
I am really excited this week to welcome two pod listeners to the podcast. Both of them, over the last year plus, have found their way into the Admissions Beat and have let me know it was helpful. So the danger, everyone, when you send me an email and I respond, sometimes I draft you into an episode. That's exactly what happened with Sean Elliott from LA who started out emailing me his appreciation for the pod. Here he is as a guest on this week's episode. Hi, Sean.
Sean Elliot:
Hi, Lee. Thanks for having me. It's great to be here.
Lee Coffin:
You're welcome. It's nice to have you. And in the weird serendipity of the way the world works, the pod last year led to a visit to Dartmouth with his daughter, and I happened to be in a local bakery ordering lunch. Sean recognized me and we actually met in person for a hot 10 minutes, and I thought this is that weird serendipity where podding turns into real life. So it's nice to have you with us again.
Sean Elliot:
Yeah. That was very serendipitous, and it was amazing just being in that small cafe. And I was just there alone because my daughter was touring and would not let me be anywhere near the tour guides. So I was sanctioned off in the sandwich shop.
Lee Coffin:
We'll come back and talk about that, what it's like when you get booted off the tour by your kids. And joining Sean is Ann Williams from Wellesley, Massachusetts.
Ann Williams:
Hi, Lee.
Lee Coffin:
Truth in advertising, Ann and I are pals, known each other for a long time, but she's also a pod listener. And interesting about Ann, once we start chatting, you'll pick up a British accent. Ann, born and raised in Wales and went to school in the UK. So an interesting international perspective on this thing called the American college admission process. Nice to have you both. I thought it might be helpful to start if you each just gave a quick overview of the searches that Paige and Nate had last year. Not the nitty-gritty of it, but just the arc of where we started, where we ended up. Sean, you want to tee it up?
Sean Elliot:
Yeah, definitely. We live in Los Angeles and Paige was at a big charter school, but definitely in the West LA high stress of college in general. But she wasn't really just about having to go to a certain number of schools. In fact, her early one was, "Do I need to even go to college? Could I go get a real estate license right out of school? Could I go into the military?" It was like every aspect of things were very open. Every time the answer is like, "Yes," that could be a viable path. And I think everything needs to be on the table as it goes.
And then her search, it was interesting because I thought if I put... talking about driving the car, I kind of thought of what she would've liked, just knowing her in high school, would've been more liberal arts school where it's a smaller vibe where she's able to choose her programs and pick and choose, try stuff on. And over the course of the search, she always gravitated to kind of larger places. But what was interesting about it is, and you'll see as we kind of talk, it'll make your head spin about how fast like, "I love this place and then love this place." And not until you're seen in the rear view mirror, you really see the through lines of what actually had those institutions... the commonality between them.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. Well, I think witnessing the ups and downs of the reactions is also interesting. As I've counseled relatives, I have a niece who's a senior in high school this year, and went on a visit with her and watched her fall in love right out of the gate. And then on her third visit, she fell in love again. That one kind of slipped past the first one and I thought, "See, this is very... It's not fickleness so much as it's organic." Ann, tell us a little bit about Nate's search. How did you witness his journey from Wellesley High School to college?
Ann Williams:
Nate was extremely, I would say, closed off. He kept a lot of the process to himself. He was very focused. He knew what he wanted. He was one of those kids who had sort of done some research, talked I believe to some other students, ex-Wellesley students. He knew he wanted to go south, to a small school, and he didn't want our input really. I think he was very clear about what he wanted to focus on, and that was what drove his search.
Lee Coffin:
The search itself was interesting to me because Nate was really focused on sports management as a course of study, and that gave you and your husband a moment's pause about the wisdom of being so specific. Can you talk about that a little bit?
Ann Williams:
Not that I can speak because my degree was extremely focused, even more focused in sports management. But I just wanted to make sure that whatever degree he did, he got transferable skills. And where he ended up I think was the right place because I did a lot of LinkedIn stalking afterwards. I went online. Basically, the colleges he was applying to, I tried to see where graduates from those programs ended up like, "What was their career path? What did they end up doing? Were the skills that they received transferable." I think that that kind of reassured me in the end, is literally seeing where these people graduate to. Also, it gave me some clarity on programs that, quite frankly, I didn't think were right for him and we're going to put him in the wrong place career-wise, and probably weren't worth him investing his time and our money in.
As I say, I was conflicted. I did a degree in footwear, which is extremely focused. But you want to make sure that your child has sort of the best foundation for their career, which ultimately that's what the college is about, is setting them up for success.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. But what's interesting is you both had perceptions of where your child might go or might be happy, and that wasn't necessarily the way your child saw it. Ann, you were thinking more liberal arts, broad-based, interdisciplinary, and he was like, "No. I know what I want to study, and I'm looking at colleges that offer that to me."
Ann Williams:
Right. Interestingly enough, he's ended up somewhere which does have more of a liberal arts sort of feel about it. So I think he ended up in the right place.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah.
Ann Williams:
But I think that's the difference between the British thing. And you say that I think it was my husband that was more sort of liberal arts based. Right? To me, I'm like, I really don't know that much of the difference between them. He was very pro-liberal arts.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. What's the advice to parents as you're watching your child take steps towards, not just the institution, but the program at the institution that you might not see as the best path? Sean, how did you get out of the way?
Sean Elliot:
I'd say number one, you just need to know that wherever they end up is going to be the place for them ultimately, and that is going to be their home. Also, the thing too is it does not need to be four years of their life. If they absolutely hate it, they can transfer. So it's not this sentence of just like, "Oh, this is the thing," but it's like, "They're going to be okay, and they're going to find it." Some of the steps along the way may not make sense to you as a parent and they don't need to be. It could literally be what somebody is saying at school has an impact, what the weather's like when they go to travel, when they go to see the schools, who the tour guide is. And it's not that they're being capricious, it's that there's a feel to things and they're trying to find a place that they fit.
I think that's the important thing is really... it's about finding a place that is a fit for your student, where your child can go. Because if we've done our job as parents and if we've really done it, if they're really ready to leave the nest, that means our job is done. And that's kind of like a harrowing thing. If you've done your job right, you're out of the job. They're going to be at a place that the students around them, there's something that's similar, the feel of the school, maybe the ethos of the school, the size of the school, all of those things are going to be their unique fit. And then, over the course of four years, that institution are going to be able to make an impact on it and then it's going to impact them. But we're kind of done.
Lee Coffin:
Sean, you went on the visits with Paige, right?
Sean Elliot:
Yeah. We did three different groups of visits. She's a competitive rock climber, and so we were in Chicago for the national rock climbing tournament. I think she was a sophomore at that time, so it was kind of early for it. We saw some schools in Chicago and... I went to law school at Notre Dame, so I was like, "We have to go see Notre Dame. It's the most special place. It's incredible." For her, at that time, as a young woman from Los Angeles, and she went with three other girls from her school, that could have not been any less attractive to them at that point. It was so conservative, it was not a fit. I thought that was a great moment though, where I was like, "Look, this is why you look at the rankings. It doesn't matter if that school is number 10, number 15, number 20. If that's not the school for you, it is irrelevant."
We did another trip to New York, about six months later. There, we saw Wesleyan, Barnard, NYU, and I thought she was going to love Wesleyan. I thought that was going to be the place for her. Absolutely, for sure, she loved the campus. She loved the feel of it. She literally had the same colored hair as everybody in the admissions office because it's like the land of tattoos and piercings, and it was her vibe completely. It was just too small. It was a too small of a place. She couldn't kind of find it, and she needed a little commonality of like, "She loved NYU at that time, loved it." And to me, I don't understand not having a campus. That just seemed confusing to me. I grew up in Montana, it just seemed like overwhelming, but she loved that.
And then later, she went on a trip with her mom to Boulder and she loved it. She hung out with the climbing team and there's Olympic level, and you can't find a better college town. And when she found that as a fit, that relaxed everything for us because it's like, "You're going to get into that school. It's a high admit rate school with great facilities." So that really calmed everything. And then our last trip where she really kicked it into gear was October, a year ago. It was October, last year. So it's literally coming down and she's like, "I want to see some East Coast school." We went to the East Coast. We saw Babson, that's in your backyard, Ann, Tufts, Dartmouth, Yale, Cornell. That trip was supposed to start with Cornell at the start and Dartmouth at the end. That's just the way it was set up.
So I bought tickets to the football game that weekend. I was like, "We're going to have a great time. It was going to be a super fun vibe." She did so much legwork ahead of time, she's like, "I don't even want you on the tours with me when I go." She reached out to friends that she knew from the school or she got on their Instagram with the climbing team. I think Lee, when I saw you, she reached out to somebody from the Dartmouth climbing team, who opened up that awesome little gym for her in the morning, and really took the process on. So as a result, we flipped and Dartmouth ended up being the first and Cornell was the end. We pulled into campus. Literally, the sun is coming down. The clock tower is playing the bells. All the students are going to the slope and watching the sunset. It was like this moment and I was like, "Oh, there's no way to get this out of her head, this thing."
And she loved how big the school was. A lot of the school she saw, they started to feel a little kind of smaller to her and she always was feeling big. So by the end of it, her schools were Boulder, and Michigan, and Wisconsin, and Cornell. That was kind of their thing. The size of Cornell, which I think could have actually turned... some people don't like that because it feels a little bigger and not as intimate, was totally her vibe.
Lee Coffin:
Well, I love these examples you're giving, Sean, because it is a great illustration of the way a search evolves. And to parents, in the fall of the senior year, the list needs to be refined, and places are going to fall and rise in patterns that you don't always predict. What I also love about your story, Sean, especially that final trip, is your logistics were scrambled. And I'm thinking, to some parents, that would be maddening to have laid out a trip from the West Coast to the East Coast, and have the first place end up being last and the last place going first, and the renting cars and planes and-
Sean Elliot:
Because she really took control of the process. That's the driving of the car. She's like, "Here's where I have my friends lined up." She did it because when she got to Cornell, she had a friend who was there. She was able to go to a seminar class, and then go stay in the dorms with them. And then, same thing, she had lined up with some friends at Tufts to do the same thing. The best part was it was in LAX over watery breakfast eggs super early in the morning as we were leaving, and she's like, "You're not going to go on any tours with me." I was like, "There might've been a nicer way to say that," but I totally get that.
And then by the end, she was like, "Here's why. Parents asked the dumbest questions on tours. They are the dumbest questions. I could actually go and talk to the tour guides and actually ask real, relevant questions to students and not be asking parent-type questions." She had a reason for it. It's kind of great as a parent because I could do a bunch of work, and then I could just actually just experience the campuses to the extent that I wanted to, and... It's not really my journey.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. That is great advice to the parents of this year's seniors. Ann, this sounds like the search you witnessed as well because you were not on many of those campus visits. Correct?
Ann Williams:
I was on zero.
Lee Coffin:
Zero? Tell us about that.
Ann Williams:
Well, because Nate says I asked too many questions, which I probably do. But also, he tells me to tone down my accent. If you understood his sense of humor, that's very him. He was so focused. I think he was like, basically, "I'll give you a week. We'll go on tours." During that week, he said he'd rather go with his dad because his dad understood the American system, which is fine. That's what they did. We're also lucky. We live right just outside of Boston, so he had already experienced some different campuses and things like that. He knew Babson campus. He had been on most of the city campuses. So he kind of had already figured out the too big, too small sort of thing for himself. And then, he went on the tours. I think Dean sort of found it interesting because he was like... Dean would text me and say, "Oh, so-and-so campus is beautiful," and I would then get a text from Nate, he would be like, "Eh, it's a dump."
Lee Coffin:
Dean is your husband.
Ann Williams:
Yeah.
Lee Coffin:
So you were witnessing these visits from afar and you were getting one communication stream from Dean, dad/husband, with one perspective, and then you were getting another sub-theme from Nate as the applicant that's not on the same airway as your husband.
Ann Williams:
Not even close. I think that was interesting to me because you go in with your own biases, right? So yeah, that was interesting. But as soon as he walked onto the campus of the school where he ended up going, I got a text from Dean and Dean was like, "Yeah, this is his place." He is like, "Let's hope he gets in because this is his place."
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. When did that aha moment happen?
Ann Williams:
April break, and then he-
Lee Coffin:
Of his junior year?
Ann Williams:
Junior year, yeah. He was like, "Okay. This is what I'm aiming for, and-"
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. I mean, your two stories... Nate saw a place in his junior spring that moved out front and kind of stayed there, and guided the rest of the search. And it sounded like Paige got very deep in the senior year before her choice became more obvious-
Sean Elliot:
Her choice wasn't obvious until October of her senior year.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah.
Sean Elliot:
And that's the other thing too, it's like it evolves. If you take that snapshot in time, we're in California. The great thing in California is you can go to the best public university system, Berkeley, UCLA, UCSD, everything, without having to take tests. So she was kind of like, "I don't think I'm going to take the test." And then people started to need ACTs, SATs, so she had to really dig in that summer to be able to do it.
Ann Williams:
I felt at this end, all applications were done by the end of... It felt like by the end of October, every kid I know was kind of done.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah.
Ann Williams:
I don't know if that's just where I live or if that-
Lee Coffin:
Well, talk about where you live, Ann, because you're both-
Ann Williams:
Okay.
Lee Coffin:
Both of you had children in the public schools in suburban areas of major cities with a lot of highly-educated parents guiding their very bright kiddies towards places like where I work. You're describing in Wellesley a moment where everyone seemed to be applying somewhere by the middle of the fall. So this episode is airing right in that moment, this fall. Did that seem right to you? Did it seem premature to have all of this application activity happening in the early round?
Ann Williams:
I don't know. I think for my child who was very sure about his sort of criteria in his list, I think it was great. Great for him to get it out of the way, and he had a great senior year. For a child who needs to keep discovering, who knows? My youngest might need to discover more. It might put a pressure on a child who needs more discovery time. And I have said this before, in the UK, you would take a gap year. Whereas here, it's not seen a gap year. People don't seem to take as often if you're sort of still finding your place.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. Did the peer groups influence the way he thought? Did the tide seem to pull him in a certain direction and he went with it or was he able to keep his own counsel?
Ann Williams:
I think he kept his own counsel. He's quite self-aware on things like that.
Lee Coffin:
Did he do that on his own or did you have to nudge it?
Ann Williams:
Oh, no. He did it on his own. However, I witnessed other kids being influenced. I don't know if that's... I assume that happens everywhere, but-
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. Well, that's why I'm asking this because I think there is a lot of noise and a lot of communities about where to apply, how to apply, when to apply. Sean, what happened in your neck of the woods?
Sean Elliot:
Paige is very different than her younger sister. Like I said before, Paige is very individual and just really, really a unique and super, super smart girl. Her sister is, she's the president of her class and she's in the community, and so she is in the really, really in it. She's such a community girl. Paige was more like... Her friend group was more outside of school. It was a lot of her climbing friends, and then she always gravitated towards older students. Some love the drama of high school, and it's like be in there and do it. She just didn't have it, didn't want to do it. So what I didn't know as a parent, that sometimes, she did not know what she was capable of and didn't know that she could reach there. She may have a different perspective, but I feel like that's what kind of happened with it being so late in October. I think she kind of was like, "Oh, wow. I've got a shot at these places. Let's go see what I can do." And I think that's why I kind of came in at that time.
The advice that I would have for parents would be a couple of things. It would be like, one, they're going to find their fit. Two, their friends are going to be fleeting. They're probably not going to have the same high school friends. They're going to have the same parents for their whole life. So what they're going to take with them, even if they're not listening to you right now, they're going to know if you're supportive and if you're proud of wherever they go. "It doesn't matter where you're going," that's going to be the fit for them. "Buy that sweatshirt, wear it proudly," that's what's going to resonate with them and know that they're going to change. I also would say buy a dog shock collar and put it around your neck. And if you ever hear yourself say the words, "We are applying or we are doing this," just shock yourself or give it to your student to do the shocking. It's like, "We're not applying, it's not our journey." That's it. The schools are way different than you remember. The process is different.
I think what's interesting is a lot of the things that... the pressures that high school students have on them to fit in with the... well, all of us do, to fit in, to conform. But weirdly enough, it's doing those really unique things and putting yourself out there, and doing things that you're doing for you and not for others. That when it comes time to write your story when you're applying, you don't have to sit there and be like, "Oh, how am I going to look different?" It's just like, "Oh, I was unique along the way." I think it's hard when everybody is looking at the same places and trying to do the same things and the same activities. So we kind of mold ourselves into this monolith, and our students are not realizing it at the time.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. I think that's right. Well, talk to your peer parents. From last year, did you have a head shake moment where everybody take a time out? Because there's a lot of parents like you, right now, in the same high schools having these same moments where like, "I'm in the scrum. It's moving in a certain direction. I'm trying to hold back, where my daughter's worrying about what she sees on Instagram and I'm trying to counsel her to look the other way. Or my daughter's not paying attention, and I feel like I need to move her forward." How do you help your peers keep their wits about them right now?
Ann Williams:
I can jump in here. I'm like, "Do not start panicking about this as early as... or thinking about this as early as now, the beginning of junior year, because you're going to exhaust yourself and, quite frankly, you're going to exhaust your kid." And I think they're going to change in junior year. I can remember a very clear instance where I went to an event and I think four people came up to me in junior year, and were asking me questions and telling me about their kid. And I just walked home and I'm like, "Oh, my goodness. I have no idea what I'm in for here." In hindsight, I realized they were just going through the same sort of panic and uncertainty that I was, but they were verbalizing it. I just think, we just almost need to slow down a little bit. And I'm trying to encourage my junior not to be panicking the whole of this year.
Lee Coffin:
What's the panic? Let's talk about that. Because this is the part of my work where... This podcast, for example, started as a way for me to try and take a hose, and put the fire out. And to help people think about this is not something impossible or something that has a life of its own, but this organic evolving story. I think, Sean, your story of Paige's search, I love it because it kept shifting. You seem to understand that, "As it shifts, I'm not going to overreact to it. And the shifting was signals from her search, that she was sorting it out." But I don't think everybody has the same zen that you seem to have had.
Sean Elliot:
By the way, she would call me Zero Zen.
Lee Coffin:
Zero Zen?
Sean Elliot:
Right. Because you definitely need to be involved in the process, you need to be there. You need to help guide them because they're young. So you do need to be there for them. But I think one thing is instead of it being... looking at this list of 20 or 25 schools, start with the Fiske Guide or something like that, that narrows it down to something like 300. Knowing that you're going to find the fit is really, really important. It's kind of an advantage being from California in a way because you have this great university system that is here, same with if you're in Michigan or you're in Texas or North Carolina, that type of thing. So you have-
Lee Coffin:
Yeah.
Sean Elliot:
... "It's going to be okay."
Lee Coffin:
It's really good advice, Sean. Because I think so many families get caught in the pull of the prestige like, "the places we must apply to because we must apply to," and it's sort of this existential destination, versus stepping back and saying, "There are a lot of options," and I think you're pointing us toward that, and to calibrate a search with a romantic but realistic lens. Ann, as I'm saying this, I'm reminded of Nate's search, resulted in multiple acceptances because he realistically pegged his profile to his college list. I remember talking to you and the yeses kept coming, and people don't expect that. Someone, just yesterday, kind of chastised me as being the dean of rejection. I said, "No, the goal is to get us to a yes," and you help yourself towards the yes when you're realistic about the list shaping.
Ann Williams:
Also, what's important to you, right? I think that's where you have to go beyond the top ten list, and I would encourage parents. Like I said, I stalked people on LinkedIn to learn about where these people worked afterwards, what experiences they'd had at college, and what internships they had done. And I think that that is as much of this search as where a school is on the list or what classes they have or what their SAT score level is.
Lee Coffin:
Ann, I love the idea that you were doing your own homework, that you turned to LinkedIn. I've not heard anybody say that before, and clicked through the profiles of graduates of the places he was considering to help yourself understand. I think, return on the investment is what you're really saying.
Ann Williams:
Yeah.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah.
Ann Williams:
Make sure that he has skills that if he does change his mind can be used elsewhere. I also did it the other way. I would look at their careers, the people who worked in their careers as support officers at these different universities. Because I think you can tell how much they want the kids to sort of thrive after college by, again, learning about the programs and things that they do.
Lee Coffin:
Well, where's the worry? What's animating this suburban worry about the college search?
Ann Williams:
I think it's overwhelming. And I do tell them to listen to the podcast because I think if you asked any parent, they would be like, "They're overwhelmed. They're worried they're going to miss deadlines." Whether it's the deadline to sign a kid up for an SAT without having to drive an hour, whether it's a deadline for if they decide to get extra help from an outside careers counselor or stuff like that, I feel that's where it's coming from. It's not necessary a panic about where their kid will get into, it's about, "How are we going to get all this done?" Again, I think to your point, Sean, it's like then you're like, "Well, it's not we that are doing that." Yes, there's some major decisions we have to make as a family, maybe financial, maybe where the location is, if you're able to get there and back and stuff like that. But the reality is your student has to get it all done, not you as the parent. So I think it's just the feeling of the unknown and being overwhelmed.
Lee Coffin:
Well, as you were saying that, I was reminded of a conversation you and I had about location. Nate was really focused on the south. But for a while, he was intrigued by the idea of Pepperdine-
Ann Williams:
Yeah.
Lee Coffin:
... that he was going to be in Sean's backyard, and you were worried about having him go so far away. And I remember saying to you, "Let it run," and he never even applied it.
Ann Williams:
Yeah.
Lee Coffin:
That storyline fizzled on its own.
Ann Williams:
That was the best advice because you were right, it did just fizzle its way up. But of course, I was thinking, "How are we going to get him home if he needs to go home? How are we going to get there if there's an emergency?" My mind was... which is ridiculous, because in my 20s, I moved across the world. And I think some of it is irrational, right? If you took a step back, I'm sort of like, "Why was I even thinking that?" But when you're in the moment, your mind sort of goes away from you.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, because you're generally pretty laid back, man. I've heard you describe yourself as a laid-back parent.
Ann Williams:
Nate-
Lee Coffin:
It's so funny because it's Rose Ann, and you're definitely not laid back-
Ann Williams:
Yeah.
Lee Coffin:
And listeners, this is part of what's going on. Within your home, within the car, within this dynamic is this two-track process. You've got your child in school moving through senior year towards deadlines, towards some new home and you're trying to help, you're talking among yourselves. Sometimes there's static between these two paths. Does that sound right, Sean, to you?
Sean Elliot:
Definitely, because you want to... I wanted to set up, or we wanted to set up so that Paige is like, "When you shoot for the highest and don't achieve it, but still success." When you take the easy way and shoot for something you know can achieve, that's actually what failure is. It's like, "Can I really shoot high and see what I can do? And then if I don't hit the pinnacle, I'm going to hit a little lower maybe," and that's a real big success. I think that's kind of like it for life, so that they're pushing themselves. So part of it is you are needing to support and push, and there is a lot of parental pressure. I think there's a lot of financial pressure. There's a big investment of where kids are going to school. There's a big spotlight on that right now of just like, "Hey, what's the return on investment to places?"
When you're doing private high school, it's really easy to be like, "Wow, look at how much I have invested here. My kid's going to Arizona State. I feel like I haven't achieved something." Well, in reality, it's like, "No, they could go find their way." I think, also, it comes from a really good place too. It's like, "We want the best for our students. We don't know what the future holds. What is Paige going to do for a living?" I don't think that job probably exists right now. I don't think we have any clue what is going to be out there, and knowing that that fit is going to be there. For me, what was really important, the one thing that I would not waver on is because rock climbing was such a part of Paige, and outdoor stuff, there had to be that component to wherever she was going.
There was some schools that were very small, there was no access to even a gym, and I was like, "Just for mental health, that's going to be tough." It didn't have to be at the level of Boulder or Utah where she has a lot of friends that are going and climb at that level. But even Cornell, when she went for her orientation, she did a week-long outdoor, no phones, camping trip in the Adirondacks. So she really got her feel of nature and I knew that she was going to feel at home, and now she's in dorm. I think she just loves how geeky everybody is. You know what I mean? You don't have to be ashamed of it. It's just like it's-
Lee Coffin:
Well, Sean, you just put your finger on a really important concept, which is identifying the non-negotiable.
Sean Elliot:
Yeah.
Lee Coffin:
In Paige's case, it was rock climbing and that's valid. That's what makes her happy. Finding rock climbing in a place that's also academically rigorous is different than going the other direction, starting with only rigor and hoping it has the thing that makes you happy. And I think for some people, non-negotiable is distance from home. My niece who's looking this year, has said to my sister, "I'll go an hour from home. That's it." I'm like, "Okay, then that's going to cradle." She's luckily in a place where there's a lot of options within an hour.
Sean Elliot:
And that's funny because Paige was the opposite. Paige drew a big circle around LA. She's like, "I know these areas. I need to be outside of here-"
Lee Coffin:
Yeah.
Sean Elliot:
... "So it had to be Santa Barbara, San Diego, and I need to be far." Right?
Lee Coffin:
Right. Ann, I think the non-negotiable for Nate, as I understood it, was sports management. That's what he loved.
Ann Williams:
Yeah.
Lee Coffin:
So I think all of these examples are helpful tools for families to say, "Okay, let's boil this down. What's the nut? What's the epicenter of this search that we can't forget?"
Ann Williams:
I think you're right. I think sometimes what gets missed in this is people start from the school or the name of the school, or the list, or things first, and don't start with, "Okay. What do I want out of this four years experience? Do I want a sports community? Do I want to have an artist community?" And I think, get your kids to write down what's important to them without thinking about where the school is.
Lee Coffin:
Right, forget the name of the school. I helped the son of a friend two years ago, and he said to me, "I need to go to a college that has major league sports on the weekend. I see myself in a stadium, screaming." That's where he ended up. As soon as he said that, I said, "Okay, I know lots of options that fit that description." People listening, just think about that, "What is it that will animate life?" When I worked at Tufts, I met a kid who said to me, "Wherever I go, there must be a jazz scene adjacent to this campus," and I said, "That is really specific to you, go find it." Figuring out that little piece, I think, is such an important thing. And for parents, helping your kids think about that is a really constructive way of having conversations this fall. As the lists are sorting and you see someone hanging onto an option that is not really bubbling with enthusiasm, let it go. Let it go.
Sean Elliot:
Yeah. They might not even be able to put their finger on what the thing is. I don't think we realized that size was a component for Paige at all until the whole list kind of came in. That was a rear view mirror thing, looking back. I thought Dartmouth would've been really, really compelling because of where it is, it's connection to nature. I just knew that would be a part that she would really like. And then other places that she saw in the Midwest did not have that same kind of feel to her. I think there's something where because she was at a bigger place, she likes the idea of being able to find a whole bunch of people where she can get a little bit lost.
I was at a dinner the other night and talking to some parents, and their daughters were all graduating from a private all-girls school and they all were at liberal arts schools. It was interesting because they were just like... that just felt really familiar to them, really comfortable. And that felt the bigger places actually felt kind of unwieldy to them because of what they were used to. That wasn't something we could put a finger on until afterwards, and I saw a common thread.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. That comfort piece is big because the idea and the reality may be very different. It was an eon ago, but I remember thinking about journalism schools and starting to visit. I was at Syracuse and it was a powerful journalism program. The school was too big for me and I knew it immediately, but I didn't know it before I looked at it. Honoring those reactions, and I think what both of your kids did was then they built lists off of that reaction that were true to them.
Sean Elliot:
I think also on the tours, hold your opinion back. Don't even say it. Wait until you're home. Wait until there's a week later. Don't even put your finger on it right away because you don't know the things that you saw that they didn't see or what you processed abut they didn't processed. And sometimes it's so fresh in the moment that it was a good week later where I was like, "That snapshot of Cornell, where it was sunny and beautiful, that is a fleeting moment and that is not going to be your experience from about November on." It is really cool.
Lee Coffin:
Sean, I don't know you well enough to make this leap, but my sense of you is that you're a chatty guy. So how hard was it for you to hold your tongue?
Sean Elliot:
It's so hard. She makes it easier though because both girls can give me a look that is just like... You know how that goes, just to stop-
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. You know your kids. Let's talk a little bit about communications because Ann mentioned earlier the silent treatment and, Sean, you're describing the look, which is a type of communications. Share with parents how you came to some equilibrium with your children about when to speak, when not, when to let things roll and see where the ball went, and when to intervene.
Sean Elliot:
I think one thing that was helpful for us was having an outside college counselor and advisor. It was really helpful because that would be... Paige could have her own relationship with Vince, completely. She had applied to schools we didn't even know what she was applying to. And I think that's when she really stepped into the process and that really gave distance. And not like I stayed out of that process all the time either, because you still want to be in there and be part of it. So it's really hard. But he actually was able to be like, "Dude, step back. That's not an option for everybody, and that's not a thing to do." But that was helpful for us to be able to step back, and set out a time that it's okay to talk about it and then be done talking.
Because if you have limited time, your dinners, it feels like it's the same thing over and over and over. I'm so guilty of that because I'll have stuff... I'd be thinking of things all day to be talking about, and then it all just comes out and it feels just overwhelming to them at that time. It feels like that's all that we're thinking about, and it's like, "No." I was just thinking about these five things, but they're coming out right now in kind of a fire hose because I think they're really good at the time.
Lee Coffin:
Ann, how did you survive the silent treatment?
Ann Williams:
It was hard. One of the things I have to be honest about was... In hindsight, we probably had a much easier ride than most parents had because it wasn't being discussed all the time or anything else. But it was hard, I think, because I did have questions. There were a couple of times where I literally wrote him an email and I'm like, "Okay, Nate, I have five questions that I need you to answer. I don't care when you answer them, but I am going to need to know this information at some point so that I kind of know what I'm getting myself into." I had to keep reminding myself about how he processes things. He is a person who will receive information, and then he needs to process it.
Sometimes that will be a conversation with somebody who you're like, "Why is he even talking it through with X person?" But he's not necessarily getting their opinion. I think it's almost like he needs to hear himself say it out loud to somebody, and that's his way of processing. So I'm not going to say it was easy because it wasn't. He was very closed about the whole process, but it worked for him. So I have to respect that it worked for him. I think our youngest child will be completely different.
Lee Coffin:
Okay. So you just took me the... Two more questions and you just took me to the doorstep of the... Both of you have another child who will-
Ann Williams:
Yeah.
Lee Coffin:
Ann, your next one is a junior?
Ann Williams:
Yeah.
Lee Coffin:
Sean, where are you in the sequence?
Sean Elliot:
Quinn's a sophomore.
Lee Coffin:
Okay. So you have two years. Ann, you're up next. So what will you do differently?
Ann Williams:
Again, he's a very different kid. He'll talk a lot more about it. I think that, interestingly enough, he kind of knows what he wants to do. There isn't a course out there that is tailored to what he wants to do. I think part of his is going to be trying to figure out what his path is to potentially be eventually able to work in a place where he wants to work, which is sort of a more creative outlook on life. So I think that's going to be the interesting thing to navigate. He also is pretty clear that he doesn't want a big school. He doesn't want to be in a city. But I think he's much more open to that. He's floated going to the UK. I'm not sure whether that'll happen or not, but I think it's very different. But he's, "Okay. When do I start researching? What should I be doing? When are we going to go on a trip to look at different places?" It is a very different sort of-
Lee Coffin:
Well, and that's a really important perspective to just add it, Ann. Because I think for child two or three or four, every once in a while, a parent pops up in a program and says, "Yeah, I've done this five, six times." I'm like, "Whew, god bless you."
Ann Williams:
Yeah.
Lee Coffin:
But what I notice when I do any program, the audience is mostly filled with first-time parents, a lot of nervous energy about this new thing, and then the people doing it a second time or a third time are much more sanguine about, "This is going to work." I certainly care about where we're going, but some of the heat has been dissipated by having had one person already go through this. Sean, what's happening in your house as you think about this two years out?
Sean Elliot:
Yeah. One unique thing is, first, as a sophomore, you have no idea. It's so early in the process, and I think that's advice for parents too. It's just like, "Well, you have no clue. You don't know how their grades are going to change." Also, uniquely, it's like, "Look, her school just burned down and her house burned down." Right now, it's just like, "Just be okay." That's first, right? They're still going to school in a department store until they move back on to campus. And right now, just be okay first. So in a way, I think, it's kind of... Obviously, life goes on and there's going to be college that's out there, but I think it's forced us all to be like, "Let's just really take care of things right now."
Lee Coffin:
Well, and to listeners, Sean's telling us about living through the LA wildfires last year.
Sean Elliot:
Yeah, sorry about that.
Lee Coffin:
No. It's just as I'm hearing you say that, I'm realizing... when you said the school burned down, your house burned down. You had a major, major life and community event in the middle of last year's college.
Sean Elliot:
Yeah. My house is okay. But my ex's, where they spent most of their time, burned down, to be clear.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah.
Sean Elliot:
But still, it's just... Look, not that that's going to happen, but when you're looking at your kids and they're sophomores, the number of things in life events that can happen for good or bad, they could take one trip and be like, "This is where I want to be," or have one experience like, "This is what I want to do." There's so much time between your sophomore year and your senior year for self-discovery and figuring things out. So I think that's one. Now, I do worry that it's like, "Oh, wow. Her older sister knocked it out of the park. Is that going to add... feel like there's pressure?" And making sure that when it comes down to it, it's like, "We're proud of where she goes." Is she going to be putting that type of pressure on herself? I don't know.
Lee Coffin:
What pressure you're going to put on you?
Sean Elliot:
My pressure's going to be to be quiet. Can you tell?
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. You just keep playing this podcast back and say [inaudible 00:50:01]. Let's wrap the episode with a reflection on what happened about a month ago. Ann, you dropped Nate off at Elon College in North Carolina and-
Ann Williams:
Mm-hmm.
Lee Coffin:
Let's start with you because you told me that you had not seen Elon until you drove in with all of his stuff to start his first year.
Ann Williams:
Yes. Smartly, Dean, my husband, drove me around the campus without him the day before.
Lee Coffin:
Okay.
Ann Williams:
Because he was like, "You need to just see this place, so you're not asking questions when we're supposed to be focusing on moving it." Once he made his decision, I have to be honest, I kind of was like, "Okay," like I was at peace with the whole thing. So the fact that I hadn't seen it didn't really matter so much to me. I just was ready to see him in that environment. I think that the fact that they made it so seamless was just wonderful. It really allowed us as parents to enjoy the experience of dropping our child off at college, and seeing them begin this new experience. The value I think that that brought was amazing. But he was just so happy, so ready, so comfortable, of course, was exhausted from making sure he had everything and stuff like that, and whatever. But yeah, he was happy.
Lee Coffin:
What's it like to have one bed empty in the house?
Ann Williams:
I described it last week, it's almost like grieving. It kind of comes in waves. It's like, "I'm so happy that he's doing great and everything else." But every now and again, I'm like, "Oh, I haven't heard his voice in a week." Then I'll be fine, and it'll be like, "Yeah, but he's fine. He's texted us or whatever." Nate takes up... He's a big personality and so the house seems quiet.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, I know. I'm poking this topic because it's on the Admissions Beat broadly. I don't think we all talk a lot about arrival on campus. The whole point of a college search is to get you to college and you just drop your eldest children off at college, and you sent me a text and it said, "He has texted all three of us a bit. However, my text is just to ask for my credit card security code, so he can buy textbooks, and then asking nicely if I could order him some stuff off of Amazon. I'm think time that he's settling in and keeping busy."
Ann Williams:
He is comfortable. One of the things I do think that Elon did extremely well was almost prepare us. And when I hear other parents' experience of the three months up to dropping your kid off at college, they didn't have the same experience that we did. As I said, I think that that allowed for us to be okay when we dropped him off. The strangest thing was driving back to the airport, dropping the rental car, and we were in a shuttle bus and everybody had Elon wristbands on because there'd been a picnic, and the same conversations were all happening. And suddenly, it was like you felt part of this community because people were all talking to each other, about how they felt the experience and when. It made me feel kind of reassured, but there are good days and there are bad days.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. I think that's organic. It's like a change to your home and you're through that.
Ann Williams:
Yeah.
Lee Coffin:
Sean, tell us about the drop at Cornell.
Sean Elliot:
Yeah. I didn't drop her off. Her mom did. I was here. Backing up a little bit, right before that summer, Paige went to Europe and she was just staying in hostels, and she was self-funding the trip. She just kept extending it and extending it, and I'm like, "All right, you're going to have less spending money to Cornell." But I think that hostel experience was really, really important to her. It was the first time of just being in communal living, and she was in a bunch of different countries. I think that was helpful. Then she came back here and she had a really bad case of mono. She was in the hospital, so she missed the send off and we were like, "Oh, my gosh. Is she going to miss things?" And even that was okay.
Then when she went to Cornell, she went before her mom and she went for a week-long camping trip in the Adirondacks, no phones allowed. That was amazing because we had no idea how she was doing and she had a real chance to bond. And I knew that she was going to find that connection to nature, which was really important to her. And then her mom came and met her to help her move in. Like you're saying, the students were so nice and so helpful, and it was just a really welcoming experience for her. She called me one day and she's like, "I just have the best class. I cannot wait to go back tomorrow. I could not believe it." The first time that she went into a class, and she's like, "Everybody is talking and everybody is part of it. Nobody's sitting back," and she is loving it.
Lee Coffin:
No, you're both telling me stories... I mean, to listeners, for the worries, for the to-do's, for the uncertainty of where will someone end up, they end up. The story of the admission process that you're hearing today is it plays out one by one. It shifts, it bumps, it moves forward, it goes backwards. But in the end, next fall, they're going to be somewhere and you will be saying what Sean and Ann are saying like, "I'm getting happy texts." All of that is to say, what you're hearing from our two guests this week, college admissions can lead to a happy outcome. Sean, Ann, thanks so much for joining me on the Admissions Beat.
Sean Elliot:
Thanks so much for having us, Lee.
Ann Williams:
Thank you for having us.
Lee Coffin:
Next week, we will be back with another episode. For now, this is Lee Coffin from Dartmouth College. Thanks for listening.