In an uncommon career pivot, former high school principal and English teacher Robin Appleby segued from her school-based tenures in the U.S. and internationally to a late-career stint as a college admission officer at Dartmouth. She joins AB host Lee Coffin for a reflection on the lessons drawn from both sides of her academic desk.
In an uncommon career pivot, former high school principal and English teacher Robin Appleby segued from her school-based tenures in the U.S. and internationally to a late-career stint as a college admission officer at Dartmouth. She joins AB host Lee Coffin for a reflection on the lessons drawn from both sides of her academic desk.
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.
Every once in a while, I have that light bulb cartoon moment where an episode goes “ping” and I say, "Oh, let's do that." And the “ping” this time was, I was talking to one of my colleagues in the Dartmouth Admission Office about the conversations we have with parents and the way people bring their professional and personal experiences to the work we do. And it occurred to me that, ah, Robin, my colleague in question, worked in high schools in the U.S. and around the world for decades. And I thought, "Wouldn't it be interesting to have a conversation with her about what she saw on the school side as they look at college admissions?" because now she's an admission officer seeing schools from a very different point of view.
So when we come back, we're going to have a conversation with my colleague Robin Appleby, who if you went to LinkedIn, you would see she is "a senior admission officer with decades of experience as an independent school teacher, leader and consultant in both the United States and internationally." That's a direct quote from LinkedIn. But I think it gives a lot to talk about as she reflects on the two years she's been an admission officer at Dartmouth versus the many years she lived among students and their parents on the school side of this proposition. So we'll be right back.
Hello, Robin Appleby.
Robin Appleby:
Hello, Lee Coffin.
Lee Coffin:
How are you? It's always fun when I interview someone from this staff because it's like I just saw you in the copy room and here we are podding.
Robin Appleby, for our listeners, is associate director of admissions at Dartmouth. Robin, what I found so interesting about the conversation we had a few years ago when you were like, "Hey, I'm winding down my career as a head of school and I'm moving to Vermont, and I just want to be useful." And you had this idea of, "Hire me as the admission officer." And so you come to this work with a very unusual background and I thought, "Let's talk about that," because you've seen things from the point of view of a classroom where you've been teaching. You've been an upper school principal. You've been a senior class dean. You've been head of school or principal at a couple of international schools. You've been in consulting roles where you've worked with schools around the world.
So tell us, how has that resume informed your first couple years as an admission officer?
Robin Appleby:
It's interesting. All of that context definitely comes into how I think about applications when I'm reading them, how I think about the systems and structures that are being used in the office, the admissions office. The kind of conversations we have about what we value and how that might translate into the high school space, both internationally and domestically. And those two things are different, internationally and domestically, but there are some core principles because so many people in international schools are expats from the States. And many of them have had their kids in private schools in the States or public schools in the States before making that move abroad.
So yeah, I do, I think about that a lot. I think about how decisions we make ... I have a visual in my head really where we make a decision and I can see the kid in the hallway the day after they get their response. And have that feeling for them of what that's like to be ... These are largely high pressure, high succeeding environments.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah.
Robin Appleby:
And what that means to them in that environment and in that context.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah.
Robin Appleby:
Because I know what's been on the front end before they've applied.
Lee Coffin:
Tell us about that. What is on the front end before they apply?
Robin Appleby:
A lot of expectation. A lot of hopes and dreams that absolutely every single kid will have. Parents' hopes and dreams. Sometimes the people who work in schools have hopes and dreams for kids. You do, when you work with a kid over the four years of their high school experience and you get to know them, and your heart gets involved in their process, too. And because you know them so personally, you start to think about their futures as they do. The kids pick up on that. They know that there are adults invested in their outcomes in this process.
And even though all of that comes from a positive place, a place of love, it does add up to pressure. And that can influence the kind of decisions a student and their family make along the way of choosing the college list, forming the applications, and even the final decision once answers from colleges have come back.
Lee Coffin:
It's such an interesting point of view you have because when you work in a college admission office, the volume gets sorted. We read them, we make decisions, we understand they're individuals, but we don't always know the individual in a personal way.
Robin Appleby:
Yeah.
Lee Coffin:
That's not true when you work in a school, whether it's an independent school or a parochial school or a public high school. Teachers know the people they're writing the recommendations for, the principals know, "These are the top kiddos in my senior class." And then the decisions land in ways that make sense and sometimes it's a head scratch, and you have to navigate the emotional wallop, both the confetti as well as the tissues, of the decisions when expectations are met or not.
Robin Appleby:
Right. And on the school side, the school itself can sometimes take that personally. It's not a judgment on schools or its leaders in any way, shape or form, but the school can experience a kid's denial or deferral or withdrawal in a very personal way. Thinking like, "Well, why is this kid who we think is so fantastic, why are they not getting the outcome that we think they deserve?" And of course, they haven't lived on this other side where there are so many factors playing into any decision that go well beyond the school, its context, its people, even that particular kid.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah.
Robin Appleby:
Because we're in an environment when you have thousands, and thousands and thousands of very strong applications.
Lee Coffin:
It's interesting. I have said many times to boards of trustees that an unwritten part of my job description is to be the steward of the institution's reputation in the high schools of the world. And that always intrigues them and they say, "Well, what do you mean?" I say because of the decisions we make are interpretive locally all around the planet. And so if we say yes, we say no, or the patterns of yeses and nos gets noticed. And my job in this really macro way is to make sure that makes sense, at least to me, if not to you on the school side.
But you're also introducing a topic where the school feels some reputational pull by the outcomes, too.
Robin Appleby:
Yeah.
Lee Coffin:
It's a proof point maybe to families that the school is doing a great job.
Robin Appleby:
Absolutely.
Lee Coffin:
Or that's a perception maybe, not an actual proof point.
Robin Appleby:
Look, the boards, the people who make up boards of independent schools, both internationally and stateside, often come from the business world, the finance world where there were metrics for success. And so when they are trying to judge, "Well, how good is our school," especially an expensive private school, they're looking for metrics and one of the metrics almost inevitably that a board will go to, and I've seen this again and again in all different types of schools, is what are our kids' results when they are applying to college?
Some will actually go so far as to create a mathematical algorithm to say what percentage of our kids are getting into top 10 new school and news report schools and look at it in what they think is a totally accurate data-driven way. Others will say, "Hey, I notice we haven't had a kid get into school X," and it'll inevitably be a school with a big visible name. "We haven't had a kid get in there for five years. Why can't we get kids in there?" Without actually even knowing that nobody really has applied or is interested in that.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah.
Robin Appleby:
I can think of this in a very particular place. When I worked abroad, there was a school on the West Coast of the United States that board members would always say, "Why aren't we getting in there?" Well, the context of the school that I was working in and this particular college were so different that there just wasn't a whole lot of interest and drive.
Lee Coffin:
It wasn't a fit between the high school and the university.
Robin Appleby:
Right, right. So I think there is that piece that on the school's side, there is often a sense of judgment about what are the schools that our kids are getting into. And yet at the same time, counselors in those schools are in the position where they are really, really trying to work with kids and family about finding the right fit. And emphasizing that there are not just eight, 12, 20 best schools around the world. Really, the last time you and I talked, we talked a lot about international college, university fit. And college counselors are trying to broaden this scope at the same time that there can be pressures on a head of school from parents or from boards about what about the big name schools and why are we not good enough to get in there.
So yeah, there is this whole piece where there's pressure and that really, in many ways, is amongst the adults in the school community and we would like to keep that in a school separate from how kids see themselves in the process. Because of course, this isn't their burden to carry, this isn't their making.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, yeah.
Robin Appleby:
They've been raised in a situation like this, but it's not of their making. It's many times not of their desire. But it's hard-
Lee Coffin:
Yeah.
Robin Appleby:
... because in any system, things overlap.
Lee Coffin:
Well, they're the actors in the story. It's reminding me of a conversation I had when I was a freshman proctor at Harvard, so we're going way back when I was in grad school. And I was interviewing each of my advisees as I got to know them and I'd say, "Why'd you pick Harvard," in that example. And most of them said what you would expect them to say, but this one young man who had enrolled from a public high school in Minnesota said to me, "Well, I didn't want to come here." I said, "Really?" He said, "No." He said, "You know, I really saw myself at the University of Minnesota. And my principal called me in and said you have to choose Harvard. You are the only student from this school who's ever been accepted. And you carry the reputation of this high school on your shoulders."
And I remember saying to him, "How did that make you feel?" And he said, "Well," he said, "you know, I wasn't really expecting that to be something someone said to me." But he said, "I was the valedictorian of the class," and he said, "I understood and it wasn't an outcome I was trying to avoid." He said, "I just saw myself somewhere else, but I ultimately said okay, people are expecting me to do this." And so he chose Harvard.
I said, "Well, the good news is hooray. This is going to be an amazing experience for you." But it's reminding me of what you're saying, Robin, where in the story I'm remembering, he was the ambassador from that high school and there was some projection onto him that he was somehow going to be a pied piper for future. Like, "Once you go, others are going to follow," and I don't know that that ever happens.
Robin Appleby:
Right.
Lee Coffin:
But it was very vividly true in that example.
Robin Appleby:
I've seen kids and talked to kids who, once their admissions decisions come in, have really great choices and I think many of them have felt pressure to choose the school that has the biggest name even if there's another one that they feel a little bit more, I don't know, fitty for.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah.
Robin Appleby:
A little bit more comfortable. A little bit more like, "That was the school visit I made where I thought these are my people." And I've had conversations with kids who are like, "Whoa, I don't know. I really maybe feel like I should choose the Stanford or whatever over ..."
And I don't want to say that that's coming only from a school's circumstance, that's our whole culture of success and pressure. And that's the bigger, I think probably question to ponder. How do we begin the, I don't want to say break that cycle, but to free up a kid to really make the choice for the fit that feels right to them when they get to that moment?
But in schools, it's really hard. At some point after May 1st, most schools will do something where kids in the senior class will signify where they've decided to go to college and usually it's sweatshirts or hats, or a T-shirt that they wear and it's an unveiling. Because there can be this culture of secrecy about where they've applied along the way and that whole thing can make kids really uncomfortable. I've known kids who will skip school that day so that they don't have to participate in that because maybe they've chosen the school that's absolutely right for them, but they somehow think, "Oh, that's not going to be seen as as competitive or, quote-unquote, good enough."
Lee Coffin:
Well, and Robin, that's a really timely comment because we're airing this episode in mid-April and you have decisions coming in daily, maybe even by the minute. I just saw a post on my social media feed of a student who'd just, quote, "committed," and her mother was cheering that outcome. And I don't know that the student wanted that outcome advertised on a newsfeed, but there it was. But the sweatshirt days are part of this, the reaction videos that happen when decisions are released are part of this. I have a friend who works in an independent school and he always does a post of all the pennants, the school pennants of the places where people go.
So it's a part of April. Are you giving people permission to opt out of that?
Robin Appleby:
I would.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah.
Robin Appleby:
Yeah.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah.
Robin Appleby:
I'm not saying that I would have opted out, but I think it's a very personal thing. Unfortunately, personal and secretive have overlapped in a lot of this, so you get this moment of unveiling finally publicly and I think that's unfortunate because that can create increased pressure.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah.
Robin Appleby:
I think if a kid doesn't want to opt in to the big public game, that that is okay.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah.
Robin Appleby:
Opt out.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah.
Robin Appleby:
Even if you are wearing a Crimson sweatshirt, you can opt out of that and decide you're not going to contribute to that whole system of pressure and name-dropping.
Lee Coffin:
Really interesting. So when you made the switch, you jumped from being a school leader to being part of a team in the admission office, recruiting, visiting schools, reading files, making decision, what surprised you as you made that transition? Because in some ways, you know so much about the way schools work and the way kids think and behave as they move through high school, but now you were in the college space.
Robin Appleby:
Yeah.
Lee Coffin:
What surprised you as you got on this side of the desk?
Robin Appleby:
So I think one big surprise having grown up in decades of curriculum work, which is a big part of school leadership, and looking at how a school creates its curriculum and what a school sees as a very challenging course, et cetera. Whether it's a debate about APs or IBs, or what the learning process is. That on the college application side, there's really relatively little conversation about that. So I do actually think the burden for that is on the schools to make sure a college understands how it has gone about educating its kids and schools don't necessarily do a very good job of that. Maybe private school or high performing publics just simply assume that by the nature of their name and title, and maybe how their kids have done in the college process before, that colleges will say, "Oh, that's a well-educated kid."
When in fact, that's not necessarily the case. Kids take lots of different combinations of courses, grading, how grading systems work. The push towards a mastery transcript, which is getting away from As, and Bs and Cs that people are traditionally used to, and moving towards a narrative approach or a standards-based approach, which might have numbers one, two, three, four. Colleges don't necessarily get that. And I know that schools think colleges should in this process, but the process is just so big and there are so many kids in it that that's just not possible. And so I think one of the things that surprised me was schools don't do a better job of actually articulating the education they're providing for the students who are applying and that's a bit of a disadvantage to kids.
Lee Coffin:
It puts the interpretation of curriculum on the keyboard of the person reading the file.
Robin Appleby:
Right. And the people reading files in offices have very broad backgrounds-
Lee Coffin:
Yeah.
Robin Appleby:
... and are incredibly intelligent people, but they may not be education experts. And I also know that the impetus to change away from letter grading partially comes from grade inflation and wanting to really actually show what kids learn and know, but there's only so much time that you can take as an admissions officer to really be able to do that. We don't want to become the AI analysts of applications. It's a much more personal process than that.
Also, with the idea of a mastery transcript or a standards-based grading transcript, there's an awful lot of subjectivity on the teacher's part. And so how do we know how well that is done? And so that's a question too that I think schools might ponder in how they produce transcripts and meaningful evidence of how that child has learned and developed over their high school years.
Lee Coffin:
What's been a happy surprise where you've been like, "This is better than I thought it was?"
Robin Appleby:
Oh, it's so much more of a personal process in the office of reading these things than I think probably I ever anticipated. You know the stats, you see the press releases of the head of school and you say, "Oh, X thousands of kids applied to this school," and you sort of assume there's a lot of robots in the background and algorithms taking kids out of the process and that's really not necessarily the case. And especially when it gets down to that last couple of months when you're looking at files again and again, and sometimes you're looking at the same kid on multiple occasions because you're really trying to figure out is this the right best fit, you do become very fond of that kid in the application even though you may have never met them.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah.
Robin Appleby:
And many times, you have met them if you've been out on the road and if you've seen them in schools. But you really get invested in their success.
Well, here's another surprise. There have been kids who have not been admitted in the couple of years that I've been here who will then write and actually thank us for the care that was obvious to them in the process and share where they're going to go. And sometimes you can be like, "Yes, that was exactly the right school for you."
Lee Coffin:
Yeah.
Robin Appleby:
"You did it!"
Lee Coffin:
Yeah.
Robin Appleby:
And then the question is, hm, as an admission officer of Dartmouth, do I write back to someone else and say, "Good, you're not coming here."
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. Well, I think you can because it's a recognition that high achieving kids achieve.
Robin Appleby:
Yeah.
Lee Coffin:
They have options when the search plays out in its most advantageous way. And I watched my niece go through this, where her search ended and she had five acceptances out of ten, and it narrowed to two and she just chose one. And it's just that thinking as it played out over the past few weeks was a reminder that good kids when they do thoughtful searches have choice.
Robin Appleby:
Yeah.
Lee Coffin:
And as admission officers, I also say to everyone I don't expect everybody I accept will say yes.
Robin Appleby:
Yeah.
Lee Coffin:
Being alert to the idea that this is a decision that's not mine to make.
Robin Appleby:
Yeah.
Lee Coffin:
And they're going where they go. I think the personalization of the process is surprising to people who assume volume means anonymous.
Robin Appleby:
Yes.
Lee Coffin:
And it doesn't.
Robin Appleby:
Yeah.
Lee Coffin:
Or an acceptance rate that's got a single digit means it was just punishing.
Robin Appleby:
Right.
Lee Coffin:
It means we made thoughtful, precise, sometimes complex decisions, but by the time we say yes we know who we said yes to.
Robin Appleby:
Yeah. I don't really think that people think about the fact that admissions officers sit alone in rooms all day long for weeks reading file after file, after file. I think they think that somehow things get sorted before then and there's an automatic rise to the top, et cetera. And there is an embrace of every application, looking for the reason to say yes.
Lee Coffin:
Now, you were an English teacher so you're a reader. So share what that felt like to sit in a room by yourself, reading file after file? Because that's very different than standing in a classroom teaching English.
Robin Appleby:
Yeah.
Lee Coffin:
Or going in front of a faculty meeting and talking about whatever topic du jour landed on that agenda. What was it like to read all those files as a former school leader? You were coming into each of those files with a really different context.
Robin Appleby:
Yeah. I think every reader brings a different background into it. But for me, while I'm very comfortable publicly, I'm actually kind of an introvert. And so spending hours with kids and their files is a little bit, for me, like spending quiet time in conversation with the writer of each of those files. And so this is probably why, when we talk a little bit about how to put an application together, we say, "Tell us your story." And it's a little bit of an intimate kind of relationship that you say, "Okay, I see how the pieces come together."
For me, the joy of it would be you'd open up a file and the pieces really would come together because the kid could really make those connections. And usually, what that indicated is the student had really thought about what they wanted next. And so that's a joyful process.
I would say what it's like different from the head of school piece is that when I read those files, I can sometimes see all of the different aspects of the way in which the school has done its work come together in that kid's file as well. So when they talk, some kids will talk about why they have chosen a subject for the future and how that relates to the opportunities they've had in the past. And you can see how, oh, this program, this school worked really hard to put together really has helped this kid lift that application. And really has given them not so much a credential, but an opportunity to find and engage a passion.
And that doesn't just happen in high performing private schools, you can see that in public schools, too. You can see that in schools that have taken risks with their curriculum, et cetera. And so I see that as part of, "Wow, this kid's had a great education and good on that school for really having given them that opportunity."
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. Well, I think given your administrative background in schools, you're able to see each of the pieces in that school context.
Robin Appleby:
Yeah.
Lee Coffin:
The drama club coach, and here's the soccer coach, and here's the bio teacher, and here's the mom standing in the college counseling office with an expectation, and here's the college counselor. And you're refereeing all of that.
Robin Appleby:
Yes, absolutely.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah.
Robin Appleby:
Yeah. And the college counselor is often very much stuck in the middle of a lot of competing pressures.
Lee Coffin:
Has your appreciation for that role evolved?
Robin Appleby:
Yeah, it has. I always worked, as the head of a school and a principal, I always worked really closely with the college counselors. I think I was pretty good at understanding the pressures on them. I don't remember ever going to one and saying, "Hey, the list isn't good enough this year." But I know they feel that pressure. I know because they hear from parents.
One of the things college counselors have the hardest time with is when parents of juniors ... So as most people listening to this will know, seniors have just finished their applications around about in January of a year and that's right when college junior, sorry, when high school juniors and their parents will start working on the new cycle. And so when admissions responses come in for the senior class around about in March, junior parents are hearing scuttlebutt in communities. And one of the things college counselors will hear is, "Well, the class isn't doing very well."
Lee Coffin:
Oh, boy.
Robin Appleby:
It's inevitable. There's always a point in the year where people will be reporting, "Oh, they're not doing very well. And what does that mean for my kid next year?" And of course, that's just a moment in the cycle and people can sometimes articulate their disappointments a lot more easily than they will articulate their successes because they don't want to brag, they want to be humble. They're coached to be a bit secretive about the process. And so that's a huge challenge I think for college counselors.
Lee Coffin:
Well, and I love that tip you just shared about scuttlebutt. I think the news you could use to both seniors and their families as their process winds down in the next couple of weeks and juniors as it lifts off, and as those two cohorts cross-pollinate.
Robin Appleby:
Yeah, yeah. It's done listen to the scuttlebutt.
Lee Coffin:
Don't listen to the scuttlebutt.
Robin Appleby:
Half of it's not true.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah.
Robin Appleby:
Some of it comes from sadness. Some of it comes from more negative places in the human psyche and some of it comes from the positive, and you really aren't equipped to know which is which. Best to just focus on your own journey.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. You popped into my office and recounted a phone call you had had with an unhappy parent.
Robin Appleby:
Yeah.
Lee Coffin:
Where you pivoted and said, "Okay, I'm going to stop being an admission officer and I'm going to be a mom who recently went through this process, and I'm going to be a former head of school." Why did you pivot? How did those two roles transplant each other?
Robin Appleby:
Yeah. I pivoted because the parent had asked me a question that, as an admissions officer, I was really not able to answer. Not from a confidentiality point of view, but because there was no answer. And really, what the parent wanted to know was, "Well, if my child is disappointed, should they consider something like a gap year and then start this process over? Or should they be thinking about which school can they go to now that will allow them to transfer in the future?"
I guess from my perspective as a parent, as a head of school, all of these things, as somebody whose worked with kids is this is not the time to be asking that question. That the message you're sending your kid when you're discussing those things at home is that the colleges you've gotten into are somehow not good enough. And that can be interpreted by that student very personally, which is the feeling that they're not good enough. When in fact, I think what people should be looking for is what's the right next step on this kid's journey? And maybe that journey won't be four straight years in college at the same college that you choose right now. Maybe there will be a transfer in the future, or a long study abroad, or a gap in the middle of it, et cetera.
But be careful about the messaging that we're sending our kids right now as they're going through this process because it's deeply, deeply personal for them and it comes with such judgment for them because that's just the nature of the whole situation.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, yeah.
Robin Appleby:
So that's the advice I tried to give is let's figure out what the best question is to be asking. I think right and wrong may be too harsh. I think it's what's the best question to be asking for your kid's benefit right now.
Lee Coffin:
No. On a recent episode, I quoted my priest and his point was play the hand you're dealt.
Robin Appleby:
Yeah.
Lee Coffin:
Not the one you wish you had. And I keep saying that-
Robin Appleby:
Yeah.
Lee Coffin:
... because I think you just said it, too. It's like stop looking beyond the hand you have and focus on these are the outcomes, all of which were great in the call year.
Robin Appleby:
Right, right. Yeah.
Lee Coffin:
But you have this mixture of disappointment overshadowing opportunity.
Robin Appleby:
Yeah. And it can be super hard and I'm empathetic with parents on this. It can be super hard to comb out parental disappointment that you feel for yourself versus the parental disappointment that you feel on behalf of your child. And most of us are not psychologically sophisticated enough, we're not our own therapists, to really be able to figure out what piece of that is about us and what piece of that is about them. And it's hard, it's really hard.
Lee Coffin:
And you see on the work we do, the analytical work, the pragmatic work, the nuts and bolts of a file, and what we don't always see as college admission officers is the emotional work.
Robin Appleby:
Yeah.
Lee Coffin:
I think in the schools, you've got kids in a room with you, happy, sad, confused, nervous, procrastinating, over-achieving, all those things that make high school kids high school kids and we don't always see that.
Robin Appleby:
Right. No, what we see as officers is when we go into high schools, we see kids who gather around tables to talk with us and come to learn more about the school that we're representing, or maybe they've already decided they really liked that school and so they are there to pitch themselves a little bit.
Lee Coffin:
They're preening.
Robin Appleby:
Yeah, exactly. Which is fine.
Lee Coffin:
This is someone I have to ... Hi, hi, hi.
Robin Appleby:
Yeah. Well, you know what, we all do that. We do that as adults as well.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, right, right.
Robin Appleby:
Good that they've learned this skill. And we're seeing them at the front end of, at the optimistic front end of an exploratory process. We're not there at the back side.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah.
Robin Appleby:
And I think we just need to remember as part of the civil, human thing.
Lee Coffin:
No, I think that's right. Let's have a speed round of topics for parents. So you've been in schools, you've now been in an admissions office so I'm going to just pitch a couple at you and have you give some advice. Probably to both juniors and seniors, but it might lean a little more junior-
Robin Appleby:
Okay.
Lee Coffin:
... given where we are in the cycle. Okay. We just did a pod about picking courses for senior year, so very timely. So you already touched this around curriculum, but if you're a high school junior and you're thinking about 12th grade, what's your advice for a student looking at highly selective colleges?
Robin Appleby:
Yeah, great. I think you have to take the advice that probably your school advisor is going to give you which is you need rigor and passion. You do need rigor and passion. You need to show that you have done the most you reasonably can with the opportunities at your school because we on this side of the desk absolutely know that there's a vastly different range of opportunities at every school. But you need to show that you're doing the most, but you don't need to do the most in every single subject area to the point that it becomes impossible for you to really pursue that thing that really turns you on. So you're balancing that rigor and that passion so that you will be able, down the road, to articulate why you made that choice.
Lee Coffin:
I love that, Robin, and I've never heard someone twin rigor and passion as a description of curricular choices. But it makes sense because you could load up on rigor and look like super child-
Robin Appleby:
Yeah.
Lee Coffin:
... but they're not courses that make you smile.
Robin Appleby:
Yeah.
Lee Coffin:
Or you can stack your rigor in places where your curiosity runs free.
Robin Appleby:
Right, right.
Lee Coffin:
And you're like, "I'm learning something new in a space where I'm really engaged."
Robin Appleby:
Yeah. We're not asking kids in this particular American system to be specialists in high school. In fact, best not.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah.
Robin Appleby:
We want them to have that opening up of the brain that goes with continuing to take six or seven different topics in classes, five or six. But by the time you're 17, 18, we really are hoping that you've got something that really excites you. And it isn't that we care what it is. It isn't that we think doing stem cell research is better than writing poetry. It's just whatever that is, can you show us why it is this is so exciting to you?
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. So spend a minute talking to the international kid who doesn't have curricular choice.
Robin Appleby:
So same kind of thing I think actually that international universities tell these kids. So you don't have curricular choice. You might even be coming from a situation where you've been narrowed into just three of four topics by the time you're in your last two grades of high school. But you've chosen those areas.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah.
Robin Appleby:
You do have choice in what those are. And so why is that? And in that situation, if you're applying to a liberal arts college where you're going to be asked at the college to actually open that funnel back up and study across a range of perspectives, how can you show us that you're really ready to do that?
I think we worry a little bit when we see somebody who, in the last two years of high school, has done only just advanced math and science. Those kids are going to have to work a little bit harder to articulate why a liberal arts college education makes sense for them. It isn't that we doubt it, it's that we want to know why here, why now.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, yeah. No, that's really helpful. And to the international kids who are in the international baccalaureate, for example, I'm always really intrigued by their extended essay. Well, what are they choosing to study, to write in this capstone experience of the international baccalaureate?
Robin Appleby:
Right.
Lee Coffin:
So to IB kiddos, bring that forward.
Robin Appleby:
Yeah.
Lee Coffin:
Tell us what you're writing about, what you're studying because ... And that's true for people in any high school who have a capstone experience. That capstone tells us a lot about your curiosity, your intellectual engagement.
Robin Appleby:
And if you're coming from a school that doesn't require or offer a capstone, that doesn't mean you don't have some chance to have a capstone that you've created on your own. Maybe your capstone is something you do outside of school.
Lee Coffin:
Okay, topic two. This is one that I think a lot of families miss in the data part of college admission and that is class standing. So in the old days, a lot of high schools had a class rank.
Robin Appleby:
Right.
Lee Coffin:
And so you had a number and you were from the valedictorian all the way down, you had some number in the lineup of your junior or senior peers. Most places don't rank anymore.
Robin Appleby:
Right.
Lee Coffin:
But that doesn't mean class standing is not relevant. What am I talking about, Robin?
Robin Appleby:
Yeah. So what I think you're talking about is the fact that, at highly competitive colleges and you did say the conversation we're having is about that, the vast majority of kids applying would, if they were ranked, have a very high ranking within their class, but they would likely share that ranking with 10 other kids.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah.
Robin Appleby:
Because one, grade inflation has given lots of people lots of As, so that is just a factor and when that's translated mathematically, they all come out at the top. And then the other is that, that ranking, can have a lot to do with the weighting of courses and the rigor that you've chosen. And so that is another reason why schools don't share that.
But it does matter that your rigor and frankly, your grades, your results, however those are assessed by your school, for a highly competitive college you need to be in those top few kids to really have a good shot at being successful at the strongest colleges and that's just a reality.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. And I think what gets fuzzed a lot with this concept of class standing is not that we're doing anything in precise order.
Robin Appleby:
Right.
Lee Coffin:
But it's sometimes hard to know what your A-minus GPA really means in the local context. At a school where 80% get As, it's not that your report card is weak, but your report card may not be as glowing as you think it is at home. That's hard because that's where I think people get ... I get, "Well, she had all As." But that in and of itself out of that high school was not determinative.
Robin Appleby:
Right, because a lot of kids have all As.
Lee Coffin:
Right.
Robin Appleby:
And some rare kids have all A-pluses-
Lee Coffin:
Yeah.
Robin Appleby:
... if a school gives those grades. So that's where probably the letters of recommendation can be really, really helpful to give us the context of what does this A really mean. Most of us can read those things with a fair degree of scrutiny to understand it.
Lee Coffin:
Exactly.
Robin Appleby:
But I think that's probably one of the hardest pressures. The student has had As all throughout their high school experience, that does not translate automatically into an admission into the kid's dream school.
Lee Coffin:
Right.
Robin Appleby:
And that's just a function of numbers really.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. Well, you mentioned grade inflation. It is true that a lot of high schools, maybe most high schools, are giving high achieving kids noteworthy grades and it's great.
Robin Appleby:
Yeah.
Lee Coffin:
But it just, again, on the data part of this conversation, it's not as determinative.
Robin Appleby:
Right.
Lee Coffin:
It's important, but at the end of the day it's not going to make the list magically move forward.
Robin Appleby:
That's right.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah.
Robin Appleby:
Well, in the same way that the kid who has an A-minus or a B-plus somewhere along that thing is not automatically going to be excluded either. And I think that is something that lends itself to the competitive nature within the high performing high schools of, "Oh, so-and-so got a B-plus on this. They'll never get into [inaudible 00:40:20]." And that's just, you and I both know that that's just not true either.
Lee Coffin:
Right. Okay, two more and then I'll let you go.
Robin Appleby:
Okay.
Lee Coffin:
So a common reaction from a parent to a guidance counselor who has given a set of colleges odds of admission that don't feel right to the parent and the parent says, "Let's just see what happens."
Robin Appleby:
Yeah.
Lee Coffin:
"We're going to ignore your advice, let's just see what happens."
Robin Appleby:
Yeah.
Lee Coffin:
What's your reaction to let's just see what happens?
Robin Appleby:
So “let's just see what happens” if that list is really skewed way too high is a disaster in the making because that could be the rare kid who ends up on the far side of this process with no admissions. Which is probably then not going to be a surprise to the counselor, but that counselor is going to feel terrible about the fact that the kid does not have the kind of options that they should have.
So “let's just see what happens” is fine, to add a couple of schools with really low admissions rates, really competitive schools to your list because you never know, let's see what's happening. But really, folks, listen to your counselor and understand that they want the best for the student in the process. There can be this misperception that college counselors help guide kids towards lists that either make the high school look good or that save the great schools for other kids and there's no conspiracy theory out there. That's not what college counselors are doing. Your college counselor wants the best outcome for the student. So “let's see what happens” for a couple of schools on the list is fine, but if it's the whole list, please don't do it.
Lee Coffin:
Great. Amen.
Robin Appleby:
Yeah.
Lee Coffin:
Okay. Last question is going to be advice for high school seniors who have not yet enrolled and May 1st is a few days away, and student is holding onto let's say two or three options. Feels immobilized by the choice. From both sides of the desk, what's your advice to the senior who loves all three, it's a dead heat?
Robin Appleby:
Okay.
Lee Coffin:
But only one can get the sweatshirt.
Robin Appleby:
Yeah. Number one, you can't go wrong. So first of all, whichever one you pick, you're going to be fine. Number two, spend a little time alone and think about what is it you really want and stop checking Instagram to see who else is going where. Maybe stop talking with people who all have an opinion about it a little too much. And really, think about what do you want. Sometimes intellectually, that's really hard to come to a conclusion, but I bet your gut knows. I bet inside, you really know.
And then finally, I would say stop feeling you have to justify your decision to someone else. Whichever school you pick, you have picked for you. Stop feeling like you might disappoint someone else or, "This isn't the school that mom or dad wanted," because maybe you're not going to choose the one that they went to, or that they fell in love with or that they didn't get to go to, but you might.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah.
Robin Appleby:
Whatever that is, you don't need to justify that.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah.
Robin Appleby:
Go with the gut, you will be fine and it's for you.
Lee Coffin:
Great advice. And going with the gut feels hard. I was walking my dog on campus yesterday and crossed paths with a visiting family, the daughter had been admitted and they were visiting for the first time, and she was beaming. I said, "Where are you in your decision making?" She said, "It's down to two." I said, "Great." And then she said, "This feels nice." And I said, "Well, I'm not saying this as the dean of admission, but your body language is suggesting you just came home."
Robin Appleby:
Was that the mom or the kid?
Lee Coffin:
The kid.
Robin Appleby:
Okay, good.
Lee Coffin:
The kid. No, she just had ... She was feeling it.
Robin Appleby:
Yeah.
Lee Coffin:
And I think that's the key message, feel it.
Robin Appleby:
Yeah. Look, it's a little bit of Say Yes to the Dress. Okay, that probably dates me. That probably dates me. But in the end, all the dresses look great.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah.
Robin Appleby:
Which one do you feel good in?
Lee Coffin:
Right, right, right.
Robin Appleby:
Okay.
Lee Coffin:
Say Yes to the Dress.
Well, Robin, thank you for joining me again on Admission Beat.
Robin Appleby:
My pleasure.
Lee Coffin:
No, it's so interesting to hear what you've witnessed from a life in schools and now a life in a college, which were related, but were different places.
Robin Appleby:
Yeah.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah.
Robin Appleby:
It's a gift to do this work, to be quite honest.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. Well, we're lucky to have you. Next week, we'll be back with an episode about a guidebook and we will have a conversation with a couple of authors who've put together a really voluminous set of lists to help students sort their search, and looking forward to that conversation. But for now, this is Lee Coffin with Robin Appleby from Dartmouth College. Thanks for listening.