Hooray, the college search is over! Now what?! As high school seniors become "pre-matrics" on the campus of their choice, a surprising swirl of checklists and emotions arise for students and their parents or guardians. Carleton's dean of students and a longtime college counselor join AB host Lee Coffin for tips and thoughts on successfully transitioning from home to college in the weeks ahead.
Hooray, the college search is over! Now what?! As high school seniors become "pre-matrics" on the campus of their choice, a surprising swirl of checklists and emotions arise for students and their parents or guardians. Carleton's dean of students and a longtime college counselor join AB host Lee Coffin for tips and thoughts on successfully transitioning from home to college in the weeks ahead.
Lee Coffin:
From Hanover, New Hampshire, I'm Lee Coffin, Dartmouth's vice president and dean of admissions and financial aid, and this is part one of the season finale of Admissions Beat.
Seniors, it's May 5th, Cinco de Mayo. We are now four days past what is called the National Candidates Reply Date, and that is this hallowed date on the admission calendar where every little fanny must be in a seat by May 1st. It doesn't mean you might not switch or take a gap year. But by May 1 of your senior year, you have a home. This week, we're going to start steering you from the post-admission moment to matriculation, from home to college. You think you're done? You're not. There are things to do to complete your admission process, and we'll talk about that in a sec, but there's also the beginning of your onboarding to college. Lots of pre-orientation to dos that you need to do.
When we come back, I'm going to welcome a guest from the college side and a guest from the high school side to talk about what happens May, June, July, August. While you're thinking about college, you need to do some more things. We'll be right back.
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Really excited this week to welcome two colleagues, one from student affairs and one from college counseling, to have this conversation about what comes next, how do we navigate the road from home to college after the admission process wraps up. So making her debut on Admission Beat is my friend and colleague Kelly Richards. She's the director of college counseling and the Rogers chair in the humanities at St. George's School in Newport, Rhode Island.
Hi, Kelly.
Kelly Richards:
Hi, Lee. How are you? Thanks for having me.
Lee Coffin:
Of course. It's fun to have you on the pod.
In addition to being a college counselor for many years, Kelly is the mom of three kids who have recently navigated college admission and the transition from home to college. So we're going to pull from Kelly's desk and her kitchen table as we think about all the swirling emotions and topics that hit us.
Her co-star this week is Carolyn Livingston, the vice president for student life and dean of students at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota.
Hello, Carolyn.
Carolyn Livingston:
Hello, and a happy day to both you and Kelly. Thank you so much for having me.
Lee Coffin:
Oh, I'm so happy to have you. You were telling me you are a VP of student affairs, but you're also the mom of a senior in high school.
Carolyn Livingston:
I am, who just recently completed that whole admissions process, and I'm happy to be on the other side.
Lee Coffin:
So you're going to pull from your desk and kitchen table as well as you speak in real time about what happens as somebody navigates this process.
For parents, the thing that's going to be surprising is, if this is your first child graduating from high school and heading off to college, there are some surprising emotional undercurrents that might trip you up.
And Kelly, let's start there. You've done this three times. Prepare a family for the emotional journey that's about to start.
Kelly Richards:
One thing I've noticed, particularly as my last left to school, is the loud quiet in my home. I live at a boarding school, so kids were always coming and going. But my youngest in particular is studying theater in college, and she's a musical theater nut, and she sings wherever she goes. She goes down the hall to the bathroom. She's on her way out. She's on her way in. You know when that child is in our home. What I wasn't prepared for was, again, the loud quiet that would be left in her wake.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah.
Kelly Richards:
Yeah. So no, that brings certainly some wonderful things. I can go to bed early, and I can talk in the phone late. There's all sorts of things that I find myself doing, and my husband and I can, "Oh, let's go out to dinner tonight," we can do that. But I will say I was not prepared for that sort of void in her presence. I will say one great joy of this time in our lives is we have moved from protector, teacher, hands-on guide to advisor, and I will say I got some advice from a wonderful friend of mine, the fabulous Deb Johns now at Notre Dame. She was sort of a couple years ahead in this journey, and she said, "I find myself asking way more questions and saying very few statements. Anything coming out of my mouth is ending with a question mark, not a period." I keep that in the forefront of my mind, and that is just a wonderful place to be, and there have been some really fun conversations and moments and points of growth.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah.
So Carolyn, as you're hearing Kelly describe this transition and you're about to do it, and you're on campus welcoming kids year by year by year, so you're on both sides of this, personally, are you listening to Kelly saying, "Uh-oh"?
Carolyn Livingston:
I am, and I think I've said, "Uh-oh," for a long time in my role, but also as a parent. I just think about the life skill conversations my son and I are having right now about what is it that I believe that he needs to know before he steps foot on campus in the fall. I didn't necessarily have those life skill conversations with him before. We're talking about, "How do you make good choices?" We're talking about simple things of making appointments and following up and reading email, all of those types of things, and, above all, how to continue to make friends.
Lee Coffin:
No, and the life skills are this hidden topic, making appointments, answering your email, doing your laundry, getting from point A to B on your own on time, things that, when they're with you, you have a hand in making sure that happens. Was he receptive, Carolyn, as you have started to roll out the life skill menu?
Carolyn Livingston:
He has been receptive, and we actually wrote a list together. We wrote a list of all of the things that I believed that he needed to know and all of the things that he believed that he needed to know, and there's a lot of overlap.
Lee Coffin:
Good.
Carolyn Livingston:
We are talking about financial literacy, we are talking about how to find that first job on campus, and we're talking about finding roommates and how do you know who to room with, and so a lot of life skills.
Lee Coffin:
Did he have anything on his list that surprised you?
Carolyn Livingston:
He did. The one thing that surprised me was, "How many times am I going to call Granny?" was on his list. He makes it a point to call Granny now, and he wants to do more of it. So that was on his list, being more in conversation with Granny.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. That's lovely.
Carolyn Livingston:
Yeah, thank you.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, so you have these little lovely moments.
Okay, so let's take a step back. First week of May, Kelly, you live with these creatures called high school seniors post-admission. In many ways, your role as the director of college counseling is mostly over, and you're working with the juniors, but describe what happens in a high school to the seniors in May.
Kelly Richards:
Our kids have been living with their best friends for three and four years. They've become a part of each other's families. They go to each other's homes. They're very, very close and loyal, and so sometimes that's very hard to leave.
I do have a little saying. I always say to families at the beginning, "Look, you get one meltdown in this whole thing." For some kids, it's just thinking about college in the beginning. For some kids, it's working through that really hard essay. For some kids, it's visiting colleges with their divorced parents, or... I can name it all. For some kids, even those who have sailed through this process really smoothly and carefully and wonderfully with their families, have a tough time saying goodbye. They might be hitting it now, they might be having that meltdown now, and I'm here to say, "It's completely normal, and all you can do is really live through that." I've had conversations with kids to say, "What do you think? Do you think this maybe is going on to some extent? And if so, maybe acknowledging it would allow you to make sure that you end in good stead with your relationships and your friendships and your faculty."
Lee Coffin:
Carolyn, what's your dean of student antenna saying to this, as you hear Kelly describe the difficulty of saying goodbye while they're also getting ready to say hello? It's almost like a tide. One's going out, one's coming in, and the graduating seniors are kind of caught in this in between.
Carolyn Livingston:
Well, they are having celebratory moments that are bittersweet, and so how do you ask them to have dual feelings at one time? And I think that is difficult for them. Really, as seniors, they're experiencing prom for the last time, they are working with teachers for the last time, they are taking the last AP exam, all of these types of things that are celebratory. But for many of them, it's sad. They know now that there are some people that they may never see on a daily basis again. So I completely agree with Kelly in the sense of saying to them that, "You have to manage some of these meltdown moments. You have to manage what is mixed emotions," and so many transitions that they are navigating right now. And you still have a lot of people in your ear telling you what to do, telling you what to do, giving you advice about, "When I was in high school, this is how I felt," so it's very overwhelming, I think, for them.
Lee Coffin:
I wonder to what degree that's compounded by social media where they're online, whether it's Instagram or TikTok. I wonder what words of advice we have for seniors and parents around the social media element of this transition. What I notice on the college side is the idea of orientation, once upon a time, happened at the end of the summer, early fall. Now, it happens a minute after we release decisions. They start joining online groups and talking among themselves and getting to know each other, and it's unregulated, so it's not like...
Carolyn, I doubt your team is in those social media spaces curating what they're talking about, and yet they are.
Carolyn Livingston:
Right.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. What's that like?
Carolyn Livingston:
Well, I think there's the official communication that they get from the college, and then there's all the unofficial communication and/or it's the Facebook groups, it's the Instagram groups that they are a part of too. Lee, what I tell them is that everybody looks good online, everybody has a really happy life on social media, and they have to use the skills and the tools that they've gained over the years to sort of wade through, weave through that, and better understand that this is their experience. Frankly, I tell a lot of them to just monitor it better and to reduce all the chatter that they see on their various social media posts, because it's not very helpful for them at this point.
Lee Coffin:
And to parents who might be old enough to have navigated the transition from home to college, if you went to college, this wasn't part of our experience. We did not have an online outlet as we were moving through these next weeks.
Kelly, what do you advise your students in this social media transition space?
Kelly Richards:
The media piece goes both ways. Colleges all look perfect online, I think. All three of my children did learn at some point that the school that they're attending, that they all love and they are all happy, and no one is transferring, those places are not perfect places. As I came to see that, I would say that to my kids like, "Look, this place is not going to be perfect, and so be ready for that."
And then I read a tip the other day that I think is perfect in this situation, which is to develop an alone plan, which I thought it was a really good advice, and I think that was something my husband and I felt strongly about as we parented the kids all the time since they were little. It is important to understand and know how to spend time with yourself alone, no media, no nothing. There will be downtimes in college, and, frankly, there should be. That's how your brain develops and grows, and that's where you hear yourself think. That's where you really get to know yourself. And I think if you have a plan for when you meet that moment, that could be, I think, really helpful for students to be thinking about, because the beginning will be all, "La, la, la, la, la," and all sorts of excitement.
I guess the last thing I would just say is that we have to be careful of our response time on the phone. They reach out to you... Unless if it is like they're going to the emergency room, I'll call, an adult will be calling you. You'll know when it's an emergency. Maybe not responding right away is a good thing because you don't want them to be on the phone. You don't want to be there to save them. They got to figure this out on their own. And I think sometimes we, in a loving, caring way, actually do more damage by having a quick response time all the time on the phone, and then they're on the media, and they're seeing this, and they're sending pictures, and you're trying to solve it, da, da, da, da. I think it's better instead to just sit and just take a beat.
Lee Coffin:
Well, you're pointing me towards something I often say when I'm doing presentations that no college is Utopia College. The college admission process from discovery through applying and choosing is romanticized in the way that I fully understand and witness. However, the communities at the other end of that rainbow are real places with real people with ups and downs, good days and bad days, rainy days, and dirty laundry. Everybody that gets admitted is not going to be your best pal. There's that, that, "Oh, this isn't a perfect place." And I think the college admission process has so much energy wrapped around it, for some people, 18 months’ worth, for some people, a lifetime's worth, and there's a little letdown too. It's like, "It's over. Now, what?" It's like the day after Christmas for those of us who celebrate... It's like, "Oh, got to take the tree down now."
Kelly Richards:
That's right.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah.
Let's talk a little bit about a couple of things. The class is set at some point between May 1 and usually June 1, there's a passing of the baton, quite literally, where I will call the person in Carolyn's role and say, "And I give you the class." And then that transition begins in the administrative saying, "What happens, Carolyn, when the enrolled class becomes under your purview?"
Carolyn Livingston:
It's a point of excitement for me and our team in trying to create a set of experiences that will make incoming students feel as if this institution belongs to them. We have this overall snapshot of what the class looks like, and then we have to go about a process of engaging them tremendously during the summer. Something that we've done in the last five to six years that I value, but was really a product of COVID, was doing webinars with our incoming parents and families and also students. We will do four of those sessions during the summer. Parents have just as many questions as our students do. Students, we're trying to answer for them how to make friends, how to decide roommates. Parents are having questions about majors, parents are still having questions about expenses, breaks, "What do I do with these young people when they come home?" We're really thinking about ways to answer all of these questions. So Lee, we spend a lot of time after that handoff thinking about structured experiences, strategic experiences, for those parents and families and for those students.
Lee Coffin:
There's some forms that start to come from you to them. What are you looking for by way of a checklist that will often go to the student and the parent will often... we'll get calls, and say, "I'm not getting any information." "It's because your child is 18, and they're the primary conduit of information from the college versus in high school, you probably got all the forms and the grade reports, et cetera, but now the dynamic shifts." So parents, here's a tip. Make sure you ask your kids, "Have you checked your email? Because there are going to be some forms there." Carolyn, what will you send them in May and June?
Carolyn Livingston:
Yeah. I will send them a welcome on behalf of my office and the college. Some of the content that's in that letter that I send to them really sort of says, "Your student will receive a lot of information that they have to be responsible for, and here is how you can ask for guest access."
Lee Coffin:
There's a housing form that most entering students will need to complete a questionnaire, asking them about lifestyle, that residential life will use to do roommates-
Carolyn Livingston:
Roommates.
Lee Coffin:
... hallways, maybe the whole residence hall. There'll be a medical form. Most places, I think, require a physical and proof of certain vaccinations, et cetera. You don't want to miss those. Some places will have students sign up for classes early in the summer. Some will wait until September. What are the prerequisites? What am I missing, Kelly? What do people show up in college counseling and say, "I just got this from Dartmouth. What am I supposed to do with it?"
Kelly Richards:
It is a wonderful thing to say, "Oh, I didn't get that. I guess you're on that. Let me know if you have questions." And this, in my view, is practice for the next big thing, which will be, as you said, signing up for your courses for the next year, and who do you see about getting advice about this, and then they do the whole dorm lottery thing on their own. They do all of this on their own. This is a wonderful, wonderful practice for real life, and I really see it as such. In fact, I see the college process as such. We talk about life skills.
Carolyn, your son, I'm sure, had these skills that he practiced in the college process, so he's actually more ready than you think to do these things. I am so thankful when... Haverford sent this wonderful video to us in one of their communications that said, "Here's why we don't send grades to the parents," and I thought it was wonderful, and it had a great explanation about why. And it said, "This is really the ownership, students taking ownership, blah, blah, blah, blah." It was really, really great.
Lee Coffin:
The other big to-do comes back to the admission office. We will request a final transcript from the high school after someone has graduated, and we will look at those final grades.
Kelly Richards:
Oh, yes. We have this conversation all the time. You do not want the nasty letter from the dean that says, "Oh, you're going to start your college career on probation-"
Lee Coffin:
Or, worse.
Kelly Richards:
Or, worse, "You're not coming." We have examples of these letters that we, of course, black out the name and the school, but we show these examples and they'll say, "But it's senior spring," and I'll say, "I don't even understand what senior spring is. That's not a thing." Again, early skill practicing for what you'll have to do in college.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. The offer of admission includes this sentence that most people overlooked. "This offer is made with the expectation that you will sustain the degree of academic and personal achievement that characterized you as an applicant." There's two clauses there, academic, which you just touched on, Kelly, and personal. And to seniors, the imperative here is finish strong. This is years ago, but a student we had admitted and enrolled, the final transcript came in with... A straight-A student had turned into someone with Cs and Ds. We sent out the letter saying, "Could you please explain the circumstances that created this dramatic change in your academic record?" Something could have happened, which would've given us context. In his case, he said, "I just didn't think I needed to work anymore." As a result, the admission committee rescinded the offer, and his father wrote me a letter shortly thereafter and said, "Thank you. That was the best life lesson he could have received." The point here is the offer is an invitation. It's a contract saying, "We've accepted you. Here's what you need to do to live up to it," so the final academic record is important.
It also just fundamentally goes into your permanent student record at college, so your academic advisor will see it. It will help us advise you on courses you're going to take as a first year student in college, et cetera. Same is true with standardized testing, like an AP exam, Carolyn mentioned. If you are enrolling at a college that gives credit, we're going to need official scores, so those need to be sent to us. That all goes into the hopper. But part two of the clause, the personal achievement... There's always one or two students a year who do something stupid, and I'm going to say it so bluntly, where you think, "What were you doing?" News comes to us, and we have to do an investigation. Something stupid could be anything from posts online that really don't reflect well on a student or some misbehavior that gets a student in trouble at the high school, and there's been examples of that, creating a change in decision.
Carolyn, do you ever participate in that part of... This isn't a happy topic, but it's an important one for students to know.
Carolyn Livingston:
I do participate in those decisions, and I weigh in because a part of it is what sort of student is coming to campus in the fall. The student who has sort of judgment, disciplinary challenges in high school, particularly that senior year, we call into question as to how they're going to, with more freedoms, manage that when they come to campus. I think the other piece too is the students whose grades significantly drop, and this is short of a rescinded admission, but we say, "This is a stern warning." Those are students that we have to pay extra careful attention to during the New Student Week process that first year.
Lee Coffin:
Let's talk about roommates, we've touched it a couple times, but maybe the biggest piece of this transition from home to college is the idea that you're moving into a residence hall. Sometimes you were in a boarding school, so you've done this already. But this is a new space, usually bigger, more diverse in a lot of ways where people are coming from all over the world, from lots of different backgrounds, different religions. Roommate piece is big, and I think...
Carolyn, I'm wondering thoughts you might have on how a student should approach the housing form. And if the college gives students permission to pick their own roommate, should they? Or, should we leave that decision up to the experts?
Carolyn Livingston:
I don't think that colleges and universities should let students pick roommates. I think you pick what's comfortable for you, and a part of going to college is discomfort and exposure to different things, so no on the roommate.
The housing questionnaire, my biggest advice is be completely honest and be as specific as you can about your preferences, whether you go to bed early, whether you are an early riser, what type of foods you like, your study habits. Completely take that form seriously and be as detailed as you can. Because a lot of that pairing, at least what we do here at Carleton, is formulaic. We try not to put students, well, we don't, from the same hometown, the same high school. We try not to pair all students from Minnesota together or international students. We try to do some engineering on our behalf. The majority of students don't know each other and we say, "That's good. That's really good."
A part of the... I think the modern day challenge here is that more and more students who come to college have single rooms. They don't have a sibling. They're not sharing a room with a sibling, and so the expectation is either, "I want a single room, or it's not going to go well." How do we demystify that notion, and how do we say, for many of our students, particularly first year, that exploring the college or meeting new people through your roommate is probably one of the best experiences that you can have? These are lifelong friends. They often will pick the same roommate for future years, but it's because you were honest in your questionnaire, and also you were open to possibilities, and that's really important.
Kelly Richards:
I said to all three of my kids, "Don't expect that your roommate will end up being your best friend and maybe not even a super close friend later. But if you can live together and learn to respect each other and set out some parameters and find your own voice in that situation, you're going to be a better person for that, having had that experience." I really don't think it's good for kids to skirt any kind of roommate issue, and I think all parents should expect that their child is going to struggle at some point with having a roommate and that that is normal and good and healthy for them.
Again, it's like a living lab. It's a whole ‘nother classroom, figuring that whole situation out, and I think that's just great life skill practice. We learn by doing. And if they call and talk to me about it or say, "Oh, I'm really struggling with my roommate," I'll say, "Well, tell me more. What do you want to do about that? What are the resources you have? What could you say? Let's practice. What could you say to your roommate?" "Oh, that sounds good. Okay, what..." I just think, again, it's this wonderful opportunity for students, as Carolyn said, to learn and grow and, I don't know, just be a better person.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, yeah. Let's talk just quickly about international student, because there's a visa that must be secured. Either of you want to offer some guidance to students living outside the United States about what that process looks like and how it transpires?
Carolyn Livingston:
Yeah. I think it's quite a complicated process. We have an amazing director of international student life who really works with all of those students. So as soon as they are admitted, we'll begin the process of securing visas. For some countries, that's relatively easy. In others, it's quite challenging. So if a student even if they applied early decision and back in November, we'd start working with them immediately. One of the pieces as well, in addition to the visa, there is a really nice online community that we have created for our international students to help them navigate the college transition. The visa process can be really complicated as of late, and we just try to start the process as soon as the student is admitted.
Lee Coffin:
And for students, just know there's some action items in country that you must do. You usually go to the embassy or a consulate, have an interview with the proper forms and your passport. So if this is your story, this runs parallel so that we can get you the student visa before it's time to get on a plane and arrive in the US.
Carolyn Livingston:
I think it's really important as well for our international students to stay in contact with us often. Whenever the appointment is with the embassy, let us know. If you have any challenges, let us know. Our international students have to be more communicative around these issues much more so than other students. So if there's any sort of change, let us know as soon as possible, so we can be helpful.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, and I think the news you could use to all incoming students is between student affairs and admissions. The admission officers are turning from the class of 2030 to the class of 2031. As we move through the following weeks, we still are here to be a resource and to help.
I guess my last question is... I've noticed some students with a phone in hand will keep looking backwards and texting their high school friends as they move through the transition almost as a security blanket as this new thing comes closer and even during orientation. When is it time to let go, not let go, but to realize high school is now concluded and you must embrace the new. What's your thought on the temptation for the backward nostalgic glance?
Carolyn Livingston:
I'm okay with it. I think whatever brings you joy, if there were joyful moments in your high school that will help you transition, reflect on those moments. If there were joyful people that helped you navigate and brought you joy in high school, absolutely stay in contact with them. I think of my kids. I have a junior in high school right now who hung out with a lot of seniors who are in college right now, and it was helpful for them to reach back out to her because they needed to know that someone... they needed to speak with a familiar voice-
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. Okay, that's good. All right.
Carolyn Livingston:
... and they wanted to be able to speak with that familiar voice without judgment. So I am okay with nostalgia if it will help ease that transition.
Lee Coffin:
Okay.
Kelly Richards:
I agree. I think it's probably natural part of the process, and I think, if it's managed right, you get to meet more people. Kids are good at this today. They're good at making connections. And I think if we can support that, great. I think we monitor our own behavior too in that and just make sure that they're not using that as a crutch. Over time, it's going to happen, so I just don't think we can, as parents, expect that instantly.
I had a former head of school I worked for; she would say, "We have to be the barge in kids' lives, just move slowly. When they're kind of losing it, we have to just be calm and not get too emotionally crazy when they're spinning." I think I'd let it play out and see how that goes. Hopefully, they sign up for things. That's a big thing. Go sign up for things.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, be involved.
Before we wrap, any last thoughts from either of you with advice to students or parents about this transition from home to college?
Kelly Richards:
Enjoy it. It's so wonderful, the ups, the downs, all of it. It's like any other stage in their lives where it's not perfect and it's beautiful and it's imperfection. Part of parenting... I think all of parenting really is just being there when you're needed and cheering them on when you're not needed. We've had a wonderful experience. Also, I guess the second part of that is I've learned to be gracious with myself. It's not easy.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah.
Carolyn Livingston:
I'd say trust that you have raised them right and that they will make good choices, they will do the right thing. And if something were to happen, it's going to be okay. This is a growth moment for them, but also for you, and everything can't be orchestrated in a growth moment. There's one piece, and I just did this with my son at his suggestion, he wanted to identify a task that we could do together when he was in college. We decided that we would pick a book to read together. The parenting and the dean of students says, "Still find ways to connect with your student," and that's just as important as picking up the phone and saying, "What's going on?" Just find normal ways to connect with them, and it'll all be fine in the end.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, and call Granny.
Carolyn Livingston:
Oh, my gosh, call Granny.
Lee Coffin:
And call Granny.
Well, Carolyn and Kelly, thank you for joining me on this part one of season finale and sharing your really thoughtful wisdom on the transition, because it is a transition. I don't think a lot of attention is often placed on the post-May 1st pre-matriculation moment, and so thank you for doing that.
Next week, we will be back for part two of the season finale. We'll welcome sociologist Janice McCabe, whose book, Making, Keeping, and Losing Friends, will give us an opportunity to have a conversation about something really fundamental about starting college. You have a whole new peer group, and friendship is one of the big topics every incoming student ponders, wrestles with, and ultimately finds their way forward through. So that's next week.
For now, this is Lee Coffin from Dartmouth College. Thanks for listening.