Lee Coffin invites Sherri Geller, co-director of college counseling at Gann Academy in Waltham, and the author of a popular blog, to share her poignant, humorous posts about the pleasures and pitfalls of giving empathetic, realistic advice to students and parents. They are joined by Ronnie McKnight, the associate director of college counseling at Paideia School in Atlanta, for a candid conversation that brings levity as well as enlightenment to families navigating the emotionally charged world of college admission.
Lee Coffin invites Sherri Geller, co-director of college counseling at Gann Academy in Waltham, and the author of a popular blog, to share her poignant, humorous posts about the pleasures and pitfalls of giving empathetic, realistic advice to students and parents. They are joined by Ronnie McKnight, the associate director of college counseling at Paideia School in Atlanta, for a candid conversation that brings levity as well as enlightenment to families navigating the emotionally charged world of college admission.
Lee Coffin:
Hello, everyone. Welcome back to the Admissions Beat. So the literal Admission Beat usually focuses on the college side of the admission process; application volume and selectivity, preferences, trends. But in doing so, the media narrative often misses a more personal behind the scenes story. A story that plays out with cheers and tears in high schools around the world. In this episode, we spotlight 'Today in College Counseling Land," and we'll talk to two colleagues who work on the other side of the desk from me, that have firsthand insights into the ups and downs of the admission cycle from the parent and the student perspectives.
But first let's go to the Admission Beat newsroom with Charlotte Albright.
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Hi Charlotte.
Charlotte Albright:
Hi there.
Lee Coffin:
What headlines sparked your curiosity this week?
Charlotte Albright:
Because I knew we were having two college counselors on, I have been hearing by the grapevine that there's a huge shortage of college counselors (there's a huge shortage of any kind of counselor) in high school right now. The college counselors, those who just really concentrate on that task, are really in short supply. There's a story in Chalkbeat, which is a nonprofit online news source about higher education. This story happens to be looking at Chicago, and it ran this summer. And the headline is" "One counselor, 665 students: Counselors stretched at Chicago's Majority Latino schools." And it says, the district is going to try to plan to spend $5 million on 64 additional counselors by 2023. So they're trying to address this. Stories like this go way back to 2018 when there was a survey showing this shortage. You went to a high school that had a shortage of college counselors. So how big is this problem?
Lee Coffin:
It's huge. This is a structural issue where high schools, particularly larger, not just urban, but even suburban schools like the one I attended have a ridiculously big ratio between student and counselor. And you mentioned my... it was a long time ago. My counselor probably had a 500:1 ratio. And when I went to see him in the fall of my senior year, he looked at my transcript. He scoffed, he said, "I don't have time for the smart ones. Go back to class. You'll figure it out." And that was it. That was the sum total of college counseling for Lee as a first-gen college-bound student. And I did figure it out, but it wasn't because the infrastructure in my school helped me do it. And now there's lots of new infrastructure all these years later, but the fact remains in lots of public high schools, this resource is under-utilized or not there.
And I think there's some urgency around it if we're trying to build a larger college-going cohort. If the pipeline is something we all want to focus on, then having people in schools who are not just available but informed about how this work unfolds. You're going to hear a conversation today with two counselors in independent schools who are college admission officers, and they bring a rich background to their work with students from lots of different backgrounds, but in really small places. And I think there's an urgency that this story is highlighting around how do we address this issue, which I think is often underreported and not visible to somehow many people.
And I think when you go across not just the income spectrum, but when you're dealing with families for whom college was not something in their history, this resource becomes even more acutely important. And so great that this story is calling attention to it, challenging because the resources in a lot of these districts are just not there. And so I think there's an opportunity to rethink well, is there a partnership colleges might make, or the independent schools might make with their local overworked public schools. I don't know, but you've put your finger on something really important.
Charlotte Albright:
Well, and I also am pretty sure that the two college counselors that you are about to talk to are going to be so engaging and they're going to make the work look like something you'd want to do. So I hope that's effective even today.
Lee Coffin:
Well, it's the benefit of having somebody who's been a college admission officer in the room with you to say, "Okay, I'm going to of walk you through this step by step and give you the guidance glean from years of doing the work I do." And I think in some school districts, there might be some certification issues where someone coming out of a college admission office may not have the certification to be a guidance counselor. There's a difference between a guidance counselor and a college counselor. And I think adding a role or two to public high schools, like the one I attended, would've been awesome to be able to go to someone who had a particular expertise in that part of the work, didn't serve every member of the class. But for those of us who were thinking, yeah, I have another academic step beyond this, that's the resource.
When we come back, we'll meet two college counselors who are former admission officers. And the three of us have a really lively conversation about their day to day observations, interactions, the ups and downs, the tissues and the cheers that go along with working where they do. So we'll be right back.
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Lee Coffin:
So welcome to this week's roundtable, where I'm joined by two colleagues and friends from the college counseling side of our work to talk about what they see and hear and navigate and referee as college counselors. This episode is called Today in College Counseling Land." And it's inspired by the frequent posts of Sherri Geller, the co-director of college counseling at Gann Academy in Waltham, Massachusetts. She posts on Facebook regularly with witty little sides about what she's seeing and hearing. And I thought these are hilarious and really poignant. And I wanted to invite Sherri on to talk about these insights. So Sherri Geller, hello.
Sherri Geller:
Hi, thanks for having me.
Lee Coffin:
You're the muse of this episode, so I could not be doing this one without you. And as straight man to that muse, Ronnie McKnight, the associate director of college counseling at Paideia School in Atlanta joins us. Hello, Ronnie.
Ronnie McKnight:
Hi guys.
Lee Coffin:
So I'm pairing Boston and Atlanta. Happily, they didn't meet in the World Series. Sherri is a bit of a baseball nut, so that would've added a whole Red Sox, Braves thing that we avoided. So what's interesting about both of you, like so many college counselors, you were both college admission officers. Sherri worked at Brandeis for 11 years and then went to Dana Hall as a college counselor now at Gann, which is a Jewish day school in the Boston area. So you've got that double perspective. And Ronnie and I met many years ago when he was an admission officer at Presbyterian College in the nineties, and then an admission officer at Emory where he worked through 2012 before becoming a college counselor. It's like you go through a conversion process. You go from college admissions to college counseling. And tell me about that. What's it like to take your experience as an admission officer and plug into a school setting and work so directly with kids and parents?
Sherri Geller:
I'll jump in. I actually also, Lee, worked at Northeastern for a brief time so I had that opportunity to see a much larger school too, and bring that perspective. But I've now been working with high school students for about 15 years. And I continue to see how much kids really struggle with the application process and how much they stress about it in ways that I never quite understood on the college side. The things that we ask students to do in the application process, we say, "Oh, just have an interview." Well, many of them have never had an interview before, and so that's an anxiety-provoking process.
I happen to think it's a very useful adult skill, a life skill, and there's so much good in it. But I think sometimes on the admission side, we just make assumptions about what kids can handle and what they understand that is actually quite overwhelming to them. By contrast, I think there are times when we don't give kids enough credit also with things that we say, "Oh, well, we don't want to have them write an extra supplement because that's a lot of work," when really some of them look forward to have the chance to use their voice in different ways in the application process.
Lee Coffin:
Ronnie, what did you see when you switched from Emory?
Ronnie McKnight:
So the biggest thing that I remember thinking when I switched over, one, it's such an easy transition and it's delightful to do all those sorts of things that you love most about your job when you're on the college side and that you're working with families and you're working with students and you're guiding them through the process. But the thing that I noticed when I worked on the high school side is that… I I'm a single man, I don't have kids…and so I had worked with juniors and seniors because that's who I worked with when I worked at Emory and Presbyterian, but I had not dealt with freshmen and sophomores though I sat in judgment of those grades from the 9th and 10th grade all those years when I worked on the college side.
And when I started working on the high school side, it struck me at how young freshmen are. They are oversized children and act that way. And being really embarrassed for all of those years of looking at transcripts and even when kids do well as a freshman, that's wonderful, but when kids blossom in their sophomore and junior year, I understand that a lot better now that I work on the high school side. It was not apparent to me for all of those years that I worked on the college side.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. I worked at Milton for a couple of years in admissions, not in college counseling, but I had that same epiphany of oh, these are kids and when they present themselves as applicants, they're young adults by that point. But the journey from nine to 12 has a lot of bumps. And I think you see those bumps up close and personal from your respective desks. I mean, the thing that I'm always struck by when I see Sherri's posts is it's a reminder of the anxiety that bubbles, not even below the surface, above the surface of the admission process and the doubt that people have, the parental worry that envelopes itself around this work that I see, but I don't feel it I think as directly as you do.
Sherri Geller:
I've also found that there are some things I really miss about admissions and other times that I find myself really critical of admissions. How I worked in admissions, not so much was electronic as it is now and web-based and social media and whatever. We used to send admissions decisions by mail, and so a student would get home from school and check the mail and find out what the decision was. And now there are schools that have countdown clocks that we're going to release your decision in 14 hours, 13 hours, 12 hours. Well, they can't pay attention all day that day because they're watching that countdown clock. Or schools that release decisions suddenly at 1:00 in the afternoon, students get an email saying, your decision's ready. Well, they're in the middle of math class and so now they're checking their decision. And next thing you know they're walking out of math to come to my office to go call their mother or whatever they're going to do. And the whole class is disrupted by that happening.
And I've mentioned this on occasion to colleagues. It has gotten better. More schools are releasing it night now even have different ways of doing it. But somebody in one admissions office said to me, "Well, why are they checking your email in the middle of math class?" I said, "Have you ever met a teenager? Or they're on their phones constantly. Or, well, we have to release them all at the same time or it's not fair to the kids in Hawaii." I said, "Well, but we do everything else in time zones, how is this something that in order to get everybody in a certain day, my students are hearing in the middle of math class." And it actually really frustrates me between these countdown clocks and how we release decisions that there is such buildup. But the buildup is great for the kids who get in, although anxiety provoking along the way.
But the kids that don't, there's been all this buildup and they're waiting for the confetti you described and the electronic woo! And then all of a sudden, the answer is no, and they just crash. They've been so anxious and they have that let down, they're on the verge of tears, whether they get in or don't get in. And it really becomes that the decision it's... you mentioned that I'm a sports fan, like that LeBron James, the decision that we have to watch it on TV. They become so much hung up in the decision that it takes on a life of its own in a way that I don't think is healthy.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. I totally agree with you. And in your intro, I forgot to mention you're now the past president of the New England Association of College Admission Counselors. So about five years ago, you were our leader in New England. And I think in that role and in our broader national organization, I keep wondering when will we all hold hands and say, you can stop this. This is something we control. It's not just an accident that it's happening. I mean, social media, I think it's an octopus with lots of tentacles. So there's some things we can't control, but this we can, when the decision is released and how we also reference it. I think you're right. The confetti... especially if you're in a very selective place where they're more nos than yeses and being mindful of that and the impact it has in high school and a family.
Ronnie McKnight:
When students listen to me, one of my favorite things that they do, if they can find a really wonderful, relatively safe college that has early action and they get their first decision and we're confident that it's going to be, hopefully fingers crossed, a yes. Once they get that yes from one school, it's a huge burden off of their shoulders. And some of the anxiety that Sherri just mentioned does dissipate a bit. It doesn't eliminate the anxiety at those places where they're dying to get in. But from the general anxiety of, am I going to go to college, to get that yes hopefully relatively early in the process is life-changing. And not all schools have early action, but for the schools that do, if you can find a relatively safe, wonderful place that you would be happy that does give you that yes, it's just lovely.
Lee Coffin:
All right. So let's talk about Sherri's prolific posts on Facebook. Speaking of social media, I will own up, I am a friend of Sherri and Ronnie on Facebook. Your post today in college counseling land, that would happen every day or even every week, there's a pattern to them that I watched and it started in the summer, it built as we moved into the fall. And they were always commentary that made me smile, and sometimes on occasion, I would spit up my coffee. I've broken your post into four categories and I just wanted to talk about these four thematic areas that seem to be on your mind as you navigate the world of college counseling. And I welcome Ronnie to chime in on any of these as they come up.
But the first theme is parents. Parents seem to be a source of great entertainment for those of you who work in college counseling, where you're developing relationships with a mom and dad, both who are advocates for their child and they want what's best, and they've got aspirations. And over the last few years as the parent group has become my peer group versus 20 years ago when I was a younger dean and they were usually closer to my parents' age, but lately I'm like, "Oh, you are now my friends and relatives and siblings and coworkers, and you're out of control." And I can say that to them now, peer to peer and they go, "Oh yeah, maybe we are." I'm like, "No, you definitely are." And I wouldn't have said that before when I was younger, but now that I'm actually older than some of the parents, I'm starting to pull that Yoda moment where I'm like, "Okay, let's pause."
So parents are a topic. So you had a post where you said parent questionnaire. So I'm guessing you asked parents to fill out a questionnaire describing their child and their aspirations.
Sherri Geller:
Exactly.
Lee Coffin:
And the question says, "What do you most want a college admission counselor to know about your child?" And the answer was, "Although my daughter has shown progress with academics and confidence through high school, she sets low expectations for herself and does not push herself to do more." And your comment then was, "I think you misread the question." So that was just a really funny one where I thought that was charming.
You also had one where you, again, parent of a junior: "I tried to teach my son the basics of computer science. It did not go well. I think he would say I was annoying and I was annoyed." So as you're managing parents, that's this hidden part of the job, isn't it? You've got the student and there you're charge, you are the counselor, but the parent is very much part of the work you're doing.
Sherri Geller:
Yeah. And they play such an important part and it's nice to be at a school that's a very community-oriented place where I can develop really nice relationships with the parents. But I feel also age-wise, a little bit of what you said that I used to really... when I started working in high schools, working with parents was one of my greatest anxieties. What are they going to say? What are they going to know? I'm glad that they trust me, but what if I say the wrong thing? And I really carried a lot of fear at sometimes.
And then as I've also become more their age and also just having more experience working with them, I really place much more value despite the fact that I sometimes have these funny posts, just a reminder over and over again, how much every parent just wants to do right by their kid and have their kid be successful. And one of the questions on that questionnaire to students is what do your parents expect of you? And, oh my goodness, probably three-quarters of the students at some point in that answer say something like my parents just want me to be happy. And we could go on and on about what that means, but that's really where the parents are coming from in saying these things; please just help me and help my kid get into their favorite school because we just want them to be happy.
Lee Coffin:
And do you think being happy in this admission construct with the Admission Beat that swirls around us, championing prestige outcomes a lot, the spotlight tends to fall on places like where I work. And the storytelling there to me is always, that is success. Success means you grab a seat in one of those classes and is that what happiness means?
Sherri Geller:
For some students and families, yes. When we talk about fit, I like to talk about things that don't involve prestigious selectivity and let's find the right type of place. Is it a place that's in New Hampshire or in the woods, or is it in the downtown of a major city and there's such a big difference. But for some families, part of finding fit is finding a place that has a certain level of prestige that also may have those other things. And Ronnie, I'm guessing in your community, that's similar?
Ronnie McKnight:
It is. And Sherri's message is the right message. To reassure your child that there's just so many wonder places in the world and that we just want you to find a good place that's a good fit where you're happy. The other extreme, there are other families that put a lot of pressure on students and that's unfortunate. There's an in between that I want make parents aware of in that some parents confuse encouragement with a specific institution. "I really think, Sherri, you're awesome. You really belong at Dartmouth. You're amazing, you belong at Dartmouth." I think the parents see that as encouraging Sherri to do her best and that she belongs someplace delightful and wonderful like Dartmouth. But for the student, all they hear is, crap, my dad thinks Dartmouth is the standard, and if I don't reach that standard, then I failed.
And so that general message of just finding a place that's happy it's a much safer message than encouraging students to... everyone should push themselves, but to name the places where the parent thinks you belong in that certain one place just creates infinite amount of pressure for the kids.
Lee Coffin:
Well, and it gets to a post Sherri made last week that said; "Yesterday afternoon in college counseling land, me on the phone with a parent of a student who has had some 'ups and downs': I'm really happy with the group of schools she's applied to. She did her research really well." Parent: "My fear is that she'll get into all of them and realize that she didn't aim high enough." Me: "I don't think that's a fear you'll have to deal with." That one got 67 likes and I have to say that was one that I, I mean, that's when I said, "Oh my God, I have to have Sherri Geller on this podcast." How do you navigate the nuance of that?
Sherri Geller:
That happened to be a parent that I could say something like that. Sometimes those posts are really what I say in my head and wish I could have said out loud. This is a family that I've had a lot of conversations with about those ups and downs and about what their students list looks and about what success in the application process might look like. And I did think that that comment was unreasonable.
Lee Coffin:
One of your friends posted, "I'm going through the process with my son right now and I see a little bit of myself in all of your oblivious parents. It's humbling." But do you find it hard for parents to see the admissions landscape with any objectivity? I mean, do they just get caught in the admission circa 1990 when they were in high school?
Sherri Geller:
Both. Some see it very well, some only see what they knew in 1990. And some colleges haven't changed that much and some have changed so tremendously in terms of not only admission criteria but what kind of institution they are, what their school's mission is, how large the school is, what their campus looks like. Things that the parents might have some image that just is completely outdated.
I'm in a community where virtually all of our parents have gone to college; often their parents have gone to college. So I also have a little bit of a skewed view and a very well-educated population. Our parents also will call me with, did you see the article in the, fill in the blank, often The New York Times, but whatever publication. And so they're very well-read and they think they're very aware. But where sometimes that awareness of what's going on in the world, there's always that sense of, oh, but you didn't mean me. That's going to happen. Oh, that school's going to reject 92% of the students, but not my student. My student's going to be one of those 8% who get in. So there's some of that.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. Let me pull that string a little more though, because you just put your finger on the name of this podcast, which is the Admissions Beat. And so parents are reading stories in the New York Times, you say, the Washington Post, all of them. What happens in your inbox when those stories get posted?
Sherri Geller:
For me, it depends on the story. Sometimes nothing, but sometimes I get questions about, "I just heard, or did you see?" Sometimes a parent will just send me an article and say, "Did you happen to see this?" Sometimes that's really helpful; other times I laugh because I feel like my admissions community of friends has been fussing about this for three days. And of course, I saw the article. But that really varies.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah.
Sherri Geller:
It also varies what kind of publication and how prominent the story is. When nationwide stories break, I hear about them. Sometimes there's something that's a little bit more local that I might hear, or I might not.
Lee Coffin:
Okay. So continuing the prestige thing to the student side of this, so you had a post in September from you and a student. "Kid: MS. GELLER, I AM SO STRESSED. Me: Why? Kid: Everyone is telling me that I won't get into super highly-selective Ivy League institution. (Awkward silence)."
Sherri Geller:
I hope I filled that silence more quickly than I might have on Facebook, but that's a very real conversation that the students come, and of course all they want is reassurance, but they also want me to say, of course, you're going to get in. Why would they say that to you? But as a counselor, I can't say that. I can't say that to our strongest students because of what the acceptance rate and application process looks like. And I certainly can't say it to a student that I feel looking at their stats and what I know of a college that it's pretty unlikely they're going to get in.
So as counselors, we do this dance of wanting to be their cheerleaders and their supporters and their advocates and we're all of those things, but also having to be the realist. And I tell students and families sometimes that that's really our job. I came up with this way of thinking about it, that it's the parent role to be the optimist and the student role to be the idealist, but it's really our role then to be the realist. And that's a hard position to be in.
Lee Coffin:
I love that trio.
Sherri Geller:
Thank you. You're welcome to use it.
Lee Coffin:
I just wrote it down. And then I guess the admission officer is the pragmatist.
Sherri Geller:
Sure.
Lee Coffin:
Because we have to manage scarcity and make it all work. But you have this temptation and Ronnie, I would think it's hard when you're sitting there in your office and a student comes in and they're like... I'll use Dartmouth. I'm applying to Dartmouth. And you know from your wisdom of many years that this application is not going to be successful in that competitive construct. Do you let it go forward? Do you try and redirect? I mean, this is for seniors who might be listening or juniors who are just starting to roll along and they're excited about everything is possible and the seniors are in this really, okay, I got to make some choices now. But how do you redirect or do you just let it go and try and make sure you have backup plans?
Ronnie McKnight:
So I'm rarely optimistic. I agree with Sherri, it's my job to worry about kids and to make sure that they have options and to make sure that they have a safety net. Well, across the spectrum, whether they're looking at highly selective places or just an average student, anytime they're looking at reach schools, I work on the premise that if it's a reach school for a student, then work on the assumption that this could be a no. And they may be wonderful and they may be completely appropriate for the school and so it could easily be a yes. But work on the assumption that it will be a no, or that it could be a no. And then to have a really nice balanced list where you have places that are reasonable and places that are relatively safe, so that you always have a safety net and that there's something exciting about that institution that you do get into that you're going to love and be happy and be excited about.
And so for every student, I work on that assumption and I try not to be a gatekeeper. There are times when I think there's no way the student is going to be admitted to X, Y, Z school, but I try not to be the person that tells them not to apply. I want them to be realistic about their chances and what may have happened at that institution with our applicants in the past, or to be aware of the selectivity. And so I want them to be educated, but I want that to ultimately be their choice because I don't want them to be 50 years old and say, "If only Ronnie McKnight had allowed me to apply, I would've gotten in." If they want to reach for the stars and gun for something unrealistic as long as their list isn't 20 schools or something crazy, then I don't have a problem with that as long as it's a reasonable amount of work for them.
Lee Coffin:
All right. Let me switch to Sherri's musings to, the student part of your docket. So you wrote, this is from Halloween "Today in college counseling land, I'm working on a recommendation, not due tomorrow. Questionnaire: What do you want a college to know about you? Student; I hope I won't come across as bland."
Sherri Geller:
Yeah. That one was so funny and a little sad.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. Tell me about that worry. Because I've heard students say, "I don't want to brag about myself," but what's gnawing at this poor kiddo about seeming bland.
Sherri Geller:
Kids hear over and over and over again the messages of, you have to distinguish yourself and you have to be your own person and you need to stand out. And I think some kids have just such great stories and they're really wonderful humans. And yet they're so afraid that I'm not special and I don't stand out. And why is a college going to pick me over someone who they perceive to be more special or too stick out? And that's the part that's both funny, but sad is getting caught up in teenage angst about how others will view them. Although I can't remember the student, which might be a good thing, but although I don't remember whose recommendation I was working on, chances are it was a student who's anything but bland, that probably filled every line in the activities section of their application and wrote a great essay and really has lots of friends and does well in school and all sorts of things. But yet their perception is, oh, but somebody else might be more interesting and a college might like that more.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. That's my worry as an admission officer, as a dean when the press releases go out. On the college side, we speak in superlatives; best ever, most ever, lowest ever, all these superstars. And if you're a high-achieving good kid, can you look in the mirror and understand that are you describing me? I mean, I try and introduce my class with an emphasis on some of the more qualitative things they do. Here are the people, not just the accomplishments that bring together a community on my campus that they've all done well in high school. That's a common denominator. But you're just good, interesting people too. I mean, that's a hard narrative to hold, I think, in this space because it sounds so hallmark.
Sherri Geller:
They also read, and obviously what students do in college that lead to their eventual careers, some of that may have started in high school or it might be that they discovered something new in college, but they may hear that the CEO of wherever, or the first person to go into space or they hear things that are also such superlatives about things people have accomplished. And then a college is saying, "Oh yes, we're so proud. That's one of our alumni." The kids look and say, "Well, how could that ever be me?" And maybe that person who's now a superstar was always superstar or maybe not, but the kids when they're only 17 don't have the ability to filter.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. Well, that makes me think of at the last election I saw a post from Ronnie that Senator John Ossoff is the first US Senator to be produced from the Paideia School. And I said, "Yeah, that's great." So it makes sense that Paideia would cheer the election of a US Senator from its young alumni group. Nevertheless, anyway, I get that. It's this tension between promotion and the reality. The viewbook versus the yearbook. I always lament utopia college hasn't been founded yet. So we all tell you really rosy stories about ourselves, but you got to live here, you got to do your laundry, it's going to rain.
Coupled with the blend, I chuckled at a couple of insights you shared about students where I wrote; kids say the darndest things. One of them said in response to your survey, the question was, please describe yourself as a student. And the student said, "decently smart and hardworking." I thought that's a very grounded kid. And the other one said, the question was, what do you do in your free time? And a senior wrote, "I like to rest."
Sherri Geller:
I love that.
Lee Coffin:
And those are the kind of things, I don't see that part. "I like to rest." I just love the honesty and the earnestness of that. This one I love, too. "Where do you see yourself in five years. Student; I see eating myself eating a flaky pastry in a small cafe somewhere where you can smell the sea salt."
Sherri Geller:
I loved that one.
Lee Coffin:
I love that too. It's such personality just from that little quip, not even a quip, it's just that little insight into what that student sees as a future moment. It was lovely.
Sherri Geller:
And so different from so many students who answer a question like that by saying, oh, in five years I'll be a senior in college. Or I hope to be applying to law school or maybe I'll have my first job or whatever they're thinking about five years out. Her answers said so much about who she is as a thinker and who she is in terms of just the kind of language and image and you just get so much insight.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. Well, personality comes through and I would say to a student writing an essay, bring that same voice forward because that lovely aspiration, it's such a human thing and evocative in some ways. I don't know. I really liked that one. I also loved this one. I think this was just yesterday. "Student wrote, my interest range from pottery to history, math, and I have never been friends. However, we can remain civil."
Sherri Geller:
Yes. But my favorite college counseling land post ever is that I was sitting with a family and the student had gone over spring break to quite a few colleges. And I just didn't have time to hear about every single one where we had this brief meeting with the parents. So I said, "Is there any theme you could share with me in the interest of time and then we can come back to individual schools another day?" And the students said, "I really liked the ones that had a buffet."
I loved the one, "what do you do in your free time? I like to rest." Not only was it honest, it's just so necessary. It was so practical instead of, oh... And if they were in an interview though, they wouldn't tell you they'd like to rest. If you said to the same student, what do you do in your free time? I'm sure you'd hear about reading and hiking and biking and starting a club and anything else that they think an admissions person would want to hear. But the reality is that I was actually really glad the student said that he likes to rest because that's an important thing to do. Another thing that gave me some insight into how that student thinks.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. And so the last theme that emerges from your posting is the task of writing letters of recommendation. And a recurring theme over and over, and it's not just Sherri Geller, everyone I know who is a college counselor goes through this March from late summer to usually November 1st. What's the magic of November 1? If I think if I had to circle a date on a college counselor's calendar, that would be your help point. Why is November 1st so hard?
Sherri Geller:
Well, just the school I'm at a very, very high percentage of our students apply somewhere early decision or early action and so many colleges due dates are November 1st. And even some students that might have a November 15th or a later deadline, they're so swept up with their friends and wanting to apply by November 1st, and then they want me to also send in the pieces I'm responsible for, even if it's earlier than it needs to be.
Sherri Geller:
But at a lot of the private schools in my part of the world and Ronnie's may be different, but we are seeing at least two-thirds, some schools, three-quarters or 80, 85% of students doing something by November 1st. So we have this crunch time. There are many counselors that write recommendations over the summer. Some of us do more of our writing in the fall. Some even do them the spring before. But I feel that I write better recommendations when I'm into the fall and I have spent more time with the students. Plus for me, pressure tends to be a good thing and I think I just write better when I got that deadline coming as much as I'm exhausted in making myself and probably my friends crazy.
Lee Coffin:
On October 1st you wrote, I woke up today, saw that it was October, and felt my blood pressure go up.
Sherri Geller:
Yeah.
Lee Coffin:
But then you wrote November 2nd, in pajamas, under a blanket on the couch, computer in its bag. 5:55 PM, November 2nd; looks we made it. And of all of your posts, that one got the most likes.
Sherri Geller:
Probably from all my college counseling friends across the country.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. So clearly it's a lot of work, but recommendation writing is important. I mean, it's one of those elements of a file that you produce. It goes into the secondary school report along with a transcript and a profile. So your letter, your description of student, place, purpose, trends, that's a key element of the file and you both take this really seriously. I mean, it's a lot of work, but I know your letters are really thoughtful.
Sherri Geller:
Thank you. I'm in awe of people who can just spit them out. And some people really have a gift for knowing the student and just being able to say what they want. Part of these posts is that I am reading through so much information. I read over teacher comments that they share with our students. I have information of these questionnaires from kids and parents. I talk to the kids quite a bit. I talk to their advisors and then I try to distill almost a research project in a data collection. I try to distill that all into what's hopefully a one-page letter. Sometimes I go a little over, but I spend so much time per student that I do hope they matter. And even if they don't, I feel that that's what I can do for my kids is that piece of advocacy in this process.
I can help them one-on-one, but what they're most anxious about is what are the colleges going to know about me and what are they going to think about me? And so I see it as my job to help with that part that you have the student's own words, perhaps you've gotten to meet them, you certainly get to know them a little bit through their essays and applications, through their teacher recommendations with people who see them every day. Then I just try to take that four-year picture and share it with you and your colleagues as much as I can.
Lee Coffin:
And what do you do when you get a student who responds to the questionnaire... So the question was, what are five words or phrases you would use to describe yourself? And the student wrote; unhealthy, intelligent, socially introverted, awkward, socially complex. How do you write that letter?
Ronnie McKnight:
Reach out to teachers to see what else we can learn about them.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. Or do you say all those things? I mean, isn't that an authentic way of representing? If a student's saying, here's me, do you just introduce the person and say, "Here's this quirky, awkward, introverted fellow"?
Sherri Geller:
I wish that I could, but I feel like I can't.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, you can't.
Sherri Geller:
I always have this lens of our letter are confidential, but if a student were to see this letter, or if a parent were to see this letter, would they be calling me out saying, because you wrote this, my kid didn't get in. And I know that that would never happen and that would never be the case. But whenever I have to write about a more challenging situation or a student that may have some awkwardness or whatever, I just have to think through it that way of how am I portraying the student in their best light, but also in an honest light so I can sleep at night knowing that my letter has integrity and that I'm not helping a student get admitted, and then they get to a college and you meet the student. You say, "Wait, this isn't the person you introduced us to." So it's that fine line.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. No, the integrity of the process, the authenticity, that's really important. So let's end on that note. So today in college counseling land, a wild wacky, always fun moment as your office fills with people. Ronnie and Sherri are going to join me in the inbox section with Charlotte. So we will be right back.
Charlotte Albright:
So Lee, because you have all been living in cyberspace with Sherri's Facebook posts, I thought it would be interesting to comb through social media threads that parents seem to be, as you say, pulling at. And one of them is about the current high school class of 2025 freshman in high school right now.
Lee Coffin:
College class of '29.
Charlotte Albright:
College class of '29. And the parents are asking, "So when should you start thinking about planning for college? I mean, is there such a thing as thinking too early about it?"
Lee Coffin:
Ronnie, too early?
Ronnie McKnight:
We always remind kids early on that the most important thing to do is just to pay attention to high school and to do well in high school. So if you're the parent of a freshman or sophomore, the most important thing is just for them to be aware and be engaged and be tied in with their high school education. If the students are excited about the process though, then sure. If freshman and sophomores want to start exploring colleges, there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. I think a lot of families explore places organically at first. They're traveling somewhere, parents have a work trip somewhere and they bring the child along and they start visiting schools, whether it's just looking around or something official. And then by the time the summer between sophomore and junior year and definitely by that junior year, that's when things began to get more official and they take campus tours and do information sessions.
Lee Coffin:
But for now, just be a high school student.
Ronnie McKnight:
So much of admission process is based upon your success in high school. So paying attention to high school, doing your very best and challenging yourself, that's always going to be the most important thing beyond anything else.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. My wisdom on that is I've in this mindfulness space trying to be like, let me live today and not keep thinking about what am I doing four years from now, or two years from now, or next month? Just, what am I doing today and this week? And I think high school goes quickly and that journey from nine to 12 has a lot of really interesting moments and just enjoy it. Be a kid. Don't always think about, how's this going to look on the common application four years from now.
Lee Coffin:
Sherri, I have a question for you just to jump in. It's one that I didn't mention in the round table. So from today in college counseling, you had an exchange about teacher recs and you said, "Would Mrs. XYZ be a good person to write a recommendation for you?" And the student said, "I think so. In her class, when I have side conversations, I'm not disruptive to anyone else." It's really funny. But my question is, who should write a teacher rec? If you're a senior and you're in the last steps of filling out your application right now, and particularly given the juniors teachers were often in the Zoom classroom last year or hybrid classroom, what's the advice about teacher recs and who?
Sherri Geller:
We happen to have been in person so our take on that wasn't so different, but I also think that for current seniors, the advice in some schools might be a little bit different. But in general, my advice is to think about junior teachers that have had the student for the whole year. So really have gotten to know them well. If places where the teacher has really seen a student be success, and what I have to remind the student is that doesn't mean getting an A, it might mean that there's been significant growth, it might mean that there's been really significant interest in participation and engagement in the class, regardless of the grade, but that the teacher really gets to know the student and therefore can talk about the student in authentic ways.
Many colleges that many of our students apply to require two teacher recommendations, and there's this myth that it has to be someone from math and science and then someone else from the humanities. And there are a few colleges that require that, although very few. More often, I just tell students to think about who knows them in different ways, where they're using different parts of their brain. And maybe one teacher can talk about participation and engagement, but another teacher can talk really about collaboration or about strength in writing or growth from something that was really difficult and going for extra help and learning new things. So sometimes our students will not have the right junior year teacher and wait until the fall of senior year, but with early deadlines, if that's the case, I tell them that they then have to take extra steps to really get to know that teacher and make sure that teacher knows them.
Lee Coffin:
Charlotte, what else?
Charlotte Albright:
Here's the question. How can a college counselor effectively promote a rigorous curriculum when the school doesn't offer AP classes in all areas?
Ronnie McKnight:
I think a lot of families don't know the sorts of information that high schools provide and every high school in the United States and abroad for that matter, when they send a transcript, they also send some information about the high school, which explains what was available and what the most demanding courses happen to be. So if you're at a school that doesn't have advanced placement, or if you don't have IB, or if you don't have some standardized curriculum, we still relay that information to colleges so that they can be informed. And what's always reassuring for me is that even big places that have really massive relatively quick admission processes, they still seem to have the ability to take that into consideration. Like Sherri, I'm at a school that doesn't offer extensive APs, but we do have advanced classes that are as difficult as APs. And so we relay that information to colleges and colleges take that into consideration.
The other thing, when we write letters of recommendation, talking about where the student fits in the context of the high school and their curriculum is also one of the things that we do in our letters. And so both in what we send and what we write, we try to make sure that's very clear to a college as they navigate the review process.
Lee Coffin:
I think there's a worry among parents that schools like Gann and Paideia that don't have a lot of honors AP labels on courses that somehow there's a disadvantage there. And when I get that question, I say, there's no disadvantage. To Ronnie's point, every high school offers its own curriculum and we see what's available. How is it taught? When can a student who's advanced get into a more rigorous curriculum that sets up success in our curriculum. But if APs are not there, they're not there. If honors courses are not there, they're not there. And we move school to school and evaluated accordingly.
Lee Coffin:
So I want to close. I have one last question. This episode airs on December 10th so early action, early decision outcomes will be in the wind, if not right before, certainly this week. So in a really timely question from me to the two of you, what advice would you give our senior friends out there if the decision comes back a defer or a no, how to proceed?
Ronnie McKnight:
Whenever a student gets a no and Sherri, you and I think just alike and so I suspect you're this way as well. As hard as that can be, sometimes it's just better to know that the process at that school has ended so that mentally the student can move on to other options. There's still plenty of time to make regular student applications, and that's your task for the next two or three weeks before the January deadlines begin to hit. And so for schools that do send... some schools defer a good bit and some schools are pretty decisive and say yes or no. And for the schools that say, no, it's not a terrible thing, just because it's better to know, and to go ahead and to move on sometimes.
Sherri Geller:
I remind students that it's okay to grieve a little bit. Some of them have been holding onto a wish or a dream or an idea, and it's okay to be sad and wish things were different. But I also know that in the end, even if they can't quite see it yet, that they're going to end up in a home that is going to be really good.
Ronnie McKnight:
Lee, can I add one more thing? For the kids that are about to get yeses, one of the things that we had to remind students in the act of celebrating is to be very sensitive about what's going on with all of your peers. And though you may have gotten a yes, a lot of your friends didn't get a yes just now. And so to celebrate appropriately with your closest friends and with your family, but maybe to keep the celebration a little subdued, just out of respect for the kids that were really optimistic about getting positive decisions that didn't. And so even for the kids that get yeses, celebrate and celebrate with mom and dad and siblings, and with your best buddies, but maybe not make it as public as you might want, just out of respect for the other kids in your class.
Sherri Geller:
I would say that for parents as well that that's a good tip. Sometimes parents put things on social media that they're so excited. But their parent peer group may have many people in it that are dealing with disappointment and sadness or confusion, and it's really hard to see so many people so excited when you're just not. So I agree, having some celebration is very appropriate and it's a really big moment and a wonderful time of year for some kids. But recognizing that it also is a really challenging time for others.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. Well, on that poignant note, I think the sun sets on today in college counseling land. This was fun, I knew it would be. Thanks, Ronnie and Sherri for joining me. Thanks, Sherri for framing these observations in such a delightful way that it attracted my curiosity to say, "Hey, let's talk about this in the podcast." To all of you, if you have questions for a future episode, send them to admissionsbeat@dartmouth.edu and we will work them into a future episode. For now, this is Lee Coffin and Charlotte Albright signing off from Dartmouth College. See you soon.