In Part 2 of AB’s “advising all-stars” roundtable discussion from the annual meeting of the National Association for College Admission Counseling in Los Angeles, host Lee Coffin and recurring co-host Jacques Steinberg ponder the role (if any) of a student’s social media presence in the college admissions process. They also lead a lively discussion about “being in the essay space” as applications take shape. One guest advises “What’s your deal?” as the organizing concept of every application. Finally, the group considers the notion of honoring the ambitions of high achievers with a dose of admissions pragmatism.
In Part 2 of AB’s “advising all-stars” roundtable discussion from the annual meeting of the National Association for College Admission Counseling in Los Angeles, host Lee Coffin and recurring co-host Jacques Steinberg ponder the role (if any) of a student’s social media presence in the college admissions process. They also lead a lively discussion about “being in the essay space” as applications take shape. One guest advises “What’s your deal?” as the organizing concept of every application. Finally, the group considers the notion of honoring the ambitions of high achievers with a dose of admissions pragmatism.
Lee Coffin:
Live from Los Angeles, I'm Lee Coffin, Dartmouth's Vice President for Admissions and Financial Aid, and this is the Admissions Beat.
So listeners, last week you joined us for round one of an all-star cast of potters from the National Association for College Admission Counseling National Conference in LA and we're back for more conversation. I couldn't get them to stop and it's always good to let a conversation roll to its natural conclusion. So this is part two. When we come back, we'll pick up where we left off.
So there was a headline recently, I can't remember on what outlet, that colleges check the social media of students as part of the admission process. And that was news to me, but I want to draw some new voices into this for some of you who haven't had a chance to jump in yet. Do we do that? Is social media in bounds or off limits as part of an application? Do we check?
Emily Roper-Doten:
Emily Roper-Doten, Vice President for Undergraduate Admissions and Financial Assistance at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts, formerly of Olin College of Engineering and Tufts University. If I and my staff had time to check the social media accounts of our applicants, man, that would be a dream, right? It's not something that we do. It's not something that we've done at any of the institutions that I've been in. We might look at something if the student signals it to us, right? So if a student has an Instagram account that's related to something that they're doing, a club organization, maybe they're entrepreneurial and they have something they want to show us. So if they're going to include a link or a handle for us in additional information to highlight and give us a bit more depth about who they are, that one we might check. But as a rule, we're not necessarily just going out there looking to see what's happening. It's just not feasible and sometimes it feels like it's a part of their world I want to be theirs.
And I have a ten-year-old, so as a parent of a ten-year-old, part of the reason why parents are so wound up when they get to the point of applying to college is that we've been trained to be wound up about what our child will or will not get when it comes to things like wait lists for summer camp or the social media of the parents and your community that are putting things out there and thinking my child needs to do that, or how did they get that? Why did I not know about that? And so we are training ourselves. There's also a piece of making sure that that ... trying not to invade the privacy of the students in that way as well.
Lee Coffin:
So you're debunking that headline?
Emily Roper-Doten:
Yes, 100%.
Lee Coffin:
Okay.
Ralph Figueroa:
Yeah, and that's been my experience just from the high school side. Again, Ralph Figueroa at Albuquerque Academy, but I want to put on my lawyer hat for just a second, even though I don't technically practice law anymore. Students, your social media, even if it's not being looked at by the colleges is public and those records are forever. They can always look back at internet archives and see anything that you have posted. Your cell phone is just a radio with two different signals that sends out radio waves to anyone in the world to capture and to take. Keep that in mind every time you use a device, whether it's your phone or your computer, that these things are accessible and can be lasting there for the rest of your life, and think about what you post.
Sherri Geller:
This is Sherri Geller from Gann Academy again, and while my friends and admissions do not have time, as Emily alluded to, to start looking up kids' Facebook pages, there are some colleges that invite students to post if they have a LinkedIn page or an Instagram page or something that they would like the college to see. I don't know that anyone has time to look at them, although I suspect if a college is asking that sometimes they are. So it's having that awareness that maybe you have an Instagram account because you have a little business and you're trying to sell something and that's what you want to show off. But then once in a while your friend sneaks in a picture of you maybe at an underage party doing things you shouldn't do and that if the college is going to look at all, they'll see everything that's on there.
Eileen Cunningham-Feikens:
Oh, sure. Eileen Cunningham-Feikens, just to piggyback on that, I worked in admissions before coming to this side of the desk in college counseling at both NYU and Barnard, go New York, but here's what we would see. Somebody else in the applicant pool who was dissatisfied with a decision that they received might send the dean of admissions a screenshot or something else that does not shine a great light on that person who was admitted. And so to get back at what Ralph said and other people are nodding their heads, it's out there. So the rule in my household was if you don't want your grand-mama to see it, then it shouldn't be up.
Speaker 6:
I do feel like we'd be remissly in having this all-star counseling conversation to not talk about the other pain point that I was thinking about earlier, which is the essay, and whether it's the who are you being asked of students in various ways, what makes you tick? What do you value? What experiences have influenced that? Or why our school ... I feel like there's so much advice at this table, both people who have advised on essay writing and also target audiences. There are people at this table who will read thousands of essays collectively in this admission cycle as they did last year. So can we pivot a little bit to your best advice for students as they think about their essays, whether the essay is about them or whether the essay is about why our school?
Marcia Hunt:
I'm Marcia Hunt from Pine Crest School in Florida. The student should not write in a 45-year-old lawyer's voice.
Speaker 6:
Why not?
Marcia Hunt:
Because the student's not writing it, and I think it's really important. We can pick that up. Those of us who've been doing this for a long time, you can pick it up and there's language that is used that is just not used by students that age. And those of you on the college side, you can pick that up in five minutes. So it's using your own voice and sounding like a seventeen-year-old.
Lee Coffin:
So to those of you in schools, bring us into that space, mid-fall, the deadlines haven't arrived yet, so there's typing happening. What's happening? How are they overthinking this active storytelling? Chris?
Chris Reeves:
Chris Reeves, Crafts Academy, I absolutely love being in the essay space. I feel like it's just the perfect time for a person that age, and we're talking about their traditional transition from high school to college, to just take stock in their life and just reflect on how they got to where they are, who they are as people. I do a whole lot of self-reflection exercises. I was an English teacher before I became a counselor, so I love journaling.
And I think that even building your college list to getting to the essay which helps with the why us work is you're never really asked who you are as a person. You're never required to do that until college essay time comes and then now you're asked. You don't look at your soccer experience. I'm not suggesting that's the best topic, but your soccer experience. And no one sits around thinking, how did soccer change me? How did I grow as a person in this? You don't generally sit around and do that, but in this process you're asked to just ... It's a perfect time to do it because you're about to transition as you move forward.
Lee Coffin:
So for those of you in the school, you're witnessing this moment of anxiety around storytelling. Are they overthinking it? Do they look at the essay short form, long form as something more significant than it is? I mean, it's an important part of a person's file, but are they overthinking it, Maria?
Maria:
Hi, this is Maria from Thatcher School. So this is also one of my favorite times of the year is helping students with their essays. So here's a couple of things. I'm really honest with the kids. When we start, we have an essay workshop in junior year, and I always say to them, so you're staring at the blank page and you have been told that you have to write the most amazing piece of writing that you've ever done. I just want to let you know there are no new topics, there no new information. There is no topic out there that an admission officer or a college counselor has not already read because you are 17-year olds in high school and you play sports and you go to class and you have a family.
And all of the narratives are fairly similar, but what makes them unique is it's that it's your narrative, it's your story and it's you talking about a moment in your life that will be nuanced, but don't be afraid because you're sitting there at the blank screen thinking about the perfect first line for an essay that nobody has ever read. So you need to really let go of that worry. I tell them to just start writing, journaling, and then I always warn them that at the point at which I may look at their essay, I will probably not find the first line of the essay until paragraph two or three because our brains take time introducing our topic as they're working through it. And so I think it does allow students to just do the free writing and all of that to get to their story.
I tell them it should feel more like a conversation than an analytical piece of writing, that somebody should be reading it and feeling like they're a part of a conversation. And I always tell them a conversation isn't linear, rather it's multiple points of pivoting between two people because you're talking about something and then that person's like, oh, I remember that about me, and so suddenly it's a conversation. And then the last thing, I just want to put it out. Every year I have students who say, I don't have a tragedy and I don't have a really terrible thing that happened, Ms. Kent. But I was thinking that maybe if I talk about this, it could feel like a tragedy that I have overcome. And I tell them, it's good that you haven't had a tragedy and it's okay because you can still talk about an arc, a story in your life where there was growth and it doesn't have to be a tragedy.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. To the deans, yeah, do we need tragedy in the file?
Jim Bock:
So this is, yeah, Jim from Swarthmore, and again, it's not about the tragedy. In fact, we don't even grade technically on grammar or technically content. Some examples I can give, and I do an essay writing workshop, we're actually put examples up on the screen and you can see them around the table, 17-year olds, and they read the first one and they start giggling and I say, what's wrong? And I titled the essay, it didn't have a title, but I call it the Tyranny of the Best and Great. He says, I'm the best student. I want to go to the best school to get a great education to get a great job. And it says nothing about my college or anything, so it's an essay. And I'm like, did the student get in? And they're like, no, the essay's terrible. And I said, but he was number one in his class. He had really good SATs, but that was a lost opportunity.
Then we go to the next essay and it's a student talking about her inability to dance and the joy she finds in dance, and here's someone who's a prospective engineer that wants to do art history that talks about her lack of skill. And I'm like, here's a risk-taker who finds joy in something that's difficult. This is who my faculty want to teach. It's not that well written, but it was successful and it's one piece of the entire process. So there are students who get in who write mediocre essays. They're also students who write excellent essays that don't get in because their grades aren't good. So again, it's a holistic review and that's an overused term in this process, but we look at the grades, we look at the rigor, we look at the recommendations and the essays. And so I do think there's an overabundance of anxiety around the essay when it's got to be this great piece and something we haven't quite touched on, and not to add another topic, but this topic of AI and artificial intelligence. [inaudible 00:12:50].
So a segue, are they actually writing it? Well, there's also what I call ICI, independent counselor intelligence, PI, parent intelligence, LI, lawyer, 45-year-old intelligence. They've always had support, so we're assuming they wrote it, but sometimes we're pretty sure they didn't because it doesn't match the other short essays or other themes we're seeing. So again, realize the essay doesn't necessarily get you in. It technically can help keep you out, but it's something you absolutely can do at age 17.
Ralph Figueroa:
This is Ralph at Albuquerque Academy. I want to echo what some of my colleagues have said. This is also one of my favorite parts of the process, and students are all different and you have to meet them where they are, but there are some general things that we do work with our whole student body. My colleague, Dean Jacoby, puts up this spectrum that we use in our class and it goes from good to bad and at the very bottom are a small group of essays, and this spectrum represents all the college essays that will be submitted this year. And at the bottom of the spectrum are a group that are so bad probably because of the topic they chose, that they're going to damage a student's application and going to make sure that they don't get admitted to a college. There are some at the very top that are so good, they're going to be memorable forever. Whoever reads them, it's going to change their lives and they're going to remember that kid forever. In the middle is the, yep, that's good enough, that's your target.
Your job as a writer is just to stay out of that bottom group and we're going to help you in my school by reading it and working with you. We're going to help prevent that you ever stay in that bottom, you ever get into that bottom bad, inappropriate for college essays. So it's a wide target, relax, but then we also have a presentation. We had one of our admission officers who visited our schools, and I'm very sorry because I cannot think of the woman's name, we asked her what she thinks when she opens a file and starts to read. And she said, I just asked myself a question, kid, what's your deal? What's your deal, kid? As I'm reading through the application, and for us, that has become a theme.
So it's a strategy that applies not only to the essays, but lists of activities and extracurriculars and how you present yourself. Does it all speak to what your deal is? Does it promote the vision of who you think you are and what you think you can add to that college or that university? And try to make everything fit that theme of what's your deal and make sure that it works to promote you and what you're trying to say about yourself.
Lee Coffin:
So news you could use, listeners, what's your deal, is a good storytelling device. I want to put on the spot my two dean colleagues who represent places that are selective but not crazy selective. So Marist and Clark, where does the essay fit in that admission process? I represent a place where all the elements are heightened because we have to make really precise choices given the scarcity of seats versus volume. But how would you answer this from an admission cycle that's got a bit more elasticity around your decision-making?
Kent Rinehart:
Kent Rinehart from Marist, where we admit about 50% of the applicants. And I would say that if the valedictorian is applying and their essay is just good enough or even not terrific, we'll probably still admit that student [inaudible 00:16:03] based on their academic strength, their curriculum, test scores, if they submitted them are enough to get them into the class. At the same time we're at a place where if a student near the bottom of our applicant pool writes the greatest essay known to mankind, they still will not find a way into the class. So I think that there's a little more flexibility for the elite academic student who's applying to my institution, but I mean the essay still is we're holistic and the essay still plays a part, especially for the kids that are on the bubble.
Emily Roper-Doten:
Emily from Clark University, I totally agree that you're trying to hit that sweet spot, right? I do think there's something really lovely about being in this part of the higher ed landscape, having been at places that were sometimes excruciatingly selective before, that gives us an opportunity to admit students who are not finished products. They're not masterpieces. They're coming to college after all to learn and grow and be challenged. And so sometimes you see the potential or you see the mindset of a student that your faculty are going to love or that you can see as engaging in your super-engaged student population. So there are ways that the essay does tell us that what's the deal that says, okay, this is a Clarkie, right? This is someone that I could see here. Is it the little tip for those students who are all at that super exceptional part of the academic mark? No. It's something that it's part of that whole process, but it gives us more to say yes to.
And I think for students who are applying to a wide range of schools with a wide range of selectivities, this is an exercise in reflection. I love that you all started with journaling and the right to think that gets you there. One of the psych faculty members from my prior institution used to talk about how the five whys can help you figure out what you really care about, and I think it's actually great advice for essay writing, right? If somebody says, going back to Chris's example of maybe soccer's not the right thing, but if that student says, well, why do I want to write about soccer? I want to write about soccer because I do soccer every single day. Well, why do you do soccer every single day? Well, I really like my coach because they've taught me this, that or the other thing. Well, why was that meaningful to you? If you can ask five whys and you get to something that pulls at your head and your heart and makes you happy to write that essay, write that essay. If you get to why number two and you're like, I have no idea, that's not your topic, right?
So even if you're not somebody who's striving for that super top level where you feel like, is this going to be the lever that pulls me into a class, lean into this moment and what you're going to get from it, and maybe you can add a little more joy and a little less fear to it.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. Well, and I love something you just said, more ways to get to yes, because I think so many people don't believe us. And my quip is I am the dean of admission, not the dean of denial. I am looking for ways to yes. Chris?
Chris Reeves:
Chris Reeves again, I just wanted to ask Kent, does your answer change in a test optional application in any way?
Kent Rinehart:
We've been test optional for 15 years, so this is not a new thing for us. No, we have always taken much greater emphasis on the three and a half years than three and a half hours. So that's always been a major piece of us, and the essay and the impact of the essay is not adjusted based on whether they submit their test or not.
Eileen Cunningham-Feikens:
This is Eileen from Dwight Englewood. Going back to Emily's comment, we always tell the students, don't focus on the four letter words, no, not those four letter words, but the what and the when, but rather the why. Why are you telling this? How do you want this to land? That's another one, how. But how has it shaped you? Whatever you're writing about, right? So what I've seen is a lot of students making their essay into an annotated extracurricular activity list, and I think it's such an [inaudible 00:20:18] missed opportunity. Don't let this be you. Rather, who's the person behind those activities? Because the college is going to get that in the activities section. So to really mine each section of the application to its greatest potential, but to focus on who you are, why something happens and how that's shaped you, those three letter words. I love the five whys and I just wanted to give that.
Marcia Hunt:
I was just going to say feel free to write a funny essay, but I think of what Jim Nondorf says, who's from the University of Chicago. There's nothing worse than a funny essay written by an unfunny person. So you want to be sure that if you're going to be humorous, that it comes naturally to you and it's not feeling forced. This is not your comedic debut.
Maria:
I love that, Marcia. I say that to the kids all the time, who's the funny kid in the class? And there's usually just one. I'm like, okay, you can write the funny essay. Nobody else should write the funny essay. But I do want to add just one last thing about the supplements because I think that that's another set of pieces of writing that students have to attack, and here's my thing. By the time we get to this time of the year, there's just a lot of those going around. I think it's really important to think about the supplements as a motivator for trying to have a manageable list.
I am always so concerned by all that I hear about students applying to 25 schools, to 30 schools. I don't have any idea. I encourage a Thatcher, my students to really limit the number of schools that they apply to because in order to write a really excellent supplement so that the admission office has an idea that a student has invested in knowing the school and in knowing the school can see themselves at that place, that takes time, it takes energy, it takes reflection. So if you're trying to reflect about how you might fit into 30 schools, it's just nearly impossible. But if you're focused on a group of eight to 10 schools, it's possible to be able to write some really thoughtful and good responses to the why do I want to go to your institution?
Lee Coffin:
I want to tee up one closing question, go a bit more philosophic as we wrap. And I think so many of us encounter high achievers, overachievers looking at college, and part of the counseling work we do is honoring their ambition with a dose of pragmatism. So what advice do we have to students and parents about that very delicate tango between ambition and pragmatism? So a reach doesn't mean existentially the best, a foundation or a safety is not a disappointment. But how do you put your best foot forward to get an outcome that feels like the best fit while you're also being realistic? Ralph?
Ralph Figueroa:
This is Ralph from Albuquerque Academy. Every year around decision time, well, both for the early decision rounds and for regular decision rounds, I post and send out to students and their parents a little email saying, okay, the decisions are coming. I know it's going to impact you in a lot of ways. But everyone keeps asking you, I say, the wrong question. They keep asking you, where are you going, where are you going, where are you going? And that's the pressure that you feel. It's the right question actually, but the emphasis is on the wrong word. It's not about the where. It's about you. It's where are you going? Because I tell my students, no matter where you end up, whether it's at a state school or even a community college or a highly selective school, I know that you are going to take advantage of the opportunities that you are given and you're going to make the best out of the situation.
Some of my students, I tell them, I could put you in any college in the country, and you're going to do amazing things. So frankly, I don't care where you're going to college because it's about you. Where are you going? You have to make it about what you're going to make of the experience and marshal your resources and your strength and focus on those places that you are going that are realistic, that did admit you that your family can't afford and make the best of it because that's what you do so well, and that's the note that I tried to strike with them.
Kim Jackson:
Kim Jackson from the Lenfest Scholars Foundation. I tell students that one of my pet peeves is when they have a throwaway school on their list, well, I know I can get into this school or ... They call them safety schools and I really don't like that term. I tell students that every single college on their list that they apply to should be one that they would be happy to go to, even if it's the only one that they get into. I think it's really important for people to think about where they fit, and in order to have a list like that, you have to be intentional. You have to really do some homework and we'll say, all right, well, you like this school, it's one of your favorites. Why? And I'll use my daughter as an example.
She really liked a certain school and I said, why do you like it? And she said, oh, because they have an open curriculum. That's not what she used because she didn't know what that meant. But she said, you can take anything you want. I said, oh, okay. I call that Lucy Goosy curriculum. I can give you three other schools that have Lucy Goosy curriculum and you'll be happy there. So you have to find the schools that have what you want rather than just choosing, I don't know, the school that half of your senior class applies to or the one that you know you're going to get in because it's not as selective, and be intentional that every single school on that list is one that you'd be happy to go to.
Jim Bock:
Yeah, and Jim Bock from Swarthmore. I want to echo Kim and I want to channel Lonnie Morrison formerly of Syracuse University who talked about vertical versus horizontal lists, that we tend to focus just on the selectivity and not academic social fit and academic feasibility, and that a vertical list gives you different levels of admission in terms of what can you afford. Hopefully all of them will be a social fit, but also different levels of affordability. Is this a school that is loan free versus one that is not? Are there merit scholarships? Is it free? Is it a community college that will set me in good pace? And that's something we haven't talked about. It's all about the selective schools, but these overachieving students are going to get in somewhere if they do the homework and put together a good list.
And full disclosure, best thing that ever happened to me was being denied early action at my first choice college and denied regular decision, got into Swarthmore and it made all the difference. The most expensive school was the most affordable for me as a low-income student coming from a public school in Texas. And with over 3000 to 4,000 schools to choose from, you should have multiple first choices. I ended up giving back all my merit awards because they didn't touch the need-based aid I received at the institution where I ultimately enrolled. And again, that was the last thing I expected. It ended up being the most affordable for me. And so you've got to dream a little bit, but also keep the reality there. And as bright, overachieving students, they should be able to understand that I can have a vertical list and still land well wherever I get in because they're all first choices.
Lee Coffin:
I love that. So last comment from Erica.
Erica:
Erica with College Match in Los Angeles, and I just want to tell students that all the advice that you heard is excellent advice, but ultimately it is you who is driving this process and the application process doesn't happen in February when somebody's reading your application. It started the day you started high school, the classes you started taking, what extracurriculars you decided to do, and then you come to this moment where you have to reflect on what I've done and why I've done it. So it's that vision of you, that vision of you 10 years from now that should be moving this process for you.
And yes, every college on your list, if that's what you're choosing, should be intentional, should be something that you would be happy with because it's a stepping stone to the rest of your life. It might be the first and also most important adult decision because you are becoming an adult, happy 18th birthday to many of you, that you are making, and that's what it takes when you become an adult. You will forever have to do research and make choices and sometimes they're not the best choices, but you need to learn how to be flexible and how to pivot. We love that word from the pandemic, and you are a generation that went through those big changes. So you, I know are going to do great no matter where you end up.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, Jack, it happened. You put 20 of us at NACAC in the room together and we talk a lot. So what do you think as we wrap our first live episode?
Speaker 6:
Yeah, again, for listeners, I'm sorry that you can't have the visual that I'm having of looking around this all-star table, and these are so many folks who've taught Lee and me so much over the years in terms of how to explain this process to all of you. But I've had the good fortune to learn from one of our guests, Ralph Figueroa, for 25 years as of this month and had the good fortune to follow Ralph around for a book. And Ralph didn't realize that that was a 25-year commitment, but so be it.
But I want to end on the note for me that Ralph first shared with me 25 years ago that this is eminently doable, this is possible. And as has been said around the table, it may not end up quite the way you hoped it would. It might not be your third, fourth, or fifth ideal scenario as you imagined it, but this is attainable and you are going to ultimately, students listening, make the best decision that you can given the choices and information that are in front of you and you ultimately can't know before you go, before you actually enroll and show up on campus.
And good news, there are opportunities for course corrections. There is the transfer process, perhaps a subject for another Admissions Beat episode. It is possible to do a do-over. So hopefully, Lee, the thing we hear about Admissions Beat is the idea that it gives people comfort, it gives people calm, and I think not an inappropriate note for us to end this conversation on a note of reassurance.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, I always come back to that note of reassurance because I'm aware that I sit in a seat that generates angst and to the degree that I could use my time in that seat to turn down the volume and the heat, I'm going to try and keep doing that. So I want to thank all of my colleagues for joining me for not one but two episodes of Admission Beat. LA has proven to be very fruitful for us, and we will see you next week back in Hanover, New Hampshire. For now, I'm Lee Coffin from Dartmouth College. Thanks for listening and to all of you, thanks for joining me today.