Admissions Beat

When an admissions dean meets a high school principal in a hotel lobby at a national admissions conference, they have a lot to discuss! John Durante of Syosset High School in New York, host of the College Admissions Process Podcast, reunites with Lee Coffin as they continue their impromptu lobby conversation on air.

In AB's third annual roundtable discussion from the annual conference of the National Association for College Admissions Counseling, a lively group of deans, counselors, and CBO leaders join Lee Coffin and Jacques Steinberg in Minneapolis for a candid conversation on a range of timely topics. The cast ponders essays that work ("Just be you"), the wisdom of early applications (“Make sure you love it…”), the emergence and drawbacks of AI as a writing tool ("AI can't feel..."), navigating college affordability (“The sticker price is usually not what you pay…"), and managing admissions angst (“Better isn’t always better…”).

From Grey's Anatomy to Bridgerton, Shonda Rhimes is television's storyteller extraordinaire. In this encore broadcast from Season Eight, The Emmy winner visits AB for a lesson on how to channel main-character energy in an essay or interview. "What would you say to a teenager staring at a blank page, afraid their first draft won't be good enough?," Dartmouth's Lee Coffin asks her. "Don't overthink your story," Shonda advises. "Just be you."

With a nod to Dolly Parton's iconic song, two parents ponder their second run through the college admissions process. Is the second time a charm? Are there lessons gleaned from the first search? Can an admissions veteran stay calm as she switches into mom-mode?

Holistic? Full demonstrated need? Optional? Admissions and financial aid officers sometimes speak a particular kind of language...but everyone navigating a college search is not always as fluent in "ed-speak." A dean, a guidance counselor, and a financial aid director offer a translation guide to the essential concepts of a college search.

"Information" floods a college search from many spigots, not all of which are reliable or helpful. Each September, social media feeds erupt with advice and comment from various "expert" sources while parental social gatherings and pick-up lines at school are hot spots for admissions news and commentary. This week, four longtime college counselors from Fairfield County in Connecticut, Fort Lauderdale, Baltimore, and Denver join AB host Lee Coffin for a listener-inspired conversation that redirects the chatter and debunks some myths. "We spend so much time undoing misinformation,” one of the veteran counselors notes. Her colleague adds, "Lots of the hysteria and anxiety are rooted in outdated misinformation that is just wrong.”

In the Season 10 premiere, Common App CEO Jenny Rickard returns to AB for a back-to-school primer on the application used by over 1,100 colleges around the world. Fifty years since it debuted, the Common App has become "the passport for entry" into most selective institutions, and its elements represent the building blocks for a student's personal narrative. "Approach the Common App with clarity and confidence," Dartmouth's dean and AB host advises.

In a "listener mailbag" bonus episode, Jen Simons from Bright Horizons College Coach joins AB host Lee Coffin to answer an array of listener questions. The mailbag queries spark riffs on a wide range of admissions topics from applying to college as a twin to the option of a state honors college to interpreting newsfeed posts about 2026 acceptance rates, the "new Ivies," and "over-rated" colleges. And the longtime friends and colleagues touch a few topics no one asked them to discuss!

In the season finale, sociologist Janice McCabe offers insights on friendship from her new book Making, Keeping, and Losing Friends, as this fall's entering class makes the transition from home to college. "Belonging is a powerful human need," Professor McCabe notes, and the post-admission period leading up to orientation and the start of classes is what McCabe calls "the initial friendship market." An expert in how people connect in social situations, she advises students to "be intentional about what, who, and where you look" for friends during this fast-moving moment, a powerful transition when everyone is eager to make new friendships.

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.

A live audience of high school seniors and parents at Dartmouth's accepted student open house ponder the lessons of the search they are about to complete. "What are the things you wish you'd known a year ago?" AB host Lee Coffin and former New York Times reporter Jacques Steinberg ask them. In response, they offer tips for a meaningful campus visit; they celebrate the importance of vibe over spreadsheets of data; and they advise rising seniors to filter an admissions-clogged newsfeed with care. The audience of admissions veterans reminds the next crop of applicants to sustain a sense of authenticity and self-advocacy as the admissions cycle plays out. "Are these my people?" was the key assessment of one senior's discovery period; "I was the guide on the side," a mother shares. And Dartmouth's Dean Coffin reminds future applicants, “ 'Feel' is the unsung hero of your college search.”

Guidebooks have been a staple of the college search process since 1982, when The Fiske Guide introduced a new resource to prospective applicants and parents. Today, over 300 titles assess and describe campuses and their offerings as prospective applicants explore and compare options. The co-authors of The College Finder—a voluminous list-based guidebook now in its fifth edition—join AB to reflect on "the voyage of discovery" a guidebook supports. "You are really a fit guide!", Dartmouth's Lee Coffin observes.

In an uncommon career pivot, former high school principal and English teacher Robin Appleby segued from her school-based tenures in the U.S. and internationally to a late-career stint as a college admission officer at Dartmouth. She joins AB host Lee Coffin for a reflection on the lessons drawn from both sides of her academic desk.

The quality of an applicant's senior year program—and the grades achieved in that course of study—are foundational to the academic assessment of any application to a selective college. In an encore episode from Season 5, college counselor Eric Monheim from St Mark’s School in Massachusetts joins SMU’s Elena Hicks and AB host Lee Coffin from Dartmouth to ponder the perennial question: “AP or Honors, which one looks better?" as high school juniors select their senior year curriculum.

For one month each year, two admission cycles overlap as high school seniors and juniors share center stage. As seniors wrap up their searches over the next four weeks and juniors shift into active mode, college counselor Darryl Tiggle from Friends School of Baltimore joins AB host Lee Coffin to map a plan for a purposeful April for both classes.

A "state option" is often recommended as families wrestle with the affordability of college. But focusing on "affordability" of public institutions alone undersells the opportunity and value of a state university as a campus to explore. AB host Lee Coffin welcomes senior admissions leaders from UMass-Amherst and UT-Austin for a comprehensive primer on the state option, and AB producer Charlotte Albright joins the conversation to add her classroom-based perspective as a former journalism professor at Vermont State University.

"How do you decide?" is one of the most probing questions associated with selective admissions. With so many qualified candidates competing for limited spots, decisions are often presumed to be random for those on the outside of the process. In the second conversation of AB's "March Madness" two-pack, New York Times journalist and best-selling author Jacques Steinberg interviews AB host and Dartmouth Dean Lee Coffin to unpack and illuminate the deliberations that unfold in a selective admissions committee. As Steinberg (who has observed such meetings) notes, there is no simple formula dictating their final choices. "I can tell you with every confidence that it doesn't exist. This is my Indiana Jones quest, and so far, I have come up empty, and I expect that I will always come up empty," he says.

In the first of a two-part episode, AB peeks behind the opaque curtain of a selective admissions office in March. Four Dartmouth admission officers join their dean for an introspective conversation about reading applications, which is "the fundamental task we have as admission officers at a college," AB host Lee Coffin notes. As one veteran reader says, "It's my favorite [part of the admissions cycle] because we get to meet people from all around the world...and put ourselves in the life of another person. It is a fundamentally positive and optimistic part of each admissions cycle."

Do Instagram or Reddit rival a guidance counselor as a source of admissions information and advice? Can YouTube match or beat an on-campus tour as a measure of vibe and place? Conventional wisdom says Gen Z prefers social media over in-person activities, but a trio of undergrad admissions bloggers at Dartmouth suggests a more cautious role for social media in a college search. The first-year students ponder the plusses and pitfalls of digital platforms as opportunities for discovery and as rabbit holes to avoid.

The college admissions process spits out lots of stats. Some numbers are straightforward, or they seem to be, while many data points require a nuanced interpretation from an inside source. Always, an ounce of context goes a long way towards appreciating what a number really means. The admissions deans from Colorado College and Dartmouth offer curious consumers of admissions data a cheat sheet on admissions numerology and how to "crunch" the stats that count. "Fair warning," they agree, "there is no code to crack!"