Admissions Beat

For many high school seniors, the college search is an all-consuming process with three clear goals: apply to college, get into college, pick a college. Then, in May, it comes to a hard stop. Now what? Mary Pat McMahon, vice president and vice provost for student affairs at Duke University and AB host Lee Coffin from Dartmouth map out in both practical and philosophical terms the transition from searching for a college to enrolling...

Meet Luis Aguero, a first-generation college-bound student from San Bernardino, Paraguay. Self-taught in English as well as the unfamiliar ways of the college admissions process in the United States, Luis navigated his admissions process entirely on his own: "I didn't have any information at all, I had to go out of my way to learn about the colleges, to learn about admissions and how it works..." He followed his dream toward an Ame...

Mindy Kaling joins AB for its 100th episode as the multi-talented Hollywood star and Dartmouth alumna remembers her own college admissions process in which "I wasn't thinking about the correct things." A high-achieving "comedy nerd" who had been weaned on "mountains of flashcards,” Mindy ponders her journey from home to college as she battled procrastination and a lack of confidence and  faced her immigrant family’s high expectatio...

AB's third annual open-ended conversation with applicants and parents at Dartmouth's admitted student open house offers insights and tips from those who have just navigated a successful college search. AB host and Dartmouth Dean Lee Coffin and recurring cohost Jacques Steinberg field wide-ranging comments and questions about admissions-induced procrastination, the value of authenticity in storytelling, and stress management in the ...

Extracurricular activities, which are essential ingredients of any college application, yield lessons and skillsets that animate a student's story. Reflecting on his own experience in the drama club at Shelton High School in Connecticut, AB host and Dartmouth Dean Lee Coffin welcomes Gary and Fran Scarpa, the longtime directors of Shelton's drama program, for an unusually personal conversation about what Coffin learned from being a...

Veteran college counselor Doug Burdett, from Brunswick School in Connecticut, joins his longtime colleague and AB host Lee Coffin as they ponder the lessons from their 30-year careers on both sides of the admissions counseling desk. Drawing from those innumerable interactions with students and parents, they muse about the unintended pitfalls that can misdirect a college search just as it gets started. Burdett advises prospective ap...

Marcia Hunt, past president of the National Association for College Admission Counseling and the longtime dean of college advising at Florida's Pine Crest School, joins AB host Lee Coffin as he recreates his "Advice to Parents" presentation from Pine Crest's junior kickoff in January. As he shares his tips for successful admissions parenting, Hunt offers context for what he advises as she channels her work with literally thousands ...

College admission decisions for the high school class of 2025 have landed, and now it's time for seniors and their parents to assess those outcomes and move towards an enrollment decision by the National Candidate's Reply Date on May 1. Chris Gruber from Davidson College in North Carolina and college counselor Kate Ramsdell from Noble & Greenough School in Massachusetts join AB host Lee Coffin to guide students through April with c...

Twenty-five years after New York Times education reporter Jacques Steinberg, author of The Gatekeepers: Inside the Admissions Process of a Premier College, spent a year observing at close range the selection process at Wesleyan University, Steinberg joined admission officers at Dartmouth for a day inside its selection committee. After his "fly on the wall" day in Hanover, he quizzes Admissions Beat host and Dartmouth dean Lee Coffi...

For any college admissions officer, reading and evaluating an application is the work of the work. It is the heart of the admissions process itself, its most essential task. Reading season is the moment when recruitment yields to selection, when assessing merit and potential becomes a blend of reflection and decision as each application is evaluated and a class is shaped. The Dartmouth-based cast of last year's "Learning to Read," ...

Many people ask, "What counts?" as they ponder the elements of "merit" in a college application. This week, two Ivy deans tackle this perennial query as Brown's Logan Powell joins AB host Lee Coffin from Dartmouth for a wide-ranging conversation about assessing merit and where it is discovered. They consider the numbers and the narrative--the quantitative as well as the qualitative information--that emerges from a college applicati...

Discovery is act one of every successful college search, and it should reveal as much about the searcher as about the places being explored.  AB host and Dartmouth Dean Lee Coffin leads a “junior kickoff” deans panel that includes Elena Hicks from SMU and Karen Kristoff from Colorado College as well as college counselor Darryl Tiggle of Friends School of Baltimore. The quartet of admissions veterans offer advice and tips for junior...

Season 7 of Admissions Beat gets underway at just the right time to give this year's high school juniors a preview of what's to come, as they look closely at themselves, survey the college landscape, and weigh options in higher education.  Host Lee Coffin, Dartmouth’s dean of admissions and financial aid, and recurring co-host Jacques Steinberg, author of The Gatekeepers: Inside the Admissions Process at a Selective College, and co...

In the Season Six finale, Trinity College's Matthew Hyde returns to AB to reflect on his own son’s college search this year. As a veteran admissions dean and a first-time admissions parent, Matt shares advice for his fellow parents on the lessons he has absorbed as his parenting collided with his day job in a very real—and sometimes emotional—way. Following host Lee Coffin’s conversation with Matt, Dartmouth’s admission officers of...

Suburban public high schools in America are home to a significant pool of applicants to most selective colleges. The admissions chatter in those classrooms, counseling offices, hallways, and social media channels can hum at a high frequency as guidance counselors do their best to advise students and parents alike. This week, a quartet of these school counselors from suburban Connecticut join AB host Lee Coffin for a roundtable disc...

Holidays bring people together, and Thanksgiving in the U.S. comes at a particularly challenging moment for high school seniors as they apply to college. Well-meaning friends and relatives might inquire about the status of a college search, or opine about those options, or render a forecast about someone’s chances of admissions. Any and all of it can lead to some Thanksgiving indigestion, so this encore episode from 2023 offers tip...

Ever wondered how the elements of a college application came to be the elements of the college application? Today, essays, testing, recommendations, and interviews are fundamental ingredients of most selective admissions processes, but they were not always part of a college application as it evolved over the last 125 years. Dartmouth’s admissions dean Lee Coffin and Maria Morales-Kent, a former admission officer at the University o...

“I’ve never of it is…” is a frequent reaction from students and parents as college options are introduced, but there is real opportunity when a student is open to options that aren't fully “known.” AB host Lee Coffin welcomes Clark University’s Emily Roper-Doten, Ben Baum from Saint John’s College in Annapolis and Sante Fe, and college counselor Kate Boyle Ramsdell from Noble and Greenough School in Dedham, Mass., for a conversatio...