Podcast
Admissions Beat
Hosted by Lee Coffin • Vice President and Dean of Admissions & Financial Aid at Dartmouth College · EN
On the Admissions Beat, veteran dean of admissions Lee Coffin from Dartmouth College and a range of guests provide high school students and parents, as well as their counselors and other mentors, with "news you can use" at each step on the pathway to college. With a welcoming, reassuring perspective and an approach intended to build confidence in prospective applicants, Dean Coffin offers credible information, insights, and guidance—from the earliest days of the college search, to applications, decision-making, and arrival on campus. He does so by drawing on nearly 30 years of experience as an admissions leader at some of the nation's most prestigious institutions.
27episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
The Initial Friendship Market
4d ago00:50:06Tap to summarizeIn 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.
Transcribe →The Transition from Home to College
2w ago00:41:17Tap to summarizeHooray, 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.
Transcribe →The Things I Wish I'd Known...
3w ago00:59:45Tap to summarizeA 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.”
Transcribe →Guiding the Voyage of Discovery: The College Finder
4w ago00:57:41Tap to summarizeGuidebooks 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.
Transcribe →Once a High School Principal, Now an Admissions Officer
Apr 1400:46:09Tap to summarizeIn 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.
Transcribe →AP or Honors, Which Looks Better for Colleges?
Apr 700:50:59Tap to summarizeThe 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.
Transcribe →Navigating April
Mar 3100:34:34Tap to summarizeFor 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.
Transcribe →State You
Mar 2400:48:14Tap to summarizeA "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.
Transcribe →March Madness Part 2: "How Do You Decide?"
Mar 1700:40:43Tap to summarize"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.
Transcribe →March Madness Part 1: Reading Season
Mar 1000:47:36Tap to summarizeIn 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."
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