The Work of the Work

Last week I enjoyed a mid-week movie.  It may be my last for a few moons.  Yes, reading season is here again.  We began last week.

Lee Coffin fondly calls application reading “The work of the work.”  Reading applications is the essence of what we do, and perhaps this is why reading season is twice as long as travel season.  And this is only Early Decision, a warm-up for what will await us on January 2^nd.  Nonetheless, there is my first pile of blue folders on my desk – blue indicates ED, the manila folders are reserved for the regular decision applications.

For those of you who haven’t been battle-scarred by reading admissions applications, there is a sentiment in the office that this is the time to balance our checkbooks, fill the freezer, and sharpen our pencils. We will soon lose contact with the wider world.  Shakespeare comes to mind, specifically, the third act of Henry V: “Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more.”

OK, admittedly equating application reading with battle is a bit heavy-handed.  While application requires a good bit of stamina, it is often fun and interesting.  At least when I was 25, reading season was my favorite season of the year.  I have memories of reading in my pajamas, the cat at my feet, as I sat on a sunlit back porch.  (This was Southern California after all, and somewhere I have a picture of this idyllic scene, a picture I made into a postcard and sent to an admissions colleague mid-winter.  I believe I received a return postcard containing only two words).  Back then each application offered the anticipation of a new biography, a new short story.

Now life isn’t so simple.  When I was 25, I had few outside obligations.  Now, with a family, a boarding school, and community endeavors, I’ll have to make a special effort to be diligent about my reading.  When I invoke the admissions gods my supplication will be for stamina, for focus, and for a strong sense of fairness and consistency.  Wish me (and us) luck.

Why college?

Sometimes, most typically on mornings when I’ve chosen the right breakfast cereal, I have fleeting moments of confidence where I allow time for questions at the end of an information session. Recently a parent asked me: “So what advice will you be bringing back to your students at Concord Academy?” His question was a good one and although I’m not sure I’ve formed a fully satisfying answer yet, I’m certain of one thing: the central question “why go to college?” needs to be considered more often and more deeply by prospective students. This question may very well deserve hours of consideration.

Many of today’s students have been forced to think about college since day one. Have you ever seen college-themed baby books? Scary! And just yesterday my wife – while ordering a book for each of my 1^st and 2^nd grade kids through scholastic books – got me a book, too: Judy Moody Goes to College. (Man, does my wife love me or what?) And what’s with that new Olive Garden commercial that shows parents visiting their daughter at college and taking the roommates to dinner? Is our society obsessed with college? Perhaps college – particularly for the upper-crust of our society – is simply considered a given.

As I’ve been traveling for Tufts, I generally begin my presentations by posing this question. Please pardon my sweeping generalization, but the students at the preppiest of the Preppy McPrepster schools and those from the affluent public schools often struggle with this question a bit more than those from the inner-city and/or magnet schools. Is college-going (how’s that for an awful word?) simply discussed differently in the latter communities? Is there an assumption in well-heeled communities that college is going to happen, so the focus becomes “getting in?” and therefore the question of “why college?” is confronted less aggressively?

When pressed to answer this question in sessions, students usually respond with the following:

• to continue learning
• to earn a credential
• to get a better job
• to leave home, experience a bit more freedom before the (scary) freedom of “real” life

If I really press them, students will admit that going to college might also be fun. That “fun” is one of the main reasons they are looking forward to collegiate life. And how can it not be? Isn’t college the last chance you have to live almost exclusively with others your age? That is, of course, the last chance until you reach the retirement home. And that’s where the fun really beings…..

My challenge is that students need to be honest with themselves. If they are able confront this question with integrity and thoughtfulness, they might emerge from senior year with a reasonable set of goals, a reasonable set of priorities, and a reasonable idea of what they intend to accomplish.

I intend to have my students ruminate on this question regularly and with more depth than they have in the past. I want them to better appreciate the privilege of a college education. I want them to prepare to make better use of their time when they get to college. I want them to understand the economic term opportunity cost, and have them appreciate that the cost of heading immediately to college includes the opportunity cost of forgoing a gap-year opportunity.

Additionally, I hope students will think a little more deeply about the debates that have long engaged college faculties, those such as what is the value of distribution requirements. Many of my students are more than eager to learn in an environment where the institution tells you what to study. A lack of distribution requirement sounds great, but what are the real costs of surrounding yourself with like-minded students studying the same subject?

When I say the question, “why go to college?” deserves hours of consideration, perhaps I should help my students mired in the chaos and demands of senior year find more time and more space to simply think. Perhaps I should encourage more journal writing on the topic. Or maybe, just maybe, I can convince a few to start a blog.

Houston, there’s no problem….

A few weeks have passed without a post and my sincere apologies to my (three) readers (Hi, Dad).  No, I haven’t taken one of those late September vacations I’ve always dreamed about, but I have been in Houston.

“Houston, eh?”  At least that was my initial reaction when I was asked to take a pinch-hit recruitment trip.  Sadly, my previous knowledge of Texas was primarily informed by a handful of airport connections and three trips to El Paso.  Suffice to say the idea of recruiting students in Houston didn’t initially excite me.  Then again – as I always preach to my most provincial students – stepping out of the comfort zone almost always yields dividends.

I left Boston late in the evening Sunday night.  The flight was delayed AND full.  And after navigating an airport under construction and a snaking line in front of the Enterprise counter with one employee behind it, the bright red Chevy HHR that greeted me wasn’t a good sign.  Nor was the fact that my head was hitting the pillow at 1 a.m. and I had an early start the next morning.  I slept fitfully.

The next morning, fortune turned my way in the form of my co-pilot, Dr. Al Potvin.  Al is legendary in the Admissions office.  He’s a 1965 Tufts graduate and (more recently) a retired Exxon/Mobil Engineer.  Most importantly he’s a tireless volunteer for Tufts Admissions, serving as the Texas Regional Coordinator of TAAP (the alumni admissions program) and on the Regional Programs Committee of the Tufts Alumni Council.  Al is so important to Tufts that last year, the University sent Al and his wife to our campus in Talloires, France to train alumni volunteers.

Of course, titles don’t fully tell the whole story of Al. He is particularly proud of his signature haircut and the fact that he is a man of integrity (some of Al’s stature might grow their hair simply to get to the next inch mark on the height chart).  We quickly bonded over our mutual appreciation of NPR’s Car Talk, and I was fortunate enough to ride in “The Potvan” and his soon-to-be-antique 1985 Ford Taurus complete with a Click and Clack license plate frame.

Traveling together for the first twelve stops on my itinerary, Al knew exactly which turns to take, which driveway to enter, and only once did we not enter the ideal door to get to the guidance or college counseling office.  There’s something glorious about traveling with an engineer; it was as if the missing half of my brain were temporarily installed.  Here was our itinerary:

14-Sep
9:00 AM          St. Agnes Academy
9:45 AM          Strake Jesuit
11:10 AM        Episcopal High School
1:00 PM           Awty International School
4:00 PM           KIPP Academy
7:00 PM           Tufts on Tour @ Marriott Hotel

15-Sep
8:15 AM          Duchesne Academy
9:20 AM          Kinkaid School
11:15 AM        St. John’s School
12:30 PM         Lamar HS
2:30 PM           Beren Academy

16-Sep
9:00 AM          HS for the Engineering Professions
11:45 AM        Carnegie Vanguard
1:00 PM           Emery Weiner School
2:30 PM           Memorial HS

17-Sep
10:00 AM        Woodlands College Park HS
11:30 AM        John Cooper
1:00 PM           Woodlands HS

OK, so Houston has few (no?) zoning laws, but I actually found it an exceptionally manageable city to navigate and was more than pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed the city.  Maybe this is my eight years of living in LA talking, but Houston enjoys a positive vibe, remarkable diversity, and some very good eats.  (Yes, I am embarrassed that McDonald’s still shows up in my expense report…..)

I was also particularly impressed with the students I met.  From the poise and candor of the three students from KIPP (I wondered if they were grad school applicants), to the large group of intelligently playful seniors at Kinkaid, to the energy the Memorial High School students showed despite the fact that it was the end of the day, the future Tufts students of Houston impressed me greatly.  And I certainly saw a lot of students.  Not once did I experience a high school shut-out (in baseball this is a good thing, when traveling for admissions it can make you feel very lonely and unloved).  And the evening program – “Tufts on Tour” – included nearly fifty prospective students and nearly as many parents and Tufts alumni.

What did I learn from this trip?  Even with Al’s internal GPS, I have a new appreciation for signage (yet, oh, how I dislike the word, but not as much as wayfinding).  When I return to Concord, I will make even more of an effort to direct our visitors with better directions.  And I will rededicate myself to being available for admissions officers.  Yes, the primary focus is students, but my trip was made all the warmer by the five minutes of face time with administrative folks and the guidance and college counselors I met. Southern hospitality was in force and I was particularly impressed that, over the course of the week, three heads of school managed to say “hi,” too.

Additionally, as a counselor, I can do more to help students understand the purpose of the high school visit and to better prepare them.  (I’d like to expand on what Patrick O’Connor posted to the NACAC Listserve earlier this fall.)  Some students were far too anxious of saying the wrong thing.  Others a bit too sycophantic.  And a surprising number had no questions at all.  As counselors we can all make a very conscious effort to help students craft thoughtful questions, perhaps even signature inquiries that they ask every person they meet at a variety of institutions.  It isn’t simply about giving them a list of good questions.

I also would argue that school visits – done well – have great educational value for students.  I hope the students in Houston not only felt that their time was well spent and that they not only have a better sense of Tufts University, but also that I left them with a few things to consider as they navigate their senior year and head off to further studies.  Mostly, I think seniors need to focus a bit less on “getting in” and spend some directed time considering the decisions they expect to be making as a first and second year college student.  After all, those of us who have experienced a bit more of life’s parabola know that while the decision of which school to attend is important, the decisions a students makes once they get to a campus may very well have far more far-reaching implications.

Go Texans!

Information Sessions: Part 1

For the last month or so I’ve been attending information sessions. I think I’ve seen fifteen so far. I know what you’re asking: exactly which level of Dante’s nightclub does this task belong on? Perhaps I ought to provide some background:

Earlier in the summer, Lee invited me to join the Admissions staff while they retreated at the Colony Hotel in Kennebunkport, Maine (at off-season rates, of course). All was well, until the introductions, when Lee described my role in the office and announced that he was deputizing me to audit each officer’s information session. While Lee’s directive wasn’t news to me, somehow meeting my new colleagues with a job description that included “auditor” concerned me. (For those of you with significant others who are accountants, my apologies, but in my book “auditor” has a definite negative connotation.)

Notebook in hand, on day two I began observing. The first thing that surprised me was the popularity of visiting the Tufts campus. While I knew Tufts is a “hot school,” (more on that in a later blog entry), I’m not certain I was prepared for the volume of visitor traffic in the summer, and from all corners of the globe. Often the reception area was so crowded that on warm days it was difficult not to smell the crowds. (Does blog etiquette allow me to engage all the senses?)

The admissions office hosted multiple information sessions each day, so large that we were unable to host them in the admissions office. Instead we trekked across campus, most often to the Cabot Intercultural Center at the Fletcher School. Looking at the notes of my first session, I began to ask myself about the message sitting in a large lecture hall sent. At a school that prides itself on accessibility and student-faculty interaction, what does it mean that crowds of 100+ were asked to sit and listen in an amphitheater for an hour?

I soon learned I didn’t need to worry about boredom. The admissions officers – each in their own style – showed an ability to make an auditorium feel small. Most everyone polls the audience, solicits individual questions, and certainly reminds guests that while occasionally Tufts students learn via lecture, most classes are very small and intimate. More than 75% of classes have fewer than 21 students and 50% of classes have fewer than 10.

The opportunity to see nearly everyone on the staff share their Tufts “stories” has been a gift and I look forward to observing a few more. (One unnamed member of the staff seems to have a knack for scheduling Friday sessions or even trading her sessions for a Friday, a day when I’m not on campus. Hmmmmm…..coincidence?) This is a staff blessed with remarkable talent and their sessions are highly engaging and entertaining, mostly because we (and I can use that pronoun now) have great respect for the faculty and students of Tufts. This is an easy place to get excited about.

But what most impressed me about these information sessions was that the admissions officers had fun. One officer was able to present a detailed and nuanced description of the technological limitations of silicon-based solar cells and then employ the phase “we good on that?” seamlessly. Another employed a signature dance to illustrate the interdisciplinary nature of the curriculum, the fact that, at Tufts, “it’s cool to be smart,” and that public speaking is often made more memorable by awkward gyrations. And a third used her background in improv comedy, creating an entire essay off the top of her head in order to illustrate what not to do (generating applause in the MIDDLE of a session!) Without fail, everyone on the staff truly enjoys telling stories from previous application reading: like the student who created his own Choose Your Adventure book out of a single 8.5 by 11 sheet of paper (see supplemental essay question #6a), or the kid who answered ALL eight optional questions last year (SCARY!!!!).

While there are many different styles in the office, what nearly all these sessions did have in common was some form of outlining the major pillars of the Tufts education:

• Globalism
• Active/Intellectual Citizenship
• Interdisciplinary Learning
• Sustainability

While many colleges allege similar core values, the stories of how these pillars affect students at a medium-sized, major research institution on an intimate scale are remarkable. For the admissions visitor to Tufts, it means that no two admissions officers give the same session. C’mon back now, you hear?

My own sessions? I’ll admit feeling more than a little intimidated by the talent around me, but sitting in on these sessions has provided both the inspiration and the illustrations to handle representing Tufts University. And so far, I haven’t yet confused my institutional allegiance.

Adjusting…..

After daily heading to the same office chair for the last nine years, joining the Tufts staff has been a very welcomed change.  I’m becoming a real person:  I now have a commute (and the opprunity to tune into WBUR), make my lunch the night before (or throw a Go-GURT and an apple in a bag if I forget), and I’m beginning to know what is going on in the world and Boston (have you heard about the Awesome Foundation’s grant for the big hammock?). Oh, and did I mention that a job outside of a boarding school (read: real world) is improving my style?  I’ve taken a critical look at my wardrobe and I may very well dump those pleated kakis I bought in 1997.

The staff in Bendetson Hall couldn’t be more welcoming.  My business cards were waiting for me on day one, long before my staff ID was available.  I have to admit, after nine years of distributing a green “Concord Academy” card, it was a little unsettling to see a blue “Tufts University” printed above my name.

Granted, Concord Academy enjoys a healthy mix of boarding and day students, but leaving campus everyday has reminded me how insular life at a boarding school can be.  Yes, occasionally I would leave the Concord Academy campus to coach at an away cross country meet or to make a late-night trek to Anna’s Taqueria in Porter Square to pick up hundreds of dollars of burritos (literally) for the hungry pre-men of Hobson House.  Professionally, my days at Concord Academy generally revolved around two colleagues and a steady stream of students heading to our office for candy, advice, or a signature.  Bendetson, in comparison, includes twenty admissions officers and nearly an equal number of support staff.  And of course, on a daily basis, campus visitors come from all corners of the globe:  in the freshman class there are 69 countries represented and 44 states.  (I still don’t understand why no one has taken my nearly-foolproof “move to North Dakota” college counseling suggestion……)

As homey as the Tufts community can be, it has a few of the habits of a much larger institution.  When I called the tech department for help with scanning some of the Tufts descriptions in a series of college guides (look for a future blog on that project), they were very helpful, but was a few days before I matched the face to a name of the IT professional who brought a scanner to our office. “Big institution” looms as I plan my fall recruitment travel, too.  I’m adjusting to triplicate forms simply to request a travel number for tracking university travel.  (Each trip needs a separate T-number request form.)  Let’s be frank: I’m already nervous about submitting my expense reports.

Earlier this week, my Tufts parking pass arrived.  I immediately affixed it on my rear driver’s side window.  With that, my new business cards, and a few T-numbers, and a new (to me) blue office chair, I’m feeling like I belong.  Go jumbos!  (Just don’t step on my beloved chameleons underfoot….)

On Tour

The first official day of work began with a morning of HR meetings.  I joined two other semi-newbies: Matt, a 2008 alum and a former tour guide, and Laura, who interned in the office last year. Following a lunch at Brown & Brew, I decided to join the afternoon tour.

An admissions tour.  I’ll confess: my expectations were low.  After all, 99% of college counselors could likely step on an unseen campus and do a fairly decent job leading a tour employing the universal tour guide formula:

1)      introduce self (major, year, astrological sign)
2)      make witty remark about walking backwards
3)      thoroughly explain efficiency of the blue light safety system
4)      point out academic building and mention that professors have office hours, distribute cell phone numbers, and return text messages at 3 a.m.

5)      make certain all members of the tour group understand that if there’s not a club for a particular hobbyhorse, all it takes is a friend, a petition, and the funding will follow.

We could go on, but I’ll spare you.

Today, though, was different.  First of all, Alex is a great tour guide.  She shared interesting stories, she could project to the long line of thirty following her, and she easily conveyed her enthusiasm for Tufts University, the community, and for her education.  It reaffirmed that Tufts students are very bright, articulate, and most importantly, far from formulaic.

Alex entertained us with stories of Jumbo (the mascot), the painting of the cannon, sledding down the president’s lawn, and my favorite story about the student who mistakenly left her term paper in the library overnight only to find it the next morning exactly where she left it with corrections on it. But my focus, truth be told, was not on Alex but on my tourmates.  First of all, why was nearly everyone – students and parents alike – wearing flip flops?  Since when have sensible shoes become not-so-sensible?  Is flip-flop culture (or couture?) now a de rigueur element of the college tour? Does the lack of firm soles contribute to the slow, silent shuffle that has become the campus tour?

And it this tour was nearly silent.  Very few folks asked questions, and when they were posed they came from parents.  Why aren’t students asking questions?  Has the joy of college visiting gone?  Shouldn’t dreaming about the future be fun?  How do we as counselors encourage our students to step-it-up (in supportive shoes, of course) and reclaim “the golden walk” for themselves?

Me? I was guilty, too, of reticence. Perhaps it is because I don’t fit the demographic of college tour people. With my receding hairline, I can’t be mistaken for a “non-traditional (-ly aged) student,” and as an unaccompanied major (without shower shoes), well, I just felt awkward asking questions. Hmmm, maybe I’m onto something…..

Post the First

Just like writing a recommendation that won’t write itself, sometimes the best thing to do is to simply start getting words down.  Here blog post #1. Frankly, I don’t know where these posts are headed (I welcome suggestions), but not knowing the exact destination is a central theme of this whole “counselor-in-residence” experience.

I’m grateful for Lee Coffin’s continued creativity in getting me to Tufts.  In the end, he masterminded a job exchange:  assistant director Kerrin Damon and I are switching part-time jobs: she will experience life as a college counselor (with half a caseload), and I will have an opportunity to see how college admissions has changed in the last twelve years.

While I’m particularly interested in the impact of technology and increased volume of applications, my real curiosity should be answered next July: which one of us will be most eager to return to our former post.  Will Kerrin decide that the Elysian fields of college counseling are for her?  How much will I have missed the intensity of daily conversations and contact with one community of boarding and day students?

Speaking of volume, I’m already impressed by the size and strength of Lee’s admissions staff.  During the staff retreat in late June, twenty admissions officers sat around the table in Kennebunk, ME and it was quickly apparent that Lee has assembled an impressive bunch of AO’s.  Not only is the mix of experience and youth a seemingly ideal one, but I was also struck by how well everyone seemed to get along. In my admissions days a staff of eight or nine admissions officers seemed complicated enough.  But that is a story for another day….

Here I am, jumping in.  Heart first.