301: Behind the Scenes of an Admission Counselor’s Life

Ethan Sawyer  0:08  
Hey, friends, what's up? It's Ethan Sawyer, the College Essay Guy. And welcome to the College Essay Guy podcast. If this is your first time listening, my goal is to bring more ease, joy and purpose to the college admission process, and this podcast is my way of interviewing the most brilliant minds in the college admissions world, analyzing their genius, and then breaking it down for you into a series of practical, actionable steps that you can take, whether you're applying to college yourself or helping somebody else apply. So this is the first in a series of interviews with current and former college admission officers, where we go behind the scenes to let you know how things really work. This particular episode is with Katie Sweeney, former Senior Assistant Dean of admission at Reed College. Katie Fun fact, is also a theater artist who's dramaturged and performed in Portland, Seattle, London and Chicago, and was a college composition instructor at Northwestern University. My alma mater, Go Cats. In this episode, we get into what the life of an admission officer is really like, including what their travel season is like, some do's and don'ts for that initial email that you send or that you might send to an admissions office, what is demonstrated interest, and why does it matter for colleges to predict who actually ends up probably attending their school. We'll talk about some additional information sections that made a difference. This is like that little known, or perhaps little studied section, where you kind of write whatever you want to write, not literally whatever what you want to write. But we'll get into that in a little bit. You'll learn how fast admission officers really read the application, or at least how fast Katie read them at Read, read, yep, and we'll talk about some do's and don'ts for application essays, of course, because Katie's read about 25,000 of them, by her estimation. All this and more coming up now. Katie, welcome to the podcast.


Kati Sweaney  1:55  
Hi. Happy to be here. So I don't know if we ever talked


Ethan Sawyer  1:59  
about this, but I'm really curious to know how you got into admissions in the first place.


Speaker 1  2:03  
Oh, yes, great question. So the way I ended up in admission was, I mean, once upon a time when I was in college, I, you know, did the tour guide thing for my admission office at Reed College, which is where I went. And then after Reed, I went off, and I was in a PhD program at Northwestern for I was there for about six years, and I got to do a lot of stuff that I loved, especially teaching was the thing that I absolutely adored about being there. But I eventually realized that I was actually more interested in some of the like, big picture questions about education, especially higher education, and I was getting less interested in the kind of really solitary research stuff that is, you know, how you make your way as a professor. And so I ended up switching careers, and I was kind of looking at a lot of different things I might do as I was transitioning out of that PhD program. And lo and behold, a job in the admission office at Reed became available, and that is what ended up working. So I not just by pure coincidence, I ended up right back where I started, and I found that admission was a good fit because it's, it's actually very teaching related in many ways. There's so many presentations. It's students all the time. You're in so many high schools. So that's how I got there, and it really, I loved it. Yeah, I was really lucky to end up that that way. So


Ethan Sawyer  3:30  
what kind of person would you say is drawn to working in admission?


Speaker 1  3:36  
I think all the people who end up in admission, they you have to, you have to really believe in college, and you have to believe in education, and you have to love talking to lots and lots of students. It doesn't mean you have to be an extrovert. I'm not. I'm definitely, I'm actually an introvert, but I'm also a theater person from way back. So I do a great impression of an extrovert, and I genuinely love, like I love connecting with people, and I just really there's something about that time of life when you're kind of in your junior and senior year of high school that I have always related to, still just the you know, the where you are and the way you're thinking about yourself and defining yourself, and that feeling of About being about to take the next steps is actually a feeling I've always tried to kind of keep in my own life and allow myself to keep kind of returning to that and being like, Let me think about who I really am and what I really want to do. And I think, I think there's a certain amount of that that you need if you're going to go into an admission in, you know, admission, you you've got to be excited about folks of that age, and you have to just be really, you have to really believe in in the purpose of higher education, and because you're gonna, you know, it's a profession where you work hard, and I think that can kind of be its own reward, if it's really meaningful to you, but it. Is interesting that there's no like there's there's just no one thing I can think of that really ties everyone together. Everyone is so different. It's interesting. It actually makes the profession really fun.


Ethan Sawyer  5:13  
One of the things that you and I have talked about, and indeed a lot of admission reps talk about, is the rigors and the difficulty of travel season. Will you give us just a portrait of what travel season is and looks like. And, you know, just so that students can get a sense of when these reps are coming into their schools, like what's going on in the life of the admission officer. So


Speaker 1  5:37  
travel season, I mean, the word to describe it, is intense. There's no question that that's what it's like for really any level. I mean, admission officers might be in their very first season, or they might be deans and directors of admission and have been doing it their whole career, and it's still travel season is kind of the same. It doesn't those, those rigors that you mentioned Ethan, are kind of the same. You know, for everyone who does travel


Ethan Sawyer  6:04  
just to do like a one on one thing, for folks who have no idea what I mean by travel season, will you just give a little sense of what travel season is and when it is


Speaker 1  6:13  
absolutely so I think of the whole admission year for an admission counselor as it has four seasons, just like you know, our our seasons they map onto. So travel happens in fall, reading, when you're actually reading the applications, mostly happens in the winter. Spring is our yield season, and yields means that's when you've admitted people, and then you need to convince those admitted people to actually come, and then the summer is more of a planning season, so we actually do travel a little bit in all those other seasons, but the bulk of your travel is going to take place during the fall. I actually met a lot of students on the road and parents on the road who didn't always immediately realize that I was someone who was visiting from out of town, because it's actually the case. There are some offices that have what are called regional reps. And a regional rep might work for a college in Boston, but the rep actually lives in San Francisco, and so it's just easier for that person to travel around and they know the area really well. So that's the case for some reps, but the bulk of the reps you meet at your high school or at a college fair have traveled from their campus, their home campus, to come to you. We make a lot of effort to come out and see you, so it's something that we're really dedicated to doing.


Ethan Sawyer  7:40  
And so give us, like, an insight into, like, what the typical day is of travel when you're when you're on the road, totally.


Speaker 1  7:46  
So it's going to vary a little bit from from college to college, but for the most part, you're going to get up really early in the morning, because a lot of your day for most reps, is going to be spent visiting High School. You are probably going to visit between three and five high schools a day. That's a lot. And then after you visited those schools, you usually have some kind of evening event. And that could vary. That might be interviews some now, some colleges don't offer interviews with reps, but some colleges do, and if you know you're visiting an area, it's a great chance to personally interview some of the students who live there. So you might do that. You might do that for a couple of hours, as many as four or five hours in the evening, after school, or you might go to a college fair, and those are held at different places. Sometimes they're held at high schools or community centers or even convention centers, if it's a big one, and college fairs tend to be if they're not on a weekend, so if they're on a weekday night, they're late, so you probably won't get out of there until nine. So your day, your work day, might start at 730 and not be done until 9pm and so the main thing that I would want you to picture your rep doing during travel season is just basically living in a rental car. Like the rental car is your office, and it is like a sacred space. You're taking phone calls in your rental car. You're doing I did a job interview in a rental car one time. You're taking naps in your rental car. You are some people watch TV on their phones in the rental car, because you get these tiny little breaks. You know, you might have like, Oh, great. I got to this high school half an hour early, so I'm going to park around the corner and, you know, have my little me time. And, you know, so you just need that little time to recharge. And so that's a lot of what it is. It's not super glamorous, but, yeah, that's a big part of it is Rental Car Life, for sure. And


Ethan Sawyer  10:00  
what are your some of your goals as you're out there, like when you're going to these schools, you know, what are, what are you doing? And what are you? What are you doing out there? Yeah,


Unknown Speaker  10:09  
why? Why do you


Unknown Speaker  10:10  
why? Why do all this? Why go through all this?


Speaker 1  10:11  
I know. Yeah, so. So the phrase that we use in the profession is territory management. That's what we're doing. So here's what that means. So territory refers to the fact that every admission counselor is going to have a region of the United States or and or the world that they're in charge of. And that means, it often means that's the counselor who's the first person to read the applications that come from that area. It's that counselor. Sometimes schedules don't work out that the counselor can do every single bit of travel to that region, especially in seasons that aren't the fall, like if there's a spring event, the school might just send whoever's available. But for the most part, you You are the counselor who oversees that territory and tries to know it better than anyone else. So you, if you're going to read all the applications from that area, you kind of want to know what it's like to live there. So it helps, it helps me so much to just literally drive around and kind of get a vibe for what might it be like to grow up in this place and go to school in this place, and then getting to actually be inside high schools was beneficial to me. Obviously, it was much better for everyone if students were able to come to my visit. But I totally get that. Like sometimes your calculus teacher, you know, will let you out of your class, even if I don't get to meet anyone. It actually just helps me to sit near high school for a little while and see what your environment is like, because then when I read your application, I can picture you in a very literal way. I can picture your context. And that's exciting. So that's so territory management comprises a few different things. Like I mentioned, school visits is one of them. Now I don't know, so I had no idea that school visits existed when I was in high school and I went to a public school in Northern California, and I think they were happening. I just don't think I knew they were happening. So sometimes your high school might advertise them to you. But one tip that I have for you is, even if you're not hearing about college visits, it doesn't necessarily mean that the colleges aren't coming to your school. Ways that you could find out might actually be to visit the college's website, because sometimes they'll post their travel schedule and they'll let you know when they'll be at your school. When I worked at read we would actually send an email to all the folks who were on our mailing list who went to a given high school to let them know when we would be there, so you'd hear directly from us. So that's a good reason to like jump on the mailing list of any school. And you know, the thing of the reason we do school visits, in addition to being able to understand your context, is because we want to make sure that students who may not be able to come visit us. Are still getting a little bit of face time with us, so it is absolutely the best chance to connect kind of one on one. Also, not every college depends on the school, but not every college will post on their website who the territory managers are for a given region, but if you go to the school visit, you'll not only meet that person, but you'll be able to get their business card with their direct phone and their email. And then if you have any kind of an issue or question during the time when you're trying to submit your application or after it's been submitted, you know exactly how to get a hold of that person, even if you know the website wouldn't necessarily help you find that out. So it's a great opportunity to do that.


Speaker 2  13:49  
Will you say just a little bit about, like, college fairs?


Speaker 1  13:53  
Absolutely. Yeah. So college fairs, similar to school visits. Here's the thing about college fairs. You know, when I went to them as a as a high school student, they just felt really They're huge, almost always, they're loud and they feel a little impersonal, just because there's so much going on in so many colleges there. And I would encourage anyone to treat a college fair exactly the way you would treat a school visit. We wouldn't have traveled all that way unless we genuinely wanted to meet you and we actually want to have a conversation with you. So if you go to a college fair and all you do, and I totally get this again, because it's kind of it's intimate, it's intimidating. I think sometimes that environment, all these people standing behind tables. I don't know if you've ever been to a college fair, but that's what it looks like, you know, and and if you go up to the tables, you just grab a bunch of brochures. Maybe your mom or your dad is there. They ask the rep a few questions. I totally understand why that might be your impulse, but don't pass up that opportunity to really talk to the. The person who's come all this way to meet you, you can really have a conversation. And I remember people really well that I met at college fairs. One thing that you'll do if you if you go to a college fair, you'll fill out, sometimes, a thing called an inquiry card. And this is like, literally, a you know, card that has, like, a space for you to write your name and your email and your address and your high school. And what I would do as a rep is, when I got a great conversation going with a student, I would flip that card over. Once they had left and they'd filled out their info on it, I would flip the card over to the back, and I would make notes about who that person was and what they had done that was cool, and why I remembered them, and when I took my big stack of cards back to my office, when I would go home, I would be able to put notes in that person's file, and then forever be able to remember that I had a great conversation with them. So college fairs can be a tool to actually have that personal connection, even though they don't always look like they're going to be a personal play. I


Ethan Sawyer  16:02  
wonder if there are any specific examples you can think of students that you met, either at high schools or at a college fair, that you know something they said or something you talked about stuck in your mind?


Speaker 1  16:11  
Oh man, yeah. There are a lot of kids that I remember meeting for a variety of reasons at college fairs. The ones I remember most are the ones who asked the best questions. And interestingly, that's also true for interviews as well. So that's a third thing that we may be doing on the road as as college reps. So again, some colleges may not offer that interview, but if colleges do, then they'll definitely do some on the road. So the thing about interviews that I know can be trickier to prepare for is you're kind of, it's, you know, you're kind of reviewing your own life and your own activities, coming up with answers to the interviewers questions. But I would highly recommend that you be ready to ask the interviewer some questions too, because the people who I remember so well are the people who asked me questions about me, and I don't mean in like a way, totally disconnected to the college, but I just have this very clear memory of two, only two students over the hundreds that I interviewed on the road who asked me a question about, like, how is my fall going? What is travel? Like, they actually asked me some of the same questions you're asking me, Ethan and just like, what, what are you doing when you travel out here and don't worry, like, it's fine that you don't know that. I mean that genuinely, they're just there to help you learn anything you want to know. You can ask them how their fall is going. You can ask them why they decided to work at the college they work at what they like about it. You can ask them who they are and what they're interested in. I mean, just practicing that empathy and that curiosity is really powerful, and it made it made that student unforgettable for me. And of course, that's always what you want is that is a hugely valuable thing for you as an applicant, if I will never forget who you are, and when your name pops up in committee, and I can be like, oh, this person, I remember this person. So clearly, you know, that's a great way to stand out. And so, yeah, just being empathetic towards your counselor is a great way to make sure that we can remember you.


Ethan Sawyer  18:34  
I love this point. This is this resonates when I was interviewing, yeah, like, as a Northwestern interview, as an alumni interview, and meeting students, it was so rare that a student would like, flip it, and when they did, it was sort of like, Oh, here's a student who's confident and willing to be curious and who's, you know, at ease enough that they can sort of turn the camera back on me. And it created this sense of, like, equality a little bit less, you know, I've got the thing that they want, and here they're trying to, like, get it right. It's more like, Hey, here's a human that I'm sitting across from, and we're just just talking about life and stuff. And it suddenly put us on more equal footing. And I found that I relaxed a lot more, and we laughed more, and so but you're right, it was, like, super rare. And yeah, a quick side note, because I'm going to put this in the show notes. But for students who are hearing this and going, oh my god, I have no idea what kind of questions to ask. If you Google or just go in the show notes, college essay guide, interview guide, we have a list of questions that you can potentially ask your interviewer. So there's like, a specific resource for that, and then there's another one that will link to this, and we're going to talk about demonstrated interest in just a minute. But in just a minute. But in the Guide to demonstrated interest, there are four tips to like, developing an authentic relationship with your rep. When, when students like, let's say they get your card and they've had a maybe a connection with you, and they're feeling like they want to email you because they really want to let you know that they're super excited about the school, but they have no idea what to say. What are some give us? Do's and don'ts for, like, that initial email contact. Yeah.


Speaker 1  20:03  
Oh, that's such a great question. Yes. Okay, so, so great idea. Always a good idea. If you, if you ever get a business card, honestly, this is good advice for your life with a job too, in the future, right? Like, if, whenever you get a business card, do something with it, follow up with it, with the person in some way. And so here's a thing that that I discovered, both in admission and in other areas of my life. It actually you might feel like asking them a question, is you trying to get them to do extra work, or do you a favor or something? But there's actually research, like psychological research, on this, but like when you ask people a question or you ask them for help, they're more likely to respond positively to that. Then if you send the email that I totally get, might feel more natural to send, which is like, let me tell you a little bit about who I am and why I'm interested in your college. Sincerely. Katie, you know, I get, I get why that feels like a comfort zone. But actually, just ask them the question you want the answer to. And it could be about anything. It could be about like, you know, I want to know a little more about your you know, what's the food like on campus, you know, literally anything like that. So that gives the rep something specific to do when they respond to you, and it's much more likely to create a little email chain, and those email chains will be a way for the rep to continue engaging with you, instead of like, there's not really much I can say in response to a question that's just like, of a statement of like, who you are, and I'm delighted to hear about you, but my response to that can really only be so great to meet you. Get in touch if you have any other questions. It kind of doesn't allow the conversation to continue. I would get I would ask for specific examples. One thing I loved it when people would ask is something like, what's a cool thing that a biology major has done? Part of my job is I actually spent a lot of time memorizing cool things that people in every single department Reid had done, and I was so pumped when I got to use those examples. So that sounds a little weird. It sounds like you again. It feels like you might be asking them to work harder, but that is our whole job, exactly like I said in the beginning, we would not do this work if we weren't really into the idea of college, the College we work for, and also really into answering your questions. So we're in general, it usually gives us a lot of energy to be able to answer the specific questions like that. So don't, don't be afraid of feeling like you're challenging us a teeny bit. So


Ethan Sawyer  22:38  
talk to us a little bit about this thing that we've mentioned already, called demonstrated interest, and set it up what what is demonstrated interest and how does it play into some of the stuff we've been talking


Speaker 1  22:48  
about? Yes, great question, because this is definitely a phrase that no one talked about when I was applying to colleges. It's become a phenomenon in fairly recent years, so it's a great thing to make sure everyone knows about so demonstrated interest to the college means, how often did the student take advantage of opportunities to make contact with us? So that is essentially it means it's just this idea of like colleges want to know if you are putting effort out there to get to know them and to kind of get that face time with them. And one of the reasons, well, there's a variety of reasons why demonstrated interest has come up. I mean, one of the reasons, I think that it is part of the landscape now, in a way, it didn't used to be. I think it partly just literally has to do with the technology, because tracking demonstrated interest does take a database that works in a certain way. It takes software that works in a certain way. The one thing that you all may know or you may not know, is that marketing software, this is not just colleges, this is basically anyone who's sending you a marketing email, that software can tell if you opened the email, and it can tell if you clicked on links in the email, and so stuff like that. Statistically influences like there's a system like a relationship, basically between how often people take actions with emails, and then how often they are to how likely they are to do something. The reason, to my mind, having, you know, seen, having been part of the admission profession, here's why, I think demonstrated interest plays a role. It's become important to colleges. It's not because we're trying to surveil you. It's or, you know, just, you know, make sure that we can know is, I mean, it's nice to know as much as we can about a student, but that's not really the goal. The goal is we as a college are trying to work through the fact that students just apply to way more colleges than they. Used to, I mean the average number of colleges that the last time I looked at the data from the from the National Association of college admission counselors, it said, I think it's eight colleges. That's the average number of colleges that an American student applies to. And that's really high, especially when you consider that's an average so half, half the people are applying to more than that, right? So it used to be that a college could say, back when people only really applied to, like three or four colleges, it used to be a college could say, oh, they they did all the work to set us in an application. They're definitely interested. So they demonstrated interest was really a factor. But now when people might be applying to 1015, 20 colleges, the fact that they've sent you an application might not mean what it used to so that added factor of demonstrated interest might be the thing that helps a college predict whether this is just a school that's on your list to be on your list, or whether this is one of the schools that you were really putting effort into. So I would say, just in the same way that you would look at your list in general, and you might have, you know, the schools that you're super, super interested in, those are the ones that you do want to put the demonstrated interest effort into.


Ethan Sawyer  26:17  
So just to put this in perspective from the flip side is, like, the college used to have a one in four chance of getting you as an applicant, and now they've got more, like a one in 10, like, a or one in 20 chance of getting you. And why do they care so much, Katie, like, why does it matter that they can predict who's going to go, like, who's going to ultimately yield and attend their school? Yeah,


Speaker 1  26:40  
totally. It's because so the number of people a college has to admit to get so an incoming class, let's say they want an incoming class of 500 freshmen, they're going to admit a lot more than 500 people in order to get that class a lot more and so they have to have some degree of ability to predict how many of those people like they need a certain percentage of the people they admit to come and so there's a certain amount of statistical modeling that goes into it, just because it's a lot of students and a lot of data, and different pieces of data influence things differently. So like, just like every thing that a student might do, or every fact about a student kind of has statistical weight, basically, now I'm talking a lot about statistics and numbers, and so you might be getting the impression like, Oh, this is all done by machine now, and I can promise you it is definitely not. Because, you know, we've just been talking about this at great lengths east and I would point to that example of the that this, you know your colleague who met a student at a college fair and was like, oh, yeah, I love this kid. I remember this kid. I know a lot about them. That's why I want to admit them. That absolutely happens, and a machine can't do that, so, but that big modeling picture is still really important. And the reason it's important is because colleges get their money from tuition. I mean, that's kind of, you know, that that's how they stay in business, is they, they get tuition money. So if they're not able to bring in a class of the right size, then they don't have enough money to run the college. And so it's, that's kind of why they have to think about all these big statistical questions. So the deal with demonstrated interest overall is it's, it's a factor. We talk about it a lot. It can feel kind of mysterious. It's not the factor. It is nowhere near as important as some of the other things in your in your application, and I can tell you from experience, of course, like, if you have amazing grades, your essay is great. You know, you, you know, just your teachers rave about you, and you've never made contact with the college, you're probably still going to get admitted. You know, it's not, it's not about, you know, demonstrated interest trumping things. It's just one more thing on a long list of, you know, 20 different factors that we consider. So


Ethan Sawyer  29:09  
some of the ways you mentioned demonstrating interest are like, you know, meeting them in college fairs, you know, if they come to your school, meeting them, you know, following up with an email. What are some of what? Give us a couple other ways.


Speaker 1  29:21  
Yeah, okay, yes. This is such a good question, because what I would never want a student to think is that if you are, if you're a student who is, let's say you live in rural Wisconsin and you don't live near the schools that you're interested in going to, because they're all on the West Coast, you might think, well, I can't visit, I can't do an interview, I can't demonstrate interest. And that's totally not true, because demonstrated interest is contextual, like everything else about you as a student. So in the same way that a college wouldn't, you know, try to blame you for like, if your college, if your high school, doesn't offer. That many APS, we're not going to judge you by the same standard that we would judge a student whose school offers 25 APS, right? Same deal if you live in rural Wisconsin and you can't visit but you read all our emails, and you've called us a couple times. You figured out who your regional rep is. You called them, you asked them questions. You had an email chain going with one of them that is demonstrating a ton of interest relative to your context. And I know students. You know, when I worked at read, I knew students there who, you know, hadn't, they didn't, you know, the first time they visited read was the day they showed up for orientation, and they, you know, the fact that they came very patient means that they were able to get in. So we're definitely always every college is looking at students in that context. And then another way to demonstrate interest that I think is crucial and important to what you do Ethan is essays. Essays, good essays, demonstrate interest, especially if the college has essays that are specific to their school. So that means, like at read, we had a, you know, we used the common app, and we would have the central Common App essay that all the colleges could see. But then there was a read specific essay that you would write, or there are the UC essays, or there are the Apply Texas essays, you know, that have, they are their own prompt. If you are writing essays tailored to those schools, then that's demonstrating interest in a very strong way, because that's such a great way to show that you've done your research. You have a genuine personal connection to the school. You You can picture yourself there and remember, that's what the school is trying to do. They're trying to picture you there as well. So that's a great way that I think might be kind of overlooked as a part of the demonstrated interest puzzle I want


Ethan Sawyer  31:48  
to get into in a minute. I want to get into your reading pace, because I'm interested in that. Students are probably interested in it. But first, I want to know, are there any cool additional info moments or stories that you feel like did make a difference in the application. Okay,


Speaker 1  32:04  
I the most important function overall that additional info served for me as a reader was, oh,


Ethan Sawyer  32:11  
wait, we should explain what that is. Sorry, some people may know what that is,


Speaker 1  32:15  
absolutely so the additional info section is a portion of the common app. And then there's some other application forms that will include something similar. And the prompt for this section is something it's almost exactly like. Is there anything you wanted to share that you haven't had the chance to share elsewhere in your application? And we will always advise, and when I say we I mean colleges, but I also mean college counselors who work at high school or independently will always advise that that's the section to use if you want to talk about why you randomly got a C in chemistry and you don't feel like that represents who you are as a student, or you got sick and it affected your grades or your performance, or, you know, just kind of that life context We wouldn't be able to pick up from somewhere else. Somewhere else. That's always the thing that I found. I would read those really closely, and I would include that, that stuff in my notes about a student's application, because that's always really helpful context. So I would say that's, that's number one helpful thing you can do with additional information when it comes to supplements and whatnot. I The one that I remember are the ones that are directly connected to like so let's say that the essay was about the students photography and or, you know, something about who they are and how they think and how they view the world. And then this is kind of the same example I gave before, but then the but then the supplement is so there's like a direct connection. I can kind of see the flow from one thing to another. And I think there's a way to create that flow, even if it's not as direct as, oh, this is the same topic as my essay. I think it might be like, let's say you're an engineer, and your whole application is about engineering, but you also play the cello, or you also draw cartoons that would absolutely be great if you say something, if you're so what that you're putting before your your little supplement is like, you know, I, I love engineering, but I also have a creative side, and it's also really, it's important to me to explore ideas through other media. So here are my cartoons, you know, so like that, that is a way to kind of create that flow for the reader, because you're telling them what they're supposed to take away from the fact that you draw cartoons, it's the fact that you're a well rounded person who thinks in broad, nuanced ways about the world,


Ethan Sawyer  34:44  
right? So talk to us about how fast you read. What was your give us? What was your record?


Speaker 1  34:50  
For many colleges, your application is first read, the read for the first time, almost always by the territory manager who we talked about earlier. I. Then it is almost always second read. And it'll be second read, usually by kind of a random member of the office. And this is really helpful to us as admission counselors, because then we get to read applications from all over the country and the world, in addition to our territory. So we're seeing the whole pool. That's great. And then the application goes to committee. So I quote, unquote, read applications in different contexts. My average time for reading a first read was 12 minutes and 50 or at the 30 seconds. 12 minutes and 30 seconds.


Ethan Sawyer  35:35  
Wow. That actually surprises, because my friends who read for the UCs are like four minutes, maybe five, right? Yep,


Speaker 1  35:43  
yep. It's different, but it's every school is different and read. So that just kind of gives you some information about how read does stuff. We're very, you know, it's a small school, whereas the UCs are large schools. We are really, because we're small, deeply invested in like, the kind of community we're building. So we have to think really carefully about who someone is in addition to what grades they're bringing. And I'm not saying they use these don't think like that. It's just their form is set up to feature different information and read, for example, asks for two full length essays in every application that would second read an application in anywhere from like, I would say probably four minutes would be my average for a second read. A second read is not always a full read. It's more like you read the first readers comments, and then you're kind of double checking everything, and then in committee, the average time an application spends in committee, it really varies. The committee is where the whole admission team votes on an application, and that some files only need to be up there for one minute. Some files we might take 10 or 15 minutes to discuss. Hugely varies, depending on that's why we go into committee, so we can make sure every voice is heard and different perspectives can be brought spare on different applications. Which


Unknown Speaker  37:11  
applications go to committee? Most


Speaker 1  37:13  
of them at a place like read are going to get more than one look, and they will, you know, it depends, kind of depends on the year. It depends on things will change over time. The thing is, if so, if I first read an application and the student is so extraordinary, you know, every number is amazing. The essay, you know, is extraordinary. I'm not, I'm not even going to send that application for a second read. I'm just going to admit, you know, put that in the admit pile. Doesn't mean that it won't be looked at later. I'll talk about that in a minute. But I'm, I'm not going to send it through that full multiple read process. Similarly, if I'm looking at an application and someone like, set fire to their high school and got straight s like, I'm not going to send that through, you know, the multiple breeds, either. So it's the extremes that don't go through that process, that middle zone. It's actually really helpful for us to see as many files as a group as we can, because then, as a group, we can make more informed decisions, because we've seen the scope of the pool. And then after committee things aren't done, because then that's where the leadership of the office, the Vice President and Dean and Director, are going to think through some of that big picture, class shaping stuff. And I've spoken to multiple deans of admission who say that they have their eyes in every single application that is submitted to their college. Obviously, that's not going to apply to like a giant school, but to some of the small liberal arts schools, it's a lot of different people are going to see your application. So yeah, I think that's helpful to think about when you're putting it together, like it's really going to get serious consideration at some schools. So let's


Ethan Sawyer  39:03  
get even. Let's get even deeper into the essays. First. I'm just curious if have you ever counted how many essays you've read? I


Speaker 1  39:09  
have. I did this math recently. I'll lay it out for you. So like I said, Read has two essays per application. I was reading about 25 applications per day on my reading day, so those days when I was at home under a blanket. So that's so two essays per app, 25 apps per day. That's about 50 essays a day. And let's say I was reading four days a week, give or take for about two months, give or take. So that's about 1600 essays. And that's just first reads you can do second reads a lot faster, like I mentioned. So let's just, for the sake of argument, say that I second read double the number of first reads that I did. So if we go through that same math, you know, two essays per second read 52nd reads a day. So that would be 30/202 read essays. So at least 4800 essays every season between first and second reads. And none of that counts the essays that would come up in committee. So a very conservative estimate of how many applications I read, or I'm sorry, how many essays I read in just five years at read is about 25,000


Ethan Sawyer  40:29  
so this positions you beautifully for this next part. So talk to us about essays. What should students do? What should they not do? Yes,


Speaker 1  40:37  
all right, so what are we thinking when we read essays? So we are thinking about what we really want is we want to remember who you are, what a main goal of the essay is to allow So have you ever seen the movie admission with like, Tina Fey and Paul Rudd.


Ethan Sawyer  41:02  
You know, I haven't actually seen it, but I've heard a lot about it. Yeah, so it's, it's not a


Speaker 1  41:07  
great movie, but they definitely did their research on, like, how admission officers work. And there's a thing that happens when Tina Fey, she plays a think of Princeton admission officers, totally fictional movie, but she is reading applications, and when the application is good, this like, tiny version of the student, like, pops up on her desk and stands there and talks to her about who they are. That's what you want. Like you want this feeling that, like we are picturing you and you've, like, come into my living room, you know, with my cat and my cup of tea to tell me about who you are like. That's what we're looking for in that essay. And we really want that sense of getting to know you on a personal level. And that's totally possible to do that, that, you know, showing yourself on a personal level that's possible to do, even if the essay prompt is a little more functional, like some essay prompts are like, you know, tell us why you're interested in the engineering program and what experience you have. You can totally answer that question by using a story that allows us to take away a few adjectives about who you are, a sense of how your mind works, a sense of what kind of college student you're going to be, because at the end of the day, that's our job. That's why humans do this, because we are there to craft a class and think about what community we want to build at the school we work for. So you really want to get your application reader to remember who you are, so they can advocate for you later, because once it's been first read and second read, and that was weeks ago, and then your application pops up in committee. You want the thing to happen where I see your name pop up on, you know, the projection screen where we're putting applications so we can all look at them together. I want to see your name and immediately be able to go, oh, this is a person who, who wrote about, you know, how her dog wears costumes, you know, something specific about you, or something, you know, just like, Oh, I remember, like, the feeling that I got from this application is very empathetic person. Or this is a very, you know, passionate and excited person about you know, this, this passion and that's really memorable, the person who had a grandparent die, or the person who got a sports injury. I know those are really deeply important stories, but they don't stick in my brain the way those tiny little details about who you are do,


Ethan Sawyer  43:42  
and why is, why are those tiny little details so important?


Speaker 1  43:47  
So the tiny little details, not only do they help us remember who you are, but I think when you take the time to dig in, and like all the you know, techniques that you use Ethan are so good at helping students actually use the essay writing process to think about who they are, and really have to answer some questions about what they're looking for out of their life, you know, and who they are at this moment where they've come from, like, when a student has taken the time to do that, they're giving me a picture of what kind of person they might be in the classroom and what kind of roommates they might be and what kind of classmates they might be. So that's really important. And the other thing about a tiny detail, if you're just trying to kind of put all your info in, you know, if you're trying to sort of, and I get this right, you've done really cool things in high school, you want to make sure that you use your essay to tell me about all of them. You don't want to leave anything out, but that's really hard. It's like I'm skimming over your entire biography and there's nothing for me to grab. And when I can't grab anything clearly in your essay, then I don't know what your So, what is and the So, what is absolutely crucial. And it's crucial in part because of how fast we're reading. You know, if you don't tell me what your real topic is or what your real takeaway is until the end of the essay, or it's kind of buried some in somewhere in there, I don't know. I may be able to figure out what story you're telling me, but I don't know why you're telling it to me, and I don't know what I'm supposed to remember about who you're going to be on our campus. So that's why the so what is so important? And I think those smaller topics make it easier for you to decide what your so what is because you have to go yourself when you're picking that smaller topic, you're going to be like, you know, why am I writing about this necklace that I always wear, you have to answer that. So what question for yourself, and then that will help you answer it for us. Yeah,


Ethan Sawyer  45:47  
for I'm loving what you're laying down here. For folks who are listening and are like, tell me more about the SO WHAT IF YOU If y'all Google, Ira Glass on storytelling. He's got a little 534, part YouTube video that's like, on this thing we're talking about, and it's like, he talks about two parts of a story, and the second one is a so what? And he also does a really nice job, I think you're doing a great job of explaining what that is and why it's important. Give me a sense. Are there a couple essays that you can remember that were just like that was they were awesome for some reason, they stuck in your mind after reading 25,000 essays. Here are the ones that you remember.


Speaker 1  46:25  
Yeah, there are two that come right to mind. One is actually a Why read essay. Anyone applying to read is aware that read actually doesn't have a Why read essay anymore. They changed the topic. I was part of that process of changing the topic. But I did read why read essays for one year, and there's one of them I always remember. And then the second essay is an example of how to take a risky topic and make it work really well. So I'll talk about the why, the why read essay that worked so well. So this is a student who so you know, if you're familiar with read, you know that it's a place that's known for being home for folks who are intellectual and, like kind of interested in everything. It's deeply liberal arts. Everyone's going to take coursework in a wide range of different areas. And so this student, the way they framed their Why read essay was they started it out and they said something like, I could tell you why read, but first I need to tell you about the life cycle of this insects that I got really interested in last year. Oh, and next, I have to tell you about my research on, you know, medieval Italian clock makers. And it kind of went on like that, and it had this great flow. And, you know, there was sort of a clear picture of the student that was emerging from this. And then after this lovely like, Oh, I love, you know, these ideas, and I can see how they're connecting. And, oh, I guess that's why read. And it was such a great move, because so good. Oh, man, it was still, I mean, it was just, it would have been a great essay, period, you know, whether the Why read framing was there or not, but like it never, it always reminded me of how the best way to approach a why us essay, if you're applying to a college that has one of those, is at most 20% of that essay is going to be about the college. At least 80% of it needs to be about you, because they know they know about them. You know, like you know you've heard me talk in this podcast about how much information I have to memorize as an admission officer about the school that I work for so that I can answer questions about literally any major program on campus. I think the admission office actually knows the college better than than many other constituents, because they have to memorize everything so they know all the stuff about the college. And while I get that, you want to show you've done research, and there's totally room for you to do that, it's not about showing the breadth of your research about the college. It's about depth. It's about the depth of your connection to what they're doing. So pick one thing about that college to focus on, and the thing that student, in my example, did was they picked, they picked that nature of like inquiry and the way people think at read, and the kind of care intellectual character at Reed. That was the thing the student was showing they deeply connected with. And it was they were doing it in a very much Show, don't tell kind of way. Fine, yeah, thank you. Yeah. I was I love that. Well, I want to,


Ethan Sawyer  49:24  
I want to jump in and say that, like, when I I have, like, three different ways that I teach this, and one way, like the basic solid one is like, do the research, find those reasons and make sure that they connect back to you. And then there's like, a more advanced level, which is like, find, you know, three or four specific things about the school that totally set the school apart from any other school, and connect those back to you. And then, like, the advanced level is what you're talking about here, which is like, pick one specific value, like intellectual curiosity, or, you know, sense of place. You know, for example, Bowdoin asks, or asked in the past, you know, what is their sense of place? And then, sure. Show that quality, like, to the nth degree, and that's an advanced way of, like, really stepping out. So I say that to students, and heads up some try it and it just doesn't work. And so they kind of go back to, like, you know, giving the the research and the bunch of reasons. But I just want to, like, praise hands, what you're saying,


Speaker 1  50:17  
No, complete. And I completely agree. I think the, I mean, the this particular essay was, was written by someone who was just a tremendous writer and whose kind of natural voice tended towards those things. And, you know, different people have different writing voices. And I actually there was a phrase I would use a lot to describe students, because Reid has really great science programs. So we would see a ton of scientists come through, even though it was a liberal arts college, and I had this phrase I would bring up in my notes on apps, and I would say, Oh, this student writes like a scientist. And what I meant by that was, like, this essay is crystal clear. It is full of evidence to back up every single claim that it isn't, it isn't like poetic or it's personal, but it's it's very straightforward, and I get exactly what the so what is, and it's rock solid in its construction, but it doesn't have to be sort of lyrical in the way that this person's natural writing voice was writing like a scientist is a spectacular trait. It will make you such a good essay writer when you actually get into a college classroom. So there's nothing wrong with that. And if your way of going about it is what Ethan is mentioning, boom, like, that's great. You're going to get the job done just


Unknown Speaker  51:29  
as well. Love it. Give us the other one,


Speaker 1  51:33  
the other essay. Okay, so this is an advanced maneuver, and the reason I like to tell this story is because partly, I just want to, like, shine a light on how often this essay was and how I'll never forget it. But I also want to, I use it to show how if you're going to pick a topic that's kind of risky, there are things you have to do in order to make it work as an essay. So this was an essay about pooping, and believe it or not, it was extraordinary. So this may be too gross, so I apologize to anyone if it is,


Ethan Sawyer  52:11  
but I never forgot it. Anybody who doesn't poop, do not listen.


Speaker 1  52:18  
So here's the topic. It started out with this image of the student, and this is a woman, and she had started this one woman campaign at her high school because she found out that a lot of her female classmates were unwilling to do a number two at their high school. And so she decided that this was crap, haha, and she put posters all over the women's room that were like, these funny exhortations about, like, what? It's like. Everyone does it. It's totally fine. You know, it's kind of like in a body acceptance sort of way. And then the essay transitioned into telling this story about how, after this being kind of a thing that she did at her high school, she was later diagnosed with a medical condition where she couldn't poop in the way that one would like to. And she drew this incredible connection between, like, oh, you know, I was trying to advocate for freedom and, you know, body acceptance, but then I kind of learned that body acceptance might take different forms at different times of your life, you know, you can't. You know your body's going to do what it wants to. And I kind of got a new, like, appreciation for why. Maybe some of my classmates were thinking about this. It was really funny, but it was abs, like, there was a very clear so what? There was a lesson learned. There was an arc that took place. It like in the hands of another writer, it would probably not have worked, but it was so very much her story. And you could also tell that she had, this was definitely a student who'd like, gotten great support, you know, at from her high school in terms of, like, putting together an awesome application. So there were, there were folks who were experienced, who were kind of looking at this essay and saying, like, Yep, I understand. Here are the things that it's doing, right and it's going to work. So that is an essay I will never, ever forget.


Speaker 3  54:09  
Katie, what advice would you give to parents? It is such


Speaker 1  54:14  
a gift to any student to have parents who are involved in the application process. Not every student has that support, and it's so exciting to see parents who are involved as an admission counselor, and I also would say to parents involved in the process to just make sure your student is is not only guiding that process, but is also really taking the reins as far as communication is concerned. When a parent needs to call an admission counselor, totally great. If you're calling about financial aid, if you're calling about the logistics of a visit, if the parent is calling the admission counselor to ask a question about the by all. Technology department, or what are the dorms like? Then I start to wonder how interested really is the student in this school? And I mean, I hope it goes without saying that parents calling is not the student demonstrating interest. And if it's just, you know, if a parent and a student come up to me at a college fair and the student is not really talking to me and kind of looking to their parent to speak to me. I'm really happy to share that information with the parent, but I wonder what might be gained by the parent and student, kind of dividing and conquering and visiting different tables at different times. And the reason for that is, you know, when your student goes to college, they will be on their own, and they will be talking to professors who might be kind of intimidating on their own, and they will be figuring out how to navigate bureaucratic stuff and doing laundry and getting haircuts and all the things that you have to do. And it's a great opportunity that senior year to start letting them take a few of those risks, and some of them might be risks that might mean that, like some of the work doesn't get done as fast as you might like it to, and that's nerve wracking and understandable, but that is what college is going to be like. And I, because I used to teach college, I've seen really clearly what are the skills that make folks successful in an actual college classroom, and the those soft skills of being able to kind of make your own way as a person are actually more valuable. The B student with extraordinary soft skills might be a more successful college student than the straight A student who is missing some of those soft skills. So that's just something to think about as part of the process.


Speaker 2  56:47  
What do you hope students will keep in mind as they go through this process?


Speaker 1  56:52  
Oh, man, I know that it is stressful, and I just kind of want to affirm that that's real, because I know it may sometimes feel like, you know, anytime you have contact as admission officer, you need to be like, Hey, I'm in my bubbiest greatest health. And that may be true, you know, you kind of want to project that, but like, it's okay, it's okay to feel stressful. It's a lot, it's a lot going on, like having a full time job on top of your senior year classes. And I also think that I just I as someone who loves college and deeply believes in college and and all the possibilities of education at its very best, the process of finding a college and going to college is a deeply transformative process of understanding who you are, and I really hope that that is something that you can find somewhere in in your application process, whether that's through writing the essays or through, like, really deeply evaluating which colleges are right for you, what should be on your list, just like, listen really closely to yourself, and it might mean needing to tune out a lot of noise to find that signal. But don't be afraid to give yourself that space and kind of listen to yourself if you're feeling doubts, if you're feeling your gut, is like just telling you stuff, listen to your gut at this moment. So I just really hope that everyone gets to enjoy how cool this process can be, too.


Ethan Sawyer  58:25  
Katie, I could do this all day. I'm so grateful. I'm so grateful for your time and thanks for coming on the podcast.


Speaker 1  58:31  
Yeah, thank you. Ethan, it's always great to talk to you, and really happy to be here.


Ethan Sawyer  58:38  
Hey, friends, that's the show. Thanks for listening. In the show notes, you'll find resources that we talked about, like the College Essay Guy interview guide, the guide to demonstrated interest. And there's a really cool clip that I mentioned from Ira Glass on storytelling. By the way, if you're not subscribed to the CEG YouTube channel, search college sa guy on YouTube, and I put out videos each week, it's got pretty much all the things tune in next time for another behind the scenes of the admission office with Tom Campbell, formerly of Pomona College. That's it be well and stay curious. You.


Transcribed by https://otter.ai