Beauty queen competitions

Anonymous wrote:I truly don’t understand. Your Ivy-bound kids are all apparently brilliant and doing meaningful research and changing the world, but after four years of Ivy education, you don’t think they’re qualified to score a high school kid’s essay?

This explains why top campuses were filled with activists and protesters. No one could figure out where these kids came from. It makes perfect sense.

I graduated from Amherst in 1994 and they had a position in admissions called th “green dean” which was for recent graduates to do a one or two year position. It was pretty competitive and the people who were chosen were really good for the position and took it really seriously. The one I knew well went on to be an admissions officer at another SLAC for a few years, then ran an advising company while getting an MBA and then became a high up exec at a company you know very well. I think these young grads are probably actually better and more invested that the burned out admin employees who’ve been working there for decades.

I truly don’t understand. Your Ivy-bound kids are all apparently brilliant and doing meaningful research and changing the world, but after four years of Ivy education, you don’t think they’re qualified to score a high school kid’s essay?

Anonymous wrote:You don't think that someone in their mid-20s...a college graduate often from the same school to which your kid is applying...is qualified to deem to your precious child worthy or unworthy?

Kids raising kids.

You don't think that someone in their mid-20s...a college graduate often from the same school to which your kid is applying...is qualified to deem to your precious child worthy or unworthy?

What are they deciding? Based on the essays?

It sounds like they are

Yup. When I graduated, a classmate stayed on campus for a year to work as an admissions reader while preparing to apply to grad school.

But realistically, I don’t think it’s a difficult task to read applications and rank applicants. Many will be obviously not good.

Now do “who made all the firing decisions at DOGE?”

This totally explains outcomes

Omgggg

I find it shocking too.

What exactly is your issue?

Wait - they graduated in 2024 and 2025? That's who decides whether to move your app to committee? Like 4-5 years older than these kids?

https://admissions.dartmouth.edu/admissions-beat-s9e7-transcript

So I'm excited to welcome four colleagues. As I often say on Admissions Beat, this is sponsored by Dartmouth, but it's not about Dartmouth admission. But in this particular episode, we've got five Dartmouth admission officers chattering about reading applications for Dartmouth. So we're going to use a little poetic license with Dartmouth as a case study, not necessarily a how-to guide about how to apply to and get into Dartmouth College. But say hello to, in alphabetical order, first by their first name, Anthony Fosu. Hi, Anthony.

Anthony Fosu:

Hey, Lee. How's it going? I am an admissions officer at Dartmouth where I graduated with the class of 2024, studying government, human-centered design and public policy. And before that, I was a member of the class of 2020 at Matawan Regional High School in Monmouth County, New Jersey. And actually it's one of the places I read now, most of New Jersey, along with parts of Pennsylvania.

Lee Coffin:

So next up is Carolyn Yee.

Carolyn Yee:

I'm the admissions officer here at Dartmouth College, graduated in the class of 2025. Before that, I was class of 2021 at Ingram High School in Seattle, Washington, which like Anthony is also a school that I get the chance to read now along with a lot of the Pacific Northwest.

Lee Coffin:

Thanks, Carolyn. And listeners, as you're hearing this, it's quite common to see an admission officer as territory manager for a place where they went to high school. So that familiarity of place is something that a lot of colleges just make sense. Have someone go home, visit the schools, introduce applicants through that environmental lens. Isabel Bober.

Isabel Bober:

Hi, everyone. I'm a senior associate director here at Dartmouth in the undergraduate admissions office, and I'm also a proud member of the class of 2004 at Dartmouth. I am the elder millennial of the group. When I was applying to college, it was still in the 1990s. And so I am a class of 2000 graduate from Bridgewater-Raritan High School in New Jersey.

Lee Coffin:

And rounding out our cast this week is Kevin Donohue.

Kevin Donohue:

I'm a member of the Dartmouth class of 2021 and a senior assistant director of admissions here at Dartmouth. I'm coming up on five years in the office, but I'm originally from Long Island, New York. You wouldn't guess from my proclivities for hiking and my beard on my face, but I graduated in 2017 from high school in New York City. Actually, I commuted on the Long Island Railroad to attend Regis High School, the Upper East Side, which is a quirky, small Catholic school, which we claim to be the only tuition-free private school in the United States. So three different places, suburban, Long Island, urban, New York, now rural New Hampshire.