With most applicants entering the final weeks of the college application season, Dean Lee Coffin of Dartmouth has assembled a “home stretch" toolkit of advice for high school seniors and their parents. In Part 1 of the two-part Admissions Beat season finale, the action items include: putting the last touches on a balanced college list; assembling the remaining pieces of an application; monitoring deadlines, and being sure that students register, typically via email, for the application portals that colleges use to request and convey time-sensitive information. But the most timely advice may be for those applicants who find themselves cornered  at their Thanksgiving tables by well-intentioned relatives seeking to pepper them (as opposed to the mashed potatoes) with rapid-fire questions about their college admissions process. Joining Dean Coffin are two seasoned counselors with experience on both the high school and college sides of the admissions equation: Sherri Geller, the co-director of college counseling at Gann Academy in Waltham, Mass., and a former admissions officer at Brandeis and Northeastern, and Ronnie McKnight, associate director of college counseling at Paideia School in Atlanta, and a former admissions officer at Emory and Presbyterian College in South Carolina.