“Admissions 101” offers an overview of the changing landscape of college admissions as seen through the eyes of two students. Aditi Narayanan ’24, from Phoenix Ariz., and Jack Heaphy ’24, from Charlottesville, V.A., talk with Dean Coffin about how they launched their respective searches. Both attended large diverse high schools, and both initially applied to 20 colleges.

Each found novel ways to investigate colleges, beyond what they found on websites and in brochures. Aditi reached out via social media to students already attending the colleges on her list. Jack was drawn to schools that place a priority on both academics and the arts and was less interested in institutional statistics than in what he could glean about student life. Both students, Dean Coffin notes, wrote engaging, authentic essays about themselves that were key to their successful applications.

A transcript for this episode can be found here: https://bit.ly/3eQqVJv