2 | admissions.dartmouth.edu
Lee A. Coffin Vice Provost for Enrollment and Dean of Admissions & Financial Aid
PHOTOGRAPH BY DON HAMERMAN
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ollege admissions is on the literal and proverbial front page these days. The admissions beat has always been a lively one, but its pace has accelerated to a near-frenzied pitch of media coverage, not all of which is positive. As I begin my 25th admissions cycle as a dean, one essential truth has been overshadowed by fevered selectivity, lawsuits, and scandals. That truth is this: the work we do in admissions is fundamentally honorable. It’s about the path from home to college, from adolescence to adulthood, from something familiar to something untried and untested — an all-new adventure that engages a young person’s curiosity and creativity. Call me naïve or nostalgic but, in my book, that has always been its animating philosophy. It’s why I have always loved what I do. My role has many dimensions that often go “unreported” but are no less important than the number of applicants I can admit in any given cycle. I am, for example, an ambassador for the enduring value of the liberal arts. It is my charge to represent Dartmouth College— its academic opportunities, its institutional values and culture, its priorities and aspirations — to a new generation of students and their parents. That increasingly diverse audience across a widening geography can be less familiar with the lifelong benefits of
a private, residential, first-class undergraduate education in the liberal arts, let alone one nestled in the mountains of northern New England. I am also an agent of the future. The jobs, families, communities, and leaders of the middle 21st century— the professional and personal span of today’s high school seniors — will require creativity and collaboration as well as a genuine appreciation for the multidimensional, multicultural nuances that will only broaden and deepen over time. Imaginations must be elastic and bold. Curiosity must run towards problems, not away from them. As an admissions officer, my role is to invite students to think, dream, inspire, act, and imagine. I am, too, a referee who must negotiate an impressive excess of demand for a finite supply. Dartmouth is the smallest school in the Ivy League and one of the smallest research universities in the country. Our size makes us who we are. It contributes to the intense sense of camaraderie across this wooded college town and among our exceedingly loyal alumni around the globe. Shaping this community requires choices — tough, nuanced choices — that are thoughtfully rendered one by one in an unavoidably subjective process that considers data and instinct, achievement and potential. Informed subjectivity is an art form, not a mathematical equation. As a new class takes shape, reason hugs emotion. Both ingredients are required. Finally, I am a counselor. I am drawn to the students — the kids — who populate my work. In each of them, I see opportunity. I see earnest ambition. I see the skinny, nerdy version of my younger self. I see someone who knew college was in my future, but whose awareness of the path towards achieving that goal was not immediately evident. And so I am also a tour guide. But perhaps most important is what I’m not. I am not an adversary. While I must say “no” far more often than I may say “hello,” my goal is the latter. Each time I open a file and meet a new person and applicant, I hope I can find the evidence to knit together a compelling, evaluative narrative that leads the candidate forward. I am an admission officer, not a denial counselor. Contemporary college admissions is complicated, and the landscape around it is noisy. The process isn’t linear or prescribed. But the facts of excess demand and finite opportunity do not erase the reason I was drawn to this work three decades ago. Good people are college admissions officers. Every choice we make is motivated by what is possible and optimal for student and college alike. We work to earn — and to deserve — your trust. And we hope that the process will yield the best future for every single student who engages with us.