Imagining Your College List

Admissions Beat

As we continue our focus on supporting high school juniors in the early activities of a college search, Admissions Beat encourages listeners to grab a pen and pad (or open a Google Doc or spreadsheet) to begin drafting a list of colleges to explore. Host Lee Coffin, Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid at Dartmouth, describes that list as a document that will evolve over the coming months and continue to take shape, “place by place, for you to explore, for you to investigate.” His guests this week are Darryl Tiggle, Director of College Counseling at the Baltimore Friends School, and a former admissions officer at Tufts University and Union College, and Jennifer Simons, senior manager at Bright Horizons College Coach, a company that offers college guidance to corporate employees as a benefit, and a former admissions officer at Barnard, Connecticut College, Northeastern and Tufts. They share plenty of advice on how to get a list started, including likening the early days of the college search to shopping for a pair of jeans. (Spoiler alert: in both instances, the fit is likely more important than the brand name.)