This December, Take a Pass on Recruit-to-Deny Admissions

A few years ago, still panting from her modern dance class, a student burst into my office on Cyber Monday to tell me about a “bizarre” email she had just received from a college.

No names. But it was an Ivy with a microscopic acceptance rate.

So I took a pause from the Saks website and we read it together. It was a buttery, sweet-talking, ingratiating recruitment email reminding her that “there was still time” to apply to said college through regular decision. 

We had talked about this particular college once, for less than two minutes, 10 months earlier. We had dismissed it as not a match, and it was a stretch on the admission side.

“This is gross,” the student declared, “like they need another application, and I know I’m not going to get admitted in regular decision. I love my list, and just don’t want to mess with it. And don’t even get me started on their supplement.” 

Vexed, she clutched my sequined Jonathan Adler throw pillow like a life preserver, and asked me what I thought she should do.

“Take a pass,” I said, not missing a beat. “Right,” she said, handing the pillow back to me and departing in a flash of self-empowerment. And we never spoke of it again. A wise and fortuitous response to one of the the slickest perils of the modern admission world: recruit-to-deny admissions.

Recruit-to-deny is a practice in which some ultra-selective colleges (those with acceptance rates below about 15%) work overtime to rope as many candidates into their pools as humanly possible. And then they turn around and deny a vast majority of them. Why? You asked that at just the right time. It artificially suppresses their acceptance rates, and in turn, boosts their rankings, their brands, and their self-serving perceptions of their own prestige. You know: all the important things that really matter in education, and in life. End sarcasm.

Part of the effectiveness of this Gordon Gekko-ish strategy lies in the “new math” of college admission, in which these ultra-selective colleges fill huge proportions of their classes through early admission programs, leaving far fewer seats available for regular decision contenders. Here are some numbers from an ultra-selective college during a recent admission cycle (I have rounded the numbers off slightly for the sake of simplicity):

And you better believe that their overall acceptance rate would be all kinds of higher if it wasn’t for those 44,000 regular decision applications.

The long and the short of it is that no college in America needs a six percent acceptance rate to effectively fill their class with fabulous people. Not one. 

So if you get one of those sugary emails from one of these ultra-selectives – or as someone I know calls them: “ultra-rejectives” – this December, think carefully about why they want you to apply. Here is a hint: it’s probably not you specifically. It’s definitely not your $75. They could just be looking to say “no” as much as they can.

But what if you “love” it? Sorry, boo. I’ve heard that one before. If you really loved it and it was a great fit – and an admit was in the realm of possibility – it almost certainly would have found its way onto your list by now.

But this is a good time to take one last hard, honest look at that list. You should make sure that you genuinely like all the colleges to which you are applying, that they are all good fits, and that you would be happy to attend all of them. Every. Single. One. This is particularly important for your likely schools, as I wrote about last year at this time.

In the end, I admit that it can be hard to say “no,” even if an offer or invitation comes with dicey motives. It takes strength and power and purpose, and a little bit of courage. And a resolute knowledge that you will land in the right place, with the right people, at the right moment – and through the right process.

This is true in the college admission world. And it's true in life. 

When I was 29, I frequented the OG Barry’s Bootcamp in West Hollywood, just around the corner from my apartment. I’ll admit that I was addicted: to the steam, the flashing lights, the ab crunches, the oft-sighted celebrity – the whole gestalt. The bass from Bad Romance literally shook the whole building. It was magic, and being there felt fabulous.

One day, as I was heading out after a particularly brutal class, I was approached by somebody whose name you’d recognize. I sure did. A Los Angeles heavyweight with a brilliant smile and seven-figure bank balance. And a deeply questionable reputation. 

He asked me if I would be interested in dinner.

I remember thinking that this was one of those weird LA moments that usually coalesced into a bad first screenplay.

Except that I also remembered: we always write our own films.

I looked at him and said: “You’re sweet, and I’m beyond flattered: but I’m going to take a pass.”

The Year of Living Gratefully

Despite the overt risk of sounding like a clearance bin self-help guide, I will admit that at certain points in my life, I’ve struggled to express enough gratitude. Perhaps this affliction is not uncommon amongst those who loosely match the public perception of my previous self: young, ambitious and outwardly fabulous.

But in middle age, gratitude is something that I find myself trying to summon more and more - and thankfully, it eludes me less and less. Part of this evolution is just the wise, natural march of age. But honestly, I owe a good chunk of this quiet victory to my profession.

In turn, I constantly remind students to find and seize gratitude in the college process, its work, and its associated transitions. I surely do. And there is much on offer.

If you are a junior just starting out, this may seem odd to you. Gratitude for something that feels like a daunting, perilous schlep into the unknown?

Well, yes. If you do this process in any way that even abuts right, I guarantee you will grow exponentially in the year ahead. You’ll also have copious fun. You will meet fabulous people, many of whom can walk backward while praising student research opportunities and ignoring plainly visible beer cans in public waste receptacles.

You will become a far better writer and a more organized person. You’ll get to travel to random places that you’ve previously only flown over - and you will learn that you really don’t have to pay parking tickets issued by campus police.

You’ll discover that you can spend quality time with your family while simultaneously yelling at them. Critically: You will learn more about what makes you tick. And what makes you happy. And what gets you excited. And not because someone else told you these things - but because you found your way to them with your own instinct, your own reflection.

If you are a senior just wrapping up, or taking a break after Regular Decision - well good work. But you need gratitude, too.

First, extend some to yourself. You burned it out. You made it over the hump. Perhaps you got exactly what you wanted in December. Perhaps you didn’t (but trust me, you will end up someplace fabulous in the end).

Second, the next 12 months will be among the most profound and magnetic of your entire life.

I’ve found that we often have the most fun when the curtain is either going up or down - and in the next year, you will have both. You will get to celebrate yourself over and over again - and others will be there to celebrate you, too. It’s one of the only times in your life that you will be able to say “I’d rather have the cash” and not appear rude.

You will, for one last moment, relish the familiar.

And then, like magic, everything will be novel. You will realize that you miss your parents, and be happy that you had them to support you. You will get to make a raft of adult decisions for the first time. But the consequences of those decisions will be yours, too: an onus that will tee up opportunities for maturation and humility. This might mean that footage of you barfing in front of your dorm becomes a hot ticket Instagram reel. Your peers may think it funny - the Dean of Students will not.

You may fall in love for the first time with the person across the hall. They may not love you back. No matter. You’ll listen to Anti-Hero on repeat while running the stairs at the campus stadium and get over them in five minutes - and then you’ll meet someone new at the top of the stairs.

You’ll finally get to read all the books banned in Florida. It will take a while.

For all of this, dear students: you will and should be grateful. Doing so will help you become a better human and a better you. It will help you live your best life. And from the lessons of my own I can conclusively say: the more gratitude you discover in these years, the more you will inevitably discover as your life flows through adulthood.

And remember that gratitude comes alive when we express it. So tell others that you are grateful for them. Tell your family you love them. Thank people profusely, and hug people consensually. Write notes of encouragement on white boards. Buy your zealous but helpful lab partner Blue Bottle coffee, and take your overly forgiving roommate out for 2am pancakes. Send your hard-working college counselor a Saks gift card because they read your Carleton supplement 17 times.

However you show it - show it. Make it matter. Make it meaningful. Make 2024 the year of living gratefully.

The Likely Dance

At this time of year, my brain is a jukebox stuck on a single track: The Safety Dance.

For those who may not be aware, the song dates back to 1982 and is by a Canadian synth-pop band called Men Without Hats. It helped drive the musical revolution known as New Wave, and was a smash hit all over the world. I guarantee your mom danced to it in high school with her ridiculously teased hair and white Keds. The bizarre, ultra camp video made zero sense - but it still played on blast on MTV for the rest of the ‘80s, and it happily populates some of my first sensory memories.

In my adult years, I’ve danced to it at glamorous Westside Bar Mitzvahs, sweated to it at hot spin classes, and grocery shopped to it as its beat pulsed down the aisles of Market Basket. I’m even listening to it now, and it's still genuinely delicious.

But as much as I adore the song, the word safety itself has occupied a stormy place in my professional lexicon. In a college search, a safety is defined as a college to which a student has a very high chance of being admitted. I even remember my own high school counselor explaining this concept to me in the fall of 1997, as I lounged in her office in a fabulous argyle sweater vest from J. Crew and my moss green Birkenstocks.

Safety as a concept is a great thing, and a necessary - dare I say critical - element of any college search and any life. But I’m a strict devotee of semantics - and using this particular word in this context just doesn’t sit well with me.

Put it down to experience. I have found that its use, for one reason or another, can unwittingly cause a student to take their safeties for granted. They start to view them as a fait accompli. This can lead to an undeserved devaluation of these schools based on the sheer fact that they can get in. Alarmingly, it can encourage an unfortunate overreliance on quantitative measures of selectivity in this process - instead of what matters most: fit.

I have also found that its use can often be accompanied by blatant and eye roll-inducing snobbishness. When I was an admission officer at Tufts, the entitled and charmless father of a young woman we’d waitlisted howled at me in anger and confusion because she hadn’t been admitted. Sporting an unforgettable, pitch perfect Long Island accent, he went on to brazenly detail his position: “Everyone knows that Tufts is merely a second tier safety school for those hoping to attend Brown.”

Double rude. But never you fear: I swifty and intently corrected his thinking with guile and professionalism reminiscent of Alexis Carrington - all while attending to a chipped nail with the Bobbi Brown manicure set I kept next to my phone. Needless to say, his daughter was not admitted from the waiting list.

So you get it: I don’t use safety, and have consistently asked my students and parents not to use it either - for their sake, as well as my own.

Instead, I use likely. Say it with me: likely. That’s better.

So now, in reference to your likely schools. You need to pause at this time of year and look at your finalized college list and ask yourself the following questions:

1.) Are all of my likely schools a good fit for me?

2.) Would I be happy to attend any and all of my likely schools?

And you have to be honest with yourself. Brassy gay uncle honest.

If you answer no or maybe to one or both of these questions, you have a big problem. You’ll either need other likely schools, or, at the very least, you will need to extend much more time, energy and love to the ones you already have.

The good news for you is that it’s definitely not too late to course correct - it’s admittedly the 11th hour - but it's still not too late.

So do this last little bit of heavy lifting. And I guarantee that we'll all sleep, and dance, better this winter. And come spring: “everything’ll work out right.”

How to (Politely) Get Your Aunt Susan to Shut Up About Your College Search

Like any bon vivant, I love the holidays.

But decades of professional treadwear have taught me that this time of year can be tricky. Right now, everyone seems to be incessantly and obsessively talking about the “c word” - college. And frankly, by this point in the process, most seniors just need a rest; and I can surely empathize. Even the most passionate and caring counselors need one, too. I once holed up in a Saks dressing room on a snowy December evening, swathed in a steeply discounted Paul Smith angora sweater, patiently waiting for a very familiar voice to recede into the din of the cosmetics section - I simply couldn’t talk about college for another minute that day.

With the increasing proliferation and dominance of early admission programs in our ecosystem, this period has become the top of the arc for many students and the people who support them. The first concrete news. Tears. Triumph. Excitement. Bewilderment. Exhaustion. The implied horror of more deadlines and more essays. It’s all in there somewhere.

But it also collides with the frenetic publicness of the holidays. Parties. Concerts. Sledding. Relatives decamping to your guest room from someplace deep in Central New Jersey.

And then comes the nosy, competitive, slightly snobby aunt. Her name is Susan, and every family has her. Her reputational perspective on colleges dates back to the Carter Administration. She has several older children for whom she managed this process, so she now fancies herself an armchair college counselor and expert on the peculiar environs of the admission world.

Susan recently heard something about your first choice college in a Whole Foods parking lot that she feels she must share. Of course, it will necessitate a change in your strategy and a realignment of your priorities (according to her). She could have simply sent you an email, but instead, chooses your parents' Hanukkah party. Unfortunately for you, her color commentary could unleash needless waves of worry, confusion and anxiety that could derail your search and unmoor your confidence.

So after 20 years of seeing this pattern repeat itself, the best advice I have for you is to just tell her to shut up. Implicitly. Gently. Politely. And with love and class and grace. She’s just trying to help, and she’s got a good heart. But never-the-less: just shut up, Aunt Susan.

You can always start by subtly changing the subject - but to what? Currently, I’d suggest Dua Lipa’s glitzy new single Houdini or the rout in crude oil prices - but you do you. You can slyly shove a canape in your mouth. You can pawn her off on another, more loquacious party guest. You can tell her that she left the window of her Subaru open, referencing the impending wintry mix.

Or, as may be preferable, you can just smile, and with a gentle, non-threatening embrace of her lower arm, say: “Aunt Susan, I’m so happy to see you, and thank you so much for your thoughts and care, but I just don’t want to talk about my college search.”

The latter is very hard when you are young - and frankly, it can be hard for people at any age. But learning how to do it well at age 17 will pay dividends - both now and down the road. It may come in handy next week with your lab partner in AP Bio. Or it may come in handy in twenty years when random people ask you prying questions about money and marriage at Soul Cycle.

A college search, like everything else in life, is best guided by fit and doing what you believe to be best for yourself - with conviction and purpose and intention - and without need for public explanation.

In this process, as in life, you get to choose from whom you seek support and counsel and comfort. You create your own network of confidants. You create a community that cares for you. Critically, you get to manage your own PR - and you can be private and enigmatic if it serves you.

And it probably will serve you - especially over the next six weeks. It will be generally far less annoying, and you will be far healthier and happier in the end. You’ll have more fun and enjoy this season more deeply, no matter what happens. And I promise people will love and respect you for it. And don’t worry, Aunt Susan will be just fine.