Tebow

So what does Tebow have to do with independent school admissions? I’m not sure I know. But one can’t help but to be caught up in Tebow-fever. It’s the day of the big game: Tebow vs. Brady. (Actually, Denver vs. New England.) And there is not one but two Tebow articles in today’s Wall Street Journal. That’s right: I’m not talking about the Denver Post or the Boston Globe. I’m talking about the country’s leading newspaper on business and economics. Two articles on professional football and on one particular player. And there’s an article in today’s New York Times and probably numerous papers around the country I did not have the time peruse. And there’s a good one posted to ESPN.com I read earlier today.

Personally, I abhor the excess of professional sport. Individual players make more than the payroll of teachers of most schools and probably some small school districts. And they seem to attract fans who would die before they approved a school board budget that would have an annual impact of $100 in taxes but they pay ten times that amount for season tickets to their local pro team. These premier and famous and overpaid athletes are more often than not—much more often than not—poor role models, have questionable values, and fail to use their influence and fame for good. There are exceptions, of course. Cal Ripken comes to mind. Tebow is currently the most well-known of them at the moment.

Did you know he wasn’t even the starting quarterback for Denver this season? That he saw little play at all last year? And now look how far and fast he has come. Impressive everyone is now talking about him given that he spends so much of his time helping the poor, dying, underprivileged, and downtrodden. He flies the suffering and hurting to every Denver game, home or away. And it’s not just a token. He spends time with them before and after the games, and attempts to corral others to do the same. He speaks of his faith, virginity, Baptist parents, and personal values without shame or hesitation. More than without shame or hesitation, he speaks of them with conviction, humility, sincerity, and power.

He’s a one-man brand and he attracts fans and haters alike. (Yup, sadly one of today’s articles was on those who have grown to hate him and anxiously, sadly await some fall or stumble, personal or professional.) But he is very clear in who he is, what he stands for, and in what he believes. He has won countless fans with his clarity and drawn many followers.

If he were an independent school, he’d be full with waiting lists. Long waiting lists. So what can we learn? Yes, many seem to dislike him and can’t wait for him to fail tonight but many adore him. And isn’t that the compelling argument for a strong brand: to strengthen the loyalty of those you seek and help those who are not a good match to go find their own Tebow elsewhere? Good luck to them.

Know who you are. Own who you are. Share who you are. And do it like Tebow: proudly and genuinely. And the right matches will be lining up at your admissions office door.

The great thing about tonight’s game is that whether or not Denver marches forward, Tim Tebow isn’t going to change.

Thank goodness.

Has done vs Could do

If you are a reader of the Wall Street Journal, you know they issue these special “Journal Reports” on a regular basis. The one from last weekend was all about hiring and managing employees. There were a number of parallels in the different articles between corporate America and our schools.

As an exemplum, happy employees equal productive employees. Don’t we all know that happy students also equal productive students? My own headmaster is fond of saying that if they are not first and foremost happy, then they won’t be as successful as they can be in class, on the playing fields and in the residences. When they’re happy, they’re not bored and when they’re not bored, they’re generally not getting into trouble. It’s not to say that we change what we as adults believe and do to make them happy but that it’s important, maybe more so in a boarding school than not, that they are happy.

Another article addressed the tension between high unemployment and companies saying they can’t find the right people to do the right jobs. The author suggested that companies need to widen their search from those who have done that job in the past to those who could do that job. That is, who could do that job with the right training and mentoring. The suggestion was to shift the emphasis from the new hire being able to immediately succeed to the old guard, and what is that old guard doing to help the new hire, especially during difficult economic times.

Sadly, we probably all know a small but wonderful school that has closed its doors in the last two years during these difficult economic times. It was a great school that served a specific niche but it couldn’t keep it together. Enrollment was slipping or there wasn’t any savings (ie endowment) in the bank on which to rely. I wonder if those schools had shifted their emphasis from the quality of applicant (new hire) to the quality of teaching (mentoring and training) if they could have survived. If they had shifted from looking for students who had done the job to those they believe they could do the job—with the right teachers and teaching in place.

On the one hand, it’s a sad commentary on our society and our lack of emphasis on quality education that keeps our schools open. Shouldn’t a truly 21st century country be marked by a free and public education so exceptional that our schools should all close? On the other hand, until then, it’s sad to see those that had to do so.

In 500 words.

As I start this post, I expect it to be short because I’m not sure what to think of this article from the Wall Street Journal about changes in admissions essay questions to elite MBA programmes. I’m really just sharing. Some of the questions are interesting and even the formats can be intriguing, like the school that wanted the response limited to a tweet. (I guess they assume any MBA applicant worth their trouble has a Twitter account and “tweets”.)

There is some noted concern that paid consultants influence their essays although that’s not much of a stretch from our own concerns that parents influence the essays that we read. I like the essay topics that are grounded in the mission of a school better than the generic ones about challenges, role models/mentors, and what should we know about you. I just spent the last half an hour looking for some good examples from independent schools and what I found was that most of us now have our applications and questionnaires hidden behind logins and online applications. But that’s another topic.

One school did make a nice statement about itself but then followed it up with the pedestrian “how will you contribute?” question. It started well enough but the actual question could be copied and pasted from most other applications. On the other hand, how much does it matter?

I hope they are out there but I don’t really know any colleagues who place so much emphasis on the essay that it can sway a decision one way or the other, despite all other measurable evidence to the contrary. If that is true and the essay can’t win admission for an otherwise weak candidate or deny admission to an otherwise strong candidate, then why bother?

I always read the essay and it is actually one of the first things I go to when reviewing a candidate. But I admit it’s not going to make a paradigm shift in my thinking or decision-making. It is just interesting.

So why require it? I don’t quite know.

I'm sorry.

22,000 people thought they’d won the American Dream. And they had. But erroneously. And then the U.S. State Department shook them on the shoulder and awoke them from their dream and took it all away. It broke my heart to read this article in the Wall Street Journal. There’s a bit of a pit in my stomach for these people.

And then I remembered when I was the U.S. State Department. In a previous school in a previous time (with previous technology), we used to send a congratulations note from the headmaster a week after each candidate’s offer of admission. But those letters were run on the same day as the offers of admission—just post-dated. I don’t recall the circumstances (no doubt having suppressed them) or the details, but one year we changed our mind about a student after we’d run the letters, and we pulled their offer and instead sent a denial.

But we failed to pull the follow up letter from the headmaster.

You can imagine my utter confusion when I returned to my office one afternoon to a very excited voicemail from this student’s mother. She was completely baffled but didn’t care because their family dreams were realized and for reasons unknown we’d changed our mind and offered her son admission. Seemingly from the headmaster no less!

What can you do? It took a bit of time to figure out what happened and then I had to call the mother immediately before they told every neighbor, grandparent, and classmate. In the end, it still was not a good match and despite our mistake we had to hold true to what we believed was best for this boy, which was not to offer admission. It was one of the lowest and most difficult points of my admissions career. Proud dream maker had just become humbled dream killer.

I owned the mistake. I apologized endlessly. I explained what happened. I wrote a follow up note to both parents and kid. When I read about the 22,000 immigrants and conceived this post, I was going to title it “Not Proud”. But that’s not fair. I remember how I felt and can only imagine what those in the State Department are feeling this week.

For the boy in Philadelphia back in the 1990’s and for these 22,000 immigrants today, I’m sorry.

No means no!

For those who don’t know me personally: I have no children. I’m just putting that out there as those who do have children may read this and think I don’t know about what I’m talking. And I may well not. This is just an opinion blog. My opinion.

According to a Wall Street Journal article, tomorrow ads will run across the country calling for McDonald’s to retire Ronald and blaming McD’s and its marketing machine for our nation’s obesity woes with children. Wasn’t McDonald’s also the target of the woman who was surprised that her coffee was hot when she placed it in her lap? When did McDonald’s start to take the blame for adults abdicating responsibility? (And I’m no great defender of McDonald’s. I’m a Wendy’s guy. Frosty anyone?? (Sorry, Mike.))

But back to marketing to kids. Where do parents take some responsibility? Don’t we all know parents who limit the hours and content of their children’s television? That works, right? If they want to watch more tv or be on the internet, the answer is No. And No means no. I had a colleague in Philadelphia whose family had two computers (one for each son) and they both sat in the living room, where there was no tv at all. Both faced outwards so mom and dad could see what was on the screen at any time. Her sons are fine young men, went on to excellent colleges, and are making their mark in the world now. Saying “no” did not kill them.

And isn’t this all part of what we do and say at our schools? We hold higher standards, starting with the admissions office but then through to academic honesty, acceptable behavior and dress, and personal integrity. We require dress codes and participation in sports. At boarding schools there are curfews and rules about visiting residences. And for the most part, we are pretty successful in our endeavors and our kids have graduated to play meaningful roles in the national and international establishment.

I may not have children but I have worked in education for 21 years. One thing I have learned is that our students will generally rise to wherever we set the bar. When we expect little of them and set it low, they will act accordingly. When we offer them respect and confidence and set the expectations high, they will generally reach those heights. In our schools that latter attitude says to kids, Yes means Yes!

No doubt McDonald's knows what it is doing when it uses characters to advertise food and places toys in the bottom of a bag as an incentive to chow down. After all, they exist to make a profit for their shareholders. But when do we as adults and parents and educators boldly claim that we know what we are doing too, and that we do it in the best interest of our children and students? It our responsibility to set that bar high, higher than it is set by McDonald’s or anyone else.

Let’s give Ronald a break.

You Asked For It!

Okay, I’m taking a break from admissions blogging and meeting the manifold demands of my friends/readers: a post about travel! So, to my fellow travelers—for business or for pleasure—here are some of my key bookmarks. These resources are the backbone of my travel planning.

www.xe.com/ucc
Basic exchange rate calculator

www.seatguru.com
Only to be used when you and I aren’t on the same flight—don’t take my seat!

http://blog.tsa.gov/
This is where I learned I don’t have to take my iPad out of my briefcase. And they’re funny, too!

www.flyertalk.com
The online Bible for maximizing your hotel, car rental, airline, credit card accounts. Warning: it’s addictive!

http://blogs.wsj.com/middleseat/
Scott’s most recent post about the best day of the week to buy a plane ticket is currently the #1 article read on the Wall Street Journal’s webpage.

https://www.americanexpressfhr.com
Use this service 2-3 times a year and it will have paid for itself in free extra nights, free meals, etc.

www.tripadvisor.com
You have to be savvy to not be taken in by someone with an axe to grind or an owner posting about their own business but there’s a lot of good stuff there.

www.zagat.com
Don’t know where to eat in the big city? These guys can help.

Favourite airline alliance: www.staralliance.com
Favourite airline: www.singaporeair.com
Favourite hotel group: www.starwoodhotels.com
Favourite hotel chain: www.peninsula.com or http://www.starwoodhotels.com/stregis/index.html

May your hotel rooms overlook the mountains and not the dumpsters, may your flights find you in the exit row if not an upgrade, may your rental cars not have been last driven by five guys going to a Dead concert, and may your journeys always bring you home safe to what’s important.

(Un)Happy Labor Day

It wasn’t my intention to start the new school year with a negative post but I spent part of my holiday (Labor Day (aka Labour Day) is the only shared federal holiday between Canada and the U.S.) catching up on some reading, both paper and electronic. In doing so, I came across two short articles that got my attention—and not in a good way. The first from the Wall Street Journal is about a former admissions director who is now making money running a NYC service that helps children prep for the “playdate” common in elementary admissions processes. This article will have to sit with me for a bit although my initial impression is that I’m sad that our industry has driven families to such desperate measures and I’m a bit offended that a former admissions professional has decided to exploit this situation into personal profit, no doubt prostituting her former admissions experience as validity for her expertise and cost. Notice that no sitting admissions directors were quoted in the article.

The second article was sent by a friend asking what I thought as an admissions professional about an Episcopal/Anglican school that reversed its offer of admission upon realizing the applicant’s parents were both women. I had to first decide if I had to get over my embarrassment as a lifelong Anglican or as a 20-year admissions professional. But in the end, to answer my friend’s inquiry, this is the foundation of being an independent school. We are obligated to clearly articulate our programme, whom it best serves, and apply our criteria consistently, transparently, and fairly. This school’s values are obviously such that it can sustain enrolment and remain open not wanting to serve children of same-sex parents. Of course, I think I might feel better about St. Vincent’s if the article noted the school was equally diligent in following Biblical standards by asking prospective employees and donors about their use of contraception, receipt of the sacraments, not doing work on Sunday or expecting others (e.g. store employees, restaurant waiters, etc.) to do so, etc. Picking and choosing what to follow or enforce is neither professionally consistent nor particularly Christian.

Print versus Electronic

It’s not quite as contentious as diversity but print versus electronic is up there among professional hot topics for me. Being rather traditionalist, I sometimes worry that my own bias holds back my office’s full embracing of electronic marketing. But see what the Wall Street Journal wrote on the topic last year as it relates to getting catalogs in the mail. Interesting stuff.

In this article, I think the key line for me is, Catalogs, marketers say, drive sales at Web sites, making them more important than ever. (Of course, when I read “catalogs,” I see “viewbooks”! ) I think that’s the balance. Tease them with paper. Drive them to electronic. Wow them on the web. In leadership and management courses they teach us it is better to replace one thing for another than to simply pile onto the workforce more that needs to be done. In this case, unfortunately, I don’t think we’re there yet to replace paper with a screen so we must live with being piled on with more to do.

My favorite writer on all things related to education marketing, Andrea Jarrell (a link to whose blog, “School of Thought,” you will find in the right-hand column; feel free to suggest other blogs you like), weighs in on this here. She maddeningly provides no answers but plenty of food for thought. Making you think is among the things she does best. Enjoy her writing. She's stunning in many ways.

At the end of the day, I still think there’s a balance. After all, look at what we’ve learned about how the brain works in the last two decades and how that impacts classroom teaching and assessment and pedagogy. Doesn’t this extend to a diversity of ways in which families take in information and learn about schools? Why would we limit ourselves to a debate of print OR electronic? Doesn’t having a quality presence in both media give us greater market penetration?

From Canada, I wish you all a “Happy Civic Day” this coming Monday.