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.
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
That is the question
I started my career in admissions in the world of higher education. Admissions at the university level is much more of a profession. There are standards and expectations and even rules. And consequences. And it is taken more seriously by their institutions. Maybe things have changed since then (it was almost two decades ago!) but nobody would be caught standing in front of their table at a fair, or have a bowl of candy on their table, or hand out gifts.
After all, this was about higher education, this was about each student’s own education. Admissions was admissions and not recruitment. It was about the serious business of a student’s future and figuring out where they would be best served. And it would be cheapened by stuffed animals on a table or cute give-aways.
Imagine my shock when I moved into independent school admissions!
All these years later, I’m essentially immune (or numb) to it although this week the topic came up among a group of colleagues, in part because we were at such a quiet programme and were lacking anything better to do or discuss. There were some who were anti-gift and some who were very pro-gift. The majority, however, thought there was a fuzzy, undefined line in there somewhere. Giving away a pen or maybe even a lanyard was okay. Hats were dancing near the line and shirts for many were clearly on the other side of that line.
For me, it raises a question of purpose and value to your recruitment efforts. If you’re a school 2,000 miles away that doesn’t offer a sport a student plays, do you care if your bowl of chocolates brought them to your table and they took a viewbook? Do you really think that giving away a pen or highlighter will make a student apply when they would not have done otherwise? And do you really believe that the free tshirt will confirm an enrollment when the student (and/or their parents!) feels there’s a better fit, albeit a gift-less better fit?
I don’t know. I have my doubts. I do wonder if any school who does such things has ever specifically tracked the success. Is the application rate higher among gift-getters than not? Is enrollment yield better for those sporting the school’s tshirt than those who are not? I’d genuinely like to know.
To gift or not to gift. That is the question.
After all, this was about higher education, this was about each student’s own education. Admissions was admissions and not recruitment. It was about the serious business of a student’s future and figuring out where they would be best served. And it would be cheapened by stuffed animals on a table or cute give-aways.
Imagine my shock when I moved into independent school admissions!
All these years later, I’m essentially immune (or numb) to it although this week the topic came up among a group of colleagues, in part because we were at such a quiet programme and were lacking anything better to do or discuss. There were some who were anti-gift and some who were very pro-gift. The majority, however, thought there was a fuzzy, undefined line in there somewhere. Giving away a pen or maybe even a lanyard was okay. Hats were dancing near the line and shirts for many were clearly on the other side of that line.
For me, it raises a question of purpose and value to your recruitment efforts. If you’re a school 2,000 miles away that doesn’t offer a sport a student plays, do you care if your bowl of chocolates brought them to your table and they took a viewbook? Do you really think that giving away a pen or highlighter will make a student apply when they would not have done otherwise? And do you really believe that the free tshirt will confirm an enrollment when the student (and/or their parents!) feels there’s a better fit, albeit a gift-less better fit?
I don’t know. I have my doubts. I do wonder if any school who does such things has ever specifically tracked the success. Is the application rate higher among gift-getters than not? Is enrollment yield better for those sporting the school’s tshirt than those who are not? I’d genuinely like to know.
To gift or not to gift. That is the question.
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Plan C
I love my Bose headset. I can’t imagine all my travel without it. I love it so much that I actually wore out the rubber ear cups recently and had to order replacements.
The replacements came just in time for my recent trip to the UK. There were instructions on how to remove the old cups and insert the new ones. Right cup, done. No problem. Snapped right into place. Left cup? Not so much. I tried and tried and while it would gingerly stay in place, it didn’t take much to knock it off, sometimes frustratingly down into the mechanics of my plane seat.
If you don’t own a Bose product then you may not know they are one of those rare companies known for their unparalleled customer service. Since I had gotten the right cup to work with no problem it was obvious to me that there was something clearly deficient with the left cup. So upon arrival in San Francisco last week, I took my headset to the Bose store expecting one of two plans:
Plan A: they would have a set of replacement cups that included both a good right and a good left cup and I’d be on my way.
Plan B: knowing Bose, if they didn’t have the pieces I needed, they would just give me a new headset for free. They’re that kind of company.
So I proudly showed Trevor at the Bose store how I’d successfully attached the right cup but how there must have been something wrong with the left cup. I demonstrated how quickly it would pop right off. Trevor, instead, had his own ideas and introduced me to Plan C: Trevor, with little effort, manages to successfully install my previously considered deficient left cup. Certain he’d only done so to the level of my own previous limited success, I gave it a pull. But this time it stuck.
Damn it.
I looked sheepishly at Trevor and thanked him for his time and assistance, and packed up my headset, getting ready to leave the store with my head hung low. His response? With a big smile and friendly energy, he said, “Hey, that’s what we’re here for!”
Now later that same day I had what was probably my fourth or fifth skype conversation with a father in Bahrain. He had lots of questions. Actually, his wife had lots of questions but she kept making him contact me for the answers. With each additional conversation, I noticed he got more sheepish, like a guy who thought he was lacking a working left cup when all he was lacking was the ability to install it.
So when he thanked me profusely at the end of our chat that afternoon, apologized again for “bothering” me and letting me know he thought we were done with these skype calls, I simply said to him, “Hey, that’s what we’re here for.” As we signed off, I could see him sit up a bit, smile, and thank me with a bit of relief that he truly wasn’t bothering me.
Thanks for the excellent line, Trevor. It’s good to be reminded.
Sunday, October 2, 2011
Refuse to Sell
With age comes many things: wisdom, perspective, patience. And updated prescriptions for your glasses. Yes, after going almost blind looking at all those Excel spreadsheets of funnel data and financial aid amounts in preparation for my September Board meeting, it was evident I needed an update! So in between all the events of Association Weekend (i.e. homecoming) I made a dash to Toronto yesterday for some new frames and lenses.
Now that was an interesting experience. I sought the advice of sophisticated Toronto friends (who wear glasses, needless to say!) and they sent me to what ended up being the centre of hip, progressive, and fashionable eyewear. Well, there are three things you don’t associate with me! After doing battle with them over the fact that I wasn’t going to be busting out some “geek chic” black frames, circa “Leave It To Beaver,” I put the owner on the phone with my friends who had sent me there. I don’t know what they said but I ended up with a pair they refer to as “retro banker”. They’re different but not so different that I wasn’t uncomfortable with buying and wearing them.* Being hip certainly comes with a pricetag.
During the earlier negotiations I pulled out some frames I thought were more “me” and they pulled out their “refuse to sell” policy. Even when I exclaimed it was my face and my money and they should sell me what I wanted, they referred to their policy and explained they refuse to sell a pair of frames they felt were not appropriate, were not attractive on me, and would not reflect favorably on their business. Interesting. Who turns away revenue? Isn’t it a “buyer beware” and take the cheque kind of thing??
Who turns away revenue? We do. As I drove back to campus to chat up some more alumni, I realized that my whole career has been spent executing a “refuse to sell” policy. If I don’t think that my school and the applicant are a good match, I’ll deny him or her admission, regardless of the parents’ readiness to spend the money. Like those crazy people at the eyewear store, I am not offering admission when I think it’s not appropriate. It may be hard to see the revenue walk away but if we’re doing our jobs with integrity, then we do, in fact, refuse to sell.
Our jobs are to look after the best interest of our institutions and look after the best interest of our applicants, not unlike how those crazy eyewear people were looking after me—and looking after themselves.
*For those going to Saudi Aramco in two weeks, I think you’ll get to “see” me there with them. I “look” forward to it. Puns intended!
Now that was an interesting experience. I sought the advice of sophisticated Toronto friends (who wear glasses, needless to say!) and they sent me to what ended up being the centre of hip, progressive, and fashionable eyewear. Well, there are three things you don’t associate with me! After doing battle with them over the fact that I wasn’t going to be busting out some “geek chic” black frames, circa “Leave It To Beaver,” I put the owner on the phone with my friends who had sent me there. I don’t know what they said but I ended up with a pair they refer to as “retro banker”. They’re different but not so different that I wasn’t uncomfortable with buying and wearing them.* Being hip certainly comes with a pricetag.
During the earlier negotiations I pulled out some frames I thought were more “me” and they pulled out their “refuse to sell” policy. Even when I exclaimed it was my face and my money and they should sell me what I wanted, they referred to their policy and explained they refuse to sell a pair of frames they felt were not appropriate, were not attractive on me, and would not reflect favorably on their business. Interesting. Who turns away revenue? Isn’t it a “buyer beware” and take the cheque kind of thing??
Who turns away revenue? We do. As I drove back to campus to chat up some more alumni, I realized that my whole career has been spent executing a “refuse to sell” policy. If I don’t think that my school and the applicant are a good match, I’ll deny him or her admission, regardless of the parents’ readiness to spend the money. Like those crazy people at the eyewear store, I am not offering admission when I think it’s not appropriate. It may be hard to see the revenue walk away but if we’re doing our jobs with integrity, then we do, in fact, refuse to sell.
Our jobs are to look after the best interest of our institutions and look after the best interest of our applicants, not unlike how those crazy eyewear people were looking after me—and looking after themselves.
*For those going to Saudi Aramco in two weeks, I think you’ll get to “see” me there with them. I “look” forward to it. Puns intended!
Sunday, September 25, 2011
Demand & Reward
At SSATB this week, Pat Bassett, President of NAIS had some interesting things to say. He always does. I like to hear him speak. But, then again, so did the person who introduced him!*
Among the many interesting things he had to say, he said our schools really needed to wrestle with what are the skills and values that the 21st Century will demand and reward. I love that question and I would love to think about it and wrestle with it. I would love to have my school consider it and make it the topic of a faculty roundtable. It challenges our pasts and makes us ponder the future.
But, unfortunately, it is the wrong question.
Sad as it may be, our colleagues in the university admissions offices sit squarely between what programs and experiences we choose to offer and the very skills and values that the 21st Century will demand and reward. The reality those of us in school administration must face (versus those in school classrooms or those big thinkers like Pat) is that at the end of the day, the vast (vast!) majority of parents are not shelling out independent school tuition to a school without an impressive and mission-appropriate university placement list. Until the likes of the universities our parents envision for their children start to demand and reward those 21st Century skills and values in the admission selection processes, we will not be teaching or nurturing them, lest we do so at our peril.
This whole line of thought is similar to the one I had when NAIS was in Boston a number of years ago. Ruth Simmons, the president of Brown University (the first African-American named president of an Ivy League institution), charged us with what we should be doing to prepare students for the likes of Brown and all of higher education. She spoke so passionately and interestingly about diversity (in all its forms) that I raced back to my hotel room and logged onto the Brown University website. I was so excited and curious to see their application materials and how the criteria and questions therein reflected this important skill set and perspective their president valued. Call me an admissions geek.
Crushing disappointment followed by anger were my emotions as I noticed that standardized test scores, generic college essay questions, class rank, and gpa’s were still all of import to Brown University’s admissions committee. Nothing on their website or in their materials asked applicants about their experience with diversity, contributions they have made, lessons they have learned, perspectives they would bring to the Brown community. I actually sent her a letter. I never heard back.
We know the world is a changing place and whether you work with kindergarten or upper school candidates for admission, we can’t imagine the demands that will be placed on them or the life they will inhabit. We want to give them all that we can to make them the best prepared they can be, as has always been our tradition in independent schools. It’s a good and noble and valuable tradition.
But it comes with a high price tag, particularly in this economy. And unfortunately, it leaves us having to instead ask ourselves what are the skills and values that the 21st Century university admissions office will demand and reward.
Sad.
*If you weren’t at SSATB, I had the honour of introducing Pat. My remarks included a porn reference. I'll leave it at that.
Among the many interesting things he had to say, he said our schools really needed to wrestle with what are the skills and values that the 21st Century will demand and reward. I love that question and I would love to think about it and wrestle with it. I would love to have my school consider it and make it the topic of a faculty roundtable. It challenges our pasts and makes us ponder the future.
But, unfortunately, it is the wrong question.
Sad as it may be, our colleagues in the university admissions offices sit squarely between what programs and experiences we choose to offer and the very skills and values that the 21st Century will demand and reward. The reality those of us in school administration must face (versus those in school classrooms or those big thinkers like Pat) is that at the end of the day, the vast (vast!) majority of parents are not shelling out independent school tuition to a school without an impressive and mission-appropriate university placement list. Until the likes of the universities our parents envision for their children start to demand and reward those 21st Century skills and values in the admission selection processes, we will not be teaching or nurturing them, lest we do so at our peril.
This whole line of thought is similar to the one I had when NAIS was in Boston a number of years ago. Ruth Simmons, the president of Brown University (the first African-American named president of an Ivy League institution), charged us with what we should be doing to prepare students for the likes of Brown and all of higher education. She spoke so passionately and interestingly about diversity (in all its forms) that I raced back to my hotel room and logged onto the Brown University website. I was so excited and curious to see their application materials and how the criteria and questions therein reflected this important skill set and perspective their president valued. Call me an admissions geek.
Crushing disappointment followed by anger were my emotions as I noticed that standardized test scores, generic college essay questions, class rank, and gpa’s were still all of import to Brown University’s admissions committee. Nothing on their website or in their materials asked applicants about their experience with diversity, contributions they have made, lessons they have learned, perspectives they would bring to the Brown community. I actually sent her a letter. I never heard back.
We know the world is a changing place and whether you work with kindergarten or upper school candidates for admission, we can’t imagine the demands that will be placed on them or the life they will inhabit. We want to give them all that we can to make them the best prepared they can be, as has always been our tradition in independent schools. It’s a good and noble and valuable tradition.
But it comes with a high price tag, particularly in this economy. And unfortunately, it leaves us having to instead ask ourselves what are the skills and values that the 21st Century university admissions office will demand and reward.
Sad.
*If you weren’t at SSATB, I had the honour of introducing Pat. My remarks included a porn reference. I'll leave it at that.
Saturday, September 24, 2011
Who are these people??
Greetings from SSATB in Phoenix. For those of you not here, apologies this post may be conference-centric. I’ve been trying to wrap my head around the fact that the most popular workshop I’ve attended in the last two days was called “Keep the Job. Lose the Stress”. The room was literally standing-room only. People were seated on the floor in the aisles and piled up at the door, peeking and listening in. Now, I was in this session because I have to renew my Canadian work papers this school year and I thought it a good idea to have a back-up plan in case the Canadian government decided it would have no more of me.
What was fascinating was the number of very seasoned and very respected colleagues who were in this session. One was a past winner of an SSATB award and another I know has been at his school over 20 years and enjoys full enrollment! And then there’s the sheer volume of people in attendance, ranging from rookies to seasoned professionals. What are we to make of this?
Heather Hoerle has gone on this international listening tour through the US and Canada as she has ascended to her post. A great idea I think and my understanding is the tour has made 14 stops so far. In the opening session, she shared with us what she has learned and heard from her far-flung tour of member schools. The very first thing she mentioned was a call from the membership to invest in the test and be sure it is the best it can be.
Who are these people??
I’m not doubting what she’s heard but I’m wondering from whom. The colleagues I talk to are worried about the recession, meeting unrealistic enrollment goals, fighting back the flood of Chinese interest, and figuring out how to maximize financial aid. They are jockeying for respect and resources from their head and board, and trying to be heard by their administrative colleagues. And based on my experience today, they are a bit nervous about their job security, despite their accomplishments. Not a one of them is questioning the validity of the SSAT test. But that’s just my personal network.
SSATB: is it a testing organization with admissions professionals or an admissions organization with a test? I think there is a challenge going forward to finally wrestle this question to the ground. Can it be both? Maybe. But it better know which is the dominant personality and, for now, it seems to me that we have never craved more than we do at this moment a national voice of advocacy and expertise.
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
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.
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.
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