Saying No

[Disclaimer: if you’ve never worked for a highly-selective school, you may find this post annoying but take it as a way of seeing that the proverbial grass is not always greener on the other side.]

It is always interesting to me what response—if any—a given post will generate. Needless to say, not much gets posted in the comments section of the actual blog but I do get some feedback from friends and colleagues who email me directly.

The last post about deciding what is best for the student versus deciding what is best for the school got me more feedback than I expected, and from a couple people who have never responded. I wasn’t even sure they read the blog but I guess they do. Several people mentioned it is the hardest part of the work we do.

From my humble perspective, I respectfully disagree.

I had the honor and opportunity this summer to spend some time with the Head Master from Eton College in England and Mrs. Little. We spoke of a number of things, professional and otherwise. But on the topic of admissions, we agreed that our greatest challenges came from explaining to the parents of a perfectly acceptable candidate why their son (Eton being all boys and all) was not being offered admission. Those are the most difficult conversations: when you agree that the applicant is more than qualified, when you can point to no short-coming or area in need of improvement, and simply must blame the numbers. Parents and applicants are left deflated and at a loss. In the end, it would actually have been easier for them if we could point out some flaw or some insufficient score or grade, so they have something to cling to or blame. Or fix.

But the hardest part of this job is when no such flaw or grade exists. The hardest part is when if you had 20 more spaces, the child in front of you is one you would haven taken without hesitation. All you can do is comment to the parent about institutional priorities that have nothing to do with their child and remind them that their interest, in part, stems from the highly selective nature of your school and the cap you put on grade sizes.

I remember the year we had more sibling applicants for a particular grade than we had spaces. Forget disappointing, frustrating and/or angering complete strangers. The Admissions Committee had to decide which current families we were going to disappoint, frustrate, and anger. It was a most difficult decision as all the candidates were known to us, at least through their siblings and parents. It was subjective, personal, and heartbreaking. We had to work hard to be objective and reasonable. I remember it like it was yesterday. It was very difficult work and challenging conversations but it was also personally rewarding to be part of a team of colleagues who genuinely and sincerely wrestled with what was best.

That’s what makes it the most difficult job we have to do in our profession: saying no and explaining that no to an otherwise deserving child. When your door says director or dean that is one of things you and only you can do, or should do. You have to look a family in the eye, try and understand, and prepare to take on whatever reaction may come.

As I said in my last post, it’s our job. It’s just not always pretty.

Tricky balance

In this recent post on The Choice, Pamela Horne from Purdue University says that awarding merit aid is about helping the institution, not rewarding the student. It’s nice to see that kind of honesty. It is true at some level, isn’t it? Institutions set aside scholarship funds in order to reward students…whose enrollment benefits the institution.

It’s the tricky balance we aim to strike in admissions and scholarship. Is our job to do what is best for the applicant or for the institution? Sure, it works out great when the applicant who really wants that offer of admission is a student you’d love to enroll or the applicant (and/or their parents) who thinks they are deserving of a scholarship is actually deserving of a scholarship.

That’s the easy work.

But what happens when you don’t think offering admission would be best for the applicant or best for the institution? Or best for both? What happens when what would be best for an applicant—namely to get out of their current situation and into one of our excellent schools—is not what would be best for our school?

On the surface it sounds harsh but the reality is that we are not serving our schools (or our current students for that fact) if we offer admission out of pity, out of false hope, or simply because we like a kid and/or their parents. If that kid is going to struggle, if we are not able to meet their needs, or if we feel we can not be partners with the parents, then we have to say no for the sake of our school. And for the sake of that applicant.

Inappropriately admitted kids are a drain on resources, are taxing to teachers, and can negatively impact the experience of our other students. Furthermore, inappropriately admitted applicants can result in that student having academic if not also personal set-backs. Issues of confidence and self-esteem are quite tender and fragile at certain ages. And when that kid does not return for a second year, we have set them up to move on to their third school in three years. Not healthy. Not helpful.

Who doesn’t want to help kids? Who wishes they could find appropriate homes for all applicants? Who hates being the mean guy or the bad cop? We all do. But we do it because it’s our job.

It’s not always pretty.

St. Andrew's Hong Kong

It’s a beautiful empire (as in British, not architectural style) church, having served the elite of England when they lived in and occupied Hong Kong. The corner stone was laid by Lord somebody and the opening christened by Bishop somebody, etc. etc. You get the picture. It is steeped in history, has an imposing and grand presence, and speaks of elitism.

Is that St. Andrew’s or is that our schools?

What was interesting about St. Andrew’s is that on the inside it turned out to be everything you didn’t expect from the outside. In place of the altar was a large, flat screen monitor and in the side aisles you also had flat screen monitors. In the tradition of great American evangelical congregations, everything was projected—hymn lyrics, bible passages, and even the announcements were pre-recorded with video showing you the way to the coffee afterward.

The congregation was diverse, in every way possible. There were the expected white ex-pats plus the Hong Kong locals. There were ages and genders and everything from coat and tie to sweat pants and tshirts. It was a warm and welcoming group, especially for 8:30am. At the lone point when we had to open a book, I had two thrust at me, turned open to the appropriate page, to be of help to the obvious visitor in their midst.

I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised as the night before when looking at their website, it was like none other I’d seen. And having spent 22 years in admissions and traveling, I’ve looked at many a church website in a far and distant place. They have four services on Sunday and each had a very detailed description of what would happen, how long the service ran (most helpful as I had Sunday morning interviews scheduled), and who would be in charge. You knew if there were hymns or not, communion or not, coffee afterward or not, etc. They were described as traditional (which turned out to be relative with a monitor in place of an altar!), modern, and progressive. How helpful. How welcoming!

Schools that worry about or even struggle with attrition could learn a lesson from St. Andrew’s. They have gone out of their way to make anyone and everyone comfortable with coming there and comfortable with staying there. They exist with great success (Four services! Oh and they are in a $30mil building campaign, too.) despite their imposing history and exterior. They break the stereotype of colonial Anglican churches and succeed in doing so. Certainly some schools could benefit from doing the same.

Anticipate questions in advance (we all know what they are) and proactively provide the answers thereby making everyone who enrolls feel welcomed and safe. It’s not a bad model for enrolling and retaining students…or parishioners.

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.

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.

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.

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!