Just be.

Maybe it’s the fact that our school years have all come to a close and we’re all just a wee bit exhausted, but I have talked to more colleagues in the last month who seem to be teetering on the edge. And apparently I’m seemingly one of them as the chaplain recently called me into his office out of concern and to inquire how I’m doing. I thought I was doing fine. Best I not reflect too much and discover otherwise!

We seem tired from the year but also tired from what we perceive to be battles with heads, boards, faculties and even our own staffs. We’re restless, looking longingly on the other side of the fence to see if the grass is actually greener over there. There certainly have been an uncommon number of late spring director changes to invite curiosity. Upon closer inspection, however, it doesn’t seem to be. Even schools, directors and offices that appear from the outside to have a perfect admissions life really don’t when you peel back the cover. The diversity is never right, athletics is never happy, and/or the financial aid budget was never sufficient.

And then there are our schools. They seem restless as well, looking at colleagues and competitors down the road and thinking it’s seemingly better there. They appear to raise more money, generate more ivy league-bound graduates, and have deeper waiting pools. They appear… It’s not that our schools shouldn’t always strive to be better but they sometimes do so absent of taking an accounting of all that is good and actually going well. Goals are admirable but goals don’t negate the success and accomplishments of today. Or they shouldn’t.

What is going on? Why can’t we just be? Why can’t our schools just be? Hopefully the hallways empty of students and faculty and the slower pace of summer that comes with warmer, longer days will result in a quieter pace, a reflection on all that is good and promising in our lives and in our schools, and newfound optimism and enthusiasm for 2011-2012.

Chocolate Fudge Brownie

Hello from the Essex Institute, a wonderful (and rockin’) professional development opportunity for anyone in prep school admissions. I highly recommend it but just don’t let your spouse or head see where we stay.

This evening they made us do one of those hideous “get to know the person to your right and introduce them to the group” exercises. Actually, it was about a decade ago when I met my dear friend Pam McKenna from Hopkins Schools at the Essex Institute. We immediately bonded over our mutual loathing of such exercises. “I’m not here to make friends!”

Well, Drew Lineberger from St. James School had to introduce Craig from The Linsly School. This school is apparently the only boarding school in West Virginia (shocking!) and one of only two independent schools in all of WV. When this was pointed out, someone shouted out (was it you Shelia, from Packard Colleagiate??), “What’s your point”??!! Through the cloud of martinis, merlots, and beers, the question was actually quite valid. What was the point that they were the only boarding school in West Virginia?

Actually, I was next to Drew and my job was to introduce him. In our chat beforehand, he mentioned he had two kids. I asked him “who cares”? I told him that it was all about differentiation and that having two kids was nothing special. He then went on to tell me that he had two cats (I’ve forgiven him). Their names were “Ben” & “Jerry”. Bingo! Who cares he has two kids. Shortly after my introduction of him, someone across the table had two kids—of the same age! I elbowed Drew, hard!

Nobody will remember his kids—or the kids of the person on the other side of the table—but I bet you they remember “Ben” & “Jerry”. And who cares if you’re the only boarding school in all of West Virginia? Big whoop. Tell me something I care about and then I’ll remember your school.

Who cares about being unique. It’s all about being memorable and valuable. If you’re the only boarding school in a state/province that doesn’t care about boarding schools, what good does it do you? Being different doesn't fill schools or beds. Having value does.

On the other hand, do you think those two cats at St. James could fetch me some Chocolate Fudge Brownie or maybe some Cookie Dough??

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.

Her name was Karen.

Her name was Karen. She was a showgirl. Okay, no, not really. But now you have Barry Manilow playing in your head. Haha!

Actually, her name was Karen. She’s a United Express flight attendant. And she’s the best flight attendant (FA) I have experienced in a long time. As you know, when you fly into a hub airport, the FA does one of three things. Often, it’s nothing. Sometimes it’s to tell you to check the monitors when you land for connecting gate information. And sometimes they interrupt work, sleep, reading and conversation to read off connecting gates for ten minutes over the PA.

But not Karen. Karen went row by row and provided tailored information to each individual passenger with a connection. She also inquired if each passenger was familiar with Dulles International. When not, she gave detailed directions on how to navigate the terminal upon arrival. From my advantage, I saw lots of smiles and thank you’s for Karen’s tremendous service and hospitality. I certainly appreciated it and was in awe.

The cost to United Airlines for this remarkable service? $0.00, that’s what. The cost to Karen? Maybe less time thumbing through her special “Royal Wedding” edition of People magazine. And the benefit to Karen? Also none. This was one of those 20 row planes that only has one FA. Nobody but us passengers (i.e. customers!) to witness and appreciate her efforts. No colleague or supervisor for whom she was putting on a show. It was Karen just being Karen.

So if you’re a loyal reader of this blog and my musings (thank you, if you are!), you know what is to follow: a question with no answer. The question: How do we identify and hire the Karens of the world? What question can we ask, either of the candidate or their reference, to learn who is a Karen and who is not?

Whether they are on the road, out on tour, standing behind the table at a fair, or behind closed doors in an interview (or serving alone in an airplane cabin), trust is a key component with our staff and in our operations. Much of their work is done in solitude. Our people are our best admissions tool and no website or viewbook or social media endeavor can reverse the effects of a bad staff member. We need to treasure and nurture the good ones, but we have to first figure out how to identify and hire them.

Hey Karen! If you’re reading this, there’s a job for you in Canada.


And on a personal note: Congratulations to Shelia Bogan from Dublin School on her move to NYC and to day school admissions. The likes of boarding schools—and NYC!—will never be the same. It’s a lucky school that will benefit from her aversion to sleep and her addiction to work. Congratulations also to my former colleague and friend Emily Surovick (a Karen if there ever was one!) at Chestnut Hill Academy. Emily is expecting her second child and leaving our profession to be a stay-at-home mom. They are unlikely to find someone with as much poise, style, grace and dedication as Emily. She’s a class act and it was a privilege to work alongside her for a year.

A Year Later

A year ago this week, I ran off my plane in Hartford, rode impatiently on the bus to the Hertz lot, and drove slightly more than 55mph to the Apple store at the Holyoke Mall in Massachusetts. I bought my first iPad. (At that point, we didn’t have them in Canada yet.) With the help of my school tech guys on the phone and the Apple folks in the store, we got it up and running and then downloaded some Ridley photos and video. Next stop: Eaglebrook Fair!

For the first time ever (and most likely last!), I was cool, hip, tech-savvy and cutting edge. Mine was the only iPad in the whole room. Students flocked to my table to play with the iPad. They were utterly fascinated as many had not yet seen one. They had only just come out. But more so than the students, the other admissions directors were spellbound. It took me half an hour to get out of the fair before everyone who wanted to had seen the iPad and how I was using it. It was fun to talk with colleagues about its potential and the strategy my office had for it.

Fast forward to this past week and Eaglebrook 2011. There was a…um….herd? flock? murder? gaggle?...of iPads at the fair. My moment of coolness and being cutting edge was very clearly in the past. Oh well. I took home leftover materials; my table was not so popular, so cool.

Now not that I can take credit for the iPad movement but I am happy to have shared my iPad with colleagues during and after last year’s fair. I think we need to do more of this. I find a disturbing trend towards hyper-competition. If we remember our work is to serve students and schools then we should be willing to help each other out since by doing so we’re helping students and schools.

After eleven years at Chestnut Hill Academy in Philadelphia, I was still the new kid on the block when I left. Admissions directors in the Philadelphia market measure their tenures in decades, not years. The result was a group of seasoned professionals and close colleagues who’d been around long enough to have seen it all. Little rattled this group. You win some. You lose some. Life goes on. I miss that level of support, encouragement and mutual respect. That level of professionalism.

By helping and encouraging one another (or at least not purposely getting in the way!), we elevate the standards of our profession, serve the schools we claim to love, and help students end up in the environment and programme that best suits them.

If that isn’t what it is all about, then I don’t know.

Bulletin Boards

I’m in the middle of redesigning and launching a new website at my school. But isn’t everyone? If you’re not, then it means you’ve probably just done so in the last 48 months. It’s incredibly time consuming and made even more so by the number of other voices that get to weigh in on the look, content, navigation, and photos. I could write about the perils of websites or viewbooks designed by committee but there’s not enough alcohol on this plane to get me through it.

Instead, I find myself putting school websites into the same category as bulletin boards (and, accordingly, dating myself). If you’re an admissions director reading this and are breaking out in a sweat over the haunting memory of bulletin boards, then you were watching “Friends” when each Thursday the show had a new episode, not now when you can see repeats ten times a day across three different channels. I remember a time in my career when “bulletin board memo to faculty” was on the checklist before every open house.

Bulletin boards—like websites—are great ideas…at first. Teachers, coaches, activity leaders all are excited about sharing what they are doing, bragging about the accomplishments of their students, and letting their not insignificant egos become manifest on cork. What background paper will go on the bulletin board and where’s a stapler when you need one once you’ve picked out your border? There’s label making and headings and titles to be printed out and put up.

Fast forward to June. The background paper is torn and full of staple holes, the pretty border is wilted and flopping down, and the only thing left on the board is what hasn’t miraculous fallen down since September. All the enthusiasm and plans and energy and joy around the bulletin board quickly fell to the side back in the fall as students returned to school and the year got under way. Then multiply this by how many bulletin boards your school had/has.

So, as we design this new website and as expected, I hear from those enthusiastic colleagues around campus who have great plans and want to make sure they get a “button” on the website and not one of those lousy, buried L4 buttons. Their program should link right off the homepage. What’s ironic is they don’t share my skepticism (and certainly not my righteous indignation) when I point out the fact that on our current website their section hasn’t been updated since October…October 2009!

So beware your website doesn’t become a 21st century bulletin board. And just like those Greeks and their gifts, beware teachers and coaches bearing enthusiasm and promises.

...shall much be required.

A dear friend’s son is blessed to be both an incredible scholar and an incredible musician. Accordingly, he was looking for that rare combination of a superior conservatory and scholarly academics. This is not common. Most conservatories focus on music, to the ignorance of scholarship and most the top academic colleges in the country do not offer conservatories worthy of his talents. So they had to do some research and uncover the appropriate but short list of options.

They were kind to bring me along the journey with regular updates of campus visits, family conversations, and new discoveries. What I learned through this journey is that the world of auditioning for conservatories has its own set of admissions standards and practices.

For example, none of these institutions will divulge how many spaces they may have for trumpets, as an example. They will happily cash your application fee check and let you go to the expense of coming out for the audition, but feel no obligation to let the 150 applicants know there are only two trumpet spots this year.

My friend’s son, however, was talented and smart enough that it didn’t matter. He got a number of offers of admission, including to his first choice. You can imagine the excitement in the household. All those years of practicing and lessons and music camps (say nothing of miles logged in the car by mom and dad to get to all these places!) finally paid off.

But wait.

Here is something else the conservatories don’t tell you or share in their materials or on their websites: financial aid is allocated relative to the institution’s needs, not that of the family. So if you play a popular instrument, like the piano, then your kid is a dime a dozen. You fill out all your paperwork and blindly apply for the assistance your family’s finances indicate you need only to find out what you need is not a consideration. They’ll happily pony up some aid to meet their own needs but if they think your kid can be replaced with a rich kid, then it’s buh-bye.

There’s an ethical irony here insofar that if you are one of these elite conservatories with excellent academics who churn out the next first chair of the Boston Pops, then I suppose you can do as you like, as your wait pool will always be deep and your applications many. On the other hand, if you are top dog in your profession or your peer group or your industry, are you not obligated to set the standard higher, not obligated to be above such things?

So we’ll close with a little scripture this Sunday morning for your consideration and the consideration of conservatory admissions offices: For everyone to whom much is given, of him shall much be required.