Follow the Label Directions
Layfette College
Every Sunday morning, my father-in-law tuned in to WOR radio to listen to The Garden Hotline. The host was Ralph Snodsmith, who conveyed his encyclopedic knowledge of plants with the patience of a saint. His characteristic voice bore a folksy cadence and a twang that hinted of both his Midwestern upbringing and his Virginia residency. A caller would describe some unhealthy tree or bush in the backyard, in the vaguest of terms, and Snodsmith would cheerfully identify the exact species. He might ask a few clarifying questions, but he would always get quickly to its proper care and feeding. This often entailed a trip to “your local garden extension” for fertilizer, characterized generically by a sequence of numbers. “Then,” he would admonish, carefully enunciating each word for emphasis, “follow the label directions.”
“Our 21st century culture does not embrace directions. It is no wonder, then, that students leap into answering questions on a test or a college application without reading the directions.”
College admissions is a process with lots of directions, and our 21st century culture does not embrace directions. “Disdain” is the wrong word, but they are certainly under-valued and under-appreciated. It is no wonder, then, that students leap into answering questions on a test or a college application without reading the directions.
When I started in college guidance three decades ago, everything was paper. The Common App had 60 or so member colleges and their names were all printed in small type at the top of each form. Over and over in College Prep class, I would explain that each boy would need to deliver to me ONE copy of the Secondary School Report form with his information filled in in the “To the Applicant” section. Teachers were to get ONE copy of the Teacher Rec form, again with the “To the Applicant” fields filled in, plus one #10 business envelope addressed to each school, with the return address of: “The Browning School, 52 East 62nd St. New York NY 10021.” Easy, right?
Apparently not. The most common mistakes:
Boys giving me envelopes. A teacher can fit two sheets of paper in a #10 envelope. I have a minimum of five sheets of paper; I need a 9x12 envelope. I still have a drawer full of unused stamped addressed envelopes!
Boys using mom or dad’s corporate letterhead envelopes for teachers. A confidential recommendation must not arrive looking as though it passed through the applicant’s hands.
Boys giving me one copy of the form for each school. The whole point of the Common App was to fill in one copy of the form and then duplicate the filled-in copy; not to fill in multiple copies separately. So most of those went in the garbage. One boy went so far as to highlight the name of each school at the top of the form. All of those went in the wastebasket.
To be fair, I suspect that most of these were prepared by well-meaning parents who had not heard my directions (although they had printed copies, as well), which is why I started holding workshops for parents!
My favorite, however, was Georgetown. At the upper right corner of their Secondary School Report was a box. Inside the box were two little check boxes labeled, respectively, “Early Action, November 1” and “Regular Decision, January 10.” Above the check boxes was the admonition: “You must check one of these boxes.” Four times out of five, neither box was checked. I would stare at that bold-faced “must” and wonder: is this the first test of admission? Does Charlie Deacon pull these out, look at the unchecked boxes, think “can’t follow directions,” and go on to the next file? I doubted it then, and I doubt it now, but still…
Thankfully, the paper is gone. (Today, most high school seniors do not know how to address an envelope! They never need to.) But there are still directions. Every year I will get a student (or parent!) asking, for example: “How do I answer question 17 on the University of California app?” I will go to the UC application website, find #17 in the line-by-line directions, and reply with a link to the answer, gently pointing out that they could have done the same thing themselves. Common App has a terrific context-sensitive help system: “what do they really want to know, here?” Click the little question mark! I also advise parents that they can set up their own dummy account in Common App so that they can poke around and explore to their heart’s content without seriously messing up their son’s actual college application.
Be wary, however, of seemingly obvious and innocuous questions, like “Current School?” Entering: “The Browning School” will yield “Don’t recognize, use anyway?” At this point, answering “yes” will cause catastrophic problems down the road. That field is a lookup, and it is confused by the “The.” Start typing “Browning” instead and a list will drop down. There are at least three matches in the US, including one in Browning, Montana. Choosing the “New York, NY” entry will pull in our CEEB code, 333490, which uniquely identifies us. This is why I still need to walk kids through certain steps in the process. Ralph is always there in my head: “Follow the label directions.”