Beyond the Rankings: Redefining the Dream School

For November’s Parents and Guardians Education Series (PAGES), Marlborough welcomed New York Times bestselling author Jeff Selingo back to campus for a timely conversation about college admissions. Joined by Thyra Briggs, Vice President for Admission and Financial Aid at Harvey Mudd College, Mr. Selingo discussed his newest book Dream School and offered families a roadmap for navigating an admissions landscape that has become, in his words, “unsustainable.”

To open the conversation, Ms. Briggs offered a rousing endorsement of Mr. Selingo’s book: “I could just say, ‘Read this and do this.’ And that is all you really need to take away from the entire evening!” Coming from someone who has spent more than 30 years in college admissions, including once serving as President of the Common Application board, this was an exciting set up for the ensuing discussion between these experts. 

Mr. Selingo began by acknowledging that college admissions have become deeply emotional for families. “Many of us in this room see [getting admitted to college] as a moment in time that was transformative,” he explained. “There is an emotional tie…to our undergraduate alma mater, and now we are doing it again with our own kids 20, 30, 40 years later.”

This emotional investment, Mr. Selingo cautioned, has the potential to cloud judgment. “At the end of the day, you are buying a very expensive product,” he reminded the audience. “Colleges and universities are a business, and they have seats to fill in their freshman class.” The goal of both of his books, Who Gets In and Why and Dream School, is to help families see themselves as consumers of a product, pulling back the curtain on how the system actually works. 

The first layer to unpack is the idea of “holistic admissions.” When Ms. Briggs asked Mr. Selingo to define the phrase, he mentioned the appeal of the concept: colleges looking at the totality of a student’s application rather than specific, predetermined data points. However, he quickly noted the disconnect between this ideal theory and the actual practice.

The problem only gets worse when decisions arrive. Families and students want to know the one thing they should have done differently, but admissions processes don’t work that way. “The college admissions process is a bit of a black box that very few people, sometimes not even people who work in the offices, can see into,” Mr. Selingo said. 

The next layer is the idea of test-optional admissions policies. There is perhaps no shift that has caused more confusion than the move to test-optional admissions during the pandemic. When asked if test-optional really means optional, Mr. Selingo and Ms. Briggs offered a knowing laugh. “No, not really,” Ms. Briggs admitted.

When 2,600 schools went test-optional in 2020-2021, application numbers exploded. Mr. Selingo explained the domino effect: students who previously might not have considered highly selective schools thought, “Why not apply?” Schools that once received manageable numbers of applications found themselves drowning. 

Meanwhile, schools that have remained test-optional began to notice that only students with high testing scores submitted their scores. This created a false narrative for future applicants, who then began applying to even more schools, “just to be safe.” “It has created a system that, in my mind, is unsustainable,” declared Mr. Selingo. “It really is up to us to stop it.”

One of the most surprising revelations came from data Mr. Selingo obtained from Indiana University’s National Survey of Student Engagement. After surveying hundreds of thousands of students at 1,600 colleges over 20 years, the results challenged a fundamental assumption: that more selective schools provide better education.

When Mr. Selingo compared schools by selectivity, he found minimal statistical difference on most measures of student engagement. Even more striking: student-faculty interaction actually scored higher at schools with 20-40% acceptance rates than at the most selective universities. “Does institution matter? Yes,” Mr. Selingo acknowledged. “But majors also matter. Skills matter even more.”

He illustrated this with a story from Dream School about a student named William. William fought to get into Columbia, achieved his goal, and then found himself miserable once he enrolled. He couldn’t get into the classes he wanted, the professor he wanted as a mentor wasn’t available, and just getting into a club rivaled the intensity of the admissions process. William eventually transferred to the University of Minnesota where he thrived. Mr. Selingo offered the lesson: “Where you go matters less than what you do when you get there.”

Throughout their conversation, Ms. Briggs and Mr. Selingo offered practical strategies for parents and guardians, in addition to these behind-the-scenes glimpses into the process. They suggested approaching touring differently, focusing on a broad range of schools to be able to better compare the schools that end up on your list. They encouraged asking better, more specific questions to get detailed glimpses into student life. They also mentioned looking for schools with intentional first-year experience programming. Schools with structured programming that help students explore majors and connect with mentors matters enormously for overall student success. 

As the conversation concluded Mr. Selingo returned to his main thesis: “‘Dream school’ is not one single school. To me, it’s a place where you’re going to learn, where you’re going to thrive, where you’re going to find the person you are meant to be.”

Ms. Briggs echoed the sentiment: “If you’ve created a really thoughtful list of colleges and there's not one ‘reach’ school on it, and you’re excited about all of them, stop. Don't go looking for the school that wants to deny you.”

Through this PAGES conversation, families gained the permission to direct their focus on finding schools where their children will actually thrive. In a world obsessed with acceptance rates and rankings, that message felt at once revolutionary and deeply reassuring.