AndoverMagazineFrontWinter2013

Sean Logan became Andover’s
College Counseling Office director
in the summer of 2011. He took time
out of his busiest season to explain
how the process is changing and its
challenges. He spoke with magazine
editor Sally Holm.
Sally Holm: What are the biggest challenges overall in
college counseling right now?
Sean Logan: Educating students and families to the realities
of the current climate. Admission has changed dramatically
in the last 15 years. For example: I worked at Occidental
College in1997. We overlapped a bit with Pitzer College, a
great small school that was admitting around 65 percent of
its applicants; I believe it admitted 18 percent of its applicants
last year. Take Vanderbilt—25 years ago people said, “It’s a regional
Southern place, not particularly diverse, not particularly
interested in getting outside of that region.” But Vanderbilt,
in the last 15 to 20 years, has changed remarkably. They’re
more selective than Georgetown now, admitting 15 percent
of their applicants last year.
SH: Multiple factors must contribute to this. Some schools
have improved that much…
SL: Right. Schools have spent millions of dollars for improvements
in academic programs and facilities. Also, applying
has gotten easier. The Common Application now has
close to 500 schools.
SH: And the Web…
SL: The Web has dramatically increased applications. You
can be a kid in rural Iowa, get online, tour a school virtually,
46 Andover | Winter 2013
Inside
College
Counseling,
with Director
Sean Logan
chat with current students, and realize, “Wow, the financial
aid is good, it has great programs, and I have a pretty good
feel for the place, I’ll apply.” The Internet also has allowed
international recruitment to flourish.
SH: What else has changed?
SL: I am in the generation where deans of admission have
become deans of enrollment management—a very different
animal. “Demonstrated interest” has become a big buzzword.
Are you a competitive applicant and have you shown
the proper interest?
SH: Which consists of…
SL: Visiting is very important. Phone contact. E-mailing.
Some schools will look at how much you’ve been on their
website. Have you signed in? How many clicks did you go
through? If you came and visited, did you stop by the admission
office? How about interviews? If it’s strongly encouraged
and you don’t, it sends a message: “I guess you’re not as
interested in us.” You have to pay attention to those things.
As admission deadlines approach, we frequently ask students
to add “Likelies” (80 percent chance of admission) to
their list, but it’s almost too late to add them anyway, because
there’s no contact history.
SH: So how do you address this issue?
SL: We have to make sure that kids understand that it’s
not enough to say, “I’m at PA, and I’m an A–B student.” The
pool that applies to boarding schools is a sliver of what applies
to highly selective colleges. It’s a very different group
of kids you’re competing with. The idea that “I was admitted
to one of the best high schools in the country, so I should be
competitive at the top colleges” doesn’t mean as much now.
I tell parents, “If your main reason for sending your student
to Phillips Academy is to get into a great college, that is a mistake.
I can’t guarantee that.” I can guarantee they’re going
to get an amazing education, and I can do that because I’ve
visited well over 300 high schools in my life—domestically
and internationally. This is a really unique community, and our
kids capitalize on that.
SH: So there’s a big education task here—kids and parents.
SL: We cannot college-counsel a student without collegecounseling
the parent. We spend several months working