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What You Do, Not Where You Go

I was talking with a BUA alumnus who is now well established in his career in the world of finance. We spent some time talking about hiring and the market for talent. At one point, he shared that his firm used to hire almost exclusively from the most highly selective colleges and universities in the country through on-campus recruiting programs. His firm stopped that practice recently. When I asked why, he explained that in part it was because they had been missing out on so many really strong applicants at the top of their classes at colleges outside that rarified set of schools, and that some of those applicants have turned out to be the rising stars at the firm. A look at the wide range of colleges that America’s top CEOs attended seems to confirm our alum’s observation.

Of course the country’s most selective institutions have a lot to offer and can be a great fit for some students. But what makes a college the right fit for a given student has vanishingly little to do with where a school falls on a ranking list and everything to do with how well that community matches the student. What kind of classmates do you learn best with? What kind of setting makes you happy and motivated? What do you want to study, and does the college have a particular strength in that area? Are there professors you would be excited to work with, labs you want to work in, archives you want to explore, clubs you want to join? We are so fortunate to have college counselors who take the time to get to know each student, help them discover what they are looking for, and work with them to identify colleges that could be a great fit.

And if you do find a great fit, it makes it much more likely that you will make the most of the experience. What does that look like? Excelling in rigorous coursework in a field you are passionate about. Refining your interests. Engaging in original research. Founding or leading a campus organization. Making deep connections with one or two professors who become mentors and advocates through graduate school and career. Making friends who will form a powerful network and support system for life. Those are the things that are the best predictors of fulfillment and success after college. After two decades working with high schoolers, I have seen that pattern play out many times over.

For more on this topic, I’d recommend Frank Bruni’s 2015 book “Where You Go Is Not Who You’ll Be” or his accompanying New York Times opinion piece, “How to Survive the College Admissions Madness” as good starting points.

Down the Rabbit Hole

In a recent calculus class I visited, a student asked, “Can you have a function where you can take a first derivative but not a second derivative?” The question was related to the topic the class was discussing, but tangentially (excuse the pun). The teacher smiled, paused, and proceeded to write an example on the board where the proposition was true – taking time to unpack it for the whole class. The teacher had the knowledge to come up with an answer on the spot. He had the experience to know that he could get through the explanation quickly and still cover what was on tap for the day. And, most importantly, he recognized that engaging in that moment would reward that student’s curiosity and send a signal to all of the students about the value of their questions.

We are incredibly fortunate to be at a school with a faculty that has the disposition and content knowledge necessary to confidently and efficiently travel down the rabbit holes that our students open. I saw it recently in a Latin class where a student wondered about the placement of certain words in a sentence and the teacher explained the way long and short vowels may have met a poet’s rhythmic constraints; in a geometry classroom where the teacher engaged with a student who had a theory about the effect of moving from a five-sided to a six-sided star shape; in a music class, when, in response to a student’s question about how Spanish composers differed from their contemporaries, the teacher took the time to demonstrate the subtle differences on the piano and filled in the relevant music theory. I could go on.

Too often, high school is a place where even highly capable, motivated students lose their natural curiosity. That doesn’t have to happen. Curiosity can be – and has to be – nurtured. This is one way to do that.

A Lifelong Network

This fall, BUA launched a Career Mentoring Program. We reached out to our broader BUA family to ask whether folks would be willing to mentor young alums and current students as they explore various career paths. The community answered. To date, 75 current parents, parents of graduates, and alums who are established in their careers offered guidance through informational interviews and shadow days. We have already connected dozens of them to recent graduates and current seniors, with more matches to come. We are deeply grateful to our volunteers and look to continue and expand this network in the future.

While some of our students and young alums can tap into their own professional networks through family and friends, many cannot. This program seeks to provide equitable access to career advice and mentorship across a broad range of fields. It gives the mentors another way to give back to a school community that, for many, has been transformational. And, for all, it will form connections and friendships, some of which will hopefully last for many years.

Students Leading the Way in Admissions

We are in the final stretch of our admission season. Today is the last day of in-person tours, and applications are due on the 15th. I wanted to take a moment to acknowledge and thank our student admission ambassadors – and all the students who play such a big part in telling BUA’s story to families and students who are just getting to know us.

Last night, we hosted our annual Evening with the Head of School, an event for prospective families to mingle with BUA faculty, staff, and current families. One common refrain I heard from our visitors was how amazing our students have been in the admission process – including last night. It was a cold one. Bundled up, BUA admission ambassadors were outside greeting visitors and helping them find their way to the event. That warm greeting on a frigid night made a real impression. I heard about how wonderful our student-led tours are – about the poise, humor, knowledge, maturity, and candor those tour guides demonstrate as they walk the halls with prospective families and students. I heard about how well our student speakers and panelists at our Open Houses represent themselves and the school – and about the signal it sends that we put students front and center this way, trusting them with roles sometimes reserved for adults in other schools. I heard from prospective families who were surprised that the live music at last night’s event was from our student select Jazz Combo – the Swamp Cats; about student volunteers at our Girl Power event and other admission events; and so much more. 

Students, of course, are not the only ones who make our admission process so special. Parents, alums, faculty, and staff all play big roles. But it feels right to shine a light on the kids in this moment. To quote one parent from last night, “When you have kids like that, of course they should be the ones doing the talking. When we hear them, we know that this is the place for our son because we want him to be in school with kids like that.”

Many Ways to Show What You Know

BUA classes wrap up today, and we start exam week on Monday. We think of exams as a chance for students to show what they know. What skills have they picked up and honed? What new knowledge have they acquired? How have they synthesized months’ worth of readings, themes, and problems?

How do you do that? Our teachers have taken a flexible and creative approach to exams. Some departments give a sit-down, two-hour exam. There is a lot students can demonstrate in that format. The style is predictable and familiar. It is also good practice for what they will see in some of their BU courses and beyond. Some courses have moved to in-person, one-on-one interview formats – most commonly in history classes, but recently in geometry as well. In dialogue with students, teachers probe a range of topics spanning the semester’s content and requiring students to flex their critical thinking muscles. Others assign papers, knowing that there is no better way to hone your writing than by practice. Still others have offered up avenues for projects – showcases for content mastery, creativity, and sometimes collaboration. The end result is a week that gives students multiple ways to show what they know, some playing more to a given student’s strengths than others. The variation from day to day adds some color to the week and creates chances for more flexibility in terms of time; some students find time to get lunch with their friends (and even do some holiday shopping) between exam days. And while exam week may never be everybody’s favorite, some students say that they kind of like it.

Wishing all of our students good luck next week!

Informing Civil Discourse

In my opening talk this fall, I expressed faith that our students have the dispositions to do what seems near impossible in our broader society: engage with one another around difficult topics with kindness and curiosity. This fall, I have seen that happening, even outside the classroom, where students are tentatively but steadily moving beyond the reticence that had set in last year.

To move us further down that path, we have designed our all-school meeting program this year to help inform the conversations our students are having. Shortly before the election, BU history professor Dr. Bruce Schulman talked about several key presidential elections in the 20th century with the goal of helping us all understand how we have landed with this particular flavor of two-party election in 2024. We then welcomed Dr. Nancy Harrowitz, the Director of BU’s Elie Wiesel Center for Jewish Students, and Dr. Mohammad Zaman, the Director of BU’s Center on Forced Displacement. They shared their experiences leading university-wide working groups last year on anti-Semitism and Islamophobia respectively, as well as their opinions on campus climates nationally in the wake of October 7. Just this week, BU professor Dr. Tim Longman, one of the world’s leading authorities on the Rwandan genocide and its aftermath, unpacked that tragic period of history. He also walked our students through the origins of the term “genocide,” the definition in the UN Convention, and how it might or might not apply to recent events in Ukraine and Gaza. Later this winter, Dr. Veronika Wirtz from BU’s School of Public Health will join us to talk about her research about misinformation on TikTok, specifically related to the marketing of Ozempic, but with applicability to many areas. And there are some other pieces in the works. This is all a supplement to the deep work our students do with their teachers in class, particularly in history, where several of our offerings are meant to create a factual context for understanding today’s world.

We owe it to our students to give them what they are unlikely to get from social media and echo-chamber news sources: thoughtful, reliable context to empower them to form their own opinions and test them against others’.