Jeffrey Selingo: College Advising’sFall Family Weekend Keynote Speaker

Every year, the College Advising Office prepares a presentation about the college admission landscape for parents during Fall Family Weekend. This year, on October 17, Deerfield Academy’s College Advising Office invited Jeffrey Selingo as the keynote speaker. An American author and journalist, Selingo wrote USA Today Bestseller and 2020 New York Times (NYT) 100 Notable Book of the Year Who Gets In and Why: A Year Inside College Admissions and NYT Bestseller Dream School: Finding the College That’s Right for You. Selingo delivered recommended strategies to parents for a successful college search and offered research-backed guidance on finding the right college.

Selingo first came to campus in 2023 when Head of School John Austin, aware of Selingo’s works, suggested Dean of College Advising Mark Spencer to invite him to the Deerfield community. In that visit, Selingo conducted a Zoom session for Deerfield parents, discussing the challenges students face in searching for their dream colleges and the need to rebuild how they prepare learners for the next step. “[Selingo] was very dynamic and extremely informative, so when I started thinking about what College Advising might do at this year’s Fall Family Weekend, he was an easy thought,” Mr. Spencer said.

In previous years, the Office organized Q&As with the admissions deans at different colleges and held a presentation on the advising process. However, the Academy decided to invite Selingo instead when he reached out to Mr. Spencer and informed him about his new book, Dream School: Finding the College That’s Right for You, nine months prior to this year’s Fall Family Weekend. “That book, Dream School, struck me as hitting the right tone of how to do the college search right,” Mr. Spencer stated. “So, I asked him if he’d be willing to speak at Fall Family Weekend, and he graciously said yes.”

In this year’s keynote speech, Selingo specifically mentioned two aspects of the college admissions process that students often overlook. First, Selingo reminded students that they have more agency in the process than they often realize, encouraging them to ask thoughtful questions to find the schools that truly fit them. Chloe Hernandez ’27 said, “Before listening to Selingo’s speech, I found myself looking into higher-ranked schools and naturally thought those schools would ultimately be the ones I would be applying to.”

However, as Selingo noted that college rankings should not be the sole deciding factor for identifying prospective universities, Hernandez realized that “the right college depends on individual priorities like academic goals, campus culture, and personal fit, which are not captured by rankings alone.”

Selingo continued to share what really matters in college and how that translates to the college search. Mr. Spencer was especially appreciative of Selingo’s research that supported his argument about finding the right colleges. “Whether it was surveying 3,000 parents or collaborating with the Burning Glass Institute to analyze job data and skills, [Selingo’s] work gives students meaningful ways to think about their choices,” Mr. Spencer said. College Advisor and Philosophy & Religion Department Chair Jamie Brightman added, “I like that Mr. Selingo offers a metric for understanding college quality, based on his extensive research, that helps highlight exciting, high-quality schools that might otherwise be under-the-radar for students.”

Through Dream School: Finding the College That’s Right for You, Mr. Selingo urges families to deviate from the “Top 25 or bust” mindset and look beyond highly-ranked schools, revealing what actually matters in college: strong job opportunities after graduation, firsthand learning experiences, and a sense of identity.