Exclusive Insider Interview: Admissions Fellow & Full Scholarship Student, Babson College

SocratesPost: Dario, tell us about yourself.

SocratesPost: How does your role in admissions this summer differ from those previous roles?

Dario at Babson: This summer, I’m an admissions fellow. It’s obviously really slow in the summer because there’s no students here, but we have families pretty much coming from around the world, because Babson’s pretty well known internationally. About 30% of our student population is international, so we have families coming from all over that come to visit. So I give out tours. And then I also work with a senior admissions fellow…pretty much a full-timer that reads applications or whatnot. And then we do info sessions. We’ll have someone that’s obviously well more experienced talk about the grade stuff, like the numbers, and then they pretty much turn it over to me to talk about the student life and how it is in Babson and what you can get involved in. I give them that rundown and background as a student.

SocratesPost: Wow. It sounds like you juggle a lot of important responsibilities. How do you do it?

Dario at Babson: I just finished my sophomore year — it is historically known to be the most difficult and busiest year at Babson. And in a lot of colleges, sophomore year is probably the most difficult year. But I juggled a couple jobs. I worked in the president’s office here at Babson; I also worked in our abroad office, and then was on an E-board for an organization that I was a part of…Took four classes. So, really busy.

SocratesPost: How do you manage being involved in so much without getting too stressed?

Dario at Babson: Like one thing that I always like to tell people like when I talked about those certain things, and I toured, you know, I always mentioned that it may sound like a lot, it may sound scary, but once you’re doing it, it’s something that’s enjoyable, it keeps you busy. You don’t always have to question yourself, “oh, what should I do now?” or “what is this? What is there to do?” Just because you always do have something to do here at Babson, which is awesome.

SocratesPost: You said that you got to sit on a few panels. I wanted to follow up and ask: What are some of the most common questions you get from students or families as a panelist?

Dario at Babson: Usually when we do a panel, there’s about usually four panelists, one usually representing each grade level. I did it my freshman year, and I did it this past sophomore year as well, to talk about one, as a freshman, the transition. So that’s a big question: How’s the transition? Or why did you choose Babson? What sets Babson apart from other schools you pick? What are you involved in on campus?

SocratesPost: What do you draw upon to answer those questions?

Dario at Babson: What makes Babson different is that we’re an all-business school, so a lot of the time when students are coming to Babson, they do have an idea of what they want to do, just because we don’t offer anything besides business. We do tap into other aspects of liberal arts courses here. But at the end of the day, a lot of students are coming here mainly to do business.

SocratesPost: What about common questions from parents?

Dario at Babson: So a lot of the questions we get from parents are: Do the students do internships their freshman year, their sophomore year? What is the rate of jobs post-graduation? How many students are going abroad? Those are kind of the typical questions we would get…When we do panels, they’re typically in our auditorium…which usually most of the time has at least 100 people for a panel. So usually don’t go too specific in the questions…because we do offer an information session, which can range from literally one-on-one with a family, or like four or five families together, but it’s a lot more personal, when you have those information sessions versus like a panel. I think a panel’s more like a broad answer onto a lot of those questions. We do give good answers, but obviously we can give a lot more when we have more time and really want to answer directly to what the people are asking.

SocratesPost: Got it. It sounds like being a panelist is more like making a speech, whereas doing info sessions is more like having a sit-down conversation.

Dario at Babson: Yeah, I would say that, exactly. Most of the time, when I’m on a panel, I’ll brush upon what worlds I’m involved in. But when I’m doing an information session, I usually explain what the org is about, what the org does, why I joined the org, just because we do have more time and we want to provide answers when it’s more of an information session. So the parents and the student get an understanding of what there is to get involved in, but usually, on a panel, since there’s more than one student participating, we just try to let everyone answer the question, as broad as we can.

SocratesPost: Interesting. Since you’ve been involved in admissions for over two years now, do you feel like you’ve gotten a sense of what Babson really wants in the student, and when you talk to someone, whether it’s at an info session or meeting them elsewhere, do you have a feel of whether or not they’d be a good contributor or a good fit to campus?

Dario at Babson: Usually, that’s the question that we get a lot: what exactly do you look for when you’re looking at transcripts, or applications on the common app. One answer — it’s not to sound cliché — but it’s a holistic view.

SocratesPost: What do you mean by “holistic view?”

SocratesPost: What do you think set you apart and got you into Babson?

SocratesPost: No, I’m not, tell me about your involvement with Posse and why that’s such a big accomplishment for you.

SocratesPost: Even though you didn’t win the scholarship at the end, you still consider this one of your biggest accomplishments. Why’s that?

SocratesPost: Having gone through their rigorous selection process, what do you think the Posse Foundation is looking for and why do you feel you got so far?

SocratesPost: How does Posse evaluate their applicants?

SocratesPost: It seems like because you got recognized as a finalist for Posse, that opened doors for you to go to Babson. What’s the story behind that?

SocratesPost: When you applied, what did you do differently from others?

I heard back from Babson and I was asked to come on campus for an interview with the Dean of Admissions, which is very rare. I found that out today, actually…

SocratesPost: I don’t think any student in the country gets an offer like that. Usually, it’s an email decision or a letter in the mail. I’ve never heard of three higher-ups from the university coming to the high school to announce the news to the accepted student. Did you know they were coming?

SocratesPost: Wow, what a coincidence. What kept you out of school that day?

I walked in and there were cameras, flashing news coverage. There were about four newspapers.

SocratesPost: What a huge surprise. Did your family attend, too?

SocratesPost: Yeah, you thought you’d be going over paperwork, right?

SocratesPost: Oh, my goodness. When you saw that, did you take it pretty well? Or were you shocked for a long time?

That’s one thing I definitely needed: the people that helped me through the four years of high school.

SocratesPost: What was the significance of these headlines to your high school community?

SocratesPost: How did that make you feel? Was that a point of pride for you?

SocratesPost: How did this doubt affect your transition into a first-year college student?

SocratesPost: In contrast to your millionnaire roommates from Dubai and Indonesia, what was your background?

SocratesPost: Even without the same background, how do you differentiate yourself from the others at Babson?

SocratesPost: Absolutely. I feel like I can sense that you have humility, but you also give yourself credit where it’s due. You know that you’ve worked hard for your accomplishments, and what I think is unique is that you’re willing to share these experiences with other people. Because it’s one thing to go through them yourself and be happy about your accomplishments. But when you tell people your story, it inspires others. You were talking about how you’re the first person in your high school to go to Babson. So you’re basically a part of your high school’s and your city’s history. That’s a big deal.

SocratesPost: It seems like the SAT score isn’t a huge factor in admissions at Babson. Do you think that’s true?

SocratesPost: How did your parents’ expectations of you and your sister affect your performance and wellbeing?

SocratesPost: How did your family deal with their misconception of you and how you viewed school?

SocratesPost: Earlier, you were talking about how you were a two-sport varsity athlete, president of the National Honor Society; you did over 200 hours of community service, and all these different activities. What what stood out to me is, when you’re in high school, it’s really tough to keep up all of those activities, and some people in different districts will do those things only for the purpose of getting into college. For you, it’s almost like you wanted to do it just because you were having a great time, and you liked it. Do you feel like there’s a difference between the students in high school who try to beef up their resume for the purpose of getting into college, kind of like reverse engineering admissions, versus what I think is what you did — correct me if I’m wrong — which is you just had a good time being a mentor, being a tutor, being involved in afterschool programs. That’s why it surprised you that you got the scholarship; because you weren’t doing it to get the scholarship. You were doing it for other reasons.

SocratesPost: That sort of alignment helps you keep going, because just imagine if you realize that somebody had awarded you a scholarship for someone that they thought you were, but you knew deep down, it wasn’t who you truly were, and it was an accomplishment that was somehow fabricated. I can just imagine the pressure.

Going back to when you had that interview with the Dean of Admissions, what was that interview like? Did you get a sense during that conversation — the first interview you had with her — that you would get the scholarship and you’d get accepted? What were you thinking then, and what did she want to know about you?

SocratesPost: What personal story did you tell in your admissions interview and how did it help sell you as a candidate?

SocratesPost: Absolutely. That’s neat. That’s amazing for anybody, really.

SocratesPost: It probably took a while to get all the camera crews and all the media people in place, too, because they were planning a huge party for you.

SocratesPost: How are you managing the transition to college? You’re halfway through college, and next semester, you’re not even gonna be on campus. But how did you manage it up until now? And how do you see yourself continuing to manage the transition?

SocratesPost: Oh my goodness. How did that happen? Were you in sports?

One of the hardest things every Babson student — whether you’re a senior year, a graduate — everyone can come back to that class and say that it’s something that they will never ever want to go through again, very difficult.

SocratesPost: Something stood out to me was when you said: you wish that you laid those foundations of learning how you best learn, so you can best study. It’s like you’re on the way to learning those foundations. Do you feel like you’re there yet? If not, how are you learning those skills?