lessons of the draw
Amanda Surgner, Collegiate’s director of admission, has always counseled her four children to observe the world around them, even if the lessons they derive seem insignificant at the time.
She speaks from experience.
Years ago, her father, George Little, played a game called “The Draw” with his children and the friends who accompanied them to their house on the Chesapeake Bay near Reedsville, VA.
The premise was simple, and the ritual – usually performed after dinner on Saturday night – remained unchanged over the years.
Mr. Little would empty a large brown grocery bag of candy onto the dining room table. There were always twice as many treats as there were players.
Then, he would have everyone in attendance – kids and adults – draw from his cupped hands numbers written on carefully folded pieces of paper napkin.
The youngest drew first followed in order of age until the slips were gone.
Whoever claimed number “1” selected the first piece of candy, number “2” selected the second, number “3” selected the third. You get the idea.
There was a catch, though.
Whoever drew the highest number selected two sweets.
Then, the players repeated the process in reverse order so the one who picked first also picked last.
“Bottom line,” Amanda said one day recently, “we learned over time to wish for the highest number.
“Number 1 was short-term smart. The highest was long-term smart.
“The message is that when you make decisions, you need to be thoughtful and strategic, bide your time, assess your options, then be deliberate and decisive.
“There’s a lot of pressure in life to jump. You really need to assess the big picture.”
Such a philosophy has paid great dividends for Collegiate.
“Thinking back,” Amanda continued, “patience and being definitive are lessons truly learned from that game.
“I’ve realized that the way we do business in the admission office is exceedingly consistent with that strategy.”
During the economic downturn, when all independent schools suffered higher-than-usual attrition, those making the admission decisions for Collegiate stayed the course.
“We remained calm, sat back, and made sure we’d bring in the right students,” she said.
“In the middle of the year when the pool was full and developed, we were bullish.
“This was the way we were most comfortable. The outcome was beneficial to Collegiate.
“We wanted it to be the right fit.”
The right fit?
“There’re a lot of schools in Richmond. Not all of them appeal to the same student in the same way,” she added.
“When I talk about the right fit, I want there to be an appropriate amount of challenge academically that the student can embrace.
“There needs to be participation beyond the classroom in athletics, in arts, in service.
“It’s exceedingly important that our program meets the child’s abilities and interests because it’s win-win that way.”
In 2008-2009, Collegiate enrolled 1,555 students; the retention rate was 95.2%.
The next year, the number was 1,556; the retention rate was 97.2.
This year, 1,578 students are enrolled.
“We spent a lot of time and energy cultivating interest and maintaining waiting lists prior to the economy changing,” Amanda explained.
“We’d gone a long time with very strong retention when we couldn’t accommodate all the demand.
“Our relationships with families on our wait list helped us during the economic change because our ability to tap into those wait lists resulted in a really stable enrollment.
“That speaks to the depth that we had on our wait list. The quality was there because we don’t put anybody on the wait list that we didn’t think could be successful at Collegiate.”
So what would hold an applicant’s interest, sometimes for several years?
“Collegiate is a vibrant place, a place that people admire, a place that they’re committed to holding out for if it’s their long-term goal,” she explained.
“I don’t think families would hold on over time if they didn’t feel that their interactions with the school during the process weren’t positive.
“We tell these families who are waiting that this is an institutional issue, a space issue, not a reflection on your child and our interest in you.
“We spend a lot of time nurturing those families. I think we do that pretty well.”
This past July, Mr. Little passed away after a courageous battle with Lou Gehrig’s Disease.
It was a difficult time for Amanda and her family, but in the ensuing days many friends brought smiles to their faces by recounting stories of the past and lessons they’d learned from a simple, childhood game.
“I can’t tell you how many of my friends and my brother’s friends talked about memories of The Draw,” she said.
“I can still see my Dad sitting at the head of the table, arms folded across his chest, loving every minute of it.”
