“Good morning, Country Day,” college counselor Jane Bauman announces in the high school quad. “Today, we have two acceptances to Willamette University!”
She calls out the first student’s name, then the second, pausing in between for the loud cheers to die down. Both students push through the morning meeting crowd to get a handful of candy from the M&M man candy dispenser in Bauman’s arms.
Two years ago, before the COVID-19 pandemic, announcing college acceptances was a staple of morning meetings—and had been long before Bauman became a college counselor at SCDS in 2013.
As part of the tradition, seniors got to choose which decisions to announce, if any, and were congratulated raucously for their 4-year efforts to get into college. Underclassmen, too, benefited; they experienced the highs of the college application process through the seniors and were introduced to potential colleges for their own applications.
For the most part, the M&M man was well-liked: in a 2019 Octagon poll, 66% of seniors supported the tradition.
However, there was also pushback in that year by a few ’20 seniors and then-counselor Chris Kuipers. As Head of School Lee Thomsen put it, announcing acceptances can have “unintended consequences of negativity, celebrating one student while possibly hurting another in the crowd.”
It was also an unusual practice that few other private schools like Country Day participated in, according to Bauman. So, once the COVID-19 pandemic shifted SCDS online in 2020, the tradition died a quiet death.
While an argument can be made for the possible detriments of the M&M man — as seen in an editorial published in the Nov. 12, 2019 issue of The Octagon — the positive and celebratory nature far outweighs them.
90% of seniors and 89% of all students polled on Jan. 8 and Jan. 20, respectively, agree: Country Day should bring the M&M man back.
First and foremost, the M&M man is an acknowledgment and celebration of seniors’ achievements.
For seniors, getting accepted into college is the pinnacle of their high school experience; significant amounts of work have been put into college applications — especially at a college preparatory school like Country Day. This effort deserves to be recognized.
Removing this recognition does not alter the emotions that occur from college rejections; learning to deal with failure and disappointment is an immutable part of life. It’s unreasonable, and impossible, to completely shield students from some possible negative consequences of a celebration.
Other SCDS achievements such as National Merit, Cum Laude, and the HS Awards are publicly announced. Do they not carry the same risk for those who did not make the lists?
In any case, the M&M man is more than just a congratulation to a senior. It binds Country Day’s unique community together. The seniors are quite literally bringing the high school along for the ride of their acceptances and the emotional highs of those acceptances. That’s not an act of division, but of unity. Announcing colleges after National Decision Day, ages after everything’s over, just doesn’t have the same effect as hearing decisions throughout the year.
Underclassmen receive a lot of information from the practice. They get to hear about many new colleges and begin to associate certain students with certain schools, which gives them an idea of where they might apply, or where they might get in. This is invaluable to normalizing the opaque process of college admissions.
Rather than emphasizing prestigious colleges to these students, the M&M man does quite the opposite. Every acceptance announced at morning meeting gets more or less the same cheering and accolades from the student body, regardless of the college or student.
In fact, the M&M man is a far more equitable announcement than word-of-mouth: few underclassmen presently know anything about decisions the seniors have received, and if they do, it’s only a few prestigious ones. Almost half of the senior class has already been admitted to a college, but without the M&M man, any acceptances from any school below the top 20 are massively de-emphasized, simply because no underclassman knows about them.
Keeping the underclassman in the loop, rather than completely naive to college admissions, will increase their own preparedness for starting the difficult process when it’s their turn.
The final piece of evidence in favor of the tradition is Country Day itself.
Our community is strong. What opponents fear the M&M man will bring out — envy, disappointment, bragging, ego — might become evident in a regular school, but SCDS is no regular school. At Country Day, a student in the crowd is more likely to applaud their friends than envy them. As Head of High School Brooke Wells often says during morning meetings, we have something special here. We are compassionate enough and intimate enough to honor each other selflessly and are capable of sharing our highs without bringing others low.
Clearly, students want it back. Believe in our community’s strength, and restore the M&M man.
Originally published in the Feb. 1 edition of the Octagon.
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Ardent kudos to the writer (and illustrator) of this editorial and to the entire Octagon staff for its approval. It is well written, well researched, and extraordinarily persuasive.
Of course, I didn’t need to be persuaded. As the SCDS college counselor for 18 years, I began the tradition in 1995, two years after my twin daughters adopted the man when he was given up by former editors-in-chief Tim Grieve, ’82, and Quincey Tidey, ’86. From the beginning the student body loved him. And also from the beginning the cheering was loud and enthusiastic, regardless of the prestige of the institution. That was one of the aspects I so loved about Country Day. I remember telling a group of Bay Area independent-school counselors about the tradition and being so surprised when they said they could never do it at their own schools because of the intense competition and back-biting associated with college admissions. Hearing that, my husband Dan Neukom (who taught at Country for 44 years until 2017) and I felt lucky to be members of the SCDS community.
If you’d like even more info about the M&M man, he was actually interviewed by news editor Sarah Gaither, ’03, in the May 27, 2003, Octagon, with help from his “translator,” Kelly Neukom, 04. (Check out the bound editions of the paper in the SCDS library.) There he reveals Thailand as his birthplace and “Like Water For Chocolate” and “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” as his favorite movies. He also insists that I “kidnapped” him, which is a gross exaggeration. Many years later he was adopted again by Jane Bauman, who by all accounts has been a kindly guardian. My guess is that because of her famous organization, Ms. Bauman never loses him. In the interview he also talks about how he was once “lost” for a week, only to be discovered in a paper bag next to my desk!
Mr. Neukom is off this morning to buy a bag of M&M’s so that we can toast to your campaign tonight. Here’s hoping that you can revive this cherished Country Day tradition!
As an alumna (class of 2003) who has only fond memories of the M&M man, I am disappointed to learn he’s been made redundant. SCDS is special precisely because of such quirky and spirited traditions. Spotting the man himself at morning meeting was always exciting! It meant someone had gotten good news and that we’d all get to share in it with them. Reveling in one another’s triumphs is part of what makes a community a community. It’s also an opportunity to deepen our understanding that someone else’s success is truly not our failure. Country Day demands a lot of its students, teachers and staff (in the best possible ways), and the college application process is fraught and stressful. When all that hard work pays off, how rad to collect a handful of M&Ms amidst the whoops and hollers of your friends, classmates and teachers, the very people who helped you succeed. I ate my fair share of M&Ms as a kid, and I’ve eaten my fair share as an adult, but none have ever tasted as sweet as the ones from the M&M man. And that’s something every SCDS senior deserves to experience.
The student body cheered with the same fervor for any and every acceptance. That is because the prestige of the university was not the consideration, student achievements were. I think there was often undue focus on presumed caliber, and the M&M man was the great equalizer: the same reward for any acceptance! I feel for hurt students. I recall a certain college counselor performing a ceremonial fire ritual in a parking lot to cleanse the heartbreaking aura of rejection. Perhaps there is a cathartic equivalent for those students–the Sour Skittles Man perhaps?
Hmmm…. I, too, have a vague memory of that cathartic ritual. But what college counselor would play with fire?
As I recall, safety precautions were observed.
I do indeed know exactly where the M&M person is! And I also have custody of the M&M person’s cousin, who dispenses Skittles. The College Counselors will gladly dispense M&Ms, Skittles, and congratulations privately. Stop on by the college counseling office!
It is important to share life experiences, our successes and failures. Meaningful relationships are built on team work, taking pride in not only our wins but those of others. No man or woman is an island unto himself or herself.
Besides, who can say no to some M&Ms? Grandma Patricia Mickler