How Colleges Court Students Who Have the luxury of choice

[asteriskea]

<p>The tables are turned as colleges set out to attract students with multiple acceptances to matriculate. Article in the Philly Inquirer takes a look at open house and other events held at Bryn Mawr, U Penn, Drexel, and Swarthmore as they lay on the charm. </p>

<p><a href=“http://www.philly.com/philly/education/20070426_And_now_they_get_to_choose.html[/url]”>And now they get to choose;

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“The whole balance of the effort shifts,” said Lee Stetson, dean of admissions at the University of Pennsylvania, which hosted a three-day event for underrepresented minorities and seven open houses to give students one last look…</p>

<p>With students filling out more applications than ever, however, admissions directors can’t assume their ideal students will return their affections.</p>

<p>“Our accepted students have been accepted at eight or nine colleges,” said Jim Bock, head of admissions at Swarthmore. “There’s no second place in admissions: You’re either first or last.”</p>

<p>The luxury of choice turns top students into consumers.</p>

<p>“It’s quite a different ball game now,” said Vikki Toomer, associate director of admissions at Drexel, which held 20 to 25 open-house events in March and April, up from four in 2002. “Students are very savvy. They want to know what they’re getting into.”…

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[originaloog]

<p>Aster, where to you get all of these??</p>

<p>However re the OP article, isn’t it a wonderful thing that after that last acceptance comes in on 4/1, the admissions shoe goes on the other foot. Now it is the colleges who need to go courting and it is the students who gets to make the choices.</p>

<p>Ah, like the one Seinfeld episode, everything evens out in the end.</p>

[asteriskea]

<p>originaloog - chalk it up to a combination of dumb luck and serendipity. Btw, you must be psychic - this afternoon I turned on the t.v. and which episode of Seinfeld just happened to be on? “Everything evens out in the end” - that was just too much, so of course I just had to post again to this thread. Everything evened out for Jerry but not for Elaine or George and what happened to Kramer I don’t even want to get into. As for colleges choice, we always want the best and hope that everything will even out in the end. Since most of the time the right choice depends a lot on the right attitude, it does. In the OP article, one student was accepted at nine of the 13 colleges where she applied. I hope people who are able to attend these events have fun, enjoy the courtship period and come away with a clear choice to commit by May 1.</p>

<p>

Open houses make schools look so good that some students say choosing gets even tougher…</p>

<p>Colleges walk the line between touting their academic assets and pitching themselves as cool places to hang out. Their goal, they say, is to lead students to the school that will be the best fit.

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[Lafalum84]

<p>After feeling like we were begging colleges to accept S, it felt odd to send back the “thanks, anyway” form. It was a hard decision, but S is indeed fortunate that the decision was HIS to make, rather than getting into only one school - or none at all. A girl in his hs who is top 10% applied to several top schools with Boston Univ as her safety - just like Andee’s son last year she was rejected by ALL of them. She was CRUSHED. But somehow they worked something out and now I think she’s actually got two schools that offered her acceptances (not her top choices, though!). S and his friends figured out that everyone who took Honors Pre-Calculus at our hs was accepted to BU, and anyone who opted for College Prep Algebra 3/Trig instead was denied. Maybe it’s a coincidence…</p>