The rep at the Amherst info session went on and on about how the school was happy to have so many visitors but, “Just realize you probably won’t get in.” She really belabored the point.
Then we saw where the track team ran in the winter. An old building with a volleyball court in it. The coach had to lay rubber mats down around the court, and that’s where the kids ran. My son was accepted there, but said, “No thanks.”
Info session weirdness: Northeastern. It was a big advertisement. The guy presenting it spoke so weirdly, like a ventriloquist. Like his lips were moving all over the place but his teeth stayed still. We couldn’t wait to get out of that room. We then met up with a friend who is in the honors dorm, and that was pretty swanky. But that freaky guy in the intro session really creeped us out.
When we were at the University of Richmond, somebody raised their hand and asked, “Do only rich people attend this school?”
I was surprised at Stanford that the adcom who ran the info session couldn’t give a clear and coherent explanation of them being need-blind for admissions and meets full need for FA. He got the parents who didn’t know those terms all confused. He also had a terrible answer for a question about how course advising works, but the student tour guide gave a much better answer.
^ it should have been pretty straight forward - for North America (US, Canada, Mexico) they are need blind and for rest of the world - need aware.
^ He failed to explain that “need blind” is an admissions thing and “full need” is a financial aid thing. So, some parents thought he was saying two things about admissions.
off topic:
@NYMomof2, @Consolation, Surprised to hear this. We did not know this and DD was accepted EA with letters from her French and science teacher. The website does not specify and we did not attend an Admissions presentation prior to application. Maybe they’ve changed their policy?
Didn’t mean to hijack the thread to talking about need blind vs need aware. I’d never heard of the term need aware until this thread, and had never heard a school admit this before. (Visited to 10+ schools 5 years ago with DD who graduated college this past May) and 4 with S17 recently. What surprised me wasn’t that someone asked the question, but that the school answered as honestly as they did.
Makes me feel guilty because this type of policy probably would help my S17 at LAC & probably did help my D. But I don’t feel that comfortable with it. In this case S17 rejected the school as feeling ‘not real’ enough and too much a school for rich kids. He had already decided this before the info session.
At one top LAC an admissions rep who had been a student, told us about his volunteering as a tutor with low income students whose “work ethic was not as good” as students at the college. We left after this comment.
I think need blind/aware has become more open, and it’s often confused with meeting full need (or not). Some schools will even explain how it works; our LAC is need-blind until the financial aid budget is exhausted, and then admits only full payers (they said because they want the best-match students they can afford).
My D missed the info session at Amherst because we were late leaving Cornell. She isn’t a fan of rural campuses like Amherst, or Cornell, but I encouraged a visit because our high school’s early admit rate at Amherst is about 50%. But if I heard that, I would have also discouraged Amherst as well…
@ihs76 It is quite possible that they changed the policy. Back then (2008), they were still using the Uncommon Application, also. Not requiring specific recs would make it easier for more students to apply in order to depress the admissions rate, which was the goal of dropping the Uncommon App.
I think that the Uncommon App was the only one myS actually enjoyed writing. Here’s a great article on the subject:
https://www.noodle.com/articles/the-brief-and-wondrous-life-of-the-uncommon-application
We heard the same thing at Amherst - “most of you won’t get in.” Unbelievable!! We left after that.
“We did not know this and DD was accepted EA with letters from her French and science teacher.”
All HS foreign language courses/teachers are not created equal. At my high school, the advanced students were taking French/Spanish history in language class junior year, and the teacher had plenty of opportunity to look at a student’s analytical skills, writing, etc. At many schools, the language courses aren’t that sophisticated, and I can understand why a college would get less value from the letter. My advice to a UChicago applicant about using a FL rec would depend on those circumstances.
Not all LoR writers are created equal in their ability to write an on target letter, in the first place. Math, sci, English and history get more call for this. I’ve seen language teachers write what amounts to “a nice guy” and miss the intellectual.
“We heard the same thing at Amherst - “most of you won’t get in.” Unbelievable!! We left after that.”
Honest question: why is an admissions officer openly saying this so unbelievable or offensive to people? It’s just honest. Amherst (and other elite schools) get many more applications from extremely qualified people than they can possibly accept every year. Great students get turned down by schools where they would fit perfectly. That’s why you apply to more than one or two of them.
Every single admissions officer at a college with extremely competitive admissions would tell you this privately - why is it so crazy to admit it up front?
I think Amherst knows exactly what they’re doing, saying that. Those who know they couldn’t get in are less likely to waste their time, and those who might get in but are easily offended are discouraged from applying.
As I recall our info session at Amherst selectivity was mentioned, though not in those exact words. I would have found that a turn-off too. That wasn’t the only school where we heard that admissions were very competitive, though.
The info session that really turned me off was at Carnegie Mellon. The speaker, who was a senior admissions rep, went on and on for like 15 minutes about how they don’t meet financial need so don’t bother applying if you can’t afford it.
Not an info session, but when son first toured Alabama we met with a professor in his intended major.
He asked a very routine question, which we’d heard many times before. “So, where else did you apply?”
Son provided the names of the other schools he’d applied to, including Rose Hulman.
We live about 40 miles from Rose. I work with A LOT of Rose grads. Son knows both friends who have attended Rose as well as some of their parents. We’re very familiar with Rose, but son had long ago decided it really wasn’t what he was looking for. He wanted a bigger school and wanted to be farther from home.
But even though we’d driven 500 miles just to tour and learn about Bama, as soon as the prof heard he’d applied to Rose, as much as I tried to redirect the conversation, he spent well over half our meeting telling us what a great school Rose was and all the opportunities you’d have if you graduated there.
It was really…odd.
Students in range for Amherst are in range for many other fine colleges, and Amherst is definitely competing for those students. Not saying something obnoxious to those students is a useful first step.
As a complete contrast, we attended a Natural Sciences session at Rice (separate from the Info Session) where the tone was very much “I hope you all apply to Rice, get in, and that you all attend, because here is the interesting stuff we could do together.” That was from a faculty member, so there is little excuse for an admissions officer who is in a marketing role.
I agree with @OHMomof2 though. Carnegie Mellon was the worst. Boring info session. Overly strict policies on dual majors, poor tour guides, and a run-down campus. We couldn’t wait to get out of there.