OK to call Admissions office after rejection?

sybbie719
Mon, 19 Dec 2011 05:36:59 +0000

The D’s GC had advised her she was a good candidate for the ED. It’s no wonder she’s puzzled and disappointed that advice was off–and hopeful there are some fixes within their power to improve D’s chances with other schools.



This is exactly the reason why the GC should be making the call. The GC should be making the call to the regional admissions person to ask about “flaws” in the application. Colleges depend on high school counselors to feed them viable candidates.

Is the college a school that makes visits to the high school?

Does the college attend fairs or gives open houses in the region?

In this situation the counselor would have been remiss not to tell the Op’s daughter that while overall she has a 3.5 GPA, a drop from 3.6 to 3.2 especially junior year was going to hurt her. Perhaps the GC may have told the student that this school is a good fit for her, however her best chances of being admitted to the school was to apply as an ED candidate. She did and it did not work out.

The other side of the coin is as counselors, everyone wants the counselor to give the student an honest assessment of the student’s chances, but they don’t want to hear anything negative. When we talk about admissions, I try to tell students as gently as possible that you are the big dog here. When you go into the application pool, almost every other candidate is the big dog at their school, and the college will only take so many big dogs. Parents and students complain to the administration that the GC is not supporting the application, which is not the case.

I teach a junior seminar class. We are currently discussing financial aid, and I discussed with my class that the first 2 people in line when it comes to paying for your education is your parents, and my students got upset and began telling me about everyone they know who went to college for free. I then discussed the 2 types of “free”, those who are attending school on full financial aid and those who are attending school on full merit $$. I give examples, review the FAFSA, TAP and CSS profile, but everyone still thinks that they are going to get a boatload of free money.