I wish we could get past this crazy notion adcoms are all in their early 20’s. Or their 20’s, at all. Some schools, sure. “Often,” but far from always. At many schools they’re much more than newly minted grads.
I can understand your confusion. Our son was accepted to many universities his senior year, and each one handled things differently. The majority were friendly when we attended Accepted Students Weekends, but only one did it right from start to finish. This university had a regional admissions officer (which is not unusual) that we met at a college fair our son’s junior year. He told her at the fair that he planned on visiting and she wrote down the date during our spring break trip that he chose to visit. When we arrived, she had asked the folks at the admissions office to have us wait for her. She came out of her office, shook our hands, and told us how the general tour would go. She arranged to meet with us after the tour, gave us suggestions for lunch and then we went off to the afternoon major specific tour. When we arrived home from our trip, we received a hand-written note from her and from the dean of the department we visited. When he was applied and was accepted there, she again wrote him a hand-written note and sent him a leather bound journal with the university’s emblem on it. This is a public, state university, and we were thoroughly impressed. No other counselor at any other college, including my alma mater came close to the way this regional admissions counselor did her job. It was amazing. Truly. Needless to say, our son chose this school and he LOVES it. On move in day, he ran into her on campus, and she gave him a huge hug and said, “Welcome Home!” So, is that type of Southern hospitality the norm, no. But, once you’ve experienced it, it’s difficult to understand why other colleges don’t recruit top talent like NMF’s the same way, especially when you watch National Signing Day on ESPN and see the way colleges recruit athletes. Best of luck as you move through this part of the journey. It looks like your child has a lot of great choices!
With our older son, the regional admissions rep has become a family friend! She recruited him to a large, OOS, Southern public university as he was a National Merit kid. She even came to his high school to present his National Merit award in front of the student body on scholarship day. We attended a regional sendoff BBQ with lots of other kids and parents – she organized that. Throughout his four years at the school, he traded messages with her. She also messaged me to see how things were going. Just saw her a couple of months ago when she stopped into my high school to recruit. She plans to attend my son’s law school graduation this spring … ironically, her husband is the dean of admissions at that school. My son did not know that when he applied there.
Yes, that Southern hospitality is not the norm, but it has been so wonderful.
Younger s had, IIRC, responses to questions from his adcomm after he was admitted (which was pretty early in the process (October of his senior year) and she greeted him by name she he attended an admitted students event at the school. OIther than that, no, no contact. Older s had no contact from his adcomm that I can recall. Did not expect any. Why would they? They havve other things to do. They are not handmaidens for the admitted students. Once the seniors are admitted they start to gear up for college fair travels in the spring to meet the juniors (and some seniors who havent made their final decisions). As an aside , my s were both NMFs. So what. They didnt expect any special treatment.
That school did it “right” from your perspective…and what they did was very nice.
But there are tens of thousands…of college applicants who love the schools they selected, and have no regrets…who didn’t have ONE contact with the admissions office after acceptance letters were sent.and that is fine too.
I am not sure that how an admissions rep is treating your family after an acceptance is the right metric to evaluate that institution’s fit for your S. Seems to me you should move on to an analysis of the strength of the programs he is interested in pursuing, social fit and the institutions reputation and placement record with prospective employers in his area of interest. And of course comparing the financial aid or scholarship offerings.
I would not waste time and energy looking for “stroking” from admissions reps at this point in time. Most of the information on Honors College applications and scholarship/merit awards is most likely right on the websites. If there are questions, a quick call to the admissions or financial aid office will answer them pretty quickly rather than waiting for contact from them.
Congratulations to your S on all his acceptances – he sounds like a terrific and accomplished young man!
My older son just got word he’d be getting an as yet to be disclosed merit award from the college that accepted him early. They told him in March or April what it was. Younger son got lots of swag after his EA admission to U of Chicago (scarf, calendar, book…) It was the first year with a new head of admissions and the year they started zooming up in the rankings. Older son did get a call from a CS prof at Harvard after he was accepted in April. He didn’t apply early, and he’d told his interviewer it wasn’t his first choice. Nobody else got in touch at all.
A poor analogy I know but…
A few years ago I switched dentists. My old dentist had an incredible front end team (reception, billing, etc.) and they treated every patient like “family”. You really felt special being a patient there- a card on my birthday! You could always get an appointment whenever you wanted! And swag- keychains, little packets of tissues with the dentists name and phone number- wow.
But I had a persistent problem and someone recommended another dentist.
Guess what- I don’t feel special anymore. He hands out nothing. I got nothing on my birthday. When you call for a routine visit you can’t always get the time slot you want- he’s incredible busy (solo practitioner) and books long days, but in an emergency will come in at 6 am or stay until 8. But you aren’t guaranteed the 1 pm Tuesday tooth cleaning like I was at my old dentist. No more special.
But he is an incredible dentist. He fixed my persistent problem in 30 minutes- went away, did not need an endodontist like my first dentist said I did. The issues that my old dentist said “we need to take care of these eventually” are all fixed now, no pain, no sensitivity, no referrals to other oral care specialists.
I am no longer special but my problems have gone away and I am getting a significantly higher level of care than I was (why go to someone who is constantly referring you to high priced specialists if you can find a dentist who can do the procedures in-house?)
OP- it’s an imperfect analogy- and your kid should of course go to the school which is the best fit at the price you can afford. But make sure you aren’t getting less (academically and intellectually) just because one school has more skilled “front end” folks doing outreach and holding your hand. You want the back end folks- professors, deans, etc. to be at the top of their game. The folks who make phone calls and make you feel special? Not so important in the grand scheme of things.
Snark: They are supposed to get you to sign and submit a deposit!
Gosh. It never even occurred to me that there would be any communication after acceptance. I just assumed it was up to us to make the deposit, sign up & go to accepted students day, ask questions if we had them, etc. I think you should consider yourself lucky you’ve had as much personal attention as you have, that does sound nice! I never knew it was a possibility!
Good point, @blossom. As I mentioned in another thread, the front office admissions staff at the college DS#1 attended was, shall we politely say, underwhelming. If he’d made his college decision based on that interaction, he woud have missed out on a fabulous academic experience.
This question is kind of poignant.
For me, upon reflection this evening, I would have to say my assumption of an ongoing relationship which might exist between the admissions officer and my child is most certainly because of those same types of ongoing relationships with intake officers, administration, staff and faculty all along the way through secondary school.
Truthfully, my child has neither required nor desired any ongoing contact with the admissions rep who gave the nod of approval to my kid’s application.
I recently reached out to someone at my son’s college who, while not my son’s admissions rep is an admissions rep, and had been known to me during the time my son was making college selections. I had had a question and did not quite know of whom to inquire, so I called this person. To my delight, they remembered my kid, his look, where he was from and the season of his visit. Blew me away. They explained that it is not the admissions officer’s duty to maintain contact with the matriculated students, as admissions deals with just that…admitting qualified students. Still, we had a great talk, they directed me as to how to move forward, and I hung up the phone smiling at the contact.
All in all, I think the kids do fine and experience none of the sense of bristle we may as parents if there is no consistent, maintained contact with people who are responsible for having said ‘yes’ to our kids at the time offers of admission went out. I thought there would be more contact, but it turns out there really wasn’t a need for more by my kid, and the admissions officers have moved on probably from the close of any hosted admitted student visits.
My older D had a reasonable amount of contact with the admissions rep at the college she ended up attending, but as others have said, it was mostly around planning for a scholarship weekend. However, when my younger daughter and I ran into her again at that school’s booth at a college fair, she recognized us immediately–maybe because not many from our state apply to that particular school. That was nice! Twelve apps between the two kids, and only one other that had reasonable attention from admissions, also around a major scholarship.
Chiming in to say zero expectations here as well. Not their job to follow up, though I think it is true that one might get more attention if being actively recruited for any reason. My kid did received some post-acceptance outreach from the schools we had considered safeties, and recognition and a warm greeting from admissions staff interviewers who happened to be around on some Admitted Students visits, but that was it. More than expected, frankly.
For those who have heard from schools already, were these EA, ED or rolling applications? Or, are there schools (esp. top SLACs) who sometimes give decisions before the April notification date?
Agreed, no expectations. At some schools, particularly those where he received substantial merit awards, the acceptance letter referenced his essay or had a handwritten note from admissions officer commenting on his application and offering to answer any questions. But other than that, no special treatment, just the usual invitations to admitted student days etc.
I will say, an admissions rep at public flagship, who had spoken to my kid for 5 minutes about a specific question after an info session, then recognized him 6 months later at an admitted student event. I was impressed.
This is my third time through the process and I can honestly say that I have no expectations for involvement of admissions reps. My kids are the ones who have contacted admissions reps with any questions or requests and have found most to be helpful and accommodating in, at the very least, pointing them in the right direction for where to get questions answered.
Zero expectations here. Welcome to the Real World and Adulthood, where people are available and willing to answer your questions or help you with an issue if you come to them, but please bother to do some basic looking on your own first. They’re not going to go out of their way to check up on your student, be sure they’re happy, make sure they have no questions, etc… Admissions Reps have done their job when they sent out the acceptance letter. Ball’s in your student’s court. Have questions? Try to find the answer yourself, and then if that doesn’t work, contact them or the appropriate department … not sure why you’d contact them for anything other than a very general question, since navigating their website should lead you to find housing, dining services, the department in which your major is housed, or whatever particular group you are interested in.
No matter how accomplished your student might be, the slate is now clean. He/she is not special, because as far as the college goes, he/she hasn’t done anything yet. He/she is one among many new potential students who are all equally important, who all will have the chance to make the most of the opportunities that lie before them by going after them and grabbing hold of them; or they will wait for someone to open the doors for them and thus let those opportunities slip past. Now’s a good time to make that mindset adjustment, IMO.
I think I have the best admission rep story.
She was very communicative while was I deciding, which played a part in my decision to enroll at her schoo and then I heard nothing from her again.
Flash forward 12 years, I was a mandatory training class for newly promoted staff at my job. We were seated in small groups and the person across from me introduced herself as my admissions rep ( she had left the admissions world and got masters in public policy).
My losing finalist sent me emails asking me to confirm my acceptance, and my safety school pined HARD for me to stay in-state with nearly CONSTANT emails in addition to always trying to whittle the price down with more scholarships and grants. When I eventually replied with a declination email thanking them for their respective offers, they both just replied with, “Thank you for the kind email, good luck with your future endeavors”. Fourth-placed school, who I interviewed with, mentioned my school by name in their reply (we’re actually in the same athletic conference). My admissions rep at my third-placed school, who I also interviewed with over the phone, actually mentioned that he was sad that I didn’t choose them, but he was happy that I did reach a decision.
And then at my actual school, I actually did get up with my admissions department about obtaining admissions records in November of my freshman year, and I did. That was where I met my admissions rep in person, and she did remember me from our interactions beforehand, which was nice.
But definitely do not expect this. At all.