<p>With sixteen days to the D Day -as in Decision Day- this might be a good tome to reflect on the experience of soon to be college students. I am wondering if our collective wisdom could identify the schools that are genuine gems during the entire process, and … the ones that are exhibiting a less than congenial approach in dealing with the multiple requests of information, or anything else coming from a rather stressed, if not neurotic, group of parents and students. </p>
<p>With my usual subjectivity, I believe that LACs do a much better job than larger schools, but that is really expected given their size. On the other hand, there seems to be quite a difference among the mega schools, and especially the public schools. So, without further ado, I give you my unscientific and biased scoresheet. </p>
<p>Thumbs up to the nicest and more responsive schools:
Small: Grinnell and Macalester
Highly selective: Princeton
Mega sized: A tie between Tulane and ASU</p>
<p>Thumbs down to the worst and least responsive schools:
Small: no negative experience to report. I’d put Pomona, but that would be highly suspect.
Highly selective: Penn
Mega sized: with the caveat that this is for OOS, this one is really easy. It is UCLA, UCSD, and Berkeley, with UCSD winning the award by the widest of margins.</p>
<p>My vote for nicest/most responsive is a hidden gem in the midwest: Otterbein. It’s not usually mentioned here on CC because it’s not as selective, but my daughter’s dealings with them have been the most positive of any school. First runner up would be Hobart and William Smith. It’s no surprise to me that these are the front-runners as my daughter works on making a final decision.</p>
<p>Most disappointing has been Goucher. Lots to love about this school, but if you’re expecting/hoping to be schmoozed a bit, don’t expect it to happen from Goucher. After the initial flurry of mailings from them, we decided to visit; after that, the silence was deafening. My daughter applied and was accepted, but the lack of the personal touch ensured that they moved down the list and out of contention.</p>
<p>If they don’t have a nail specialist in the admissions waiting room for while the students interview, they do not have their students’ best interests at heart. ;)</p>
<p>Nicest: University of Richmond (returned application fee with kind letter when I withdrew my application after being accepted elsewhere ED).</p>
<p>Runner-up: University of Rochester (free t-shirt to visitors, really nice director of admissions, who personally interviewed me).</p>
<p>Least friendly: Pomona (Promised to return application fee, annoyed when we asked where it was after a few weeks, sent us patronizing letter with “non-refundable” in bold in exerpt from app instructions - we knew that, but they promised to return it when we asked!)</p>
<p>I found all the liberal arts colleges to be very accomodating: Hamilton College and Austin College in particular (the Claremont Colleges were very nice too). UT-Austin was very nice considering its size. Its admissions office is very well-organized, and the Plan II honors program was very responsive. I found Rice to be decent enough, but a friend of mine had a bad experience.</p>
<p>I’ll offer a few good and not so good practices. Example at particular schools available on request.</p>
<p>Good:
Easy way to get off their snail mail and e-mail lists, whether originally solicited or not.
Timely communication that an application is complete.
Has a web-site with PIN to determine status of application and, eventually, admission decision.
Web site has CDS and other useful statistics.
Discloses whether “shows interest” matters for admission.
Explains clearly when interviews are or or not available (and whether they matter) and whether the applicant is supposed to take the initiative.
At least for early admits, has a special phone number or web-site for questions and info.
Goes even beyond the CDS with info helpful for estimating the liklihood of admission success. Eg. Brown and Northwestern. Scattergraphs would be even more helpful.</p>
<p>Bad or unhelpful or disconcerting practices, beyond any failure to do the above:
Failure to give helpful guidance as to whether they really want you to submit fine arts (e.g. music tapes) for non-majors.
Failure to explain their practice in regard to early regular admits or “likely letters.”
Road shows designed more to increase the number of applicants than to impart useful information.</p>
<p>Some like it but I don’t give a hoot:
Recruiting calls from professors, unless they are offering a special research opportunity or something.
Recruiting call from students unless this is just a way of transmitting a number or address that can be used for specific questions.</p>
<p>Another interesting practice: Contacting students who did not submit an application after having various types of contact, including perhaps sending in test scores and recommendations and a school report. Is this just a friendly and helpful way to fix horrible snafus, or something else?</p>
<p>Georgetown was amazing - the students that attended there and the university’s professors were so friendly, genuinely interested in you, and down to earth. So was the group of accepted students that attended the Open House. Daughter and I were very impressed.</p>
<p>Still have more visits to go, so I can’t add a “worst” experience yet.</p>
<p>Georgetown’s tour guides and admissions office representatives can be haughty, as in suggesting that of course only the best will be admitted and this probably doesn’t include most of you.</p>
<p>But, in fairness, many schools could be more careful in screening their tour guides and even their admissions people. Applicants may not understand that, after they enroll, they will probably never again have dealings with the staff of the admissions office, who may or may not reflect other college administrators and professors.</p>
<p>Our experiences are almost three years old. We found most places (mostly LACs) very accommodating (Bard wouldn’t arrange an overnight), though we found Pomona surprisingly bureaucratic and uninviting. (We liked it more the further we got away from the admissions office, but they left a bad taste in our mouths.) Oh, and the Yale music department was insufferable (long story).</p>
<p>Bates admissions office secretary was exceptionally pleasant in April 2004, and the director of admissions was also extremely accessible and personable. Bates has always had my vote as one of the nicest schools to deal with</p>
<p>U Chicago was really friendly throughout the whole process–their app was laid back, and I got the same impression from people with whom I talked in admissions.</p>
<p>One nice thing about U Chicago tour guides and Admissions presentations is that they didn’t hide the ball as to what type of students they were looking for and would thrive there. They also treated you as if you perhaps had a clue why you might be interested in Chicago. Swat is also pretty open about this.</p>
<p>Also, I took my son to the Claremont roadshow. The purportedly high-level admissions person in charge spent the entire time talking about their emphasis on “leadership potential” to the exclusion of anything else, which was enough for my son to scratch that school off his list. Still, I give them credit for presenting a picture, I assume an accurate one, of what the school is all about.</p>
<p>Ditto on how important the tour guide is. We had a really good experience at many Mid-Atlantic less selective LAC’s, but ran into tour guides who weren’t afraid to talk about their stellar high school records.</p>
<p>For my son, listening to these full-ride achievers scared him off of campuses where he may have been actually in the middle of the pack of regular students, but vastly below the level of the guide.</p>
<p>I completely agree with mezzomom about Goucher. I got my acceptance packet in the mail over 2 months ago and they haven’t even bothered to contact me since. It definitely makes a student feel unwanted.</p>
<p>I really think colleges should think long and hard about the image of the admissions office and the dealings there…phone calls, staff, procedures, tour guides, and what have you. It really is the front end of a school and where most prospective students are having their main or only contact with the school. Many people form their impressions about the school based on the experience with dealing with the admissions office alone and I have read people talk about a kid liking or not liking a school based on a tour guide. The thing is some of this dealings really do not reflect if the school is good for a kid or if they’d like it. These are just a few people or one office at a school but people put a lot of weight on it, rightly or wrongly…it’s all they know in some cases. I think the PR in this area is one they have to really put their efforts into. </p>
<p>We really did not have any bad dealings. I don’t have many complaints. MandSDad…reading what you wrote about CMU, does remind me that there were issues here too with stuff being processed and other issues related to that a few times for us with CMU too. </p>
<p>I just think one needs to be cautious about judging a school based on experiences with that one office though I realize it is the only thing some people have contact with. I can think of a more minor example. We visited Brown junior year and did various things but included the tour and info. Session. This was arranged in advance. So, we get to the Info. Session and sign in and I see they are handing out the college guidebook brochure to some kids and we ask can we have one. They said, only seniors in the session could get one. I’m thinking to myself, what??? We come all this way to investigate the school and aren’t kids supposed to do visits in junior year? It was November…isn’t that on the late side for a senior? The guidebook was more needed or equally needed for a junior, no? Seemed strange. I certainly would not then want to make a judgement about the entire school. My kid ended up there and LOVES the school! I just wonder if these offices really think through the PR end of how things are dealt with when people are looking into the school. On the other hand, for real selective schools, they are in the drivers seat, they know you want to go and don’t have to sell themselves to you. Other schools go out of their way more to attract you. Maybe that is some of it. But in any case, the ones on the front line are the first impression families get of a school and it is pretty important, if you ask me, that schools put a lot into how that part is handled.</p>
