College Admission Directors Provide Insights, Endorse IECA Educational Consultants
by Mark Sklarow, Executive Director, Independent Educational Consultants Association
Yesterday afternoon the IECA Summer Training Institute turned the process around as the 94 attendees got to hear what life is like for those involved in recruiting and evaluating potential clients in a session titled, Inside the Admissions Office.
In the college session, three leaders came to share insights: Erin Finn, vice president for admissions at Drexel University, who explained the changing nature of admissions as offices look for ways to balance the entering class while filling campus needs. She noted the possibility of hearing from a band director that the harpist is graduating and admissions should be on the lookout for a new harpist. Conversely, she
noted the school is not going to admit six amazing, accomplished harpists when space exists for only one. Likewise, she noted the role of admissions is to ensure that each department has interested students among those incoming.
Richard Floyd, director of admission at Ursinus College (one of the Colleges That Change Lives), returned for the second year as a panelist. Richard noted the outsize role U.S. News & World Report plays in their annual rankings in influencing students and parents. He shared that colleges, while being dismayed at the criteria used, often actively promote themselves to colleagues in an effort to raise their profile. Erin, from Drexel, added that colleges crow about better standings (Drexel named one of five colleges to watch) and downplay when the rankings or attention invariably declines.
Suzi Nam, director of admission at Swarthmore College also participated. She noted the importance of a student’s application demonstrating a match to the university’s mission. A school like Swarthmore, where they seek students that value the pursuit of knowledge above all else (even grades), admission reps should be able to tell in the application why a candidate suits that mission.
All three endorsed the role of educational consultants in general, with one noting that good advising is as necessary to the college search and application process as a realtor is to the home search/sale. The group also noted the admiration they have for IECA members as being particularly professional, ethical, and knowledgeable. Each indicated their willingness to take calls and in queries from IECA members, when the goal is gathering general information and not advocating on behalf of an applicant.
It was a great session and was duplicated for school and therapeutic specialists separately. More details will follow in a future blog.
Related posts:
- Nearly 100 Presenters will Examine Hot Topics in College Admission, Boarding Schools, Special Purpose Programs & Independent Educational Consulting
- Heading to NACAC: 5 Things That Independent Educational Consultants Need to Share with College Admission Representatives
- Understanding The Helicopter Parent Phenomenon: A New Book for Educational Consultants Working with Parents and Their College Going Children
- We Must Do a Better Job Ensuring Colleges Understand WHAT Educational Consultants DO and How Many Kids We Work With
- Information Dump: The Summer Training Experience for Upcoming Independent Educational Consultants
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Tagged: admissions, admissions representatives, college application trends, college applications, college consulting, educational consulting, ethics, IECA members, Summer Training Institute
Here are some additional tidbits from the session:
Swarthmore – offers evaluative interviews that are given by deans, senior students and alumni.
Ursinus – won’t penalize students who opt to go test optional, regarding financial aid.
Drexel – wants students to visit them. They are moving away from on-the-road travel.
All three schools commented that the admissions process is first governed by institutional needs and then by admission staff’s diversity of thought.
Could we borrow the Institute’s format for the college portion of the Ohio conference? Wonderful info.! Lynn Luckenbach