the Sam Jackson College Experience

This information session was last Tuesday, September 26th.

Ted O’ Neill, director of admissions for the University of Chicago, came last Tuesday to do interviews (mainly for anyone applying early); that evening, he stayed around to give us a little bit of information about U of Chicago and to answer any questions we had about the school.

My only real interaction with the University of Chicago has been my glancing contact with their application, more through their great blog (Chicago’s Uncommon Application, 2007-2008) than through the actual application itself. I’ve looked at the essay questions and absolutely love them; they’re very creative and demand even more creative responses, in stark constrast to the prompts from other schools or off the common app–prompts which a lot of the time can be parsed to mean “be narcissistic and self-aggrandizing: 500 words.” Aside from really liking the application, though, I hadn’t really gotten to explore Chicago–I wanted to visit, but it was too “midwest” to be driveable in the time I had over the summer for visits.

From everything I’ve researched about the school, though, I definitely feel I am going to apply: Chicago students seem to have a sort of “passion” in the sense that they work and play hard. O’ Neill reinforced this notion when he spoke about (or was asked about) the student body.

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I found this exceptionally eloquent little piece in Stein Communications‘ higher education newsletter, The Scoop. Check it out here: New Marketing Models.

It doesn’t hurt that I wrote it, either…
Here are the first two paragraphs:

No matter how well-endowed a school may be, another finite resource will always be in short supply: time. The energies and attention of an admissions office must be focused for best success. Dynamic web marketing can be very effective. If you are considering using new web technologies to connect with prospective students, there are some things you should know; if you already do, there is still more to learn, for I have never seen an implementation that couldn’t benefit from audience feedback. Read carefully, because I speak for your audience.

The web is not a magical vehicle for marketing. With proper savvy, the internet can be coaxed into performing as a successful higher education marketing tool, but even the most polished of marketing attempts can fall flat if it loses touch with its target market — and what age group is more fickle than teenagers? The modern web offers untold opportunity for creative and effective marketing techniques to be utilized, but with these new tactics can come new abuse. I will cover some of the difficulties that arise when an institution seeks to exploit blogs, podcasts, YouTube, and the rest of Web 2.0 — and what can be done to avoid them. (This piece focuses specifically on blogs.)

Isn’t it just gripping?

Now go read the rest back on The Scoop site: New Marketing Models – Stein Communications’ The Scoop

It’s just more of what I’ve always been saying about honesty in web marketing, but hey: it’s reproduced on a different website this time.

Sally Champagne of Harvard and Martin Walsh of Stanford were here this evening telling us about their respective institutions and then taking questions (and asking a few). I counted 45 people at the technical start of the session, but something like another ten had stealthily joined us by the end. As with the University of Chicago info session Tuesday night with Ted O’Neill, we were asked to tell them pertinent information which would help them to understand our particular group of Exonians and Exeter in general. Champagne has been reading Exeter applications for a long time, but Walsh was new to them, so this seemed extra true.

In addition, Angela Henson, an Exeter and Harvard alumna, was there to offer her thoughts “not from an admissions perspective.” She was not a particlarly recent alum of either but her insight was of course still valuable.

We were asked which of the two should begin first, and after much vacillation (for clearly the crowd did not want to express an outright favor for either one) someone said “Ladies first” which gave Champagne the clear to start her abbreviated stump. One word, first: I had Sally Champagne do my info session back in March when I went one fateful afternoon down into Cambridge. Truth be told, it was not my favorite info session of the last year. I was therefore pleased by the difference I heard this evening; it just goes to show how an impression can linger long after one individual’s ‘off day’ has passed.

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Ms. Jacinda Ojeda gave a quick information session yesterday afternoon, but I don’t have very much to say about; I had hoped to ask some questions but there wasn’t really any time for me to do so. She is the new reader for Exeter (and also reads for Maine, NH, VT, RI, and Delaware–web says Conn too.), so I had hoped to of course stun her with my very excellent questions. It was a half-hour wedged in during Universal Free after sports but before G period; I couldn’t be late to Mr. Vorkink’s existentialism class–that wouldn’t have gone over very well at all.

My unasked question?

“How do students deal with the confluence of preprofessionals–engineering, nursing, Wharton–and plain ‘ol liberal arts undergraduates?”

When I was at UPenn, I was blown away by the zeal which the school seemed to have for interdisciplinary work, so I was really enticed. After talking to Ms. Dolan, I realized that there could be some stratification or at least unpleasantries in being surrounded by people heading all off in specific directions, rather than going towards the broader-based education I would be looking to have. Obviously I would still have a perfectly great education–that’s not the issue. It’s always an issue of people, and in this case, whether I would want to surround myself with so many preprofessionals.

There were some very encouraging words about public transportation in West Philadelphia–buses, trains and such. I had wanted to ask how the new big extension Penn is working on would affect me if I were to apply and matriculate.

I’m still interested in the very selective, very rigorous, very neat Huntsman, Jerome Fisher dual degree programs; I also heard for the first time about the Vagelos program which is Life Sciences + Management but one degree. You choose to have either a Wharton stamp or College stamp depending on where you focus more of your time. That sounded pretty neat and I know my Dad would love for me to do that… it did sound intriguing.

The talk of tech transfer was interesting in light of recent studies (or at least Chronicle articles) suggesting it might not be all that great for most schools.

I had a meeting with my College Counselor on Monday and we talked about all my schools and about essays and all those sorts of fun things. Mostly we talked about schools, going through my excruciatingly long list and seeing which could stay and which were what sort–where I’d be applying looking for merit aid, things like that.

We worked our way down to W, Williams, and we agreed that we could take Williams off… and I felt a little bad about it. Williams seems really quite lovely, but after talking about what I want to do with my undergraduate career–interdisciplinary work between public policy, writing, and science–it was decided that Williams was too small and didn’t offer me the departmental resources of the big(ish) Universities which made this purge.

Oh, and I took Georgetown off after I visited. Did I say that before? I did. Only that time, it was about Georgetown, not me. It felt both a) too preppy (even during the summer!) and b) too rule-centric. Perhaps in the latter case it was the catholic influence; I have no idea. I’m not saying that Georegetown is a dry campus and I ‘need to partay’ because well, neither of those things are true. Rather it just seemed a little bit buttoned up and convential in some ways that didn’t appeal to me. There was no “gut” pull towards Georgetown and in light of that unspectacular reaction I had almost no choice but to take it off; I simply had too many schools on my list and some had to go. Georgetown is best for its languages and international relations and politics and those sorts of things; I expect I will be better off elsewhere in the long run, anyways.

But Williams I do feel a little bit bad about, perhaps just because I haven’t been near Williamstown or the Berkshires in so long and I miss the Appalachians of Massachusetts.