I left work at 3pm yesterday and headed south towards the Cape. Normally I love going to the cape, even for college fairs, but I'm not such a fan of driving at night when its raining. The fair itself was fine, UCCRVTHS is a tech school with a culinary department, so the refreshments for the college reps were delicious and i had about 56 cups of coffee. As far as attendance goes, it was less than impressive. The students who i did talk to were very nice and very interested in furthering their education, which was refreshing.
The most interesting part, however, was who i was sharing a table with. I had never heard of Olin College of Engineering, its right in Needham, next to Babson. This is a very new school(graduated its first class in June 2006), a very small school (300 students), and is full of the aggressively intelligent (average GPA= 4.3/perfect SAT's). The school was created and funded by the Olin foundation. Its completely funded...any student who is accepted there gets an automatic presidential scholarship (free tuition). State of the art everything technological, and no one on the faculty has a degree less than a PhD.
To say the least, i was floored. This is a school who puts such faith in its students capabilities that they are willing to completely fund their education. Whew. Check out their website.
...I do still love Newbury.
14 March, 2007
Learning Prep.
Today I went to the Learning Prep School in West Newton. Learning Prep is a school that focuses on students with language based learning disabilities. Its a great school. The kids are hilarious. They all had these questionnaires they had to fill out by talking to all the college reps, as you can imagine, by the 8th student, I could answer the questions before they asked, they got a kick out of this. I haven't done a college fair since November and this was a very rewarding one to get back into it with.
Then I had sushi for lunch.
Then I had sushi for lunch.
03 March, 2007
Some light travel required...
I loved college, I did. I was one of those over committed, enjoy-everything, call the dean by her first name, super-enthusiastic college students. By the time I graduated, I knew where I wanted to be in 10 years; right here, sitting at a university commencement, not as a student but as an administrator. Ideally president, but like I said before, I'm a little over-enthusiastic.
In August, a former employer from my undergrad sent me a job description and said i should apply. "Assistant Director of Admission: Responsible for the recruitment and followup of prospective students. Read and process admission applications. Assist with admission events and school events. Some light travel required." This looked like a great job to get my foot in the door and onto my career path. I applied and 3 days later I was hired.
How the Admission process works for someone on the inside is usually very similar across the board. September -December is travel season. Here, we go to college fairs and high schools to represent and sell our school. January-May we read and process applications from students we've talked to during travel season. May-September we plan for our next travel season. At my school there was a very fast and unexpected turnaround of admissions staff so i was hired pretty late in the game and not exactly properly trained. The aforementioned was the basic training i received.
"How many high schools do you expect me to visit per day?" I asked my boss in early September.
"4-5, and a college fair at night is one is available."
Im not going to describe my whole travel season, that will come later (next travel season), but lets just say that "Some light travel required" was a gross understatement. My travel region is Massachusetts, in this sense i was lucky because i could come home at night, the other admissions counselors who covered places like Vermont, New Hampshire and Connecticut would be out of town for weeks on end.
I kept a binder to keep myself organized during travel season, the entries in each page ranged in emotion from "First travel day, v. excited, 15 students present, nice staff, 15 inquiry cards (September)" to "Was late, hate my life, 3 students, all dumber than paint, i want to go home(November)". At the end of Travel season i tallied up my mileage. In 9 weeks i had put enough miles on my car to drive to Los Angeles and back...let me be more specific, 6345 miles. IN MASSACHUSETTS ALONE.
I wish i had started this blog in the fall and really documented my travels, but that's why I'm starting it now. Spring travel exists, but it much much less than fall travel. I have 10 college fairs to go to in the next 4 months. You will hear about them.
Don't get me wrong, i love my job. I couldn't have asked for a better boss or team to work with, i couldn't change anything about it, but some of the people and things I encounter are worth publishing just for the absurdity of it.
I'm going to stop typing now, but I have a fair on the 7th in Lawrence MA.
In August, a former employer from my undergrad sent me a job description and said i should apply. "Assistant Director of Admission: Responsible for the recruitment and followup of prospective students. Read and process admission applications. Assist with admission events and school events. Some light travel required." This looked like a great job to get my foot in the door and onto my career path. I applied and 3 days later I was hired.
How the Admission process works for someone on the inside is usually very similar across the board. September -December is travel season. Here, we go to college fairs and high schools to represent and sell our school. January-May we read and process applications from students we've talked to during travel season. May-September we plan for our next travel season. At my school there was a very fast and unexpected turnaround of admissions staff so i was hired pretty late in the game and not exactly properly trained. The aforementioned was the basic training i received.
"How many high schools do you expect me to visit per day?" I asked my boss in early September.
"4-5, and a college fair at night is one is available."
Im not going to describe my whole travel season, that will come later (next travel season), but lets just say that "Some light travel required" was a gross understatement. My travel region is Massachusetts, in this sense i was lucky because i could come home at night, the other admissions counselors who covered places like Vermont, New Hampshire and Connecticut would be out of town for weeks on end.
I kept a binder to keep myself organized during travel season, the entries in each page ranged in emotion from "First travel day, v. excited, 15 students present, nice staff, 15 inquiry cards (September)" to "Was late, hate my life, 3 students, all dumber than paint, i want to go home(November)". At the end of Travel season i tallied up my mileage. In 9 weeks i had put enough miles on my car to drive to Los Angeles and back...let me be more specific, 6345 miles. IN MASSACHUSETTS ALONE.
I wish i had started this blog in the fall and really documented my travels, but that's why I'm starting it now. Spring travel exists, but it much much less than fall travel. I have 10 college fairs to go to in the next 4 months. You will hear about them.
Don't get me wrong, i love my job. I couldn't have asked for a better boss or team to work with, i couldn't change anything about it, but some of the people and things I encounter are worth publishing just for the absurdity of it.
I'm going to stop typing now, but I have a fair on the 7th in Lawrence MA.
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