Called three AOs right before Xmas break. Two called me back immediately (10 min). One still hasn’t gotten back to me (I emailed and left a VM). Is it wrong of me to feel slightly annoyed or see it as a reflection of the school in general? Possibly some other, less than stellar, things that I have discovered about the school are coloring my perception.
FWIW it’s the least competitive school that hasn’t gotten back.
It depends on what the issue is and the urgency. And whether you happened to catch the person on break.
Overall, I think as a matter of professionalism, you should have gotten an answer. And if it’s important, follow up again, giving them the benefit of the doubt. It’s possible that the AO needed someone else’s input to give you a good answer, asked for it, and forgot that you were waiting while the answer needed had not yet come back.
Don’t start collecting injustices at this point, even if it helps you in your decision -making. If this ends up being the one school your kid gets into, you’ll be in a bad space.
Admissions operates separately from the faculty, etc., so while it may be indicative of the school culture, it also may not be.
Agree with @gardenstategal …but also if a school AO and/or staff was very prompt, helpful, informative - do give that feedback. We know that one school very much welcomed our feedback - in particular - because they had recently changed their technology for inquiries/applicants. They told us that the feedback was helpful.
I’m probably in the minority on this topic, but I would hold individual’s to their actions (or inaction) and not hold the school to the individual’s actions/inaction. For example, at one school we applied to, we were assigned to an AO that was awful from the start - unresponsive, flat affect, evaded questions and wouldn’t help us find folks who could answer them. The AO had just started that year. Turns out, the AO is no longer at that school - lasted less than a year.
It’s different if the AO’s actions/inaction are consistent with a pattern that you observe among a number of people at the school. Then we’re talking about a culture at the school and that particular school is likely not a match for you or your child.
We did find that schools varied by response times for inquiries as well as for requests for tours &interviews. My golf hat is tipping in homage and gratitude to the immediate response times and professionalism of Hotchkiss (yay!), SPS, DA, SGS, MPS, Emma, Berkshire, MX, PA and SMS. Although we did not apply to all, their professionalism in communicating with us parents and their response time was very impressive. The “Not SO Happy Gilmore” award goes to the school who called us in February to tell us they had no record of our interview. No notes. No record. Good thing we kept a copy of the thank you note sent to the AO. Second place goes to “Thurston Howell III school” whose coach never responded to inquiries or phone calls, also unable to speak with any student on the team or - later found out this is a part-time coach, non-faculty member. Thank you for not responding because it saved us from making a huge mistake. See, things do work out in the end! \m/
Thanks for the insight. @Golfgr8 yes, I have a list of people that I am planning to thank after this process is over.
I’ve had one AO at a school not return calls, but everyone else in the same office has been very friendly and responsive. I’ve decided to focus on the positive communication from everyone else there and hope that individual is just bad at checking voicemail, was out of town for work/holidays, etc.
I wouldn’t read too much into anything. They might have had a bad day, a sick relative, back-to-back meetings, who knows? Even the nicest, most efficient and amazing AOs are entitled to a bad day every now and then.
I have to say, we are mostly amazed how responsive all of our target schools have been across Admissions, AOs. multiple sport coaches, tour guides.
These schools are getting inquiries from 1000-3000 applicants, plus calls and emails and Skype calls from those who may not complete the process.
Estimate may be wrong, but roughly, if a smaller school has 5 AOs, they could easily be dealing with 200 or more families, all in a compressed time frame. And let’s face it, this cohort of families is probably among the most demanding out there.
I would hate to be an AO…?