<p>Parents, from your experience, do you think it would be beneficial and/or wise to contact your specific regional admissions officer to a school for admissions-related questions or would it not be advantageous?</p>
<p>It is helpful if the information is not readily available from the published information, either in hard copy or on the website. If you are asking a question that can easily be answered by going to the school's website, then you may make yourself look like an idiot who is asking silly questions just to show interest.</p>
<p>If you are a parent, you can only screw things up by contacting adcoms directly.</p>
<p>If there is an obscure question with no answer available anywhere then a student might be able to do it, but if it came off like a "what are my chances" question then it could be a huge negative.</p>
<p>Something like "I want to major in XXX and I can't find anything about that on your website, can you direct me to the department head of XXX" might be Ok.</p>
<p>Uhmm, I'm curious why it's considered a negative. I would think it would depend on what you were communicating to admissions not if you communicated. For instance, I don't think it's appropriate to contact admission and do a sell job on your child. I do think it's appropriate to send them a thank you if you visited (as would the kid separately) I think it's appropriate to tell them if you "like" their school because I think any college employee would think it was good if their was parental support - e.g. you have a beautiful campus, the dorms were particular nice compared to others we've seen, the food was great in the cafeteria, etc. I don't see what's wrong with setting up the initial visit and appointments either. Afterall it's the parent who has to make the travel arrangements, arrange for the hotels and all that jazz. I think the student alone should talk to the admin once at the school, but I think the parents should go along on the tour and be offered the opportunity by the admin to ask questions either before or after they are done with the student. I don't think it's inappropriate for a parent to inquire if the students app is complete and all the scores have been received, afterall many times it's our credit card that CollegeBoard or ACT uses to send the scores. There is most definitely a "business" relationship that parents have with the colleges and in my mind of our correspondence with them is business related with the business offices its just fine. If people disagree I'd love to hear so I change my ways.</p>
<p>It depends on the school. See the reference to this question in a recent interview of one Ivy league school's dean of admissions.</p>
<p>From that article:</p>
<p>Chevy Chase, MD: Do regional directors like receiving mail from prospective applicants? Is it alright to introduce yourself and ask questions, even some that the main admissions office could answer?</p>
<p>Lee Stetson: We like to know our applicants as well as we possibly can. An email to your admissions officer would be a good idea, especially if you are quite interested in Penn. I do not speak for all schools on this matter, however, you should ask each one individually.</p>
<p>I think that it's important for parents to realize that colleges are trying to accept students with the maturity to be able to live at home and run their own lives without parents having to do lots of things for them.</p>
<p>Before the Internet existed, there were good reasons for parents to call schools to check on things like whether applications were complete: Because of students' school hours and EC hours, many students would not have been able to contact school officials until the offices were closed.</p>
<p>Those days are long gone, however ,and students can use e-mail to check on things like their application and to make arrangements for visiting. Certainly parents can guide students through these experiences since usually these are the first time students have had to do things like that, and the students need help from the parents' credit cards. However, parents should not need to be the ones contacting the colleges.</p>
<p>The only time I can think of good reason for parents to contact the colleges would be if there are questions about financial aid. Many parents understandably do not want their kids to know the intricacies of the family finances, so often parents need to make the calls about financial aid questions and follow-ups. </p>
<p>When it comes to thank-you notes, I think that the students should be the ones responsible for that. While it's nice when parents like colleges and appreciate tours, etc., I think that the real customer is the student (this is true even though parents usually pay the bills) and the student should be responsible for sending the notes of appreciation.</p>
<p>Thank you all for your responses. I'm sorry I didn't make myself more clear earlier, but in fact I am a prospective student. I completely agree with all of you that parents should not be the ones that contact the specific admissions officers. In addition, if I do choose to write an email, I will take your advice and definitely stray as far from "what are my chances" as I can. I thought that sending an email might be good in order to not only answer my question, but to get my name out to the admissions officer before my application got there. If anyone feels this would be unwise, please let me know. Note: I decided to post this in the parents thread since I figured adults would be more apt to answer this question then other prospective students.</p>
<p>I am not sure how to respond, other than to say that the University of South Carolina sent a recruiter from the admissions office to our area trying to stir up interest in the Honors College there, and he told us to contact him any time. We have taken up on the offer, and plan to visit him when we go check out USC.</p>
<p>I think the elitist schools don't need or care to be contacted, but maybe the schools which are trying to get a more academically-talented student pool probably would love to be contacted.</p>
<p>Only send an e-mail to admissions if you truly want an answer to some question that's not answered on the web site. Don't just e-mail them to keep your name in front of them. They are busy people, and those kind of e-mails waste their time.</p>
<p>Sending a handwritten thank-you note after an interview is a good thing to do. It's also good to update them on new achievements after you've sent in your application.</p>
<p>If you're applying to places like HPY, they have so many excellent applicants that demonstrated interest doesn't matter.</p>
<p>When we went to a Duke information session locally, they were quite clear in saying that they wanted no emails ... i.e. - please don't call and tell us you enjoyed this information session.</p>
<p>sportsman, like everything else in this crazy system there are a lot of it depends here. Its great to have a contact inside the admissions office who knows you personally and can (hopefully) advocate on your behalf. Locating and encouraging that contact requires some subtlety as a too aggressive approach can backfire.</p>
<p>The easiest way to make a connection is during a campus visit often a member of the adcom conducts the information session or interviews. In that case you can simply get his/her card and then follow up with an e-mail expanding on something that was discussed or just expressing interest. </p>
<p>If you havent visited and still want to connect your chances of success are random. As others have said, dont ask basic, time wasting questions. Ask about something thats not available on the website, especially if it involves an extracurricular activity or academic area. If you get a response, then presto! Youve got a friend. If they ignore your e-mail theres your answer. </p>
<p>If you have a specific EC, talent or academic interest you could strike up a dialog with the club, team or department. In that case you could cc your admissions officer in the communication.</p>
<p>From my son's experience smaller, less selective (try harder) colleges were the best communicators while some of the larger schools were set up so that you cant get close to a human being via e-mail.</p>