<p>I recently talked to a college counselor in my school, and he told me that some colleges really look kindly upon students that really express "an interest in their school", that really want to go and will do anything to get in. He encouraged me to call the school (Notre Dame) and to talk to an admissions person. What im wondering, is, what would i say. I dont want to sound desparate or whiney, or to annoy them? Has anyone's son or daughter done this? What should I be talking about? I just really dont want to annoy them, because they must be busy people. Thanks for any advice anyone can offer, at all.</p>
<p>At the admissions office where I work (a Tier 1 school) any repeated calls would be annoying, especially if there wasn't a real point to it (at the very least, ask a question about the application). I would not typically recommend for parents to call. Being on the other end of these is often irritating- parents tend to ask questions that their kid would or should now and also ask questions about things they don't know about in-depth to begin with, like SATs, recs, ECs, etc. Don't ask questions that could easily be answered by two minutes on the school's website, like the application deadline.</p>
<p>If the student is going to call, he or she should practice ahead of time so they sound purposeful and confident- nothing more obnoxious in any field than a caller who says "um...i like, have a question, like..." and lacks general phone manners. The student should also avoid a detailed description of his or her application coupled with "And this is why I deserve to go here". That person on the other end, especially initially, may not be an admissions officer.</p>
<p>Caller ID DOES exist in some of these offices, and the phone numbers from more <em>memorable</em> callers can stick. You'd be surprised.</p>
<p>I'd worry less about phone calls and more about a good application.</p>
<p>All schools look "kindly" on students who are interested. They want the yield of students, who are accepted and decide to enroll, to be as high as possible. A high yield helps assure that they make the right number of offers to fill the enrollment. This yield is also part of their reputation and is an important factor in rankings. The common app and internet applications have made this even more of a problem. Students are applying to more colleges and yields overall are decreasing. Many schools track student contacts (primarily visits and interviews) as a gauge of interest.</p>
<p>So will calling admissions help? Probably only at the smaller schools with small numbers of apps. Larger schools receive too many calls and apps.</p>
<p>I think Notre Dame is one of the schools that often provokes infatuation among students and families. It's more a culture than an education. I know that they place high value of letters of rec from alumni but that alumni are often very careful about who they give them to. I knew one kid who was told the alumni would give him a rec only if Notre Dame was his first choice and he promised to go there if admitted. There are a lot of ways to let them know it's your first choice. Apply ED, attend all of their college events, visit, contact departments, coaches etc.</p>
<p>Calling probably wouldn't be the prefered option, unless there is some reason to call. E-mail is more considerate, but only as a part of a legitimate request for information.</p>
<p>For example, suppose that someone were interested in community service programs at the school and had already done the reasearch on the website and identified two key staff members. An e-mail to the regional adcom asking whether Person A or Person B would be the appropriate person to contact for additional information would be a legitimate part of an information gathering process. You could take it a step further and CC: the adcom on the subsequent e-mails with Person B, first setting up a meeting, then thanking them after the meeting, etc.</p>
<p>Such an approach would establish both an interst in an area and the self-starter initiative to actually figure out the college and research that area. Plus, it's polite to keep the admissions office in the loop if a prospect is exploring campus. By doing it as e-mails, there is a low risk of annoying an adcom, especially because you are specifically not asking the adcom to set up meetings and answer every question.</p>
<p>I would do the same thing when setting up meetings or gathering information from the chair of academic departments. For example, when contacting a professor to confirm that his or her class would be an appropriate class to observe on a campus visit.</p>
<p>Having said all that, Notre Dame might be too big for any of that to matter much. Even if it is, it shouldn't stop a prospective customer from gathering information to make an informed buying decision.</p>
<p>Our son had a very focused list of colleges that he wanted to apply to and as a result we were able to limit our college visits to 8 over the course of a year. I only mention this because we allotted a full day for each visit and he took this opportunity to call some admissions offices in order to set up appointment to visit the compsci department and sit in on a course during the day.</p>
<p>All were very obliging and at Case he even was invited to the CompSci picnic which happened to be going on the day we visited.</p>
<p>He also called admissions to confirm that all required materials had arrived in those instances where the college did not send out a postcard promptly.</p>