on-line admissions chats

Parents Forum
1

<p>My daughter said she enjoyed a very informative on-line chat last night in a chat-room set up by the admissions office of a liberal arts college we visited last summer. </p>

<p>The chat included several current students, an admissions officer, and a number of prospective students. </p>

<p>My daughter said she found it very comfortable and unintimidating to ask questions and to listen to others' questions and the responses from current students and the admissions officer. (Students were just asked to sign in to the chatroom with first names, so she felt fairly anonymous, though she does realize it's possible there could be IP-tracking.)</p>

<p>She came away from the chat with a much clearer (and more positive) picture than she had after our visit last summer. (The problem with the visit last summer--it was brutally hot, there were no students on campus, and the campus visit was part of a consecutive string of college visits and she was starting to suffer from information overload. Also, she felt her campus interviewer was rushed and not too enthusiastic about answering her questions last summer. The chat felt much more relaxed, and it felt like there was lots of opportunity to ask questions, reflect, listen to other people's questions and answers, and then ask another one, etc. The chatroom was set up to run for 3 hours, and my daughter spent about 90 minutes there before returning to her homework.)</p>

<p>She was uncertain about whether to apply there after the campus visit last summer. At the time, she expressed some concern that the school really hadn't had a fair chance to present itself, because of the factors I listed above. </p>

<p>After last night's chat, she went back and looked at the catalog and other materials she had picked up from the college, and she now feels quite certain that she should apply, that it could very well be one of her top choices.</p>

<p>Today's mail brought a new twist--the same college is holding an admissions chat for parents in a few weeks! </p>

<p>That seems like a great idea too. (Although I must admit, I'm not that adept or experienced at the on-line chat thing.)</p>

<p>I really like the idea of on-line admissions chats--I wish more of the colleges on her list had them. It's certainly a lot cheaper for the college than sending their admissions people around the country to do info sessions in rented hotel rooms. And, the student gets the benefit of current student perspectives as well.</p>

2

<p>Last year my daughter tried the on-line chats and thought they were a waste of time. According to her, the same questions kept getting asked over and over again as new students joined the discussion unaware of what had already been asked and the answers were very brief -- not surprising considering the medium. However, this is the first that I've heard of an on-line chat for parents. I think that I might have enjoyed that! Do they need extra long sheets? How much is it to do a load of wash? Do the dryers shrink all cotton clothes very badly? How many meals a week do most students really find themselves eating in the dining hall. . . See, just thinking about it gets me on a roll!</p>

3

<p>I did an online chat for parents a couple of months ago and found it very helpful. It was for University of Maryland--Baltimore County. They sent me an e-mail reminder a couple of days before and then the very morning of the chat, and by the time I read the e-mail, the chat was under way, so I couldn't forget about it! </p>

<p>There were two admissions people, a couple of parents, an alum, and I think a student. Very small group of parents, and they did make the school seem quite appealing. I think it's a good idea for schools that kind of get lost in the pack a bit--UMd in College Park is easy to remember, but the Baltimore County one is easy to forget.</p>

4

<p>It seems to me that colleges could solve the kind of problem shelf-life's daughter encountered by making available an on-line archive of FAQ excerpts from transcripts of old chats (edited for redundancy) and suggesting that students interested in a chat read the FAQ archives before signing on.</p>

<p>It's also quite possible for moderators to manage a chat so that redundant and repetitive questions don't get seen by the whole group and get answered privately.</p>

5

<p>I enjoy our chats, but shelf-life is right that a lot of the time gets eaten up by repeat questions. We have FAQs that we can write ahead of time and post with one mouse click, so we try to move on quickly. Some people will still ask very basic questions over and over again. </p>

<p>We haven't done a parent chat...maybe. I'll mention that when I get off the road. Thanks for the idea!</p>

6

<p>I've done online chats and found them pretty useless. there are always to many people asking the same things with the answers coming on top of each other in confusing orders... having admission reps and students availible at certain times for private chats might be more usefull.</p>

7

<p>It sounds like not all students have had positive experiences with on-line chats.</p>

<p>That's unfortunate, and it suggests to me that some colleges are not using the technology well.</p>

<p>Here are links to transcripts of a couple of amazingly informative on-line college chats. Note that these chats were moderated chats, in that the moderators selected what questions to share with the entire chatroom and what questions to answer privately in side conversations. </p>

<p><a href="http://www.artofproblemsolving.com/Community/AoPS_Y_MJ_Transcripts.php?mj_id=181%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.artofproblemsolving.com/Community/AoPS_Y_MJ_Transcripts.php?mj_id=181&lt;/a>
(Chat with Harvard Mudd admissions director, professor, current and prospective students)</p>

<p><a href="http://www.artofproblemsolving.com/Community/AoPS_Y_MJ_Transcripts.php?mj_id=167%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.artofproblemsolving.com/Community/AoPS_Y_MJ_Transcripts.php?mj_id=167&lt;/a>
(Chat with MIT admissions officer, professor, and prospective students)</p>

<p>The on-line conversations linked above were actually hosted on the Art-of-Problem-Solving website, but there's no reason that colleges couldn't use the same kind of moderated approach. As the AoPS site explains:</p>

<p>
[quote]
DPatrick (19:30:26)
Before I introduce our special guests, I would like to briefly explain our classroom to those who have not previously attended a Math Jam or online class.</p>

<p>DPatrick (19:30:36)
This classroom is moderated. This means that the messages you type will come to the moderators rather than going directly into the room. The moderators may choose some of the messages and questions to share with all of the participants.</p>

<p>DPatrick (19:30:49)
Only the moderators have the ability to send private messages in the classroom. Sometimes they will use these to privately respond to your comments.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>So this way the general audience can be spared all the redundant, repetitive questions, or the ones that involve particular circumstances unique to a single student.</p>

8

<p>S and I have participated in the ones held by the University of Maryland-College Park. The kids chats were rather frenzied and S became disinterested, but I found the parent ones much more orderly and informative. (Probably because the parents actually slowed down to use whole words, capital letters and punctuation! :) ) I was able to get answers to all my questions and was interested in the other parent comments. I would participate in again.</p>