A small thing but I was very impressed by receiving a personalized hand written post card from our tour guide. You definitely don’t expect that from a school that size (not that I ever got one from a small school)
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That’s an admissions department at its best - doing what admissions departments should do well - close the deal!! In this case, it might be getting the student on the tour to apply or if already in, to accept.
I assure you that’s part of the tour guides job duties assigned to them.
Many do admissions well - U of Oklahoma was FANTASTIC - but I still can’t imagine a correlation to the overall four year experience.
Plus, the overall experience will value by kid.
Most schools have great resources but not all have the inner drive to take advantage of those resources.
I suspect few are hand holding the entirety of the student body.
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I think it depends on the question. Is the answer going to change whether they apply to that school or not? Is it a question that may be better to ask someone in the specific program they have interest in?
Or is it a “chance me” with financials that is too hard for the team to give a true response so far in advance?
We had a mixed bag of responsiveness to emails. As someone who works at a college I can say there seems to be a general delay in response time between May and September. Add to that, we had more than 1 school where the admission counselor contact person changed mid process.
If the school is a true contender, have your child make an actual phone call. It would show they are genuinely interested.
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We found some schools were fantastic at communication and others less so. How we felt about the communications often times had more to do with how D20, D23 and S24 felt about the school more than it did how well the school communicated. The rankings of the schools didn’t seem to play any role in how responsive communications were.
Some schools with great communication annoyed the child concerned. They felt some schools were ‘trying too hard’ and reaching out way too often. Not surprisingly, those schools were already low on my children’s interest.
Some schools could “do no wrong” in a child’s eyes. They loved the school for whatever reason and none of the less than perfect interactions they might have doused their interest. Those were the schools that remained on lists even after terrible weather during a college tour, less than stellar school spirit offerings, and mediocre tour guides with little helpful information shared.
The schools that stayed on my children’s lists (and ended up their final choices) were the ones that matched the child’s energy and interest in their communications. D23 probably spoke/emailed/texted to her admission officer once a month (at least) from her first visit to her (eventual) school til when she arrived on campus. Her AO was incredible, always helpful, super responsive. D20 had maybe 3 interactions with her AO total - one of those being the required interview for a scholarship, one being a question about dropping a course senior year and one being a thank you note after being accepted with top merit.
D23 would have felt neglected by D20’s AO experience; D20 would have felt smothered by the experience D23 had with hers.
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Nothing to compare to because kid only went to one school so who knows what would have or not have been elsewhere. I can say emphatically that kid’s school was incredibly responsive during admissions including questions about aid and every other interaction throughout the four yrs (changing meal plans during a semester, study abroad inquiries / logistics, etc. During our selection process, ahead of application, they were great about setting up a one on one with kid and a senior person within his area of interest. Ironically that person became his advisor within his major. Essentially kid took care of everything but always found it easy to communicate on first try. The few times I needed to ask a question (regarding tuition, aid, etc. they answered the phone and answered my question…and were very polite / nice about it).
We did have some interactions with other schools prior to selection that were less then. Kind of a turn off. Some not willing to set up a one on one visit (far more depth than the info session and tour), others not getting back to me with a question about aide as a business owner with non boiler plate tax return and extensions). Maybe they would have been great but they didn’t show that early on.
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Varied experience for S23
School 1 (student accepted and enrolled/very large public) - This school definitely had the most parent outreach with ongoing admission webinars for parents, newsletters, etc. This continued once S23 was accepted and enrolled. S23 was in touch with OA with multiple questions and they were always very responsive. Scheduling revisit days, department tours, and meetings with student services (all done by S23) was easy, information was easy to obtain, calls were always returned, etc.
School has just started, but this also seems to be the norm after admission. Move in, registration and orientation were all easy and well run. You can tell they’ve had years to perfect the process, and they have. When they sent out a survey after move in all I could say was that I wouldn’t change a thing and it was impressive that they could move thousands of students onto campus in such an organized manner.
As parents, we even get a heads-up on things that will be on our bill and why, who to call with questions, and things your student may be experiencing/ how to talk to them about it/ where they can get help/ what resources are available. , My impression is that this is a “top down” expectation and the culture of the school. I wasn’t expecting any of this from such a large, public school. Truthfully, we don’t really need this much hand-holding but it is comforting to know that they see these kids as people and a part of a larger family rather than just a number.
School 2 (student accept/very large public) - Tours were listed on the website 8 weeks ahead, filled up quickly and the responses seemed to be that more information about the school would be available on the tour and not from departments. (Not ideal for an OOS family). OA was very responsive though and seemed to be the only one that we could get any information from. Once accepted, they didn’t list the accepted student day dates until about a month prior to the event (and all we were told when we called for dates was that they’d be available on the website) which made OOS travel/coordination with sports and school difficult. Good thing we checked daily as the school only sent snail mail noticification of the dates two weeks prior. Had difficulty getting in touch with anyone from the dept/major until S23 received a large major-specific scholarship. It was even hard to get information about the honors college. This school was really struggling last year with its college president and she has since stepped down. I do feel that the admissions experience influenced how we rated the school, moving it from 1st choice before the process began to not worth a revisit day after experiencing School 1’s revisit day.
School 3 (another large/ public)/ 1st and very early acceptance). OA was very responsive. Met with dept during a tour and they followed up with a postcard and an invitation to continue our conversation over Zoom to answer additional questions (which we accepted) as during the meeting S23 showed interest in adding another major. Once accepted there was also outreach from the town about transportation, additional resources, and what they had to offer. This is a college town that really supports its university, so this seemed on brand. S23 knew it wasn’t a top pick after getting other acceptances so we didn’t get any further than that.
School 4 (accepted/ smaller public in a remote location). Responsive OA and lots of information upfront that all seemed to center on assuring parents that the location wouldn’t be a problem. Once S23 was accepted he was invited to participate in a competition for a full scholarship. This competition had been done over Zoom previous years, but this year it was on campus only. Its remote location made this extremely difficult to navigate and S23 ultimately realized that it really wasn’t a viable option due to time off of school/work and expenses, especially considering flights are often cancelled that time of year and we were unsure we would even be able to get to the closest airport. (No wonder even those who didn’t end up getting the full scholarship got 2K just for attending). We found it disappointing knowing how difficult and expensive the school is to get to that they would require an on-campus visit for the competition. All the information we received after admission continued to focus on job fairs and travel.
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