<p>Hello all,</p>
<p>I'm an admissions staff member at Carleton, and we are beginning work on creating a staff blog for the website (in addition to the already existing student blogs). I just wanted to solicit people here (former or current prospective students) and see if there are any potential blog topics that would be of interest to you regarding Carleton and admissions (ex: Is ED right for you? What does need sensitive really mean? etc). </p>
<p>Thanks for any suggestions!</p>
<p>Facebook has groups for 2013 students and 2013 parents - if you can post the request there you’ll hit a bunch of folks who’ve just gone through the process. I know the parents group is open and I believe the student one is too, so you can just join so that you can post of the wall. Or send me a pm and I’ll do it (I’m already on the parents group and can “hack” into d’s fb - in other words, she gave me her pw).</p>
<p>Thanks for the suggestion! I have actually done that as well, but I thought this would be one potential place to get suggestions from students still going through the search process to supplement any ideas that I get from students who have just completed it.</p>
<p>Hi- There is an interesting blog at Hopkins which details the life in admissions. May not be what you want but it certainly humanizes the process/staff. As far as questions/issues that I have heard come up here are a few thoughts: Who does the interviewing? Does an interview really matter? Might be interesting to talk about the trimester system since most schools use semesters ( and I think it’s a great positive for the students!), the need sensitive issue-what it really means, do I really need to apply ed, what’s your favorite thing about Northfield, campus atmosphere, ( I know you are not a student but adult perspectives do help), what’s good time to visit, ACT versus SAT. Hope that helps.</p>
<p>I’d really like to hear about extracurricular activities. Is it more about quantity or quality? That kind of thing.</p>
<p>Lafayette College had absolutely the best thread from an admissions office on CC. Check out “ASK QUESTIONS HERE.” They had a student, Candyman92486, field all kinds of questions from interested students and parents. I used to read it all the time. Of course my son chose Carleton instead, but Lafayette got the CC thing right.</p>
<p>This is not exactly on point. I think the 15 students interviewed in the short videos, cross referenced to questions about Carleton, is by far the best feature on the Carleton web site for prospective students. I haven’t found any other college web site like this, although I can’t claim to have seen every one.</p>
<p>By my count four of the featured students are graduating. I recommend that you replace those four and increase the number of featured students to at least 20 or even 25. The more videos you put up, the more likely a prospective student will see someone similar to himself/herself.</p>
<p>I would not put solo videos of professors on there, but you might consider making short (no more than five minutes) videos of lively classroom discussions where the subject matter is something high school students would understand, the professor is a great teacher (most Carleton professors are), and the interaction between the professor and the students makes for a great discussion and some profound insight into the material.</p>
<p>My son has seen a dozen colleges and has not liked any of them. He and I will visit Carleton in the fall when classes resume. I got him to sit down and watch those student videos and he is now excited about seeing Carleton. Those videos work.</p>
<p>There are a lot of college student videos on various web sites, and with a lot of effort you can get an idea of what the typical student is like at many colleges. I have done this and it has been quite a revelation to see what Ivy League students are like today. In the future I think most colleges will organize their videos on their web sites or youtube to make it easy for prospective students and parents to do more than take a virtual tour.</p>
<p>Carleton is ahead on this and can continue to improve on what it has already done.</p>