So my daughter has several acceptances and has decided where she wants to go. But her dad and I have some questions and concerns that we need answered before making the deposit check.
It’s interesting that all of the school she has ruled out have sent her a lot of written materials, letters from other students and parents, links to Facebook pages, etc. But we have received very little from her number one choice. We tried to figure out answers to our questions from their website, but that wasn’t enough. We wrote to her admissions counselor…no response.
So my question is – is this typical? Are the admissions counselors so overworked that they don’t have time to respond to questions from parents? How are we supposed to make an educated decision if we can’t get answers to some pretty straightforward questions?
Did she write to the admissions counselor? Or did parents? No research to back this up, but I suspect adcoms would likely see an email directly from a student as a higher priority than from parents.
No to say that parents don’t have an important influence in the process - just that you may get a faster answer with a phone call directly from your D.
It may be that admissions people really aren’t involved once they are admitted. Try reaching out to someone in the office that applies. There may be a “new student office” or a housing office or a financial aid office that can answer your questions
A good admissions counselor should be responding. I suppose it depends on the level of selectivity, but, for most colleges, they are trying to fill seats in a competitive market so it’s in their best interest to be responsive.
But, yeah, they’re busy. They are attending conferences, still traveling and hosting events, dealing with FA appeals, etc. Plus hosting the first of the junior events working toward next year.
The good news is that after next month you won’t deal with admissions again. I wouldn’t let this color your opinion of the college as a whole unless things really get ridiculous.
Are you sure you have the correct admissions counselor? If you get the info from their website - sometimes it can be out of date as adcoms move or change regions
I agree with @whitespace. Admissions folk want to hear from the applicant, not the applicant’s mom or dad. When D and I was stuck traveling to an admitted students event, my daughter was very upset (crying, etc), so I called the admissions counselor. She asked to talk to my daughter. They talked and worked out something between themselves. I was basically told (politely) to remove myself from the situation.
Oddly, although it may be best if she contacts the admissions office, you may have to contact her high school to get permission for her to make a phone call during the school day. It would be unwise for her to get suspended for breaking the phone rules this close to graduation.
Thanks for the responses. For the school she is considering, it is very specialized and different from the more traditional liberal arts schools that we are comparing it to…and that’s one reason why I have a lot of concerns.
One of my questions is how easy it is to change majors since I have read that many of them are closed. You have to enter as a freshman and that’s it. But the website is unclear as to what options she would have if she wanted to switch.
She was accepted into the Honors Program. But again, there is little information about what this means on the website. I know some honors programs don’t really offer very much – other than the name – while others have special classes, housing, and registration priorities – so we are trying to see what benefits she would have.
Regarding parents vs. students calling…At first, we left all of the fact-finding up to her. She flew out to the college by herself to visit and really liked it. But when we asked her for details about the programs, she didn’t know the answers. Even setting the visit up was difficult. She had to write several email requests…no response. It wasn’t until I called to ask to speak to the Dean of Admissions that they finally responded to her.
I thought that part of the job of admissions is getting the admitted kids to actually go…which benefits their numbers…so shouldn’t they do this by answering parents’ questions? I really don’t think of this as helicopter parenting, but since we are paying for it, I think we as parents should be able to ask questions ourself, and not through our children.
And while I know that Admissions may not be reflective of the entire school, it’s not giving me a very good impression.
I’ll try the suggestions – getting my daughter to write the email and seeing if there’s a new student office or something. The admissions letter that we got said to direct questions to her counselor, which is what I have been doing. So it just seems odd that no one is responding…especially when all of the other colleges have been so easy to get information from.
If this is the way they treat you before they have your money, imagine the response you will get once you are paid and locked in.
I like my daughter’s school, but I find administration very hard to deal with. Nice, but there are a lot of problems. It seems that every person does exactly one thing, and usually that person is usually “out” when I call. My daughter had two files, two student numbers, two places where documents could end up, or NOT end up, but no one was really responsible for the two files or how to combine them because we’d pass the ‘admissions’ stage (she was already attending) and yet files were an admissions responsibility. Hmm, what should they do? There is a person for this grant, a person for that scholarship, a person for billing, a person for housing. It’s not that big a school! What really drives me crazy is the billing. They bill tuition. Then back it off. They bill it in several pieces, different amount. Then back that off. I have to go through and match them all up. It has been this way for all 4 semesters so far. I can’t figure out why they do this. There has never been a charge or credit that wasn’t posted and then removed, then reposted.
Would we have made a different decision if I knew how much trouble it would be? No, but I would have called faster, not waited to see if the errors would correct themselves. We did try to have my daughter deal with it, but she got no where by going to the office. I called, it gets fixed.
I know it doesn’t have to be this hard. I think I’ve had just one issue/question about my other daughter’s admission or FA, and the first person I asked could help
This. When admissions counselors quit, change regions, or take a leave of absence, schools are pretty bad at keeping their websites up to date. Go directly to the main admissions email, you should get a response.
If you have questions about the Honors Program, contact the Honors Program. If you have a question about the accessibility of a certain major, call that specific department or school. Institutionally, Admissions is quite isolated and little or no contact with other parts of the university. There is a good chance that your assigned counselor will not know the answers to your questions.
The website ought to have contact phone, email etc. for the various academic departments and schools. Have your D call or email the chair.
You might also see if you can access the institution’s course catalog online. it may also have policies listed about declaring and changing majors, etc.
Call or email the dept she is interested in. I think you will get a faster response. I think it is OK for a parent to ask specific questions regarding a major to help give their child information regarding specific schools. When they get to their school then it is up to them to reach out to professors.
Totally agree with the last 2 posts. Contact the depts you specifically have questions about. If no response in email, call them.
As you have found, some schools do a great job responding in a professional and punctual way. and some don’t. it might just be the poor business practices of individuals, but I found at one school where d had 2 diff’t counselors - neither ever responded to any of her emails, not once through the entire cycle.
the good thing is that you will never deal with admissions again.
the bad thing is that you will deal with administrative service persistently - and schools either do it well or they don’t. look at various rankings for this to see how they stack up.
I agree with contacting the relevant departments, deans, etc. But frankly it would have been nice if the admissions officer at least responded with a quick email nicely suggesting that.
As twoinanddone pointed out, the (non)responses you got from the admissions office and whatever types of responses you get going forward are telling you something about the school. If she goes to this school, these are the professors, deans and assorted admins she’s going to have to deal with for four years. Do they see their job as being helpful to students or is it going to be an exercise in frustration for four years?
Do you feel comfortable naming the school? You look like a newer poster, and may not know that this forum is super friendly, helpful, and generally positive - people on here may be able to help answer some questions from their experience with the school(s) - the collective knowledge on this forum is impressive!
If kids go into a major as freshman, it can be difficult to transfer into a popular major, if the school limits the number of seats. There may also be a facebook page for the school or even try the CC page for the school if there is one. That may answer your question from a “real” person, rather than the admissions office. If you give the name of the school she is considering, you may well get some good information from this parents forum.