<p>Son is applying to 3 schools - all somewhat similar. Right now I am trying to schedule an overnight for him at his current first choice school. I spoke with "his" admissions counselor (this one serves our state) 10 days ago to schedule this, and I have yet to hear back from her. This is the second time she has not responded to a request. The first time was last spring when I emailed her about a program on campus that he wanted to attend. Two weeks later she had not replied, so I contacted the department chair that was running the program. He sent me the registration info. and fortunately let my son in since the deadline had passed while I was waiting for admissions counselor to respond to me. Back to the present - we are also trying to get an answer about a program that son is eligible for and has to apply for. We have a question about whether they are still offering the program and sent emails on Monday and Wednesday to 2 different people in admissions (including the director!) and have not received a response from either one. Now this is a small school (about 1500) and through our visits there have been so impressed with the personal attention. Was that all a show for their open houses? I'm not sure what to make of this.</p>
<p>Skip the emails and make a phone call. Email isn't always the most reliable. My email sometimes filters perfectly legitimate mail into the spam folder.</p>
<p>I did speak to the admissions counselor on the phone to set up the overnight visit. She took all my information and said she would call me back. I did it by phone specifically because she hadn't responded to my email in the spring. We also tried to call about the program son needs to apply for, but all we got was voice mail, and no one returned the call, so then we emailed.</p>
<p>Maybe they would more readily respond to the student?</p>
<p>Agree with Suze. Have the student make the contact.</p>
<p>right now, many schools are out there doing info sessions, my bet is that is where this person is</p>
<p>try talking to someone else</p>
<p>just keep calling over and over till you get a person</p>
<p>its called persistance, and yeah its a pain, but with people out on the road, you may have just a couple of people in the office, so you have to keep trying</p>
<p>we expect responses at the drop of a hat- and maybe there are phone problems, a temp in the office who is over whelmed, maybe the # didn't get heard or written down or anything else</p>
<p>we will wait on hold with the cable people for 30 minutes, hang around for the phone guy, but expect a very busy college office to not make any mistakes</p>
<p>it is up to US to follow through if we get missed</p>
<p>I disagree with having your son try to make contact -- more likely than not, he is going to face the same dead ended responses as you have. Your best bet is to keep trying, esp. through the phone. I've tried emailing my first choice school before to get ahold of specific info and they either a) take forever or b) never respond. Persistence is handy.</p>
<p>This time of year the admissions counselors are typically travelling all over their region doing college fairs and hosting info sessions. A call to the college admissions office, during regulur business hours is probably best, and if your s. is in school during those times, make your apologies when you call and let them know you are calling on his behalf. And I agree. Be persistent. Not a pest, but persistent.</p>
<p>Our method may not work for you, but when this happened repeatedly with one school my D wrote them off. The thought was if this is how they're treating her BEFORE they've gotten her money, and they're supposed to be on their best behavior to "win her", how will they treat her afterwards?</p>
<p>"just"aMom ~ That's exactly what I was thinking. If he enrolls, would he have problems dealing with other offices? I've also thought, well, once you are in, you won't need to deal with admissions any more, but is it representative of the rest of the school? I thought giving the admissions counselor 10 days to arrange an overnight was pretty good - she said she already had her list of students on campus that would host. And the fact that she never responded to my request in the spring (after May 1st), even though the website for the program said to contact your counselor for more info. and registration forms, makes me worry. </p>
<p>He cannot call himself because he is not home from school yet during their office hours.</p>
<p>I wouldn't completely write the college off, especially if it's top choice, because of a communication problem. Pure laziness is probably not the reason the coordinator did not give you a response -- as many others have already said, HS visits, travelling, technical difficulties, departmental discrepancies. Colleges can be confusing institutions, even if it only hosts less than 2,000 students. Although, maybe it can be considered a good lesson (for your son) -- the unfortunate bureaucracy of college. I'm afraid wherever you go, it follows.</p>
<p>Don't mean to dwell on the "student should do this" aspect but...if it is important to your son to visit this school --- if he has a cell phone, he could call during his lunch. Also...at some high schools...the guidance office will allow students to use their phones to call admissions offices. There is also the way we used to arrange these kinds of activities years ago....snail mail.</p>
<p>There are some colleges that have a negative view of parents making all of the contacts and connections. This topic has been debated many times on CC...so I don't want to hijack this thread...but it is something to consider based on the info. presented in your initial post.</p>
<p>I do think that this type of nonresponse may indicate something is amiss. Like many corporations, some colleges are very poorly run, with personnel who may be incompetent, demoralized, etc. Now, I'm not saying that this is the case with this particular school, but I would have my antennae raised! </p>
<p>Yes, I know it's the time of year when admissions people are on the road, but you should have gotten an away message at least and a return phone call/e-mail in a few days, IMHO. I e-mailed two admissions people last week. I got two away messages in return, but both individuals got back to me within 24 or 48 hours, one from his BlackBerry. These days, there's no excuse for what happened to your son!</p>
<p>Many admissions offices have a separate visit coordinator, who would better handle your situation than the area admissions representative.</p>
<p>I agree with the following that some posters have said:</p>
<ol>
<li>Let your S do the arrangements for his college application-related things including programs, visits, etc. He can use his cell phone to call and he can send an e-mail to the admissions office. I suggest doing both.</li>
</ol>
<p>For the colleges that are responsive, they will be far more impressed by his showing the maturity to do this than they will be if his Mommy calls. If the college is a very competitive one, his maknig arrangements and getting questions answered could help make the difference between rejection and acceptance.</p>
<ol>
<li>I also support the idea of crossing this college of your S's list. It's true that admissions officers are often out of town this time of year, however, they should still be able to return calls and e-mails or to have someone do that for them. The person's lack of doing this to me is a red flag about how good the college is at responding to their students. If this is how the college treats prospective students, I fear that the college will be more unresponsive to it's actual students. That this is the second time that you've run into this adds to my belief.</li>
</ol>
<p>Your calling on your S's behalf would not be any reason for the college not to respond. I had to call a large state university, U Minn., to make travel arrangements on behalf of older S who had been admitted, who decided to visit in April, months after he had been admitted. To get affordable tickets, I had to make the call, and buy his tickets immediately using my credit card, so I did make the call. The college was incredibly accommodating. Everyone -- including the person who answered the phone at admissions office -- was very helpful. I was able to buy the ticket that day, and the schedule that the admissions office did for S was perfect for his interests.</p>
<p>S ended up going there, and the U went out of their way to be of assistance the whole time that he was there.</p>
<p>At my s's school you cannot use your cellphone AT ALL during the school day, no matter what, for any reason. They strictly enforce this because of the potential to access internet and/or IM others which could cause cheating. There is very little time between classes, so going to the college counseling office to make a call (its a hike across the campus) is also impractical. So, at least in my s's case, calling a college admissions office during the school day would be practically impossible. And if he has to catch the bus after school... no time for that call then either. And, he doesn't get home til 5. Unless he was calling a different time zone, the office would be closed.</p>
<p>My point is, not every student can call a college during the day. In such cases, I think a call from a parent is not unreasonable. </p>
<p>At my older s's school the admissions office isn't too good with the email. (they are pretty good with phonecalls though). If he had ruled out the school just because of poor contact with the adm office, he'd have made a HUGE mistake. Anxiousmom's d. almost did this, and she is VERY glad she did not cross the school off her list because of a negative experience with the admissions office.</p>
<p>Granted, it is of course better, in the ideal world, to have a wonderfully responsive adcomm and office, but no one is perfect. If the school is a good fit, don't give up. There may always be one bad apple-- don't throw away the whole bushel. Perhaps a polite email to the presidents office or dean of students office, asking if there is a better person to contact, might be appropriate. A problem can't be fixed if someone doesnt know it exists. Lets not be so harsh....
Just my $.02</p>