Behind the doors of the Admissions Office

The admissions office is the gatekeeper, but it is also the college’s marketing department. The Dean of Admissions is, in effect, head of public relations.

“My boy was being solicited, as surely and shamelessly as a sailor come to port,” Andrew Ferguson writes in his well researched and often hilarious book Crazy U about college mailings clogging his mailbox.

College brochures and websites are carefully crafted to entice students and their families. In addition to online and print marketing, college admissions officers travel around the country visiting high schools and college fairs. The result of these promotion efforts is often that a much larger number of students apply than the colleges can accommodate. (The ease of the common app also contributes to the deluge).

A motivation for soliciting lots of applicants is college rankings, a driving force behind the college business. The more selective a college appears, the higher the ranking potential. Many colleges play games - according to a Wall Street Journal reporter, 25% fudge the numbers they submit to the US News & World Report.

Studies, however, show little correlation between attending a high ranking college and future income. Among 1,300+ millionaires surveyed the average SAT score was 1190/1600, and attending a top ranked college ranked a lowly 23 as reason for riches (The Millionaire Mind by Thomas J Stanley).

When visiting colleges, I have been encountering alumni in their 20s working at the admissions office of their alma mater. Being a college admissions officer is stressful, relatively low paid and requires a lot of traveling so people tend to move on after a few years. 

My impression is that once Churchill students find a suitable school, they tend to become admitted and do well. Years of solid academic instruction, LD awareness and self-advocacy training have prepared them for success in life after Churchill.

Sources:

Crazy U by Andrew Ferguson, chapter 2 & p.106-130

Cool Colleges by Donald Asher