Greetings from Nashville! Moving on from networking at NACAC to telling the PC story in Tennessee, the arrival of October marks month #2 on the road for the PC admission staff. Here’s my random collection of thoughts from this week:

How do you find the front door of a high school? They tell rookie admission counselors to “look for the flagpole." It’s a good suggestion—many times it works. Unless the main entrance to the school is around the back of the building… (Who would think to look there?)…

Speaking of high school visits, I want to take this opportunity to publicly thank all of the high schools that have clearly marked visitor parking spaces. It makes our day much more pleasant when we pull into the parking lot and see this sign:

Once inside the high school, one of the more popular topics of conversation with students is our test-optional policy (year #2 for us!). The most common question for me has been, “You say you are test-optional but if I don’t send my scores, aren’t you going to know that they are bad?��? Fair question. But please understand something: SAT/ACT scores have NEVER been a make or break factor in the admission review process at PC—even when test scores were required. When I open an application file, I am NOT searching through the folder looking to see if test scores are in there—that is just NOT how we conduct our review process. So, if you haven’t submitted test scores, will I immediately think they are “bad��? scores? No. I will think that you want to be considered for admission based on your four years of high school rather than four hours on a Saturday morning taking a standardized test. (And if that is how you want your application to be considered, you’ve applied to the right place!)

I’m 99.9% sure that the “DOOR OPEN" and “DOOR CLOSE" buttons inside of elevators are just there for show. Yep… You’re in the elevator and someone’s running to catch it, and you’re hitting “DOOR OPEN – DOOR OPEN" and… the doors close right in their face. And then they think you were frantically hitting the “DOOR CLOSE" button to keep them out. Which you weren’t… Because if you were hitting that button, the doors wouldn’t have closed. (Told you these were random thoughts…)

Ever been to an outdoor college fair? I hadn’t either until last fall here in Nashville (when I attended TWO!). I had the opportunity to attend one again this year – it’s a very nice atmosphere that works well in warm-weather areas:

One thing you do have to worry about at an outdoor fair is an invasion of insects. Bees, to be specific. Now, I am not allergic to bees, but I will admit to being a little scared of them… Anyway, the counselor at the table next to me wasn’t – she killed three yellow jackets in a one-hour span. Which was great, except at the end of the fair there were at least nine or ten bees swarming around her table – they knew that she had killed their friend bees and were back for revenge. You’ll be happy to know I didn’t get stung…

And finally, my favorite exchange of the week came at an evening college fair while I was speaking with the parent of a prospective student. It went something like this:
Parent: Providence… Providence… Where is that, anyway?
Me: We are up in the Northeast – in Rhode Island.
Parent: Oh, of course, on Rhode Island – part of New York State. You know, I just love New York and it’s just great that your school is in that great state.
Me: Ummmm…

And so it goes…

*Scott
10/2/07
Nashville, TN!