This week marks the beginning of the Early Action (EA) application review process in the Office of Admission - and we are definitely excited about it! Our 15 admission counselors attended our annual "reading (applications) meeting" on Monday, to talk about the EA applicant pool and what we will be looking for as we review applications this year to build the Providence College Class of 2013.

And speaking of reviewing applications...

We initially read applications here at PC by geographic territory, and as you can see in my bio at the top of this blog, I travel to and am the first reader of all applications from the following areas:

1) Parts of Massachusetts (Berkshire and Franklin Counties in Western Mass and the Concord, Lowell, and Wellesley areas west of Boston)
2) California
3) Arizona
4) New Mexico
5) Hawaii

As the first reader of applications from these areas, I am responsible for having a sense of the high school environments these students are coming out of, and I have spent the last two months traveling to these areas, visiting high schools, attending college fairs, and meeting prospective students, families, and high school counselors. If you are from any of these areas and have applied to PC Early Action, I will be the first person to thoroughly review your application... in fact, it could be on my desk as we speak...

I do have my first 35 or so applications in my office, and I spent some time yesterday looking at the academic performance of these students. While the admission review at PC is holistic, and we carefully consider all pieces of the application, we begin with a student's academic record and take a close look at high school performance. We spend a significant amount of time exploring each student's transcript, looking at the strength of their curriculum, the high school environment they are coming out of, and recalculating each student's GPA on to our Providence College 4.0 scale. We'll talk more about the academic component of the review later on this week, and as we progress through the month of November, I will delve into the subjective, non-academic pieces of the application as well (such as recommendations, the college essay, and involvement/leadership during the high school years).

As always, should you have questions about how we review applications here at PC, please feel free to post them in the "Comments" section of this blog (click on the "Comments" link in the bottom right corner) and I will be happy to answer them!