Admission officers get fiesty

One of my favorite moments as an admission officer came after only a week in the field. Like most rookie counselors, I was sent to a summer conference for new professionals put on my the regional NACAC. The week was full of sessions, some good and some bad, but the best part was probably meeting a few hundred people starting their admission career.

On the last day of the conference, a representative from the College Board came to give us a presentation about the SAT and how great it was at predicting academic excellence in college. I don't think she counted on the crowd getting a little feisty.

One of my new friends, who was starting off at a private, liberal arts school in New England, raised her hand during the presentation and asked what the representative had to say about recent research that said the test had a cultural bias. The room erupted in applause. The CB rep was flustered. After all, admission officers for years had held the SAT in high regard. Suddenly, a new generation of admission officers was questioning the exam. The rest of that conference session was pretty fun.

Anyway, The Chronicle of Higher Ed has a story today about a similar conference session happening at a regional NACAC meeting. I hope that we actually see some changes now that more and more admission and guidance officers are voicing their discontent with the format and administration of the SAT.

Privacy on the internet, a "quaint" idea

As I started reading yet another article about kids and their penchant for posting personal information on the internet, I came across a comment that made me realize that despite being young enough for visitors to ask what year I am in school once in a while, I am a fuddy duddy.

Consider these two points made by Emily Nussbaum, the author:

Younger people, one could point out, are the only ones for whom it seems to have sunk in that the idea of a truly private life is already an illusion.

So it may be time to consider the possibility that young people who behave as if privacy doesn’t exist are actually the sane people, not the insane ones. For someone like me, who grew up sealing my diary with a literal lock, this may be tough to accept. But under current circumstances, a defiant belief in holding things close to your chest might not be high-minded. It might be an artifact—quaint and naive...

I read the article after hearing about two cases of what I would call internet overexposure: an American Idol contestant's racy pictures being all over the internet and six University of Colorado football players being dismissed from their team for photos they posted on Facebook.

My reaction after reading the first story was of shock. Why would a college student (the Idol contestant goes to Catholic University) with aspirations to be in the public spotlight allow what I assume are compromising photos (I haven't seen them yet) to be taken? Now, I realize that the young woman involved might not consider the photos "compromising".

As for the football players, if Nussbaum is right, they see nothing wrong with the photos they posted and are completely blindsided by getting kicked off their team.

If we're witnessing the evolution of the way we use the internet, I wonder what's next?

Darden's Luckiest Student

The suspense is killing me!

The folks at Darden, our graduate school of business, used an anonymous gift as an opportunity to teach students about risk taking. A random process selected one Darden first year to participate in a "Deal or No Deal" exercise of sorts. The student would be presented with two suitcases: one with $17,500 in it (tuition) and one with nothing in it. The student could select a suitcase or opt to get a pay off of sorts from "a banker", but the amount of that pay off would be unknown.

You can watch the early rounds of the selection process on the Darden website. I couldn't tune in for the live webcast this morning, so I don't know what happened in the end! I've checked the one Darden blog I know (even the one written in Japanese), but there's no mention of the result yet.

Update: The local paper has the result. He went for the suitcases and he picked the empty one.

For those forward thinking ten year olds out there

I once read a letter from a ten year old, I think his name was Carter, who was begging for the opportunity to start college early because he was super smart and had run out of challenges. It was very sweet, promising to take up very little room and stay out of trouble. Carter's father wrote a post script, telling us he had promised to mail the letter for Carter, who was soaking up more information than they could give him, but that he wasn't ready to ship his ten year old off to college.

I imagine there are plenty of Carters out there, fantasizing about the challenges that await them in college. I'm pleased to report that the Web Communications Office has developed a website just for kids who are thinking about their future (or maybe just doing a report on UVA or Thomas Jefferson). The site isn't official yet, but a preview can be seen on the staging website now.

I have to say that I like this idea. I get nervous for students who show up for info sessions prior to their sophomore year (even that used to be considered early). The UVA kids' page seems to be a way to get younger students excited about the idea of college and UVA, but doesn't include stress inducing information about admission rates and standardized testing. Best of all, there's a page that lists the different camps and programs for kids that happen at The University.

The University's new website will go live shortly, along with this one.

UPDATE: The new UVA website is up and running. As promised, the redesign includes a UVA Kids page and links to the various summer programs for younger students. The parents' page has more useful information about enrichment programs for the little ones.