The Office: Graduate Admission

On the Road

I was at a fair in Providence, RI last night, and one of the people who came to my table came up to ask about being an admissions representative.  Our Administration of Higher Ed program has field work as part of the requirements, and every once in a while we have people doing their field work in our office - learning a little bit about how admissions work goes.  Admissions work is highly cyclical; what you're doing on a given day is dictated by the week and month of the year, and right now it's Travel Season.

Jack Kerouac has nothing on me at the moment.  It's only the third week in September, and I feel like I'm living off of yogurt and coffee and out of a series of duffel bags, suitcases, and tote bags.  

I joke (especially on Twitter) about the glamourous life of the admissions representative.  For the most part, being out recruiting is a lot of fun (no matter how much I poke at it).  You meet a lot of really great people.  Students are overwhelmingly pleasant.  Fellow recruiters are friendly folks (it's a group of people who more or less self-select to do the direct-sales job of going out to talk to prospective students - unfriendly recruiters are not recruiters for very long).   It's a chance to get out of your comfort zone and explore somewhere new, and for those instances that involve a good bit of travel, it's an opportunity to do things you wouldn't otherwise have a chance to.  (For instance, I'm looking forward to a circus class at a place in Salt Lake City next week.) 

There are downsides, of course.  My dog is having anxiety over feeling abandoned.   I have a pile of laundry that needs to get done and no time to do it.  As far as family and friends are concerned, I drop off the face of the earth for 6-8 weeks.  The pile of papers on my desk gets large, and my inbox larger as I work remotely.  Since I work closely with other aspects of administration at the university (like the registrar, institutional reporting, bursar, financial aid, the web group), there's meetings and planning and other things that I have to try to work into a schedule in which my time in the office is both limited and precious.  

In other words, it's a job.  It happens.  And then it's November and there's a totally different set of things to do and people to see and problems to tackle and opportunities to embrace.  Speaking of which, I need to go tackle and embrace some of the September problems/opportunities.

Long time no speak!

Fall has come around again, and it is time to go back to updating the blog.

I admit, I've been remiss.  I've fallen down the rabbit hole that is Twitter (I'm @SUGradMara, for those who might want to follow me!) and have gotten into the habit of the 140 character post.  I promise, I am capable of writing at greater length.

The Twitter feed has been useful though - It's a good place for me to post little messages like "there's a problem with our online application - we're working on it now!" or "One of our #SUAlumni are in the news!" 

There's updates happening to the website as well as we kick off a new year.  Look out for the new AAN members to start appearing, as well as my new grad fellow/bloggers. 

Duty calls, and I must answer. 

I, too, have been remiss.

It's back to classes, which means it's back to updating the blogs - I keep an eye on our student blogs, but did not do a good job of keeping my own updated.  So here's the news that's fit to print:

As you may have seen, Suffolk University just announced a new president.  I can only speak for myself, but I'll be VERY glad to have a new person in the President's office.  I am not going to complain about the acting president - he's done a fine job.  It's simply that without someone with the title of "President" and the constant impression that one would be coming, there were a lot of things that felt like they were in a holding pattern.  There was great stewardship during the period of presidential search, but the presidential job involves emphasizing  priorities and there was understandible reluctance to go too far in setting those for the long term. 

There's also change here in the Graduate Admission office - back in the summer we said goodbye to one of our long-term professional staff, and in the coming weeks we'll say 'bon voyage' to our current director.  As any time there's a changeover in leadership, there's an opportunity to do things differently.  We don't quite know yet what that "doing things differently" may entail, if anything, but higher ed doesn't really ever stop changing so I'm sure there will be something.

The PhD in Clinical Psychology application period finished up with our highest number of applications in my tenure.  The faculty have read them all, met and made their assessments, and invitations should start going out today or Monday. 

We're very excited that our Finance program is moving from a quarter system to a semester system.  While there are certainly benefits to the quarter system, moving to the semester system  allows students in joint programs to schedule more easily (and importantly to international students who would be on an F1 visa, it allows them to do the MBA/MSF program, which was unavailable to them when finance was on quarters - the disconnect between the quarter and semester system would take an F1 out of visa compliance).  It also makes more finance courses available to students in other programs, and allows Finance students to choose from a wider range of electives.  The Finance program moves to the semester system for Fall 2012.

Other big news?  Well, we're experimenting with online information sessions, like the one coming up at the end of January with our accounting program.  So far, the students who have attended have really seemed to like them and find them valuable.  I hope to schedule more with other programs through the spring.

For those outside of the Boston area, we've finally been getting snow on a somewhat regular basis - we had a couple of inchest when we woke up this morning, and expect some more over the weekend.  You can even see some snow on the ledges of the building outside my window.

That's all for now!  More next week, including (hopefully) some more podcasts.

Out taking photos

It was a pleasant morning, the workload was manageable and the light was good, so I decided to grab the camera and go for a bit of a walkabout.  I'd hoped to get some very fall-ish photos, but the trees in the Common have just not cooperated.  On the plus side, the wildlife did.

And the day did, more or less

 

and so did the library

My photo-editing software on the other hand...

The Reference Desk will never be quite the same.

October starts tomorrow, and I got a jump on the halloween pictures as well - the 73 Tremont building is right next to the Granary Burial ground, so there are many, many tombstones around. 

Time to go add pictures to the albums and put some on Facebook!

Pleased to meet you; won't you guess my name

It's Friday and I'm looking at the schedule for next week and there's some student interviews on the docket.

There are a few different types of student interviews here at Suffolk.  Some are a required part of the application process - the Global and Executive MBAs both require an interview, and the design programs may also require an interview/portfolio review as part of their application.  Others are entirely optional - more of a one-on-one exchange of information for an applicant or prospective student than a hard assessment tool.  Students may come in to talk with one of our professional staff members about a program when they're coming for a tour, to get an in-person opportunity to find out more about the program, or to get some recommendations on how to proceed going forward with their application.  That said, even these optional interviews can be useful in helping us make decisions (or recommendations to program directors) on candidates.

Even though interviews in our office are generally low-key, I do have some recommendations.  None of these are ground-breaking, but that doesn't mean they aren't also good ideas.

• Call to schedule - while our professional staff can (and do) talk about all programs, we also have point people for specific programs or departments.  It's to everyone's benefit for the applicant to talk to the professional staffer closest to the program, so it's a good idea to be able to come in at a time when that professional staffer is in the office.  This is especially important during travel season, when any given staff member can be out on the road at any time.
• Arrive on time - part of this is just common courtesy, but it's also important to make sure that the staff member an applicant is scheduled to meet with is available and is able to devote their undivided attention to that applicant.  It's also important for prospective students who are taking tours, since our tours are given by our graduate fellows who have their own schedules.
• Dress appropriately - this does not mean suit and tie (for the interview in our office - for the required interviews with the MBA offices they may be a VERY good idea), but the interview can help us determine what kind of a 'fit' a candidate would be for a program.  (For myself, I'd like to add "tights are not pants," but that's just my feelings on the subject.)
• Come with questions - our professional staff members have a whole lot of information, but things are much easier if there's some kind of structure to the conversation.  We can throw all sorts of information at a person, but not all of it may be useful and much of it may be things a prospective student already knows.  Questions help us figure out what information to start with.

Like I said, nothing onerous, but still good ideas.  I may round up one of my colleagues to do a podcast on the interview at some point (if I haven't already - I've done 70 podcasts so far, and I'm starting forget what subjects we've actually done interviwes on and what we haven't!).  I'll have to go take a look.  In the meantime - have a good weekend!

A day at the fair

Greetings from the road! I'm currently updating from my iPad while waiting for the Providence Idealist fair to start. The weather getting here was a little gray and my gps conked out just as I came off the highway, but I'm here and ready to see some prospective students. Let's get ready to rumble!

On the road again

It was 44 degrees (F) when I was waiting for the train this morning - which means fall is well and truly here. 

Fall brings the crisper weather, but it also has a tendency to take the admission staff out of the office.  CB is already out on the road doing fairs - she saw prospective students yesterday at the Idealist.org Graduate Fair in New York City, and tonight she'll be at the fair in Washington DC.  We'll be at a number of the Idealist fairs through the fall, since one of our main focii as a school is  a public service through a variety of disciplines.  From Crime and Justice Studies to Ethics and Public Policy to Professional Politics (one of our two MS in Political Science tracks), Education, Counseling, and Economic Policy in the College of Arts and Sciences  to the MBA/Non-profit management, MPA, and MHA in the Sawyer Business School, we offer a lot of programs that someone who goes to an Idealist.org fair may be interested in. 

Speaking of fairs, our fall travel schedule is available on our website at www.suffolk.edu/gradtravel. We're going to be visiting a lot of states this year (plus India), so you may want to see if we'll be in your neck of the woods. 

In the meantime, pull on a sweater and enjoy the weekend!

Pink wellingtons on parade

It's been raining for three days here as the storm system I think associated with Hurricane Katia works its way out along the Northeast Coast.  It's pretty dark outside my office window, but my walk in did afford me a little bit of color on my way in - rain boots.  Rain boots are terrific in weather like this (I love mine), and looking around campus there's a wide variety of both the practical and the whimsical on display. 

Weather is one of those things people may not at first consider when they're trying to make decisions on where to look at schools - sometimes it's because they're school choices are determined by where they are already living or working.  For those students who have the ability to go anywhere, however, it's a factor that needs to come into play.  Boston is a four-season kind of town and students coming from decidedly not-four-season kind of places sometimes struggle to adjust.  On the other hand, many  students are looking specifically for a place that has hot summers and white winters.  It's all a question of what kind of an area you want to live in while studying. 

Since it's a little drear outside, I thought I'd show off some of the rain boots ("galoshes," ''wellingtons," or "wellies") I caught with my camera this morning.

Stay dry out there!

Almost there...

Well, summer is almost officially over here.  There's a definite nip in the air in the mornings which might require a light sweater, it's getting darker earlier than 7pm, and preparations are in full swing for back-to-school.  We've been having the orientations to welcome our new graduate students (first international orientation to get our new international students up to speed on immigration rules and their responsibilities) and today is the general graduate orientation.  We also had our Admitted Student Social last night, which was a nice opportunity for many of our new students to meet other new students in all of our graduate programs as well as some faculty and administrators who will be with them through their studies.  

For our office, it means getting the last students in, checking on registrations, figuring out where some of the students who haven't yet registered are, and preparing to head out onto the road to do it all again for next year.  Our travel schedule is up at suffolk.edu/gradtravel (complete with handy-dandy googlemap to see where we'll be) - though check back periodically because we're still adding dates!

I'm also preparing to bring on a new crop of bloggers.  I'll miss some of our outgoing folks - WhizKid graduated this summer, Food for Thought graduated in May.  On the other hand, keep an eye out for some new folks.  I can't wait to see what they have to say.

Economics and political science

We're nearly through the stretch of podcasts on the economics and political science programs here at Suffolk University.  Friday's podcast was on the Topics class in the MS in Economics programs.  I think there's one last one for me to edit, and then on to new things!  Check out the Special Topics album to see if there's any you missed out on!