Picture of the Day - December 19

Chicago's Early Action Admit Reception

Sheila O'Brien, the Chicago ASC, asked me to post the following on the blog. All ASCs are invited as well! Thanks, Sheila!

Merry Christmas to all!

Please join your Chicago committee...

Welcome to the Notre Dame Family!

Please come and meet…

Alisa Fisher ND Admissions Counselor

Early Action Party

for

You & Your Family

Sunday, January 25

2:00 – 4:00 pm

St. Ignatius College Prep

1076 West Roosevelt Road Chicago

Let us know!

Sheila O’Brien 847.729.0116 sobrien368@aol.com

Financial Aid information

I'm sure you will encounter quite a few financial aid questions this year.  While I believe the Office of Financial Aid has contacted you with this information already, I wanted to bring the following to your attention.  This link will take you to a Financial Aid website with some basic information on their process, including the new Institutional Documentation Service (IDOC).  

IDOC allows students to submit one packet of financial aid information to the College Board, which then distributes it to the relevant schools.  It is very similar to the Common Application for admissions, except this is for financial aid.  

Please review the information and direct students to the financial aid office or website for further information.

Picture of the Day - December 17

FAQs

Thanks to Sheila O'Brien from the Chicago club for sending me this link, a Q&A blog from the New York Times about college admissions.  While Notre Dame did not have a representative answering these questions, I think the four respondents did a good job of really capturing the admissions "world" with their words.  Should you see any questions and find you are not sure about the answers, feel free to drop me an e-mail and I'd be more than happy to explain!

Here's the link: http://questions.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/12/17/qa-college-admissions/?hp

Notable Notre Dame alumni

Every once in a while a student will ask, "Are there any famous people in [insert random professional field here] who graduated from Notre Dame?"  Usually I can think of the really famous alumni: a Montana here, a Philbin there, and of course an O'Rourke (I kid!), but did you know that the Office of News and Information actually has a list of notable Notre Dame alumni?  The list can be found here, and if you have an extra few minutes, I encourage you to check it out.  I found myself saying "I didn't know he/she went to Notre Dame!" as I scanned it!

New SAT Policy

Earlier this year, the College Board (the administrators of my favorite standardized exam, the SAT) decided to give students the choice of which scores to send to schools.  In the past, if students took the exam more than twice, all of their scores were sent to schools.  However, the class of students applying next year will be the first who are allowed to choose which scores are sent and which are "hidden" from universities.

Unfortunately, this new system assumes the overall composite score is more important than the individual subscores, which is not the case for Notre Dame.  In fact, a student may hurt his or her chances of admission by not sending us some scores.  As you know, we "mix-and-match" scores and consider the highest Critical Reading and highest Math score received by a student, even if those two scores come on different testing dates.  By "hiding" scores, students may mistakenly prevent us from giving them the full credit they deserve.

This Newsweek article summarizes the new policy quite well.

Picture of the Day - December 10

Dean Woo presents at Global Forum for Responsible Management Education

Mendoza College of Business Dean Carolyn Woo presented before the first Global Forum for Responsible Management Education at the U.N. Headquarters last week.  During her presentation, Dean Woo argued that business education needs to broaden its focus beyond wealth creation to issues like poverty, disease and conflict.  

The full article is here.

Picture of the Day - December 8

Forwarding your ND e-mail

As I mentioned in yesterday's e-mail, if you have your Notre Dame e-mail account automatically forwarded to your "normal" e-mail account, you will not miss the password expiration notices sent by OIT.  

I have uploaded the instructions for forwarding your ND e-mail account (you will need your username and password for this).  Click here for those instructions.

On the road again...

I know many of you meet us while we're on the road and have a good understanding of the process from our eyes, but this article does a pretty good job of putting admissions travel in perspective.  It's a very good read if you have a few extra minutes on hand!

UPDATE: The link has been fixed so you can actually read the article!

BC to eliminate student e-mail accounts

The Chronicle of Higher Education has a story this morning about Boston College eliminating e-mail addresses for students.  Evidently, for the most part, students used their personal accounts and only checked their BC accounts for school-related e-mails.  

Now, students will be given a forwarding address (something like the @alumni.nd.edu that we have through the Alumni Association) so they can maintain their current accounts when they enter the school.

Notre Dame recently switched its student and alumni e-mail services to Google as a better way to manage the communications.

Fewer Students Taking SAT

According to this article from the National Association for College Admissions Counseling (yes, there is such an association), fewer students are taking the SAT this year than in years past.  We have noticed a similar change in our Early Action applicants this year: more seem to be taking (or at least scoring higher) on the ACT than the SAT.

As a reminder, we accept either the ACT or the SAT, and will take the higher score of the two if a student takes both.

Message from Father Jenkins

Today, Father Jenkins sent a message to all Notre Dame staff to discuss the University's standing during these difficult economic times.  Some of the things Notre Dame remains committed to are:

·         Financial Aid. Offering an affordable education for talented and committed students is a key priority.  We continually monitor tuition and other costs, and remain committed to maintaining our need-blind admission policy while also meeting the full demonstrated financial need of all our students, even as family circumstances change. Our goal is to accomplish this without increasing the overall debt burden for our students.

·         Research.  We will continue to focus on and fund our research projects. This is critical to our future success and a key component of our long-term vision for the University.  We will proceed with the next round of investment in research efforts through the Strategic Academic Planning Committee.

·         Graduate Students.  We will continue to strive to make graduate student stipends more competitive and improve health-care support for our graduate students.

·         Library.  The library is fundamental to our core mission of promoting scholarship and providing excellent undergraduate and graduate education for our students.  We will continue to make funding our library a priority.

·      Construction Projects.  Current construction projects will be completed.  Our conservative capital funding policy requires 100 percent of funding be pledged and 75 percent of funds be in hand before construction begins.  Because of strict compliance with this policy over the past five years, we can continue all current projects without incurring additional debt.  These projects will provide the infrastructure and equipment to continue advancement in research and teaching.  As has been our practice, future projects will begin only after the construction funding policy is fully met.

Interestingly enough, I don't see anything about "Head Football Coach" on there...