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