Why Work With a Former Admissions Officer?

Why work with a former Admissions Officer?

The Admissions Consulting field is a largely unregulated industry. Anybody, with any background or credentials, can call themselves an Admissions Consultant or IEC (Independent Educational Consultant). Some people take university courses in how to guide students through the admissions process. For other people in this field, their experience in admissions comes from getting themselves into college, or helping their child(ren) with college applications. You can gain a lot of insight into how to write a strong and compelling application this way, but it is no substitute for the insight gained from being an Admissions Officer.

What do former Admissions Officers know that other consultants don’t?

There are some major differences in terms of knowledge, skills, and experience. Read on for more details!

What’s the difference between an Admission Officer, Seasonal Reader, and Alumni Interviewer?

An Admissions Officer (AO) is someone who works full-time for a college/university. Admissions Officers are usually responsible for every step of the admissions process for a certain geographic territory, from visiting high schools in the fall to overseeing, reading, and evaluating all of the freshman and transfer applications that come in from that territory. AOs bring all of those applications to Committee, presenting them to a jury of their peers to vote on. Afterwards, AOs are responsible for reaching out to the admitted students from that territory, and trying to convince them to choose your college/university.

AOs understand the admissions process inside and out, have the experience of reading, evaluating, and making decisions on thousands of applications, and sitting in Admissions Committee to evaluate and vote on thousands more applications for their colleagues’ territory. AOs have a detailed, nuanced understanding of what happens with an application from start to finish.

As a former AO, the experiences I’ve had help me to guide my clients with a level of detail that would not be possible if I had never held this role. I have used my experience to answer questions like:

How much does the alumni interview count in the admissions process?
Will emailing my admissions officer to introduce myself help or hurt my application?
I sent my SAT scores 2 days ago, but the university still has it marked as “Not Received.” Should I worry that they’re lost?
If I’m deferred or wait-listed, what are the most helpful things to write in my letter to the university?

A Seasonal Reader is someone who has worked at an admission office part-time, during the application season. They often partner with an admission officer to do “second reads” on applications, either confirming the admission officer (AO)’s take on the file, or pointing out things that the AO may have missed.

While seasonal readers go through the same training as AOs, and get to experience reading real applications, their perspective is limited — they often see a small slice of the admissions pool in the geographic territory where they are reading, so they don’t get a full sense of what’s out there.

And, perhaps more importantly, they usually don’t attend Admissions Committee meetings (where final decisions are made on all applications), which means that:

1) They never learn the outcomes of their recommendations, who was admitted and who wasn’t,
2) They never witness the discussions in Committee, and hear what kinds of things are important to AOs when they are making decisions on applications, and
3) Not having attended Committee or knowing who was and wasn’t admitted, they don’t have a chance to learn from and improve on their previous work.
To me, my Committee experience was a crucial part of my education on how the admissions process works. It heavily informs how I work with my students, and I can’t imagine doing this job without it.

An Alumni Interviewer is someone who has attended the college/university, and goes on to interview applicants as a volunteer.

In my experience, the information that Alumni Interviewers receive about the admissions process is slightly more detailed than what we gave out to the general public at Information Sessions – but not much.

Alumni Interviewers never receive any admission training or read applications, and don’t usually find out if the students they interviewed were accepted. Simply put, being an Alumni interviewer does not give insider information that is relevant to admissions counseling.

Beware!

If you’re shopping around for a consultant, be cautious — many big consulting firms will list former Seasonal Readers and former Alumni Interviewers as “Former Admissions Officers.” I consider this deceptive, but unfortunately, it is a common practice.

If you are considering hiring a consultant who lists themselves as a “Former Admissions Officer,” I suggest asking some follow-up questions about their experience to ensure that you’re actually getting the experience and skill-set that you’re paying for.

Why should I work with a small consulting firm, instead of a big company?

I have worked with several admissions consulting firms over my career. Many of them do great work. However, the biggest drawback that I have seen to working with a big consulting firm is the volume. Many of them give their counselors very high case-loads. One firms that offered me a job wanted me to work with 100 students at the same time! I prefer to keep my client numbers very low, in order to ensure that I have enough time and attention to provide high-quality services to all of the families that I work with.

Seven Directions