Get Going Workshops

by Joanne Levy-Prewitt

College Students Discuss Their Admission Experiences

The most satisfying aspect of my job is learning that my former students are happy in college. Occasionally, I will run in to their parents, who love to update me, but some of my former students stay in touch with me directly. I enjoy hearing about their college experiences, and it's especially wonderful to witness the tremendous personal growth that happens between high school and college.

However, the most fascinating information comes when I ask my former students if they have any reflections about the admissions process.

Some students agonized over which college to attend, so I often ask if they have regrets about their chosen path. When I got a recent e-mail from a former student, I made that inquiry and wasn't surprised by the response.

Anais Waag is a junior at Fordham University in New York City. Born in Berkeley, Calif., Waag lived in Spain, where she attended public schools. Sophisticated and worldly, she wanted to attend college in the United States, and specifically expressed interest in New York City. In fact, being in New York City -- and possibly working at the United Nations -- was her top priority.

Waag is currently spending a semester studying in Australia, but confesses that she is "New York-sick," meaning that she misses Fordham and Manhattan -- a place she now considers home. She is a history major, but she is also studying Russian, which will be her sixth language after English, French, Spanish, Catalan and Italian. Waag's enthusiasm about both New York and Fordham indicates that she has no regrets.

Dan Elbert, a senior at the Haas School of Business at the University of California at Berkeley, has no regrets about choosing Berkeley, but it wasn't an easy decision to make. He is a musician, and always thought that he wanted to study music in college. He was interested in the jazz program at New York University, and after being accepted at both NYU and Berkeley, he vacillated between the two schools.

He feels he made a practical and wise decision when he chose business at Berkeley: "It would have been financially risky for me to have gone to NYU for music. If I had been successful (musically), I would never have looked back. But if the pieces didn't fall into place, I would have regretted not going to Berkeley. Cal was the smarter choice for my future. The Haas School has been great for personal and professional networking and recruiting."

Elbert is still involved in music, though, and participates in a UC Jazz ensemble several hours per week.

Max Mautner had a difficult time choosing a college as well, but he says that he wishes he had done more research about colleges before he applied. Though he knew he wanted to attend a liberal arts college, he assumed they were all the same: small classes, close contact with professors and the ability to participate in multiple activities on campus.

Mautner says that the promotional materials produced by colleges were nearly identical and not at all helpful: "They give you a broad and stereotyped view of what the school is like, but they all sound the same."

However, Mautner, a sophomore at Claremont McKenna College in Claremont, Calif., wanted to know about the students themselves, and after his acceptance at Claremont McKenna, he arranged an overnight dorm visit. There, he learned that the students were not only engaged and interesting, but that "they seemed tightly knit. They hung out together. I liked that."

Moreover, Claremont McKenna had all the traditional benefits of a liberal arts college. From the start, Mautner was involved on campus with a research job, and this year he co-edits an on-campus publication.

Waag, Elbert and Mautner all, to varying degrees, researched the best living and learning environments when creating a list of colleges, and before making their final decisions.

Their contentment in college is a tribute to the effort they made.

COPYRIGHT 2007 JOANNE LEVY-PREWITT