What admission counselors do in April

1. Check the RSVPs for our Admitted Student Program several times daily -- or, in my case, several times hourly.  I always have a short list of favorite admits I'm hoping will choose Mudd, and ASP tends to be the first clue as to whether the students in question are considering HMC as a serious option.  So far this year it looks like I'm 50/50 for disappointment and elation.  Must try to keep enthusiasm in check at ASP.  I don't want to scare the prefrosh.

2. Gear up for ASP.  All of us are involved in some way, but Raissa takes on the lion's share of the work.  I invited her to guest post the long, long list of things she does to prepare for the arrival of the prospective students, but she didn't think that sounded like a fun motivational tool.  So I'll just mention that she's been working overtime every night since we mailed decisions (as opposed to the rest of us who are sometimes able to clock out at the decadent hour of five).  Thank you, Raissa.

3. Prepare for spring travel.  Apparently there are juniors planning to apply to college next year.  Shocking but true.  Every single person on our staff will be traveling at the end of April, doing programs and college fairs in New York, San Francisco, Washington DC, Atlanta, St. Louis, Los Angeles . . . truthfully, just thinking about having to travel again makes me feel a bit ill.  It's not taxing work -- in my case, the college fairs and case studies are just a few hours each night -- but still.  Travel.  Ten days.  Ugh. 

4. Meet with admitted students (and some students on the alternate list too).  This I like.  I'm not ready for the juniors quite yet -- my head is far too full of the Class of 2016 -- but I enjoy following up with the seniors.  Last week we hosted an online chat for the admitted students, and there's another one tonight.  If you follow the HMC After 5 Twitter account then you'll already have seen Lowell's photo, but here are a few I snapped of the event.

Lowell and Roxie, senior interviewers

Tito, first-year class president and PSP scholar

Lowell again with Katie, tour guide extraordinaire

5. Stress over yield.  This is mostly Thyra's domain.  Personally, I'm greedy; I want every student for whom I fought so hard to enroll at Mudd and have four happy successful years here.  Fortunately or unfortunately, this does not happen.  (See point #1.)  Students applying to Mudd have amazing options; we tend to overlap with Olin, Ivies, UCs, and a couple of tech schools in Pasadena and Cambridge that shall remain nameless.  So for every student who chooses Mudd, there's another who decides a competitor school is a better fit.  Someone asked what would happen if every student we admitted decided to enroll.  This simply doesn't occur at any college or university.  There is literally no mainstream institution with 100% yield (the highest is Harvard at 75.5%).  When Thyra has nightmares about over enrollment, her worst fantasy is ending up at some exorbitant number like 210 (a whopping fifteen over our target).  At a school as small as Mudd, that would be a huge headache, and the faculty would not be pleased -- but, like the current junior class which came in at 207, we could ultimately handle it.  Without resorting to the Rodeway Inn. 

Okay.  Back to ASP prep.  Any ideas for ways to artistically serve delivery pizza?