College Connect Conference

Marisa, Dean and I just got back from the CFES College Connect Conference. This year the conference focused on helping underserved students in rural areas and Lake Placid was an ideal meeting place.

Fact: Only one percent of philanthropist dollars (in education) went towards underserved rural populations!

There were twenty-one colleges represented and even more elementary, middle and high schools from rural areas present! Some participants drove more than seven hours to be at the conference.

The conference connects schools with underserved populations with/to Colleges. The partnership then shares ideas and comes up with a program to present at the end of the conference. CFES provides funding for the programs each team comes up with! Skidmore worked with a CFES program manager and outlined an incredible day to take place later this spring.

Student Summit 2008; A Skidmore Snapshot will bring one hundred (100) underserved students from the Adirondacks (from at least five different schools) to campus in late April! The 6th-8th graders will meet a number of Skidmore students and work with them to complete a "scavenger hunt." Each team of 10 Adirondack scholars (and Skidmore mentors) will be given a disposable camera. Each team will need to take a photo of specific items and people on all around campus in order to check off items off their scavenger hunt list! The Adirondack scholars will walk away with photo albums to remember their day on a college campus (not to mention lunch in the awesome dining hall!)

The Olympic Center

Marisa writes down our ideas to share with the group

Everyone shares their ideas at the end of the conference

Skidmore in NYC

Some of the admissions office is in New York City tonight for an admissions event on Saturday.

We were able to catch up with my former director John Young, now the director at Hobart William Smith. We also had the chance to have dinner with a former Head Ambassador (tour guide) from our office who now works in Admissions for Parsons! Go Sarah!

Marisa, Peter, Dean, Sarah, Shardae, Cathy and John!

Marisa and Sarah talking shop!

SUCH festivus party

A huge round of applause to Hamilton College for organizing a great SUCH party. The party this year had a "festivus" theme based on a Seinfeld episode

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-wm9N0KiAs

We were all instructed to send in some festivus grievances- or something that drives us crazy (relating to the admissions process). The top ten grievances were read while standing at the festivus pole.

We all knew Hamilton had something up their sleeves for the "feats of strength" portion of the program after dinner. This turned out to be an admissions related trivia contest. Our emcee was Dave Lyons, a former Hamilton admissions counselor who now is a college advisor at The Rivers School. Dave did a fantastic job of coming up with all of the admissions related trivia questions!

Kyle from Hamilton with Marisa from Skidmore. Dave Lyons played the part of emcee for the SUCH party
The Deans of the SUCH schools
Seating placards

The Colgate team busy at work

Hamilton busy at work
The Union team trying to figure out the maximum allowable display height at a NACAC college fair
One question every team answered incorrectly

Picture Round. One point to match the school to the picture. One more point to name the Director of College Guidance at the school.

Kudos to the Women's Basketball team

You already know I am a big proponent of early college awareness (especially for underrepresented populations). In fact, I think all colleges should be required to do early college awareness and I am currently working on a proposal to the national board to try to ensure this happens!

Darren Bennett, head women's basketball coach, arranged for Arbor Hill Elementary School (in Albany) to visit Skidmore, take a short tour, and see the women's basketball team play! There were raffles throughout the game and many students walked away with Skidmore backpacks, t-shirts and other collectibles.

The opposing team from Southern Vermont College was probably not expecting a crowd at the game because Skidmore students are on break until later this month. Skidmore came away with the victory but the highlight of the day was after the game when the students from Arbor Hill were able to interact with the players from the Skidmore Women's Basketball team!

Students from the Greenberg Child Care Center on campus also came to watch the game!

The students from Arbor Hill wait for the Skidmore basket before cheering!

Students line up to meet the Skidmore team

A young spectator celebrates his new Skidmore t-shirt!

The students have fun with the Skidmore players after the game

Skidmore cheer after the gameLet's see your moves!

Everyone having a good time after the game!

Happy New Year!

Saratoga Springs has a great New Years Eve celebration every year. http://www.ymcasaratoga.org/firstnight/shogrid.php I spent my first NYE in Saratoga in 2007 after spending the last seven years celebrating in New York City. This year I was under the weather and stayed in.
What is coming up?

I'm really looking forward to the annual SUCH holiday gathering! The admission offices from Skidmore College, Union College, Colgate University, and Hamilton College get together every year to celebrate the holidays, take a break from the application review season, and just to catch up with each other. The party host rotates every year so this year Hamilton College is the host school. One of the biggest surprises to me about my job in admissions is the extraordinary collegiality in the profession. This was particularly surprising given my experience as a student athlete for Skidmore (we compete against Hamilton and Union in the Liberty League).

I'll be at the College Connect Annual Meeting held at The Hilton Lake Place Resort in Lake Placid, New York on January 17th-18th (Carpooling with Union College to the event!).
http://www.collegefes.org/pdf/CCAnnualMeeting08.pdf


Walter, one of the (many) admissions office mascots, gets tangled in some holiday lights. Happy Holidays!