April Fools - well, in a week....

Happy Friday, Everyone!

It's one more week until crunch month in our office. April is the month where everything comes together. Students get financial aid/scholarship notifications, come back to visit campus, sign up for Orientation, and ultimately, make the final decision whether or not to attend. It keeps us on pins and needles sometimes...particularly this year with the economy making our predictions less certain.

Usually, an office like ours has years and years of statistical models that are pretty accurate in predicting how many of our admitted students will actually enroll. And here you all thought you were individuals with free will;-). We take into account tuition deposits, housing deposits, Orientation sign ups, what our competition is doing, etc. And usually, we're accurate with our predictions. One year, we were off by only one student! :) This year? Sheesh. I don't know. Some indications suggest we're right on target and some say we might have fewer/more freshmen than we thought. It all depends on what is important to our families right now.

Potentially, with the economy being dicey, maybe students will stick closer to home so they can commute and save money. But maybe not. Maybe with our scholarship offers being down, some students may choose to go elsewhere where they have been offered one. But maybe not. It's kind of like doing your NCAA brackets...always a surprise or two.

What I am confident about is that we will have a great class. I have talked to many of you, and you are bright and full of passion, eager to start this exciting journey. And we are excited to welcome you. How many of you will there be this fall? Between 1900-2000 freshmen and 500-600 transfers. I'll know more after April......or May......or June.....:)

Cheers,
Kris

March Madness

Hey there. It has been a great sunny week here in Eau Claire, but wow is it crazy.

Almost everyone who was on our postponed list knows their admissions decision. Unfortunately, we did not take a lot of them. We are also almost done with freshman scholarships and will notifiy students of their awards soon.We also are gearing up for our Preview Day in two weeks. It's almost full with about 300 people attending but there is still room if you haven't signed up yet. It should be a great day.

Lastly, the results are in from the UWEC mascot poll. See the story here: http://www.uwec.edu/newsreleases/10/mar/0305MascotSurvey.htm

Keeping this short this time.
Ciao.
Kris

Amazing applications

Hi Group - Well, we finished reviewing all of our scholarship applications last week and are working on notifying students. We read some amazing applications and essays. You all lead really busy, interesting lives. Many of you are super involved, excelling in academics, athletics, music, and community service. A lot of you work to help support yourself and family. Some of you have a lot of breadth in activities - doing everything - and some of you have tremendous depth - doing one or two things for a really long time.

A lot of you wrote about President Obama and how much he has inspired you. A lot of you also wrote about the challenges of technology and how young people communicate (or don't!):). You want to solve poverty and discrimination.

A few essays I read really stand out. Usually they are either ones that made me laugh out loud because your writing was so insightful or they are ones that revealed experiences you've encountered from which you have grown. One of you wrote about your experience coming out in high school and the challenges that gays and lesbians encounter. I was incredibly impressed at the sensitivity, self reflection, and intelligence of your writing. Another of you wanted to invent a very cool time device to help swimmers judge their time.

We wish there were scholarships for ALL of you! But even if not, I am happy that our country's future is in your hands.

Kris