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Post by matunuck on Sept 26, 2021 18:53:26 GMT -5
Many thanks for the update above. Appreciate it and do hope it portends good things. That said, when will see the academic stats of the latest class and how they compare to previous classes? I’ve heard “this is a strong academic class” quite often over the years. What are our overlap schools nowadays? What HC has said and what outside guidebooks write are often at odds. Going SAT optional certainly gave us an app bump years ago but we’ve been treading water ever since. Other LACs have steadily increased their app totals over the years before COVID/test optional surfaced. We need to generate more apps from outside New England and have far more geographic diversity at the school. What would be interesting is to see is how many apps we received from each state going back several years. When the biggest schools in Arlington, Virginia send more apps to WPI and Clark than us, it suggests we need to reevaluate our approach to states not named Massachusetts.
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Post by gks on Sept 26, 2021 19:39:48 GMT -5
Many thanks for the update above. Appreciate it and do hope it portends good things. That said, when will see the academic stats of the latest class and how they compare to previous classes? I’ve heard “this is a strong academic class” quite often over the years. What are our overlap schools nowadays? What HC has said and what outside guidebooks write are often at odds. Going SAT optional certainly gave us an app bump years ago but we’ve been treading water ever since. Other LACs have steadily increased their app totals over the years before COVID/test optional surfaced. We need to generate more apps from outside New England and have far more geographic diversity at the school. What would be interesting is to see is how many apps we received from each state going back several years. When the biggest schools in Arlington, Virginia send more apps to WPI and Clark than us, it suggests we need to reevaluate our approach to states not named Massachusetts. Maybe the school should focus on state's named Massachusetts? What's wrong with owning your own backyard?
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Post by matunuck on Sept 26, 2021 21:18:42 GMT -5
We obviously do focus on MA since 40 percent of the school comes from the state. BC is 22 percent, I believe. Seems a bit high for a national LAC and student population growth is increasingly outside MA/NE. I’d rather expand the pool of applications from various regions of the county to create a more balanced, less parochial (no pun intended), class. Lots of high-achieving students reside outside MA.
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Post by hcpride on Sept 27, 2021 5:12:09 GMT -5
Many thanks for the update above. Appreciate it and do hope it portends good things. That said, when will see the academic stats of the latest class and how they compare to previous classes? I’ve heard “this is a strong academic class” quite often over the years. What are our overlap schools nowadays? What HC has said and what outside guidebooks write are often at odds. Going SAT optional certainly gave us an app bump years ago but we’ve been treading water ever since. Other LACs have steadily increased their app totals over the years before COVID/test optional surfaced. We need to generate more apps from outside New England and have far more geographic diversity at the school. What would be interesting is to see is how many apps we received from each state going back several years. When the biggest schools in Arlington, Virginia send more apps to WPI and Clark than us, it suggests we need to reevaluate our approach to states not named Massachusetts. Was a bit peculiar to account for our DECLINE in applications by explaining the bump some other schools got by going test optional. Why didn’t we maintain our number? Plus, of course, some traditional test score optional schools increased their applications this cycle (not us). I’m certain our applicants had stronger GPA’s this past cycle (it is well known grades were wildly inflated under Covid …for a variety of reasons). So we (and other colleges) may very well have enrolled an “academically stronger” incoming class this last cycle… FWIW USN&WR lists BC, Fordham, PC, and Notre Dame as our most significant overlap schools this year. (In alphabetical order). Of the four, PC has us as an overlap.
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Post by sader1970 on Sept 27, 2021 7:14:59 GMT -5
Grade inflation is not new to the pandemic but certainly may exacerbate the condition.
“Back in my day,” there was no way to get better than an “A or better than 4.0 GPA. No matter what course you took. In high school or college. Maybe in grammar school the nuns would give you an “A+” on a test but those report cards were numeric grades usually.
At Holy Cross there was no “-“ grade. You got 4.0 or next lower grade was 3.5 (“B+”). We had to take 5 courses not 4 each semester.
For me, grade inflation is akin to participation trophies.
I don’t think HC is “gaming” the situation as many other colleges and universities might be.
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Post by alum on Sept 27, 2021 7:16:28 GMT -5
Need our overlaps to be the NESCACs, the Seven Sisters, Bucknell, Colgate, etc. We have more in common with those schools than large Catholic universities. Need to aggressively recruit from Virigina to Maine and at every Catholic high school in the country. Also need to get involved in the Posse program. www.possefoundation.org/supporting-scholars/college-university-partners
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Post by rgs318 on Sept 27, 2021 7:24:49 GMT -5
Posse sounds like a very productive group but it is a bit unclear who is eligible for these scholarships. Clearly they are for "urban" youth, but what else is involved. That 90% graduation rate for scholarship recipients is impressive.
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Post by hcpride on Sept 27, 2021 7:33:48 GMT -5
Need our overlaps to be the NESCACs, the Seven Sisters, Bucknell, Colgate, etc. We have more in common with those schools than large Catholic universities. Need to aggressively recruit from Virigina to Maine and at every Catholic high school in the country. Also need to get involved in the Posse program. www.possefoundation.org/supporting-scholars/college-university-partnersIt may be heterodoxy around here but I’ve always had the sneaking suspicion that the bulk of our enrollees are in spite of our strict undergraduate liberal arts identity and not because of it. In other words they are eyeballing and applying to the most prestigious Catholic schools. Even those interested in studying the liberal arts at a Catholic school aren’t necessarily looking for a school with ONLY the liberal arts. I think that (along with some mathematical considerations) might explain a few things regarding our overlaps. I’m not suggesting this is a bad thing in terms of stats.
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Post by alum on Sept 27, 2021 8:07:27 GMT -5
Need our overlaps to be the NESCACs, the Seven Sisters, Bucknell, Colgate, etc. We have more in common with those schools than large Catholic universities. Need to aggressively recruit from Virigina to Maine and at every Catholic high school in the country. Also need to get involved in the Posse program. www.possefoundation.org/supporting-scholars/college-university-partnersIt may be heterodoxy around here but I’ve always had the sneaking suspicion that the bulk of our enrollees are in spite of our strict undergraduate liberal arts identity and not because of it. In other words they are eyeballing and applying to the most prestigious Catholic schools. Even those interested in studying the liberal arts at a Catholic school aren’t necessarily looking for a school with ONLY the liberal arts. I think that (along with some mathematical considerations) might explain a few things regarding our overlaps. I’m not suggesting this is a bad thing in terms of stats. You may be right but there are some who are looking for that experience and we need to find them along with the kids who are looking to get into the best Catholic college they can. I just looked at the high school visit list online. In Connecticut, there are more prep schools than I recall along with the diocesan Catholic high schools and a few other places. admissions.holycross.edu/portal/fall_travelI think that they should hire a bunch of new grads and go to every high school that will take them within a three hour drive. Most can drive home every night so it won't be that expensive. That would free up the more experienced staff to travel the country. If name recognition is a problem, they need to work on changing it.
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Post by alum on Sept 27, 2021 8:13:20 GMT -5
Posse sounds like a very productive group but it is a bit unclear who is eligible for these scholarships. Clearly they are for "urban" youth, but what else is involved. That 90% graduation rate for scholarship recipients is impressive. I don't think it is entirely need based but I believe the vast majority would qualify for substantial or 100% need based aid. Posse is attractive because gives you access to a cohort of kids from a region where you might otherwise not be well known.
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Post by rgs318 on Sept 27, 2021 8:36:15 GMT -5
You are correct. I followed up and these scholarships are not need-based or for minorities only. This sounds like a good program for HC to join. (PS: I plan to nominate my granddaughter when she is a senior.
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Post by mm67 on Sept 27, 2021 8:46:23 GMT -5
The Gateway to Higher Education Program is another excellent source of great, high quality students from minority backgrounds.. It is an intensive education program with many urban minority students in public high schools. They sponsor bus trips to various top flight colleges & universities. Although they travelled to visit the top schools in New England HC was not one of them. Evidently, there is no line of communication with HC. Don't know why. Lack of contact with public HS college guidance counsellors? It makes one question HC's commitment to enrolling high quality minority students. These students more than meet the requirements for admission.Gateway's grads regularly graduate from the Ivies( ex.Brown Princeton, Columbia, Yale) and other elite colleges (ex.Tufts, possibly Colgate) Many go on to careers in the law, medicine & engineering. Why has HC not been a participant in Posse, the Gateway Program and other high quality HS programs?
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Post by hcpride on Sept 27, 2021 13:17:47 GMT -5
Grade inflation is not new to the pandemic but certainly may exacerbate the condition. The highschool Covid-related grade inflation last year and 2nd semester the year before was a completely different order of magnitude. Probably deserving of a name beyond ‘grade inflation’. Happened for a number of reasons and has been a source of discussion amongst educators and admission folks. So it would not shock me if GPAs for the most recent admissions cycle were up.
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Post by Crucis#1 on Sept 27, 2021 20:47:50 GMT -5
The Gateway to Higher Education Program is another excellent source of great, high quality students from minority backgrounds.. It is an intensive education program with many urban minority students in public high schools. They sponsor bus trips to various top flight colleges & universities. Although they travelled to visit the top schools in New England HC was not one of them. Evidently, there is no line of communication with HC. Don't know why. Lack of contact with public HS college guidance counsellors? It makes one question HC's commitment to enrolling high quality minority students. These students more than meet the requirements for admission.Gateway's grads regularly graduate from the Ivies( ex.Brown Princeton, Columbia, Yale) and other elite colleges (ex.Tufts, possibly Colgate) Many go on to careers in the law, medicine & engineering. Why has HC not been a participant in Posse, the Gateway Program and other high quality HS programs? There’s have been a number of programs that several of us have brought to the attention to the Admissions office, including purchasing the demographic information of students taking the PSAT. Based on first hand experience when my daughter was applying to schools, 22 years ago the only reason she received information from Holy Cross is because of her constant accompanying me to campus.....and she was a student at a suburban catholic high school with a very strong reputation.. None of her friends who went to Ivy, Nescac and schools ranked high in USNWR at the time receive information from HC. I brought the issue to the attention to the then Chair of the BOT, he said he would look into it. The next time I had a discussion with him he gave me a disingenuous reply that the Admissions Director was looking into it. Several years later, when I again raised the subject, he said HC was now using the information, if so, with the results we have seen, the data was waisted and not properly mined. My daughter was accepted to HC as well as a number of other top schools across the countryside, so that is not an axe that I am grinding, as she ended up going to a National University consistently ranked in the top 4 to 6 in the US. But I continued to be frustrated with the lack of aggressiveness I saw displayed regarding marketing and outreach. Our former Admissions Director apparently was an untouchable regarding employment. HC lost a lot of ground with her extended tenure.It time for HC to have a hungry staff occupying that corner of Mahogany Row.
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Post by sader1970 on Sept 27, 2021 21:49:24 GMT -5
She speaks well of you, Crucis! 😂
(A bit of an inside joke from almost 50 years ago. Worked with a half dozen retired NYPD and one of the guys would always respond with "he speaks well of you" whenever someone was ripping another behind his back. Usually that stopped the critical talk. The joke was the person allegedly who spoke well of the ripper didn't.)
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Post by Crucis#1 on Sept 27, 2021 22:28:29 GMT -5
And well she should. 😊. Regarding my previous comments, ..... As they would say in the God Father, it’s not personal.... it’s Just Business.
For decades, many of us have worked tirelessly staffing regional College Admissions Programs on behalf of the College offering suggestions regarding enhanced marketing and outreach. It was painful to see suggestions by many that should have been a slam dunk summarily rejected. We all are hoping that HC receives the acknowledgment that it so richly deserves. It is very painful when an Alum seems to be rowing in the opposite direction. Unfortunately I have known several who were unsuited for their positions based on their previous career experience.
Again, I do not have a personal axe to grind against her, my daughter was admitted to HC.
For all, as programs come to your attention that will aid in HC recruiting top students, please send them to the attention of Cornell LeShane, the Vice Provost for Enrollment Management.
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Post by Pakachoag Phreek on Oct 5, 2021 17:19:34 GMT -5
With Ann gone, the college is pivoting and will increasingly focus on recruiting in the South and West, and establishing 'pipelines' that I assume offer the potential of a steady stream of applicants in the future.
Admissions is characterized as one of the four major challenges confronting the college. I believe the four challenges were discussed at the recent BoT. The other three are pandemic-related campus workforce shortages; student housing; and affordability.
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