Reply to Thoughts on St. Olaf

Forum Index » College and University Discussion

Reply to "Thoughts on St. Olaf"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I strongly encouraged DS (Class of 2015) to apply and we visited, though he is not a fan of the cold so he was fairly reluctant to go. He's a cellist and I thought he might really click with St. Olaf for that reason and others.

We visited over the summer, which was the only time it would work for us, but we did an official student visit day. We drove 7+ hours one way to the campus, so it was a serious visit - not something done on a lark.

I have to say I was very unimpressed overall and DS was, as well. I realize many qualified students apply to St. Olaf, but DS was on target to be a National Merit Scholar and he had already earned state-level awards for cello performance. Maybe it's naïve, but I thought they might be interested in him even a little bit and put forth even the smallest amount of effort to welcome him. That didn't happen. There were maybe 50-75 students visiting (plus parents) and it was just a cattle call. DS did meet with a cello instructor who was very pleasant and quite accomplished, but DS was not interested in a cello major and the professor was not really interested in talking about anything else related to the college.

The biggest red flag for me was that there was zero discussion of internship placement assistance, career placement assistance, or anything beyond graduation. I had read about The Piper Center, and we walked by it on a tour, but it was not touted whatsoever. I asked one professor about it and she was very vague in her response. My impression was that this is where you go before graduate school. Don't go to St. Olaf and then expect to enter your CAREER field immediately after.

Our visit was so bad that I felt the college was probably not as bad as it seemed and clearly they could improve their recruitment. In the end, DS did not even apply. As we were leaving, DH asked why we had put forth so much effort to visit with virtually nothing to show for it. I thought he had a good point.

[/quote]

You have to be one of the stupidest parents ever to post on DCUM.

You went to a [b]general[/b] open day with as you say around 50 people, and expected a red carpet reception. Did you or your child make contact with any professors before hand and ask to meet them?

Your son isn't interested in being a cello major, he told the cello professor this and then expected him to be an enthusiastic ambassador for other majors. Seriously?

You drove 7 hours for this.

You are idiots. Your kid definitely shouldn't apply to St. Olaf

Can you not see where you have gone wrong, on each of these points?[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics