Happy early Halloween, everyone, I hope nobody’s overdosed on chocolate yet. I think trick-or-treating this year is a day early, on the 30th. I can understand that kids have school on Monday, but I still think it’s strange not celebrating Halloween on the 31st. Then again, I’m too old for trick or treating (or at least too old to get away with it), so I don’t suppose my ranting actually means anything.
Not that it has anything to do with Halloween, but I have to say I’m pretty impressed with the Career Service Center as of today. A potential employer told me yesterday to email a copy of my resume, and suddenly remembering the advice I always give younger students, I realized that I should really have someone look over my resume and give me some pointers. But I didn’t have an appointment, so last minute (this morning) I ran into the Career office and asked if anyone was available, and one of the career counselors had happened to have had a cancellation, so I managed to jump in on short notice. And wow, was that time well spent. It’s funny, because we played around with the format and style a little bit, and we definitely expanded on the important points of my education and work experience, but the core items and bullet points didn’t really change, we just kind of expanded them and explained the benefits to my pool of experience.
That’s a great example of how helpful and accommodating the Career Service Center is, the fact that they had the time so they jumped to fill me in, but most of the counseling services across campus will tend to be about that helpful. I’m sitting in the Admissions office at the moment, and one of our other tour guides just mentioned that he has a mock interview scheduled for next week, and that’s another function of Career Services, but the Tutoring Center is just beneath us as well as the Advising Center and Disability Services. Across the way from those three is the Counseling Center, who just finished a depression awareness program earlier this month for National Depression Screening Day. I haven’t noticed all of the student support offices until the last couple of years, but the truth is that there are quite a lot of services available to GVSU students; I’ve only started noticing them as I’ve made better use of them.
I do certainly hope that whatever plans everyone has for Halloween that everybody stays safe. Have fun, but don’t do anything you wouldn’t do any other night of the year, and make sure you guys are all still working on college requirements and keeping deadlines in mind. Do keep working on those college applications, don’t eat any home-made candy, especially if it comes from your parents. Seriously, Mom and Dad, just leave it to the professionals.
-Kyle
Friday, October 29, 2010
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Midsemester blues
I suppose you could say we’re right in the middle of fall semester at this point; the truth is, I never really keep track of the weeks. After the first couple classes some time goes by and then I’m just kind of surprised when someone talks about winter break. Maybe that’s just me, but I always seem to lose track of what's going on at this point in the semester. Although part of that may just be all of the activity at the moment in class and on the job; I had two exams last week, an ongoing, major class project I’ve been trying to dive into, and my senior project more or less looming over the whole thing. Here in admissions, we just had one visitation day last Saturday, and our next is this Friday. We’re also trying (somewhat unsuccessfully) to generate a little interest in focus groups for current freshmen, hoping to better understand how well we’re doing in communicating with them as they prepare for college.
The weather has certainly been kind to us lately; it’s raining for the moment, but that’s little more than the punctuation at the end of about two weeks of gorgeous fall climate. Maybe I’m crazy here, but I love this time of year, and I think it’s one of the best times to visit campus. Aside from being beautiful outside without being too hot, visiting around this time will give students an opportunity to see the campus and still enough time to apply before deadlines start rolling in.
But I’m on my way out right now, so as usual, post any questions, and don’t hesitate to give us a call and schedule a tour of the campus.
-Kyle
The weather has certainly been kind to us lately; it’s raining for the moment, but that’s little more than the punctuation at the end of about two weeks of gorgeous fall climate. Maybe I’m crazy here, but I love this time of year, and I think it’s one of the best times to visit campus. Aside from being beautiful outside without being too hot, visiting around this time will give students an opportunity to see the campus and still enough time to apply before deadlines start rolling in.
But I’m on my way out right now, so as usual, post any questions, and don’t hesitate to give us a call and schedule a tour of the campus.
-Kyle
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Reminders for students
Well, this is partly that I don’t have any big subjects to cover today, but it’s also convenient that now is a good time for some reminders and notifications, just so all of those potential students can keep an eye on the future. We’re about five weeks into the semester, and there are a few big events just around the corner. No deadlines have passed just yet, but a couple are on their way.
First things first, I want to remind everyone that there isn’t an application deadline per se; the admissions deadline is determined by a student’s desires as far as scholarships, housing, and orientation. As a rule, I always say that sooner is better than later for a student’s application for admissions (at least here at Grand Valley). Students can’t even sign up for orientation until after the new year, so we’ll skip that topic right now, but one reason for an early application is to be sure that you meet the scholarship deadline. Students who want to be considered for a couple of our automatic scholarships need to make sure that they have a complete application in by December 31.
Along those lines, if any seniors right now are planning to retake the ACT or have not yet taken it, there are a couple more dates you can do that. The October session is of note in particular, just because if a student takes the ACT then, there is still enough time for us to receive the scores by the scholarship deadline (just make sure you select GVSU as one of the schools you want the scores sent to). If you’ve already taken the ACT once, you may be hesitant to take it again (read: really don’t want to spend your Saturday in school taking a larger-than-normal test). From personal experience, you want to avoid this attitude. I took the ACT twice, and the second time my score only rose a couple points, but that was enough to bump me into a new scholarship bracket. Yes, it’s a terrible way to spend a Saturday, and I’m sure I hated doing it when I was a senior in high school, but I’m pretty happy about the money that I’ve saved over the last four years due to that new ACT score. But hey, that’s just my opinion, take it for what it’s worth.
The housing deadline isn’t until May 1, but potential students still want to be thinking about Grand Valley housing, because it’s all distributed on a first-come-first-serve basis, meaning the sooner you apply for housing, the more options that are available to you (students can apply for housing as soon as they’re admitted to the university).
Finally, I wanted to remind everyone that we have a couple of big events coming up soon, namely, the Student Visitation days. These will be large events held in the field house of the Allendale campus on Saturday October 16 and Friday October 22. There will be presentations from admissions, financial aid, and housing, as well as sessions with a wide range of academic departments, student panels, and tours of the campus. So it’s basically one stop for just about any questions you may have.
And one last note before signing off, be sure to leave enough time for your high school counselor to send us your transcripts. Even if you submit your application to us on one day, it doesn’t count as a complete application until we have all of the components (application, application fee, ACT scores, and high school transcript). Keep in touch with your counselors and keep an eye on how much time they need to process and send your transcripts. But that’s about it for today, ask any questions you’ve got on your mind.
-Kyle
First things first, I want to remind everyone that there isn’t an application deadline per se; the admissions deadline is determined by a student’s desires as far as scholarships, housing, and orientation. As a rule, I always say that sooner is better than later for a student’s application for admissions (at least here at Grand Valley). Students can’t even sign up for orientation until after the new year, so we’ll skip that topic right now, but one reason for an early application is to be sure that you meet the scholarship deadline. Students who want to be considered for a couple of our automatic scholarships need to make sure that they have a complete application in by December 31.
Along those lines, if any seniors right now are planning to retake the ACT or have not yet taken it, there are a couple more dates you can do that. The October session is of note in particular, just because if a student takes the ACT then, there is still enough time for us to receive the scores by the scholarship deadline (just make sure you select GVSU as one of the schools you want the scores sent to). If you’ve already taken the ACT once, you may be hesitant to take it again (read: really don’t want to spend your Saturday in school taking a larger-than-normal test). From personal experience, you want to avoid this attitude. I took the ACT twice, and the second time my score only rose a couple points, but that was enough to bump me into a new scholarship bracket. Yes, it’s a terrible way to spend a Saturday, and I’m sure I hated doing it when I was a senior in high school, but I’m pretty happy about the money that I’ve saved over the last four years due to that new ACT score. But hey, that’s just my opinion, take it for what it’s worth.
The housing deadline isn’t until May 1, but potential students still want to be thinking about Grand Valley housing, because it’s all distributed on a first-come-first-serve basis, meaning the sooner you apply for housing, the more options that are available to you (students can apply for housing as soon as they’re admitted to the university).
Finally, I wanted to remind everyone that we have a couple of big events coming up soon, namely, the Student Visitation days. These will be large events held in the field house of the Allendale campus on Saturday October 16 and Friday October 22. There will be presentations from admissions, financial aid, and housing, as well as sessions with a wide range of academic departments, student panels, and tours of the campus. So it’s basically one stop for just about any questions you may have.
And one last note before signing off, be sure to leave enough time for your high school counselor to send us your transcripts. Even if you submit your application to us on one day, it doesn’t count as a complete application until we have all of the components (application, application fee, ACT scores, and high school transcript). Keep in touch with your counselors and keep an eye on how much time they need to process and send your transcripts. But that’s about it for today, ask any questions you’ve got on your mind.
-Kyle
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