The National Association for College Admission Counseling, or NACAC, annually hosts the world’s largest college counseling conference. This year in Indianapolis, there were over 100 educational sessions, four keynote speakers, an unmatched Counsellors’ College Fair, and a wide variety of networking events.
Options Solutions President, Melinda Giampietro, attended NACAC and ranked it as one of the most beneficial conferences she has attended in the last 20 years.
Some highlights included:
- Attending the invite-only University of California luncheon to receive the latest data about international student admission to all UC campuses. International students are grouped with out-of-state students for admission numbers, and the UC system continues to increase this amount each school year. Thank you to the UC schools for being supportive of Options Solutions.
- Discussing the upcoming changes to the ACT with the ACT officials and the SAT with the College Board officials. It was helpful to interact with new sample questions and to learn first-hand the methodology involved in the upcoming test changes. As well, the Exhibit Hall offered Options Solutions an opportunity to work through a few client kinks with the Common Application support team.
- Hearing sessions about Women in Computer Science fields and discussing with multiple stakeholders the state of STEM fields, both in universities and in the real world. Our team now has some valuable concrete data to help counsel our students interested in STEM fields.
- Meeting the Canadian Consul General and networking with the Canadian universities at the Canadian Embassy reception.
- Participating in the Advanced UK Counselor Session Breakfast and learning how to get more out of our UCAS Centre status. This session also included some great tips for our clients about the UK Personal Statement directly from various admission directors.
- Getting amazing insight from admissions officers regarding helping students request letters of recommendations in a professional and insightful manner. Thank you Timothy Wolfe from The College of William and Mary and Amy Jarich of UC, Berkeley.
- Attending A Closer Look at Early Action Admissions: Inside the College Admissions Office. This session had a powerhouse panel including: Sally Lindley, Senior Associate Director of Undergraduate Admission, University of Michigan; John Mahoney, Director of Undergraduate Admission, Boston College; Stuart Schmill, Dean of Admission, MIT; and Alisa Fisher, Senior Associate Director of Undergraduate Admission, Notre Dame. This session was an incredibly valuable peek into how each university utilizes and strategizes its early action program. VERY helpful for advising our students who are considering applying to an early program.
- Hearing Dr. Madeline Levine, author of Teach Your Children Well and The Price of Privilege and a role model of Melinda’s, speak about adolescent mental health and the university admission process. Some of the statistics presented were very disturbing. One in four adolescents is suffering from either an anxiety disorder or depression; almost half of all students will become seriously depressed during their college career, and a study on Ivy League students found 17% of them had engaged in self-mutilating behaviours.
- Collaborating with so many universities at the Counselor College Fair. This event is a pivotal part of the NACAC conference. Over 500 universities are arranged in a conference hall all waiting to answer very general or very specific questions. Special thanks to Williams, Claremont McKenna, USC, Boston College, Georgetown, Brown, Cornell, Pepperdine, Boston University, Stanford, The University of Chicogo, Carnegie Mellon, Michigan State and Haverford for the very specific insight into client questions.
- Thank you to the Catholic Colleges Association for the private function at the Indiana State Museum. It was so nice to chat with admissions personnel and learn the history of Hoosier land.
- Thank you to IB International’s Rachelle Bernadel for the great IB information and IB training sessions. The US universities are really starting to embrace, understand and value the IB curriculum and diploma program.
- There were many reminders of how important the High School Profile is as a helpful tool for US admissions officers to understand the local context of a student. Options Solutions will be reaching out to high schools to offer assistance in creating an effective School Profile for schools who do not yet have one.
For university admissions assistance, contact our office at (604) 922-8456 or e-mail info@options-wp.chhdev.com.
