During the last week of September, Educational Consultant and Options Founder, Melinda Giampietro attended the NACAC Conference in Los Angeles↗️. NACAC Conference 2024 brought 7200+ attendees to Los Angeles to share best practices, inspirational ideas, cutting-edge research, and professional stories at the premier event for college admission counselling professionals. From admissions information and college fairs to student advocacy, NACAC has been an invaluable resource for all things higher education for over eight decades. Engaging with organizations like NACAC and building connections with admissions teams is a top priority for Options. This helps our consultants stay up-to-date on new programs and admissions changes to answer all the important questions students are asking!
Thursday at NACAC
It was an early morning Thursday to attend a pre-conference session. Last year, I was intrigued when the category “Positive Character Attributes” showed up on NACAC’s Report on College Admission for the first time and as the fourth most important factor in US college admission. So even though The Character Review in College Admission: Leveraging Research to Improve Practice session was aimed towards admission professionals, I wanted to attend to get an insider’s view. This session featured Trisha Ross Anderson from the Harvard Graduate School of Education who is the College Admission Program Director for Making Caring Common. Her research drove the factor in the NCAA Report. It was really interesting to see how universities and colleges are evaluating character and what characteristics are assessed. There were definitely some subtle ways that colleges are looking for these qualities in applications. This is why Options keep up with nuanced shifts and trends, and we spend our time and energy to get it directly from the sources!
I also attended the Scottish breakfast. It was a fun event to connect with our favourites at the University of Edinburgh, St. Andrews, Stirling, and Glasgow. And I did a quick flyby the Big XII Counsellor Breakfast. Although these schools aren’t highly applied to by our Options students, it’s fun to learn more about them, so we can find students who might be the just-right fit and are willing to be adventurous with different areas of the US. Some Big XII schools include Baylor, University of Kansas/KSU, Arizona/ASU, Oklahoma, Boulder, and University of Texas, Austin.
My afternoon session was the NCAA Eligibility Center Initial-Eligibility Updates for 2024-2025. This session was hosted by Matt Harris, the Assistant Director of High School Review, NCAA Eligibility Center. We reviewed the basics of the NCAA Eligibility Center in general, including Division I and II Standards, and Division III information. It discussed the Institutional Request List (IRL), the list of college-bound student-athletes an NCAA Division I or II school is interested in recruiting. I really enjoyed the special scenarios and updates section of the presentation. Mr. Harris confirmed that SAT/ACT requirement is NOT coming back, even though colleges may return to testing, and there is no longer a separate set of requirements for nontraditional courses as of August 1, 2024.
I hit the Expo Hall to connect with EduCanada. I pitched our new podcast↗️, so they could help us promote it. I also attended their evening event and had great conversations with local BC counsellors and university reps. It was great to catch up (even if we have to come to LA to do so). I also spent time with ACT and SAT to gain a clearer understanding of the testing changes, timelines, and lack of testing spaces in Vancouver. (Sidenote: Please encourage your local school to become a test center. They are offering financial incentives to institutions who are first time test centers.) I also connected with many UK institutions to clarify math requirements and get a pulse on Canadian admission numbers now that we are a verified UCAS center. Finally, I enjoyed visiting with the Big10 team of schools (which now includes their original members as well as newcomers such as USC, UCLA, and Oregon). I think some of these schools are great fits for our students, and we discussed more Vancouver recruitment opportunities.
Stay tuned for Part 2 of our NACAC recap, coming later this month!
