Monica Mula ’10
Web Opinions Editor

Each year, seniors become accustomed to skipping class in order to heighten the likelihood of college acceptance.

How, you ask?  Well, they are leaving classes in order to attend the informational meetings in the College and Career Center.

Admissions Officers get in contact with Shauna Flaherty and Susan Fugitt and come to give a condensed presentation of the information sessions they normally conduct at their college or university.

In most cases, the administrators who visit Staples are the ones who will be reviewing students’ applications a few weeks following.

Guidance counselors can check their students’ Naviance accounts, and send an e-mail reminder when the schools they are interested in are visiting.

In case seniors miss the e-mail, they can also check the organized whiteboards created by Flaherty and Fugitt and attended to by the Student Ambassadors.

Seniors can be spotted whizzing back and forth with signed pink notes, retrieving permission to attend and then scurrying hastily to get there on time.

Most students feel this is a useful tool, as Flaherty explained that as many as 47 students have come to a single visit.

If schools are very far and they cannot schedule a visit before applications are due, they can get just about everything at the meetings except a tour of the campus (but they can be referred to the website to do this virtually).

“I hope to receive the information that I would have received had I been to the school itself,” says Caroline Goldstein ’10, before attending her first visit.

Chelsea Scanlin ’10, however, hopes to gain further information yet.

“I plan to ask questions and I hope that the smaller environment will help me learn more than I would at a regular visit,” Scanlin said.

These benefits, along with connections with the admissions officers, are what Flaherty hopes the students will get out of the visits.

“I hope that seniors can get a better understanding of what the school is like, and feel they have the ability to ask plenty of questions— or even talk to the representative one-on-one,” said Flaherty.

While most students are happy to sign up for mailing lists and gather knew knowledge, Jessica Ramistella ’10 feels that the time frame of the meetings inhibits their value.

“Sometimes I find them disappointing because they feel slightly rushed and often a bit advertise-y,” said Ramistella.

Nonetheless, most seniors are eager to utilize the meetings, but adaptations have been made to accommodate students taking advantage of them.

Seniors may coordinate a meeting just to miss a class, but now the signed passes by teachers and the sign in sheet at the entrance eliminate this surreptitious behavior.

Students will receive an unexcused absence (equivalent to a skip) should they go anywhere but the meeting.

Teachers are reluctant, for this reason and others, to release kids during a test or graded discussion.

“This is completely understandable,” said Goldstein. “Classes must still come first, and if students are interested enough, they will see the school on their own time.”

Students must responsibly make up the work they miss if they are determined to get a leg up in the college process through these intimate, informational meetings.