Monday, January 5, 2009

We love you all, but please don't call

Happy New Year everyone!!!!! Welcome to 2009.

This means that all of your applications should be complete. We do know that a lot of people were having trouble with the common application, so we have decided to extend the deadline to Sunday, January 10th, at midnight PST. So if you haven’t finished that app, don’t despair, get working on it double time.

Now onto the title.

I know this is a stressful time of the year and you all want to know if we have received all of your application materials, but with how much mail we get, we won’t be able to check to see if we have received everything for at least two weeks. We were out of the office from December 24th through January 2nd. This means that we had 8 days worth of mail waiting for us upon our return. Take a look at how much mail that was for last Friday.

Here is Justin’s first trip to the mail room. It only took about 3-4 trips that morning.
Then the mail just starts to pile up.


And Cecil gets in the way making life more challenging.


So understand that we can’t possibly go through all that mail in one day. I mean even Arnaldo, Vice President of Admission and Financial Aid was in the back with a letter opener and date stamp.



He did an excellent job!




We were all working hard, even Cecil helped out.

Don’t forget even more mail came in during the afternoon.
After all the mail is opened it has to be alphabetized and entered into our computer system so that we can match it to your file.


The stack of credentials are huge!


So on behalf of myself and most other college admission counselors I know, please hold off on checking your application status for two weeks. If your teacher recommendations or school profile are running a little late, we aren’t going to blame you for that. As long as you have sent us your common app and supplement you don’t need to worry.

I also wanted to point out that the only city with available interview slots for January is Seattle, so if you want to be put on the waiting list for Emeryville, Santa Clara, Portland, DC or Chicago give us a call, but don’t be surprised if the list is long.

Now that the applications are due and we as counselors are no longer traveling, it is time to play the final round of where in the world is Cecil the Sagehen. This is the most difficult picture yet, so if you can get this perfectly I will automatically send you a Cecil. Be very specific. To be honest Cecil is actually not in this picture. He wouldn’t fit in my luggage, so we are really playing where in the world is Danny the Admission Counselor, but the principle is the same. (I was going to photoshop him in, but respect you guys too much to cheat.)

If no one gets it by Wednesday I will post a follow up picture, but it won’t be much easier.

4 comments:

Laura R said...

I was aware of how much mail admissions offices must receive, but that was a pretty impressive photo! I can see why it takes a while to sort! Just curious, what happens to all the applications after decisions have been made?

That definitely was a difficult picture, but I now have extensive knowledge of Mayan architecture! I think it's the High Temple/Pyramid in Lamanai, Belize?

Laura

Mattie Ross said...

Laura I just have to say

WOW just WOW.

I wasn't sure if anyone would get that and you did it in under 8 hours.

I am very impressed!
I am curious how did you figure it out?

If you send me your address I will get that Cecil in the mail. (email it to me at danny_irving@pitzer.edu you shouldn't post that on the blog)

Jonathan Rice said...

That's impressive Laura, much respect.
...and that much mail is quite daunting. I can't believe all of that is dealt with by hand...it must be grueling!

J.

Laura R said...

Thank you! It was fun to try and figure out!

I knew that it was Mayan, so I reviewed Mayan pyramids and temples and their traditional characteristics and then tried to see what was different about the one in the picture. The narrowed steps toward the top, the rope for that stretch, and the lack of a large building at the top were the clues I used to narrow it down to several ruins sites. As most of the sites have numerous structures, I took a quick look at one structure from each site to see if the style was similar. Then to confirm that the particular structure was the same (as the pictures were taken from different angles) I looked for the markings to the right of the steps.

Sorry, that was a long explanation!
I'm looking forward to having my very own Cecil!