Defining Pitzer: A home away from home

Taylor Caldwell - Mercer Island, WA

Pitzer is curious, inquisitive, and insatiable. Pitzer is diverse, quirky, and unique. Pitzer is well-rounded, passionate, and involved. Pitzer is community, friendly, and intimate. To define Pitzer College with just one word, or even three, would be a crime of inadequate praise for a school that has made me the person I am today. At this school I have battled and won a war with depression, I have fallen in love and gotten my heart broken, I have lost friends and made new ones, but above all I have never been happier or more sure of who I am and what I want out of life. Pitzer has been a safety net, a vast yet intimate community of students with their arms spread wide to any and all newcomers. I knew this was the right place for me when I returned back to campus after my first fall break, telling my friends that I was “so excited to come home”. I even made the mistake a few times to invite people over to my house when I was simply referring to my dorm room. 

This place is especially hard for me to define because I find it to be extremely fluid. Although this school provides an overwhelming amount of resources and opportunities which anxiously await students to take an interest (and they normally do), the Pitzer experience is only what a person makes of it. There truly is a niche for everyone, making the campus an adaptive and ever changing safe space for each individual student to explore their passions, desires, and talents. From a Balinese gamelan ensemble to queer burlesque, it is the uniquely curious and adventurous nature of the Pitzer student body that allows this campus to thrive. Though some may find the abundant number of cacti and succulents to be oddly comforting, others may not love Pitzer as much as I do. The point is, the way I define Pitzer College may be entirely different through someone else’s eyes and that is not a bad thing, rather quite the opposite. The soul of this school, comprised by the unbelievably benevolent facilities and dining hall staff, the knowledgeable faculty, and the rest of Pitzer’s amazing employees have created and fostered an environment conducive to a high degree of academic rigor without the cut-throat pressures of an Ivy league, a flourishing social scene without the exclusive cattiness of a Greek system, and most importantly a place that any and all students can call their “home”.

Have you received YOUR admit packet??? Snap a photo, take a video and share it with us by sending your reactions to admission@pitzer.edu

NOTE: Alyshia is one of our Diversity Interns. For more info on the Diversity Program, please visit: http://www.pitzer.edu/admission/diversity/index.asp

FINALLY!!! Reading season is over and ADMIT packets are on the way!!!

After months of traveling and weeks of reading applications... the time has come! Committee is done and I can proudly say that I have successfully helped shape the future class of 2015!!!

Do you ever wonder what happens to that BIG BRIGHT ORANGE CONGRATULATIONS envelope the moment it leaves our office??? Well allow me to provide you with a quick explanation:

1. The admit packet is labeled (Alyshia is one of our Diversity Interns)


2. Fernando (our Graduate Admission Fellow) seals the envelope with lots of PZ LOVE!

3. Files are ready to leave the office.

4. Fernando poses once more with the admit packet!

5. Santiago (Associate Director) helps load the car with all the packets to be taken to the post office.

6. We (the counselors) drive to the Claremont Post Office to hand deliver the admit packets.

7. Arnaldo Rodriguez (VP of Admission & Financial Aid) helps load the mail cart.

8. And there you have it... the admit packets awaiting delivery.

HAPPY NEW YEAR... and now back to applications!

"Hello friends of the Pitzer College Office of Admission. I hope you all had a wonderful holiday and enjoyed a spectacular New Years! After all of my fall travel and recruiting, I needed a break and decided to "fly the coop". Where did I go??? I headed to the only place where sagehens can relax and grab some of the best Cuban food... MIAMI!" -Cecil T. Sagehen

After a nice and peaceful winter break, we (the counseling staff) are all back in the office and ready to process those applications. Tons of mail, lots of paper cuts, and so much alphabetizing... but of course it is all worth it in the end. Being an admission counselor has helped me understand how more than ever, we need more students like YOU!

So please bare with me in the next few weeks. If you submitted an application, it is being processed at the moment thanks to our entire counseling and support staff. No need to call... that recommendation letter is NOT late, those SAT scores will arrive soon, and your transcript should be arriving any day now. What more do you have to worry about? You have done your part of the application... so just sit back, relax, continue being the rock star student you are and wait to hear back from us in the coming months.

Until then... open mail (paper cuts), alphabetize, file, etc... it's like I'm an admission robot!!! ha ha.

Don't worry... Early Decision letters are on the way!

Sing it with me...

Cecil, the orange-nosed Sagehen had a very shiny nose. And if you ever saw him, you would even say it glows. All of the other Sagehens used to laugh and call him names. They never let poor Cecil join in any Sagehen Sports. Then one foggy Pitzer Eve, the Admission Dean came to say: "Cecil with your nose so bright, won't you deliver my mail tonight?" Then all the Sagehen loved him as they shouted out with glee, Cecil the orange-nosed Sagehen, you'll go down in Early Decision history!





Danny Irving, Assistant Director of Admission, lends a helping hand to help guide Cecil and the ED letters to the mail room.

Warhol, Banksy, and the Street Art of Seattle

Since I have been on the road traveling the U.S. and meeting tons of interesting and talented students, I always seem to be hit with the same question, “I want to take art courses at Pitzer, but not necessarily major in art.” Is this possible? YES! As a Pitzer student, students are encouraged to take a variety of courses and get a feel for what they like and disregard the courses they may not enjoy as much. Pitzer is a great place for any students looking for a school with a strong appreciation for the arts or even just a creative outlet. As an alumnus and speaking from my own personal experience, art was a way for me to express my creative side whether on a canvas, through the lens of a camera, or in a printmaking studio.





While I was in Seattle this month, I had the chance to check out Capitol Hill, the downtown area, and of course the famous Pike street public market place. Because of my busy travel schedule, I rarely have the opportunity to venture around and take in all of the art worthy sites. But on this trip, I made sure to document some of the local urban/street art. If you are reading this and have had an interview with me, then you know that my office is a reflection of my love for pop art and street art (i.e. Warhol and Banksy). The Seattle area was covered in street art and other artistic forms of expression. Art was just put up on many of the walls and objects throughout the city… kind of like Pitzer’s open art policy. Have you heard of our open art policy? What?!?! NO you have not?!?! Well… allow me to take the time and do so now.







Here at Pitzer, we value student artistic expression and encourage a creative outlet on campus through the forms of murals and much more. Whether it be on a wall or pillar throughout campus. Students, staff, and faculty vote on the coming and going of art on campus. Below is a direct quote from the Campus Aesthetics Committee:

“The Campus Aesthetics Committee is looking for outdoor mural/art proposals. If you have an idea for a piece of art you would like to create, fill out the outdoor art proposal form, attach a drawing of your concept, and submit it to the Aesthetics Committee. The Committee meets regularly during the academic year and you will be invited to present your proposal at one of the meetings.”
Avery-Pitzer Past, Present and Future, restored
This mural, on the outside of Avery Hall since it was painted in 1996, is now part of the interior of the renovated Benson Auditorium in the Marilyn and Eugene Stein Atrium. It was expanded and restored by Paul Botello, the original artist, at the beginning of 2010.

If you would like additional information on the open art policy or the art major guidelines, please refer to the following links:
http://www.pitzer.edu/governance/committees/aesthetics/index.asp

http://www.pitzer.edu/academics/field_groups/art/index.asp

"Cheaper than a wing and a leg."

Santiago Ybarra, Associate Director of Admission, is in Massachusetts this weekend and Cecil was out and about for the adventure. Here is what Santiago had to say about his time in Massachusetts:

"It turned out to be a beautiful weekend in Massachusetts, but on a rainy Friday night Cecil learned that parking costs a wing and a leg. Seriously, it's cheaper to register your car for the full year at Pitzer than it is to park in Boston (especially near Fenway when the Sox are playing). With this in mind Cecil decided to pretend it was summer and spent some time at the Cape." -Santiago

The Music City pt. 1

The KING of Rock & Roll is going on tour with Cecil the Sagehen…Ok, so although we would all love it if Elvis would grace our lands again (haha sorry for the cheesy pun), the fact is he left a long lasting legacy in the music city of Memphis, Tennessee. This past week I hit the road again continuing the travel season, but this time my traveling adventures took Cecil and I to the rhythmical music cities of Memphis and Nashville, Tennessee.



I was especially excited about my trip to Tennessee. Way back when I was a senior at Pitzer (class of 2010), I wrote my Chicano/Latino Studies senior thesis on rockabilly music and culture. My thesis was titled: “From Past to Present: The Evolution of Latino/a Rockabilly Culture.” It was great to visit such a place as Memphis, where Elvis himself hails from, not to mention one of the original godfathers of rockabilly music!

Hey by the way… did you know that for the past three years, Pitzer College has been home of the Rockabilly Music Festival?!?! Students from the Latina/o Student Union and Pitzer College Professor of Politcal Studies & Chicano Studeis, Adrian Pantoja, have created an ever growing much anticipated tradition on campus. Every year, the festival draws over a thousand people from the Claremont Colleges and local communities in the Inland Empire, while featuring dozens of custom cars, a handful of student selected rockabilly bands, and vendors galore. The Rockabilly Festival happens every spring and this coming year students can expect to relive the music, art, and custom cars on Saturday, March 26th, 2011.

Happy Summer Everyone!

Happy summer everyone!

I hope your summer is going as well as mine. It has been pretty busy here at Pitzer, a large number of students have been visiting us on campus, we are working on some new projects for next year and, of course, half of the office is taking their vacations. In fact Angel is in Thailand right now. I am very jealous, but I am actually just getting ready for a vacation of my own! I am going to be spending some time in San Diego, on the beach with my whole extended family and then I am actually going to be going on a college road trip of my own.

My younger cousin is about to enter her senior year of high school, so we are going to take off to look at a few schools around California. Right now our plan is to take the 2nd week of August to travel down the coast and check out 1 to 2 schools a day.

You can call me a college nerd, but I am really excited for this trip. It has been 6 years since I was at this point in my college search process and now that I know what goes in to making these visits happen at Pitzer, I am curious to see how other schools look.

While I am talking about college visits, I thought I would give you a few pointers on what to do during your college visit.

Go on a tour- I know sometimes you are worn out and just want to do a self guided tour, but the tour guided by a current Pitzer student will give you an important perspective that you would loose if you tour on your own.

Go to the information session- These are very easy to overlook during your visit and sometimes can be less exciting than the tour, but they are still very helpful. Look at the tour as the student side of campus and these informational sessions as the application side. Often times colleges will go through their core values or mission statement during the information session. This should give you a good idea of what the school is looking for in an applicant. At Pitzer we talk about our core values during our information session and those are going to show up again on our supplemental essay.

Have lunch on us- If you are thinking about spending 4 years at a school, you should know what the food situation will be like. Also, make a point to eat lunch with a student. I know you will be embarrassed when your family member plops down and starts grilling a student while they are eating, but this can give you a truly uncensored view of the school because that student probably isn’t connected to the Admission Office.

Talk to students-Whether it is in the dining hall or on the mounds make sure you talk to someone random and learn something new about the school.

Question everything- Now I know that I am an amazing Admission Counselor who addresses a ton of important points during my information sessions, but it is impossible for me to cover everything, that is why you need to ask questions. Whether it is to the Tour Guide or the Admission Staff make sure you ask at least a few questions on every campus. Yes, you should prepare these in advance and NO, your parents shouldn’t be asking all of them for you.

Know why you are asking a question- More important than just asking a question, is to know why you are asking the question. Whenever you ask a question, be prepared to answer “Why is that important/relevant to you?” Everyday parents and students ask me questions about endowments and statistical data that really do not play a factor in their college selection process. So make sure when you are asking questions that the answers will help your college search.

Take everything with a grain of salt-College visits are very subjective, so know that what you see during your 2 hours on campus might not be an accurate representation of what 4 years on that campus will be like. This works both ways, you could have a great visit to a school that is not a strong match for you or you could have a terrible visit to a school that is really a great match for you. Take your time to observe the campus, but still keep doing research after you leave.

Write everything down-My last piece of advice is to write down your impression of the school right after your visit. I know this sounds unnecessary, but come April when you go to make your final decision your memory probably won’t be as accurate as your notes.

I hope this introduction to a campus visit is helpful, and I may be making some additions to it once I get back from my campus tours. Best of luck on your school visits and if you happen to run into me on the road, I hope to get a chance to meet you. [This goes for any Admission folk as well. :) ]

WAC(AC)-TASTIC

If anyone called our office last week, you probably heard that most of the staff was out of the office between Wed and Fri. This was because we were attending the annual WACAC conference. On top of putting on an amazing conference that gave me a great opportunity for professional development, WACAC is an important organization for you to know about. WACAC is an ACAC, Association of College Admission Counseling, and there are a number of different ACACs for each area of the country.

There is WACAC-the Western Association of College Admission Counseling.
There is NACAC-the National Association of College Admission Counseling.
There is RMACAC-the Rocky Mountain Association of College Admission Counseling.
There is OACAC-the Overseas Association of College Admission Counseling.
And so on.

These organizations are a collection of College Admission Counselors, High School College Counselors and Independent Counselors all working together to find the best way to serve you, the students. WACAC represents the states of California and Nevada and works on advocating for student’s rights, making sure colleges adhere to The Statement of Principles of Good Practice and conducts research.

This year the conference was at Chapman University and it was an amazing experience for me. I hate to admit it, but this was actually the first time I had visited Chapman’s campus and I must say they have a beautiful campus. I also must thank the entire Chapman Admission Staff, you did an excellent job setting up the conference and all the social events. Since this was my first WACAC, they set the bar pretty high for all the conferences I will attend in the future.

This year’s conference was great, it gave me a chance to meet some new people in the industry, catch up with my colleagues and attend some amazing sessions. My favorite sessions were “Seniors Save the Day”, “Moving Images in the College Admission Process” and “Ready Set Launch! Help Students Get Their Scholarship Search off the Ground”.

Now I hate to be biased, but the “Seniors Save the Day” session was one of my favorites because it was presented by Adam Sapp, Claremont McKenna College’s Associate Dean of Admission and our very own Jasmin Escobar, Pitzer College’s Associate Director of Admission. This session talked about how seniors work to help the Admission Offices at their respective schools. Here at Pitzer we have what we call the Admission Fellow Program. The Admission Fellows help us by conducting interviews, presenting information sessions, recalculating GPAs and staffing college fairs. These Admission Fellows really do “save the day” for our office, and I am not just saying this because I used to be one. This year the Admission Fellows conducted 489 interviews and during the fall, while the counselors were on the road visiting your high schools, the Admission Fellows and Alumni Interviewers conducted 80% of our interviews.

Now I know a number of parents out there are hesitant when they hear their son or daughter will be interviewing with a student. I want to take this time to reassure all of you parents that interviewing with an Admission Fellows carries the same weight as interviewing with an Admission Counselor. The Admission Fellows actually go through a rigorous 40 hour week of training and are more than qualified to conduct these interviews. In fact students tend to enjoy their interviews with our Admission Fellows more than they enjoy interviewing with one of the counselors. (With the exception of my interviews of course)

The next session that I really enjoyed was “Moving Images in the College Admission Process” and it was also amazing. This session was presented by David May, Chapman’s Assistant Director of Admission and one of his student workers, Sasha de Mello. This session was amazing for me since I am in the process of creating a virtual campus tour for Pitzer and we have never done something like this before. It was great to see how another college approached this project and how they use other online resources such as blogs. You can find David’s College Admission blog at http://chappenings.blogspot.com/. After David and Sasha’s session I am even more excited to get started on our virtual tour and hope I can impress David with our finished product.

The last of my favorite sessions was “Ready Set Launch! Help Students Get Their Scholarship Search off the Ground”. This session was presented by Lynette Matthews, the Director of College Connection and Rhondalynne McClintock, the Director of Scholarship Club. Rhonadalynne’s daughter Talia, who will be starting her career at Pitzer in the fall, also contributed to the presentation. This session was a little bit different from the others I attended, since I don’t get to contribute as much in student’s scholarship search. However, this session was surprisingly relevant for me. Private School education is not cheap and even with our policy to guarantee to meet 100% of a student’s demonstrated need, sometimes families still need a little more help paying for school. There is a ton of money out there to help students pay for college, but it is up to you to find it (and the you I am referring to is the students, not you parents). In the past I have directed families to the 2 scholarship search engines that I knew of, the College Board’s Scholarship Search Engine http://apps.collegeboard.com/cbsearch_ss/welcome.jsp, and FastWeb http://www.fastweb.com/. In reality there are a ton of other websites that are great for starting a scholarship search (see below for a longer list).

The key to starting your scholarship search, is to make a list of your attributes, this is also called a personal inventory and think outside of the box when making this list. There are scholarships out there for things as random as people with one blue eye one brown eye. Look at things like your parents employer, your parents previous employers, if anyone in your family has served in the military, what you are interested in studying, if you do community service etc. At this point start looking through the scholarship searches to see what you can find. Some of the other great search engines I learned about in this session were http://www.scholarshipexperts.com/, http://www.meritaid.com/, http://www.finaid.com/, http://www.gradefund.com/, http://www.scholarshipcoach.com/ and of course Rondalynne and Talia’s website http://www.thescholarshipclub.com/. Talia and Rondalynne are located in Rancho Cucamonga, so if you are a student from the Inland Empire I highly recommend checking them out. Remember it is never too early to start looking for money for college and the process doesn’t stop after you start your first year of college.

There was one other big issue that we discussed frequently during the WACAC conference, the Cal Grant. For those of you who don’t know, the Cal Grant is free money for students who are California natives, who are attending a College in California who, demonstrate financial need and meet certain GPA requirements. The Cal Grant award can be up to $9,700 a year and is sometimes the extra money a student needs to be able to attend a college or university. Unfortunately, with our current economic crisis, the Governor is proposing to cut the Cal Grant. This cut would affect over 200,000 students, but there is something you can do to help. Write a letter to your local California Legislator and ask them to vote against cutting the Cal Grant. You can also write directly to Governor Schwarzenegger and tell him how you feel. This takes only a few minutes and can really make a difference. You can also log onto the NACAC website and fill out a short form that will send the email for you, http://capwiz.com/nacac/issues/alert/?alertid=13464096
Please every email or letter makes a difference.


As you can see, I learned a lot while I was at WACAC and came away rejuvenated and ready for next years travel season. Now on to some blog business, as you have seen there has been a little less posting on the blog over the summer, and since I will be out of town it will continue to be a little lighter in terms of posting. Later this week I am heading down to San Diego to help conduct mock interviews at my Alma Mater Francis Parker, and then I am heading out on vacation, so expect some posts about that. Don’t despair the light posting, keep tuning in and be ready for the fall because there will be some exciting new changes to the blog.

Let's Play Ball

Hi everyone! Things are now officially quiet in the office, but as the office slows down, life around campus speeds up. Last week students were finishing up finals, others were moving out and graduation was on Saturday.

Last week, with graduation is right around the corner, there were a ton of events going on for the senior class ranging from graduation rehearsals to parties at a Professor’s house and a reception at the President’s house. Wednesday, however, was one of Pitzer’s best traditions. The Faculty and Staff vs seniors softball game. Yet again the faculty and staff won!!! In fact we have won every single year, this may be because we have the math department on our side creatively keeping score, but I think it is just because we are that good.

As always, the softball game was a lot of fun. Everyone from the maintenance staff to the President came out. Unfortunately Angel and Arnaldo were busy, but don’t worry, I represented for the Admission Office.

I think my favorite part of the game was Jim Marchant’s (our Dean of Students) new haircut.

This year he made a bet with the senior class. The bet ran, if the senior class got 100% participation with the senior class gift Jim would get a Mohawk for graduation. As you can see, the seniors succeeded in getting 100% participation in the gift campaign.

Here is another picture of Jim looking tough as nails (I think we also win the competition for having the coolest Dean of Students)

The senior class gift is the first chance for graduating seniors to give back to the Pitzer community.

Just so the seniors don’t get all of the attention the faculty and staff campaign was also a huge success. This your 90% of our faculty and staff gave back to Pitzer. This puts us at number one in the country for faculty and staff giving.

Back to the softball game, it was obvious that we were going win because, as Justin said, we had a ringer, Laura Skandera Trombley Pitzer’s President.

Can’t you see the fear in the students’ faces as she steps to the plate?

Here is a picture of Chris Brunell, our Director of Residence Life, right before he crushes a ground rule double.

And just to prove that I was out there, here is me waaaayyy out in leftfield

I would like to say that I was responsible for catching many pop flies, but in reality the ball came absolutely no where near me.

But hey, I did get my base hit! And let me tell you running on grass in dress shoes is not easy.

All in all it is an amazing tradition and Adam, one of our Admission Fellows who graduated in January even came back to play.

As you can see he has been missing the southern California sun.

Before I leave you to start preparing for graduation, I have a quick note for any juniors out there. The Claremont Colleges Receptions (or CCRs) are about to begin again. These receptions are a great way to get an introduction to the Claremont Colleges and gives you the change to speak with representitives from CMC, Harvey Mudd, Scripps and of course Pitzer. Here is the schedule of where we will be in the next few weeks.

Washington, DC- Sunday, May 17 at 2:00 p.m.
Philadelphia, PA- Monday, May 18 at 7:00 p.m.
New York, NY- Tuesday, May 19 at 7:00 p.m.
Boston, MA- Wednesday, May 20 at 7:00 p.m.
Honolulu, HI- Sunday, May 31 at 1:00 p.m.

If you are interested in attending please register on our shared website
http://claremontmckenna.gotoextinguisher.com/survey/index.php?time=2009-05-18%2019:00:00&id=158&timeID=592

Tune in for graduation pictures as soon as I get them.

May 1

So last Friday was May 1. You know what that means, it was decision day!!!!

For all of you high school seniors, this marks our joint trip through the admissions process (remember this is my first time seeing it all the way through from the other side of the desk). Once you get that card in the mail, which hopefully you have already done, take a moment take a big breath and give yourselves a pat on the back. You deserve it!

Even though my first cycle is coming to a close it has still been a busy time of the year for me. We just had our two Admitted Student Days, which went very smoothly. Here are some pictures

Peter Nardi our acting President giving the welcoming speech.

And here are all the students with their parents.
Take a look at Sol leading an awesome tour
And we can’t forget two of our blog winners showed up. Jacey came to say hello and offered to give me capoeira lessons next year (don’t forget Jacey, I may take you up on that offer) and Jon Rice also came. He even had the foresight to bring his Cecil with him.

Aren’t they are great team!

The next week’s Admitted Student Day also coincided with our Spring Diversity Program. This means I spent the whole week running around making sure everything was ready, but the lack of sleep was worth it and we had an AMAZING time!

On Friday we went to the beach and it was a blast. Check out the pictures from our trip.

Here is my van on the way to the beach. It is a little blurry, but still the best van group EVER (P.S. Don’t worry I didn’t take the picture while driving, Tim took it)

Here we are at the beach

We also hired 2 new interns for the program, Bryce Coefield and Maricela Ledezma. I don’t have a picture of Maricela with me, but here is a picture of Bryce

After the Diversity Program there was no rest for Danny. On Tuesday I hopped onto a plane to New Jersey for Spring College fairs. They were a lot of fun! I haven’t been to NJ before so it was a brand new experience for me. Although I must admit I was less than thrilled with driving in NJ, I don’t like roundabouts L.

Overall the fairs were fun. I say overall because my GPS decided to take me the longest roundabout method possible to get me from school to school. I would have to say one of the high points of my fair trips was getting to see Watu Poe one of our admitted students when I visited the Peddie School. I even was able to coerce him into taking a picture with Cecil.

After NJ I finally got some downtime and went to visit some friends in New York. This was great because I have only been to NY on one other occasion, and I was sick 2 out of 3 days. This time was much better. I refrained from doing any touristy activity and instead spent time with my friends in Central Park and went to the Tribeca Film festival. Overall I had a great time, but am ready to stay in my own time zone for a while.

Well it is time to get back to reading transfer files, but I wish you all luck with the last few weeks of school before summer.