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.

Día de los Muertos

First off, hope you all had a safe and FUN Halloween! The only time of the year (well for the most part) that you can dress up as someone/something else and nobody can say a word about it! Cecil sure had his share of fun this past weekend. He Helped out with candy at the Office of Admission (and by help I mean he consumed most of it).

With Halloween comes another celebrated holiday, Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead). Día de los Muertos is celebrated throughout Mexico and the Southwest states, and coincides with the Christian All Souls and All Saints Days. On November 1st & 2nd people remember those who are deceased. November 1st is considered the Dia de los Angelitos—the day to remember children that have died, November 2nd is the traditional Día de los Muertos (day of the dead). Pictures of the deceased are placed on Día de los Muertos altars with their favorite food and drink. Candles to light their way home, and soap and water to freshen-up after their long trip back are also often placed on altars. Trinkets they were fond of, symbols they would understand, and gifts are left to communicate to them that they are always in the hearts of those they left behind, and that they are still part of the family even though they are not physically with us any longer.

Every year the Latina/o Student Union at Pitzer College puts on an amazing benefit dinner and altar presentation, complete with music from the Claremont College Mariachi group, Mariachi Serrano de Claremont, along with traditional danza azteca (Aztec dancing). This year all proceeds from ticket sales will benefit an AB540 art student scholarship provided by Im: Arte, an art collective based in Los Angeles. Students attending the Fall 2010 Diversity Program will have the opportunity to join the Pitzer community for this much anticipated event!

For more information on Im: Arte visit their website at www.imarte.org


Oh and by the way... this week is the first Fall Preview Pitzer Day (along with the Diversity Program) this Friday November 5th and then again next Friday, November 12th. Check back soon for coverage of the preview days by our one and only exclusive reporter; Cecil T. Sagehen as he takes us behind the scenes of the day's activities.

"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.

Who said FALL was suppose to be this HOT!!!

So while the rest of us here on the counseling staff are dealing with tripple digit temperatures (113)... others are out on the East Coast enjoying the color changing leaves and rainy conditions that are typical of fall weather. Santiago just left for his traveling season this past weekend and took Cecil along for the adventure. Allow me to take the time to introduce Santiago. Santiago Ybarra is our new Asscociate Director of Admission and joined the Pitzer Office of Admission just a few months ago (actually a month after I joined the team).



Here is a message from Santiago:


" Cecil says hi from rainy New England. It was a very California 86 degrees when I landed in Hartford at 5:45pm, but two days later it started raining. The "desert chicken" known as Cecil wanted to stick his head in the ground but I managed to convince him to take a picture outside of Charlemont, MA. He's been to 5 schools and two states, and tomorrow he'll be hitting 4 more schools and 2 more states. He thinks the leaves are turning Pitzer Orange just for him!" - Santiago

Where's my application!?

"I submitted my application online, but my teachers mailed in my recommendation letters themselves...do you have everything!?"

"Did you get my Art Supplement!?"

"I took the SAT and/or ACT more than once, do you have all the correct scores!?"

"I heard there was a glitch with the Common App...is my application OK!?"

"My messenger pigeon came back without my college application, does that mean you received it!?" [True story.]

If you have any of these questions, or others like them, then Cecil the Sagehen has something to tell you. Click here!

Also, for those of you who miss the "Beyond Buzzwords" days, check out this article in the Chronicle of Higher Education and then my Letter to the Editor in response. Let me know what you think!

Some Holiday Wackiness

For college and high school students alike, final exams are imminent. No matter where you are in the country, your weather was awful this week. Most importantly, the January 1 Regular Decision application deadline is rapidly approaching! Feels like we need a break, doesn't it?!

We had some early fun here in the office in preparation for the coming holidays. Below are pictures from our Student-Staff holiday party!Above, members of the counseling staff raffle off iTunes gift certificates for lucky student-workers!
Our wacky student-workers! Looks deceptively fun! Arnaldo Rodriguez, Vice President for Admission and Financial Aid, tests out a beautiful piece of "Pitzer flavored" furniture (handmade by Admission Fellow Tim Campos '10!). Below, Cecil cozies up to a bready reindeer head! Yum!So breath deeply. Eat the eyebrows off a bready reindeer head, and relaxe as we head into winter craziness. Season's best from the Pitzer College Office of Admission!

Pictures from Fall Preview Pitzer Days!

Admission Fellows Joahna Ruffin, Suhail Sheikh, and Misa Kabashima join Admission Counselor Danny Irving by the pool in front of our Gold LEED certified First-Year residence halls. Not bad for November, eh?
Families arriving on a beautiful Southern California morning!
That's me in the purple, just gushing with enthusiasm to some prospective families!


Here are some of our dedicated student-workers laboring away to inflate biodegradable balloons early in the morning.
Emma and Chris, Office of Admission student-workers, welcoming prospective families to campus. Cecil, do you feel left out?

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.

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.