Smog Blog

Hi everyone, Justin here.

Danny is taking this blog entry off and was gracious enough to let me steal some space. I do take some time off my juggling career (note the Pitzer orange tie) to do some real work! I come bearing an answer to the question you might have had. As you know, Pitzer is located in beautiful Claremont, California, about 35 miles East of Los Angeles. When you think of Los Angeles you think of the entertainment industry, the beach, freeways, and yes, even smog.

Let’s do some a comparison, shall we? Here is Beijing China just right before the Olympics:

Can you even tell that there is a building in that photo? That is what smog can look like. This is a photo I took on Thursday, July 30th at 9:27am from Pitzer Hall toward the mountains.

Those are clouds in the background, it was a little overcast that morning. Here is what that afternoon (1:48pm) looks like from the same location.

I grew up in the Los Angeles area and when I was younger and in elementary school and a bit into high school (I graduated high school in 1997) we had what were called “Smog Days.” These were days where the smog was bad enough that we were not allowed to go outside. This was something that affected all of Southern California. Since I have been back in California (since 2001) I do not recall there being any “Smog Days.”

Keep in mind that California has some of the strictest emission standards in the entire country. You can take a look at these graphs and see the data for yourself.

http://www.aqmd.gov/smog/o3hist-trend.xls As you can see in the graph above, things are getting much better. One of the students working with us this summer, Witt, is from upstate New York. If you visited campus this summer, Witt may have been your tour guide.

When I asked him about smog, he said that he thought it was going to be bad here in the Los Angeles area. He followed that up by saying that he has not seen it here in Claremont. There are plenty of days when you can see downtown Los Angeles (35 miles away) from vantages in Claremont.

What does this all boil down to? Basically, don’t simply go by your preconceived notions. Do a little research. We are always happy to answer questions.

To find out more information about smog and other environmental issues in California, visit the California Environmental Protection Agency at http://www.calepa.ca.gov/ or their subsidiary, the Air Resources Board at http://www.arb.ca.gov/homepage.htm .

This is all another reason why Pitzer’s focus on sustainability is some important. It is our responsibility to be proactive in providing a clean environment. To learn more about what Pitzer is doing, visit http://www.pitzer.edu/sustainability/ .

Enjoy the rest of your summer and hope to see you while we are on the road in your town during the fall.

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.

Angel is Awesome

Despite being sick, Angel wrote another amazing article this week and it was published in LA Times. This article discusses what it is like for us to fight for you in committee and after finishing my first year it is 100% accurate. I hope you enjoy.

College admissions' wrenching ins and outs
For school officials, deciding on students' dreams is a difficult, emotional task.
By Angel B. Pérez April 3, 2009
I've been talking to a lot of angry people this week. They yell; I listen patiently. They cry; I empathize. The pain of not getting into the college of your dreams is unlike any other. Students call here to Pitzer College to find out what they could have done differently. Parents call to ask us to reconsider. It's hard to justify to someone who has just been "denied" the college of their dreams that although they've done everything right, we just did not have enough seats in the class.

What these families don't see is the amount of emotion that admissions officers across the country pour into making these decisions. These students don't know that behind closed doors, we argue about these difficult decisions. Each of us fights for the kids in admissions committee meetings, and we're truly sad when we turn away applicants who we know have worked hard but, because of circumstances beyond our immediate control, we cannot admit.

It's still hard for me to erase the images of the downcast expressions on my staff members' faces when the decisions go against the students they had argued for in committee. Just days ago, we were deliberating between a few candidates for a special scholarship opportunity -- knowing we had room for only one more. You could feel the tension in the room. Every admissions officer wanted his or her kid to get in. When the tough call was made, there was profound sadness. We knew we would positively affect the lives of some students while turning away the majority of those who had applied.

No matter how many years you work in college admissions, it never gets any easier to say no. At my institution, we received 4,079 applications but only have 245 spots in the freshman class. Choosing among a majority of overqualified students is our challenge.

I recall the fate of one young woman whose academic profile was top-notch. She had a 4.0 grade-point average at a competitive high school in Los Angeles, she listed a fair amount of extracurricular activities, and her essays read well. But she was from a town very close by and had never taken the time to visit the college. We offer many opportunities to do so, but she had had no contact with us.

In a year in which predicting how many students will enroll is going to be more difficult than ever, were we going to take a chance on her, that she was serious in wanting to come to Pitzer? With the pressure of having too many applications and not being sure of who really will enroll, we have to find ways to turn down students. In the end, we passed on her.

I also recall the young man from New York City who was academically below our margin. If I had read his application without meeting him, I probably would have denied him admission. But he showed up for my school visit when I was in New York, and had several contacts with me throughout the year. Then I interviewed him, and in my evaluation I wrote, "This kid bleeds Pitzer College." He was concerned about issues of social justice and social responsibility -- two key values that our institution was founded on. Clearly this kid had done his research and was determined to help me realize that he was the right fit.

His application eventually arrived on my desk, and I knew he was not going to be an easy admit. With a GPA below our typical average of 3.9 and no test scores submitted (we are a test-optional institution), the committee was not going to be kind. Therefore, I decided to read parts of his essay out loud to the committee. I needed to make sure they saw him outside the context of his numbers. They laughed out loud in response to this young man's humor, and they could not believe how much time he took to demonstrate to us how right he was for Pitzer.

I followed up the reading by telling them about my impressions from the interview: "He won't graduate top of his class, but he is going to be a powerful presence here." One of our staff members, who was clearly impressed, said, "This kid really does want to change the world, doesn't he?"

In the end, personal contact made a difference, and the young man's ability to paint a clear picture as to why he was the perfect match for our institutional culture won us over.

This week, students across the country received admission decision letters from thousands of colleges. They have poured their hearts and souls into their applications. They have worked hard and taken risks to share some of the most intimate details of their lives. They have told us about their goals, aspirations, triumphs, failures and adversities.

As I sat in my apartment, at the local Starbucks, in my office, (admittedly sometimes at the strangest hours of the night), I read their applications. With a constant cup of coffee in hand, I pored over each of their life stories. I laughed, I cried, and sometimes I performed a cheer of triumph (earning me some strange looks at Starbucks).

Regardless of my reaction to individual applications, I am truly inspired by young people today. They are much more motivated and qualified for college than I was when I was applying. Each day, I read stories of young people who are working hard to change the world and create new experiences that require them to take risks, have courage and overcome obstacles. We can't admit all the students we love, and that's because we tend to love many more than there will ever be room for.

To all these students, I say that where you get into college is not a representation of your worth, and please remind your parents that your college acceptance letter is not their final grade on the parental report card of life. If a school did not admit you, it's not a personal rejection.

In fact, most kids we turn away have done absolutely everything right, but given the seats we have available and the conflicting institutional needs that we have to balance, many kids are turned away because of the needs of the college, not because of a lack of achievement on their part.

We want an even representation of women and men, in-state, out-of-state and international students. We try to create a strong balance of socioeconomic and ethnic diversity as well. We need to make sure some kids can staff our athletic teams while others man our orchestras and theater productions. The list of needs is endless and seems to grow longer every year.

So for all of you getting the thick envelopes, the thin envelopes and everything in between this week, thank you for sharing the details of your lives and your aspirations. It's what keeps admissions officers in this business -- knowing that young people are doing amazing things and creating transformative experiences that will affect our world tomorrow.

Regardless of the decision letters you received, you have worked hard and have earned the right to brag about your accomplishments. You are indeed the hope we have been looking for.

Angel B. Pérez is the director of admission at Pitzer College in Claremont.

Secret time

Unfortunately Angel is sick today, but that means I finally have the opportunity to expose all of the classified secrets that I have been forced, at the threat of torture, to keep from you. These tidbits of knowledge are so secret that through exposing them I may lose my job, but that is the price of the truth!

First I will expose the secrets of committee. Many people think that with how competitive the admission process has become a lottery process would be the fairest way to determine admission status. I just want to let you know that at Pitzer we DO NOT use monkeys and a dart board to determine admissions….we use chickens. That’s right, we don’t even bother to read your applications. Instead we spread them out over the floor and release a group of chickens into the room. Whichever application a chicken lays an egg on is considered an admit. Obviously chickens can only lay so many eggs a day, which is why it takes us 2-3 months to make our “decisions”.

A well hidden secret about the origin of the college, the original plan for Pitzer was to be a theme park for the other 4 colleges. We were still going to keep our orange theme, so there were going to be the Citrus Breezer, an Orange Peel Slid from where Mead is and the Pitzer Pinwheel where the Admission Office is located. Cecil was set to be the equivalent of Mickey Mouse ©, but unfortunately, due to copy-right infringement we were forced to become a college instead.
Now for the nasty truth about our tour guides. So I don’t know how many of you saw “College Road Trip”, but they actually took the idea of hiring actors to make campus look nice from us. All of our tour guides are actually professional actors and not Pitzer students. If you look closely you will notice that Ben actually was an extra in “Superbad” and Pamela was a cheerleader in “Mean Girls” and “Bring it On Again”.

Sometimes they are so good that we hire them as full time counselors. Constance was actually the star of “Dangerous Minds” and has been living a lie for the past 5 years.

The only reason I have been allowed to expose these secrets is to soften the bad news. Due to the current economic crisis, Pitzer will no longer be open to students. We are becoming a full research institution/Ultimate Frisbee team. In fact all of our current students are being forced into non-paid research spots, that is those who don’t make the ultimate Frisbee team.

So I am sorry to have gotten all of your hopes up, best of luck with next year and happy April Fool’s Day !☺


(Nothing in the above post is serious. So you don’t need to call to see if we still exist as an educational institution.)