A glimpse inside My World!

So, for all of my whining and complaining in my last blog, move-in day turned out to be, in fact, picture perfect. Yes, it was a a crisp, collegiate, sunny day! I was dying with envy- how I'd LOVE to be back in those shoes: those "naive-but-think-I'm-cool, fresh-faced, can't wait to meet my true-love, I wonder how hard classes will be, high school is SO overrated (but I'll still go back to homecoming)" shoes.

I have to say, as an admissions counselor, move-in day ranks right up there with a big spicy burrito from my favorite Indianola establishment, La Casa (AKA "La Awesome") or a night curled up on the couch watching SATC reruns. See, life in admissions is not always glamorous. I work with tons of great kids each year and along the way I forage through enough paperwork and applications to almost single handedly wipe out the logging industry, I make so many phone calls that I have my 25 digit calling card number memorized and I find myself reciting it in my sleep and I listen to every excuse under the sun and have to show remarkable restraint to act like it makes any sense at all: "It's too far from home."-"It's too close to home."-"I know too many people going there."-"I don't know anyone else going there." "It's not by a lake" ..... you get the idea.

And what am I up against you ask? Some colleges use any tactic imaginable to get students to enroll. They spin the truth. Bash other colleges. Promise unattainable internships because ONE time, 20 YEARS ago, somebody got that internship....(because they had an uncle who worked there in the first place...or some weird thing like that.) They recruit and promise positions to athletes that have no business playing anything other than middle-school kick ball. Why do I whine and complain and work myself into a frenzy over such frivolities? Because I put my heart into meeting students and trying to find the best college for them. Sometimes it's Simpson... sometimes it isn't. But it warms my heart to see "my kids" moving in and preparing to have the best four years of their life!