Contacting College Admissions Officers

Contacting College Admissions Officers March 17, 2013 There is a right and wrong way to contact a college admissions officer. Just ask Tina Fey, who plays an admissions officer in the upcoming release Admission from Focus Features. Go see the movie as its really good! Theres a right way and a wrong way to go about contacting college admissions officers.  College applicants should absolutely not be contacting their regional admissions officers at the universities to which they applied Regular Decision to find out the status of their application. They should not be sending emails that go something like this: Dear Ms. Jones, I was wondering if you knew whether or not I am going to be admitted to your university. Id love to know at your earliest convenience. Thank you. Sincerely, Sean Lambert. Oy vey. Do you really think admissions officers want to be bugged? Do you really think theyll answer that question as all of their other applicants are anxiously awaiting word on their candidacies? What makes you think that youre special to find out before them? Do you like to cut the line at grocery store checkouts too? Probably so. Theres nothing wrong with establishing a relationship with your regional admissions officer. Maybe you asked them questions after an info-session. Maybe you sent an email a couple of months ago asking about a particular program or field of study. We encourage that. Personal connections can go a long way, surprisingly, in highly selective college admissions. But theres a major difference between asking a question about a school or a program and asking if an admissions officer can tell you whether or not you got in. If you go about your contacts with a regional admissions officer the right way, he or she may very subtly give you your answer. Is his or her answer going to be, You got in? Probably not. But it might read something like this. Thanks for following up, Charlie. Relax and enjoy your weekend. Relax can mean a heck of a lot in this context. So dont bug your regional admissions officer. It can adversely impact your chances for admission. Do you really want to risk this? We didnt think so!