Thirty-six percent of admissions officers check applicants' social media profiles, up from 25 percent last year, according to a survey by Kaplan Test Prep.
The high-water mark of 40 percent saying that they check came in the 2015 survey by Kaplan.
Of admissions officers who have checked out an applicant’s social media footprint, about 19 percent say they do it “often,” significantly higher than the 11 percent who said they did so in 2015.
Of the admissions officers who say they check social media to learn more about their applicants, 38 percent say that what they found has had a positive impact on prospective students, and 32 percent say that what they found had a negative impact.
“In tracking the role of social media in the college admissions process over the past eleven years, what we’re seeing is that while admissions officers have become more ideologically comfortable with the idea of visiting applicants’ social media profiles as part of their decision-making process, in practice, the majority still don’t actually do it. They often tell us that while it shouldn't be off limits, they are much more focused on evaluating prospective students on the traditional admissions factors like an applicant’s GPA, SAT and ACT scores, letters of recommendation, admissions essay, and extracurriculars,” said a statement from Sam Pritchard, director of college prep programs at Kaplan Test Prep.
So, the article is a couple of weeks old, but I simply had to put my two coppers into this.
If we had time to check every applicant's social media footprint at Penn State, we would have to hire an ARMY of new staff. But, this is quickly becoming the era of the "holistic" or "comprehensive" application review. I'm not necessarily saying that it wouldn't be useful, but it would certainly need to have a process associated with it. Who on the staff is doing the checking? How does it factor into the rubric of the evaluation? Which social media sites would be checked (because my kids don't touch Facebook or Twitter - and that's where I spend all of my time!)?
Checking an applicant's social media profile(s) would certainly fall under the proverbial umbrella of holistic. But what a daunting notion.
At last, my long-awaited post on Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. You know you've been on the edge of your seat wondering what I thought of the epic finale to 40+ years of saga!
The picture above is me and my brother, having just finished our first viewing of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (aka, "TROS"). In case you cannot tell from our expressions, we kind of liked it.
So, my brother Sean and his family traveled to Pennsylvania for the holidays. They arrived on December 23rd, late in the evening (after driving all the way from east Texas!). Sean and I made a blood-pact that we would wait to see TROS until we were together over the holiday break. If you're doing the math, that means that we would have to wait about a week after the movie was released before we went to see it. Hence my social media activity on December 20th:
I had to remove myself from Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter almost entirely for about a week so that I would not be exposed to any spoilers. And I was successful! All of the spoiler-worthy info in the movie was a surprise for me.
Before I go on - if you haven't seen the film yet you should stop reading now. There will be spoilers if you continue.
[...]
Okay, you're still here so you must have already seen the movie. Onward!
The short version: It. Was. Awesome.
The long version....
From the very opening, I was hooked. Kylo Ren tearing it up on Mustafar (the world where Obi-Wan battled Anakin Skywalker, and where Darth Vader eventually made his home) in search of the Sith Wayfinder was a great entre into the flick. We see Palpatine in the first five minutes of the film, after Ren finds him on Exegol, the Sith planet.
The plot is great; Rey is the granddaughter of Sheev Palpatine (aka, the baddest-baddie in the Galaxy Far, Far Away), and when Kylo Ren reveals this to her she isn't sure if she is good or bad. Add to that, she discovers that she can throw Force Lightning much in the same way that her grandpa-pa can.
She returns to Ach-To to be a hermit in the way that Luke did and - TAH-DAH - Force Ghost Luke comes to visit her. He says that he was wrong in thinking that way and that she shouldn't run from her destiny the way that he did.
We got lots of great scenes with Leia, despite the fact that Carrie Fisher passed away several years ago.
And there was what I thought was a fantastic sub-plot that found Rey and Kylo forming a dyad in the Force. The only way that Palpatine could be defeated was by the two of them joining forces (heh... get it? Joining Forces?).
Before I go any further, I should mention that I am one of those fans (seemingly a minority) that really liked Rian Johnson's The Last Jedi. I thought that scenes like this one were magnificent:
(The most dramatic piece happens at 1:30 in that clip)
When the music (and every other sound) drops out, that grabbed me.
So, I point all of this out to say that as far as criticisms go, I didn't feel as much "art" in The Rise of Skywalker as I did in TLJ. The Last Jedi was a beautiful film. If you were to strip away the Star Wars aspect, it was still, simply put, beautiful. Maybe that's just me.
While seeing a lot of Carrie Fisher on the screen was great, there has been a lot of chatter and (likely deserved) criticism that Rose Tico (ably played by Kelly Marie Tran), who had a central role in TLJ, was seemingly sidelined in TROS. I felt this throughout the movie as well, and only learned afterward that much of Rose's sub-plot had to be left on the cutting room floor due to a decision by the filmmakers:
One of the reasons that Rose has a few less scenes than we would like her to have has to do with the difficulty of using Carrie [Fisher]’s footage in the way we wanted to. We wanted Rose to be the anchor at the rebel base who was with Leia. We thought we couldn’t leave Leia at the base without any of the principals who we love, so Leia and Rose were working together. As the process evolved, a few scenes we’d written with Rose and Leia turned out to not meet the standard of photorealism that we’d hoped for. Those scenes unfortunately fell out of the film. The last thing we were doing was deliberately trying to sideline Rose. We adore the character, and we adore Kelly – so much so that we anchored her with our favorite person in this galaxy, General Leia.
...but it still left me feeling 'blah' in the theater.
Two more criticisms for you, then I'm done.
First, Finn. Throughout the entirety of TROS, Finn tells Rey that he needs to say something to her. By my estimation this happens at least three times. But, by the time that you've finished the 2 hours, 23 minute run time, Finn never resolves that tension. He never ends up talking to her privately. It is definitely inferred that Finn is Force-sensitive, perhaps even strong with the Force. On at least two separate occasions in the film Finn talks about "feeling" things. Like the kind of "feeling" that a Jedi might describe. The viewer is left to wonder if Finn will be Rey's first pupil (that is, if Rey takes up the mantle of the Jedi Order).
And last, The Kiss. Ugh. I don't even know where to begin.
So spoiler: Kylo Ren joins Rey in fighting Palpatine. They win, but at a great cost. As Rey lay on the ground (ostensibly dead), Ben Solo (formerly Kylo Ren) holds her in his arms and uses the powers of the Force (and the dyad connection that he holds with Rey) to heal her and restore life to her body. She awakes, looks into his eyes and says, "Ben!" Then they kiss.
For me, the "relationship" (if you can describe it that way) between Rey and Kylo has been developed to be that of a sibling one, not a romantic one.
My polling results found that folks (4 of 7) agree with me:
Writing up my thoughts on #StarWars#TheRiseOfSkywalker. I’m looking for lots of feedback on this, so please share with others.
Prior to watching #TROS, I thought that the relationship between #Rey and #KyloRen/Ben was:
Anyway, my alarmingly small follower-base aside, the point stands. When I was in the theater and Rey and Ben kissed in the final minutes of The Rise of Skywalker, I wanted to groan aloud. I restrained myself because, unlike my daughter, I am able to not make noises when watching a movie or television show. But I really wanted to groan.
I've talked with other people who felt similarly, and described it as the "Disney-fication" of Star Wars. While I think that the kiss was both completely unnecessary and cringe-worthy, I think that Disney has done a great job at not "Disney-fying" the Star Wars Universe.
[Side note: next week the Wife and I will be headed to Orlando for a four day getaway and, while we're there, you KNOW that we're going to visit Galaxy's Edge. More to come on that later.]
I wish that J.J. Abrams would have just had Ben and Rey hug and gotten on with it. The kiss seemed forced (HA!), since the only romantic chemistry that I felt on-screen was between Rey and Finn (see my previous complaint about Finn).
BUUUT, I'm focusing on the criticisms. Don't let that fool you into thinking that I didn't like the movie - BECAUSE I DID!
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker was a great way to end the saga, while leaving enough "what if?" questions lingering to continue to build on the franchise in the same general timeline. I've seen the film twice now (the Wife and I went to see it just after the new year). I'm going to reserve judgment in ranking within the entire saga, but based on my current feelings I think that it's probably in the top five. For me.
How about you? Have you seen the film? What did you think? Did you love Babu Frik as much as I did?
Lehigh University accidentally sent a congratulatory email to 137 applicants not selected for early admission.
But within hours, Lehigh officials realized someone had emailed the congratulations to all who applied for early admission instead of just those who were accepted.
Students who apply for early decision can be either admitted, denied or deferred to the regular admission round. Lehigh expects to have 1,425 freshman next fall.
Bruce Bunnick, director of admissions at Lehigh, sent a follow-up email this week to apologize.
“Receiving the erroneous email after the disappointment of our decision must have brought confusion, frustration and perhaps anger, for which I again apologize,” Bunnick said in the email. “You deserve better and we will work harder to eliminate the human error that led to this mistake.”
Lehigh spokeswoman Lori Friedman reiterated the apology Friday and said Lehigh “intends to increase the safeguards in place to prevent something like this from happening in the future.”
A parent emailed The Morning Call that his son was notified Wednesday that his son was rejected and then received an email on Thursday indicating he was accepted. That email included instructions about the next steps. A few hours later, he was sent the apology email that explained the mistake and that he was not selected for early admission.
In recent years, similar gaffes have afflicted institutions including Columbia University and Johns Hopkins University.
Seriously, this is an admissions officer's worst nightmare, and something that worry about often. See my previous post about the number of decisions that we released in December alone. Crazy.
I've talked about this before. Even though there are challenges with our systems, processes, and even staff, nothing keeps me up at night (or wakes me in the wee-hours of the morning) like the realization that something might be amiss and incorrect decisions could hit the streets.
While many processes are automated these days (in either the SIS or a CRM), there is always the potential for human error. I feel for the folks at Lehigh.
This project started as a simple Tumblr blog in 2010 but hasn't had much of an update or a refresh in a long time. Since my work-life balance has started to have, well, some balance, I wanted to get back into some regular writing and commentary. So here we are.
In early 2019 I started to write a bit more frequently, and now we have a fresh new look and layout, and a sweet, sweet new logo as well!
(I started using Adobe Spark for some creative content stuff - and in the process created something of a new look for my style. Apparently, branding is fun!)
I spent a couple of days importing all of the old posts from the Tumblr blog (sans the Instagram cross-posts - you can get that info in the sidebar to the right, as well as all of the posts from an even older site that I created in the mid-2000s to keep family and friends updated) into one place. Now you've got over 250 posts that you can sift through when you're really bored. Go ahead, I'll wait.
[...]
Okay, all done? Good.
Though the moniker is "Admissions Dude" - and your humble host is indeed that - topics covered here will continue to be wide-ranging. Certainly you'll see some higher education and admissions-related stuff, but I'll also continue to delve into personal things as well. Family, friends, life, exercise, movies, music... and who knows what else?
Who knows? Maybe I'll tire of this thing again if/when life gets busy again, and then this will once again become a shell of an idea. But maybe not? Stay tuned to find out.
If you want to subscribe, you can hit the RSS. Or my Twitter feed will accomplish the same thing. Thanks for stopping by!
If you're one of the two or three people that regularly reads my writing, you're probably wondering where The Dude has been for the past month? Well, let me break it down for you...
Last year, Penn State implemented a new Early Action (EA) decision process for undergraduate admission to the University (I previously opined about misconceptions and challenges around it here). In that first cycle we deferred approximately 6,500 applicants into our regular decision group. As a result, we received thousands of calls and emails with questions (even though we clearly explained everything in the decision letter and on our website).
This year, in an effort to minimize the number of students that were deferred, we made some changes to how we evaluate applications. In particular we tweaked the timeline in which we evaluate applications.
As a result of the changes to that timeline, we were able to evaluate applications and release decisions earlier. In the first three weeks of December, our team released a TON of decisions:
December 2-6: 6,805
December 9-13: 5,823
December 16-20: 10,338
Quick math: that is a total of 22,966 admission decisions in the first three weeks of December! I told you before that I work with the best team - I wasn't kidding!
After December 20th, the University closed for the winter break and - given the numbers I just presented - I think that our team absolutely deserved some rest! Especially after the ugly sweater contest:
After all, it is the most wonderful time of the year!
So, all of this to say that December shaped up to be very busy. But in a good way! O
Now it's onward into 2020! Today is my first day back in the office (and I'm not going to lie - it's a little weird). After sifting through the piles of emails from students, parents, and school counselors, I'll be able to once again hit the ground and get some decisions made!
My brother lives in east Texas with his wife and two young boys. On December 23rd, they drove (yikes) the 22 hour trip to come and see us in central Pennsylvania. The four of them and my mother moved into my house for a week-long family vacation. I joked that they were staying at an Air BnB(ert).
Some highlights:
Christmas Eve service at my mother's church (where she is the organist and choir director):
A family walk (to Sheetz for free coffee!) on Christmas day:
Playtime with the cousins:
Lots of time spent at my new bar (more to come on that later):
One afternoon it was in the 50s outside so we went to a park:
Brotherly love:
Some cute BB-8 twinning:
My brother and his family at the Nittany Lion Shrine:
And the whole McBrayer clan at the Nittany Lion Shrine!
I had originally intended on going back to work yesterday (Thursday, January 2nd). However, after eight days of having two young boys running around (not to mention my doggo), I decided to extend my break until next Monday. It certainly is nice to have a quiet house again, and I wanted to take advantage of a couple of quiet days prior to my return to the office.
Oh, don't misunderstand; I love having family around to celebrate the holidays. But, I have to hand it to my brother and sister-in-law. I am not cut out for running around with toddlers! I need a vacation from my vacation!
From my family to yours, I hope you had a fantastic holiday season!
What the 
Just before the winter break, Lehigh University 
This is not a test. This is a re-boot.
