Learning Curve
Admissions is a fast paced business and yesterday’s start to committee presented an enormous learning curve. Senior counselors did their best to read slowly at first while simultaneously explaining new terminology and acronyms. However, today’s committee began with no time to waste. Each officer read out their analysis of their territory’s applicants but spoke their acronyms aloud. You see, applicants have a word count on their essays but we have a character limit on our write-ups too!
Here are some common acronyms used in “admissions land:”
TU – Tufts University
SOE – School of Engineering
GC – Guidance Counselor
TE – Teacher Evaluation
CAE – Common Application Essay
SE 1 – Supplemental Essay 1
TAAP – Tufts Alumni Admissions Program
For lunch, I enjoyed homemade soup and sampled the tasty assortment of winter treats baked by my colleagues. Honestly, how could anyone resist a fudge brownie in the shape of a Christmas tree with a candy cane trunk? Serious feasting was done. After lunch, it was back to business and it should be noted that at 3:02pm I read my last early decision applicant!
As the afternoon wrapped up, I couldn’t help but picture our day’s journey through the U.S. as an epic road trip. I’m a huge fan of driving and with the help of everyone’s friends at Google I learned that we would have covered 3,812 miles and been driving for 2 days and 20 hours...straight. Here is a map for the visually inclined:
