If you're applying to college, read this

adapted from collegewise.com

All the admissions officers we've met are good people who would much rather admit than deny kids. But during the pressures of admissions season, some applicants' actions can drive the admissions folks crazy. Here are five tips to make sure you don't inadvertently hurt your case.

1. Follow directions.

You can avoid most common mistakes in college applications by reading and following the directions. For example, if a college asks you to list your activities in the space provided, and you send them a resume instead, you just showed them that you couldn’t follow a pretty simple direction. So read the directions and do exactly as they instruct you to do. No matter how much you think you might be helping your case by doing things your own way, you’re always better served following directions.

2. Make sure you read the admissions websites carefully.
When is the application deadline? How many letters of recommendation are required? When is the last date you can take the SAT? You can find answers to these and many other common questions from applicants on the admissions websites. Before you pick up the phone or email an admissions officer, make sure you’ve carefully read all of the information they provide for you. Failure to do so makes it look like you haven’t spent much time researching the school.

3. If you do have a question, don’t let your parents call for you.
Admissions officers expect that you’ll have questions. But asking your parents to call the admissions office for you doesn’t send a very good message to the college about your maturity and preparedness for college life. You’re going to college—your parents aren’t. So if you have a question, call the admissions office yourself. Colleges like students who show initiative and who aren’t afraid to ask for help when they need it.

4. Don’t send additional material the colleges don’t request.
A lot of students send the admissions office tapes, drawings, videos, CDs, fresh-baked cookies, rare farm animals—OK, we made that last one up. Admissions offices receive an overwhelming amount of information during admissions season. Don’t assume that extra materials will be appreciated. If they don’t ask you for it, they probably don’t want it. (this is different if you're applying to architecture at IIT, we do request a portfolio!)

5. Go easy on them.
Admissions officers have a hard job. There’s a tremendous amount of work to do and the pressure is on during admissions season. Follow these previous four tips. It’s always OK to ask questions, but don’t inundate them with emails and phone calls. And when you do have contact with them, always thank them for their time. A little sincere appreciation goes a long way in life—and in the admissions office

6. CHECK YOUR EMAIL! (suggestion by sarah waha)

And read it carefully! Most colleges, especially IIT, like to update you via email regarding your application status and new information regarding scholarships, etc. Nowadays, it's so hard to reach people via phones, but that doesn't stop the admission counselors here. We love calling and congratulating accepted students. But just in case you're at school all day and have tons of extracurricular, we'll send you an email as well. In addition, try to have a semi-professional email address. Not that it matters that much here at IIT, but just for future reference, some employers might frown upon omgImsoemoIhateeverything@hotmail.com or I_like_eating_squirrels@yahoo.com. Just make something like firstname.lastname@whatever.com :)

FACEBOOK!

I wanted to title this blog post something like "FFFFAAACCCEEBBBOOOOKKK!", but I wanted people to be able to search for this post on google just in case someone looking to iit typed in "iit+student+life+facebook" now that i think of it, i might just have to change the title of the blog itself so that it becomes easier to find via a search site. ( FFFFAAACCCEEBBBOOOOKKK doesn't really make any sense, really.)

so we're actually live on facebook. I'll be honest, the admissions counselors are a bit out of the loop on facebook, heck, i'm a bit out of the loop on facebook, but we're trying our best to connect prospective students to information about iit in any way possible.

we first made a facebook page. i hadn't heard much about facebook pages, but apparently it's much different from a facebook group. instead of becoming members of the group, you become fans of the page. my beef with a page is that there is little interaction with it. so instead, i created a facebook group that's open to anyone. its called

Illinois Institute of Technology - 2009 Admits!

Like I mentioned earlier, it's an open group, so even if you haven't been admitted or haven't even applied, you can still join. Everyone is welcome, and it will soon have a lot of information about everything on how to get the ball rolling at iit.

this facebook group is entirely student run so anything goes. I am one of the admins so try not to get R rated. I'm all for freedom and speech and anything, but we just want to focus on making the facebook group a great resource for freshman and transfer students who plan on coming to iit or might need that little extra convincing. some of the students running the group a other student ambassadors, some RAs and even RHA people (see previous posts). I'll try to get a bunch of different people involved with the group so that whatever question you have, we'll be able to answer it.

you can use the page to ask questions about housing policies, academics, student life, whatever you want, just as long as it's somewhat related to iit. haha.

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/group.php?gid=52904478720&ref=mf

that's the link. we currently have 25 members ( a bit small yes, but it's still early in application season) so get your apps in!

oh hey i forgot

I have been getting a couple of emails regarding what ipros are. I usually have a canned answer for the "what's an ipro?" question, but i'd like to talk about something a little different. Interprofessional projects ("IPROs" for short) are classes that you take which put you in a team of students with a professor (and sometimes other staff/faculty advisors) in which you work together to do something real. this is really a great program because not only do you get to use the skills you learn in the classroom, but you also get to show off your skills in other areas. I would have to say that in order to be successful an ipro, you have to use a lot of your non-academic skills. I remember I showed you some drawings of a storyboard for my ipro last semester. but what i didn't show you was the website i created to host some of my work.

I have never made a real website before, but the ipro really movitated me to look other than biochemisty. so not only did i make a website (it wasn't the website for the ipro, just kinda like my own personal one to host some work). It also inspired me to make some music for the video game that we created. it was pretty easy to make the website since i was using googlepage creator. the software is amazing and pretty easy to use for a newbie such as myself. there is also some sample music that i made using garage band. http://fatboyslim135.googlepages.com/


And I also just made the actual ipro website for the ipro i was in just this fall semester. its got a video, some (out of date) headlines about global warming, and a bunch of pages about the ipro and who the team members and advising staff/faculty were. http://www.iit.edu/~iitgreen/index.htm it took me a great deal of time to make with all the content, photos, and just stuff that needed to be done to polish the website.

lets catch up

hey everyone,

i've been on vacation, well technically, I still am on vacation. but I got back early for RA training and I finally got some hardware to transfer digital photos onto my computer. so first things first.

Here are some pictures from the RHA boat cruise. I think I may have mentioned this earlier, but RHA stands for "residence hall association". it is a group sponsored by the office of residence life to improve and maintain the quality of life of the students who live in the residence halls. there's an exec board that is voted in by residents and they have meetings every other monday to discuss things such as problems in the res halls, activites, the cafeteria food and much much more. each floor has a floor rep that tries to attend as many meetings as he or she can and basically be the obama for each floor. hahaAdd Image
well the rha is also supported by IIT itself via the student activities fund. this year they got around 20k to sponsor a boat cruise, which was pretty bad ass. they rented a boat for the entire night (i think around until 3 am) and there was gambling for chips (no money of course) and then there was an auction for prizes (with the chips) there was also appetizers, free sodas, and a cash bar. It was jam packed with people and fun. so without further ado, here are some pics.

blurry pic of navy pier

home!

this was our boat. so badass they needed a second one

gettin jiggy with it (do people say that anymore)

my good friend shezami

this guy went all in, then lost

realistic stuff!

he wanted me bad

the dealer is luis, from spain!

the dealer pancho! also from spain, also on my floor! i do an awesome job of getting residents involved haha

blackjack was popular

pretty nice interior

big money

craps

blurry pic of the chicago skyline

my camera doesn't take night shots very well

cart that sold nuts @ navy pier

so I have been lounging around on vacation the past couple of days. I am just really glad and relieved that finals are over. I had four finals and they all were pretty much incredibly difficult. that's why it pays off to do well in your classes so that if you bomb the final, then it won't be so bad. haha.

my only beef with finals week is that it's only a week long, and the scheduling is so random that you can even have 3 finals scheduled for the same day, like i did. But the professors are pretty understanding and I was able to get 2 exams moved so that they weren't on the same day. but in all honesty, it's just as bad because you cant just study for one, take the exam, then move on to the material of the next. I just don't like finals in general. it would be awesome to have 2 weeks to take finals. I know some schools do that and the students there love it. but some hate the fact that it's two weeks because sometimes you just want to get them over with. I'm pretty sure that most schools have 1 week for finals. but you should double check.

I know i mentioned what college finals are like, so i wont get into that touchy subject.

I do however, want to mention stuff about picking classes. When I was trying to pick classes the summer before my freshman year, I wanted to find professors that were easy who taught classes that didn't require much work. so i went to ratemyprofessor. have you guys ever heard of that. well it's a website where users (most likely students. duh!) give their professors ratings on easiness, clarity, helpfulness, etc. and they are also give comments. so definitely give that a lookover before you actually start picking classes for next year (or maybe the spring semester? btw congrats to the accepted spring students!).

but BEWARE! i would have to say that most professors that i have taken are much much different than what the reviews on ratemyprofessor say. All in all, i'd say you're best to just look at it for some helpful suggestions. just be cautious, the students who put up bad reviews of professors were probably just horrible students. :)