NACAC 2019 - Louisville

I've officially entered the double digit category, with this being my tenth NACAC conference. Each year has brought new experiences and this one is sure to be one of the most memorable yet.

As you may already be aware, NACAC is currently going through a very serious and intense DOJ investigation. The future of our organization and the landscape of college admissions is very much on the brink of some potentially major changes. I've gone through my own thoughts and feelings as I process this conflict between ethics and law and if I'm being honest I'm still grappling with how I feel. With my role as a delegate representing NY State (and my lack of personal legal representation) I'm not looking to turn this post into a rambling laundry list of what those feelings are. What I will share is this link to Jon Boeckenstadt's blog where he has shared some of his own predictions for the future of NACAC without a mandatory code of ethics. Saturday will be an eventful day, to say the least.

Today was already eventful though in its own right. I spent the morning visiting University of Louisville, a public urban school with about 12,000 undergraduate students. This compact campus doesn't feel overwhelming, despite the enrollment size. University of Louisville is an example of a school that I'm talking about when I say that students can attend schools outside of New York for the price of a SUNY. With a total cost of attendance around $37,000, over half of Eleanor Roosevelt's senior class would qualify for merit based scholarships. A 30 ACT/1360 SAT and a 90 GPA yields an automatic minimum of $12,000 in merit aid per year. Guess what school is now $25,000? And there are additional scholarships available, including application based avenues that go up to full tuition. Students in a similar academic range are also eligible to apply to the honors program, a great way to make a larger school more personal and rigorous. I also saw a meaningfully diverse campus-- with notable inclusion efforts for both students of color and LGBTQ+ students.

Next, I attended the NACAC opening keynote by Randi Zuckerberg. Again, in the spirit of not turning this into a rambling laundry list of my thoughts and feelings I'll just summarize by saying that the general consensus on her remarks were that they largely missed the mark. This keynote was a missed opportunity to present the membership with what could have been some really interesting and relevant topics (perhaps, I don't know, something about antitrust law?). I'm hopeful that this will be motivation to do better in the future.

For the first educational session, I attended a presentation called "Profiles, Grade Distributions, and Recommendations -- oh my!" -- a look into what high schools and colleges have found to be most important to communicate in applications. This is the time of year that I'm always revising our class profile and this session helped to remind me of a few tweaks to consider making.

Tomorrow is another long day - excited to keep great conversations going!

NYSACAC 2019 + Syracuse University Visit

 

The annual NYSACAC Conference is going on right now at Le Moyne College, a small Jesuit college in Syracuse, New York. Founded in 1946, Le Moyne was the first Jesuit school to be founded as a co-ed school and unsurprisingly they are also the first to appoint a female lay-person as President (she spoke to us today and she her energy is certainly contagious). I'm here at the conference this year in a few different capacities, including both High School Delegate on the Executive Board and session presenter. My session earlier today focused on the Financial Aid Quadrant Approach that I shared with families and students in the Fall. The goal is helping young people minimize their out of pocket cost by identifying schools with the highest chance of having the lowest price.

This morning, I had the opportunity to tour Syracuse University. With 14,000 students, Syracuse is a medium sized Research I school comprised of nine different undergraduate colleges. Students must indicate the college where they are applying on the Common App, but can keep the specific major undecided if they are not sure about their exact pathway. Syracuse values interdisciplinary study and many students take courses or add minors in other divisions besides the one through which they were admitted. Over 70% of students live on campus all four years (and all students are required to live on campus for the first two years) so there is very much a cohesive campus community surrounded by the urban backdrop of the city of Syracuse. New campus initiatives include: a first year reading assignment for all freshman students to read a book centered on the theme of diversity and a renovated wellness center that combines mental, physical, and emotional health into one building. One of the nicest features about Syracuse is the fact that they both meet 100% of demonstrated financial need of admitted students AND have merit aid to offer the top 25% or so of the admitted class so it can also be a good fit in terms of affordability. Thank you to the Syracuse team for welcoming us today!

I'll be at the conference one more day before returning back to school on Friday. As always, it is a pleasure and a privilege to serve the organization and connect with colleagues, new and old.

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NYSACAC Legislative Advocacy Day

Earlier this week, I traveled to Albany for a NYSACAC Executive Board Meeting and for Legislative Advocacy Day. In my first year of serving as a High School Delegate, I am aiming to participate in as many aspects of our organization as I possibly can. Aside from NYSACAC though, this was also my first time inside the New York State Capitol and my first time doing any sort of political advocacy.

Our four topics of discussion with legislators and their staff were:

• Highlighting the issue of food insecurity for college students
• Only 3% of college students receipt SNAP benefits, even though 18% qualify
• Students can't count class toward work hours, if they could, we could reach more students who have low food security by providing them SNAP benefits

• Expressing concern over the dismantling of federal consumer protections in regards to for-profit colleges and the allocation of funds to schools that aren't serving their students.
• For-profit students make up only 4% of students in NY State, but they represent 41% of defaulted student debt
• In 2015, 37 million dollars in TAP grants were awarded to for-profit colleges with programs that failed or nearly failed federal standards

• Restoration and expansion of TAP and HEOP/EOP funding
• Opportunity programs expand access to higher education and improve graduation rates for New York's neediest students
• We would love to see the TAP application process simplified and interpretation of regulations by colleges streamlined

• Next steps for Dreamers as they pursue higher education
• Undocumented students currently cannot get a driver's license. It would be a major step forward if they could legally drive. 
• While we are excited for the Governor to sign the recently passed Dream Act, we encourage the state to be transparent about implementation

Overall, it was a busy day full of many observations about our political process. The building definitely was buzzing with energy and it was interesting to see so many advocates (representing many different causes) in the building. It was also fascinating to hear, through conversation, about how lobbyists for 'the other side' make their case to representatives. For example, in one discussion we were told that for-profit colleges need a break because they are already subject to so many regulations. (My reaction to that: for something so burdened with regulation, they sure produce a pretty awful product with low return on investment and sky high debt).