College PREP
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The Rapidly Changing World of College Admissions
The experienced team of College Office advisors includes Jami Silver, Amy Thompson, director Webster Trenchard, Alison Burr, and Andrea Rooks. For more information on the College Office staff and their backgrounds and experience, go to loomischaffee.org/ magazine.
Beginning in the junior year, the College Office works with students as they look ahead to higher education. Director of College Guidance Webster Trenchard answers questions about the college process at Loomis Chaffee.
How is college admissions different than it was 20 years ago? 10 years ago? 5 years ago?
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There is a lot that has changed over these increments of time. Five years ago predates the economic downturn of 2008, and that was a watershed event. Ten years ago, colleges were still just discovering the power of the Internet to reach prospective students, both here in the United States and abroad. Twenty years ago, more or less when I first started working in this field, so much was different. Colleges were not nearly as sophisticated in marketing themselves, there was no Internet, the Common Application had roughly one quarter the number of colleges participating as it does now, there were simply far fewer 18-year-olds in the United States, and the frenzy that is associated with the college admissions process was much tamer. For instance, rankings (such as U.S. News & World Report) had much less of a hold on the national conscience than that which it quickly acquired in subsequent years.