<ey Gais ’19 visited campus last spring as a part of Accepted Student Days (ASD), he attended a cookout at CANOE house and chatted with a stranger about Nordic skiing and Norweigian food for two hours.
“This was sort of the moment when I realized that I really wanted to go to Carleton,” he said.
ASD, however, which is this week and next week, will include only a Thursday night stay rather than a Thursday and Friday night stay as in previous years. This change is a result of the annual review Admissions makes of ASD, according to admissions counselor Holly Buttrey ’14. Last year, the only scheduled programming on Saturday was shuttle buses from Admissions to the airport. Because of the limited Saturday events, Admissions explored adding more programming on Saturday or holding a single overnight. Admissions decided to limit Accepted Student Days to one overnight “given how quiet campus is on Saturday mornings,” Buttrey said. However, Gais emphasized that the Friday overnight is an important aspect of Accepted Student Days that should not be changed.
“Obviously, prospies roaming free to drink is not necessarily a great idea, but I feel that sacrificing the Friday night really loses a lot of the appeal of the trip since student life is more than just Thursday night all-nighters,” Gais said. Furthermore, Gais pointed out that shortening Accepted Student Days might deter students who live far from campus from visiting.
“As someone who lives 1,500 miles away from campus, putting the time and energy into making the trek for a one-night stay makes me feel like I would not have done that were that to be the design of Accepted Student Days,” he said.
Similarly, Sam Reategui ’19 said having two nights on campus helped him get a sense of campus that would not have been possible with a single-night stay. Although Reategui applied early decision, “being able to spend two nights with the golf team really made me feel like I was part of the team. Before that weekend I had met with a few of them for a few hours, but being able to spend two nights with them hanging out as a team made me extremely happy that this was the school I was going to attend.”
Based on his experience during ASD, Reategui said, “I think had Accepted Students Days only been Thursday, instead of Thursday and Friday, I would have lost a sense of how people at Carleton unwind after the stress of the week and what the social scene on campus was like.” Despite the revisions to ASD, Buttrey projects that attendance will be similar to last year with approximately 140 prospective students on campus this week and 160 on campus next week. Although the official ASD no longer includes a Friday overnight, Buttrey emphasized that prospective students can visit Carleton and spend time with a student host at any time during the academic term.
In the end, Buttrey said the changes will likely have little effect on prospective students because “these accepted students don’t know to compare their experience to anything previous.”
