I didn’t even want to visit.
It was one part laziness, one part being too scared, and another part just hoping for the best. But as the deadline for my early decision application to CC loomed just a few weeks away, my dad was the one who finally decided that I should give the school a quick look-see before I signed away my next four years.
I expected a cow town with aspen trees, mountains, and a huge military presence.
On the drive from DIA to the Springs, I started to get nervous about where I was headed as we passed by rural Larkspur and Greenland. I had read Fast Food Nation and I was expecting something less-than-spectacular here , but something about the kids wearing Birkenstocks with socks, the Nalgenes, and the dreadlocks made me want to be a CC student more than anything in the world.
This week, The Catalyst explored the complexities of the admissions process and what it takes to become a student at this school through a story on the basics of being granted or denied admission into the college.
After all, it’s the admissions office that more or less dictates the personality of an incoming class, how CC will be recognized throughout the country and what the future of the college will be.
All said, it’s pretty damn important.
But how do the admissions officers decide? How difficult is it to say no and crush someone’s dreams, or to say yes and change someone’s life forever?
This semester, The Catalyst will continue to explore admissions trends at CC and how they have changed over the years to reflect the student body who we now live amongst.
What we know for sure is that CC has now become more diverse, has less Coloradan students and has become evermore selective.
So what does the future hold?
For some unattainable reason, CC dropped roughly 30 spots in the Forbes “America’s Top Colleges” list between the 2012-2013 and 2013-2014 academic years.
While it is widely appreciated that college rankings mean, ahem, absolutely nothing — or at least in my eyes — it’s cause for some alarm when any school (especially your school) takes such a drastic nose-dive.
We also ask:, how do we value ourselves as an institution? Is it by the unquantifiable quality of the education? Is by the number of students accepted to graduate programs? Is it about the mean income of alumnI?
We intend to explore these ideas in the coming weeks, and we would like your help.
Tell us how you value your education at Colorado College and send your admission stories to catalyst@coloradocollege.edu.
We hope to compile a number of perspectives that can help future CC students in their journey to campus, and give all of us a little bit of understanding about why and how we got here.
Jesse Paul, Editor-in-Chief