This summer, Cuca Acosta, who leads admissions at the University of California, Santa Barbara, wanted to dispel rumors and misconceptions about the admissions process directly to students. Though she’s held other question-and-answer events over Zoom for college counselors and consultants, this was the first time she would target students themselves. Before the event, she saw other admissions professionals sharing the post online and encouraging students to take advantage of the opportunity to talk directly with an admissions director.
In the end, just one student showed up.
Maybe it was just too early in the admissions process for most rising seniors to be interested, Acosta said. But the low turnout points to one of the challenges of dispelling misconceptions about the college admissions process, she said: Students are often too embarrassed or intimidated to ask questions about the admissions process. Sometimes that’s because they’re afraid to look stupid or ask questions they think should be obvious; other times, it might be because they’re worried they might find out something they thought was true isn’t, such as that a particular course or extracurricular will give them a leg up.
