Coadvisor apps increase to more than 400, acceptance rate at 25 percent

By Jieya Wen     3/25/15 4:49pm

 

Orientation Week 2015 received more than 400 co-advisor applications campus-wide, an increase from 375 in 2014. Colleges received 90 to 140 applicants each, according to Chris Landry, assistant director of First Year Programs. 

Landry said each college has 10 to 13 spots, so about a quarter of the applicants are offered a position.

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Mohammad Kassim, a Martel College O-Week coordinator, said his college received approximately 95 co-advisor applications. Around 60 students applied to co-advise at Martel in 2014, according to Thomas Plackemeier, a junior and former Martel O-Week coordinator.

“We initially did some paper cuts, and then we offered around 60 first-round interviews,” Kassim, a Martel College junior, said. “You have a bigger pool now, so it’s hard to cut people. Especially when you have only 12 [available positions], you want to get the best of the best.”

Bridget Schilling, a Lovett College O-Week coordinator, said Lovett received more applications than last year too but declined to reveal the number of applications. 

“There was a lot of crossover this year,” Schilling, a Lovett junior, said. “A lot of people applied to multiple colleges. [Many] got up to second round for multiple colleges too.”

Schilling said she thinks the online common application for co-advising contributed to the increase. 

“[The common application] makes it easier for people to apply,” Schilling said. “The paper application was a little bit harder. [It] took more effort to fill out. It did make it easier for people who are abroad to access all the applications.”

The online application additionally provided every college’s mission statement for O-Week, a factor that may have made students consider more options when applying to co-advise, Schilling said. 

“Being able to have listed our mission statement, versus having to pick up the application, [gave] people who would otherwise not consider Lovett a platform to look at our mission statement and think, ‘I can relate to that and I might want to be a part of this O-Week,’” Schilling said. 

Both Schilling and Kassim said the pool of applicants was more diverse this year. 

“I thought we got a good number of international students, a number of typically less-represented Rice population applying,” Schilling said. “That could be through a combination of outreach and accessibility.”

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