SCHEDULED COLLEGE MEETING Ethan Hess ‘26 meets with Yaneli Ruiz-Buss, co-director of college counseling, regarding his application and the format for the last parts of drafting it. “Application deadlines are approaching. What are the final steps I should take to polish them before finally sending them out?” asked Hess.

The college counseling department said they are focused on helping its students benefit from college visits. The rates of college attendance have been slowly dropping, and the in-person visit experience is becoming rarer.

“After COVID, a lot of colleges switched to Zoom meetings, and it saved the offices a lot of money,” said Jenny Larson, associate director of college counseling. “That is one reason why the switch to in-person meetings has been occurring.”

Recently, colleges have been having trouble with acquiring the funding to send colleges to high schools around the country, said Larson. She said that there have been numerous budget cuts that are limiting the number of visitations colleges can have. Due to the budget cuts in colleges, Larson said that some colleges have decided to group up and travel together across the country to visit different areas. She said that they, as a group, instead of separately spending money to visit schools, all go to a hotel or public area to host a group college visitation meeting where a wide variety of people may come. She said that these meetings can look a little something like meetings at hotels, libraries, and other community areas that bring people together and force students to come meet with their colleagues together. She says that she thinks this is actually quite a terrific idea because it also allows students the ability to see many other colleges at the same time. 

Larson said that since these budget cuts are making it harder for schools like Greenhills to get the representatives to come to school in person, the school is having to go the extra mile to acquire the colleges. She said that they have been exploring many ideas to bring in representatives. Larson said the department has been taking representatives out to lunch, introducing them to other staff members, giving them tours of the campus, and treating them to other experiences, all in an effort to make their now more difficult journey more worthwhile. She also stated that the department has been very “proactive” in their efforts in recent years following COVID and the struggles it has created. 

“Being proactive and showcasing kind gestures have been really helpful in getting more colleges to come in and visit,” said Larson. “Showing how much we care about getting representatives at this school is truly going a long way,” said Larson. 

Larson said herself that she is noticing all the hardwork her colleagues are putting into this difficult comeback for college representation. She said that although around the country colleges are reverting more and more to online visits, through the school’s heavy efforts, they are staying consistent in visiting this school. 

Susan Beamish, the dean of academics, said that she gets the privilege of sitting closely but yet outside of the college visitation world. She said she gets to look in on the process and see all the hard work that the department is doing for the students. 

“I notice a lot of the work that the department does with reaching out to colleges to bring them to Greenhills,” said Beamish. 

Beamish said that Greenhills has done a great job bringing schools in and talking to their students. She says that she still notices a wide range of school types. Beamish stated that she has seen Ivy League schools, public schools, rural area schools, religious-focused schools, law and nursing schools, and so many more being represented. She has said that the diverse representation is sensational, especially seeing as though just getting colleges to come and travel so far is so difficult on its own.

Seniors are in the midst of applying for colleges, and many students, such as Ethan Hess ’26, has said that the in-person visits are much superior to virtual ones. He said that the in-person meetings allow for a more intimate discussion, and the face-to-face relationship builds a deeper understanding of the school and what it might stand for. 

“To see that colleges are more hesitant to come in-person to schools is difficult for me and people who are in their senior years,” said Hess. “This is because meeting with reps not online just creates a better relationship with the school itself and makes me and other people I have talked to feel more connected to that place,” said Hess.

Hess said that conversing with a representative allows him and his peers to feel the energy that person has and relate more to the emotions that person is releasing. He said that when he sits next to the representatives, he can tell how excited they are about the meeting, and over a screen, it is more difficult to tell that.

Hess said as well that the online versions of meetings and showcases seem to push to feeling of “formality” onto you more than interest relationships and making connections. He said it feels very business-only based and not based on the students and what is in their needs in their future applications.