Starting to Make Your Decision!

Ah, April…decision-making time is upon us!  It’s a stressful time–weighing pros and cons, visiting campuses, talking to admissions people and students–but it’s also an exciting time.  We are thrilled that this is a place where you might spend the next four years, and we want to make ourselves as available as possible over the next month to help you find the place that is right for you academically and personally.  We are so excited about the prospect of having you on campus this fall and realize this a process that necessitates the weighing of many factors, including where you feel is the best fit for you.  So get all the facts!  Here are some things you can do to help you get to know St. Olaf better and assess whether or not you could see yourself here:

• Attend an Admitted Student Day!  Register through the Admitted Student Portal for one of our Saturday Admitted Student Days, either April 9th or 16th.  Attending one is a great opportunity to get to know this place better, and to meet some of your potential future classmates!  Some other great reasons to attend (other than the prospect of getting some St. Olaf swag by winning the Admitted Student Day facebook photo contest):

Admitted Students Day

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• Schedule a campus visit.  If you’re unable to come to one of the Admitted Student Days, we’d still love to have you on campus this spring!  Go to the campus visit page on our website to explore your options, which can include class visits, an overnight in a residence hall with a current student, a tour, a visit with your admissions officer, and lunch on campus.

Students and their parents dine in Stav Hall on their visit to campus...and discover why St. Olaf's food is rated 6th in the nation by Princeton Review!

• Connect with your future classmates on the Class of 2015 facebook page.  Whether you make it to campus this spring or not, you can get a sense of the community-oriented nature of this place by talking to current students and prospective students alike.

• Talk to your admissions officer, financial aid staff, coaches, etc.–that’s what we’re here for!  You can find your assigned admissions officer here; feel free to contact us via phone or e-mail any time.

 

Assistant Director of Financial Aid Lynn Torgerson speaks with a family during an Admitted Student Day

• Talk to current students.  Coming to campus is the best way to do this, but we’re happy to put you in touch with any of our students, and they’ll be giving you a call this spring as well to check in.  Some of our students are on the facebook page too, so you can ask them questions there as well.

Our awesome students who make this place what it is...this could be you!

• Explore our website!  You can look at our individual academic departments to explore majors, faculty, and course descriptions or look at some of our faculty brochures to hear narratives about each department; you can learn more about student organizations by visiting Oleville.com, our Student Government Association’s website; you can think about internships, careers, and other experiential opportunities through our Center for Experiential Learning; and do take some time to explore some of our rankings and recognitions that matter–those that are related to the student experience and what our graduates do.  If you are an international student, check out our international student advising page; for anyone who wants to see more of campus life, you can watch concerts, speakers, etc. on our multimedia streaming site. We encourage you to learn more about our highly ranked study-abroad program, the athletics at St. Olaf, some of the many research opportunities that our students take advantage of, residence life on a campus where 96% of students live on campus all four years, the town of Northfield, and, of course, the food!

Best of luck as you make your decision–and do keep us posted throughout your decision-making process!  We’d love to have you on campus this fall.  Um Yah Yah!

-Miriam