Episode Notes | Episode Transcript | AskTheGuest
Episode Notes
Episode Title: UC Santa Barbara: Lisa Przekop, Admissions Director on Reading 110K Applications, “Happy” Students and UG Focus.
Since becoming part of the University of California system, University of California Santa Barbara has become one of the premier Public Universities in the world. 110K Students from all over the world applied to study at UC Santa Barbara this year.
Lisa Przekop, Director of Admissions at UC Santa Barbara shares an insider’s view on the school, students and applications. Join the UC Santa Barbara Mailing List for updates.
In particular, we discuss the following with Lisa:
- The University of California Santa Barbara
- What is UC Santa Barbara looking for their Students?
- COVID-19 Impact on UC Santa Barbara & Admissions
Topics discussed in this episode:
- UC Santa Barbara - Amazing Location [2:17]
- “What are you looking for in Students?” [6:10]
- How did Lisa Przekop get into College Admissions? [10:17]
- Students Then and Now [14:19]
- Impact of COVID-19 [17:11]
- Fall 2020 and COVID-19 [20:00]
- Making Care Common Project [25:18]
- Is the Nature of College Applications Changing? [29:43]
- A Plea to Students [38:09]
Our Guest: Lisa Przekop is the Director, Office of Admissions at University of California Santa Barbara. Lisa is a UCSB alumna with bachelor’s degree in Development and Experiment Psychology and Master’s in Education.
Memorable Quote: “I stepped on campus and decided I was never going to leave”, Lisa Przekop said of UC Santa Barbara.
Episode Transcript: Please visit this episode’s transcript.
Similar Episodes: Admissions Talk
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- Email your comments or questions on this episode to podcast@almamatters.io.
Episode Transcript
Transcript of the episode’s audio.
Venkat 0:10
It started in 1891 as an independent teachers’ college. In 1944 University of California Santa Barbara became the 3rd campus to join the University of California system.
This year, 110,000 students applied for a chance to join their undergraduate program.
Hello & Welcome to this episode of College Matters. Alma Matters.
For today’s episode, we are excited to have Lisa Przekop, Director of Admissions at the University of California Santa Barbara, as our guest.
Lisa is, by her own admission, “tremendously biased” about UC Santa Barbara. She studied there, and then moved over to work in the Admissions Office, on graduating.
For over 3 decades, Lisa has been helping shape the classes at Santa Barbara.
Without any delay, over to Lisa!
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Venkat 1:14
Hello!
Lisa Przekop 1:15
Hi Venkat!
Venkat 1:16
Here, Lisa, Welcome to our podcast. College Matters. Alma Matters. Thanks for making the time.
Lisa 1:23
Thank you, good to be here.
Venkat 1:26
Yeah, I know you guys must be super busy, given all the stuff that's going on.
Really, really appreciate you making the time.
Lisa 1:34
It's definitely been a different year. That's for sure.
Venkat 1:39
That's for sure. Probably not seen one in 100 years!
Lisa 1:43
Definitely not.
Venkat 1:46
Um, so yeah, so I you know, I’m really looking forward to this conversation looking at hearing from you, lots of different points of view, but maybe I thought we could start off with, talking about UC Santa Barbara, the way you see it, way you want students to see it, and go from there.
Lisa 2:09
Okay, sounds great. Do you just want me to jump in and say its my favorite thing?
Venkat 2:13
Yeah, Yeah, of course. It's all yours.
Lisa 2:17 [UC Santa Barbara - Amazing Location]
Well, I will firstly admit that I have a tremendous bias in that I'm an alum from UC Santa Barbara. And it was one of those places where I just absolutely fell in love with it the second I stepped on campus, and decided I was never going to leave!
So what a lot of people don't realize about Santa Barbara, is that, you know, within the University of California campuses, there's nine, nine campuses, undergraduate, and Berkeley was the first campus developed and then came along to UCLA and Santa Barbara was the third.
So we have a rich tradition in California. We're 90 minutes north of Los Angeles, right on the central coast of California. I think probably one of the prettiest cities in the whole of California.
Rankings are there. You know, I, it's a love hate relationship with rankings, but I will say, you know, our rankings are very strong. We're, we're the number eight public university US News and World Report.
But I also love the fact that in many surveys about campus life, campus student experience, we also ranked the highest in terms of student happiness. You know, they're, they're happy here, they leave a balanced lifestyle and the climate is 70 degrees year round, on average. We're right on the beach. So they have a beautiful relaxed setting, but they have a campus that you know, is on the global map in terms of Nobel Prizes, in terms of the research and the Tier One research that our faculty are conducting.
And then I guess one thing that is you to Santa Barbara, besides our amazing location is that we're predominantly an undergraduate focus campus. So that means 23,000 of our 25,000 students are undergraduates. And that's relatively unique to have such a large ratio of undergraduates at top ranked University.
So I think it's pretty special. I think students get a unique experience here. You know, college is hard. There's a lot of pressure in college and I think, the kind of student who chooses Santa Barbara tends to be that kind of student who, who wants to be really challenged in the classroom, but they're looking for maybe a little bit more casual lifestyle outside campus. Sure, outside of the classroom.
Venkat 4:56
Absolutely, absolutely. So, so how so you know, obviously UC [University of California] the applications or the number of applications to the UCs in general have been going up. And I mean, this year being maybe a little aberration maybe, but roughly how many students apply every year, how competitive is it?
Lisa 5:16
Well, what I like to say about Santa Barbara is we're highly selective, but we're still accessible. So we had about 110,000 students apply last academic year, which sounds enormous, and it is enormous trust. My staff are very tired. It is an enormous number, but we admit approximately 30% of our applicant pool. So while it's competitive and those numbers sound rather large, we still are able to offer admissions to 30% of the applicants so it's not impossible, but we, we are looking for, you know, students who are very competitive in terms of strong academic profiles.
Venkat 6:05
Maybe that's a good lead in to, what are you looking for in students, broadly?
Lisa 6:10 [“What are you looking for in Students?”]
Yeah, that's always the, the mystery question, isn't it?
You know, I think what students need to understand about, especially public universities and the University of California, because it's a it's a tradition we're really committed to, and that is we're looking for a student, student body that reflects the State of California. Right? So we're, there's no one type of student we're looking for because California is such a diverse state, whether it be culturally ethnically, you know, interests. I mean, it's a very evolved state. And so we want our students to reflect that.
So even for a student who lives outside of California, you know, domestic student or an international student. It's very likely that their traditions and cultures and such are represented in the public within the State of California. So that's what we're looking for. Obviously, we want top academics in terms of we want good grades. That's, that's number one, we want to see students who have done well, in comparison to their peers. But we also want students to fill our over 80 different majors. And to, we need students to run, you know, we have 500 student organizations, that represents a lot of interests. And so we need students who can lead those types of organizations.
So, you know, I think the thing that I tell students is, what are your interests? And then what have you done to develop those interests? And how can you relay that to us in your application so that I can pick up on that passion in that interest.
So you know, I, I often tell students, I think there's two kinds of applicants to university, I kind of put them in the range of they're either a generalist, maybe that's your student, who, isn't 100% certain at this point in their life, what they want to do academically or as a career. And so maybe in high school, they've really tried to expose themselves to multiple kinds of experiences, clubs, sports, whatever it might be. And, and they're trying things out and we want them to not join 20 different clubs, we want them to join a handful and really delve into that. And so, that student might be competitive because they have very good grades and they really enrich their high school experience through that kind of exploration.
And then you have another student who I kind of refer to, as my specialist who they are very passionate about something. It might be an academic discipline, it might be a community charity of some type, it might be a sport or athletic endeavor. And they have put tremendous time and effort and depth into that activity!
The great thing about our selection process is there's room for both that generalist and that specialist, one student might be competitive because we're impressed at the depth of what they've specialized in. And another student might be competitive because we're impressed that they've gone on such an exploratory journey and have really learned a lot about themselves along the way.
So it's, it's hard to give students what are we looking for? Because what I'm looking for is well, what are you interested in? And what have you done to get there?
Venkat 9:56
You know, as you were talking, I was just thinking that you as Head of Admissions and as part of admissions, you have the, you know, unique power to shape a class. So, I was just curious why you got into Admissions?
Lisa 10:17 [How did Lisa Przekop get into College Admissions?]
You know, it's very funny. One of the things I tell high school students who are in a panic like, I don't know what I want to do with my life, I don't know what my career is gonna be. I can tell you at 17, I certainly did not wake up and say, You know what, I want a career in college admissions! Right? I did not even know such a thing existed.
So, it's okay if the student doesn't need to know I certainly didn't need to know. You know, my background is, I kind of it's ironic, really, because I wasn't really planning to go to college. It wasn't a tradition in my family. And I just assumed, you know, Maybe after high school, I'll get a job. You know. And we kind of had this sense in my family like, well, when you finish high school, you need to be doing something full time. So if you're not working full time, you know, think about community college. That was kind of the depth of it.
So I went to community college, again, almost accidental my senior year of high school. I was, did very well in school, but I just was one of those kids who didn't know that college was even an option for me. We are from a low income family. It just didn't seem like it was an option. My high school teacher, I'll never forget her name was Beverly Lane. She taught English at Grossmont High School in San Diego. And she pulled me aside and said, You know, you're, you're really smart, why aren't you thinking about college? And I said, Well, I don't have the money for college, and she just sort of launched me into thinking about college and I ended up at the community college.
And then I ultimately transferred to Santa Barbara. And again, I really didn't know much about Santa Barbara at the time. A friend of mine said, you should go to UCSB and I literally, I remember saying, where's that? I didn't even know. You know, growing up in San Diego to me, Santa Barbara was in Northern California.
And he said, No, no, no, it's you know, it's a really great school, you should explore it and I did, I applied and I, I came here.
And then got super, one of the great things about this campus is, really pushes students to get involved. Don't just get to be passive. So I, you know, got involved in some activities within the Psychology Department, and I became a Resident Assistant in the dormitories and I worked on the summer orientation staff.
And, you know, I was getting ready to graduate and the Dean of Students at the time pulled me aside and said, well, you're graduating, you know, what, what are you going to do next? And I am like, you know, I was thinking there are a lot of kids out there who are probably like me who didn't know about financial aid who didn't know about college, and I'm thinking of writing a proposal to the Alumni Association to see if they would consider hiring me to go talk to kids about the importance of going to college.
And she said, you know, there's a whole office that does that. Of course, I did not know that. But I said, Are you kidding? She said, Yes, that's what the admissions office does. They do tours, they do outreach. And, you know, I got very lucky, I was watching the job board and a position came open in the admissions office, and, you know, luckily, I applied, and I got the position. And, you know, 35 years later here, here I am, still here!
Venkat 13:56
Awesome! Awesome!
Venkat 14:01
So let me ask you this question, then. How do you think students have changed? I wouldn't say over the last 35 years, over the last 10 years, what do you see... You know, if there were one or two things that stand out, what are those?
Lisa 14:19 [Students Then and Now]
Wow, you know, I see some really positive things that have changed. I see, you know, I say youth now makes me feel so old, but I do see high school students being much more aware, aware of the world, maybe that's the internet and the media and such, but more engaged. And I'm so thankful for that, whether it be you know, politically or on social matters. I think they are much more involved than we were at that age. So definitely, I've seen that trend and that's very positive and I see a lot of leadership within that.
The downside that I've seen is that students are feeling tremendous pressure. You know, like I've never seen before when I, I used to go to college fairs, and they were very fun. And students were exploring different colleges, and they were excited to ask all of their questions. And now, I still see some of that, but I also sense this, it's almost a sense of panic and fear when they are asking their questions, feeling like I'm not going to get into a good school. And so I, I really hate to see the kind of pressure that the students put on themselves. Taking courses that well, I'm going to take it because it'll look good on my application, as opposed to I'm taking it because I have an interest in this area.
So I do wish students could calm down a little bit more and realized there are a lot of colleges out there. And again, I'm biased to Santa Barbara. And I want students to apply here because I had such a great experience myself. But I also know that there's no one size fits all college and students really need to take a deep breath and slow down a little bit.
Venkat 16:18
That's true. But you know, we weigh that against the number you threw out earlier, about 110,000 students applying. So competition is the order of the day. And it's so it is tough. It's, It's hard.
But it was great, actually yeah, great points on this, unfortunately, the world we live in.
Venkat 16:42
So I'm gonna segue to, today, and sort of, or the last few months, so you know, this whole COVID-19. How do you think, I want to ask a two part question here, one is, how do you think, obviously in the short term, I think we understand what's going on, but how do you think it has impacted Santa Barbara in the short term? And what do you see for the little medium term? I mean, how do you see all this coming shaping up?
Lisa 17:11 [Impact of COVID-19]
Well, it's, you know, it's it's hard because it changes every day. No, I know when we first basically sent students home and shifted to remote teaching, and even the staff, you know, our home for the most part. I really, at the time thought, well, we'll be back by June at the latest. And you know, here we are July, you're still wondering what September will look like.
So it's changed a lot in some ways. I feel so fortunate being in Santa Barbara, because thankfully, while COVID has impacted our community, it has not done so nearly at the levels of much of the rest of the country. You know, we are a small town. People in Santa Barbara are very, they're very community oriented and so students, families, even people, tourists coming to town, they are wearing masks and they're doing social distancing. And you know, they're being very proactive.
Campus is very quiet now. You know, if you were to visit the campus today, you wouldn't see many people walking around. But interestingly, we have the largest number of students we've ever had enrolled in summer school. So the students are still staying actively involved in their academics. But they're doing so remotely.
The administration is working around the clock literally to do whatever it will take to bring back as many students as we possibly can for the fall. And you know, behind the scenes in our research lab, because UC is a research institution, our our faculty In many disciplines are actively engaging in looking for solutions to COVID. So, again, that's one of the benefits of being at a research university is there's always something happening.
And then I was on a phone call yesterday that was really uplifting in that, in our Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs was talking about how some of our student leaders are making plans on what can they do to better educate the the student body is bar as you know, safety precautions when we return to campus and what they can do to do their share in making it safer campus so everybody's working really hard on it. Again, it might look quiet, if you look at the outside shell, but there's actually quite a lot going on behind the scenes.
Venkat 19:56
So what's the word on fall?
Lisa 20:00 [Fall 2020 and COVID-19]
Yeah, we still don't have all the answers. I wish we did.
We are looking at, you know, and it's gonna I should point out it's gonna vary from campus to campus because we all reside in different counties. And so we all have different county regulations that have to be followed.
So the campus right now is working with the county to determine how many students we would be allowed to have in the residence halls, whether it be single rooms or double rooms that still to be determined. We are setting up testing procedures so that when to come back to campus, we're in a situation where we can do COVID testing to keep students safe. Our goal is to bring back some students. At this point, we're just trying to figure out how many we're doing an analysis of all our classroom space and giving social distancing rules how many students could fit in a space?
What are some alternatives, you know, teaching. Maybe the the discussion section maybe is live, but the lecture might be remote. So we're working at that.
And I know your students have probably heard about, you know, the restrictions on for international students. I'm certain that's in their mind. And it's on our mind to the University of California, like many other top schools in the nation are looking at a potential lawsuit to try to get a temporary injunction against these policies. So we're very much fighting on behalf of our international student community to make sure we're able to meet their needs as well. [Note: This policy has since been reversed by the US Government] So it really is changing on it. But we do expect to have some students here on campus as of now.
Venkat 21:55
Yeah, I mean, I think it's very heartening to hear that universities such as yours are trying to, you know, fight in terms of the lawsuit, etc. For the international students. So I think that'll be very gratifying to hear.
Now, how much, how much has, how much has that affected at COVID, etc has impacted the enrollment over the freshman place internationally? I mean, do you have a feel for that?
Lisa 22:21
Yeah, and for that, we so far our enrollment numbers are right where we wanted them to be. We did go to our waiting list, more than we had anticipated, as some students have chosen not to delay enrollment and maybe not come this fall after all, so we did have some cancellations, but we had students on the waitlist to make up for those cancellations.
So as of now our enrollment is where we want it to be. I think what could change that is you know, once we do release information on how many students can actually be accommodated on campus This students may, you know, make decisions about whether they want remote instruction or not.
However, as I look across the landscape of the state of the country, I think pretty much every college is going to be in the same situation. So I do think the majority of students will be taking at least a proportion and maybe a larger proportion of their classes in a remote style of teaching. That being said, some courses will be offered in person that's just going to have to be the way it is until we have solutions to COVID.
Venkat 23:36
Yeah, it's sort of one of those. Wait and watch kind of things,
Lisa 23:40
Exactly. Exactly.
Venkat 23:43
Before we move off this topic, what's the UC stance or UC Santa Barbara stance on deferrals and gap years and all that, for freshmen?
Lisa 23:51
We, well, President Janet Napolitano, the president of the UC system, just for a short time, you probably heard there's a new announcement, a new UC president. But yes, one of the things Janet Napolitano did early in the outbreak is to make sure every UC understood that flexibility was going to be key.
So you know, all students who are currently planning to come to UC should know, we're all going to be quite flexible with students. So at my campus, you know, there are some students who have requested deferrals to start in January instead of September. Not a large number at this point, only about I'd say, about 50 to 100 at the most at this point, and we're accommodating that. So students should just contact their campus and let them know their circumstances. And I think they'll find that we're very open to working with them.
I will say I should point out though, that we're able to defer in our system for, in my campus for a quarter, maybe two, we can't do full year. So a student who wants to take a full gap here would have to reapply.
Venkat 25:18 [Making Care Common Project]
So the reason we actually I reached out to you, at least initially was, because I saw that you were part of the, this Making Care Common project and quite intrigued by it. So I just wanted to hear a little more about it. And what I know it's a consortium of sorts, a lot of schools, and what's the purpose and what are you guys trying to do?
Lisa 25:46
Well, the purpose goes back a little bit, what I was talking about earlier about students’ stress levels.
Yeah, we, you know, we want students to understand that we care about them, you know, I think it's easy to get caught up in the numbers, right? How many applied how many got in percentages, rankings, all those kinds of things. But at our core, every admission director got into this job because we care about students and we're about access. And we're seeing that stress level and students and we're trying to do whatever we can to reduce that stress level. And obviously, the COVID situation has added tremendous stress on top of what was already kind of a scary process.
And so the whole point is to get word out to students to say, you know, we understand, your high school career is not going right now, as you had originally planned it to go. You know, your grades may have been impacted because of the change in curriculum or style of teaching. You may not have a quiet place to study or to watch your school lectures. Some families have lost jobs. Some families, unfortunately, have experienced the illness themselves.
And we understand that this COVID situation is impacting every student and we just want students to know that that is absolutely something that's going to be taken into consideration.
It may be that an internship that they plan to do this summer obviously has fallen through.
We're not assuming that they're doing nothing. You know, we, we know that they're a victim of the circumstances. On the other hand, we've also, have seen a lot of students show great creativity and leadership, you know, whether it be helping to distribute food or coming up with creative ways to stay engaged academically during this time.
So I think the whole point of it is to just let students know our expectations of them are, are going to be different knowing that their world is different than last year. And that they shouldn't feel panicked that, Oh, I'm not going to be as competitive. didn't engage in as many clubs as I had originally planned. We understand. We understand!
That's the point.
Venkat 28:21
Yeah. So yeah, I mean, I didn't want to make the sound wrong, but I think you're basically adding a touch of humanity to it.
Lisa 28:27
Yeah, absolutely. I think we were. It's you made it...
Venkat 28:33
Yeah, exactly. That's what I said. I didn't want to make it sound bad.
Lisa 28:35
Yeah. But you know, we're all working professionals. A lot of us are trying to do work at home with you, Or we're feeling the pressure is well, so we just want to say we're in this together and we understand and we are going to treat you with fairness and understanding when you will apply.
Venkat 28:57
So there are some 200 colleges, I think part of this or something like that, some number like that, right, that part...
Lisa 29:02
I think it might even be up to like 350. I haven't kept count but...
Venkat 29:08
Okay. Okay. Yeah. Okay.
Lisa 29:11
And whether, you know, honestly, whether a school signed on officially to that document or not, I can assure you all colleges understand.
Venkat 29:23
Sure. But this is like a covenant. I mean, this sort of like an agreement, you know, a handshake across, you know, across the fraternity saying, you know, we want to do the right thing. Yeah. And I think that's what it feels like. So that's, that's awesome. That's, ya know, noble as well.
Venkat 29:43 [Is the Nature of College Applications Changing?]
How does this lead into how students applying for say, Fall 2021 2022? How should, How is all this going to change the nature of their applications? I mean, you've got everyone going test optional and UCs have decided to eliminate it. Eliminate the Standardized Testing? How does that change? You know, your equation or the weightage that you would give?
Lisa 30:08
Yeah, it's definitely boy, these, these students who are the rising seniors have probably had more change in their world than any other applicant before them.
So, in terms of the University of California application, to be honest, it's how the student treats it is really not going to be much different than has in the past. You know, we, I like to tell students think of that application as your formal interview and letters of recommendation all wrapped into one. Because University California doesn't accept letters of recommendation in general, and we don't do interviews. So what you put on that application is what you would want us to know, through all of those means that they were available to you.
So you know, we're getting a lot of students asked, for instance, should I write about COVID in my application? And I think my answer to you would be only if you feel it has significantly impacted you in some way. Because it could be something else that you've accomplished along the way or a challenge that you've overcome along the way feels more significant to you. And then that should be the thing that you talk about.
So we understand just like we just talked about with this, you know, this document that a lot of colleges signed on to, is that maybe it's been a hassle for you and it's definitely made your life unhappy in some ways, but maybe it's not significant enough that you need to write about it, versus some other college applications will ask you a very specific question about how has COVID impacted you, but the University of California is saying is you only really need to tell us about it. If you feel like it's been significant in some way, whether it be a challenge that you've had to face, or maybe like we talked earlier, maybe you've done something really significant to help out your family or community. And you would like us to know about that. So other than that, with regard to COVID, your application may not look that different.
We understand that some school districts change their grading policies to Pass No Pass for that last semester, and we're prepared for that. And we fully expect to see different grading variations. There is a box on the UC application in the academic section that says Is there anything about your academic history we should know? Even make notation if your school switched Pass No Pass or had a mixed offering of grades available. Give us a little of that background if it, if it needs clarification. But other than that, again, your application might not look very different with regard to COVID.
Now with regard to exams, yeah, that is another big change. So the University of California for Fall 21 applicants and Fall 22 applicants is now test optional. And I think we need to understand is, in many ways, the power is in their hands. If they take an exam and want to share those scores with us, because they feel like that score will add greater context to their application, then great, go ahead and share it. If you choose not to take a test or maybe you're, quite frankly not able to get into a testing center because they're all full, so you don't have a test. No problem. That's perfectly fine, too. We're not going to ask you to explain why you did not have the test. We just don't know. If it's there, we'll look at it and take it in context. If it's not there, zero judgment will be made.
So we're not, our readers are all going to be thoroughly trained to not pass judgment. So if the scores not there, just null and void, right? We're not going to say, gee, it must have been a bad score because they chose not to put it No, we're just going to skip right over that section and not pay any attention. So it really is up to the student to decide if they want to take the exam or not.
Venkat 34:37
So, how difficult does it make it for you, for the admissions team without the tests? I mean, I'm just asking a broad question. You know, I'm yeah, it had some role to play. And now you take that out, and you make the job much harder, I would think.
Lisa 34:57
I think it's just a little bit different. Okay, so the University of California has what are called the 14 comprehensive review factors, your your students can, you know, Google comprehensive review University of California, and they will see that there are 14 different criteria that they are, that are the approved criteria that we're allowed to use in making a decision.
So in the absence of a test score, there's still 13 other criteria that we can use. So I think, really, what's different is we've had to do a lot of programming of our systems, you know, of our computer systems that are databases that hold all of our data, because, you know, we're not necessarily going to have scores for everybody.
And it does take some training of our readers to again, the most important thing that we are training people on is to not make a judgment if there's not a score there. And I think the other thing I guess I would tell students is, I think there's this myth out there that the SAT's were the major factor that decided your admission status in the past.
But the SAT probably did not play as big a role in the decision as students think. It's just that when a student gets accepted or not accepted, they tend to focus on those tangible numerical factors, think probably didn't get in because it was my test score, or it is my GPA. It might have been something far less tangible, maybe their personal insight questions, which are what we use instead of traditional essays. Maybe there was not enough content there for the reader to make a good judgment. On the students, you know, history and goals and achievements. So I think students again focused more on those numerical factors as the deciders, you know, the deciding factors and that probably was not the case. So guess it changes what we're doing. that I don't think is dramatically as students think.
It really is, you use the word humane. The process really is a more humane than then students think.
I think they see those big numbers. 110,000 applications and think we couldn't possibly read them all and it must just be a numerical thing. But we really do read them all. We have to bring in a huge group of people to help us but we really do read them all!
Venkat 37:57
So before we can close out, anything that you'd like to talk about anything that we didn't address within that you want to expand on more?
Lisa 38:09 [A Plea to Students]
Yeah, actually, there is one thing and it's actually a plea to students.
And that is, you know, colleges. We're all looking to showcase our, our campus to students. You know, that's one of the things we do, we want to help students discover our campuses and hopefully consider applying here.
With the COVID situation things are very different for us in terms of normally in the spring and summer, our visitor centers are packed full of visitors exploring the campus. Obviously, we're not hosting tours right now. But that was also how colleges, sort of accumulated lists of students that were interested.
And so I would ask students to really spend some time this summer, exploring colleges thinking about those schools that might be good fits for them. And then consider either doing the virtual tours or even signing up for the mailing list.
Now University of California does not use demonstrated interest. So signing up for our mailing list isn't a way to tell us admit me see, I've shown interest in your campus. It's really a way for us to get information to you.
So join those mailing lists, so that we can let you know about webinars and we have a series of faculty lectures that we're doing all summer. We want to let you know about those. If you don't join our mailing list. We don't know who you are and can't get you that information. So I would suggest students be a little more... know who they are and if they're interested, so that we can get information to them.
Venkat 39:59
Cool, you know, Maybe if you could send me an email with that I can also include it in the transcript for this podcast.
Lisa 40:06
I'd love to, I'd love to because we are doing a lot virtually, our counselors available to chat with you live in person. We're doing webinars, we're doing one on one appointments, we're doing virtual tours, lectures.
So we are still actively engaged in communicating with students. We're just not doing it from our offices.
Venkat 40:27
Sure.
Lisa 40:30
Okay, so you've been very generous with your time. Really appreciate all that you share. I'm sure this will be extremely, extremely beneficial to potential applicants.
So I really thank you for the time and love to do more conversations and some deeper topics as we go forward. But this is a great start.
Lisa 40:53
Thanks. Well, good luck to your students. Were on their side.
Venkat 40:58
Yeah. Thank you. Thanks.
Venkat 41:00
Bye Bye
Lisa 41:01
Bye Bye.
Venkat 41:07
Hi again!
Hope you enjoyed this podcast with Lisa Przekop Director of Admissions at UC Santa Barbara. I hope you found it informative, and offered some insights on the types of students that are a good fit for UC Santa Barbara.
We recommend that you sign up for UC Santa Barbara’s mailing list. We have provided the link in the Transcript for this Episode.
To explore US Colleges, visit almamatters.io and signup and use the College List Tool to get started.
Thank you all so much for listening to our podcast today.
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Till we meet again, take care and be safe.
Thank you!
Summary Keywords
Podcast for High Schoolers, US Colleges, College Podcast, College Admissions, College Application, Extracurricular, International Students, Applying to US Colleges, University of California, University of California Santa Barbara, UC Santa Barbara, UCSB, Admissions, SAT, International Students, Pandemic, COVID-19, Deferral Year, Gap Year, Making Care Common Project