A PERSPECTIVE
ON COLLEGE ADMISSIONS
MADE EASY
Well, Less Difficult

By Jack Etzel

Deborah Rupert
Senior Associate Director
University of Pittsburgh
Office of Admissions & Financial Aid

The University of Pittsburgh is very unusual in that it has a combined Office of Admissions and Financial Aid, and one staff that is trained to recruit, admit, and assist in both of those processes. The Senior Associate Director, Deborah Rupert, helped North Hills Monthly Magazine focus on the work of this office, which sees more than 10,000 students and families each year. She’s past chairperson for the National Association of College Admissions Counselors (NACAC), the recipient of numerous local and national awards, and brings more than thirty years of admissions and financial aid experience to the table.

North Hills Monthly Magazine: Let’s begin with the basics. How soon should the student and family begin to take steps regarding college admissions?
Deborah Rupert: First, they need to be concerned when they’re going into their freshman year of high school, because curriculum is very important. They must plan what classes they will be taking for those four years. Secondly, as for the college selection process, I would say that the summer between their junior and senior year is the time to visit four or five schools in which they’re interested, and start to narrow that list. In the fall the student should apply to those choices left on the list, so that they can make that decision no later than early spring of their senior year.

NHMM: Can I guess that most people wait too long?
Rupert: I would say they used to. Today we’re finding that more and more kids are more sophisticated about the process. That’s good. I think the Internet has had a lot to do with that because they can search a lot of schools very early. I think that a lot of juniors around the time of year when they take their SATs start to think about where they want to go. They seem to decide by then whether they want to go to a rural school, a big city school, large university, small college, and begin to think about those kinds of criteria.

NHMM: You mentioned the SATs. There are so many things that are factored into the admissions process. There are the SATs, grade point average, class ranking, extra curricular activities, and so much more. How do you, and the student, navigate that admissions and financial aid jungle?
Rupert: Let me compare the University of Pittsburgh to a small private school where I was once employed. When I returned to Pitt eighteen years ago, I assumed that large institutions put all of those things you mentioned into a computer and that it would spit out a list of kids who it would admit. I was very happy to learn that at the University of Pittsburgh, just as at the small college, we actually take a very individual and personal approach. We do a holistic review. We look at those things we’ve mentioned, but also specifically AP Honors (Advanced Placement Honors), IB Classes (International Baccalaureate), any awards, jobs, and we look at volunteer work, too. Here at a school this big, where we have about 18,000 applications, our committees meet every day and we review folders, we read the essays, and read the recommendations. We realize that if you had a school with only the super, super bright students, but they didn’t have anything else to offer outside of the classroom, you would have a very dull institution.

NHMM: What’s the most difficult part of your job?
Rupert: I’ll answer that two ways: one, from the admissions perspective, and two, from financial aid. I always think that families know when they don’t have a lot of money. They don’t always know when their kids are not prepared. When a child does not get admitted, it’s not unusual for a parent to telephone and say, “If you would just meet my son . . .” We’re so competitive at this point that the parent should know that we would almost be setting up that child to fail, and they would do much better at a smaller campus, perhaps. As far as financial aid goes, the hardest thing in this job is not having enough money to help that family who really needs that money so the student can continue.

NHMM: Will we live long enough to see tuition stabilize, or at least see the rate of increase slowdown?
Rupert: No, and I find that really heartbreaking sometimes. That’s because the cost of education keeps going up, and the resources just keep going down. For example, the University of Pittsburgh is state-related, and the money we get from the state government has never been a lot, or let’s say, enough. We do get federal, state, and outside financial aid, but as the money dries up within those sources, it’s the institutional money that often takes a big hit. We’ve been somewhat lucky here in that we meet a very high percentage of needs, but every once in a while for some students there just is not enough. I find that sad.

Note: Deborah Rupert’s experience includes county, state, state-related and private institutions of higher learning, which puts her in a special category of admissions and financial aid administrators. North Hills Monthly Magazine would like to thank the University of Pittsburgh for allowing us to “borrow” her in order to have her share her expertise on these matters.