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Counselors Tour As Colleges Lure: Schools, Including Those in Valley, Hope to Woo Students By Proxy.

Posted on: Saturday, 8 April 2006, 12:00 CDT

By Genevieve Marshall, The Morning Call, Allentown, Pa.

Apr. 8--At 7:30 a.m. Thursday, 45 weary high school guidance counselors trudged out of the Hotel Bethlehem and boarded a bus for Lafayette College in Easton, where they would dine on scrambled eggs and bacon with admissions officers.

Lafayette was their fifth campus tour in three days. Before noon they were back in Bethlehem at Moravian College, listening to students play Rachmaninoff on the piano and violin.

The counselors, from as far away as Georgia and Illinois, were guests of the Lehigh Valley Association of Independent Colleges, a consortium of six colleges and universities.

For the past 23 years, the association has invited guidance counselors to see the best their campuses have to offer, at little or no expense to the high schools. The tours are popular -- a second one later this month is fully booked, and there is a waiting list for next year.

The Lehigh Valley tour is similar to what colleges in other parts of the country offer, though some tours are more lavish, with facials, massages and trips to ballgames and ski slopes -- perks that have raised ethical questions about the motives of colleges scheduling them and the counselors who sign up.

"We're of the opinion that these people are here to see our schools," said Tom Tenges,

president of the Lehigh Valley Association of Independent Colleges. "It's not a vacation thing, so we don't go fancy."

In the Lehigh Valley, home to more than 27,000 undergraduates, it's all about boosting applications . The schools also want the best and brightest, a racially diverse applicant pool, and at least one student from every state in the nation.

The consortium alone has a combined enrollment of 13,000 undergraduates.

To do that, they invite guidance counselors from New England and the Mid-Atlantic states -- regions known for sending many students to their schools -- counselors from under-represented states such as Alaska or Montana, or from schools with many multicultural students.

Admissions officers hope the counselors will go home and tout DeSales University's physician assistant major, the variety of science majors available at Cedar Crest College, Muhlenberg College's theater department, the personal attention given to students at Moravian, or Lehigh University and Lafayette's world-renowned engineering programs.

"You learn about the schools and listen to the students," said Betsy Hastings, a college counselor at the private Pomfret School in Connecticut. "And as you meet with your kids, you think, 'This one could be happy on that campus.' "

For Myronee Simpson, a new guidance counselor at the Ramsey School in Tinton Falls, N.J., seeing several schools in one trip is a time-efficient way to build her knowledge base.

"We always tell our students they won't know if a college is right for them until they visit, so it makes sense that the same is true for us," Simpson said. "I can't talk about a college's diversity with a straight face unless I walk around campus and see people of all colors and backgrounds mingling."

The tours involve a lot of walking, and the pace is grueling. Linda Shumsey, a guidance counselor at Francis Lewis High School in Fresh Meadows, N.Y., clocked 15 miles on her pedometer.

"My poor arthritic knees," Shumsey groaned, as she climbed up yet another steep hill at Lafayette on Thursday morning. "This is work, not fun."

Carol Rowlands, the admissions director at Lafayette, said it's important that the guidance counselors leave with a favorable impression of the school and a better understanding of what type of student would like it there and meet the admissions standards.

Not that it's all a grind. The guidance counselors are fed well and given comfortable rooms at the historic Hotel Bethlehem. They are asked to double up at the hotel but pay for nothing except for transportation to and from the Lehigh Valley and dinner one night on their own.

Don Petrella, a guidance counselor at Pottsgrove High School outside Pottstown, said the time away from school is easier to justify because the trip is essentially free.

"I think my district would have paid for it, though," Petrella said. "Our school board is pushing to diversify the colleges our students attend."

Except for five people sidelined with a bout of stomach flu Wednesday night, the counselors said it wasn't a bad way to spend a few days away from the office. Early April is when their heaviest lifting is done for the year. Most of their seniors have made their college choices.

But there is always a new class of seniors eager for guidance, and they and parents want to know that the college counselors know of what they speak.

"I won't strongly recommend a school if I don't feel like I know it well," said Hastings, who counsels 25 students a year on college admissions. "I need to get the gut feeling you have from stepping onto the campus."

To get that gut feeling, some colleges with little national name recognition are willing to fly in counselors from around the country and lavish them with fun activities.A tour in southern Maine features lobster dinners, and a tour of Baltimore-area schools includes an Orioles game.

The Lehigh Valley tour is modest in comparison. Participants get around on a tour bus and dine on chicken, not lobster. No sports tickets. No facials.

The six schools split the $20,000 cost for two tours, or $222 each for 90 guidance counselors.

In Denver, it's a day on the slopes and an afternoon at the spa. An Indiana university takes them on a riverboat cruise. While there are tours that grind through three colleges a day and put up counselors for the night in student dorms, certain schools are willing to spend to impress.

Regis University in Denver invites them to ski, go snowmobiling, and get facials and massages on the university's tab. Savannah School of Art Design in Georgia and Bryant University in Rhode Island will pay for airfare, counselors said.

Barb Brooks has seen 80 college campuses in a little more than three years as an independent counselor in Easton, Md.

Brooks hopes that next year she is invited on the "Sunshine Tour" of Florida schools in February, timed to give counselors from northern schools a break from the snow.

Once the deposit checks start arriving in April and colleges turn an eye toward their wait lists, it's usually the high school guidance counselors calling the college admission counselors to plead on behalf of the students who didn't get admitted to their top choice.

A guidance counselor who has met the person making the admissions decisions has more influence getting a student off the wait list accepted, But the tours can present an ethical quandary, especially if guidance counselors take advantage of the more luxurious perks.

"If you're going on a golf outing, that could be construed as a bribe," Quinn said. "That's got nothing to do with whether a kid is going to get a good education at that school. You'd be going for your own enjoyment."

Quinn, who has been a guidance counselor for 28 years at a high school in Rhode Island, said he saves the college tours for his summer breaks. If he wants to see the colleges in session, he goes during winter or spring break.

Pam Stiles, a guidance counselor at Emmaus High School, said she has visited more than 40 campuses. Some of her students can't afford to go far from home, so her experience helps them make a more informed decision.

"We look at it as attending a conference, as a teacher would," Stiles said.

said Kevin Quinn, president of the American School Counselor Association.

"Having good relationships with admissions staff is very important," Quinn said. "It's part of our job."

genevieve.marshall@mcall.com

610-820-6585

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Source: The Morning Call, Allentown, Pennsylvania

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