We are excited to offer a college tour exclusively for ACCIS members this spring. ACCIS Counselor Tours give you the opportunity to visit colleges alongside counselors who share similar constituencies and concerns. The Central Pennsylvania Consortium offered one of the first “all-ACCIS” tours in 2011—the tour was such a success that they have offered another visit opportunity to our members. We hope you’ll find added value in a tour in which you can compare notes with other ACCIS members and admissions professionals while learning about what each of these colleges can offer our students.

Please note that space is limited for this event and the deadline is quickly approaching. Log in to the ACCIS website to register.

Spring 2013 ACCIS Counselor Tour
Central Pennsylvania Consortium Counselor Tour
Wednesday, April 24 – Friday, April 26, 2013

·         Tour Dickinson College, Franklin & Marshall College, and Gettysburg College
·         $60 registration fee (payable to ACCIS)
·         Tour includes single occupancy hotel room on Wednesday and Thursday night at the Hotel Hershey (http://www.thehotelhershey.com/), a four star and four diamond establishment, transportation between colleges, and meals. 
·         Participants are responsible for their travel to and from Hershey, PA—Harrisburg is the nearest airport.
·         Registration is from 11:00 am - 12:45 pm on Wednesday, April 24 at the Hotel Hershey.
·         Counselors may depart directly from Franklin & Marshall in Lancaster, PA at 2:00 pm on Friday, April 26 or from the Hotel Hershey at 3:00 pm. Counselors departing from the Harrisburg Train Station or the Harrisburg Airport can be dropped off in Harrisburg.

Registration deadline: March 4, 2013

Questions: Contact Mark Moody, ACCIS Counselor Tour Coordinator at mark.moody@coloradoacademy.org

If there were any concerns about whether the ACCIS membership would use the new elist, the recent kerfuffle about the launch of the new and Common Application certainly assuaged any such concerns.

Regardless of one’s views of the upcoming changes, it is clear that our elist serves as a valuable sounding board and vehicle for expression for our ever-growing membership.  Postings were coming in with the speed of “out of office” messages in July. A truly wide representation of our membership participated in an informative and respectful exchange of ideas – a great and healthy sign, not just for our choice of new technology, but also of our membership’s continued willingness to engage in important discussions.

A number of elist postings called for a response from the ACCIS leadership to the issue.  After much thought and a number of conversations, it was decided that we would let the diversity of elist postings speak for themselves and trust that our colleagues who serve on both the Common Application Board and the Outreach Advisory Group have, and will continue to effectively represent the views of the ACCIS membership on this important issue.  As David Burke’s recent posting indicated, individual members of the ACCIS leadership team have been and will continue to be in touch with various members of the Common Application team, offering our thoughts and suggestions as well as reminders about the collective wisdom expressed on the ACCIS elist.  We felt it was important to encourage individual ACCIS members to share their views as requested by the Common Application, particularly in reference to the topic of essay length enforcement via essay@commonapp.org.

As a fellow membership organization, we understand the delicate, and likely impossible, task of trying to please all constituents when making a decision. Additionally, while we do want to express our continued faith in Rob Killion and the entire Common Application leadership team, we also want to remind them of the most important constituents in this entire conversation or dialogue – the students we serve.  It is our hope that as the interests of all concerned are “balanced,” the needs of students will continue to serve as the fulcrum or core of all discussion and decision-making.

Thank you to one and all for your interest in this important matter and for your willingness to share your opinions with the ACCIS elist and/or directly with the folks at The Common Application.

Best,

Eric R. Monheim
ACCIS, Executive Director

Marie Bigham
ACCIS, Communications Committee Chair

Despite what colleague after colleague has called the most hectic, most insanely busy fall in recent memory… somehow, someway ACCIS rolls on!  A congratulations to one and all for making it through the crazy days of meetings and phone calls and the long nights of writing over the past few months.  It really does not seem possible that our gatherings in Denver are so far in the rear view mirror now, but nonetheless I still wanted to offer an enthusiastic thank you to all who joined us for our Annual Meeting and our birthday gathering at the Wynkoop Brewery.   Given the great turnout at the party, it is clear that a new event has established a firm place on the busy NACAC calendar.   Ideas for great locations in Toronto are more than welcome!!  Make sure to get your passports early.

Before we head in earnest into the season of giving, I wanted to highlight a bit of ACCIS giving, offering my sincere thanks to Courtney Skerritt , Michele Davis, Matt Metille, Claudia Jolivert and Elizabeth Guice for their great work with the recent Common Application workshops.  Within the last two months, ACCIS counselors have led workshops in Atlanta, Dallas, Miami and Washington D.C., piloting an exciting program that we hope to grow in the coming years.

Finally, thank you all for your enthusiastic embrace of the new elist.  It was thrilling to see postings from some new names over the past few weeks as it was clear evidence that our transition to a new system brought many new voices to this important resource.  At last count, there were over 800 counselors registered!  What an incredibly healthy sign for our organization.  If you are fortunate enough to work on a staff at your school, please make sure all of your colleagues are listed in our database so we are certain that we are reaching everyone possible.

Have a great Holiday Season.

Eric Monheim

Executive Director, ACCIS