Students at FC have the opportunity to participate in a video chat with the UCLA Admissions Director Susan Wilbur at 3 p.m, Nov. 1. This chat has been arranged by the California Scholarship Federation (CSF) and will last for approximately one hour in room 621. Students and parents can also participate in the video chat on their own. Information on how to access the event is available on the CSF Facebook page.

All students and parents, regardless of grade level and participation in CSF, are encouraged to attend if they wish to learn more about the college admissions process.

Student and parent questions will be accepted by CSF and can be submitted through their Facebook page or through Twitter by adding the hashtag #csfucla12 to their question. The names of all the students who submit an answer will be given to the UCLA admissions office, which will provide students with name recognition; Nov. 1 is also the first day that UC schools begin accepting applications.

FC students are encouraged to follow the CSF Facebook page for more information on the event. CSF is providing a pizza party to the chapter with the most students following the Facebook page.

Senior Ashlyn Key plans on attending this event in order to learn more about college admissions and motivate herself to make applications a priority.

“I think it will be really informative on admissions not just for UCLA but for all colleges,” Key said. “It will help me better understand what I’m getting myself into. I think it will give me more ideas for essays that I need to write and push me a little more to get things done. I think it will encourage me to get my applications in earlier and make them a priority.”

Chloe Deurr, ’14, thinks that the video chat will be helpful in showing her what she still needs to work on before applying to colleges in a year.

“I’m planning on attending because I think that it’s a good opportunity for me to learn about the admissions process,” Deurr said. “Susan Wilbur is the head of the UCLA admissions department, so who’s a better person to learn from than her? She will know a lot about admissions since she’s been working in the admissions department for so long.”

Along with hearing information on the admissions process straight from the admissions director, Duerr believes that she will learn more about the necessary test scores she needs to earn for college entrance.

“I might learn that my GPA or SAT score needs to be higher, so it’s good to start early and figure out how to meet all the prerequisites,” Duerr said. “I wouldn’t want to wait until the last minute and realize that I couldn’t get into the college of my dreams because of a prerequisite that I didn’t know about.”

Kevin Thao, ’13, is also attending the video chat to learn more about the admissions process.

“I think the idea of a video chat with the head of admissions is really interesting,” Thao said. “I just want to see how the admissions process works. I think it will give me an idea of what goes on in the admissions process and show me how do do my best on applications.”

English teacher and CSF advisor Molly Sargent believes this is a rare opportunity that students should take advantage.

“Students don’t ever have an opportunity to talk one-on-one with or ask questions of admissions officers,” Sargent said. “Generally the admissions officers students talk to are recruiters for the colleges who can give basic information but give generally biased presentations.”

During the online chat, Sargent says that the admissions director will provide time for answering questions, which will hopefully assist in college applications.

“The UCLA admissions director is there just to talk about the admissions process,” Sargent said. “She’ll talk about what they’re looking for in potential students, which I think would help students tremendously in preparing their personal applications for colleges. I’m hoping students ask specific questions about what admissions looks for in an application.”

Sargent thinks the video chat will help guide students who are unsure how to approach the college application process.

“I think most kids go into the college application process blind,” Sargent said. “They just fill out the form and do the best they can. I’m not sure if any of us really know exactly how the process works. We can talk to former admissions officers, but her [Wilbur] being the director for UCLA and the previous director for the entire system should be very helpful in providing students with information about how to prepare to get into the best colleges.”

For more information on the video chat, email Molly Sargent.

For more news, read the Oct. 30 article, ABC30’s Friday Morning Football stars FC.