SMU admissions decisions

[East Coast Mustang]

wah wah wah…..buck up. Don't be late with your payment and you have nothing to cry about. And yes - it is their job to care about money since that what makes the place run - we don't have a state tax pig trough or a bunch of oil wells cranking it out for us - so the fact that we have accomplished academically what we have on thousands of seperate private donations over the years is amazing.

If you're going to rigidly impose penalties for late payment of tuition, then don't overcharge someone almost two grand the next semester and take three months to refund them. That was my main beef.

Our administration on whole is better than most.

Tell that to the Stiles family. A refresher, if you need one- http://www.smudailycampus.com/news/stil ... or-answers

Withholding that police report from the Stiles family for as long as SMU did (I think they finally disclosed it to the family several years later) was one of the most brazen and underhanded things imaginable. I bet if RGT's son or daughter died under mysterious circumstances at a private institution, he'd have liked to see their campus PD's police report on the matter. Likewise, if the student that died was a Hunt or a Dedman or a Ford and not the son of some random family in Illinois, I bet SMU would have been a lot more cooperative with the family's demands. That certainly doesn't make me proud of my alma mater.

The SMU administration does not give a [deleted] about its students or the actual quality of education it provides. The only thing they're interested in is rankings and money (and arguably that's not much different than most college administrations, but let's call a spade a spade here- the SMU administration is not some beneviolent force for good. They would not hesitate to [deleted] over you or me or anyone else who isn't bankrolling new buildings on campus)

Finally, if you think Lori White is a competent administrator then I don't know what to say- she's up there with Matt Doherty in terms of the worst hires made at SMU in the past decade. And don't just take my word for it; I've heard several prominent alumni voice similar sentiments about her behind closed doors.

[East Coast Mustang]

Also, it warrants mentioning that Lori White drives around in a BMW with a vanity license plate that says "DR LORI"

[tristatecoog]

And almost every University in the country announces admission decisions on a rolling schedule in the mail by school or department.

What do you base that assumption on? Apparently, UT sends its decisions online.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/more-colleges-break-the-news-to-would-be-students-online/2013/03/31/5cf3c1e4-967f-11e2-9e23-09dce87f75a1_story.html

From last spring, "While some holdouts continue to rely only on the U.S. Postal Service to deliver the news, growing numbers of colleges have migrated to online notification in recent years, via Web sites or e-mail."

Sad to hear about that Trustee with the "good but not great" comment. Assume s/he was speaking to a prestigious high school.

Never heard of Dr. Lori before but she has an impressive background. Dr. White earned an undergraduate degree in psychology and English from the University of California, Berkeley and a Ph.D. from Stanford University in education administration and policy analysis with emphasis in higher education. Was previously Assoc VP of Student Affairs at USC.

[NewAgeMustange]

honestly I always think that these kinds of reports give us a look at the Real SMU: http://smu.edu/provost/pdf/FacSenateDec2013_2.pdf or http://smu.edu/provost/pdf/GeneralFacultyMtgJan2014.pdf

[Digetydog]

http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/southern-methodist-university/1585387-smu-class-of-2018-ed-ea-rd-discussion-thread-p7.html

Why are admissions decisions still solely sent out through snail mail? Seems like you'd make all decisions viewable at a certain time like many graduate programs. I believe Stanford MBA's Dean actually calls each admitted student on the same day. That's a bit much for a class as big as SMU's but some people were freaking out on the College Confidential forum.

I think that getting the Big Envelope vs. the Small Envelope is a better way to learn your fate.

I'll never forget when I came home and found a 1" think packet from Yale sitting on the kitchen table.

[Digetydog]

ECM,

Which makes SMU like 99.999999% of schools around the country. That said, for the price tag, you expect a little better customer service.

Probably true. Granted, I don't have any other colleges to compare it to. But I remember being like eight hours late one semester paying tuition and got hit with some absurd late fee penalty. Then, the next semester, SMU overcharged me by $1,700, threatened to impose another late fee if I didn't pay the incorrect amount on time, and took three months to refund me the money I was owed.

Again, I love SMU but the administration can go pound sand. Also, the handling of that SAE kid's police report after he died a few years ago on campus was atrocious. SMU tried for years to keep that from his family under the guise that SMU is a private institution and the SMU PD is not subject to FOIA requests like any other police department would be...that was just unconscionable and frankly made me embarrassed to be an SMU alum.

SMU was by far the easiest to deal with.

After my freshman year, I lost my academic scholarship after a health issue (and bad decisions by me) caused be to screw up my 2nd semester finals. After a great 2nd year boosted by GPA, I wrote the dean asking them to reinstate my scholarship. Must to my surprise, they did.

Eventually, I boosted my GPA enough to graduate with honors.