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[music playing] During the admissions process, some of the
things that we focus on for students are the high-touch customer service that we offer
to our students. We want to be extremely available to them, to give them the opportunity to meet
with and speak with students and faculty, to answer their questions about their life
here at Syracuse. We're happy to discuss the law school experience with them, their parents,
their spouses, their significant others.
We do a lot with our visit process, and I think we do a really great job of tailoring
the visit to what the student wants to do while they're here. Some students want to
just come in and meet with an admissions representative. Others want to get a full experience of what
Syracuse Law is about, so meeting with a financial aid representative, meeting with someone in
admissions, taking a tour of the brand new facilities, and some have a specific law program
in mind and really want to enhance their visit by meeting with a professor. So I think the
visit, we go above and beyond in planning for what the student wants to experience.
We really do take pride in helping you from the beginning and handing you your folder
on orientation day. It's really exciting for us, and we do take pride in that.
The Financial Aid office at the College of Law provides a lot of services for the students.
Primarily, we work one-on-one with students. We think that individual attention that we
give is really important. Students are making a big financial decision to attend law school.
It's a big investment in their time and their money. So, in the services that we provide,
we want to make sure we can give individual attention to our students.
We offer one-on-one loan repayment meetings, and those can happen at any time during a
student's tenure at Syracuse Law, it just doesn't have to happen at the end. We like
to meet with students in the beginning, the middle, and the end.
We think it's really important that we provide one-on-one services to students, so that they
can get their individual questions answered. So the time that we take to answer students'
questions fully, we're available almost 24/7, whether it's through our Twitter feed, certainly
through email, we welcome one-on-one appointments as well as just walk in traffic. We're available
to students, and we want to help answer their questions when they have them.
What we're really proud of is that we're part of a major university like Syracuse University.
The name recognition goes all over the country. We have such a strong alumni base, and we're
very proud of that. Our networking experiences and opportunities are tremendous.
The office of Admissions and our alumni relations office have a very close synergy. We work
closely together on connecting our alumni with our prospective students as well as our
current students.
I think that's something that our current students find is an outstanding opportunity
to work with our Professional Development office, and really connect with alumni who
are just so willing to give their time and efforts in helping with their job search,
but really in answering questions that students have throughout their experiences as students.
As the Associate Director of Admissions, I'm also an alum of the College of Law, and I
can speak first hand about not just the admissions experience the students are going through
currently, but also what they can expect as a student once they arrive at Syracuse Law.
At Syracuse Law, we actually admit students every Fall, and we operate on the same admissions
cycle every year, so it runs from Oct 1st to Apr 1st every year, and we actually go
on a rolling admissions basis, so students actually won't hear back from us until about
mid-to-late January, and the average time to hear back on a decision is about 6-8 weeks,
and we send formal notifications in the mail, as well as now we've implemented an online
status checker.
Through the admissions application cycle, applicants will automatically be considered
for merit-based scholarships, and we have a really strong retention rate for merit-based
scholarships, so the students that are offered those, they keep them for their three years
of law school. That makes law school much more affordable. We don't want the high cost
of the sticker price to make people afraid. There are always opportunities to apply for
need-based grants, again these merit-based scholarships students are automatically considered,
and we help students regularly find outside scholarships, whether it's through a Bar association
or a local community group... There are always ways that students can find to help reduce
their loan debt and reduce the cost of attendance.
The Admissions Office at Syracuse Law is very unique. We only have eight people on staff,
and we're also combined with Financial Aid.
I believe our office is set apart from other law schools because we are so personable.
We are a small office, so we're all very involved in the process, and involved with each student.
And every single time that they call, they're going to speak with someone who has personally
dealt with their application, has spoken to them before...
Every time a student picks up the phone, or schedules a visit, you're always getting a
person, and it's always going to be someone within our Admissions office.
When you call the Financial Aid office, you are talking to one of the financial aid counsellors.
You're not talking to an automated person, you're talking with one of us, and we will
be able to answer your question in detail.
So, I think that's really critical, especially at the prospective student level, that they
can come into one space, they have one number to call, and they can have all their questions
answered, and quickly.
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