Priorities

I was recently struck by something when I was registering for upcoming campus tours. I’ve toured about 75 colleges over the past few years that really run the gamut in all possible ways. When I was registering for my upcoming ten tours, I was asked two questions that I have never come across before. Colleges can ask anything they’d like when you’re signing up for tours just like when they’re selecting questions for their supplemental application prompts. These things really shed light on the schools’ priorities. You can see the two most unique questions in the pictures below. Wake Forest had a box with a prompt that stated, “if you would like the opportunity, we invite you to share more about your gender identity.” Elon University asked if I would like my campus tour offered in Spanish.

I was also curious if Elon would address their name now that it brings strong connotations with it. When they sent the followup email, it was entitled, “Oh, hey, it’s Elon - University that is!” One of their bullet points in the email said, “We were founded in 1889 and are not affiliated with any X (formerly Twitter)-owning billionaires.” My daughter told me that from her boarding school, the college with the greatest number of graduates from her school is Elon.

I’m still caught off-guard when a college asks my preferred pronouns. Since I live in Florida, inquiring about pronouns is not something that is very prevalent. Every communication from a school is an opportunity to learn more about them and see if their values align with your own.