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Scott Seseske, Assistant Dean of Admission
Hometown: Pittsfield, MA
Education: B.A. in English from Providence College (Class of 2004), Member of Liberal Arts Honors Program
Geographic Responsibilities (travel territories): MA (Berkshire and Franklin counties; Springfield and Hampshire
counties; and Lowell, Concord, and Wellesley areas), AL, KY, LA, MS, TN
Office Responsibilities: Admission Ambassador Club Co-Coordinator, Athletic Department Liaison (Lacrosse), Liaison
to Humanities Departments (English, History, Modern Languages, Philosophy, Theology), Recruitment Publications Task Force
(Print & Electronic Communication)
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For all of the students who have chosen to remain on our waiting list, we sent out the third e-mail update today to let you know where we are in the process. In case you haven't been checking your e-mail, the information is reproduced below:
With the arrival of May 1, the enrollment picture for the Class of 2012 is taking shape. While we will still receive deposits over the next couple of days that were postmarked on May 1, it is our expectation that we will be able to offer some students on the waiting list a place in our entering class.
As of today, there are 885 students on the active waiting list. We believe that we will be able to offer approximately 60-80 students a place in the entering class. However, it is apparent at this time that there will be no Providence College financial assistance available to students admitted from the waiting list. Students who are selected for admission will be provided with any federal or state funding for which they have eligibility, but our institutional funds for the Class of 2012 have been exhausted. Students who enroll at Providence College as freshmen without aid will be eligible for need-based assistance in subsequent years if they complete the application on time and have demonstrated financial need.
The Committee on Admission is currently reviewing the 885 candidates who have asked for further consideration. This review process will last until at least the middle of next week. Please do not call the Office of Admission to ask about your place on the waiting list; this is a fluid process where we consider not only the academic credentials of each candidate, but also space in particular majors, residence hall availability, and other demographic factors.
Once we determine who will be offered a place in the Class of 2012, the following process will take place:
1. Candidates will be called, offering them a place in the class. Students who applied for need-based financial assistance will be informed of the federal or state funds they are eligible for.
2. While students do not have to give an immediate commitment, we do ask that students be honest about declining the space if they have chosen not to enroll at Providence College.
3. Those students who indicate they are serious in their desire to enroll will be express-mailed the official letter of admission and will have approximately one week to submit their enrollment deposit to confirm their place in the class.
We anticipate two rounds of waiting list activity. Based on the number of deposits we receive from the first round – and based on waiting list activity at other schools that may affect our enrollment totals – we will likely be able to offer a few additional spaces after May 15.
Please remember that at the point when we determine that no additional spaces are available, all remaining candidates will be notified in writing. Unless you hear from Providence College directly, the waiting list is still active.
Note: If the fact that no Providence College need-based financial assistance is available makes it impossible for you to accept a place in our class, or if for any other reason you have decided not to remain on the Providence College waiting list, please respond to pcadmiss@providence.edu so that we can remove your application from further consideration. Thank you.
Good luck to the seniors who have to make their final college decision today!
This posting is specifically for juniors/sophomores who met our admission counselor in Northern California earlier this month... Unfortunately, his car was broken into while he was in California and along with losing some viewbooks and his Providence College banner, all of the completed inquiry cards were also in the bag that was stolen. The cards were from students that attended one of the following fairs:
San Francisco NACAC National College Fair (Thursday 4/17)
East Bay WACAC College Fair/Cal State- Hayward (Monday 4/21)
North Bay WACAC College Fair/Sonoma State (Tuesday 4/22)
Marin County WACAC College Fair/Dominican (Wednesday 4/23)
Santa Clara WACAC College Fair/Mission College (Thursday 4/24)
If you attended one of these fairs, we'd ask that you fill out our online inquiry form to join our mail/e-mail list and receive information from us. Thanks for your interest in PC - and of course, feel free to come to these blog pages to have any of your questions answered!
...which means we are answering a lot of last-minute questions from high school seniors who have been invited to PC and are making their final decisions about where to spend their next four years...
For students who are on the waiting list, please continue to keep an eye on the e-mail address you provided us for the latest updates... We are still unsure if there will be spaces available from the waiting list - so many students make their college decisions during this final week of April that we likely won't know until after May 1 if we will go to the waiting list.
I also want to take the time to send out a huge THANK YOU to our Admission Ambassadors, who have done a fantastic job volunteering in the Office of Admission this year... To the 30+ graduating seniors, we will miss each and every one of you and our entire office is truly grateful to countless hours you have spent serving PC over the past years... Good luck to all of you with your post-PC plans!!!!
There's no other place quite like a college campus in the springtime... With the warm weather, our campus is so alive with activity - frisbees flying on the quad, students studying on Slavin Lawn, and yes, even professors holding class outside:
As Athletic Director Bob Driscoll put it at yesterday's press conference, "It's a great day to be a Friar!" The PC community welcomed our new men's basketball coach, 36-year-old National Coach of the Year Keno Davis, to Friartown yesterday afternoon in Mullaney Gymnasium. Coach Davis comes to PC after leading Drake University to a 28-5 record, conference title, and NCAA Tournament bid during the 2007-08 season.
Get the full story on our athletics website!
Today is April 15 - halfway through the month, meaning we are getting closer and closer to the reply deadline of May 1... when the students we have invited to PC's Class of 2012 have to let us know if they will be attending.
For all of the seniors out there, I know this is a stressful time, as you try to decide which college or university you will be spending your next four years at. As you continue to narrow down your choices, please feel free to turn to our admission staff or students to answer any questions you may have about PC. As always, you can certainly post your questions here on my blog or feel free to e-mail your specific admission counselor directly - you can find your counselor on the Contact Our Office page of this website.
If you have questions that you would like a student perspective on, I encourage you to be in touch with one of our student bloggers, Liz or Kaitlin. Both are nearing the end of their freshman year, and are great resources if you have questions about academics, student life, housing, or any other part of the freshman year experience at PC.
We also have put together a new Class of 2012 FAQ page on the website, so even if you don't have specific questions, you can see the answers to some frequently asked questions that other students and families are asking.
Finally, you are more than welcome to come visit campus again - I know many of you have already been on a tour and been to a Group Information Session, but we certainly do invite you back if you feel you need one last look. Tours continue to run Monday through Friday at 9:30, 11:30, and 2:30 and on Saturdays at 11:30 and 2:30... This week looks to be a very nice one weather-wise, which makes it a great time to walk around a college campus.
Again, I wish you the best of luck as you make your final decision about where to spend your next four years, and hope that for many of you that place is here at PC. I look forward to hearing from you if you have questions over the next couple of weeks!
*Scott
To all of our accepted students and families who attended Family Day 2008 this weekend - thanks for coming! Saturday's sunshine just proves once again that you can't always trust the weather reports. We kept hearing last week about the 1-2 inches of rain we'd be receiving on Saturday, but instead, the weather turned out to be great!! For those of you who couldn't make it this weekend, here's the Family Day recap - in pictures...
The calm before the storm, so to speak... This is Friday afternoon after the Family Day setup of Mullaney Gymnasium was complete.
That's the "before" picture - here's are the "during" shots...
 
Many thanks to all the members of our campus community who took part in Family Day activities - faculty, staff, and students all helped out in so many ways. Special thanks to members of the Admission Ambassadors and Friars Club, who helped to keep things very organized, even with the large crowd.
Two of our Ambassadors, Erin and Maura, posing with members of the Admission staff...
...and then doing their thing - pointing out the sights on campus during a "trolley tour."
 
Here are those faculty and staff members I was talking about... representing every academic department and office on campus, and answering questions from our prospective families:
Prospective PC students exploring their potential new home:
Once again, I hope that all of you who visited Saturday enjoyed your experience and had many of your PC questions answered. Congratulations to those of you who stopped by the Office of Admission with your Enrollment Reservation Form - and welcome to the Class of 2012!!
These are the smiling faces of part of our 2008 Admission Ambassador Relay team, which spent last weekend raising money - and doing a lot of walking - at the American Cancer Society Relay for Life that took place in Peterson Recreation Center on campus.
A big thank you to all of our Ambassadors - and admission counselors - who gave up some sleep for a great cause!!
To our students accepted to PC during the Regular Decision process: Need-based financial aid awards will be released by the end of the day Thursday (4/3). The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Scholarship awards will also be mailed by Thursday afternoon.
If you applied for need-based financial aid (submitted the CSS Profile and FAFSA forms by the appropriate deadlines), and you do not receive your aid package by the end of NEXT week, please contact our Office of Financial Aid.
As Liberal Arts Honors (LAH) Program/merit scholarship award letters have been released, let's talk a little bit about what we were looking for in the Honors Program review process...
First of all, no separate application was required to be considered for the Honors Program - all students who were accepted to PC were automatically reviewed for LAH. Students are selected for LAH based on academic performance - we have about 125 spaces in the Honors Program for the top academic performers in each year's incoming freshman class. All merit scholarships awarded by the Office of Admission are tied to the Honors Program, so any student who is invited into LAH will receive a merit scholarship as well.
As I've mentioned previously, the average GPA for students accepted to PC's Class of 2012 was just below an "A-minus" in a very rigorous high school curriculum... again, that is an admission invite, not an Honors Program invite. So, for the students who were selected for the Honors Program, we are talking about students who have achieved at the highest possible level throughout all four years of high school. Generally speaking, they have the following credentials:
(1) The absolute most demanding curriculum offered at their high school. In other words, these students have exhausted or nearly exhausted their high school curriculum, taking full advantage of the Honors level, AP, IB, and college-level courses that are offered at their high school. Remember, there is a huge difference between a "strong curriculum" and "the strongest curriculum available."
(2) An overall GPA of an "A" over their four years in that most demanding curriculum. Again, as the average invite GPA to the college (not the Honors Program) was an "A-minus," we are not talking about an "A-minus" average in the most demanding curriculum; rather, these are students who have basically had flawless high school careers performance-wise and have achieved at the "A" level throughout all four years in the aforementioned most challenging curriculum offered at their high school.
(3) If their high school provides class rank, these students are at the very top of their classes... on average, within the Top 3%.
(4) An "A" average in their (Honors/AP level) English classes throughout high school; as a liberal arts institution, English performance is extremely important to us both in the admission and the Honors Program review.
(5) If a student chose to submit SAT/ACT scores, they were also considered in the Honors Program review process, but they never outweighed the academic achievement in the high school classroom. Standardized test scores are an additional factor that we use if a student has made the scores available to us, but the Honors Program review (like the admission review process) puts the majority of the weight on the high school academic performance rather than on standardized test scores.
We feel very fortunate to have such an incredibly strong group of applicants to PC, but obviously it makes the admission review - and even more so the Liberal Arts Honors review - very difficult. In fact, there are a handful of students with perfect "A" averages (4.0 GPA on our 4.0 scale) who were not invited into the Honors Program - and the reason for that is their course schedules, while solid in the admission review, simply did not measure up to those students who truly exhausted the curriculum at their high schools (and also achieved at an "A" level!).
I hope this posting helps to answer any questions you have about the Honors Program selection process. If not, feel free to post your questions/comments here!
Two quick updates:
1. Our Liberal Arts Honors Program/Merit Scholarship award letters were mailed yesterday afternoon.
2. Need-based financial aid packages will be released late next week.
More details to follow! Enjoy the last weekend of March!
By Chris Lydon, Dean of Admission
My thanks to Scott for lending me his space to share some of my thoughts about the selection process that has just ended for the Class of 2012.
One of the recurring themes this year and every year for me is, “don’t trust the numbers.” Countless times we’ll be sitting in our committee meetings and we’ll see the academic credentials for the next candidate on our roster before the counselor starts the presentation. Sometimes, the initial reaction is, “this will be an easy one.” Only to find out that the very attractive “numbers” (rank, gpa, standardized test scores – if submitted) aren’t matched by the counselor’s presentation. Glowing cumulative numbers are great, but grade digression, reduced curriculum challenge senior year, poor writing samples and superficial extracurricular participation can change that initial reaction in a heartbeat.
Conversely, there are times when you look at the next candidate’s numbers and wonder, “how did he/she make it this far?” Only to find out that the candidate has a “story” – overcoming personal or medical obstacles, contributing in distinctive ways to their school or community, articulating genuine and specific interest in attending PC – and doing their best work as a high school senior. Bottom line? You may be able to form a class by focusing on the numbers, but you can’t create a community.
This fact was brought home to me most vividly during the 12th and final day of our committee meetings. That day is reserved for the applications that have had multiple reads, have already been heard in committee, but for whom the final decision is still in question. As Scott noted on Monday, we started the final day with 170 applications left – and 66 class spaces available. Every single candidate in the room was academically attractive. No senior year digression, wonderful involvement and leadership in activities, and the support of multiple members of the admission staff. This is Final Committee –and it’s both tense and ultimately, exhilarating.
But that’s the end of the process – how did we get to the final committee day?
The first and second read components of our review justifiably focus on academic preparation and achievement as well as the personal qualities the candidate exhibits. Between recalculating the GPA, evaluating the curriculum, and reading every item submitted, the first reads alone average between 35 – 45 minutes. Scott has mentioned this many times, but it’s important to reiterate it here, the vast majority of our applicants are academically qualified to succeed. The further along we get, the more the academic preparation blurs between candidates – and the personal qualities become the separation points.
But go back to my “story” example. I hear more and more from students who lament that they don’t have a “hook” to their application. No personal tragedies (as if that’s bad), no truly unique experiences, no legacy connection or special talents. In fact, an unusual number of essays seemed to address some variation of that theme this year.
“Hooks” are less common than you think. Most candidates present applications that are thorough and demonstrate academic and extracurricular achievement. Candidates who have helped us understand something about their personal qualities (primarily through their own writing and their recommendations) often become most attractive to us. Remember, we’re trying to build a community. The qualities about Providence College that made you apply in the first place must be preserved with each entering class. Providence College is a distinctive community – as you’ve told us over and over in the thousands of essays we’ve read. My best advice to future applicants is to let yourself come through – it’s not about the style, it’s about the substance.
Third reads follow second reads, and by this time, the majority of the applications have a consensus decision. That doesn’t mean that they won’t get looked at again, but usually at this point they are flagged as invited, waitlisted or denied. They may be looked at again if a coach calls to inquire on behalf of a recruit, if a fine arts faculty member wants to check on a candidate who auditioned or submitted a portfolio, or if another member of the Providence College community asks us to look at someone of interest to them. These applications may also be pulled into a committee meeting if the counselor believes that new information (like late-arriving mid-year grades) could change the outcome (positive or negative). All of this leads to the last day.
How did we select those last 66? By listening to the presentation, by focusing on each candidate and their interest in Providence College, by considering the fit to their chosen major (without penalizing those who applied undeclared), and putting these last candidates into the context of all of the decisions already made. Votes are taken and the pile dwindles – as do the number of spaces remaining. Finally, after several rounds, it truly is down to two files and one remaining space. And this year, after all of the back and forth, when the last vote was taken, the staff was unanimous about our final selection. That doesn’t happen all the time, but it certainly was a wonderful conclusion to the building intensity of the last several weeks.
Scott has a done a fabulous job of conveying what we look for and how the various stages of the selection process work. I’ll add that between the early and regular review processes, we put approximately 2,600 candidates through the full committee review. Some discussions were brief, others went on for 15 minutes. And sometimes after all that, we still pushed the application to the final committee day, where it was heard again. At Providence College, our review is deeply personal. I know that students who are denied or waitlisted usually disagree with our judgment – and I respect that our choices may not seem right to some people. While I’m proud of the profile of those students invited to be part of the Class of 2012, I am most proud of the fifteen counselors in the Admission Office who have carefully and respectfully considered every candidate.
Be sure to check back to for a special guest blogger... our Dean of Admission, to recap the committee review process... in the very near future...
On Saturday, we concluded the review of our Regular Decision applicants for admission with our final day of Committee on Admission meetings. The admission staff was on campus for about 8 hours Saturday, completing the review of about 170 applicants for our final 66 spaces in next year's freshman class. The final day of committee is often the most difficult, because all of the students we are considering have done remarkable work during high school... but due to limitations on class size we are unable to accept all of them. This year was no different- we had to make many tough decisions throughout the day. But what stood out for me about Saturday was how thoroughly each of these applications (and by extension, all of the applications we received this year) had been reviewed. Although it is very difficult to see some of these very talented students being placed on the waiting list, all of us on the admission staff feel very positively about the WAY we go about the review process - the committee review gives us the opportunity to give these applicants a very thorough and fair review. (And I just used the word "review" three times in that sentence...)
So, we have completed the review process, but we still have some other things to do before decision letters can go out... Among other things, we have to print and proofread each decision letter; stuff and seal the envelopes; complete a roster check to make sure that every student who has applied will receive a decision letter (and the right letter!)... We will be completing these important tasks over the next few days, and will be mailing decision letters by the end of the week. I'll let you know when we release them! Please remember: it is college policy NOT to release decisions over the phone, so please do NOT call our office this week- decisions will ONLY be released through the mail. Thanks for your patience! More updates to come!
*Scott
The entire admission staff is working on a Saturday to complete our final committee session for the applicants to the Class of 2012... We are nearing the conclusion of our Regular Decision review process... Stay close...
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