...THE STRESS OF SUCCESS
Two years after Mary Lou Bates graduated from college in 1972, she took a job at Skidmore’s admissions office. Nearly 40 years later, and now the dean of ad- missions and financial aid, she’s still making her daily commute, reading appli- cations, visiting high schools and college fairs, answering parents’ questions. And losing sleep over bringing in each new class.
In other ways, the stresses and strains couldn’t be more different. In 1973 Skidmore received 1,700 applications, roughly 95% of which were accepted. In those “lean” years, Bates recalls, “a student with a solid record could show up in August and join the freshman class.” This year, Skidmore re- ceived a record-breaking 8,200-plus applications, of which only 35% were accepted, a selectivity rate that underscores its standing as one of the nation’s top liberal arts colleges. The angst for Bates and her admissions
staff isn’t about filling the class; it’s about having to turn away well-qualified appli- cants when the pool of aid money runs dry. In 2012 the disparity between their financial need and Skidmore’s available financial-aid dollars was $2.3 million. And that gulf is widening. Despite expand- ing its resources earmarked for financial aid year after year, ultimately the College must stay out of the red and refrain from drastic cuts in other areas. Says Beth Post-Lundquist, director of financial aid, “We’ve stretched as far as we can. We never want to turn anyone down because of money, but even with the infusion of new aid dollars, we simply don’t have enough to go around, particularly when we need to honor the ongoing aid commitments to our re- turning students.”
“IT’S INCREDIBLY HARD ANY TIME WE CAN’T ADMIT A COM- PELLING STUDENT BECAUSE OF LIMITED AID RESOURCES.”
Of course, Skidmore has met the demonstrated financial need of thousands of worthy students over the years, and thereby helped transform their lives. Students such as Alta - gracia Montilla ’12, a coach for a Chicago-based nonprofit that prepares underprivileged high school students for col- lege. And entrepreneur C. Jerome Mopsik ’06, a business ana- lyst for a Saratoga-area company that acquires and manages animal hospitals. And Nancy Wells Hamilton ’77, a partner with the Houston law firm of Jackson Walker who has a national practice in First Amendment law, intellectual property, and commercial litigation (with clients includ- ing Oprah Winfrey, CBS, and CNN). Their
career successes—in many ways, the very shape and texture of their lives—are directly linked to the financial aid they re- ceived from Skidmore. An effervescent, first-generation col- lege student from the Bronx, Montilla had no family resources to put on the table. Mopsik came from an upper-middle-class Philadelphia family, which translated into just a modest aid award; his parents gladly made the extra reach to send him and his sister to top liberal arts colleges. Hamilton, from Red Bank, N.J., would have been limited to a state school had it not been for Skidmore’s support, along with contributions from her grandparents.
BETH POST-LUNDQUIST DIGESTS A LOT OF STUDENT-AID INFORMATION SO THAT APPLICANTS DON’T HAVE TO.
12 SCOPE SPRING 2013
MARK MCCARTY
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