Admission: Not Impossible

To my fellow colleagues, who tirelessly spent hours sending emails, reserving spaces, organizing volunteers, and stuffing folders;

To students, who cheerfully gave tours, spoke on panels, greeted guests, and hosted prospective students;

To our faculty and staff, who willingly came to campus on a chilly Sunday morning to answer questions and share information about the College;

To the members of the Physical Plant and Campus Dining, who made sure that Mt. St. James looked its very best and that we all got something good to eat;

To those who visited us and took the time out of their busy schedules to learn more about the Holy Cross community;

I offer a sincere and grateful thank you.

 

 

 

Happy November! The fall seems to be flying by us in the Office of Admissions: staff are returning from their travels, gearing up for our second Open House, and preparing for the next part of the admissions cycle: reading season.

The fall semester seems to be flying by for students on campus as well! Although it was last month, we asked a student to tell us more about her experience at Family Weekend, and Maddy Smith was happy to help us! Here is her story: 

 

 

 

 

Family Weekend always seems to come at the perfect time each year.  Your pantry seems to be running low, you realize that you have forgotten all of your winter sweaters, and you mostly just want a hug from your mom.  Have no fear, Family Weekend is finally here!  Although I am a spring athlete at Holy Cross, my fall season still has many weekend tournaments at various colleges.  This year, Family Weekend coincided with a lacrosse-filled weekend…but thankfully, my parents were still able to be involved!  We spent Saturday and Sunday morning at Hamden Hall playing Quinnipiac and Dartmouth College (playing three different teams!).  During a brisk fall game, it’s the best to come off the sidelines and get wrapped in blankets by your parents’ arms!  Although, I wasn’t able to spend time with my family on campus this weekend, it was great to spend time with them at my games.

Luckily, in traditional Holy Cross fashion, there were plenty of families around on campus! After our game on Saturday, we came back to Mt. St. James in the afternoon, where we found families enjoying various tailgates and the football game.  Although my parents couldn’t make it back to campus to enjoy these activities, I was welcomed into tailgates and given great post-game treats!  As the afternoon continued and the temperature started to fall, students returned back to their houses and residence halls.  Many students went out to the great restaurants of Worcester with their families.  I joined two friends and their families for dinner at Volturno, one of the pizza restaurants in town!  So, even if your own family isn’t able to make it to Family Weekend, you’re sure to find many families that are more than happy to let you join in the fun! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Happy Friday, everyone! This week’s blog post is brought to you by current senior Mackenzie Horl. Take it away, Mackenzie!

After a week of paper deadlines and midterm exams, fall break always seems to arrive at the perfect time. Some first-year students stay on campus to participate in the Worcester Immersion or for athletics and various other extracurricular activities. The remaining students visit friends who attend other colleges or go home for a few home-cooked meals.

I spent the weekend of my break in Providence celebrating my 21st birthday with friends. After the weekend, I took an Amtrak train home to Long Island, New York. I was greeted warmly by my parents, siblings, and our two boxers: Laila and Scout. A few days later my mom, older sister, and I jetted off to Nashville, Tennessee! As big country music fans, we were excited to explore a new city and learn about its history. I ate many meals of “chicken-fried chicken” with creamy sides of mac & cheese or mashed potatoes. I visited the Country Music Hall of Fame as well as the Grand Ole Opry. I am thankful that I had the opportunity to do something I love, visiting a new city, with the people that I love! 

Being back at school is now bittersweet. I have reunited with friends and shared stories of our respective breaks. By now, Holy Cross Crusaders have fallen back into our daily routines and dived into academics at Holy Cross. Fall Break is much-needed and much-deserved by students on the Hill. Now we are refreshed and re-energized to jump back into this semester!

To gain some insight into the student-athlete experience at Holy Cross, we asked a current student for her perspective. Without further ado, here is Madison Smith ’17:

If you’ve been to Holy Cross recently, you can tell that it’s a great time to be an athlete on the Hill!  All you have to do is look up by the Hart Athletic Complex– you will see construction workers, cranes, and the beautiful new facilities being built.  While the 2016-2017 school year will be my fourth and final year as a student athlete here, I am excited for all those who will go through the life-changing experience that is being a college athlete at Holy Cross! I’d like to take the time to reflect on my own experience on the Women’s Lacrosse team and why being on this team has been such a positive and strong experience for me.

When people ask me my favorite part about being on the lacrosse team, the answer is simple: my 32 best friends, a.k.a. my teammates! There’s nothing better than knowing you have friends all around campus–in different grades, in different majors, involved in a variety of activities–who all want the best for you. I love knowing that when I walk into Dinand Library, Kimball Dining Hall, or the Hogan campus center, I will likely see one of my closest friends.

Next, obviously is the love of the sport.  If you are considering playing a college sport–at any school–please be sure that at the end of the day you love what you are doing.  Trust me, you’ll be doing it a lot and it won’t always be easy.  Thankfully for me I started playing lacrosse in third grade, and have always loved it since!  I’m a defender and for me there is no greater feeling than stopping my opponents or getting the ball to your teammate to help your team score.  Some days are hard, but I try to take a greater effort to reflect on how lucky I am to simply play the sport I love every single day.

Finally, being a student athlete in general at Holy Cross is an experience like no other.  Here on the hill about 20% of students own a big black.  For those of you who haven’t experienced a Worcester winter yet, big blacks are the HUGE jackets student athletes are given to survive the winters of the Woo. 1 of out 5 students on this campus is a student-athlete and is sharing in the same experiences that you are.  You make friends in class or through other campus clubs, and you see each other in the weight room or on the field. Every team at Holy Cross is connected and supportive–which you can see when sidelines are filled with students showing their support.

Overall, being a student-athlete at Holy Cross is bound to be one of the most rewarding and powerful experiences of your lifetime. You’ll instantly be connected to your teammates, your classmates, and all of the students who have come before you. I can tell you it will take a lot of work to play on the hill, but I also know that it’s worth it.

 

…….is what singer/ songwriter Skylar Gray might have been shouting a few weekends ago had she been fortunate enough to claim the College of the Holy Cross as her alma mater. Instead, she’ll have to settle for a #11 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 chart while the rest of us yearly rejoice in the persiflagacious (yes, dear editor, it’s a word- a portmanteau of loquacious and persiflage) but where was I? Ah yes, the persiflagacious procession of purple pride that is Holy Cross Homecoming!

Homecoming- or as I like to call it “Reunion without all the pressure”- is an opportunity for Holy Cross alumni, young and….err, we’ll say “young at heart” to relive the magic that made our time here on the hill so special.

For two days at the end of last month, folks got a chance to step back onto the “Field of Dreams” baseball diamond that once served as their house and will forever remain their home. They took in the sights, the sounds, the faces…and even got a peek at the new $95 million athletic center reconstruction project. While state-of-the-art in its design and majestic in its visage, it is perhaps most groan-inducingly described (at least by this author) as the “Hart Transplant.”

All puns aside, the weekend boasts a bevy of fun fare for Holy Cross friends and family. With adventures ranging from the prestigious (Alumni Association Dinner / O’Callahan Society Annual Meeting,) to the peppy (Goodtime Marching Band Concert / Football, Soccer, and Lacrosse games,) to the perhaps peculiar (“Hidden In Plain Sight” Campus Tour / Kimball Quad Takeover) Holy Cross Homecoming indeed has something for everyone!

Whether you’re a current student looking to support your teams, a recent alumus/alumna longing for one more crouton on the platter of your salad days, a “somewhat” recent graduate looking for someone to mistake you for a student and have you (if only for a fleeting moment) “feeling 22” again, or a member of the “We never should’ve turned down the Big East!” generation, eager to regale with myriad memoirs of mischief and mayhem from many months much missed, Homecoming is blank canvas patiently poised for the purple paint of your particular personal preferences.

And isn’t that what we all love so much about Holy Cross in the first place? Yes, good “young-at-heart” Holy Cross- that small, Jesuit, liberal arts institution- nay *community* – nay *FAMILY* that cooks up such vast and varied cuisine on so many different plates and yet still somehow manages to make us feel like we’re all eating at the same table. That is why we come home, and that is what makes it so hard to leave.

And while now our mass [of congregating alumni] has ended, we look forward to breaking bread with members of the Crusader family in the future. Winter Homecoming (February 24, 2017) is just around the corner. So come and join the meal.

Know your kingdom awaits, we’ve forgiven your mistakes…….and we’ll have a mug of hot chocolate waiting for you!

 

Thomas J. Severo ’06

Neither cold snow nor heavy rain nor summer’s heat keeps our Holy Cross students from the thorough and pleasant completion of their guided tours of Mt. St. James!

Throughout the year, our office greets visitors from all over the world. We are so lucky to have a great group of dedicated students who make the time to meet with our guests and take them around campus. Not to brag, but I believe that our tour guides are especially eloquent, thoughtful, and enthusiastic people. They offer prospective students a glimpse into the special Holy Cross student experience and show visitors campus through their interesting perspective–we are incredibly grateful for them!

Giving tours on humid July afternoons or on chilly January mornings is not always the easiest job, but it is one for which we receive so much positive feedback. To show our appreciation for all of our tour guides, our tour guide coordinator, Laura Boyle, arranges all kinds of special treats. This summer she hosted a breakfast-for-lunch feast!

Cheers to our fantastic tour guides!

As I walked to work this morning, I noticed that the sky seemed a different shade of blue. I also noticed a slight chill in the air, and I saw more people walking around campus than I had in weeks past. It finally feels like fall: another new school year and another admissions cycle! It has been an incredibly busy time for all of us in admissions at Fenwick Hall, as we prepare for the arrival of the Class of 2020 and switch gears to focus on the Class of 2021. I for one am very excited to jump into the recruitment season, so I wanted to give you a preview of what’s to come:

 

– Perspectives: From Saturday, November 5th through Monday, November 7th we are hosting prospective students on campus for our annual Perspectives Program!  This opportunity is open to culturally aware high school seniors, and it’s a great way to learn more about the Holy Cross student experience.  We plan all kinds of fun activities for participants as well as provide room and board, free of charge to participants.  The last day to apply is Monday, September 26th at 5PM EST.  Please click on this link for the online application.

– Travel: Throughout the months of September and October, admissions representatives from Holy Cross will be travelling all over the country to visit high schools and attend college fairs.  We seek to share information about what makes Holy Cross special, as well as meet prospective students in their home areas!  Please stay tuned for our office travel schedule, which will be made available on the site over the coming weeks.

– Open House: Two Sundays in the fall (October 2nd and November 6th), we invite prospective students and their families to visit campus and explore all that the College of the Holy Cross has to offer.  Guests may preregister by clicking on this link or sign up the day of the event.  We provide a light breakfast and lunch, as well as tours, info sessions, panels, and more!

– Day Visits: High school seniors will be matched with a current Holy Cross student host and have the chance to shadow him/her to see what’s it’s like to be a Crusader!  Students may request a day visit by clicking here.

– Interviews: As we discuss in the blog, we highly encourage prospective students to interview with Holy Cross.  Thus we offer opportunities both on- and off-campus for high school seniors to meet with us and share their high school experiences. To arrange for an on-campus interview, please call the Admissions Office at least two weeks in advance at 800-442-2421; we look forward to meeting you!

– For students who cannot make it to campus, please visit the alumni interview request form to request an alumni interview. Requests for alumni interviews are accepted until Dec. 1.

– For students who would like to attend one of our alumni interview night programs, please visit the off-campus interview request form to request an interview and see this year’s dates.

Of course, please do follow us on Twitter and Facebook with more updates about these and other events.  Happy Fall!

It’s a beautiful Friday afternoon, and as I sit to type this, I cannot help but look out the window at the lovely green grass, the somewhat-cloudy-but-still-pretty-clear blue skies, and the bright leaves softly rustling in the big trees.  Thank goodness it’s almost the weekend–I plan to spend some time outside and enjoy this wonderful New England weather!

For me, summer is such a great time to catch up on books.  It feels so nice to jump into a story while relaxing at the beach or hanging out in the park, so I try to take advantage as often as I can.  As a student, I always enjoyed receiving the list of books that I had to complete by the end of August.  In middle school, I would even help my cousin with his reading requirements: he promised me that I would be able to read to him a chapter of Harry Potter if I read to him a chapter of his summer reading.  What a great deal!

Now, one of my favorite questions to ask during interviews is, “So what are you reading?”  It interests me to see which classic stories will be covered and which contemporary tomes are being added to the list.  Just today a student told me that she was enjoying Wuthering Heights, and another student earlier this week mentioned how much he liked Catcher in the Rye.

As I’m almost finished my book club’s pick for July, I thought it might be worthwhile to see what other good options might be out there.  First I came across this list on our new site called HC 100 Books.  Apparently back in the ’80s a group of faculty members chose books that they considered great classics (you can read the list here).  After skimming the list, it surprised me to find that I have only read three!

Other choices for summer reading: works by Holy Cross alumni.  Billy Collins ’63 served as the US Poet Laureate from 2001 to 2003 and the New York Poet Laureate from 2004 to 2006.  Some of his books include Aimless Love, The Trouble with Poetry, and Nine Horses.  Another Holy Cross alumnus, Edward P. Jones, graduated in 1972 and wrote All Aunt Hagar’s Children and Lost in the City.  Jones went on to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2004 with his novel, The Known World.

Between the 97 classics by historic authors and the award-winning works by these notable Crusaders, it looks as though I have my work cut out for me this summer!

 

After asking our tour guides about their favorite places on Mt. St. James, we decided to find out where they go when they want to explore Worcester! Below are their responses:

Sara: Canal Street Farmer’s Market, Birch Tree Bread Company, & Crompton Collective

One of my favorite places to go for brunch in Worcester is Birch Tree Bread Company.   Located on Green Street, in Kelly Square, Birch Tree has a special atmosphere with a wide variety of homemade bread and pastries, as well as locally grown food and produce. Also, right next store is Crompton Collective, a one-of-a-kind store with many vendors (many of whom are on Etsy!), selling items ranging from antiques to jewelry to clothing. On Saturday mornings, there is a Farmers’ Market where fresh produce, homemade bread, and henna are sold.

Flav: Elm Park

My favorite spot in Worcester would have to be the historic Elm Park, which is about a ten-minute drive from Holy Cross. I like going on runs around the outer edge of the park (which covers around ¾ of a mile). There are many great walking paths and beautiful bridges which traverse the park. Throughout the year, Elm Park plays host to various concerts, festivals, and great family events, all which help to foster and strengthen community ties.

Yen: Greenhill Park

One of my favorite spots growing up in the Woo is Greenhill Park! It’s truly a beautiful and well-kept place, perfect for a stroll in the park, a run, or a picnic. It’s not far from Shrewsbury Street, which is another great area Holy Cross students and locals love. In the summer, you can go canoeing (for free!), which is always a plus. I also really like the beautiful golf course and their small farm that offers a petting zoo.

Joanna: Shrewsbury Street

Of all the great places in Worcester, I would have to say that my favorite is Shrewsbury Street; it is the place to go whenever you have an empty stomach, or if you just want to grab a quick coffee. This mile-and-a-half long street is home to 32 amazing restaurants and eateries from which to choose, ranging from classic Italian to tasty Asian bistro!

Joe A.: Volturno

I get hungry a lot, so I’m always on the prowl for something good to eat. Typically I find myself at Volturno, an awesome Italian restaurant. Located right on Shrewsbury Street, it’s only about a five-minute drive from campus. All the food is great, but the wood-fired pizza is what keeps me coming back for more…especially on Mondays and Tuesdays when pizza is two-for-one! This pizza is the real deal and comes with creative toppings, such as pistachio pesto.

Joe C.: InHouse Coffee

One of the best places in Worcester is InHouse Coffee. It is definitely a hotspot for Holy Cross students to study, hang out, and especially get that crucial caffeine pick me up. InHouse is located on Shrewsbury Street, so it is only a five-minute drive from campus! The local feel of InHouse really makes it better than your average Panera or Starbucks. The staff is extremely friendly and you will most likely run into fellow Holy Cross students there as well! InHouse has incredible homemade coffee and chai teas along with tasty pastries to help you get through the day. Also back on campus, everyone will be jealous of you sporting the signature InHouse Coffee cup!

Kailey: Dell’Ovo’s Kitchen

My favorite spot in Worcester is an old school Italian restaurant on Shrewsbury Street. The food is absolutely delicious and they have a different creative special for lunch every day! Along with the great food, the staff is awesome and so personable. My favorite dish is the chicken parm and I can never get enough of it!

Kat: Baba Sushi

As someone who grew up in the Worcester area, I can confidently say that Baba Sushi is the single greatest place in Central Massachusetts. It’s about ten minutes from the Holy Cross campus, and they have an extensive menu of signature, handmade sushi rolls. Baba is a great place for groups as they have a very open and zen back room as well as a more intimate front space which is ideal for a cute weekend date. It is complete and utter sushi indulgence!