Online Chats

Throughout the fall semester, the Office of Admission hosts a number of online chat events for high school students and parents. Chats are a great way to get some of your questions answered quickly, to get more perspective from our wonderful tour guides (who serve as current student chatters), and to chat with admission officers as well.

Admittedly, these things can get pretty crazy with so many people in chat rooms all talking at the same time. But what I particularly like about chats is that, while you can certainly come to ask your own questions, it gives you an opportunity as prospective students (and parents) to see a whole bunch of other people ask their questions as well. Questions you may never have thought of will be asked, so it can really be a gold mine of information you aren’t necessarily expecting to find.

Our first high school senior chat took place last Wednesday (apologies again to those who experienced technical difficulties – those have been ironed out since then), and we have four more chats upcoming in the next month.

For juniors and sophomores, we have an introductory chat coming up tomorrow night (Tuesday, 11/11) from 7-9. Whether you’ve visited campus, met us at a college fair, or don’t know anything at all about UR, it’s a great place to find out more and see what other students are asking about in their college search process.

For seniors, we will have our second senior chat on Tuesday, December 2, from 7-9. Whether you have general questions about UR or specific questions about the application process, students and admission officers will be glad to help answer them.

For parents, we have two upcoming chats. The first will be this Thursday, November 13, from 11:30-1:00 (hopefully you can join us over your lunch break), and it will be a general admission chat (admission and financial aid officers will be chatting). The second will be a special chat on Wednesday, December 10, from 11:30-1:00, focusing specifically on financial aid and affordability at Richmond.

You can find the online chats through our website or right here.

I hope each of you will be able to take advantage of at least one of these opportunities. Do I have any tips for chats? Absolutely. Be patient – we do our best to answer questions quickly, but there’s a lot going on in those chat rooms. And please use the different chat rooms available (for a question about a particular academic discipline, go to the Academics Chat, don’t ask it in the Lobby or the Student Life Chat). That helps to cut down on the craziness at least a little bit.

Hope to see you in cyberspace sometime soon!