| Committee on Admissions and Student Aid (CASA)
Annual Report 2000-2001
The Committee on Admissions and Student Aid met six times during the 2000-1
academic year. In addition to hearing reports from Mary Lou Bates on admissions
and Bob Shorb on student aid, the committee considered issues including
how to best maximize its own usefulness as a channel of communication
between the Admissions and Student Aid offices and the college as a whole.
We also discussed the difficulties which non-experts experience when dealing
with the numerous procedures and statistics surrounding these operations.
To partially address this latter problem, the commitment was made to produce
a "Handbook on Admissions and Student Aid" in the near future.
The bulk of the committee's time this year, however, was devoted to the
important process of strategic planning. Three full meetings and portions
of others were largely given over to those discussions. Included below
are the final recommendation to President Studley from the committee:
In support of Goal 2: Strengthen the spirit and experience of community
and diversity:
Overarching Objective: Greatly enhance the college's ability to provide
need-based financial aid packages that are competitive with those of our
peer institutions. In the view of our committee, increasing need-based
aid to make Skidmore affordable to as broad a range of potential students
as possible is the single most critical step towards strengthening the
academic excellence and diversity of our community.
Related Important Objectives:
1. Develop the financial resources to make all admissions decisions without
regard to financial need (i.e., "need blind admissions").
2. Expand the merit aid program, but not at the expense of increasing
need-based financial aid.
3. Have the resources to address retention by reevaluating financial aid
packages (both need-based and merit) of current students based on their
academic achievement at Skidmore.
4. Create more academically oriented work-study opportunities. (Note:
This objective certainly supports Goals 1 and 3 as well.)
5. Keep annual tuition increases in line with our peer institutions, being
careful not to be a "leader" in increases or in high tuition.
6. Create a limited financial aid budget to attract outstanding international
students.
2000-2001 membership:
Mary Lou Bates,
Ruth Battaglia '01
Sandy Baum (spring)
Catherine Bookhout '03
Gove Effinger (chair spring)
Denise Evert (fall, chair fall)
Victor Gonzales (spring)
Kate Leavitt
Sue Layden (fall)
Tina Levith
Mike Megeurdichian '02,
Bob Shorb,
John Young
CASA Membership 2001-2002
Mary Lou Bates
Sandy Baum
Denise Evert
Kate Leavitt (chair)
Sue Layden
Tina Levith
Bob Shorb
John Young
3 students to be named by SGA
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