[Alumni-chat] The College Search: Where is Antioch?

[Drabarb (bacostamd at yahoo.com)]

My youngest daughter is a HS senior currently searching for her "ideal" college. Her experience gives us a personal angle -- both inspiring and troubling -- on how prospective students are looking at Antioch.

 

The good news is that, ironically, the threatened closure has sparked her interest in AC. Before this happened, we had urged her to consider Antioch and she pretty much wrote it off. (Too small, too far away, not "rigorous" enough, too troubled...)

 

Now the crisis has called her attention to what Antioch really stands for. I think what impressed her most was the heartfelt testimony of several students at the BOT meeting in August. Hearing that her peers were so passionate caused her to look twice -- and this led her to think more about the meaning of an Antioch education. She realized that if Antioch closes, a critical option would be lost. Students like her would no longer even have the choice of attending a college with a unique mission embedded with the values of a progressive, democratic, and activist education. Yes, there are other progressive liberal arts colleges, but none is quite like Antioch.

 

So she decided to reconsider. Despite the threatened closure, she thought, maybe it would be cool to attend a college where students, faculty, staff and alumni are all united in the struggle to save something deeply meaningful?

 

Now for the bad news. Last night, we went onto the College Board site www.collegeboard.com. Gabby plugged Antioch Yellow Springs into the search engine. Up popped <b>Antioch University - McGregor</b>. "Is that Antioch College?" she asked. I said, no, try searching on "Antioch College." This came up with zilch. Nada. <b>It is as though Antioch no longer exists.</b>

 

Fellow Antiochians, this is a proverbial canary in the mine. Even if we succeed in winning our own C-BOT, we are up against formidable obstacles just to recruit students in the coming years. We are going to have to launch a serious campaign to:

 

a) transform the public's image of the college, starting with places like College Board and Princeton Review.

b) find a way of appealing to future students who look like my daughter -- who might actually be attracted to a place where you can learn how to organize support around a difficult issue.

 

Let's start by writing to College Board to complain. They can't write us off this easily!

 

Barbara Dole Acosta '84

 

P.S. Note that, for now, the college still appears on Princeton Review's site. Let's make sure it stays there.