The majority of CSU’s campus is located in Downtown Cleveland by Playhouse Square.
CSU offers Instant Decision Day to SHS seniors
November 12, 2015
On Thursday, Nov. 5, six Solon High School seniors gathered in the guidance office to participate in a nontraditional college application process known as Instant Decision Day. Presented by Cleveland State University (CSU), Instant Decision Day offers students a unique opportunity to complete a short application without paying a fee, conduct an in-person interview with a CSU representative and immediately find out the status of their admission.
“I think Instant Decision Day is a great opportunity for students because…it can make them feel really good that maybe they’re into their first college, if they’re really nervous about applying to colleges,” said SHS guidance counselor Wendy Dingman.
Although the accepted students received extensive information about the school and a free shirt, CSU’s approval can be rescinded due to its policy of conditional admittance. If an accepted student’s GPA drops below a 2.3 or the student is suspended from school or arrested, he or she will no longer be able to attend the university.
CSU alumnus and enrollment representative Zack Nichols explained that if a student was not admitted, there would still be further opportunities for him or her to attend CSU.
“If they improve their GPA [and] bump up their test scores, we’re always going to take the highest score right up until the end of their senior year,” Nichols said. “Even if the student isn’t admitted to Cleveland State, I can instruct them on ways that they can ultimately enroll at Cleveland State at other institutions by transferring.”
Nichols pointed out that Instant Decision Day was not the same as Early Decision, another opportunity presented by certain colleges. Students that gain acceptance at Instant Decision Day do not have to commit to attend CSU, although it has been observed that more students end up going to CSU through this process rather than those that just apply online.
SHS senior Skylar Lunardi, who was accepted into CSU on Instant Decision Day after signing up to attend on Naviance, said that this acceptance actually caused him to increase CSU’s ranking amongst the top colleges he was considering.
“Now I already have an idea [and] got accepted, and I don’t have to go through that huge process of online [applications],” Lunardi said. “I think it ran very smoothly.”
Lunardi wasn’t the only senior accepted into CSU that day: of the six seniors present, all of them received admittance (excluding one student whose test scores hadn’t been processed yet.)
“I think sometimes it’s hard because a few of my students in the past years have not been admitted on Instant Decision Day, so you kind of feel that rejection in a way,” Dingman said. “But on the other hand, it lets you know [if you] need to take the ACT one more time [or] need to make [your] grades better in senior year because maybe they’ll still consider you for admission.”
Of the students who have previously applied to a school on Instant Decision Day, Dingman estimated that 85-95% of those students were admitted. She explained that although only about half of those students went on to go that school, “at least they know they have an option.” This year, the only colleges offering Instant Decision Day at SHS were CSU and Eastern Michigan University, although other universities offer this opportunity in other locations across the nation.
In the case of CSU’s admissions process, both online and on Instant Decision Days, the main basis of acceptance is GPA and ACT score. These are the same criteria that Nichols examined during his one-on-one conferences with each of the students, during which he looked over their transcripts and talked to them about the next steps in the process, such as attending orientation, signing up for housing and submitting financial aid.
“I think [Instant Decision Day] is perfect because students get one on one contact with me,” Nichols said. “As opposed to sending everything either electronically or by mail with the transcripts and applications, we can kill two birds with one stone.”
Lunardi concurred with Nichols, saying that Instant Decision Day was “100 times easier than the real college application process.” However, he and the other students who applied generally agreed that the process overall was not as personal as they had expected it to be. They summarized their conferences to solely being Nichols looking over their test scores and telling them not to get arrested.
While Instant Decision Day at CSU has only recently been implemented, Dingman felt that it’s an important option for SHS students to consider if they’re interested in applying to schools that offer it, especially amidst the chaos of the regular application procedure.
“I just really appreciate the Solon students when they come down for the college visits because they ask excellent questions and they really seem to know what they want in a college,” she said. “They’ve done a lot of research, so I think [they] are doing great with this whole process.”