With safety precautions due to COVID-19 requiring schools to move to interviews performed virtually, optometry students are faced with what can feel like an impossible decision: choosing to attend a school they’ve never been able to visit.
As admissions officers, we want to help students who find themselves in this predicament.
Because an administrative COVID-19 mandate limited campus tours to only those students who have qualified to interview, we had to find alternatives to the in-person campus tour. We stepped up our efforts by hosting extra online information sessions and offering to connect admitted students with faculty members, current students, and even the Dean. We are even filming a campus tour video which will show what campus life looks like during COVID-19 accommodations. Still we know there are other ways to help…
Zane Besler SCCO Class of 2024
Eryn Kraning, Senior Director of Recruiting and Admissions at SCCO facilitated a Zoom interview with current first-year SCCO student, Zane Besler. In March 2020 and at the end of the 19-20 admissions cycle when COVID-19 first hit, his in-person interview was cancelled. His interview was done virtually, and despite having never visited Southern California before, he chose to move from North Dakota to attend SCCO. He’d never even stepped foot on SCCO’s campus or in the state of California!
Click on the image below to watch the video on Vimeo.
In this video you’ll hear Eryn and Zane have a real conversation about how he made such a tough decision to commit to a program with so little actual experience with it. Here are some of the questions he asked himself to make the necessary decisions:
What can I do to learn more about the school when I can’t visit?
How do I feel about my interactions with the staff at the various optometry schools?
Should I delay attending optometry school and start next year instead?
How do I find housing and prepare a cross-country move when I can’t visit the area first?
He also shares about what it’s been like for him to adapt to a new place and his new classmates while dealing with the limitations of social distancing.
We hope this brief video may help you should you be considering these same questions. As always, we’re here to help, don’t hesitate to reach out via email at ODadmissions@ketchum.edu questions or if you would like contact information for Zane who has offered to answer your questions.
“COVID was going to exist no matter where I was in school, so I figured it was best to start my optometry journey and further my career.”
Published by Jane Ann Munroe, OD, Assistant Dean of Admissions, SCCO
I wanted to be an optometrist when I was only 10 years old. Why? I had some kind of geeky fascination with eyeglass frames, and was obsessed with getting a pair of my own. In my situation, having perfect eyesight was a distinct disadvantage, so I had to hatch a plan.
After repeated intense squinting while looking at the blackboard, I approached my teacher and lied with conviction, complaining that I couldn’t see. This report got me first to the school nurse and then finally on to an optometrist for an eye exam, where I tried my best Mr. Magoo impression to no avail.
I would have to wait two more long years until the gods finally smiled on me when, by some miracle, I acquired enough astigmatism to warrant my first bona fide pair of prescription eyeglasses!
Along with my love of people and wanting to take care of them, subsequent visits to the optometrist and shadowing, I sealed the deal—optometry was now officially what I wanted to do with my life.
I made first contact with the Southern California College of Optometry when I was in 8th grade. My older sister had a newly minted driver’s license and so I coerced her into driving me all the way from our home in La Mirada to Los Angeles, SCCO’s then-home. After a master planning effort to plot out our route on a paper map folded in 8 places, we arrived at SCCO where my sister quickly surmised that I didn’t have an appointment with an admissions advisor. She called me a loser, drove me all the way back home and the next day, phoned to help make the requisite appointment.
I entered high school in the late 1960’s (ouch, that hurt) when young females wanted to be anything but what I’d chosen as my newly dedicated pursuit—a science geek. I wore thick horn-rimmed black eyeglass frames (told you I was serious) and hung around chemistry lab after class. This was at a time when women just did not pursue careers in science and being the tomboy that I was, that was fine with me. This trend continued right through into undergrad, attending many classes where I was the only female--bespectacled or not--in the class. At a recent high school reunion, many of my classmates still remember me as the science geek with the blinders on—many envious of my joy and passion for my future profession.
I graduated from SCCO in 1977. Looking back with 40 years of experience as an optometrist, I am awed to know that I chose this wonderful profession way-back-when and with only my juvenile perspective to inform me. In 1977 when I graduated from optometry school, the profession began a series of major changes to its practice scope: securing the rights to use diagnostic drugs (dilating drops), securing the rights to prescribe therapeutic drugs (huge change!), being recognized as physicians by the federal government and treating glaucoma. In some US states, optometry has made even bigger strides into minor surgery, use of lasers, hospital privileges...etc. If I had the opportunity to go back and make another choice and knowing what I do today about health care and my own hardwiring, I’d make the same choice for optometry--nobody loves this profession more than I do. http://www.ketchum.edu/index.php/about/administration-directory
I grew up with optometry and now it’s your turn to inherit its future. That’s what this blog is about—getting you into optometry school and I am just the person to help you achieve this goal. We’re going to talk about the admissions process, how to prepare to take the OAT, how to be a competitive applicant, how to prepare to interview, to name a few. We’re going to talk about SCCO, student life and what it’s like to be an optometric intern. I am very persuasive, motivating and I am completely sold on optometry as the best profession in health care. I speak from experience!
Get ready to dialogue. Don’t be afraid to ask questions and please, chime in on discussions. I want to know what kind of help you need. You got this!
View all posts by Jane Ann Munroe, OD, Assistant Dean of Admissions, SCCO
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Eryn Kraning, Senior Director of Recruiting and Admissions, SCCO
Jane Ann Munroe, OD, Assistant Dean of Admissions, SCCO
Optometry Admissions Blog 