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Day 3 of the National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC) National Conference. It was a busy day in the exhibit hall. Pretty much non-stop with mostly guidance counselors stopping by. My experience is that there are three types of people at the conference- NOLS grads, counselors who have had a student attend NOLS and rave about us and then a small number of people who haven’t ever heard of us. The first two groups are fun to talk with. The third group are the money conversations! Most of these NOLS newbies are excited to hear about our college credit program and options for Gap Year. They are impressed by the breadth and the scope of our programs and almost always indicate that they know an ideal candidate that they want to tell about NOLS.

Among the NOLS grads that I met today: Jake Talmage, the director of college counseling at St. Paul’s School in Maryland; Mark Davis, the college counselor at Upper Arlington High School in Ohio; Brian Meegan a 1975 NOLS grad, who is the dean of college counseling at The Benjamin School in Florida; and Morning Naughton, the associate director of admission at Warren Wilson College in North Carolina. Morning also worked for NOLS Mexico in the early 90s.

Tomorrow is the last day of the conference and then Sunday I head back to Lan Diego! If all goes well I’ll be home in time for my son, Cole’s 15th birthday party!

Bruce Palmer, NOLS marketing director