Colorado

I am currently in Colorado visiting high schools, attending college fairs and hosting pizza parties. I am driving all over the state on this trip from Steamboat to Durango to Crested Butte and everywhere in between visiting students. It has been a great trip so far with some great college fairs, visits and two fun pizza parties in Lakewood and Avon.

I am often asked while on the road about the scholarship opportunities available to students at MSU. This a great question! MSU offers students millions of dollars in scholarships each year! We have posted details on the scholarships and information on how to apply or qualify on our scholarship website. Be sure to check them out!

Vermont

Greetings from Vermont! What a great trip to have in the fall, just at the beginning of foliage season. I have been in Vermont this week and I have already met several students who are strongly considering attending MSU this fall. Each year around 20 - 30 students enroll from Vermont, and it is probably because Montana and Vermont really have a lot in common. Both have tons of outdoor opportunities and abundant ski areas, and similar weather (these students aren't afraid of a little snow). It is exciting to see so much interest from students in an area that is so far away.
I started in southern Vermont and worked my way north to Burlington, the largest city in VT. There is a college fair here on Thursday and Friday and it is usually one of the best fairs in New England!


One of my favorite events to host while on the road is pizza parties, an informal gathering that students can attend attend at night to find out more about MSU. I have already had two pizza parties in Vermont (Bennington and Burlington) and both have been a great success. The first one was at Bennington Pizza House (on the left) and three students attended all from different high schools, one was actually from NY. Pizza parties are so much fun and if you have a chance to attend a pizza party near your hometown, I would really encourage you to go! You can have any of your questions answered and bring your friends and family for free pizza! YUM. You can also meet other students from your area who are interested in Montana State. I will have a total of 5 pizza parties in New England and Kelsy will be out here in October hosting a few more. Make sure to check the Admissions Travel Schedule to see what pizza parties are in your area. If you are in New England, I hope to see you while I'm out here!

Meg is on the road!

It was a beautiful weekend in Bozeman, MT with perfect fall weather. I had a great time trail running in Hylite Canyon and biking around downtown but I couldn’t help but be a little nervous...my first travel season kicked off yesterday! Of the five traveling Admissions Representatives, all five of us are on the road. Currently in Glasgow, I am on an Eastern Montana College Fair tour.
Talking to high school seniors today brought me back to my senior year in high school. I could not decide on a school! I even had campus housing deposits at two of them. Choosing Montana State University was something I thought long and hard about. But I could not resist the wide variety of academic programs, amazing faculty, tight knit community, active student body and endless outdoor opportunities. A place where I could choose from tons of majors, get personal attention from my professors and be a 25 minute ordeal away from Bridger Bowl (our local ski resort) was worth a shot. Who would have thought it would have been one of the best decisions of my life?!?
Making a college choice is extremely difficult and my best advice is to visit the schools you are interested in. We have our first MSU Friday event coming up on October 16th which is a huge event with over 500 prospective students from around the country participating! There are sample classes, tours and information sessions all day long. And if you can’t make an MSU Friday event, we welcome visitors every Monday-Friday (except on holidays). I recommend you check us out if you are thinking MSU!

Gold Rush!

Tomorrow marks the day for the first home football game of the year and campus is buzzing with the excitement of the game! A tradition at Montana State University and the first home football game is to deem this our "Gold Rush" game where fans are asked to wear gold and make the stadium seem like a gold sea of fans! Students, alumni and MSU fans have been snatching up their official MSU Gold Rush shirts from the MSU Book Store or Universal Athletics (for those not in Bozeman) for only $10 (which is a great price) and it seems as though it will be another successful Gold Rush this year with a sold out stadium expected as usual! I can't wait to get to the stadium to have a burger at the tailgates, watch the team enter the stadium during the "Bobcat Prowl" and hear the cannon signaling the kickoff! As usual, it should be another great day to be a Bobcat!

One of the perks of being a student is that all home games are free for students to attend. Whether it is a home football game or going to the Brick Breeden Fieldhouse to support our men's and women's Bobcat Basketball teams or volleyball, track and field and all the other NCAA athletics teams MSU has to offer. There is great support for our student-athletes from students, staff and faculty, the Bozeman area and fans around Montana and the U.S! Make sure to keep up with everything going on with Bobcat Athletics throughout the year! GO CATS!

The Soloist: 2009 Freshman Convocation

Last night I attended freshman convocation - a welcome event for MSU's new freshman students. The book selected for the summer reading this year was "The Soloist: A Lost Dream, an Unlikely Friendship and the Redemptive Power of Music" by LA Times columnist Steve Lopez. It was required summer reading for all 2,400 incoming freshman and this novel will be discussed in classes and several venues this fall. Check out Steven Lopez's message to the MSU Class of 2013.


"The Soloist" is a factual account that traces the development of a four-year friendship between Lopez and homeless musician Nathaniel Ayers, a former Julliard prodigy living on the streets of Los Angeles. Lopez was a great speaker and delivered an important message to the MSU Class of 2013. MSU is fortunate to bring wonderful speakers throughout the year with programs on campus like the MSU Leadership Institute.

To end the night, Champ the bobcat mascot and President Gamble came to the stage and sang the MSU Fight song. The Fieldhouse was packed with students proudly singing their fight song and a energetic end to the evening and a fun kick off to the school year!

New Flip Cam!

The Admissions Office made an exciting purchase today, we now have a Flip cam! The Flip cam is smaller than my cell phone so it will be super easy to bring all over campus and Bozeman to film some fun movies showing what it's like to be a student at MSU.

We will be trying the camera out tonight at freshman convocation where Steve Lopez author of The Soloist will be speaking. So be on the look out for some fun new videos on the blog and our Facebook page soon!

Seniors Take Action!

Travel has officially begun! I have the privilege of kicking off the fall 2009 travel season. So far my travels are going well. I arrived in Fresno, CA yesterday and have already met with many interested students. I hosted a pizza party last night, visited high schools this afternoon and will attend a large area college fair tonight. This is the time when you high school seniors should begin filling out applications and taking the ACT and/or SAT if you have not already. Do not forget to check out our fantastic scholarships!

MSU AdvoCats

One of my responsibilities as an Admissions Representative is coordinating the student campus tour guides. At MSU we call our tour guides AdvoCats since we are bobcats...aren't we clever! This year we have more than 50 student volunteers who will be giving tours to over 4,000 students and family members who visit campus. Above is a photo from our ice cream social last spring.


We had our first class yesterday and they are such a great group of students! Yesterday's class was full of information and we finalized the campus tour schedule. Soon the 2009 AdvoCats will be featured on our Meet our Students webpage, and you can get to know more about them!




The AdvoCats also have a blog, so you can keep up to date with this student group if you would like. AdvoCats are volunteers, but they have some pretty amazing opportunities throughout their year of service. Last year, we were able to have dinner at the President Gamble's house, tour the underground steam tunnels that run through campus and go on a behind the scenes tour of the Museum of the Rockies. That's us to the left with Big Mike (the full size bronze sculpture based on a T-Rex found in Eastern Montana in 1988).


Hopefully you will have a chance to go on a tour led by and MSU AdvoCat this year. You can find out about our visit opportunities and contact the MSU Office of Admissions at 1-888-MSU-CATS to arrange your visit to campus.

Concerts in Bozeman

We have been having great weather in Bozeman this week which is great for attending outdoor concerts. This friday I will driving to Red Lodge, MT and attending a Montgomery Gentry concert. This concert is a little bit of a drive but I have been able to see quite a few bands right in Bozeman in the last few years including Carry Underwood, John Mayer, Maroon 5, Flogging Molly and lots of other groups. Big concerts are usually held in the Brick Breeden Fieldhouse which is right on campus and will be hosting Jason Mraz in a couple weeks.

Many bands play at various locations around town such as the Emerson Cultural Center where I saw Josh Ritter this summer. In the Strand Union Building many Friday nights each semester the student government, ASMSU, sponsors free concerts. They bring in local and regional bands that have a variety of music styles. Another one of my favorite events is Music On Main which happens every Thursday night in July and August. Above is a picture of the crowd at one Music On Main this summer. It's a free event and two blocks of main street are shut down for bands to play during the event. Although Music On Main is done for the year there is going to another fun concert this weekend featuring a Bozeman band The Clintons. The concert is called Clinton Fest will be held this Saturday at the fairgrounds. They are one of my favorite local bands and put on lots of great shows around Bozeman throughout the year.

Travel, Travel, Travel...

As things are coming to life around campus, we admissions representatives are getting ready to hit the road! We will be traveling across Montana and the country visiting high schools, attending college fairs and hosting pizza parties. Keep up with us by checking out our travel schedules and continuing to follow our blog. Also, do not forget to check out the Cateye webcam to see what is happening on campus!