Press Release

Sarah Scarpelli Named Director of Office of Admission & Financial Aid

July 13, 2010

DeKalb, Ill.-- Sarah Scarpelli has been named Director of Admission & Financial Aid for the Northern Illinois University College of Law effective July 1, 2010. 

Scarpelli has a well-established history with higher education admissions.  In 1998, she began her career as an assistant director of admissions for the Illinois M.B.A. Program in Champaign, Illinois. In 2000, she joined the legal academy by way of the Admissions Office of the Northwestern University School of Law.  She began as an Interviewer, eventually moving her way up to the position of Director of Admissions & Financial Aid for the Graduate & International Degree Programs. Scarpelli most recently served in the position of Director of Admissions at the Columbus School of Law at the Catholic University of America, from 2005 to 2007.

As Director, Scarpelli will coordinate recruitment, evaluation and scholarship allotment for all College of Law candidates.  In addition, she is responsible for marketing the Law School at recruitment events across the country.  She will also assist and counsel prospective students not only on the particulars of the admissions process, but also on loans, residency requirements, and housing.  Scarpelli will coordinate a staff that includes Assistant Director of Admissions & Financial Aid Sandra Polanco as well as NIU Law students serving as special assistants.

In the role of Director of Admission & Financial Aid, Scarpelli works closely with Dean Rosato.  Together they will endeavor to increase awareness of NIU’s College of Law and promote its commitment to excellence, diversity and increased opportunity to students both locally and nationwide.  The NIU College of Law is the only public law school in the greater Chicago area, and has recently been ranked in several top 10 lists relating to diversity by the Princeton Review.

An educator as well as an administrator, Scarpelli has served as an Adjunct Instructor, presenting a seminar on becoming a lawyer at the CUA Law School.  In addition, she has played a vital role in designing new initiatives, a skill in enterprising she hopes to incorporate fully in her new position. She has designed a new Financial Aid Policy, an Introduction to CUA Law program and a Scholarship Interview Program, just to name a few, at the Columbus School of Law.

Scarpelli received her B.S. in News-Editorial Journalism in 1994 from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and her J.D. degree from the Chicago-Kent College of Law in 1998.

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For more information, contact:
Melody Mitchell
Alumni Events & Public Relations
(815) 753-9655 or mmitchell@niu.edu