Admission or Admissions

[Paul B. Gallagher]

Konstantin Dibrova wrote:

 > I am looking for THE equivalent to the Russian term  priyemnaya
 > komissiya". The problem is that I came across two (more precisely,
 > four) English variants: admissionS office/office of admissionS and
 > the admission office/office of admission. The first is used in the
 > (under)graduate catalogs and booklets issued by California Univ.,
 > Yale, Harvard and State Department. Princeton, Colorado College,
 > Duke, Carnegie Mellon, Texas Christian Univs. prefer the second
 > version. The same story is with some other collocations.  I found
 > both  admission decisions" and  admissionS decisions",  admission
 > process" and  admissionS process",  admission requirements" and
 > admissionS requirements",  admission committee" and  admissionS
 > committee" (same author!),  admissionS staff" and  admission
 > professionals",  director of admission" and  director of admissionS"
 > etc. Which way does your college and you go, the singular or the
 > plural?

The general pattern in these constructions is that British English
favo(u)rs the plural, whereas American favors the unmarked (singular)
form. So for example, we have "drug abuse" where they have "drugs
abuse," etc.

However, there are several approved exceptions such as "materials
science" (материаловедение) where the plural is necessary to prevent the
misunderstanding that the science might be tangible («материальное дело»
or something).

Additionally, there are numerous collocations in AE that employ the
plural by convention (so-called "frozen forms"), and I would say
"admissions office" is one of these. Some speakers would invent
justifications for the plural, suggesting for example that an "office of
admission" might be responsible for confessing crimes. ;-)

At any rate, there is competition in America between the tradition of
using the plural with reference to college admissions and the prevailing
rule of stripping plurals from preposed nouns used as modifiers. Hence
you'll see both, even sometimes from the same speaker.

My personal preferences are listed below (and I confess these are
difficult choices, because I'm accustomed to seeing both). The bracketed
comments refer only to the word "admission(s)." I've tried to list what
I think myself I would write, and indicate the range of what I would
accept as an editor in the comments:

admission(s) office [leaning sg.]
admission decision(s) [strongly prefer sg.]
admission(s) process [leaning sg.]
admission requirement(s) [strongly prefer sg.]
admission(s) committee(s) [leaning sg.]
admission(s) staff [leaning sg.]
admission professionals [strongly prefer sg.]
director of admissions [leaning pl.]

YMMV

I can't help you with use of the article unless you give me a context --
both "a(n)" and "the" are possible.

--
War doesn't determine who's right, just who's left.
--
Paul B. Gallagher
pbg translations, inc.
"Russian Translations That Read Like Originals"
http://pbg-translations.com

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