There's a nice article in Inside Higher Ed today by a faculty member suddenly working in admissions:
Whole sections of the admissions and recruitment process might not even be part of the division of academic affairs, but part of an enrollment services division, staffed by people who are experts in marketing, admissions, financial aid and more conversant in "yield management" than in the language of academia. Faculty often talk about admissions, financial aid, and recruiting, but rarely run across or seek out the people responsible, and are not often involved enough in the process to understand it.
Up until a year or two ago, I would count myself in this category. However, last year I received a federal six-year grant to work on a project to help middle school students make a successful transition to college, and I was suddenly in the college admissions and recruitment business (though we sell college, not a college), and I began to better understand what the competitive world of college recruitment is like.
This is a nice bit of timing, as part of what's kept me busy over the past few days has been work for Admissions...
At big schools, it's probably easy to take the Archchancellor Ridcully stance toward undergraduates ("They come with the place. Like rats."), but part of what we're selling at small liberal arts colleges is the idea of close contact between students and faculty, which means faculty need to get involved in the admissions process at least a little bit. The Admissions office runs several Open House events every year, usually on school holidays, and faculty are recruited to go to lunch in the Field House and chat with prospective students and their parents. In the sciences, we also run tours of the facilities, so students get a look at the resources we have to offer.
I always agree to go to these events, unless I have some schedule conflict, both because I spent enough time in grad school that I never turn down a free meal, but also because I know how important this stuff is. Students make admission decisions based on amazingly arbitrary criteria, and anything we can do to make their visit to campus a more positive experience might be the thing that makes a difference between getting a good student to enroll, and losing them to another college.
And this does pay off. I know for a fact that we've gotten a handful of students to come to Union based largely on the fact that we went out of our way to give them tours of the Physics and Astronomy facilities, and talk to them about what we have to offer. And those students include some of the very best students we've had over the time I've been here. The occasional really awkward lunchtime conversation (I have a gift for choosing to sit down at tables containing future History majors) is a small price to pay for that.
Of course, it's also a job that never ends. You might be thinking "Wait a minute-- yesterday was May 28th, but the due date for students to commit to colleges was May 1st. Why would they be having an Admissions event a month after the class for the fall was admitted?"
Yesterday's Open House was aimed at high school juniors, who are just starting the college application process. We're already recruiting the class for the September after next...
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Indeed, I went to a hoity-toity private school, and it was understood that if anything, you spend more time and more thought trying to decide which colleges you're most interested in during your junior year than during your senior year.
By the beginning of your senior year, you have a pretty good idea which colleges you're likely to apply to, if you haven't already set the list. That's the first cut in recruiting, is getting students to apply to your college in the first place.
-Rob
the principle applies to graduate school admission too only in spades because our interest in "the best students" is, I would argue, more acute.
Amazing what impact having Professor X who's papers an undergrad has been reading for the past 4 years call up and say "come to MyUniv" has...
people really overlook the influence of seemingly small interpersonal events in shaping futures... (or is this why you brought up discworld chad, clever!)
I was anomalous, in that did not set foot on any university ground prior to the move in on orientation day. Seeing an assortment of people and personalities probably helps prospective students feel they could find somewhere within the school to exist and even thrive. My choice was made when I had an interested baseball coach and found there to be no fraternities on campus.
I attended smaller research universities and was asked to attend every science open house event from my first mention of an intended pursuit of a Physics major. Of course like many I was there for the food, but they were usually a good bit of fun. Late undergrad and through grad school many prospects and parents asked about the research of "that spiky-mohawked professor." Admissions would never openly admit to such, but an amicable campus punk was one their better recruitment points.
The primary lab I worked in was near the building doors and thus we were near the school tour route. If the lab door was open as the tour came along we would redirect them through the lab for "our" portion of the tour. The best was when one of the grad students was talking/explaining our work when he walked past a bench of assorted bits. He looked down said, "Oh, shiny!" He placed some little metal object in his pocket, and then just kept on talking as if nothing happened. Most of the prospects mentioned it later in their interviews, which led to some memos between admissions and the physics office concerning students pocketing school equipment. I know at least one person on that tour became a student at the school.