Selling Penn to future freshmen

Admissions officers travel around the U.S. to preach the value of going to Penn. Hundreds of students and parents enter the room and pause, momentarily taken aback by the grandeur of College Hall 200. Afraid to disturb the silence, they quietly sit flipping through various brochures and looking around at the design of the room. And then the door at the front of the room opens, and a fatherly looking man in a dark blue suit walks out to introduce himself. "Good morning," he says to the 150 or so people gathered in front of him. "My job today is to tell you about Penn." So sums up the job of Penn's Undergraduate Admissions Office during the summer and fall months. In that time between April and November each year, reading applications is the furthest thing from the minds of the staff. What matters during those weeks and months is getting the word out about Penn to as many top high school students as possible, ensuring that the eventual make-up of the class meets with the University's improving reputation. "What we want to do is drive as many talented, capable people into the pool as possible," said Eric Kaplan, director of planning in the admissions office. "If the pool doesn't reflect what we want the class to look like? that class won't reflect that either." Beginning the process The recruitment process for the new freshman class begins every year in the spring, after the current class has been accepted. Often though, according to Kaplan, the process gets started even earlier, as "juniors in particular start to look at colleges as early as January or February." "The process [really] begins in earnest in the spring because, particularly in some of the big cities, students at that point are really ready to begin looking at colleges," Kaplan said. In April and into the first week of May -- a full 16 months before the incoming class will matriculate -- admissions officers travel to schools across the country and make presentations at information sessions or spring college fairs sponsored by school consortiums and community groups. Off-campus work temporarily stops during the summer months and attentions are focused on the thousands of visitors who come to campus during July and August. "By and large it becomes primarily a campus-based program," Kaplan said. "That's when our visitors really swell." 'Not a whole lot of down time' Once the new school year begins, however, the relaxing parts of summer disappear as staff members pack their bags and go over the points they need to present at high schools. "Fall is when we really kick it into high gear," Kaplan said. The seemingly overwhelming task of educating thousands of students about the merits of applying to and matriculating at Penn falls on the shoulders of the approximately 20 regional directors who head a particular area of the country. Each director is in charge of visiting schools and meeting with students in their region. For these regional directors, the beginning of the year means five to seven weeks of intense travel throughout their geographic regions. Regional Director Quenby Jackson -- who is in charge of Texas, Arizona, Oklahoma, New Mexico and five counties in New York -- explained that a typical schedule for her would be spending a week on the road, a day or weekend at home, and then another week of travel. On the road, a day might include getting up at 6 a.m., four or five school presentations, faxing, talking on the phone and e-mailing with the office, dinner with an alumnus living in the area and an evening program for parents and students from several schools. Trips also often include visiting with local alumni and updating them on what is happening at Penn or training them on how to interview the 17,600 students who could apply to Penn in any one year. "It's routine, but you never know what you're going to get day to day," said Jackson, 32. At the end of every presentation she opens the floor up to questions. While students often have many questions, at the same time they are often too shy to ask. "[I say to them] if you don't start asking questions I'll send you back to class," Jackson said laughing. "Then they start asking questions." But life on the road is not always so amusing. While the University does put up its staff in hotels and pays for food, the schedule is often so hectic that missing meals becomes routine and the hotels begin to look the same. "I would love to take my dog [for company]," joked Regional Director Chris Pluta, 30. "It truly is exhausting." "[There's] not a whole lot of down time," Jackson agreed. "We're on stage where ever we go. We have to be up." But travel is not always so lonely. For years Penn admissions officers have participated in group travel, arranging joint trips to high schools with representatives of the likes of Harvard, Duke and Georgetown universities. "It's certainly more effective for four schools to go out and see a crowd," Kaplan said. "Our drawing power is much stronger." Group travel is also often a nice change of pace for the regional directors. "By and large admissions travel can be very lonely," Admissions Dean Lee Stetson said. "It's nice for them to have collegial interaction." Getting the word out Pluta -- who is in charge of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, western Pennsylvania, West Virginia and New Jersey -- said that when she visits rural schools in her area she often has to clarify that she is from the University of Pennsylvania, not Penn State. "There's a lot of people who don't know us," Pluta said, adding that many times students will get up to leave when they learn she is representing an Ivy League school, not the Big 10 football powerhouse. This confusion -- with the accompanying mass departures from meetings -- is what admissions staff members hope to end while at the same time introducing students to a new school they might not otherwise have considered. "[We] try to be proactive" in the presentations, said Mark Shank, coordinator of transfer credit and advanced standing. "We try and touch on as much as we can? [and] try and dispel rumors," he added. Stetson said there are two things about Penn -- in addition to stressing the excitement of student life -- that he asks his staff to mention. "The things I like to say about Penn are that we have variate options -- academically and extracurricularly -- and there's access to those options," Stetson said. "The boundaries are seamless." Kaplan added that it is also important to direct information as well to parents, who often have different concerns than their children. "We try very hard to encourage parents to work with their sons and daughters and to understand that it's actually their sons and daughters that are going to college, not them." 'The best part of what we do' Kaplan stressed the importance that dividing the world into regions assigned to specific directors has on the recruitment process. "We [organize] it that way because we find that if someone is in charge of a region, it allows them to build relationships with prospective students," said Kaplan, who is also a regional director in charge of the Manhattan area. It is those personal relationships that Penn's admissions officers build with students, parents and guidance counselors that the regional directors say are the most important part of their recruiting process in the fall. "Meeting with the student is the best part of what we do," Jackson said. In addition to getting to know prospective students on a more personal level, Jackson said that by talking with them about their interests she can help them decide if Penn is truly the place for them. And this is the underlying philosophy emphasized throughout the entire recruitment process, from the first piece of mail received as a high school junior to matriculation two years later as part of the new freshman class in the fall. "We feel as though the difference that we can make is being personal with [students], getting to know them and talking with them," Kaplan said. "You learn so much about people." The students' view Attracting students to Penn extends beyond the Admissions Office on the ground floor of College Hall. The process includes the many student volunteers who lead tours and host applicants overnight. "It's not just an Admissions Office visit," Kaplan said. "We really rely on everyone. We have lots of student guides, we have overnight hosts and that impression that [applicants] get when they stay on campus is very powerful." College senior Caroline Rigsby has been a student ambassador since her freshman year and tour guide since last summer. "The tour guide is to me the most important part [of the process] because they're getting a chance to see a student talk about the school," she said. Rigsby added that sincerity, honesty and enthusiasm for Penn are the characteristics that the office looks for in its volunteers. "Usually if people are volunteers it's because they do love Penn," she said. And the efforts have paid off for Rigsby, who noted that several students have come up to her after a tour and told her that she had convinced them to apply early. Lynn Mandell, acting director of on-campus programs in undergraduate admissions, said that the student volunteers are an integral part of the recruiting process and often are the deciding factor in a student's decision to apply. "We couldn't do it without them," she said. Increasing diversity In searching for the best students to be part of the new freshman class, Penn's admissions office strives to ensure that the applicant pool is as diverse as possible. "One of the ongoing challenges is ensuring that the class is as diverse as possible," Stetson said. "We travel [to recruit minority students] probably the most, in terms of the Ivies," Director of Minority Recruitment Rodney Morrison said. He added that Penn attempts to attract minority students by stressing "the fact that there's a student community [and] lots of resources available" for them on campus. Admissions officers also rely on current Penn students to talk with and host prospective students in order to give them a positive feel of the campus. Even with a recent increase in active recruiting, getting minority students to matriculate at Penn still requires effort. "Recruitment of students of color is a challenge," Stetson said. "Everyone's recruiting them." Morrison agreed, saying one problem they face is the fact that "very strong students of color in academic terms are being recruited by every school in the country." "Other schools will offer full scholarships [that as an] Ivy we cannot offer," he said. The U.S. is not the only place Penn searches for diverse students. Beyond the 50 states is a whole world of talented students Penn would like to see included in its student body. "We think it's important for Penn to be visible [to prospective students] in all corners of the world," said Elisabeth O'Connell, director of international admissions. Having an impact Thinking about their experiences on the road, presenting to parents or just talking with students, many in the Admissions Office say that despite their seemingly never-ending routine, the job does leave room for unexpected or light moments. "You have to be quick and on your toes and prepared for anything," Jackson said. She recounted a time in Houston when she woke up sick one morning and had a student at one of the schools she visited offer to take her home and have their mom take care of her. Jackson declined, but added that the bellman at her hotel did bring her chicken soup and medication. And it is often the small things that make the job so rewarding. Stetson remembered a time several years ago when he was conducing a panel on how to improve the admissions process during Family Weekend and a woman from central Oklahoma came up to him. "She said, 'Dean Stetson, I just want to thank you for the fact that you came to our area,'" Stetson recalled. "'If your staff hadn't been there we wouldn't have known anything about this experience and now we have a daughter here who loves this place and it's just changed her life completely.'" Stetson paused and smiled at the memory. "That's when you realize what you're doing does have an impact," he said.