Penn's traveling salesmen tour country for new students

Driving for several hours each day in a rental car, logging tens of thousands of miles a year on airplanes and spending months away from home living in hotel rooms can be tough.

This type of travel normally defines a large part of the lives of consultants and other business executives.

Yet the nomadic months on the road can also be typical for college admissions officers, traveling from city to city, though without many of the perks commonly associated with business travel.

For Penn's staff of 20 admissions officers, their jobs mean spending two months in the fall and several weeks in the spring recruiting potential students and spreading the University's name around the world. Each officer is responsible for a specific geographic region or collection of states.

"It's tough, but it's also rewarding," said Assistant Director of Transfer and International Admissions Neasa Thornton, who represents Penn in Europe and South America but also does some domestic recruiting.

A typical day for an officer can start as early as 6 a.m. and may not end until 10 p.m. Each officer typically visits three or four high schools a day, and a college fair or two in the evening.

"It's exciting, because no two days are exactly alike," Thornton said. "Something always happens."

On a recent visit to the Westtown School in suburban Philadelphia, for example, gardeners started mowing the lawn during the presentation.

The school guidance counselor, visibly agitated, had to go out to stop the lawn mowers.

"You just have to go with the flow and not let it get to you," Thornton said, having gone through multiple fire drills before as well.

Because of the demands on admissions officers, they are often young, with most in their 20s and 30s. The demanding travel can interfere with family life, as officers can easily be away from home for up to a quarter of the year.

"It's tough, because I have a family and kids," said Tracy Matthews, senior associate dean of admissions at Swarthmore College.

While young people are better able to deal with the demands on family life, admissions officers also tend to be on the young side because high school students feel more comfortable around people closer to their age.

"I think it also has to do with how [the prospective students] can relate better with younger people," Thornton said.

However, the youth of some officers can also cause problems.

"Being young, it's hard to gain credibility with high school counselors," said Emory University officer Casey Gendason, who graduated from the school in 2000. "It takes a lot of professionalism to gain their trust."

Despite the enthusiasm they have for their job, many of the officers say that work is often taxing.

"The travel starts off fun, but after about four weeks, you get tired of it," Gendason said. "There's only so much TGI Friday's, Chili's and hotels that anyone can take."

Because of the demands of the job, few officers make admissions a lifetime career, but many don't leave it behind completely. In fact, the officers often wind up taking jobs as guidance counselors.

"The lifestyle of the profession makes it hard for people," Gendason said. "It is demanding and people can get burned out."

Finding a way to set their respective school apart is also a challenge for some officers. Whereas visits to individual high school are fairly effective in this regard, due to the small size of the crowd, college fairs can be daunting tasks.

Fairs are often very large, with hundreds of colleges and an equally large number of officers involved, each armed with glossy brochures and donning polo shirts or blazers with their college's logo.

At a recent college fair, one officer from Hawaii Pacific University had a unique way of standing out -- he wore a colorful Hawaiian shirt instead of more conventional attire.

But in the end, setting schools apart is quite difficult, and officers can only wait for parents and prospective students to visit their tables.

"The fairs are less effective for me, but I think they're better for families because they can learn about many schools at once," Matthews said.

Despite the challenges that her job presents, Matthews says that she takes pleasure in the task at hand.

"It's exciting and I enjoy the work," Matthews said. "You meet lots of new people."

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