Colleges across the country are rolling out new financial-aid initiatives and, at the same time, ramping up efforts to reach out to the students these policies will benefit.
Mailings advertising bigger and better aid packages, admissions representatives traveling the country and private college-matching services are quickly gaining favor with selective institutions around the country.
And Penn, which recently announced that it is shifting to no-loan financial-aid packages for eligible students, is also developing new ways of reaching low- and low-middle-income students.
"We're rethinking our communications strategy," Provost Ron Daniels said, in order to be more "creative in how we signal the availability of a Penn education to students from low socioeconomic status."
The University is developing a new marketing campaign built around Penn's affordability and accessibility, interim Dean of Admissions Eric Kaplan wrote in an e-mail. A new brochure and DVD targeting low-income high-school juniors will be mailed out this spring.
Though the communications strategy was in the development process before the University announced its new financial-aid policy, the two will complement each other in addressing a longstanding problem at Penn, University officials said.
"The main problems that all selective universities have faced is getting the word out that we're affordable and welcoming of students from middle-income as well as low-income backgrounds," Penn President Amy Gutmann said.
One program that Penn is considering to further reach out to these students is QuestBridge, which matches low-income students to top-tier colleges.
"We're more than anxious and open to considering participation in initiatives like QuestBridge, which we think will amplify our capacity to get the word out about our commitment to making some inroads" in recruiting underrepresented students, Daniels said.
Though match classes with QuestBridge are typically small - the University of Chicago had the most matches in 2007 with 29 - students who participate in QuestBridge are still exposed to partner schools they otherwise might not consider.
Emory University, a QuestBridge partner, only admitted a handful of students under early decision this admissions cycle, but the school "probably [has] over 800 additional students who requested regular review with" the university, Emory Dean of Admissions Jean Jordan said. She added that these students likely would not have otherwise applied.
And while Penn is still in preliminary talks about creating a partnership with QuestBridge, its current outreach efforts have already yielded some results: This year's freshman class contained double the number of underrepresented minorities than the year before.
"We're working from a small base," Gutmann said, adding, "I'd love to see an upward trend line," as the new efforts begin.
