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The New York Skyline

Lost our way to Long Island and found ourselves in Lower Manhattan

One World Trade Center-standing majestic in the sky

As May 1st, the national college commitment day, fast approaches, most universities are in the final stages of recruiting this fall’s incoming class. You may hear  the term “yield” used frequently at this point in the recruitment cycle to describe the strategic efforts associated with converting  admitted students to “paid acceptance fee” status.

In addition to the Honors Admitted Student event which took place on Friday, March 27th, the April 10th GoBuckeye Day is the last undergraduate admissions-hosted yield event of the recruitment season. Besides participating in on-campus events, the staff of ASC Recruitment and Diversity Services (RDS) recently traveled to New York and New Jersey where we met with admitted students as well as high school juniors  who will apply to college this fall.

It was refreshing to identify students who we recognized from their having attended one or more on-campus events. Although a good number of them said they had already made up their minds about Ohio State, they still came  to learn more about their major(s) and the university as well as hear from current students and alums about the student experience at Ohio State. Many families reported that they were encouraged to see college representatives at the event. They were reassured that Ohio State, in spite of its size, cared enough to personalize the event for their guests.

In the next couple of months, RDS will begin to actively recruit for Autumn 2016. Our goal is to work with departments to reach prospective students interested in one or more of our majors. We will share our best practices, including examples of how e-mail campaigns, webinars and printed material can serve as useful tools for “conversion” – a recruitment  jargon which refers to the process of converting “prospects”  to applicants. Prospects refer to prospective students, a population that will be our focus in the coming months.

The oval clothed in white on February 14, 2015

Dean Manderscheid preparing to welcome our guests

A cross section of our guests

Right now it does not seem like this winter season will ever pass. According to experts at accuweather.com, we are experiencing even colder air than the one that brought subzero lows to the Midwest on Valentine’s Day weekend. Yet, for two consecutive Saturdays in February (February 7th and February 14th), we had a total of about 630 admitted student and guests visit campus to learn about the Arts and Sciences at Ohio State. On Saturday, February 14, about 200 admitted students and their guests (about 450 people) braved the blustery winds and white-out conditions to attend one of two College of Arts and Sciences Experience events. Families traveled from states as far away as Florida,  Maryland, New York and New Jersey. Also noteworthy was the fact that our faculty, staff and advisors defied the dangerous roads to get to campus on time to meet with our guests. I was impressed when Rebecca Bias, from the Center for Languages, Literatures and Cultures (CLLC) described how she had to park by the roadside until it was safe to resume driving to campus to offer a tour of the CLLC.  I was equally impressed to see our faculty and staff  members waiting patiently for their sessions to begin, even when we were not sure that the students who signed up for the various sessions had made it to campus. There are too many stories of dedication and service to recount here, but I want to thank everyone who came out to help yield the class of 2015. The staff of ASC Recruitment and Diversity Services cannot do what we do without you. Now, if only we could experience some summer heat. By the way, did Punxsutawney Phil see its shadow yet? I must have missed that.

February is an exciting month in ASC Recruitment and Diversity Services (RDS). Our office will be hosting three Experience Days to showcase the Arts and Humanities, the Social and Behavioral Sciences and the Natural and Mathematical Sciences to ALL admitted students. The Experience Days will give admitted students the opportunity to learn what sets our programs apart from the rest.

EXPERIENCE THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES AT OHIO STATE

On February 7, 2015, our faculty and advisers will offer in-depth major overviews to highlight the following majors:

Psychology- Lisa Cravens-Brown

 Anthropology & Anthropological Sciences- Meg Downing

Speech and Hearing Science- Larry Feth

Sociology and Criminology & Criminal Justice Studies- Kristi Williams

 International Studies and Globalization Studies- Tony Mughan

 Communication and Journalism- Lisa Jerele

 Political Science and World Politics- Charles Smith

Geography, Geographic Information Science, Atmospheric Sciences and Air Transportation Studies– Jay Hobgood

EXPERIENCE THE ARTS & HUMANITIES AT OHIO STATE

On February 14, 2015, our guests will be able to choose from 9 sample classes offered by Arts and Humanities faculty. You can see from the exciting titles below what our guests will be treated to while they are on campus.

• Happiness Is?– Allan Silverman
• Concept in 60: Digital Media and Writing Studies– Scott Lloyd DeWitt
• Don Juan: Seduction Across Cultures– Alexander Burry
• How to Throw a Pot– Rebecca Harvey
• In a Flash: the 100 Word Story– Manuel Martinez
• English Dialects– Julie McGory
• The Literary and Cultural Influence of the Bible–  Hannibal Hamlin
  
• How to Look at a Painting– Karl Whittington
• Be Inspired! How the languages can help you become a World Buckeye-Jonathan Combs-Schilling

Our guests will tour the Cartoon Library, the Lawrence and Isabel Barnett Center for Integrated Arts and Enterprise and the Center for Languages, Literatures and Cultures.

EXPERIENCE THE NATURAL AND MATHEMATICAL SCIENCES AT OHIO STATE

February 14, 2015 will be a busy day for the College of Arts and Sciences because we will ALSO be hosting the Science and Mathematics Experience Day.  Departmental presentations by our faculty and advisers will include the following:

• Physics and Astrophysics: How to Understand the Universe-Lindsey Thaler & Don Terndrup

•    Microbiology: deciphering the wonders and menace of microbes- Natacha Ruiz

•    “Be a Hero! Be an Earth Scientist!”- Anne Carey

•   Chemistry Can Be Fun- Mary Bailey

•   Adventures in mathematical biology — blackboard, bedside, bench- Joe Tien

•   Biochemistry – Unlocking the Chemistry of Life- Gabriela Jakubowska
  

•   techFocused = “Computer and Big Data Programs @OSU”- Nikki Strader & Matt Miller

•   The big picture: Zoology, Evolution, Ecology, and everything in between- Sue Ellen Dehority

•  Biology at Ohio State- Caroline Breitenberger
  

• The Race to Solve the Structure of DNA- Amanda Simcox

• Neuroscience: Medical School, Research, and Beyond- Charlie Campbell

Our guests will tour the Center for Life Sciences Education, the Insectary and the Orton Geological Museum.

Stay tuned for other exciting events !!!

Where in the world will ASC Recruitment and Diversity Services (RDS) staff be this spring?  Cincinnati, Cleveland, Chicago, New York and New Jersey are the cities we will be visiting during the months of February and March. We will meet with our admitted students at dessert receptions organized by Undergraduate Admissions on the following dates:

February 17- Cleveland

February 22- Chicago

February 26- Cincinnati

From March 17-19, we will meet with Admitted ASC students as well as prospective high school juniors and high school counselors in New York and New Jersey. This event is an example of the ways we interact with two different populations within a recruitment cycle. While we are trying to yield admitted students (convert admits to paid fees status) for Fall 2015, we will also be recruiting high school juniors for Fall 2016.

RDS continues to work on building a strong relationship with Guidance Counselors from within and outside Ohio. Counselors are likely to be the first contact their students have with respect to the college planning process, so in New York and New Jersey, we will make our new recruitment materials available as well as share information about our majors in Data Analytics and World Politics.

You can tell that it is never a dull moment in RDS.

Last year I participated in a webinar on Faculty involvement in undergraduate recruitment organized by Innovative Educators. I was drawn to the subject matter because many of our College of Arts and Sciences faculty are already engaged in undergraduate recruitment and I wanted to gauge where we were in relation to what the presenters had to say.  Some of the best practices for faculty involvement in recruitment discussed during the webinar were:

• Assist in the campus visit experience

• Open up classroom to prospective students

• Meet one-on-one with students and their families

• Promote Honors program to attract the best and brightest

• Provide dynamic presentations to prospective students and families at visit days

In my role as undergraduate recruitment director, I have been privileged to work with dedicated Arts and Sciences  faculty who engage our prospective and admitted students in one or more ways outlined above. A review of the responses on the Will Not Enroll (WNE) questionnaire, administered to students who do not enroll at our institution, indicates that Access to faculty (or the perception of a lack of access to faculty) is one of the reasons admitted students may choose not to enroll. There is probably a connection here to the fact that we are a large institution and students fear that they will get lost in the system.

So I want to thank all our faculty members and academic advisers who go above and beyond the normal call of duty to assist us in recruiting each incoming class. The extra mile makes a huge difference:-)

Every year, Beloit College releases a list that is supposed to help us understand the mindset of the first year class. I find the list very informative and entertaining, even as generalized as it may seem. I have listed just a few of the mindsets below.  The complete list can be found on the Beloit website at https://www.beloit.edu/mindset/2018/

According to the list, for students who entered college this fall (the Class of 2018)…

1. During their initial weeks of kindergarten, they were upset by endlessly repeated images of planes blasting into the World Trade Center.

2. Since they binge-watch their favorite TV shows, they might like to binge-watch the video portions of their courses too.

3. Meds have always been an option.

4. When they see wire-rimmed glasses, they think Harry Potter, not John Lennon.

5. “Press pound” on the phone is now translated as “hit hashtag.”

6. Celebrity “selfies” are far cooler than autographs.

7. The water cooler is no longer the workplace social center; it’s the place to fill your water bottle.

8. FOX News and MSNBC have always been duking it out for the hearts and minds of American viewers.

9. Joe Camel has never introduced one of them to smoking.

10. Women have always been dribbling, and occasionally dunking, in the WNBA.

11. Parents have always been able to rely on a ratings system to judge violence on TV.

12. There has always been “TV” designed to be watched exclusively on the web.

13. Female referees have always officiated NBA games.

14. There has always been a national database of sex offenders.

15. Chicago, a musical about a celebrity getting away with murder, has always been popular on Broadway.

16. Bill Gates has always been the richest man in the U.S.

17. They have probably never used Netscape as their web browser.

18. Everybody has always Loved Raymond.

19. “Good feedback” means getting 30 likes on your last Facebook post in a single afternoon.

Since baby-boomers are those who were born between 1946 and 1964, I wonder what the class of 1978 would say about the mindset of the class of 1986. Hmm…

Long before our first year class arrives for summer orientation, the College of Arts and Sciences Recruitment and Diversity Services (RDS), with the help of our faculty and advisers, would have  engaged these students at various stages of the recruitment process.  As Director of Undergraduate Recruitment,  I would like to use the pages of this blog to introduce you to our staff, the recruitment events at which we represent the Arts and Sciences, recruitment best practices and exciting tales from the trenches.  You will learn how every part you can play matters, no matter how small.

 Ohio State staff at a recruitment event in Chicago- the McDonald University campus