A number of campus clubs and organizations got a boost in participation last Saturday, April 17, as dozens of admitted students participated in “Get Whittie,” a program organized by the Office of Admissions to give students admitted to the class of 2014 the chance to jump into campus life during Admitted Students’ Day.
Ben Lilly, an admitted student from Sunnyvale, Calif. felt that the program made Whitman’s Admitted Students’ Day better than those he had attended at other colleges he was admitted to, including New York University and UC: Santa Cruz.
“It was definitely the best admitted students day I went to,” he said. “There were more activities. Most of the others were more help yourself; like they had booths set up with information about stuff and you took one campus tour. But they didn’t have any classes set up or activities. This was more like, ‘Hey, it’s camp for a day! Go see everything!’ And it felt more organized than the others.”
“Get Whittie” was inaugurated last year after the Ultimate team expressed interest to the Office of Admission in allowing admitted students to come play Frisbee with them during Admitted Students’ Day.
“The idea [behind ‘Get Whittie’] is to try to get prospective students integrated with, interacting with and doing ‘Whitman stuff’ with Whitman students,” said Tony Cabasco, dean of admission and financial aid. “We don’t want prospective students to sit in panel after panel; we don’t want them to come here all day and be talked at. We want them to come here and to go out and experience [the college.]”
According to Cabasco, many more student clubs and groups participated this year, allowing students to choose from a series of different activities such as going to a Whitman baseball game, helping out at the organic garden, playing Ultimate frisbee or touring and participating in KWCW.
“I work for the Office of Admission in addition to being an Organic Garden co-president, so when the Office of Admission decided to add a ‘Get Whitte’ part to their ASD last year, the Organic Garden seemed like a great idea to have be part of that activity,” said junior Robin Lewis, co-president of the Organic Garden.
“We worked with seven or so students and one awesome Dad. They came down at 2:30 and could come and go at their leisure. The dad that stayed the entire time proved to be a great help as well as a wonderful conversationalist,” Lewis said.
Lewis described the day’s activities.
“First we gave them a tour of the garden to tell them a bit about who we are, what we do and why we do it. After that, we did a lot of fun activities like planting beans and squash. No turning compost on ASD! We also mulched some paths between beds and generally hung out and raved about how awesome Whitman is.”
Senior Joe Gustav, co-general manager of KWCW, worked with the Office of Admission to organize an open house at the campus radio station. The open house was a new addition to “Get Whittie” this year and one KWCW plans to offer again in the future.
“We wanted to get people excited about K-dub even before they arrived on campus as freshmen, and I think it worked well for us,” said Gustav. “About 10 students came in for our open house to see the studio (with some DJs on-air doing their show) and hear about having a radio show and how they can get involved at the station, even as freshmen. Everybody who came was really excited about the prospect of hosting a radio show, and had fun going through our extensive music library to see what we have.”
Despite having a good day, Lilly didn’t find the admitted students day to hold any surprises.
“It didn’t really show anything me anything that I didn’t expect to see; it seems like a really cool school. It’s a good blend of quirky and having a typical college atmosphere,” he said. “And the town of Walla Walla is definitely pretty dead, which I was sort of expecting. But it’s a really lively campus considering it’s surrounded by nothing.”
Cabasco said Admitted Students’ Day is just one of the resources the Office of Admissions has established to help admitted and prospective students learn about Whitman life.
“[Admitted Students’ Day] is one major activity within a gamut of activities that our staff is organizing and doing to get the word out and to allow perspective students to come visit or get their questions answered,” he said.
Ultimately, Admissions Officer Cate Van Oppen was very pleased with the outcome of the day.
“I think it’s been a little bigger in size and it’s definitely been bigger in the scope of activity,” she said. “As always the students seem really excited to be here and I’m really excited about that . . . I think the day [went] really smoothly.”
