Whitman College will welcome over 150 prospective students to campus for Fall Visitors’ Day this Friday, Oct. 8. Throughout the day, Whitman will have information sessions and talks to introduce the prospective students to the culture and academic climate of Whitman.
“The subject material is basically things that would be helpful for high school seniors in the middle of their college search process,” said Joshua Smith, the admissions officer in charge of organizing Fall Visitors’ Day.
There is a wide variety of activities for the prospective students, ranging from information about Whitman’s academic program and Outdoor Program to co-curricular activities available on campus.
“We will have information about the Whitman curriculum, we will talk about Encounters and the kind of programs we have academically, we will talk about experiential learning,” said Smith.
While Visitors’ Day is mostly organized in the same way as previous years, the Office of Admission made one slight change to the schedule. Previously, the admission and financial aid discussion conflicted with other discussions, forcing students to pick between the discussions. This year the admission and financial aid talk has its own time slot without any conflicting discussions.
Smith emphasized the importance of experiencing Whitman’s culture while visiting.
“We would like them to take an hour chunk during the day to go and experience the culture on campus,” said Smith.
Smith noted that several senior interns for the Office of Admission were a part of the process of organizing Fall Visitors’ Day. Seniors Tillie Gottlieb and Ali Schlueter were both involved in the organization process, according to Smith.
The Office of Admission is also making a few changes to their approach to recruitment this year. One such change is a blog where current students can write about their Whitman experiences.
“We added an admission staff blog last year mid-recruitment cycle. This fall, our admission officer Cate van Oppen is hiring current Whitties to blog about their experiences here at Whitman. This is another way for us to communicate the Whitman experience to prospective students who may not be able to visit campus,” said Kevin Dyerly, the director of admission.
The Office of Admission is also working to use the latest social media to connect with prospective students. The admission publications, which have not been updated in six years, will be redesigned to accommodate these changes.
“We’ll continue to do more with Facebook and Twitter, both of which we rolled out last year. We’re finding students don’t prefer one particular channel of communication with colleges, so we will continue to use print materials, e-mail, telephone and now social media,” said Dyerly.
Dyerly noted that the Office of Admission is not trying to be more selective, but they would like to grow and diversify the application pool.
“More talented applicants give us an opportunity to enhance the admitted student pool of students. A net result of having more applicants, though, often means having a lower admit rate. That said, our admit rate has been fairly steady the past five years,” said Dyerly.
Despite the changes which affect how the Office of Admission recruits prospective students, the Office of Financial Aid will not make substantial changes this academic year.
“We are doing the exact same thing we were doing last year,” said Marilyn Ponti, the director of financial aid. “It is still a very difficult time for parents and students.”
She noted that incoming Whitman students have required more aid over the past few years due to the poor economy; many parents have recently lost their jobs.
“I think when we look at our incoming class, there are probably more students who had need this year because of what is going on,” said Ponti.
