Starting this week, over 40 student groups will be contacting students admitted to the class of 2012 in an effort to excite them about University life as they consider their college options.
According to Assistant Dean of Admissions Tara Lindros, although it is common for students and faculty to contact admitted students, having student groups get in touch with admitted students is a new practice that the admissions office hopes will give the University an added edge in an increasingly competitive college atmosphere.
“We think that Wesleyan students are the best ambassadors at Wesleyan,” Lindros said. “We could have a faculty member contact a student, and we think that’s important too, but we think extracurricular activities are so important at Wesleyan that it seems to make a lot of sense that we would want current students who participate in those activities to contact students about making those connections.”
Among the student groups that will be participating are the Christian Fellowship, the College Republicans, Second Stage, the Korean Students Association, Havurah, WeSTAND and The Argus. These groups, along with others, will e-mail admitted students who showed particular interest in their organization then follow up with phone calls.
“Chances are a lot of those students won’t respond,” Lindros said. “But for those who do have questions about those student groups, we’re basically leaving it open to the student groups to be in phone contact or further e-mail contact with those students.”
Because student groups will only be contacting high school seniors who have already expressed interest in similar activities, Lindros is not worried about surprising any students with phone calls from groups they might consider unusual.
“These are [admitted] students who have already been in something very similar to or exactly what the Wesleyan organization is doing,” Lindros said.
For co-chair of the Korean Students Association, Si Hyung Woo ’08, contacting admitted students is a way for his group to educate students about a University support network they might not have otherwise known about.
“More than our own benefit, it’s to diversify the Wesleyan student population,” Woo said. “I myself and a lot of Korean Americans live in really suburban areas where there [are] not a lot of other Koreans. Before I came to Wesleyan, I had no idea that we even had a Korean Students Association.”
Eugene Wong ’09, President of the College Republicans, decided to participate for similar reasons.
“I know from […] my perspective when I was an incoming freshman, I felt like a lot of times the groups didn’t really reach out to incoming students and they didn’t really give them the opportunity to see all the different various organizations available on campus,” Wong said.
Both Wong and Woo also think that being in contact with admitted students is a useful way to recruit future members for their organizations. According to Lindros, it is this excitement for reaching out to future students that makes the new agenda promising.
“A lot of these [admitted] students are applying to a lot of different colleges, and they are making decisions on where they want to go,” Lindros said. “We hope that by being in touch with them, they will have positive impressions of Wesleyan.