As the new recruiting season has begun, the admissions department has adopted new strategies to reach new students.
This past year enrollment fell just below the standard established by the college, resulting in some changes in the admissions department. The challenge this year will be to bring in more students previous years. Both the vice president and director of admissions are working on new strategies to reach the desired number of students for the start of the next fall semester.
“One of our fundamentals is in building strong relationships with applicants to tell the Houghton story and communicate the value of the experience they will have here,” said Director of Admissions, Ryan Spear. Throughout the past years Houghton has struggled with low enrollment numbers, thereby putting pressure on Admissions to develop new strategies which will draw new students into the college.
“We will be using strategic emails and telecounselors will be calling all interested applicants for events,” said Vice President for Admissions, Eric Currie. Currie also added that their travel reps would be on the road visiting over 300 high schools and over 150 fairs with the admissions counselors picking up the rest of the schools.
According to Spear, a typical day for an admissions counselor at Houghton involves focusing on encouraging applications from prospective students and working with students who have already applied. They accomplish this with conducting admission interviews as well as communication through emails, hand-written notes and calls via telephone.
Traveling admissions counselors, on the other hand, spend most of their time on the road visiting high schools. Depending on in which region they are traveling, these counselors will visit three to four high schools a day and usually a college fair at night. Stephen Zacchigna, traveling admissions counselor said, “I mostly work in New York State but Houghton covers the entire region from Indiana to Virginia to New England and most places in between.”
Current senior, Jennifer Newcombe said “My admissions counselor did a really good job of making me feel like Houghton really wanted me. I didn’t feel like I would be lost in the crowd.” Newcombe also said that, unlike other colleges, she felt a personal connection to Houghton through the emails and phone calls. She was also impressed with the way in which her acceptance letter arrived. “It came in a cool tube and the acceptance letter was very personalized.”
As well as trying more ways to reach out to potential students, the admissions office is also trying new ideas for visiting days. Spear said, “We are pushing back the start time for visitors so that a family could leave from a one- to two-hour radius of Houghton and arrive the morning of at a reasonable hour.” Spear also said they are focusing on running fewer visiting days while improving the efficiency and quality of the visits in general.