Ad hoc Admission Committee Meeting
March 28, 2016
8:30-9:30 a.m., Bauman 210-C
Attending: Steve Shapiro, professor of physics, Michael Dutch, professor of business management, David Hildreth, professor of education studies, Kami Rowan, associate professor of music, Jeannine Harrell, student representative (traditional), Arlene Cash, vice president for enrollment management, Cyndie Basinger, assistant to vice president for enrollment management
Steve opened the meeting with a moment of silence. Today’s agenda is to review the Junior Open House and visions of Guilford College using the U.S. News & World Report profile.
Over 90% of registrants attended Junior Visit Day on Friday, March 25. The high attendance rate helped boost the overall campus excitement with lots of visitors. Visit numbers increased due to increased marketing to juniors, and once registered for the visit, counselors and students called to express excitement about meeting them on campus.
The Guilford Campus Experience highlighted five different stops. There was concern regarding large tour groups. This was purposely designed for this particular group as an opportunity to have conversations with other visitors and tour guides. The incentive is for juniors to return to campus for the customized campus tour.
The Academic Fair was again held in the library. Two or three faculty (or their designee) were late in staffing their table so tour guides with the appropriate major stepped in to greet visitors. The new table signs added a professional look and plan are to design mini-handouts (not major sheets) for future academic fairs. During the next budget year we will have name badges for faculty.
Having two lines for lunch, one in the cafeteria and one in the Gilmer Room helped with the high-visit volume. Faculty need to be mindful of the mini mock class time allotment so as not to back up sessions following the class. Arlene will research possible early admission incentives for those who commit and attended the Junior Visit Day.
Finally, ad hoc committee members should ask faculty in their division for feedback about the Junior Visit Day and send it to Arlene.
Arlene spoke about enrollment planning and how it is much bigger than the ad hoc committee – it encompasses the entire campus. The focus is on recruitment, student success and co-curricular engagement.
Her enrollment plans include maintaining our profile and numbers and then grow this by 20 new traditional students. We are placing an emphasis on transfer students, maintaining geographic diversity and looking at the academic record (transcripts) and strong writing skills. Our published application deadline will remain February 15. We will not set guidelines based on SAT/ACT scores since we will continue to be test optional. This is the first year that portfolios were scored and Arlene will be interested in seeing the relevance of this grid and students’ academic success at Guilford in two or three years. About 30-40% of prospective students choose the portfolio option for their application. (correction: 25%)
Once committed to Guilford, students are asked to write an essay with a prompt over the summer for English placement in the fall. Some students do not complete this step which causes students who excel in writing to be placed in a lower level class and others who should be placed in a remedial class into a higher level class. This “misplacement” causes frustration for both the student and the faculty member and possibly leads to transferring or withdrawal.
Orientation sessions this summer will now be administered by Admission to continue the positive relationship with newly admitted students. Arlene would like to think about creative ways to make the English essay a fun experience, not a homework assignment, while students are at Orientation thereby helping to foster an appropriate English placement in the beginning.
Kami, David, Michael, Steve and Jeanine shared their vision of Guilford in five years. Consistent themes were affordable tuition, unique programs, increased endowment, low faculty to student ratio, defining Quaker, volunteerism, campus setting and location, and increased four year graduation and retention rates.
Guilford’s profile in the U.S. News & World Report, College Confidential, Peterson’s and Princeton Review may be outdated and not written with a marketing mindset. These all need to be updated and Arlene will work closely with Marketing to get this done with correct data. College Confidential is especially important since it is favored by high school guidance offices.
The meeting was adjourned. The next meeting is scheduled for April 25 at 8:30 a.m. in Bauman 210-C.