Recruitment efforts boosted with Road Scholars Tour
Recruitment at USU took a hard-earned break after visiting schools around Utah on the 2006 Road Scholars Tour.
The Road Scholars Tour is one of the latest techniques being used by USU recruitment to get more students at USU. This year, the tour visited four high schools for a day each and held 10 open houses around Utah and one in Las Vegas, Director of Admissions Jenn Putnam said .
Recruitment at USU means big bucks, nearly $100 per student, but Putnam says that’s low compared to the $400 per student average of other schools. Putnam said a new recruitment DVD costs $10,000, and along the stops of the Road Scholars Tour, USU handed out free Aggie ice cream and other USU gear.
To try and let students get a taste of what classes at USU are like, between five and 10 professors volunteer their time to go on the road.
Putnam said, “We go into high schools all the time, and we can talk to the students, but it’s very different to show them what college is like. We really felt like a key part of the experience at Utah State is the teachers and the classes. We want to show students professors are real people.”
Assistant Director of Recruitment Katie Nielson said, “We basically go in and take over the school for a day.”
Not only do the high school students get a chance to see what the classes are like; the USU student ambassadors go on the Road Scholars Tour to promote the university and talk to potential students, Nielson said.
Putnam said the tour is focused on getting USU out of the enrollment slump of the past two years.
Aside from teaching classes, recruitment efforts extend to open houses where high school students can apply for admission, talk with recruiters and be awarded scholarships, Putnam said. The Admissions Office is in charge of awarding scholarships, and Putnam said students are a lot more likely to apply if they know they can afford a school. She said 500 scholarships were awarded on this year’s tour.
Of the more than 2,600 people who attended the open houses, USU got 670 applications at the open houses, Nielson said. USU will hold smaller follow-up visits in the spring semester.
Brent Meacham, a freshman in business administration, said he thought one of the best things that happens is President Albrecht shows up to as many of the stops as he can.
“You think, ‘Oh, the president actually does care about the students,'” Meacham said.
The Road Scholars Tour covered Utah and Nevada this year instead of Idaho and Utah like last year, Putnam said. The decision was made to visit a different area because they wanted to cover different areas, and the Recruitment Office saw “potential for growth” in the new areas.
The tour is a good tool, Putnam said. She said most of the Idaho students who enrolled this year came from high schools visited on last year’s tour.
-dilewis@cc.usu.edu