ADMISSIONS

College admissions has become an increasingly competitive business. Carleton has remained selective and maintained a very high quality student body, but not without tremendous expenditure of time, energy, and creativity on the part of the Admissions staff and alumni volunteers and, increasingly, faculty. We continue to make special efforts to recruit a diverse student body, particularly students of color. As chair, you will receive many requests from the admissions staff to talk with prospective students or their parents. These conferences, while taking time out of an already busy day, are nevertheless important. Find out the student’s interests and background, point out what the department offers, tell as much about the College as they want to hear. Remember that you may be the only faculty member they will meet on their visit. Students have sometimes commented that contact with a faculty member was the determining factor in their decision to come to Carleton.

In the winter or spring term, you will be asked to update the double-sided flier on your department, which is sent each year to thousands of prospective students. Do this in consultation with your colleagues. The timing is such that this job can often be done when you do your next year’s course scheduling. Also in the winter term, you may be asked to rewrite or update a letter that goes to all students accepted for admission who expressed interest in your subject.

In April, you will be asked to help recruit accepted students. You will be asked to attend (or find a colleague to do so) dinners for accepted students and their parents who visit during two accepted students weekends. You will also be asked to staff a departmental office hour during each weekend. In recent years, faculty volunteers have also been recruited to phone accepted students. The impact of this faculty involvement has been excellent on maintaining our “yield” of accepted students actually coming to Carleton.