Photo courtesy of Elizabethtown College Flickr

Since the beginning of the 2019-2020 school year, Elizabethtown College’s Office of Admissions has seen many changes, from a new Vice President to a change in the leadership for tour guides. There have also been changes made to Accepted Student Day, which will be applied for the first time Saturday, Feb. 15.

Vice President for Enrollment Management John Champoli sat down with the Etownian to talk about the changes to Accepted Student Day, admissions, the yield campaign for the upcoming school year and more.

The changes to Accepted Student Day came because the administration decided that the event was too similar to Open House events. The biggest change coming to Accepted Student Day is that it will now begin in the Bowers Center for Sports, Fitness and Well-being instead of the Leffler Chapel and Performance Center.

The President’s Breakfast will also now be open for all accepted students, not just those with the Presidential Scholarship.

There are blue jay footprints leading into the Bowers Center for Accepted Student Day, where the Fresh Nest will be giving out smoothies to attendees. The overall goal of Accepted Student Day is not just to help these students get acquainted with Etown’s campus but also with the faculty and students.

One of the most important parts of early February is the beginning of yield season. This means that Etown (as well as all other schools) is trying to connect and stand out to accepted students so that they choose Etown. Many of these accepted students have been accepted into multiple schools, and they are trying to make a decision.

Etown is trying to get two percent more students than last year. Last year’s first-year class was 370 students, so the goal this year is 400. As of Monday, Feb. 3, Etown already had 79 deposits, as compared to 68 last year and 60s for a few years before that. Champoli said this is great news and puts Etown on a good track.

The registration goal for Accepted Student Day was 200 people by Friday, Feb. 14, which was surpassed with a total of 201 as of Friday, Feb. 7, so the College is expecting high numbers for the first Accepted Student Day.

But these good numbers does not mean that the admissions team is going to slow down any time soon! Tour guides have been hard at work preparing the yield gift — a box including an invite to Accepted Students Day and a hat shaped like an egg placed in a nest of shredded packaging paper. They will also soon be sending out Etown-related laptop stickers and doing some phone call and text campaigns. Admissions has realized how important communication via text is, especially since many students do not have voicemails set up. Admissions will also be utilizing their social media accounts, focusing Facebook on parents and Instagram on accepted students.

Champoli explained that there have also been some national changes to admissions standards. The National Association for College Admissions Counseling (NACAC) regulates advising for admissions departments throughout the college. Previously, NACAC had a rule that colleges needed to stop engaging with students that did not decide on their school by May 1. That was recently found to be against anti-trust laws, so beginning this season, colleges will not only be able to engage after May 1, but can also engage with students who are actively attending other colleges.

Champoli said that this could lead to students being “poached” from their current institutions, so it is more important than ever to drive engagement and make students want to stay at Etown. He said he believes that some of the most important ways to prevent students from being “poached” are getting them to meet other people and helping them connect and engage with tour guides. He mentioned that there are ethical questions that come with “poaching” and highlighted the importance of being transfer-friendly.

Etown has already started recruiting students for the 2021-2022 school year, which is two months earlier than usual. They are partnering with Way Better Marketing to assist with starting this process earlier. So far, there have been over 5,000 respondents to this campaign, where Etown normally recieves only hundreds around this time. Although it is still very early, the top majors that these students have expressed interest in are pre-med, engineering, psychology and biology. A large portion of these students remain undecided.