FOCUS: On the Road to Recruitment

Although every University student has heard the term, "geographic diversity," there is still an element of surprise when a Kansas native replies to the "So, where are you from?" question amidst a field of New Jersey, New York and Philadelphia-born University students. And following the initial shock that, yes, someone residing between 33rd and 40th streets is not from the eastern seaboard or California, students may wonder how high school seniors across the country and across the world came to know about the University. Or more importantly, why they travel hundreds of miles from home to attend it. But the real shock is not just that some students are from "outreach" areas, but that 45 percent of students are not from the traditional feeder states. Geographic diversity has been a University initiative since 1980, when the University's first admissions branch opened in California. This attempt to attract a geographically diverse student body was expanded eight years later and the University opened an office in Texas. According to Admissions Dean Lee Stetson, the University's efforts in California have been successful -- this year there were 1,400 applicants from California, while 10 or 15 years ago the admissions department would only receive about 100 applications from the Golden State, he said. But does the desire for geographic diversity slant the admissions process? While admitting students from states outside of the traditional feeders does have a role in admissions, the University does not set quotas to achieve diversity, Stetson said. "Our goals of enrollment of a class are pretty much based on how the applications flow," he said. "It is dictated by its own pool. We do not have anything set in place that says we must. "All it says is that we value the diversity of the first year student class," he added. "The only way to do that is to look far and wide and travel far and wide." According to Stetson, an applicant's home town only makes a "shade" of a difference as to whether the student will be admitted. "In order to build the number, you have to admit a student," he said. "Assuming they are academically reasonable and competent you admit them. It's a shade, but not much. "On the Eastern Seaboard all the Ivies are doing this," he added. "If you're a rancher's daughter from Montana you probably have a better chance than a lawyer's daughter from Scarsdale -- but only marginally." Two regional directors in the Office of Admissions who spend about 10 weeks out of each year travelling throughout the country, explained how students from different regions are compared. They're not, they said. Admissions decisions are rarely a matter of turning one student away for another, according to Eric Kaplan, the regional director for Kentucky, Michigan, Massachusetts and part of Northern New Jersey. "It's like a comparison of apples to oranges," he said. "In Kentucky that student's more of an exception, whereas in New Jersey that student is more of a rule." Comparisons are based on the extent to which applicants take advantage of the opportunities their high school offers, said Allison Rouse, the regional director for Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska and Wisconsin, as well as parts of New Jersey and New York. If a student takes three out of the five Advanced Placement courses his high school offers, that student shows initiative, he said. And if a student's high school doesn't offer any AP courses, but the student embraces every available opportunity, that student also shows initiative. "There is no comparison in high school to high school," Rouse said. "Only within -- you look better if you've taken advantage, if you're a package. But what it comes down to is academic element." Although Stetson said geography slightly "shades" admissions, Rouse disagreed. "Does it make it easier to get in?" he said. "No, a little bit more exciting -- but not easier." College freshman Nicole Kornitzer, who hails from Shawnee Mission, Kansas, supported Rouse's statement. "A lot of my friends in the East told me at the beginning that it would be easier," she said. "But my experience is very opposite. "I noticed that in my class a lot of people were surprisingly denied," she added. "People with amazing credentials got into Harvard and were denied from Princeton and Stanford. Someone who was accepted at Stanford was denied from Harvard and Yale." And although many students from her high school applied to Brown University, they were all denied interviews, Kornitzer added. But even if an applicant's hometown only slightly influences their acceptance or rejection, whether Admissions officials actually go out of their way to recruit specific outreach applicants is not clear. "What we try to do is get the people who have academic standards and then get them to be in our applicant pool," Rouse said. The heart of the approach is the same in feeder and outreach areas. Still, subtle changes like dress and conversation differ, Rouse said. "In Arizona I usually wear a white shirt and khaki pants," he said. "In Westchester, a jacket and tie or a shirt and tie -- it's based on the environment. The basketball team is another successful device used in arousing interest in the University in outreach areas, Rouse said. When he goes to states like Nebraska, Rouse informs students that the University beat their state university's basketball team. Then they pay attention and start to realize that the University has more than good athletic teams -- it also offers Ivy League academics, he said. "I can't say that's why, but Nebraska does have more applicants," he said. Nevertheless, it is not terrible if once in a while people think the "Penn" basketball team is the Penn State team. "Sometimes it doesn't hurt for people to think we are Penn State," he said. "They come to our table and we lure them in." Once students are in the University's applicant pool, the Admissions department tries to appeal to students' specific interests. "When we leave the area we tend to go back and write them again," he said. If a student is interested in a particular extra-curricular activity, Stetson said he will try to send the student information about that activity with a follow-up note. "We see a good number of questions about debate," he said. "So I sent them information about debate and about the forensics program. "When I returned, they said it was the only thing they had from any school," he added. While some Regional Directors worry about distinguishing the University from Penn State, others work to highlight it from the other Ivies and high-level academic universities. The University is currently participating in a "joint travel" program with Duke, Georgetown and Harvard universities in which the four schools hold panel discussions in different areas of the country. Although the program allows each university to distinguish itself, it was not developed so they could compete for students, but rather so the institutions could expand their applicant pools. In fact, the schools feed off of each other's reputations, Stetson said. While the "joint travel" program has helped the University's effort to increase geographic diversity, other Ivy League schools have similar admissions goals, according to admissions officers. Peter Orschiedt, a Cornell University Admissions officer for upstate New York, said his role as a representative of the admissions department is to relay information about Cornell so that students can make the choice that is best for them. "I would tell them that if they wanted to go to Penn or Cornell, they couldn't loose," he said. "I'd put it back in their court. I think they're both excellent schools." But Brown University's admissions approach is not as extensive as the University's, according to Eric Nelson, an admissions officer for Kansas, Nebraska and Minnesota -- among other states. Brown sends officers to as many places as it can, although an officer might not visit the midwest every year, he said. But when admissions officers do visit outreach areas, the approach is similar to the University's. "We tell the truth," he said. "We don't try to sell Brown, we simply try to explain why Brown sells itself." While Kornitzer said she did not think her Kansas residency facilitated her admission to the University, she said efforts of the Admissions Department influenced her decision to apply and matriculate to the University. Although she said she first learned about the University through a college search computer program, the Office of Admissions became a major source of information through its recruiting efforts and differed from other schools in its personal treatment, she said. "I thought Penn in general was more receptive and more responsive to me," Kornitzer said. "I had an interview in my hometown and [Rouse] came directly to my high school. He was very informative." Another student, College freshman Sam Dorton, who hails from Independence, Missouri, agreed with Kornitzer. The information pamphlets and admissions mailings he received played a significant role in his decision to attend the University, he said. "It did play a very large role in my decision," he said. "I hadn't really heard of Penn, per se. I knew that it had a really good basketball team -- but it was the initial mailing that got my attention to the East Coast a bit." Despite successful efforts to increase geographic diversity, Admissions officials agreed that the role of the Office of Admissions is to not to "sell" the University, but to find a "match" -- to find students who fit the University and for students, to find the university that best fits them. Stetson described the members of the Office of Admissions as "information elements" who facilitate this match. And differences in Eastern and Western recruiting only differ in the type of information presented to prospective students, Kaplan said. While he relays a visual picture of the University environment to students living in outreach states, on the East Coast he answers more specific questions about the University itself. Rouse also said he tries to convey a sense of the University to students from faraway places so they can decide if the environment is right for them. "I draw a picture of Penn," Rouse said. "I act as a video if there is no video." But admissions officers are not even the primary tool used in attracting students, Rouse added. "The data says that publicity pushes more forward than actual admissions officers," he said. "An admissions officer makes that spark." Although Dorton credited his move eastward to the admissions mailing he received, according to Stetson, students from midwestern and western states who show an interest in the University have usually made the decision to come to a highly ranked East Coast school before they even encounter the University's Office of Admissions. Kaplan said his experiences with students in Kentucky prove Stetson's findings. "Typically students looking into Penn already have an idea to travel," he said. "More frequently, from states like Kentucky, students have already decided to be adventurous." But even if an applicant's sense of adventure is primarily responsible for their decision to matriculate, the Office of Admissions is still striving to achieve more geographic diversity through various recruitment efforts. For example, through tools such as the Educational Testing Service's student search system, the department tries to expand its applicant pool, Stetson said. Information about the University is sent to 42,000 top-ranked students on the survey list. During the admissions travel season, the Office of Admissions invites students, parents and guidance counselors to information sessions near their hometowns. Because it is impossible to "saturate" every state equally with admissions officers, the department focuses on areas where a "fair amount of high ability students live" and where guidance counselors encourage students to go beyond their "normal boundaries," Stetson said.

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