COMMUNITY UPDATE TO FOCUS ON UNDERGRADUATE RECRUITMENT

There is plenty of good news issuing from the Office of Admissions, and President Nancy J. Vickers and Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid Jenny Rickard will share it with the campus community next week, at the fourth in the president's series of community updates. The starting point for the meetings next week was an issue brief co-authored by Vickers and Rickard and sent to all Bryn Mawr e-mail addresses last week; the brief can also be downloaded from the Community Updates page at http://www.brynmawr.edu/communityupdate/ (access is limited to computers on the Bryn Mawr campus).

Vickers and Rickard will outline the College's concerted effort, begun when the Board of Trustees adopted the Plan for a New Century in 2000, "to question long-held assumptions, to gather information about what outsiders thought and valued, to assess our efforts and offerings in relation to those of our competitors, to establish one message, and to make Bryn Mawr College better known by the public."

Market-research studies of how high-school students and their parents perceived the College in relation to its peers were followed by extensive conversations with students, faculty, staff and alumnae/i, in an effort to articulate Bryn Mawr's unique strengths and values in ways that are convincing to students the College wants to attract. This research guided the creation of concise, effective messages to be used in recruiting efforts.

Since the adoption of the Plan, Bryn Mawr has made significant strides in increasing the size and diversity of its applicant pool and in becoming more selective. At the meetings, Vickers and Rickard will discuss factors that might have played a role in these advances, as well as the challenges that lie ahead.

Because of the relatively low attendance at the Q&A sessions scheduled to discuss the last two updates, the faculty and staff sessions will be combined into a single session. For the admissions update, this will be Monday, Jan. 31, at 4 p.m. in the Ely Room at Wyndham. The session on Tuesday morning, February 1, has been cancelled. For the student session on Wednesday, Feb. 2, Rickard will lead the discussion. If you have any questions, call the President's Office at x5156.

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