UW News

October 8, 1997

The UW, coming soon to a high school near you

News and Information

The University of Washington admissions office is moving to a more active mode in working with prospective students and high schools throughout the state of Washington.

The UW has assigned an admissions counselor to be a special representative for every region of the state. The counselors plan to visit each high school in their region–paying particular attention to schools that currently send students to the UW, but also initiating contact with schools that do not.

This week, letters are being mailed to all high schools in the state, informing them of the new initiative and introducing their own regional counselor.

“We know that some of the better high school students in the state aren’t even applying to the UW,” says John Swiney, associate director of admissions and records. “The College Board reports statistics showing that only half the students taking the SAT (Scholastic Achievement Test) even send their scores to the UW. We’d like every student who potentially is qualified to apply.”

So, the UW is making special efforts to contact promising students throughout the state. But the counselors describe this work as more service than recruitment. “Our goal is to inform students, so that they can decide if the UW is a good fit for them,” says counselor Scott Renschler. “We’re not pitching the UW specifically. We will talk to students about preparing for college. The regional counselors will get to know their communities and will be able to tailor presentations to important issues there. And when students or guidance counselors from our high schools call us, we’ll already have some understanding and relationship with them.”

Says counselor David Johnson, “Many students don’t know about the process of preparing for college. If our presentations end up encouraging some students to apply to WSU rather than UW, that’s just fine, as long as it’s best for them. We’re not trying to take students from other schools. We see what we’re doing as a service to communities around the state.”

One of the goals of this program is achieving greater diversity in the student body, diversity of all kinds–economic, ethnic and geographic. “As part of this initiative,” Swiney says, “we will be searching out students from historically underrepresented groups, those with high test scores, and those with special talents or aptitudes that we feel are qualified and could benefit from a UW education. This will make for a stronger student body.” Swiney adds that counselors will coordinate their efforts with the ongoing recruitment plans coming from the UW Office of Minority Affairs, which specifically targets students from under-represented groups.

Current data show that just 12% of UW freshman who are Washington residents come from east of the Cascades. “That number is too small,” Swiney says. “There are even some counties from which we have no students at all and no applications recently.”

As part of this increased visibility and contact with students, the UW is now sending its own application and information to all students who want to apply. Formerly, the UW participated in a common application with other Washington public colleges. “The application was very generic,” says assistant director Stephanie Preston. “It made us look cold and distant. The new application, we feel, is a big improvement and provides prospective students with a more accurate impression of the UW.” The new application process was designed with the help of an advisory board of high school counselors from across the state. “It’s a more holistic review, similar to what private universities do,” she says.

Swiney says the current outreach plans are just a first step in developing more services and information for prospective students. “We haven’t had a marketing plan. We don’t know if we’ve been reaching our target audience. Eventually, we’d like to develop a more systematic way of identifying students who we should think should apply here, send them letters, and then follow that up with personal contact. Today’s students expect that kind of attention, and we are now in a position to provide it.” <!—at end of each paragraph insert

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