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Post by sader1970 on Sept 25, 2021 11:01:53 GMT -5
Here’s some of my thoughts and may be totally off base.
1. The general population is significantly less “religious” than in the past and getting less religious every day. Practicing Catholics are a dying breed. (This works against Holy Cross)
2. The younger generation, while not religious, are in many ways more aware of inequities in our society than the older folks who frankly didn’t ask hard questions.
3. While the college age students might be more aware of these inequities, only a very small minority want to go to college to help “save the world.”
4. Holy Cross, on the other hand touts how many grads join the Jesuit Volunteer Corps, Teach for America, etc., etc.
5. Holy Cross does NOT tout one of its past historical strengths- how many graduates go on to become doctors, dentists, scientists, lawyers, etc. In fact, unless I misunderstood something I was told, we no longer even have a specific “pre-med” program which in my day was ranked 2nd or 3rd every year. You got out of the HC pre-med program, you had something like a 95%-97% chance of getting into med school and the great education you got, you were almost certain to become a doctor. For some reason, the College gives it some other name that just sounds watered down.
6. In a general observation, HC needs to get its name out and needs to de-emphasize the “holier than thou” attitude that comes across as Sarasota used to say , like a “Seminary” (convent?)
There probably more in my head but this is more than long e enough to stir more discussion.
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Post by Pakachoag Phreek on Sept 25, 2021 11:10:42 GMT -5
The class of 2024 at MIT is 50.7 percent male. Even at a school focused on science and engineering, the women are nearing becoming the majority. Harvard's class of 2024 is 52.1 percent female, and Harvard could readily put a finger on the scale to have a class that was 50:50. ----------------- Re; Arlington public schools. the only schools in Metro Washington DC where Ann would send staff to visit and recruit were private preparatory schools, most were Catholic, but they also went to several Episcopal schools. Not Sidwell Friends school, though. You reap where you sow.
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Post by Crucis#1 on Sept 25, 2021 12:24:08 GMT -5
So, what is the issue and what is/are the solution(s)? Step one has been accomplished with the change in leadership from an admissions director who refused to recognize the changes and make significant adjustments that were occurring in college recruiting. Step 2. Major reorganization to the previous staff in the admissions office that has significantly underperformed in doing their respective assignments and job. Current staff is located in Fenwick. Time to create regional offices to have staff deployed to offices in major recruiting targeted areas. We have been mired in a 20th century approach. Step 3. Develop marketing materials that high school students can relate. Time for Zack and Tiffany to retire. HC should be focusing recruiting 16-19 year olds, The current materials are geared towards their parents.
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Post by rgs318 on Sept 25, 2021 12:41:30 GMT -5
Not good to ignore those who usually pay the bills. I am sure you don't mean that. Having materials aimed at teens...certainly.
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Post by Crucis#1 on Sept 25, 2021 14:04:43 GMT -5
Battle #1 Win the hearts and minds of the future students.
Battle #2 Win the minds of the HS guidance counselors.
Battle #3 Convince the students that HC is there 1 choice and that the parents should open the pocket.
Battle #4 Convince the parents that HC will provide an unparalleled academic experience and great career opportunities.
Not ignoring the parents, but unless Battles 1-3 are won, the parents are not in the theatre.
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Post by longsuffering on Sept 25, 2021 15:18:31 GMT -5
So, what is the issue and what is/are the solution(s)? Step one has been accomplished with the change in leadership from an admissions director who refused to recognize the changes and make significant adjustments that were occurring in college recruiting. Step 2. Major reorganization to the previous staff in the admissions office that has significantly underperformed in doing their respective assignments and job. Current staff is located in Fenwick. Time to create regional offices to have staff deployed to offices in major recruiting targeted areas. We have been mired in a 20th century approach. Step 3. Develop marketing materials that high school students can relate. Time for Zack and Tiffany to retire. HC should be focusing recruiting 16-19 year olds, The current materials are geared towards their parents. Regional offices is an idea I can't recall hearing about before but makes perfect sense. Admissions Counselors could work year round building and maintaining personal relationships with schools and prospective students/families and could give support to regional alumni clubs, also.
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Post by mm67 on Sept 25, 2021 16:02:54 GMT -5
Crucis your goals sound great. But how does the school win, win; convince, convince? (1-4)
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Post by Crucis#1 on Sept 25, 2021 17:19:55 GMT -5
Battle #1 To win, use technology to introduce and leverage HC to a wide range of students across the country. Two years ago, very few were familiar with how Zoom could be deployed. Today it is a widely used tool out of necessity. Cornell with staff, should now be exploring how to use Zoom for Brand introduction across the country.
Battle #2, Bring guidance counselors from a wide range of targeted High Schools and Prep School from across the country to campus for visits during the summer vacation and breaks in the semester. October break week would be ideal for either one day or two day meetings with these counselors with admissions staff and department chairs. For those who cannot attend in person, again leveraging technology to create a one on one relationship. We need to move on from the 20 Century regarding our approach.
Regarding Convince, Convince...hire admissions staff that have experience, and that truly can provide why a high school student should apply and accept HC. I was not impressed during my last interactions which was a number of years ago with the HC staff. Judging by recent results, I would say the same is true with a number of students and parents. And I see things through Purple tinted glasses. Time to clean house and get people who can sell ice cream in the winter time.
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Post by longsuffering on Sept 25, 2021 17:47:03 GMT -5
Anyone can sell me ice cream in any season.🙂 In the 90's I had the opportunity to hear John Hayes of the Holy Cross fund and Jack Foley, Clark University VP of community relations speak just a few days apart.
Both knocked it out of the park in "selling" their institution to their audience. However John was selling to a limited audience of HC alumni potential donors and Jack was selling the Clark/Main South urban partnership to all of Central Mass on a radio show.
I happen to know that the radio show attempted to schedule an HC VP or other representative but struck out after many attempts.
I came to the conclusion that the best salespeople for HC we're in Development and not community relations/PR/Administration and I guess I am learning now not in admissions either.
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Post by efg72 on Sept 25, 2021 19:36:21 GMT -5
The class of 2024 at MIT is 50.7 percent male. Even at a school focused on science and engineering, the women are nearing becoming the majority. Harvard's class of 2024 is 52.1 percent female, and Harvard could readily put a finger on the scale to have a class that was 50:50. ----------------- Re; Arlington public schools. the only schools in Metro Washington DC where Ann would send staff to visit and recruit were private preparatory schools, most were Catholic, but they also went to several Episcopal schools. Not Sidwell Friends school, though. You reap where you sow. If they were to win the hearts and minds Ann needed to create a footprint in the DC area and personally reach out to Prep, Gonzaga, Stone Ridge, Visitation, Holy Child, Holy Cross, Cathedral, St Albans, Sidwell, St James, Landon, Episcopal, Georgetown Day, Maret, O’Connell, Flint Hill. And a number of the other Catholic and Private Schools. That rarely if ever happened. It was as if alums weren't sending their kids north they weren't and possibly aren't interested in this region today. I found her to be very disinterested if not lazy.
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Post by sader1970 on Sept 25, 2021 19:46:54 GMT -5
I'll trot out another old expression we had in business: "R.I.P." (Retired In Place).
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Post by Crucis#1 on Sept 25, 2021 20:10:18 GMT -5
Unfortunately “RIP” twenty five years ago and remained to occupy an office.
I never understood with the results we have seen since 1998, why she was not shown the door earlier by the BOT. The lack of outreach was also seen in the NYC area with a number of Catholic High Schools not visited on an annual basis. Unfortunately, this is a case where having an Alum heading a key department was not beneficial. Vince and Cornell have miles of fences to mend.
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Post by mm67 on Sept 25, 2021 21:37:14 GMT -5
NYC's public high schools are a fertile ground for fine students. Anecdotal: In the '70's - 90's one of the high school's sponsored a college fair. There were young attractive reps from many elite colleges the IL, the little Ivies, PL , BC,G-town, Villanova, FU and others. Kiosks were attractive with lots of slickly produced pamphlets and the like. Many of the students did apply & enroll in these schools repped at the fairs. (In fact three students during this period of 30 years did apply to HC. They knew of the school through family/friend connections not through any college fair. One was accepted & enrolled; the other was rejected and attended Villanova, the third was rejected but accepted by BC which she refused to attend. ) HC reps at the fair? Nope. Was told by the college fair coordinator that if there has been little interest in a college by students at a particular hs then some (not all) colleges will not bother to send a rep. Called HC, they listened politely and said they would look into it. Period.
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Post by KY Crusader 75 on Sept 25, 2021 23:56:26 GMT -5
I represented Holy Cross at a very large college and trade school fait here in Louisville for maybe a half dozen years. I know that my efforts bore some fruit as one young woman circled back with me a couple of years later and said she chose HC because she spoke with me. I know there were others as well. I tell this not to pat my own back, but to suggest that even in some places that might not seem fertile ground for HC, the mere presence of a rep with a display and collateral materials raised awareness of the school and generated applications and matriculants. We should have attended the smaller but much more elite fair, which always was scheduled for the next night, at Kentucky Country Day School-that attracted more students from the more prestigious high schools. I think the cost of the fait I attended might have been $150 plus the shipping costs for the materials.
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Post by Pakachoag Phreek on Sept 26, 2021 7:19:00 GMT -5
Unfortunately “RIP” twenty five years ago and remained to occupy an office. I never understood with the results we have seen since 1998, why she was not shown the door earlier by the BOT. The lack of outreach was also seen in the NYC area with a number of Catholic High Schools not visited on an annual basis. Unfortunately, this is a case where having an Alum heading a key department was not beneficial. Vince and Cornell have miles of fences to mend. IIRC, Ann, after graduating from HC, went to work in admissions at Emmanuel. After a few years there, she joined the admissions staff at HC, where, again IIRC, she was initially responsible for the legacy admits. Legacies, by their nature, are kids for whom you are not competing with other institutions. Her background and experience was insular and parochial, which, IMO, did not suit her well when there was a need for broader outreach.
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Post by rf1 on Sept 26, 2021 7:45:50 GMT -5
Two Worcester schools made the list - Clark and WPI
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Post by Xmassader on Sept 26, 2021 7:58:56 GMT -5
My experience in the Detroit area in the ‘80s mirrors kycrusader75’s in the Louisville area. When I first started attending the fairs, there was a person from the HC admissions office there as well. Then, for the next 3-4 yrs., I was the only HC representative. Eventually, HC stopped participating and I never understood why. Always seemed to me that the cost ($150 as kycrusader pointed out) was well worth the benefit if we yielded at least one student every 3-4 yrs. As I pointed out on another thread, a one or two day visit by an admissions staffer to the Detroit Catholic League’s schools alone should yield more applications from and students from the Detroit area than we currently achieve.
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Post by mm67 on Sept 26, 2021 8:40:43 GMT -5
Question: What is the breakdown of the percentages of students from Catholic high schools, private secular schools and public high schools? Would expect a majority or the largest group of HC students are Catholic HS grads(?)
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Post by hcpride on Sept 26, 2021 8:52:44 GMT -5
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Post by CHC8485 on Sept 26, 2021 9:11:51 GMT -5
Nope. Last time I remember hearing a stat, it was from my son's class (2016). IIRC somewhere around 25% were from Catholic schools. Going to a Catholic college (and high school) is not very important to prospective student and their parents especially compared to 20 year ago much less 50 years ago. [EDIT] Note Private does not equal Catholic. Found the News release from my son's class. 27% Catholic schools. My Daughter's class (2019) did not break it down. news.holycross.edu/blog/2012/08/13/holy-cross-to-welcome-class-of-2016-on-aug-25/
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Post by longsuffering on Sept 26, 2021 10:51:31 GMT -5
One thought is the sticker shock for public HS grads and their families of going from zero cost to a quarter of a million. Catholic and private school families have been pre-conditioned to dig deep.
Another thought is an increase in Catholic students is not an intended result and not a sign of increased selectivity, unfortunately.
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Post by KY Crusader 75 on Sept 26, 2021 11:16:26 GMT -5
In addition to being conditioned to high education expenses, parents of private HS students have already demonstrated a willingness to pay more than the lowest possible cost for their child's education. Ability to pay may be a part of it but there are wealthy families who make it clear to their children that they would be attending an in-state public university. For example I have a neighbor, a very highly compensated CEO of an investment company, that told one daughter he'd buy her a new car if she attended UK or U of L. I guess he figured that he could spend $25,000 in year one but save $30,000 in years 1-4.
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Post by CHC8485 on Sept 26, 2021 12:20:08 GMT -5
Re: Enrollment. Thank you. So, it appears that the student body has quickly become more Catholic - almost doubled in 8 years. I had not realized this. It is extremely interesting . Cause/Effect? : Why has there been this precipitous decline in the enrollment numbers of public school grads? Are there any conclusions we can extrapolate from this stark trend? mm67, What are you talking about? Turns out I actually misread the statistics on the class of 2016. The news release from 2012 on the class of 2016 says Percent from public schools: 49% Percent from Catholic schools: 27% Percent from private schools: 11% Percent from Jesuit schools: 12% So combining Catholic & Jesuit schools you get 38% Catholic schools. Adding in Private schools you get 50% private schools. In the post from hcpride the percentages are almost identical. 51% Private (which includes Catholic schools) 49% Public schools. So there has been no decline in enrollment in pubic school grads in 8 years.
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Post by coachnelson123 on Sept 26, 2021 12:32:39 GMT -5
A few comments as someone that sits in many admin meetings related to these discussions: 1. A few years ago, we switched from being need-blind in admissions to need-aware. This allowed us to offer more merit-add, which in return, has increased the number of top academic applicants of the College that have enrolled. 2. While our acceptance rate increased, this is the strongest academic class we have seen. Each applicant is rated on a scale, and we have more first-years ranked in the highest categories than ever before. 3. Across the country at top academic and selective higher education institutions, schools were test optional due to the pandemic. Top schools saw a large increase in applications this year because students were applying to more schools than they normally did because they did not need to submit these scores. However, HC has been test-optional for over a decade, so we have already internalized the benefit of being test optional and the effect it has on application numbers.
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Post by hcpride on Sept 26, 2021 15:22:37 GMT -5
A few comments as someone that sits in many admin meetings related to these discussions: 1. A few years ago, we switched from being need-blind in admissions to need-aware. This allowed us to offer more merit-add, which in return, has increased the number of top academic applicants of the College that have enrolled. 2. While our acceptance rate increased, this is the strongest academic class we have seen. Each applicant is rated on a scale, and we have more first-years ranked in the highest categories than ever before. 3. Across the country at top academic and selective higher education institutions, schools were test optional due to the pandemic. Top schools saw a large increase in applications this year because students were applying to more schools than they normally did because they did not need to submit these scores. However, HC has been test-optional for over a decade, so we have already internalized the benefit of being test optional and the effect it has on application numbers. 1. Good move with the merit aid - hopefully that'll do the trick in addressing the issue. 2. I'd imagine things were even trickier on the academic component of the applicant scale rating given what went on in many high schools (grades-wise) during Covid. 3. There was a concern our applicant number declined (the benefits of test score optional are understood) and our acceptance rate went up this past cycle I guess there will be some new eyeballing of comparative ACT/SAT scores between college applicants/acceptances/enrollees now that all schools gained the statistical advantage of test score optional (wherein the stronger kids tend to submit).
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