URI uses PSAT to recruit

01/28/09 - The University of Rhode Island spends nearly $20,000 on student recruitment Welcome Days, university catalogs and "purchasing" students through PSAT options and surveys. Dean of Admissions Cynthia Bonn explained that admission has changed in the past 10 years because students are initially researching schools online prior to a visit. She said the university provides a well-designed, easy-to-navigate Web site that is updated daily by university staff.

Not only is the Web site accurate on its upcoming events, but it also includes a virtual tour of the campus. A former URI film major assembled the tour last May, and Bonn said the result could be extremely beneficial to interested prospects.

"The best thing we can do is have the best Web site possible," Bonn said.

Besides having a well-equipped Web site, advisers recruit students by "purchasing" them through PSAT options and the National Research Center for College and University Admission surveys.

The PSAT's and NRCCUA surveys include a special option for students interested in the university.

Admissions counselors receive the names of those who check off the option and make the decision to purchase them or not based on specific criteria, such as the student's grade point average.

For every PSAT student the university purchases, it pays 32 cents, and for every NRCCUA surveyor it costs 31 cents. Each year, the advisers are granted an approximate budget for "purchasing" students, and during this past year they spent approximately $14,000.

The effectiveness of this procedure has yet to be recorded, but the admissions department will start tracking the statistics beginning this school year. Bonn said the results would help determine if the university should spend money in a different way to recruit these students.

Recruitment money is also spent through tours of the campus and Welcome Days. There are currently about 80 student tour guides, all of whom are paid an average campus job rate. The student tour guides are also responsible for working during Welcome Day events. The events are set a year in advance and include months of preparation, Bonn said.

Bonn said the allotted budget for Welcome Day is spent on the cost of renting the Ryan Center in addition to hiring its staff and hiring buses and printing costs of university catalogs.

Students may also decide to attend the university by going to a college fair presented at their high school.

Since Rhode Island is such a small state, it tends to be more difficult to receive as many applicants as other states do, Bonn said.

To help this, Alumni Admission Representatives from the Alumni Association are available to help recruit students from states outside of New England.

The volunteers are required to receive training every two years. In the past, the alumni have recruited students from Maryland, Pennsylvania, Illinois, California, Oregon and Florida.

Similar to these representatives, the university pays "Rhode Runners" to do the same thing. Six of these Rhode Runners are hired each fall and recruit from their home states, such as New York and New Jersey.

"We're in competition with every other college in New England and in the country," Bonn said.