October In the Office of Admissions

Well after a long hot summer the last couple of weeks have been damp and chilly. September is typically one of the quietest months for visitors to WPI as everyone is busy returning to school and getting into the new routine. Given the weather and the rainy tours probably a good thing!! That will all change with our first open house of the year next Monday. We are expecting about 400 students and 1,000 visitors overall...extended forecast looks good:)

In addition to September being a quiet month for visitors, there are many days when the staff offices are dark. From mid-September until mid-November most staff members are traveling across the US and around the globe meeting with counselors, families and students. As we speak there are WPI Admissions Staff in Louisiana, Minnesota, Maryland, New York, and Connecticut.

If you come for a visit in the next couple of weeks you are likely to find Julie Chapman or me in the office, along with another counselor or two in between their recruitment trips. However even I get out of the office a bit as well. Last week I was off to St. Louis for the National Association of College Admissions Counselors Conference. This is the "main event" each year for the profession.

In addition to a couple of thousand admissions counselors, the conference welcomes hundreds of guidance and college counselors, as well as many companies with educational related products. It was a short trip...2 nights...but a busy couple of days. Yes I did squeeze in a short steamboat ride on the Mississippi, but in addition got to attend a couple of sessions, meet with a reporter from CBS Moneyline, touch base with some vendors we team up with, and connect with colleagues at many of the other technological universities across the country. In addition several schools (MIT, Carnegie Mellon, RIT, U-Miami, WPI and others) hosted a dessert reception for guidance counselors from across the country. I was pleased to see over 200 guidance counselors in attendance. A good time was had by all and hopefully the counselors learned a bit about our schools as well.

That was my excitement for the fall...although I will be in Framingham, Maynard, and Lincoln next week. Maybe I'll see you there:)

Ed

Brochures, Photos and the Web

I trust that many high school seniors return home everyday to a mailbox full of college brochures. Yes, I have seen the videos on what happens to them, including the video of a young man weighing everything he had received. Now I will say WPI probably does contribute our fair share, but as many schools we also spend a lot of time connecting with students electronically. Whether it is e-mail, Facebook, or our own website we try to provide important and pertinent information to prospective students, families and the counseling community.

I am pleased to share that we are working on a new undergraduate admissions web site and we hope it will be live in the next 5 to 6 weeks. This is an exciting project for us and we do hope that everyone will be excited with the results. I am spending a fair amount of time on the project, and even helping out a bit with photo shoots...(see above right). One of the featured elements will be our new virtual tour, Eye on WPI, which recently went live. I hope you are enjoying the virtual tour and that you'll find time to check out the new web site as well!!

Ed

WPI Virtual Tour

After several months in the making, WPI's new virtual tour, "Eye on WPI" launched on Friday. I am very excited about this great new option for students, parents and counselors. It has been designed to help you learn more about the WPI experience, and can be customized to meet your needs. I hope you'll spend a few minutes to check it out.

Enjoy the holiday weekend.


Ed

2 weeks and counting...

It is hard to believe freshman orientation is just around the corner. The orientation programs kick off two weeks from today with an extended orientation for international students and the full orientation beginning two weeks from Sunday. Whats even harder to believe is that classes begin three weeks from today!!




We've been welcoming dozens of visitors to campus each day checking out WPI for the first time, but we haven't forgotten about the Class of 2014!! We've seen some of you on campus taking a peek at your residence hall, buying books, and just checking things out for one last time. In addition to these "unofficial" visits we've been happy to partner with the Alumni office to sponsor a number of BBQs for incoming students over the last couple of weeks. Several events were held across the Northeast, with the final event held last evening in Worcester. We had about 100 people in attendance. Over 25 incoming students attended, along with a number of parents and family members. It was great to see so many people in attendance and a great time was had by all!!





Enjoy the rest of the summer...we'll see you on campus soon.



Ed

What to eat in Worcester

A question we often get is how is the food on campus? I'll have to say it's great. Lots of options in the dining halls, an on-campus pub, Dunkin Donuts, Quiznos and more!! But if that's not enough you don't have to wander far from campus to find great seafood at the Sole Proprietor, great pizza at Tech Pizza, and solid burgers at the Boynton, great sandwiches at New England Roast Beef, and for those venturing a bit further, classic hot dogs at Coney Island Hot Dogs right here in Worcester!!.

As you might guess from some of my favorites I am not a vegan or even a vegetarian, but for those of you who are take a closer look at Worcester...Earlier this month PETA named Worcester a top 10 veg-friendly small city in the US. Now I will have to admit I haven't been to many of the restaurants mentioned in the article, but it certainly is another testament to the great food one can find all over the city!!

Next time you visit campus just ask the Admissions Office for culinary suggestions...we'll be happy to help!!

Ed

Academic Visit Days

This year's academic visit days started off with a bang!! We welcomed close to 50 families to campus today. In addition to touring the campus and learning about the admissions process, the families had a chance to attend a general engineering overview and to learn more about our Global Perspective Program through special presentations offered during the day. These programs are a great way for families to enhance their visits to campus. If you are thinking of visiting campus soon check out the offerings over the next two weeks.

Ed

Videos, Videos, Videos

Over the last several months the admissions office has been upgrading our video content and we are on the cusp of several new releases. We wrapped up a 10 minute overview video in the spring. So far we've shared that with some of our admitted students back in April and a group of visiting guidance counselors last week. This video is typically shown at open houses and off- campus receptions, but it will be up on our YouTube channel soon.

We are also putting the finishing touches on our new virtual tour, "Eye on WPI". If all goes well this should be launched in early August!! We are very excited about this new feature which will allow students to choose from 15 short videos or create their own video by picking the topics that they are most interested in learning more about.

Last but not least Adam Epstein is working with the Academic Technology Center here at WPI to create a ton of new video content for our YouTube channel. This will include interview with faculty, staff and students.

Be sure to check out the web site for all this new content in August!!

Ed