Carol Lee Conchar runs a one-woman admissions operation in her home. She keeps boxes of mail in a spare room and stores files and brochures in the garage. She can read an application, do laundry or cook dinner, and then start reading again. Her office mate is a mutt named Ivy.
Ms. Conchar works for George Washington University, but she lives in Atlanta, more than 600 miles away. As one of three regional admissions representatives employed by the university, she’s responsible for recruiting in Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee.
Living in the region—as opposed to just visiting it once or twice a year—allows Ms. Conchar to do things that campus-based admissions officers often cannot, like meet with a high-school student or a parent on short notice, or speak at college nights far from George Washington’s campus. She believes her presence has helped develop year-round relationships with high-school counselors and put the university’s name on the lips of more prospective applicants. “The fact that I’m here full-time makes an impact,” she says. “You can reach with a wider net.”
Although some colleges have relied on one or more regional reps for decades, dozens of institutions have added the positions recently in hopes of attracting more (and more diverse) applicants. In some states, demographic changes have prompted colleges to put reps in new markets. The high cost of recruitment travel has persuaded some deans to see the approach as a cost-effective alternative. And, as many admissions offices have gone paperless, off-campus employees can read applications from their living rooms. Technology has made communicating with them easier than ever.
The Windy City is a hub for a growing number of remote reps. About 15 years ago, the Chicago Area Regional Representatives group had a half-dozen member colleges. Today it has more than 50, some with more than one rep living in the area.
The Regional Admission Counselors of California has grown to include about 50 members, with eight joining in the last month or so. Bennington College, Syracuse University, and the University of South Carolina are just three of the far-flung institutions to create regional positions in the Golden State, whose size, diversity, and overcrowded universities make it increasingly fertile ground for student recruitment.
At its best, the regional-recruitment strategy melds the business principle of “territory management” and old-fashioned college advising, says Ed Devine, a regional rep for Hawaii Pacific University and chairman of the California group. “It’s a halfway position between recruiter and student counselor.”
‘Nontraditional Recruitment’
The University of Rochester first put a full-time representative in Los Angeles last year, and it also created regional positions in Michigan and Pennsylvania. When possible, the three remote reps participate in weekly meetings, via Skype, with their colleagues back on campus. Admissions officials there are considering adding more positions in other states as well as in Asia.
Damian Garcia, a senior admissions counselor for Rochester, lives in Philadelphia. For much of the year he drives up and down Interstate 95, visiting high schools from Pennsylvania to Virginia. On half of those trips, he makes it back home and sleeps in his own bed. He likes being untethered from the campus, which allows him more flexibility to meet and interview students, and to develop relationships with counselors.
Moreover, Mr. Garcia feels less tied to the traditional admissions calendar, in which representatives travel mainly during the spring and fall. Last summer, while Rochester-based reps were dealing with hordes of campus visitors, Mr. Garcia spent two and a half weeks holding information sessions at libraries, high schools, and hotels throughout his region.
At each stop, he conducted a handful of interviews. Comments from students and parents convinced him that families were eager for more contact with colleges during the summer. “You’re a nontraditional counselor, doing nontraditional recruitment, traveling outside the traditional recruitment time,” he says.
Concerns about the declining number of high-school graduates in New England have prompted officials at Assumption College, in Worcester, Mass., to recruit more vigorously in New York State. Last year, Evan E. Lipp, vice president for enrollment management, hired the institution’s first regional rep, who lives in Brooklyn and recruits full time in New York and New Jersey. Instead of scrambling to cover those same states, other counselors now spend more time traveling in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and Florida.
In the first year, Assumption’s New York-based rep visited twice as many high schools as the staff had done during the previous cycle. This fall the college saw a 90-percent increase in enrolled applicants from her region. Although that represents a modest total of 19 students, in a freshman class of about 600, Mr. Lipp believes the position will bring the college more applicants over time. Previously, he created regional positions at a number of other institutions. “It’s always been a success,” he says.
Although some regional reps are “road runners,” paid to recruit, recruit, and recruit, others describe their jobs as multidimensional. Many read applications and participate in committee evaluations of students, just like their campus-based counterparts do. Typically, regional reps also interact with other constituencies besides high-school juniors and seniors.
For one thing, they can help bring more alumni into the recruitment fold. Kim McCarty, one of West Virginia University’s two full-time regional reps, helps coordinate alumni events in Pennsylvania. She often invites graduates in her territory to hold gatherings for prospective students and to speak about their experiences on the campus. “It’s a way to integrate yourself in the region, to saturate the market,” she says.
Several times a year, Jennifer Bruxton, a Chicago-based admissions rep for the University of Missouri, visits Lakeview Elementary School, in Hoffman Estates, Ill. She hands out Missouri T-shirts and describes the university, as well as the admissions process in general. “You’re giving them a language to talk about college,” she says.
Recently she spoke with fifth graders, who had more than a few questions: How do you apply? How do you pick your roommate? Is there a McDonald’s on the campus?
Ms. Bruxton sometimes meets with prospective students at a Panera or a Starbucks. Her proximity to their families, she says, helps her establish a rapport—and credibility in a region where Missouri isn’t a household name. “We’re in Big Ten territory,” says Ms. Bruxton, whose territory includes Wisconsin and Indiana. “A lot of people will say, ‘Why should I leave to go to Mizzou?”
Being able to answer that question in person is crucial, Ms. Bruxton believes. In recent years Missouri has swayed more and more families in her region. In 2007 the university enrolled about 400 freshmen from Illinois; this fall it welcomed about 940 (in a class of 6,100) from that state.
Potential Pitfalls
Being far away from the home campus, however, can also be a drawback. Mr. Garcia, of Rochester, says his location makes it harder to collect all those telling anecdotal stories from enrolled students. And the model requires a lot of trust between deans and reps who might visit the campus only a few times a year. It’s common for LA-based reps, for example, to explain to colleagues that no, they don’t spend all day at the beach.
Some deans are skeptical of the value of the regional model. Big-name colleges that draw crowds at college fairs may not need a regional rep in every corner of the nation. And in some ways, admissions offices are conservative operations that cling to tried-and-true methods of recruitment.
“The whole notion of placing people in the field is a business model, and some deans would never go for this, because that’s not the way things were always done,” says Carin Smith, a Chicago-based admissions rep for Lawrence University, in Appleton, Wis.
Moreover, the results may not be immediate. “You’re not going to know if this is working for three years,” Ms. Smith says. Although a regional model might save a college money over time, creating a new position isn’t cheap.
Because of the stakes, George Washington’s Ms. Conchar, who was previously an enrollment director at another college, believes that the job is best-suited to more-senior admissions officers. She describes her main challenges as the loneliness of working on her own—and not knowing when to call it a day.
Still, she says, the benefits outweigh the downsides of the job. In admissions, counselors often burn out, and the rigors of travel are a contributing factor. Allowing a rep to relocate might just keep him or her on the staff.
Then there’s the appeal of turn-on-a-dime recruitment. Recently a student in Charlotte, N.C., e-mailed Ms. Conchar over a weekend to ask about scheduling an interview. As it turned out, she was set to visit his school the following Tuesday. She wrote back: How about 5 p.m.?
