Fall Recruitment Goes Virtual

We are officially launching our 2021 recruitment season! As we know, both the Common Application and the UW System Application went live this past Saturday, August 1. While we will not begin to process or read applications until later this month, it is officially fall recruitment season. We will have a virtual-only fall season. Since this decision was made, many across the office have been working hard to revise our processes and materials and invest in resources that will enable us to recruit our class virtually. We have seen the majority of schools turn to virtual fairs and school visits. At this time, we are 100% virtual recruitment through the fall, in line with the university’s Smart Restart plan. Team leads are in the process of talking with their team about territory assignments. Assignments were made with an eye on our recruitment goals for that area. Territory managers will be asked to establish and/or nurture relationships with school counselors, CBO leaders, and prospective students in their territories and to review applications in their territories. In past years, recruitment expectations have been set within the travel lens. We’re missing that this year, but many of the same principles remain. First, we need to be prepared to reach students and their families during non-school hours. We will see many evening and weekend events in our work this year. (In fact, Sunday afternoons appear to be the most popular time for fair invitations.) The international team will need to accommodate the over 23 other time zones in the world, without the benefit of jet lag and authentic meals. They will sometimes be working very non-traditional hours to accommodate the 1:00 a.m. school visits and fairs that are deemed necessary. When we travel, we strive to book four school visits or fairs (engagements) each day. We feel this is a realistic number of engagements to expect during our teams’ typical virtual recruitment day as well. In September, freshman counselors will be devoting approximately three days per week to recruitment, or 12 engagement opportunities per week. In October, some counselors will taper recruitment as they increase their application review; others will remain more recruitment focused. While freshman counselors should plan on 12 engagements a week in September, we do want to acknowledge that this is new territory; we’ve never done a totally virtual recruitment season! School counselors may be swamped and not able to accommodate our requests for school visits. Over the course of this month, we’ll be rolling out a number of training opportunities. The first session is on an important topic: working with school counselors and community leaders. Developing and fostering counselor and community leader relationships is an important part of our territory management work throughout the recruitment cycle. Other upcoming trainings include a Zoom how-to, virtual high school visits, and new materials to support the recruitment team. We are looking forward to fall recruitment and the opportunities to include more virtual recruitment in our continued efforts to help us reach even more students.