Open house helps court ‘the best and the brightest’
Bryan Rose, a senior at Penfield High School in Rochester, has been admitted to three different colleges, including Binghamton University. He doesn’t know where he’ll go yet – he’s got to see what each college has to offer first – but he does know that he’d like to explore each school sooner rather than later.
“It’s good to have an all-around idea sooner,” Rose said. “It’s better when it gets down to the line.”
Rose was one of a small pool of students to attend the Admitted Student Open House for Binghamton University Scholars and PricewaterhouseCoopers Scholars held Feb. 16.
In an effort to engage exceptional students before they enroll elsewhere, the University broke from tradition and offered an open house in February for the first time in its history. Rather than wait until April, when many top applicants have already decided where they’ll go to college, the University presented itself to this year’s incoming pool of high-achievers with plenty of time to spare. This early open house was particularly crucial for the school’s two scholars programs — the Binghamton University Scholars Program and the PricewaterhouseCoopers Scholars Program — in connecting with eager-to-succeed, top-level students.
“This is our first time doing it this early,” said William Ziegler, executive director of the Binghamton University Scholars Program. “We want to get on everyone’s radar early before they start getting multiple offers, which all of these students will get. I think it’s really good to be out in front rather than behind. I think that this gets them thinking of us first.”
Randall Edouard, assistant provost and director of admissions, said that the University needed to try something different this year to connect with early admits, who, nationwide, are deciding upon a college to attend earlier.
“I accessed how we did things and found that we were admitting these top-tier, cream-of-the-crop students in January, and we didn’t offer them anything until April,” he said. “These are the top students. These are the folks that can go anywhere. We need to have something for them. We need to show them that we really want them.”