Deciding what college to attend can depend on any number of tiny details: 70-degree weather, a hot tour guide, pot stickers at the cafeteria. This weekend, the Georgetown Admissions Ambassadors Program (GAAP) will host the first of three weekends designed to show accepted students everything the University has to offer. With the basketball team in the Final Four and students sunbathing on Copley Lawn, the timing couldn’t be better.
According to Admissions Officer Melissa Foy, a GAAP supervisor, 386 prospective freshmen, with families and friends in tow, will swarm Healy Lawn and Red Square Friday and Saturday, a total of 976 guests.
“Open house attendees are twice as likely to come here as compared to students who don’t attend an Open House,” Foy wrote in an e-mail, noting that 71 percent of this year’s freshman class attended a GAAP weekend last year.
“We’re certainly emphasizing our awesome basketball team as a major bonus that Georgetown has that our peers do not.”
The Campus Activities Fair, described by GAAP Associate Vice President Shane Giuliani (SFS ‘09) as a “mini SAC fair,” will close the weekend, giving the student clubs that table in Red Square a chance to recruit new members from among the pre-freshmen. The groups that are tabling range from Surf Club to GU NAACP to Catholic Daughters.
Therese Miranda (SFS ‘09), Vice President of Public Relations for the Georgetown University Multi- and Bi-racial Orgnization, said that because the group is fairly new, they don’t know what to expect from the fair.
“It’s a chance to get our name out there,” Miranda said. GUMBO currently has about 100 people on their mailing list and 20 members who regularly attend meetings.
“We’re hoping the t-shirts will suck the parents in,” Miranda added, referring to their shirts that say “Everyone loves a mixed Hoya.”
24 student groups have signed up to table in Red Square on Saturday; whether all the groups will show up is another matter, Giuliani said, mentioning that in past years groups have pulled out.
Some groups, including the Jewish Students Association and the College Democrats, are going beyond the tables in Red Square and holding their own events that are specially tailored to prospective students.
Luring high school seniors with “mocktails” and pictures of Bill Clinton and Nancy Pelosi, the Dems are will host an open house in ICC on Saturday afternoon.
“We think Georgetown is the best place to study politics and government, and we wanted to play a role in getting highly qualified, politically-charged students to [attend] Georgetown,” College Democrats Membership Director Matt Smallcomb (COL ’09), a former Voice editorial board member, said.
With bagels in the morning, ice cream in the afternoon and a Shabbat service Friday evening, the Jewish Student Association’s goal is not as much about recruiting as it is about reassuring prospective Jewish students that they will be comfortable attending a Catholic university.
“Part of it is to show there’s Jewish life on campus,” JSA President Stephanie Levy (SFS ‘07) said. “Hopefully it’s to convince them to come. It’s a valid concern, being Jewish and being actively Jewish at a Catholic university.”
