Drawing Them In

As early action admissions letters start arriving in mailboxes across the country, the Undergraduate Minority Recruitment Program (UMRP) must be celebrating. With minority early admissions up 14 percent from last year, the UMRP seems to be doing something right.

And while Byerly Hall officials warn against making too much of the statistics, they acknowledge that admissions are on the right track.

"If there is any credit to be claimed for those numbers [of applicants], it is very widely shared," says Senior Admissions Officer Roger Banks, who works with the UMRP. "The campus climate on race and ethnicity is one in which everybody can take some pride and some interest."

An offshoot of the Undergraduate Admissions Council, which uses student volunteers to help the admissions office reach prospective applicants, UMRP engages minority undergraduates directly in Harvard's efforts to woo minorities.

Student coordinators representing five major ethnic groups--Asian Americans, blacks, Latinos, Mexican Americans and Native Americans--work with the admissions office to increase minority enrollment at the College.

Through phonathons, mailings and even week-long recruiting trips, the student coordinators work to debunk myths about Harvard's homogeneity.

In the Trenches

The Internet has changed college recruiting, increasing the need for an organization like the UMRP, Banks says. With prospective students now able to do much of their research on the Web, the admissions office no longer relies on personal recruiting.

"Recruitment is not hand-to-hand combat [anymore]," Banks says. "That's what the UMRP does--hand-to-hand recruitment, personal contact by phone and by visits."

The admissions office sends minority students on 20 to 25 recruiting trips every fall, Banks says. Traveling from New York to Chicago to San Francisco, coordinators visit school after school, trying to convince minorities that Harvard is the place for them.

"Students get a chance to hear the authentic story about what it's like to be a minority student at Harvard-Radcliffe from a Harvard-Radcliffe student," Banks says.

The admissions office tries to assign representatives to their own high schools and others in the area.

"It establishes a special rapport when you can tell them that you grew up in their home area," Heather C. Chang '99 says.

And with the number of early applications from African-American and Mexican-American students jumping 27 and 23 percent respectively, it seems the personal touch has been persuasive.

But converting students into admissions officers comes at a price.

The admissions office pays for plane tickets, as well as lunch and gas money for its student recruiters. Since recruiters are frequently sent back to their home areas, they are required to find their own housing and transportation.

And recruiting costs student volunteers precious time away from campus. Coordinators sacrifice a week of school to their admissions travels.

"They work a real schedule--three high schools a day for five days, and at least three middle schools in addition," Banks says. "It's not an uncomplicated matter. It's not just punching a ticket and getting on a plane."

According to Chang, who hopped on a plane last month to recruit in the San Francisco Bay area, the schedule can be exhausting.

Chang followed a strictly regimented itinerary that she drew up with help from the admissions office. Over her five days, Chang visited 20 schools, spending an average of an hour to an hour and a half at each one.

"The average number of schools is 15, so I kind of overdid it. It turned out to be painful," Chang says. "My day was spent going to between three and five schools. It would typically start as early as 7:30 [a.m.] and go to 3 or 4 [p.m.]"

At school after school, Chang met and chatted with students. While her visits were geared to minority students--she sent out special invitations to minorities in the area before leaving campus--Chang's information sessions were open to all who were interested.

"The main emphasis was to draw in minorities. After that it was just to educate them about Harvard," Chang says.

A Place for All

Coordinators say they hear the same assumptions about Harvard again and again on their travels--stereotypes which convince them that they perform a necessary function.

"Part of the reason that we go on the trips is to dispel myths that people have about Harvard--that it's a place where rich white kids go," Chang says.

Coordinator Joan M. Kane '00, who travels yearly to a Native American tribal conference in her home state of Alaska, says she hears the same concerns.

"For a lot of minority students, they don't consider Harvard either for financial reasons or because they think Harvard is all white," she says.

Kane says she emphasizes Harvard's need-blind admissions process to prospective students, as well as her own experiences as a minority on campus.

"Harvard is one of the most minority-friendly campuses in the U.S.," Kane claims.

A survey to be published by Black Enterprise magazine in January may bolster Kane's assertion. Harvard placed 28th in the magazine's listing of colleges where African Americans are likely to succeed, a list dominated by many historically black colleges. Only one other Ivy League school--Columbia--ranked higher than Harvard.

Chang says recruiters hope to spread the word that Harvard is a good place for minorities.

"Rather than a senior admmissions officer, who might be more imposing, [prospective students] can ask us the more nitty gritty," she says.

Fellow coordinator Casey J. Noel '01 echoes Chang's sentiments.

Noel always tries to tell his prospective students that "Harvard is really good school for anyone, regardless of race."

The Competition

As competition for talented minority applicants gets steeper among the nation's top universities, other schools are taking their message to the road as well.

According to Robert P. Jackson, director of minority recruitment and associate director of admissions at Yale, the Elis are committed to attracting minorities to New Haven.

"Certainly the minority recruitment is a large part of the success we've had in attracting students of color to Yale," Jackson says.

But Yale recruitment efforts emphasize office-based work like phone calls and mailings. Jackson says that while Yale student recruiters hit the major cities in the Northeast year-round, the admissions office only sponsors two or three of the Harvard-style longer recruiting trips.

Instead, Yale relies on its student recruiters and a series of assistant deans of Yale College, who are assigned to different cultural groups on campus.

"The deans are a tremendous help," says Jackson. "Having a dean who is in charge of a cultural center, they are basically a faculty member that [prospective minorities] can relate to."

While Harvard has no such dean positions, Banks says personal visitations make a good impression on prospective students.

"I think people appreciate the fact that we're trying to extend ourselves and that our students are trying to put a human face on [a school] that can be a daunting place," he says.