Newswire Extra

Prospective students moving at the speed of chat March 6, 2003 Although it only holds about 10 people comfortably, an otherwise unassuming room tucked away on the third floor of Shields Building on the University Park campus has on recent nights filled up with hundreds of prospective students looking for first-hand information about living and studying at Penn State. The physical impossibility is made possible in cyberspace through sophisticated chat room software that allows the prospective students-high school students who have been offered admission to Penn State for 2003-04-to log in from wherever they may be during certain windows of opportunity arranged by the Undergraduate Admissions office. For the full story, click here. Photos were taken by Greg Grieco.

A real-time transcript of the chat session is projected onto a large screen in the central room where student volunteers and admissions counselors answer the incoming questions from prospective students. Here is some early chatting from the March 4 session.

Amanda Young, an intern with Undergraduate Admissions and long-time Lion Scout volunteer, points out some of the more jovial messages that are arriving from prospective students from across Pennsylvania and other states.

While students handle some of the lighter questions, Craig Eozzo, an admissions counselor who helps prospective international students, and chat moderator Jan Weyer keep track of inquiries that are best answered by other counselors who are online, as well as up-to-date data on how many states and countries are represented by the chat visitors.

Last updated March 6, 2003.