| 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 up to five hours at a stretch, the fingers
of student volunteers, known as Lion Scouts, and supervisory
admissions counselors fairly fly across the keyboards as they
answer incoming questions in rapid-fire succession. The high
school students are alerted to the upcoming chats via postcards
and e-mail, and their questions range from the trivial to the
pointed.
"A lot of the
questions revolve around academics, class size, how do I know
what to take-basic student life issues," says admissions
counselor and chat moderator Jan Weyer. "They're very anxious
about the student life situation here, not realizing that there
are thousands of other prospective students in the same boat."
Penn State's chat
session on Feb. 26 attracted 585 unique log ins from 27 states,
the District of Columbia, 11 countries and Puerto Rico, which
appears to be a record for both the University and for the dozens
of other universities licensed to use the Chat University software,
says admissions counselor Mike Stumbers. Only 11 of those who
logged in that night were parents of prospective students, he
adds. "When I logged off at midnight, about 15 prospective
students were still on line chatting away with two volunteers,"
he notes.
At times, the Feb.
26 activity was so intense that extra volunteers had to be called
up to answer questions from their residence hall rooms, and
even as far away as Australia-in the person of a student who's
there as part of a study abroad experience. Although less hectic,
a similar March 4 chat session still attracted heavy traffic
and once again involved the Australia-based volunteer while
Stumbers chimed in as needed to the University Park staff from
a hotel room in Pittsburgh. Since they began in May 2001, the
chats have attracted several thousand visitors from 49 states
and 51 countries.
"I have had
kids enter into personal chats with me and tell me that they
feel so much better about coming to Penn State, or that my answers
have made them consider Penn State to be their top college choice,"
says Amanda Young, a senior in human development and family
studies, and a Lion Scout participant since her freshman year.
"The most important thing I try to convey to these students
is that Penn State has an endless number of opportunities, and
the only way you are truly going to have a rewarding collegiate
experience is to grasp all of them."
For information
on future chat sessions, including some intended for parents
and international students, visit http://www.psu.edu/dept/admissions/offered/chats.htm
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