Purdue News
Purdue News
When Suzanne Turpin takes a group of high school students across campus, she shows them academic buildings, computer labs and residence halls.
She tells them about the Co-Rec, the Purdue Memorial Union and opportunities for getting involved in extracurricular activities.
She answers their questions and tells them about her experiences as a Purdue student.
And many times, she has surprise guest speakers. Recently, she says, she was conducting a tour and John Hicks, senior vice president emeritus, stopped the group and regaled them with some Purdue tales. Other times, professors stop and chat and she frequently gets waves and nods from friends all over campus. "It's always nice when that happens," Turpin says. "It shows the students that you really are a person here. And it's good for them to hear the stories that others have to tell."
Turpin is an Office of Admissions tour guide and one of 60 students in the Purdue Student Host Organization who assist with recruitment activities.
Nearly 3,000 prospective students and their families took those individual tours of the West Lafayette Campus during the past year.
Thousands more attended various Purdue programs - on campus and off - geared toward admitted students or nonadmitted freshmen, sophomores and juniors.
It's all part of the Purdue philosophy of gearing the program toward the student - of making sure prospective students know they are special, not just a number, on the large campus.
Douglas Christiansen, director of the Office of Admissions, says Purdue's goal is to recruit the best and brightest beginning class each year.
"We are looking for the most diversified and qualified students," he says. "We are looking for those students who are most likely to succeed at Purdue." In three of the past four years, the number of entering freshmen has increased.
Last August 6,811 entering students began classes at the West Lafayette Campus, an increase of 335 students from 1995.
Eighty percent of the entering freshmen ranked in the top one-third of their high school class.
They took 3,844 advanced placement tests and earned more than 13,000 hours of college credit from those tests.
"Our enrollment is increasing, and that is positive," Christiansen says. "But even more positive is that we are not lowering standards. In fact, we are enrolling more and more top-notch students."
Seventy-five percent of the Purdue undergraduate student population comes from Indiana, Christiansen says.
Last year, the mean SAT verbal score for all Indiana students was 494. The mean verbal score for entering Purdue freshmen was 534.
In math, the mean state of Indiana score was 494, and the Purdue entering freshman mean for math was 561.
"We are pulling the best students that Indiana has to offer," Christiansen says. "And we can see that a better-prepared student is coming to Purdue."
A recent issue of "The Chronicle of Higher Education" listed the 100 colleges and universities that enrolled the largest numbers of freshman Merit Scholars in 1996. Purdue, with 54, was No. 31 on the list and fourth among Big Ten schools behind only Northwestern, Ohio State and Michigan State.
Why are we doing so well?
Christiansen says it's the total campus involvement in recruiting that makes the difference.
"We've become much more comprehensive in our recruitment strategy," he says. "It is through the deans, the faculty, staff and students that we're moving ahead. We have all pulled together to say, `What do we need to do and how do we do it better?'"
Working together means better recruitment programs, says Stacey Kostell, assistant director of admissions.
"We try very hard to gear our programs to the correct audience," she says. "And nearly every program we do now is in conjunction with various schools and departments on campus."
Turpin, who has been a student host for nearly a year, says every tour is different - but generally everyone asks a lot of questions by the end of the 90 minutes.
"Parents ask about safety," Turpin says. "Students want to be reassured that they're not going to get lost in the sea of 36,000 students. They want to know how they can get involved.
"I tell them to make sure they go talk to each of their professors early in the semester, and to keep talking to them. I tell them to get involved in interest groups and organizations. I always tell them that Purdue has a lot to offer in the way of diversity and diverse opportunities."
Turpin and the other student hosts send a personal postcard to each student they meet on a tour. And Turpin says she still hears from some of those students and sees others on campus who wave and keep her up-to-date on their experiences.
A junior public relations major, Turpin says she decided late in her senior year of high school to attend Purdue. Her father, Tom, is a professor of entomology, but never pushed her except to make sure she would be happy wherever she decided to go to college.
"I know now that I made the right decision," she says. Her brother will enter Purdue in the fall.
"That's what I tell students on my tour, too," Turpin says. "This is an important decision. I really want them to come to Purdue, and I really want them to be happy and to make the right decision for them."
Christiansen couldn't have said it better.
"Our goal, to get the best and the brightest, also means we want what's best for the student," he says. "We look for students who have the ability to succeed at Purdue and for whom Purdue will be the best choice." Purdue News Service: (765) 494-2096; e-mail, purduenews@purdue.edu
