Program Description
The Undergraduate Admissions staff at Hopkins seeks to provide the university with a multidimensional student body that represents diversity in academic interests, extracurricular activities, leadership opportunities and geographic backgrounds. The National Alumni Schools Committee (NASC) plays an important role in assisting the Office of Undergraduate Admissions in recruiting and enrolling these top students.

The NASC was founded at Hopkins in the early 1960s and currently involves over 1,000 Hopkins alumni worldwide. NASC members are involved in a wide range of admissions activities including interviews, college fairs, receptions, and phone calls. Last year the NASC program was expanded to involve parents of current JHU students in conjunction with Mary Ellen Porter and Parents Programs.

2004 -2005 Overview

• Interviews—There were 745 confirmed interviews conducted by alumni & parent volunteers during the fall of 2004 (746 in 2003). The following percentages are based on 745 interviews.
  • 10% did not go on to apply to Hopkins (9% in 2003)
  • 40% were accepted (37% in 2003)
  • 41% enrolled (36% in 2003)
  • 333 alumni/parent volunteers participated in interviews (325 in 2003)

Analysis: I think we have reached a plateau with the amount to interviews we are able to process annually due to the fact that the NASC has only one staff member and the assignment/follow-up of interviews is extremely time consuming. Therefore, my strategy this year focused on using alumni/parent volunteers more broadly – i.e. making sure that as many people got to do at least one interview as possible. Thus our participation number increased although our interviews conducted stayed the same. Also note that our admit rate and yield rate were also very strong this year. Although the interview does not have a large impact on the selection process (admit rate), it does seem to have a large impact on students deciding to enroll at Johns Hopkins (41% of students that were accepted that had an interview, decided to enroll.)

• College Fairs—There were 98 college fairs staffed by NASC members in 2004-2005 (100 in 2003-04). A total of 82 volunteers (80 in 2003-04) participated in these valuable recruiting events.

Analysis: Again, I think we have reached a plateau in the amount of college fairs we are able to coordinate and again my strategy has been to involve more people. Therefore, while the amount of fairs decreased by 2, our participation increased by 2.

• Receptions—Alumni & parents participated in our spring receptions as hosts and guests. This year we conducted events in 11 cities and had record attendance overall. All 11 events were sponsored and paid for by the hosts. For more information regarding these receptions, please refer to the Reception Annual Report for 2004-2005.
  
  
• Phone calls—This year we had the assistance again of current parents to make calls to admitted students for yield purposes. Mary Ellen Porter did an excellent job of organizing parental participation. In addition, we were finally able to get interviewers the admissions status and contact information on their interviewees in a timely manner, so that they were able to make calls as well. We were able to post a spreadsheet on the NASC website, where alumni could go and check on information within the first week of April. A big thank you to Chris Pace for coming up with a creative solution for our members – we received a lot of positive feedback from interviewers.
  
  
• Training—I think the biggest success for the NASC this year was in the development of our online training program. Overall we had 180 alumni/parent volunteers (80 active members, 75 new members and 25 returning members) complete the training and its accompanying quiz. The training program would not have been possible without the financial support we received from the Second Decade Society (SDS) and the personal support we received from Admissions staff & volunteers—Chris Pace, Mark Margolin, Evelyn Jerome, Amy Brokl, Patrick Russell, Caren Zelicof, and Diane Bockrath. It was a huge team effort that really paid off for us this year and we will continue to reap the benefits of having an accessible training program for volunteers for many years to come. (add the breakdown of new to old members)

Success from the 2004-2005 Strategic Plan

• We were successful in launching our online training program
• We did expand the use of website to include an online college fair evaluation form and interviewer report
• We were able to recruit 75 new members to the NASC
• We were able to re-engage 25 inactive members
• We continued to engage our active members, increasing total participation from 361 to 393 volunteers (393 breaks down divisionally as 306 KSAS, 76 WSE, 11 Parents)

Strategic Plan for 2005-2006

1. Respond to alumni feedback on college fair materials. The NASC received an SDS grant to have some unique materials developed for college fairs done by NASC volunteers that would serve two purposes, 1) to empower our volunteers by responding to their requests for particular materials and 2) to structure the size/weight of materials so that printed pieces sent to NASC volunteers will fit in a smaller box and cost less to send. We also received additional funding from Peter Marber that we are using to1) give alumni professional nametags for fairs and 2) add to our supply of table banners.
2. Continue to develop our technical infrastructure and Web capabilities. This will include adding a password protected section to the NASC website for the exchange of private information including interviewer/interviewee data.
3. Plan & implement a Leadership Development Conference for NASC volunteers. This would include a volunteer recognition component.
4. Continue to enhance our service to prospective students during the interview request process. This will include the final development of an “Interview Prep” document for the admissions website and a phone call program for students that live outside our interview areas.
5. Continue to recruit and train more members. This will include redesigning the NASC membership brochure to include information on new online training program. We will also continue to target certain geographic areas were we need more interviewers.
6. Develop an NASC office manual