YESTERDAY hordes of admitted high school seniors and their overly enthusiastic parents obstructed sidewalks, clogged dining halls dishing out artery-clogging food and formed tours that tormented anyone walking to class. If the surly grimaces displayed by many students didn't indicate a Monday morning in April to you, the invasion of prospective students surely did the trick. It was the third installment of the University's Days on the Lawn visitation program, and once again admitted students were given a superficial view of the University and current students were amused, and occasionally annoyed, with the antics of soon-to-be Wahoos.
I served as a clown in this circus from 8:35 to 9:25 at a registration table on the Lawn, and while witnessing the fray we had caused, I couldn't help but think we had missed the mark. Days on the Lawn doesn't give admitted students a true view of the University, and as a result should be replaced with a more flexible and decentralized system.
Although the program itself is flawed, the students volunteering their time to make it work should not be faulted. Their efforts, good intentions and passion for the University are all commendable. Unfortunately, these efforts are too often overshadowed by Days on the Lawn's organizational and logistical problems.
Indeed, Days on the Lawn is an overly ambitious program. Its sheer size and scope lead to ineffectiveness as admitted students are led about like cattle in a carefully orchestrated, well-lubricated machine. Bryan Furman, Days on the Lawn Co-Chair, said that 1,625 admitted students have visited over the past three events, with 275 students touring Grounds yesterday. Because of this massive scale, the program lacks substance and intimacy; the best it can provide is a superficial view of the University. Tours gawking at the Rotunda and University Guides bragging about how many CIOs we have don't tell prospective students anything they wouldn't gain from a college guide or the University's Web site. .
Prospective students have expressed their angst verbally and electronically. Yesterday I spoke with Ellen Janssen, an admitted student from McLean High School in Northern Virginia. She was very appreciative of the event overall, saying it "is a really good program where everyone's really enthusiastic." However, she also said "I think maybe if you don't go to the Days on the Lawn you may get a better feeling of the school because you'd have less structure."
Ellen's thoughts are echoed by several other prospective students on the college admissions Web site collegeconfidential.com. A forum about Days on the Lawn has one post that states "It seemed like more students showed up than the University was planning on and so, registration was extremely crowded as was the class sign up sheet; we got there at 8:30 and didn't get out of the lines until about 9:45." Another poster said "the registration was HELL. We had no idea where to go and there were just too many people," but concluded by noting that "there were no problems" after registration. Such logistical logjams give students a very poor introduction to our institution and hardly portray the school as a nurturing environment.
Instead of the current Days on the Lawn program, admissions should adopt a flexible visitation system that allows admitted students to come on their own terms. Students wishing to officially stay in dorms through the Monroe Society could be required to indicate their visitation date a week ahead of time, and to notify Peabody Hall if they plan to take a tour. Under such a system, the thousands of admitted students would be more evenly distributed throughout the month of April, rather than brought to the University on five specific days. They would acquire a more intimate and intricate view of the University, and would avoid the admissions department's cheerleading and prepackaged presentations from student leaders and administration representatives. If prospective students don't like the University the way it really is, they won't help themselves or the institution by enrolling in August.
Overall, Days on the Lawn fails under its own weight as it tries to do too much in a short amount of time. It should be replaced with a more flexible and decentralized system so that prospective students are given a true sense of the University's unique culture. We should strive to show the University's merits to prospective students rather than tell them about how great it is.
James Rogers is a Cavalier Daily associate editor. He can be reached at jrogers@cavalierdaily.com.
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