While some University students spent Winter Break recovering from the busy fall semester, others volunteered their time to help University admissions officials sort through thousands of pieces of mail from prospective students. Although monotonous, the job allowed students to get to know each other and prevented a mail backlog.
Assoc. Dean of Admissions Greg Roberts said he estimates that the University will have received between 21,700 and 22,000 applications once the office finishes counting applications. He said while colleges and universities typically see an increase in the number of applicants after switching to the Common Application — which the University began accepting in July — admissions officials had no way of predicting the mass amounts of mail that arrived last month.
“We thought we would get a lot less mail this year because we switched to the Common Application,” said Parke Muth, senior assistant dean of admissions. ”We continued to get a whole lot of mail because there are a lot of schools, parents and students who are concerned about sending things electronically.”
Muth said as December progressed, the University began receiving more and more mail. He said the post office was sending in trays containing hundreds and hundreds of pieces of mail — much more than the University was prepared to handle.
“We planned in terms of employment to have a lot more people scanning and doing data entry and a lot fewer people hired to do mail sorting,” he said. “We knew we were in danger.”
To remedy the situation, Muth asked international students if they would be willing to volunteer to sort letters and open mail during the break, assuming that many of these students would not be returning home for the holidays.
About a dozen students, mostly from China, agreed to help out.
“I’ve been working three hours a day,” said Wieqy Tian, a first-year College student from China, adding that some students volunteered up to five hours a day.
Though kept busy in the admissions office, Tian and the other students had very limited access to confidential student records.
“They aren’t looking at any files, they are just opening mail,” Roberts said.
Muth added that the student volunteers were instructed not to read or analyze the incoming applications.
“It can be tedious sometimes,” Tian said of the work, noting, however, that the time she spent talking to her fellow volunteers was enjoyable.
“You get to know a lot of different stuff about other countries through the talking,” she said, explaining that the students spent a lot of time talking about their own studies and travel experiences.
“It’s sort of good for them [to spend time together in the Office of Admission] because it’s pretty isolated for them here over the break,” Muth said. “It’s not necessarily the happiest holiday season for these students.”
Nevertheless, Tian said she was upbeat about her time spent during Winter Break, noting that she got to travel, catch up with other friends who were volunteering and even meet some new people.
“I prefer to stay here and have a look around in America,” she said, adding that she probably will not return to China until summer vacation.
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