Easton, Pa. — Picking up the telephone and calling total strangers is not the easiest job in the world. Just ask Nirav Giri.
Mr. Giri, a freshman, is just one in a crew of students at Lafayette College who have been dialing up accepted applicants this spring. It’s just one part of the college’s multifaceted strategy for ensuring a good “yield” (the percentage of admitted applicants who ultimately enroll), which I describe in an article (“The Sweet and Subtle Science of Wooing the Admitted”) published in this week’s dead-tree edition.
Lafayette prides itself on providing students with personal attention, and the telephone calls to undecided applicants are meant to transmit that message. And, of course, to give them an opportunity to ask questions.
Recently, one student Mr. Giri called asked whether or not Lafayette was a party school. Mr. Giri paused. “I wasn’t sure if he wanted it to be a party school or not,” he said. So he answered as honestly as he could. A student could choose to get drunk anywhere, he said, and there were certainly people who liked to do that at Lafayette, but plenty of others who did not. “It’s less of a party school than it used to be,” he said. The answer seemed to reassure the student.
Mr. Giri and his fellow callers work two shifts per week, calling students Monday through Thursday, between 6:30 p.m. and 9 p.m. Often, parents answer the telephone. Some are thrilled to hear from Lafayette; some are not. Mothers, the students agree, are more likely than fathers to ask questions, and less likely to sound grumpy. Some parents, students say, are almost too happy to talk—they will just keep gabbing for half an hour or more.
Sometimes parents say they don’t even know whether their son or daughter is still considering Lafayette. Other times they might ask for help in persuading their child that Lafayette is the right place.
In general, moms and dads ask more questions than their children do. “Parents ask about everything they’re worried about,” says Hamish MacPhail, a freshman at Lafayette. “Students ask about everything they’re interested in.”
Half the time, the high-school students on the other end of the line don’t have anything to say. Those calls might last 30 seconds. Those who do ask questions often inquire about the social scene. What about drinking? Dating? The freshman 15?
Occasionally, young men ask about the attractiveness of female students on the campus: Just how hot are they on a 1-to-10 scale?
“We’re supposed to have it in our heads that we’re helping them,” says Christopher Yarnell, a freshman at Lafayette. “You want to be honest about the pros and cons of Lafayette, if you’re asked.”
For Mr. Yarnell, the cons of Lafayette involve dining options. He believes there are too few. And it’s a hike, he says, to get to and from the town of Easton.
Over all, though, Mr. Yarnell likes Lafayette a lot. He tries to convey that to the students he calls. He knows that many of them are nervous. And he hasn’t forgotten how he felt when he got a call from a Lafayette student about a year ago: “I was like, OK, I don’t want to talk to you.”
