OVER 200 prospective students visited Lawrence last weekend. They were on campus for interviews, departmental programs, and conservatory auditions (Julien Poncet at silmonia.com)
The Lawrence campus was alive with the excitement, eagerness, and anxiety of the over 200 visiting, auditioning, testing, interviewing, and competing prospective students this past weekend. Students from across the nation traveled to Appleton in hopes of making their best impression on the Lawrence community. This year, the pool of applicants is expected to be the largest ever in school history.
As competition for acceptance into the university increases, so do the school’s expectations of scholarship applicants. An on-campus interview was required of all scholarship applicants, replacing the timed essay, which, up until this year, was standard for the application process.
This past weekend, over 150 prospective students were interviewed for the 2002-2003 Scholarship Competition. Other interviews took place Feb. 7-8.
“It was exciting to see how much these students would add to the Lawrence community if they choose to enroll,” commented senior Sarah Krile, who was part of the scholarship interview team on Saturday.
In addition to scholarship competitions, it was also a weekend of conservatory auditions and skill tests. On Saturday 114 prospective students auditioned for the conservatory.
Scheduled auditions began at 9:00 a.m. and continued through 5:00 p.m. Approxinately half of those students also expressed interest in the five-year double degree program. The conservatory expects over 430 auditions total for the year.
Lawrence students, generous enough to open up their rooms to provide the visitors with an intimate look into student life at Lawrence, housed close to 60 of the prospectives on campus.
Activities arranged for the visitors and their families included student-guided tours, question and answer panels with Lawrence students and parents, classroom visitations, and individual lessons with music teachers.
There was a formal welcoming ceremony on Friday night in Stansbury, with a greeting from President Warch and a performance by the percussion ensemble Sambistas, among others.
The history and chemistry departments each hosted programs for prospective students and treated them to a special dinner afterward. Other students dined at Lucinda’s with all of the overnight hosts.
As the prospective students put their best foot forward this weekend to make a lasting impression on Lawrence, the school of course hopes to have made a lasting impression on them as well. This past weekend was only one of the four on-campus audition days. On May 5, there will also be an official Spring Visit day.