According to what I’ve been reading in The Sun, the number of high schoolers applying to Cornell is up … way up. With this in mind, I became a member of the Cornell University Ambassadors … for one hour. This past Tuesday I went to one of the Ambassadors’ bi-weekly meetings to see what the Ambassadors do, who the Ambassadors are and what it is about the people that interact with prospective students that is causing our application rates to skyrocket.
The meeting started as all Ambassador meetings do, with a connection question. Reba McCutcheon ’96, the organization’s advisor, confessed she got the idea for the connection question from previous work with the Cornell tour guides. Tuesday’s question was, “why are you happy to be back at Cornell?” (I said that my bed here is more comfortable than my bed at home.) Previous questions have ranged from “where is your favorite place to eat on campus?” to “what is your favorite bathroom on campus?”
The Ambassadors are currently in the midst of their spring recruitment, which was an important topic on Tuesday’s agenda. Recruitment is always fun for the Ambassadors because they love to have new students join their ranks. After all, that’s what they do for Cornell. When asked why she became a Cornell University Ambassador, Antonia Richards ’10 said that when she was looking at schools she always wanted to know what students thought.
“I like being the person I wish had I talked to,” she said.
Member Andrew Elkin seconded that notion, recalling that it was after his trip to The Hill for Cornell Days that he decided to enroll.
“That was the primary reason I came to Cornell,” Elkin said. Like Elkin and Richards, many Ambassadors cite that the Ambassadors have a large influence not only on enrollment decisions, but also on the decisions to become an Ambassador.
One of the most exciting pieces of news on the recruitment front was the recently launched Cornell University Ambassadors website, rso.cornell.edu/Ambassadors, where Ambassador hopefuls can fill out an application easily and electronically.
The application process to become an Ambassador includes an application and two rounds of interviews. The first round of interviews consists of group interviews in which applicants are asked how they would answer questions that might arise or have arisen during information sessions. The second round includes individual interviews where a pair of Ambassadors asks the hopeful about Ithaca — Do they like it? What is there to do in Ithaca, anyway?
Another big topic on the agenda this Tuesday was Cornell Days, which starts on April 5 this year. When asked what her favorite thing about Ambassadors is, Caitlin Briere ’08 said Cornell Days.
“Everyone’s really energetic,” she added.
According to Steering Committee member and Cornell Days Chair Louis Romeo ’10, Cornell Days is going to be bigger and better than ever before. He listed a number of events, including Game Central and Fireside A Cappella, that will entertain accepted students in an effort to show them why Cornell is the place to be.
Cornell Days consists of eight full days over a 12-day span where accepted students can visit the University for information sessions, meet-and-greets and special nighttime events. Pre-frosh can even sleep over in a student’s room to get the entire Cornell experience.
As Steering Committee member Rahul Shah ’07 explained, the Ambassadors program is about more than just Cornell Days. Responsibilities include information sessions, bus trips around campus with visitors and more.
For Ambassadors to be able to relate to potential Cornellians and make them want to be a part of The Big Red, it is imperative that they know how Cornell looks to the outside world. Thus, the last part of the meeting was devoted to Cornell news — discussing when, how and where Cornell has appeared in the news.
Cornell Ambassadors started in 1969, and until recently was a part of alumni affairs and development, according to McCutcheon. She added that it makes sense for the organization to be a part of undergraduate admissions, which it has been now for the past five or seven years.
Cornell’s popularity is on the rise and the numbers prove that a big thank you should go out to the Cornell University Ambassadors, who are putting in serious work on the front lines. As someone who made his decision to attend Cornell after my Cornell Days experience, I’d say the Cornell University Ambassadors are largely responsible for melting the snow at the new hottest Ivy.