As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to affect the Covenant community, the Admissions Department has indefinitely adjusted their recruitment methods in order to better serve prospective students during these uncertain times, admissions leaders say.
These adjustments include mask-wearing and social distancing during on-campus tours, new SneakPeak preview days, test-optional admissions (due to canceled ACT and SAT tests) and limited travel for admissions counselors. On-campus visits are limited to one family at a time (as opposed to three or four), and preview days have shifted from overnight Covenant 360 visits to one-day SneakPeak visits that are grouped by specific majors and limited to 50 students with one parent/guardian each.
Brad Tomas, Assistant Vice President for Enrollment Management, said that the pandemic has been “a big question mark for all enrollment leaders” across the country. “COVID-19 has been super challenging for us, just like it has been for everybody in all walks of life,” Tomas said.
Tomas, who joined the Covenant Admissions team in spring 2019, oversees the Admissions and Financial Aid offices and has helped implement new strategies pre-pandemic to improve enrollment.
“The biggest challenge is that typically we would be able to have some amount of predictive ability. Now, all the behaviors [of applicants] are different,” Tomas said.
With campus preview days shifting to a focus on academics, and COVID-19 protocols restricting typical access to dorms during tours, the Admissions Department has had to find new ways to showcase Covenant’s student life. Admissions funds were reallocated to create a virtual “360º tour” of campus, and “Covenant Live” student Q&A panels are scheduled for later in the semester to give applicants a sense of what life is like as a Covenant student.
“We know the virtual experience isn’t the same as being on campus, so we don’t know the impact of that missed opportunity… this group of high school seniors—their college search process is unlike anyone ever before. They’ve done more virtual visits and tours and Instagram tours than anyone ever before,” Tomas said.
Admissions Counselor Sarah Erickson ’17 has worked for Covenant since summer 2018 and said that the pandemic has changed her travels to Texas and Alabama, her primary recruiting states.
According to Erickson, travel is hard to predict because “high schools are watching what colleges are doing and colleges are trying to figure out what high schools are doing. So that’s been hard. The good thing is that it’s not unique to Covenant—all colleges are trying to figure this out.”
Erickson has noticed that visits with prospective students have shifted to more one-on-one interactions, rather than larger events like college fairs or visits with youth groups. She also noted that this format is harder logistically because of scheduling, but that she prefers these visits because they are more personal.
Erickson also said the new system has unexpected benefits.
“I’m able to ask, ‘Hey, what’s school like? How’s it going? How do you feel about what your school is doing?’ It’s really good to get the awkwardness down and say, ‘Hey, I’m actually interested in you as a person. This is a shared experience and I know that everyone’s affected by it,’” said Erickson.
As an admissions tour guide, Ashley Biegel ’22 has noticed that more families than usual are visiting campus and that visitors have been “really cool and chill about [the COVID-19 protocols].”
Tours are mostly conducted outside, and families are not able to go inside dorm buildings. However, students are still able to sit in on a class and have lunch in the Great Hall while wearing masks and practicing social distancing.
Though applicants are not able to experience a “typical” day as a Covenant student, both Tomas and Erickson say that they have received good responses from students and their families.
“It feels like a bummer to me, but when we talk to students, they’re like, ‘Oh, I loved it! I’m so happy we get to be on campus,’” said Erickson.
Despite the challenges that COVID-19 has presented to his departments, Tomas said he is “really happy and proud of our campus.”
Tomas added that it “means a lot for us to continue to have tours and show people around and take students to chapel so they see that students are there and engaging. It’s not typical chapel, but it’s still a better glimpse of what we’re normally like than if we were virtual.”