Blog / Recruitment: The Moment of Impact
On the Admissions team, we have the privilege of seeing the impact of our role in recruitment through the first impression. While this can be a different moment for each family, the most common and powerful is experiencing our campus for the first time. This moment is encapsulated in different ways for each family. For many, it’s realizing there is hope and something more for their child. For others, it is meeting students on our campus with whom they feel connected or seeing that others with the same challenges in life are thriving.
The moment of first impression is important on every family’s journey towards Shepherds College®. We're commonly asked, “Is this possible for my student?” “Is this too good to be true?” “Will my child be okay living away from home for the first time?” We can give them answers on the phone or at an event booth during a conference, but there is no substitute for that first tour – that first impression of our program – on campus.
For parents and students, that moment on campus impacts them at different times and in different ways. Often, for our students, it's getting to see the major they are most interested in or to meet one of our current students to learn what it has been like for them. For parents, it’s through both staff and students. During Preview Day tours, the moment might happen when parents get to ask questions that have been on their minds regarding specific departments: hearing how Student Life is helping our students grow, talking to our Academic team about the needs of their students, and discovering how classes run. It's seeing second-year students in action in their majors: taking photos and explaining the technology they're working with, baking treats and serving them to the guests, and transplanting and caring for plants that will be on sale later in the year.
Each of these first impressions is different but all impact each person visiting our campus. Here in Admissions, it is a privilege to see the moment of impact over and over for each family that goes through the recruitment process.
It's a joy to watch every family realize that when we say our students are made "on and for a purpose," we strive to live that out each day in our program.
The first impression is a crucial part of Shepherds College. It is one of the most significant ways families are impacted through the recruitment process and their student's Admissions journey.
Published in Volume 6, Issue 3 of SOAR Magazine.