An Admissions Umbrella

Although undergraduates traveled to 49 states this fall as student spokespersons for Discover Duke evening programs, they're not the only ones putting themselves out there for Duke.

Under the newly formed blanket organization Admissions Ambassadors, tour guides, panelists, p-frosh hosts and volunteers that travel to talk about their Duke experience all combine to form the group walking around wearing those sea-green T-shirts.

Admissions officer Margaret Di Giulio, Trinity '06, worked with Assistant Director of Admissions Gina Hubbard this fall to create a database of all current students involved in admissions recruitment and coordinate their participation in the recruitment process-more than 1,000 in total. Through the database, student volunteers who fit the admissions office's needs can be targeted easily and efficiently.

"Now that we have this database, if I need someone to host a student, but I don't have a specific person who has expressed interest that lives in this dorm, I can go look through the tour guides, I can go look through the people who wanted to go home for Fall Break, because these are people that have already expressed interest in recruitment," Di Giulio says. "We can draw from each of them, and people are doing multiple activities instead of just one."

Di Giulio and Hubbard have also formed a student executive board for the Admissions Ambassadors to link students with the recruitment process. Sophomore Amy Little, head of the student executive board, says undergraduates have been eager to join.

"I think people feel kind of a responsibility toward Duke," Little says. "So the admissions process is a great way, because you're kind of working for the school-it's like a business kind of. We've had a huge amount of interest. I think it's just because people want to share their experience and their enthusiasm for Duke." -L.K.