AUBG Unites for Class of 2017




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  • 2012-11-10 19:29:01
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Focus groups discussing the issues around recruiting new AUBG-ers were organized with students this Thursday, November 8. The same event is taking place in Sofia on Saturday, November 10, this time with alumni participating. The groups were organized by Admissions office and Dean of Faculty Lucia Miree as a response to developing concerns within the AUBG community about the decreasing quality of freshman classes.
Professor Filitsa Mullen, one of the focus facilitators
Admissions office has failed to meet the 300 target number of new students with the class of 2016. That is why for the graduating seniors of 2017 they will be adopting a new strategy. The three focus groups on Thursday, November 8, were conducted in an informal manner with a member of faculty, representatives of Admissions and students, who wanted to share their ideas. “We need to get feedback from young people, because our minds are already blocked,” said Professor Filitsa Mullen, facilitator of one of the sessions. The talks were revolving around what is it that made students apply to AUBG, what is the selling point that makes it special. Some people mentioned the flexibility that the liberal arts system has, others emphasized on the proximity of AUBG to their homes, many mentioned all the extracurricular activities you can involve in while studying here. Points that everyone agreed on were the fact that the AUBG website needs to become more user friendly, the information about fees should be stated more clearly in it and that Admissions should make success stories of AUBG alumni available to prospective students. Focus group participants kept mentioning that the advertising of the university needs to look more realistic, rather than pure PR, and be more present in the social media. As the even description stated “crazy ideas” were encouraged, so quite a few out-of-the-box strategies were suggested. Everything from virtual tours of Skaptos to streaming live lectures on the AUBG website, posting tutorials about how to manage your funds in Blagoevgrad and making a movie about the university was discussed seriously by the Admissions representatives. “How about we make a huge flash mob,” Bulgarian senior Ivaylo Shipochki said, “In order to build the AUBG brand we need to think big.” One thing is certain, the Office this year is going to focus more on students with higher English proficiency. More FLEX, YES and A-SMYLE alumni will be targeted in order to keep the SAT score standard high,  because one thing the administration does not want to compromise with is student quality, as mentioned by Provost Steven Sullivan at one of the focus sessions. As the main organizer of the events, Professor Miree said the feedback from the discussions was entirely positive, and many of the ideas can be implemented in practice. “We are already successful because people came together as a community.  We are successful because ideas are being discussed. We are successful because we showed we are a community,” Miree said after a good number of volunteering students showed up at the discussions. For the alumni sessions in Sofia Focus 2017 has 45 confirmed attendees, with the possibility of more showing up. “I am impressed with the levels of engagement and excitement seen on campus,” Miree said. After all the data is gathered, Admissions will work on all of the suggestions and come up with a plan for the recruitment process starting over the Winter Break. So it is highly likely that the average AUBG presentation that you and I attended before coming here will not look the same way anymore. If you were at one of the sessions the chances are good that you see one of your admissions ideas coming to life.