Rochester Institute of Technology - Techmila / Ramikin Yearbook (Rochester, NY)

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Article by NeU Shapiro The lushly carpeted office of Admissions and Records is situ- ated on the first floor of the administration building, just past the long rows of cashiers windows It is not one of the offices a typical student may find himself visiting once a week, or even once a quarter; but it affects each and every student here from the time he first applies until graduation. One of the primary goals of the administration's end, as Dean Donald A. Hoppe explained it, is “to attempt — by publications, talks, and the like to tell the prospective stu- dent about RIT and to present him with as accurate a picture as possible. Towards this end the Office of Admissions publishes such things as a guide lo RIT which gives a brief summary of each college and tells of the extracurricular activities of the Institute. The Admissions office also visits high schools, although their form of recruiting differs considerably from that of other col- leges and universities. “We don’t talk about RIT as a whole, Dean Hoppe said, “we prefer to talk more about the individual programs which are offered. He further explained that “Sixty to seventy per- cent of our students tell us they chose RIT because of the repu- tation of their department. So, we don't tend to go much for the ‘rah-rah-rah’ method of recruiting. Once an application is received, it’s processed in what is known as the “rolling admissions method. As soon as an application is received, it is acted on. This is opposed to some other schools where they wait until all applications are in be- fore acting on any of them, RIT feels that, as the best students usually apply first, it is unnecessary to wait: and if a prospec- tively good student does apply after the quota is filled he can always be accepted for the next quarter. There are no formal admissions committees which act on applications. Instead, applications are usually judged on by one or two members of the Admissions office, and perhaps a 27

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representative from the department the person applies to along with someone from the Counseling center. Depending on the applicant’s qualifications, or special needs, anywhere from one to six people decide whether to accept him. The long range concept which the office works for, is to take students and expose them to an education which will qualify them for a career. Because of this philosophy R1T is particularly hospitable to transfer students who may have left their last school for aca- demic reasons. Speaking of how appli- cations from this type of student are processed Dean Hoppe said, “A student who is transferring to R1T and taking the same program as before must have had good marks to be admitted; but, if there is a significant change in fields we look for his (the student's) potential in the new field. We ask ourselves, ‘Will he be successful in this new endeavor?' We don't want people wasting their money, however. We do sometimes make mistakes, although we try to call them the best way we can.The real vari- able is simply how hard the guy is will- ing to work. There is probably no typical RIT applicant, but statistically, they tend to be career-oriented individuals (for instance, the candidate must choose a major when he fills out the first appli- cation), also they tend to be first-gener- ation college students. Whatever; the Admissions Office seems to be more interested in finding out about them as people rather than as numbers. It's shocking, Hoppe said, to see the way many colleges use the Scholastic Aptitude Tests. Here, they’re one of the last things we look at. We want to see what the man has already proven he can do. Students are under the wing'' of the Admissions Office until the big day arrives and they sign their first student schedule card; then, the Office of Records begins their duties. The goal of Records, their funda- mental duty,” is to be able to supply any student's record on request. The main purpose of registration is to provide the registrar with informa- tion on where the student is, and also to make sure that four hundred people don’t sign up for a class in a room that seats forty-five. Many times registra- tion has provided students with worth- while information. For some reason a faculty member may think a student should be in his class, when the student himself doesn't realize this. By checking the records of the student the Office is able to notify him of a possible WF grade, and, usually, things can be straightened out. There are also the more esoteric examples. Dean Hoppe tells of one time he received a call from the California State Police. They had one of our students in custody in con- nection with an auto accident. It was found, by means of the Office of rec- ords, that the student could not even have been in California at the time of the accident as his student schedule card was dated to support his plea of in- nocence. Admissions and Records have cornea long way since the days when a student would be admitted by each Professor to that Professor’s course, and when the only records were in a student’s grade- book which all his Professors would sign as he completed parts of the cur- riculum, Lots of luck to the student who lost his book. Still, Dean Hoppe said that We’re always looking for suggestions — we may not agree with all of them — but our door is always open. 29