Throughout the years at Cabrini, accepted student day has always been a joyous occasion. Accepted student day is a day where Cabrini’s community of staff members, faculty and students celebrate students who have been offered admission into the university.
Cabrini has done an amazing job over the years honoring the accomplishments of the students who have been offered admission. The Cabrini community also makes an effort to honor the student’s families and provide them with opportunities to meet with faculty and staff members and even current students attending the university.
Cabrini also offers students a tour of the campus and many activities and presentations involving different options that the university offers. As a result, this day typically brings in many enrollments from the students who attended the event. While accepted student day has always been a success over the years, COVID-19 procedures limited the number of people who could attend the event along with many more activities. Instead of the usual one day for the event, Cabrini had to split the event up into two separate days in order to keep everyone safe and to follow health guidelines and COVID-19 protocol.
George Walter, vice president for enrollment management, was eager to share his thoughts on the event, “As Vice President for Enrollment Management, I work with a dedicated group of people in the Admissions Office and the Enrollment Operations Office who are responsible for creating and administering all aspect of the accepted student day program,”
While COVID-19 health procedures did put limitations on the event, Walter and the rest of the admissions and enrollment offices were still able to create an event that was enjoyable for all the students that attended.
“As we planned this year’s program, our primary focus was how to create a program that would safeguard the health and safety of the Cabrini community, including faculty, staff, and current students, as well as the accepted students and their guests. In addition, we needed to work within the current PA state-mandated COVID guidelines for the maximum allowable group size for both general and breakout sessions.”
“As a result, instead of having one ASD for all admitted students, we had two days,” George Walter, vice president for enrollment management said. “We split the accepted student group based on their intended major, with the School of Education and School of Business, Arts & Media on the first day and, on the second day, students accepted to the School of Humanities and Social Sciences and School of Natural Sciences & Allied Health. We invited students who had not yet selected a major to attend either or both days. In addition to not being able to have one grand day, we also had to scale back our program and instead of having a luncheon for students and their family members, we provided box lunches and self-guided tours.”
Walter went on to talk about how COVID-19 health procedures also limited the number of students that attended the two-day event altogether. “Over the two days, we had 215 students attend the days. Although this was less than in past years, we have also been providing virtual opportunities throughout the spring for the admitted students to connect with the campus, as well as smaller group visits.”
Although COVID-19 has posed many challenges, the event was overall a success. “With all of the challenges and restrictions that we faced I believe that the day was a success,” Walter went on to add, “Although we were not able to provide the accepted student with a “normal” ASD experience, for the first time in over a year, we were able to host an event to expose prospective students and family members to what is special and distinctive about Cabrini. Each student was asked to complete an assessment of the day. These were overwhelming positive.”
With Walter’s reassurance, students can now look forward to future events, and eventually, Cabrini will be able to provide students with a normal experience.
