Ask an Engineer

Chat sessions give prospective students the real scoop on life at Cornell.

Sasha asks if engineering students spend all their time studying. Wolf wants to know how common it is for students at Cornell to do team projects. Tennisman88 inquires about the quality and availability of apartments in Ithaca.

Such queries are typical of those received during Internet chat sessions held by the College of Engineering in an effort to draw prospective students to Cornell. And the Engineering undergrads who respond via computer in a second floor lab at Carpenter Hall have all the answers.

Given the popularity of instant messaging, blogs, and interactive web sites among teens and young adults, chat rooms can be an effective recruiting tool, says Mark Spencer, director of Engineering Admissions.

“It’s fun, because conversations get started among the Cornell students and those sitting at home,” he says. “High school students like this because it gives them anonymity, and they feel free to ask about anything that comes to mind.” Participants at both ends are identified by screen name only, although the Cornell students may ask where a person lives and get other personal information after the ice is broken.

A company called Chat University, which has hundreds of higher education clients, helps set up the informal sessions that let the schools connect with recruits and respond in real time to their inquiries.

Typically there are about dozen engineering students tapping out responses to the questions, and the give-and-take can get a bit frenetic at times as the chat room gets crowded during the three-hour sessions. Questions are taken on academics, student life, Ithaca, and the college campus.

The chats are held twice a year, once in December when the deadline for college applications approaches and again in April when acceptance notices are delivered and the objective is to encourage students to commit to Cornell.

Different from the phone-a-thon approach, online conversations enable everyone in the computer lab to communicate with the students at the other end of the line—and those recruits can communicate with each other as well, Spencer says.

“It can get pretty hectic at times, with the high school students peppering us with questions that we have to answer as quickly as possible to keep the conversation going,” says senior engineering student Sara Maly, who has participated in three online chats.

She notes that most of the queries she has dealt with concern the amount of work required of engineering students or the requirements for a specific major. “This is much less intimidating than getting a phone call from the university,” Maly says, “and unlike a school visit, their parents are not hovering over them and monitoring what they say.”

Senior Anna Domask, another chat session veteran, points out that instant messaging is a great way for a prospective student who can’t make a campus visit to receive information about Cornell. “I have communicated with people who live in India, Korea, and Singapore who are not able to see the campus but who want to know where to live, or what there is to do in Ithaca,” she says.

Among the more unusual questions she received was an inquiry about the popularity of LAN parties—which involve using wireless technology to communicate or play interactive games. “I was able to answer that because I am familiar with the activity,” Domask says. “What’s good about the chat sessions is that there is someone in the room, either a student or staff member, who can answer just about any question. And we know what they will face on campus.”

 “This is not as much about giving them a sales pitch as it is about presenting a positive attitude about Cornell and eliminating any fears and preconceived notions,” Domask says of the online conversations.

It’s hard to quantify the yield rate from chats, given the anonymity of the recruits who participate, but Spencer believes the sessions may make a difference to those sitting on the fence. That view is shared by Shawn Felton, a communications strategies specialist in the Cornell Undergraduate Admissions Office who helps facilitate the chat rooms.

Felton contends that technology is changing the way colleges and universities sell themselves in a highly competitive market. “There are so many ways to communicate today, using the computer or cell phones, and with real-time communications like online chats, we can provide a lot of information in a short time,” he says.

—Jay Wrolstad