Recruiting the best without merit-based scholarships
The Daily Pennsylvanian
March 16, 2015
Without the option of merit-based scholarships, Penn cannot lure outstanding athletes or writing prodigies with money — but recruited students do find value in community.
Although the Athletics Department’s formal recruitment and the Kelly Writers House’s informal recruitment processes are very different, each faces the same challenge: With no scholarship money given for merit, there is no way to ensure that recruited students will continue to participate in the activities that originally earned them a spot at Penn.
While athletic recruitment is more visible, organizations like the Kelly Writers House exert their own pull in the Office of Admissions. Since the Kelly Writers House’s recruitment process is less formal than that of the Athletics Department, faculty must work even harder to keep the students they recruit involved. However, as with sports teams, the community provided by the Kelly Writers House is often enough to make students want to stay.
Read the full article here.