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Junior Billiken Immersion gives 8th graders glimpse of SLUH experience

Photo: Mrs. Kathy Chott

COVID-19 has forced all areas of SLUH to adapt, and the admissions office is no exception. In order to maintain proper health regulations while also living out their role in the school, the Admissions office has transformed SLUH’s traditional methods of outreach to prospective students. 

When the pandemic started last spring, SLUH had to make a sudden transition to online classes and a transition for how the school connected with potential and future students. The Admissions department had to develop plans to address and remedy that latter problem. 

Instead of the typical SLUH Night, Open House, and on-campus tour groups that were common for middle schoolers to get to know SLUH, there are now Inside SLUH Visit, Virtual Inside SLUH Visit, Virtual Shadow@SLUH, and the Jr. Billiken Immersion as substitutions. 

 “I think what it’s forced us to do is to reevaluate just what we offer in general for visiting, and reimagine the visit program to be focused on both shadowing and something living on our website for people that can’t come to campus, even in any situation; we have a lot of applicants who look from out of town,” said Director of Admissions Ann Murphy.

The Inside SLUH Visit, which used to be an on-campus tour group of about five or six middle school students and their parents coupled with an admissions staff and a student ambassador, now has become a one-on-one event where a middle schooler and his parents are guided by an admissions staffer. This change was first implemented this summer and has continued on through this school year. There are three tours each day, led by a rotation of Murphy, Assistant Director of Admissions Adam Cruz, and Admissions Coordinator Jennifer Thomas.

“It’s a much more intimate experience,” said Cruz. “Before when it was five or six kids, you had to tailor to five or six kids’ interests; here, I can just focus on what the kid likes: if he likes band or soccer or football or science, I can spend a lot of time there and show them parts of the school that might be his home.”

The Virtual Inside SLUH Visit is a virtual tour of the school’s campus, and the tour allows you to peek inside classrooms and other parts of the building. The virtual tour is sent by an email link where middle schoolers can register and offers an alternative option to families.

“We’re doing the best we can to try and give these eighth graders a good year, but again nothing can replicate a shadow day, so we are going to just keep doing the best we can,” said Cruz.

The Virtual Shadow@SLUH program featured ten available sessions on weekends in September and October, and was limited to eighth graders. The sessions were on Zoom and included pre-recorded videos of teachers doing different lessons, in a format similar to that of SLUH Night. The videos included teachers like math teacher Stephen Deves showing off two students completing a math problem and biology teacher Tim O’Keefe doing an experiment. Afterwards, attendees went into Zoom breakout rooms with a student ambassador who fit the extra-curricular interests that the eighth graders had registered for. 

“It’s not the same obviously, but then we were like we aren’t going to have Open House, we’re not going to have SLUH Night, we got to get the kids here. So then we came up with that, and the Jr. Billiken Immersion,” said Murphy.

The Jr. Billiken Immersion was an on-campus event on Nov. 14 that had a fun preview of the core curriculum. The event started with a student ambassador in each small group chat and do an activity with the eighth graders. The Immersion then featured 15-minute sessions of math, biology, English, social studies, and Upward Bound (since Upward Bound was canceled over the summer). 

These sessions were less geared towards actual class work and more modeled towards fun and engaging learning. In the math session, prospective students had to find different combinations of rod trains on a graph. In biology, the groups completed activities about optical illusions and different frequencies. The English session had them create their own epic simile following a model from the Odyssey. Social studies had them learn about SLUH’s history, and the school’s impact on the city. In Upward Bound, the eighth graders had to make a pledge to do certain tasks over the next few weeks like getting at least eight hours of sleep and completing household chores. The event concluded with a small group snack and activity before dismissal at noon. 

“It allows them to envision themselves in the classroom, envision themselves learning from these teachers who enthusiastically care about your education, and I think that’s important to get some sense of the school, to get comfort about being here,” said Deves. “I think also one of the things at SLUH is that it’s fun to learn and we want our students to enjoy that process and this is a great kick start into how they might fit in here.”

SLUH and the admissions office has often worked behind the scenes with things like having to reschedule 12 Inside SLUH Visits that would have taken place the week after Thanksgiving, and giving the option of virtual admissions interviews instead of the only on-campus option. They have also helped with flexibility for prospective students by extending the application deadline to December.

The admissions office, despite facing the obstacles and challenges brought on by COVIC, has been able to advertise the school to potential students in safe and successful ways. There is even some optimism that, if the COVID situation improves, SLUH may have an opportunity for an Open House in the spring. 

“Props to Mrs. Murphy, Mrs. Thomas, and Mr. Cruz who organized (Jr. Bill Immersion), I think it’s challenging to take an Open House—which is this annual event that’s been happening for many, many years—and to find an adaptation that will work during COVID, but they found a really positive experience that I think was really meaningful for these eighth graders,” said Deves.

 

 


 

 

 

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