The University’s open house introduced the campus and college life on Saturday to an anticipated 7,000 students, parents and family members. Although the event may have seemed like a success, many were let down by how the event was organized. These students and their families’ first encounter with University should not have been chaotic and unorganized.
Visitors were met by an atmosphere of overcrowding when they went to visit the showrooms. A room in Owen and Lee were open for students and their families to view to get a feel for campus life, however many of them were met with extremely long lines just to see one room. At one point, the line to see the room in Owen was past the Tri-towers. This is not an effective way to market living on campus. Multiple rooms should have been opened to effectively show visitors there are options and space.
Visitors were cheated on campus tours as well. Ambassadors were told to limit their tours to 30 minutes, but it is impossible to show the campus in that small amount of time. Many tour guides only went as far as the Court of North Carolina or the Brickyard and then returned to Talley. Although these tours showed the larger parts of campus, it was useless to visitors. There were prospective students from all colleges, so it wouldn’t have been unreasonable to develop tours that covered only the key buildings for each college. Prospective students would have been able to get a feel for their future homes and walk by other buildings to gain an appreciation for the campus’ architecture.
The club and organization fair held in Talley Ballroom is the highlight of the prospective student’s visist. They can see what opportunities are available to them outside of the classroom. The fair was crowded, as was expected, but could have been more organized. If Undergraduate Admissions organized Talley by spacing out popular clubs and organizations, long lines would have been less tangled and prospective students could have navigated more easily.
Information sessions explained the details for the various colleges during open house, however only prospective students and their parents were allowed to attend some of them due to overcrowding. Grandparents and siblings had to wait out on the experience. This is robbing the prospective students of an opportunity to inform other parts of their family and get them involved with the possibilities of coming to N.C. State.
N.C. State should embody success and exhumes an atmosphere of organization. Overall, this event could not have made a good impression on families. They were met with long lines and sprinting from place to place. The Office of Undergraduate Admissions should learn from this year and be more organized in during next year’s open house.
