Owl Days to host prospies

By Aida Luu     4/8/10 7:00pm

Prospective Owls will flock to campus on April 15-16 for Owl Days. At least 600 prospective students - up from 450 last year - and their parents will arrive on the Rice campus to experience a taste of what they can look forward to for the next four years if they accept Rice's offer of admission. Student Admission Council Event Volunteer Recruitment Chair Wharton Wang said events held Thursday - such as a Club and Activities Fair, workshops about studying abroad in college, academic panels, facility tours and college mixers - will be geared toward prospective students. The Rice Philharmonics and Rice's improv comedy troupe, Spontaneous Combustion, will also be performing.

There will be a pamphlet mailed out to students before Owl Days describing the planned events and places they can visit.

SAC Overnight Hosting Chair Alex Wyatt said there will also be recommendations for off-campus activities this year.

---

---

"A lot of people coming from out of town know about Rice's academics, but might be more concerned with living in Houston for four years," Wyatt, a Lovett College junior, said.

Just three days after the registration site went active on April 3, 376 prospective students had already registered for the event. Last year at this time, there were only 100 people registered. There were also 350 host volunteers at that time, so volunteers should not be assigned more than two prospective students apiece, Wyatt said.

Although the format of Owl Days has evolved over the past few years - in 2007, there was Owl Weekend, in 2008 there were three different sets of visiting days and in 2009 Owl Days were held on a Wednesday and Thursday - the primary purpose, for prospective students to visit, meet professors, talk to current students and get a feel for the school, remains the same.

Last year's figure for enrollment for the attendees of Owl Days was around 65 percent, while only 36 percent of admitted students enrolled overall.

Prospective students who want to come to Owl Days but don't want to stay overnight or can't make it on the scheduled dates for Owl Days, can attend Admit Days, which will be Friday, April 23 and Monday, April 26.

In past years, Martel College, Brown College, Sid Richardson College and Lovett have typically hosted over 60 percent of the prospective students. Last year, the colleges hosting the most prospective students were Martel and Lovett.

"We are searching for more involvement from all of the colleges," Wyatt said. "In the past, we have relied on our heavy hitters hosting a large majority of the new students; we really made a push this time to get all colleges to have at least 25 hosts. Every college has exceeded that mark already; we are definitely on track."

Duncan College freshman Grace Chow said she is looking forward to showing prospective students what life is like at Rice.

"I'm excited to host prospies," Chow said. "I think everyone here is really proud that they go to Rice and excited to show what a great school it is, so I like that we're going into this wholeheartedly. Hopefully the prospies learn to love Rice as much as I do.

---