The first students to be admitted under the new undergraduate system in New Brunswick/Piscataway won’t be on campus until September 2007, but faculty and staff are already working hard in preparation for their arrival.

The admissions, recruitment, and external communications subcommittee – a subset of the larger steering committee on implementation – has been meeting regularly since May. Several smaller groups have split off to address issues in detail, said Martha Cotter, subcommittee chair and professor of chemistry and chemical biology.

The reforms, approved in March by the Rutgers Board of Governors, present an opportunity to try new approaches to the recruitment and admissions process, said Deborah Epting, associate vice president for enrollment management.

“The university is in a very dynamic state,” Epting said. “There is a lot of change coming. As new programs evolve, having brochures in an online form will make it that much easier to convey the changes to our audience.”

Epting was referring to a new electronic, customizable brochure designed by University Relations' Office of Creative Services. “Prospective students now conduct most of their college search process online. We knew it was critical to provide information in an attractive, engaging and on-demand format,” Epting said. This summer, there were more than 545,000 visitors to the admissions web site.

The online brochure places emphasis on innovative research by Rutgers faculty, includes photos of students doing ocean observation and peering into petri dishes, and showcases colorful photos of athletic events and concerts.

Students can select up to five academic areas, five student life areas, and a photo theme. The program creates a customized color pamphlet in PDF format that students can print or share with their friends and family via email. The format lends itself to the process of transformation as new programs and learning communities take shape, admissions staff can easily revise online content.

Faculty members collaborated with admissions staff in developing content for the brochure, Epting said. The task force that studied undergraduate education stressed that faculty should be more involved in the admissions process.

“Very often faculty members who are involved in exciting research aren’t reflected in the course catalogue,” Epting said. “We wanted it to be a very dynamic experience for prospective students. We wanted them to be able to get information that is not always available in a course catalog or department web site.”

Admissions staff members have kept in close touch with high school guidance and community college transfer counselors. They notified counselors in May of the approved changes, and invited them to campus to speak with steering committee chair Michael Beals and with Barry Qualls, who chaired the original task force and is now interim vice president for undergraduate education.

To avoid waste, the Rutgers Viewbook, an annual publication with up-to-date information on admissions, that goes out to high school sophomores and juniors, will contain a two-page insert explaining the new schools. Once those have been distributed, the admissions office will produce literature based on the new undergraduate structure.

First-year arts and sciences students arriving on campus this month will still be enrolled in one of the colleges – Rutgers, Douglass, Livingston or University – but they will have the option of becoming students of the School of Arts and Sciences and fulfilling those requirements, Cotter said.

Students applying for the fall 2007 semester can apply to the School of Arts and Sciences (SAS); the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences (SEBS), which is currently Cook College; Mason Gross School of the Arts; the School of Engineering; the Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy, as well as schools and colleges in Camden and Newark.

Nontraditional students entering in fall 2007 will enroll in SAS or SEBS, but will be coded to keep track of their progress and offered them special advising and resources.

Since both SAS and SEBS offer biological sciences, members of the subcommittee discussed how to distinguish the program offerings. The new admissions literature explains that SAS offers majors focusing on biomedicine applications, where SEBS offers majors that apply to the natural world. Advising will be available to students interested in the biological sciences to help them choose the best academic path.