Admissions Officer

Hi NadiaJ_af13,

Admissions is an exciting field -- I worked in my college's Admission Office during my senior year and nearly went that route for a career. For you to go down that path, the single best thing you can do is to get involved with your school's Admission Office. Be a tour guide, help at the front desk, volunteer to work Open Houses -- really anything you can do to help is huge.

Combine that experience with classes on marketing and business, if your school offers them. Admissions relies heavily on marketing best practices to ensure they recruit the most valuable candidates to their college. Related to recruiting, learn a ton about your college's history! The more you know about how your college came to be, the more you can help the Admissions Office recruit.

Finally, I would suggest taking an Admissions Counselor out to coffee. They are usually young, and excited to interact with current students.

Hope this helps and best of luck!

The type of admission and recruitment work depends heavily on the type of college you'll work for. The vast majority of the colleges in the United States are not selective (that is, they admit more students than they reject), and they find a lot of new applicants through aggressive marketing. This is a sales job. You'll be on the phone a lot, or traveling to high schools and college fairs, or running Visit Days, or writing letters. Although you probably won't be "on commission" and won't be fired if you miss your recruitment goals, there's still a strong sales component that can override a college's unique brand or environment. In other words, there's tension between "my employer might not be the right college for this student" and "I really need to recruit kids to my college".

Selective colleges often hire alumni or experienced admission officers because admission work tends to be more "enrollment management" and less "recruitment". With strong national brands, selective colleges need to figure out which small subset of their applicant pool is best suited to make up next year's class. Admission officers at all types of colleges will try to "steal" students from other colleges, and at selective colleges you'll have additional recruitment at underprivileged high schools where your employer can pay these students' way through college.

For admission work there's no college major. You'll need a lot of compassion and empathy. You should be interested in the world of higher education and want to get a good sense of how your employer fits into the big picture. Know that you'll be traveling a lot and it won't be a 9-5 job. There's some pressure to keep numbers up, and this pressure varies from institution to institution, so you'll need a thick hide because students who you really like & want will tell you "no", often. Be prepared to be excited about your employer, no matter what the situation. There's some politics as well, since admission is another facet of "institutional advancement", the fancy term for fundraising...and knowing to call the children of donors or other important people is a key skill. The pay is not usually very high, but office turnover tends to be high so many admission offices have somewhat rapid advancement into management.

As David said above, a great way to try out this career is to volunteer with your admission office or get a student job there. A lot of colleges will ask you to call prospective students or host them overnight. I strongly agree that getting involved with admission during your own college career is the best way to know if it's a good fit for you professionally.