Over the last few weeks, Elon University’s Admissions Center has been working to accommodate the rising number of visitors who wish to tour Elon’s campus. Unlike the fall semester, spring is a hectic season for applicants and incoming students as well as for the admissions team and the 130 student tour guides.
Freshman tour guide Noah Dyson explains what tours have looked like during their busiest days.
“It was so busy, in fact, that even though there were still a lot of tour guides working at those times, we still had like eight to 10 families that we had to give tours to,” Dyson said.
Besides students being admitted, there are various dates that make spring an active time for college campuses. Greg Zaiser, vice president for enrollment, coordinates a big part of admissions activities. Zaiser explains why the months of March and April are particularly popular months for tours.
“Our busiest months of the year for campus visitors are March and April, depending on when Easter falls since most spring breaks coincide with Easter,” Zaiser said. “We estimate we had over 1,000 admissions visitors that day alone.”
Elon’s campus is also busy around July and early August when students are on summer vacations and through October and November when prospective applicants return to campus while students are here. Additionally, the university offers tours even when the school is closed.
“The office is also open for tours when the university is closed. This is because we need to be available when high schools are closed. Examples are MLK Day, President’s Day and Easter Monday,” Zaiser said.
Tours have organized logistics behind them in which families register online, but on top of that, Admissions expects “walk-in” tours as well.
“Families register online, in advance, and we plan for a large number of walk-ins,” Zaiser said.
Despite the amount of “walk-in” visits, the admissions team seems to have no issues with handling it.
“Sometimes we have families that are around Elon and say ‘we’d like to have a tour,’ and so we group them all in,” Dyson said. “It’s very accommodating for both tour guides and families who stumble upon Elon and want to learn more.”
While Elon’s campus has been expanding to accommodate larger incoming classes, it’s clearly being reflected in the number of visitors
on campus.
“We have seen some growth in campus visits this year over last year, but we generally have around 13,000 unique student visitors Monday through Saturday annually,” Zaiser said. “This does not include admissions events like Open House, Phoenix Fusion, Rising Phoenix, Phoenix Forward on Game Day or Fellows Weekend.”
But despite this noticeable growth, Zaiser said the admissions team knows how to handle it.
“We are all energized by the interest in Elon, and while some days can be especially busy and challenging logistically, we have a superb staff and an amazing facility to convey the value of an Elon education,” he said.
Dyson agrees that although it gets hectic, the team still works with efficiency.
“Everything flows smoothly,” Dyson said. “Everyone who works in admissions — they’re all great people who really work together, and there’s a lot of cohesion among us all.”