When 17-year-old Marion Boyd, a high school junior from Overland Park, Kan., visited the University of Kansas, she hoped she wouldn't like KU as much as she had enjoyed her visit to Kansas State University.
"Initially I didn't really know much about KU, but I was so taken with K-State that I was really hoping I'd like one more than the other," Boyd said. "I liked K-State so much I thought 'I don't need to see another college.'"
Marion was only one of the many high school students to visit campus this semester during KU's 10 "Junior Day" events. No one knows for sure when KU began hosting junior and senior days, but the office of Admissions and Scholarships said the programs are at least a decade old. The department has always collected raw data about how many students attended the events each semester, but this summer will start analyzing that data to find correlations between student visits and when – or if – those students chose to attend KU. Lisa Pinamonti Kress, director of admissions and scholarships, said a recent restructuring of Information and Web Specialist Beri Lainjo's position allowed for this new way of analyzing data.
"A student could have come to a Junior Day but then entered KU as a transfer student," Pinamonti Kress said. "There's just so many ways to manipulate the data. That's what we're trying to figure out how to do."
Even though the University hasn't been able to analyze the correlation between junior and senior events and subsequent enrollment in KU, Pinamonti Kress said the demand for the events has increased.
"The way we know they've grown is we keep adding more Junior Days," she said. "We added two this year and they were still full." Pinamonti Cress said 150 – 200 visitors usually attend junior and senior events.
The department does not yet know how many students attended Junior Days this spring, but expects to have data from last fall evaluated by summer. Spring data will be ready some time in October.
"It's hard to get an accurate count," Pinamonti Kress said. She also said that, to her department, knowing the total number of students who visited campus is more important than knowing specifically which students attended a Junior or a Senior day.
"We would not quit having Junior and Senior days even if we weren't happy with the numbers because we just can't handle the number of people who want to visit," she said.
Both KU and K-State have hosted Junior and Senior Days for at least the past 10 years. The two colleges have similar formats for these events – which include a campus tour, lunch at a student cafeteria and free t-shirt – and both charge a $15
fee per visitor. Pinamonti Kress and Tamara Bowles, K-State admissions representative, said that the $15 fee doesn't entirely cover the cost of the events. Neither of them, however, view the extra expenditures negatively.
"I do think it helps recruit students, so it's worthwhile to us," Bowles said. "It is a great way to expose students to all the opportunities K-State has to offer."
Pinamonti Kress agrees.
"If we didn't spend it with campus visits we'd spend it on other recruitment," she said. "We don't want to increase the cost any more to our guests. You're going to have enough costs when you go to college." Pinamonti Kress said the average budget for junior and senior events was about $10,000. This amount is part of Admissions and Scholarships' normal budget and includes rental of the Kansas Union and of buses to transport the students throughout the day.
Pinamonti Kress added that students who have attended a Junior Day in the spring semester often come back for Senior Days in the fall.
"Especially if you come to the major-specific days you are going to get a lot more specific information," she said. "You could come to a Junior Day and a Senior Day and learn different information."
Marion Boyd plans to return to both KU and K-State next semester to attend Senior Days.
"While I enjoyed what I saw on both campuses, and I really loved what I had been exposed to, I think Senior Days is going to be necessary for both colleges so I can get a more in-depth view of my major at both colleges to make the decision," she said. If she decides to attend K-State Marion will major in biochemistry, but at KU her major would be chemistry with a biochemistry option because KU does not offer a separate biochemistry major.
