<p>Dean J,</p>
<p>If you really want to be appalled, snoop around your football coaches' offices and ask them what they do to attract UVa recruits. I'm willing to bet that they fly in many more prospective students than the admissions office does. </p>
<p>Apparently, it's routine to have a jersey made up with the recruit's name and have it hanging in "his" future locker when he tours the locker room. Often, the recruit's name will be in 10-foot lights on the scoreboard as he sees the stadium for the first time. </p>
<p>And does UVa still have its female hostesses, like most of the colleges do? When a group of football recruits visits, the football office actually has coeds to escort these high school kids all weekend. Who knows what happens over those weekends, but if I had a daughter who said she had joined the football hostess club, I'd yank her home immediately.</p>
<p>If the school doesn't have official "hostesses," like Texas has its Texas Angels, Georgia Tech has its Solid Gold Girls and Maryland its Black-Eyed Susans (feel free to roll your eyes here), an old trick by the football coaches is to pair recruits with a group of recruits for the girls lacrosse or soccer teams. </p>
<p>By comparison, I think, a few tacky billboards around town by Wilkes or what Wash U spends on its mailings pale in comparison to what BCS-conference schools let their football programs get away with.</p>