@aeromom The NY Reception was quite successful with about 300 attendees (prospective students and Parents) by my count. The student speaker was a young female junior who hailed from Pennsylvania and spoke about her Bama experiences from her personal perspective. A dad of two students was the parent speaker and he gave a nice speech touching on his students’ and his family’s experience with selecting UA. In addition, we were quite thrilled to see that Dean Karr was once again the keynote speaker. He is a pleasure to listen to, and always revs up the audience with his enthusiastic style. He is one of my favorite speakers next to Chancellor Witt.
The venue is a plush hotel on the North Shore of Long Island and as always, the food was plentiful and delicious. They have a full (non-alcoholic) beverage area and standing buffets of finger food (cheese, fruit, breads, etc.) along with a dessert bar. They even had cookies with the Alabama “A”, which was a nice touch. There was plenty of wait staff serving various foods such as pizza, sliders, crab cakes and other tidbits. Valet parking is also included at the event for free.
As usual, there were plenty of brochures and university materials available to take home and the students received free t-shirts at the end of the program.
Coming to this reception early is a good idea, because though the event started officially at seven, many attendees who arrived early, were able to mingle with the UA staff and ask questions prior to the presentation. That’s always a great idea, in my opinion.There were plenty of staff members from recruiting and admissions to answer questions, and also parents of current and alumni students in the audience available to answer questions as well.The crowd was very attentive, and many students that I met, were already highly interested in UA. I also met several students who had either committed to UA, or were extremely close to committing. The audience seemed to be a fair mix of seniors and juniors but I did met some sophomore students as well, probably siblings.
My husband and I fielded many questions about both travel time and distance, as it related to both driving and air transportation.There were also many questions about housing and deadlines that I was able to help with.
Our regular recruiter was on maternity leave but the staff from UA’s recruiting and admissions departments, who were there to replace her, could not have been more terrific. I would like to extend a special thank-you to Adrianne Dias, who was exemplary in her job as Regional Recruiter, and did an outstanding job of representing The University of Alabama that evening.
If I can answer any additional questions about the reception or any concerns, please feel free to post or PM me.
