Jul 19, 2011

Graduate Recruitment: The Virtual Way

SOPHAS Virtual Recruitment Fair


  • 76 students out of 1020 registered for the event indicated an interest in speaking with us prior to the fair
  • Actually spoke with over 70 students over the course of 2 days (some that indicated prior interest and some who just browsed in)
  • Provided excellent reach to potential students all over the world
  • Biggest questions: Costs, GRE scores, how we evaluate applicants, research interests of our faculty, acceptance rates, some limited interest in global health programs and online MPH options
  • Excellent faculty participation; idea to have “experts” on-call during the fair in order to ensure maximum efficiency
  • Very small cost involved for the school ($200 per virtual fair)
  • Want to work on a method to evaluate who from the fair actually filed an application
    • SOPHAS Application Check Box
    • Cross reference applicant list with fair participant list
  • Creating an applicant life cycle for the recruitment plan
  • Running our own virtual recruitment fairs (those not sponsored through SOPHAS); recruiting students with certain GRE scores, Western NY, other regional areas
  • 100% of faculty respondents thought the fair was very productive
    • Reached more students than usual with one time program
    • Had many visitors
    • Connected with lots of interested students in a short time
  • Faculty liked moderator taking the initial questions and farming them out to appropriate faculty/staff who could then answer in a private chat; moderator also answered general questions and provided frequently asked questions periodically throughout the chat
  • Communicate to students ahead of time when reps from certain concentrations would be available

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