By TINA IYER
Features Editor
 

The Class of 2001 offers a student who has allegedly written 17 novels, a top-notch skier, and students from Bulgaria, Nigeria and Hong Kong. This year's first-years also boast that 36 percent of its members graduated within the top five percent of their high school graduating class, more than 6 percent more than the Class of 2000.

"I'm very excited for the Bates community to get to know the class of 2001 and the transfer students," said Dean of Admissions Wylie Mitchell. "We've had the opportunity to interview the students and read their credentials, and the potential for this class to impact Bates and the Lewiston-Auburn community is extraordinary."

While the actual geographic representation for this year is less than that of last year (36 states represented as opposed to 46), and U.S. multicultural representation is down to 9.2 percent from 10.3 percent, the international representation remains at 3 percent in the Classes of 2000 and 2001. Mitchell believes that the declines are a result of the size of the class itself; this year's sophomore class is larger by 60 students.

Nonetheless, multicultural recruiting was in full-force last year, according to Associate Dean of Admissions and Director of Multicultural Recruitment Carmita McCoy. Working together with Assistant Dean of Admissions Dean Jacoby, who is the liaison for international students when they make their first in-roads to Bates, McCoy combated the difficulty of recruiting students from foreign countries. McCoy explained that "a lot of [multicultural and foreign] recruitment is student-initiated."

Students hear about Bates from family and friends and then make the effort to get in touch with Bates admissions. From here, Bates's job becomes "behind the desk recruitment," said McCoy. "We do our work in the office, e-mailing and writing to these interested students."

This approach clearly works, with this year's class having 13 representatives from 13 foreign countries; Mitchell is pleased with "the great diversity of experience ... we have four or five students from Africa, and that's a greater diversity than we've experienced."

Nonetheless, "We [Admissions] are concentrating on diversifying the countries and continents that people are coming from," said Jacoby. McCoy agreed, explaining that "We'd like to be active and pro-active in recruiting foreign students in the future."

Foreign recruitment is also boosted by the work of former Assistant Dean of Admissions Kim Ma, who is currently in Taiwan, and is talking to students about Bates. Faculty members who are abroad also help attract international students.

"Val Carnegie [associate professor of anthropology] did a lot of outreach for us with Jamaican students when he was in Jamaica last year," McCoy remarked.

Admissions has already kicked off their recruiting for the Class of 2002, with more visitors this past summer than ever before. The admissions deans are all preparing for travel starting in September, McCoy said.

Demisha W. Lee, a 1996 Williams graduate, is the latest addition to the admissions staff.

After working at Lafayette College in Pennsylvania, Lee, who said she "loves small liberal arts schools," made an easy transition to Bates.

Lee will be assisting McCoy with multicultural recruitment, a task that Lee is pleased with because "I was the sole person working on multicultural recruitment at Lafayette, and its wonderful being able to work in a team."

Although Lindholm House is chock-full of Bates graduates, Lee has yet to experience any discomfort as an "outsider." She sees her position as "helpful in having a different perspective."

Reese Madden `93, former admissions counselor and recently promoted Assistant Dean of Admissions, has more than a new title and freshly-printed business cards. Madden's new responsibilities include coordinating prospective student hosting and working on the Bates Admissions Website, which has been redesigned for easier use.

"We've done a lot with the Bates Admissions Website. We're trying to find a balance between giving out general information about good college counseling and specific information about Bates," Madden said.