By Elisabeth Costanzo Stewart
Over a dozen SUNY Broome employees traveled to Windsor Central High School on Monday, November 7, 2022 to continue the College’s greatest, new enrollment tradition. With acceptance packets in tow, Director of Admissions, Maja Szostak, offered Windsor’s entire senior class the opportunity to be accepted to SUNY Broome on the spot. Over 80 students attended College Express Day. The remaining members of the senior class who were unable to attend the event can still participate in the partnership and its future enrollment activities throughout the year.
The College Express Partnership was established in 2019 through a collaboration between Windsor Central High School’s Superintent’s Team, Windsor’s School Counseling Department, and SUNY Broome’s Enrollment Management division. The goal was to create a streamlined process that allowed Windsor’s senior class to apply and be accepted to SUNY Broome en masse and on-site at the high school. In addition to hosting the instant acceptance event, the College Express Partnership exclusively offers several additional enrollment events for Windsor students in areas such as financial literacy workshops, college pro-tips seminars, and academic advising and course registration sessions.
Vice President for Academic Affairs, Dr. Penny Kelly, encouraged the Windsor senior class to keep their academic options open.
Photo Credit: Matt Ebbers
Vice President for Academic Affairs, Dr. Penny Kelly, addressed the senior class and shared from her personal experiences as a SUNY Broome student. “SUNY Broome may not be part of your plan now, but I highly encourage you to take advantage of this opportunity just in case. When I graduated from high school, I went directly to a private, four-year, liberal arts college. In the first semester, I realized that it wasn’t the school for me, so that January I transferred to SUNY Broome. SUNY Broome wasn’t part of my initial plan, but it ended up being the best foundation for me as I continued on to earn all of my degrees,” shared Dr. Kelly.
Skylar Thomas sat with fellow STEM students and completed her application.
Photo Credit: Matt Ebbers
Skylar Thomas is no stranger to SUNY Broome’s campus. As a participant in BOCES’ New Visions (Engineering) program, she attends classes in SUNY Broome’s Applied Technology Building each week. She opted to stay back from the New Visions program on College Express Day to complete her Engineering Science: A.S. application.
Matt Ebbers handed off his camera so that he could speak with Christian Rogers about the Music Recording and Production program.
SUNY Broome has always stressed the belief that enrollment is a campus-wide initiative and that every employee, regardless of their role, should be willing to encourage prospective students to consider SUNY Broome. Matt Ebbers, Staff Associate for Video & Photography, attended College Express Day to document the event with photography and videography. When he overheard Windsor senior, Christian Rogers, tell a friend that he was applying to study Music Recording and Production: A.S., Ebbers, an alum of the program, handed his camera off to a colleague and answered Rogers’ questions about the courses that he would be taking and about the recording industry.
Director of Athletics, Colleen Cashman, spoke about the benefits of competing in collegiate level athletics.
Photo Credit: Matt Ebbers
To round out the event, Director of Athletics, Colleen Cashman, and Director of Student Activities, Dr. Nick Wagner, gave mini presentations about the importance of engaging in student life through participation in athletics, clubs, and activities. Both Cashman and Wagner spoke to the students about recent Windsor Central High School alum, Alejandro Chavarria Gonzalez. Gonzalez, a first year Engineering Science student, is making the most of his time at SUNY Broome by serving as a class Senator. He is working with Cashman to create a racket sports club that would offer all season, accessible activities including tennis, badminton, pickle-ball, and ping pong and has teamed up with Wagner to expand the crafting club to include a knitting subgroup that will make hats to distribute to area hospitals. They encouraged the students to follow Gonzalez’s example and to take advantage of all of the opportunities that SUNY Broome has to offer.
The Windsor/SUNY Broome College Express Partnership is the first of its kind. Now, after four years of successfully admitting an entire senior class, other districts within the region are eagerly hoping to replicate the program. College Express Partnerships are being planned with Deposit High School and Binghamton High School in the near future.
View photos from College Express Day!
Tags: Admissions, Enrollment Management
