Prospies make great targets. I’ve always fantasized about pulling off the classic tour group prank, planting a fake prospective student in the group and kidnapping them while dressed in a banana costume, gorilla costume or bandit costume, complete with lengths of rope to tie the victim to a nearby tree. Though the pull of terrorizing prospies is hard to resist, I’ve found that it’s almost more fun and definitely more rewarding to convince prospective students that Northwestern is the place where they’ll be happiest for the next four years.
Last year, I hosted a whole slew of prospies. My roommate quickly tired of tripping over pre-frosh sleeping on our floor, but I kept getting calls from the admissions office, and I kept offering my already crowded floorspace to a high school stranger for a night. Sometimes, I had too much homework to effectively entertain a visitor, and on other nights, the prospies were the ones who disappointed. One of my prospies spent 75 percent of her time on the phone with her boyfriend, discussing how much more she liked USC. But all the other prospies I hosted were vibrant, inspirational, and made my whole day more fun. Showing them why I like Northwestern so much only made me appreciate going here even more.
Today, a total of four of my former prospies are now full-fledged freshmen at Northwestern. When I run into them on Sheridan, I feel a little burst of pride that I helped convince them to come here, where they appear to be happy and well-adjusted college students. Two of them are even good friends of mine who I see on a weekly basis.
Over spring break, my younger brother called me on my birthday from Hawaii and told me he had a present: he’d just been accepted into Northwestern. However, like most of the approximately 6,000 accepted students, he is deciding between Northwestern and a few other schools. So when he visited for three nights this past week, in what was only the beginning of a vast wave of prospies on the way, I knew I had to show him why he should come to Northwestern.
When my brother, Michael, visited, he was bombarded by students who wanted to answer his questions, tell him about their experiences and convince him to come here. Everyone seemed to be studying engineering like he intends to, or had chosen between the same schools he is considering, and I’d like to think that no matter what he decides in the end, he had a very encouraging experience here. Sure, it helped that before he came I sent an email to 60 of my closest friends, explaining that he was visiting, and then creepily attached a picture.
But even without that, Michael’s visit seemed perfect. Despite weather.com’s prediction of rain in every single slot of their hour-by-hour forecast, the days he visited were sunny and vaguely warm, which is as good as you can hope for in April. And amazingly, it seemed like we packed the whole Northwestern experience into two days. When we walked by the Rock, people were guarding it and playing music, and when we went to the Lakefill at night, the city glowed on the horizon and the waves were crashing. When we walked up north, people were tossing frisbees and footballs, and when we went to Cozy’s on Friday night, we had intellectual conversation and stayed way past our welcome. Sit and Spin’s stand-up comedy show was hilarious, and everywhere we went, we ran into people who wanted to talk about how much they love Northwestern.
Not every visit can convey all the reasons Northwestern is great, though, especially if it’s short. When I visited during Wildcat Days two years ago, the weather was cold and rainy, the other prospies were weird and took notes in the class we visited (actual notes taken: students appear bored. Three people arrived late. Some of the questions asked are stupid.) My host ditched me to do homework, I got locked out of Sargent, and I was pretty sure I couldn’t see myself here. Then, just before I left, a Medill senior intercepted me while I was crossing a quad, asked if I was a prospective student, and excitedly told me all the reasons he liked Northwestern and what he would miss when he graduated. He had no motivation to talk to me except a genuine love for Northwestern and his own friendliness. It was only then, between the three minutes he said hi and I left to catch a taxi to O’Hare, that I decided I just might like it here after all.
If you love Northwestern, you don’t have to be a campus tour guide or donate money after you graduate to give back to our school. You don’t even have to host prospies yourself. All you have to do is be friendly and welcoming to the prospective students when they begin to swarm campus in the upcoming weeks and during this year’s Wildcat Days on April 13, 20 and 27. Taking just a few minutes to say hi between classes or offering them an impromptu tour of your dorm can be the make-or-break point in their decisions. Prospies may be naive and sometimes annoying, and their parents may shoot you dirty looks when you don’t know quite where Francis Searle is located, but prospies are just potential students looking for a place that will feel like home.
Between writing and editing this column, I got an e-mail from the Student Admissions Council (unfortunately abbreviated SAC, but whatever) informing me that I would be hosting a prospie on Tuesday. I don’t even mind the short notice — I can’t wait to show her around Northwestern and make her fall in love with Lake Michigan and the concept of flyering and Mannie’s chicken wraps at Allison dining hall and most importantly, all the lovely people who already chose Northwestern.