home > admission > marist alumni recruiting team

College Fairs 101

The College Fair Cribsheet

Thank you for agreeing to represent Marist at a college fair in your area. Every year, committed MART members like you make it possible for hundreds of prospective students to learn more about Marist-and for us to learn more about them. Your assistance is truly appreciated!

To help make your experience as enjoyable and effective as possible, we've put together this cribsheet with practical tips and some answers to the 10 questions we are most frequently asked at college fairs. This sheet contains important updates for this year, so please read carefully. You'll also find an evaluation form attached; please return this form to let us know if the event you covered was worthwhile. Finally, please use the evaluation form to let us know how we might improve this cribsheet in the future.

Preparing for the College Fair/Review of Materials

• Before the day of the event, please review this cribsheet and other pieces included in this envelope, so that you will be familiar with the reference materials, pieces to distribute, and the questions you are likely to hear.
• Please plan to arrive at the fair site at least 30 minutes before the start of the event to find your location and arrange your materials. (Most fairs expect presenters to arrive well in advance of the start time.)
• Marist accepts its own application as well as the Common Application, which requires a short Marist Supplement. We strongly recommend that all freshman applicants apply online so that we may better serve them.

Materials for Reference

• You'll find "Desk Copy" labels to put on The Marist Viewbook and Courses of Study. These publications will be invaluable references for you, so you don't want them to disappear. However, you should certainly feel free to give them to a particularly interested student or counselor when the fair ends.
• Please wear a nametag to identify yourself (and your Marist graduation year, if you'd like). No matter what name appears on the tag, though, remember that prospective students will see you as "Marist."

Materials for Distribution

• Fact & Figures: This brochure lists important application deadlines, as well as a list of majors offered and a composite profile of accepted freshman from the previous year. It also contains a listing of the admissions staff, general Marist statistics, and the most recent cost of attendance.
• IQ Cards: Students who want to have their names added to the Undergraduate Admissions mailing list to receive Marist materials can pick up the inquiry card to fill out and hand in or mail in at a later date. Please encourage them to hand this in.
• Marist College Viewbook: This is a more in-depth guide to Marist College for prospective students. It goes into greater detail about everything from majors and internships to campus life and the abroad experience. In addition, it provides information about athletics and the honors program for interested students.
• Campus Map: This brochure contains information for students interested in visiting the Marist campus. In addition to the map, it includes nearby accommodations, driving directions and contact information.

Tips for Talking with Students

If your experience is like ours, you'll find most of the students at the fair will want to take materials, get on the mailing list, and move on to other college representatives. However, there will be other students--and parents--who will have questions for you. Your own Marist experience, general MART mailings you've received, the MART Web site, and the materials included with this cribsheet will help you answer those questions. Some questions tend to come up so often that we've included sample responses for you.

There may well be one or two questions in the course of a fair for which you simply can't provide answers. Don't worry--that happens to us, too! Often, a referral is the best "answer". Just jot down the student's name, e-mail address, and phone number, and contact your recruitment coordinator, who will either get back to the student with an answer or let you do so, if you prefer. If you think the student would do better to contact us directly, please ask him or her to call the Undergraduate Admissions Office at (845) 575-3226. We'd be happy to help! You may also want to refer students to Marist on the Web for information about the undergraduate colleges, student life, and much more.

Ten Questions Commonly Asked at College Fairs

1. Do you offer a ___________ major? Refer to the alphabetical list of majors in the Facts & Figures Brochure or page 7 of The Marist Viewbook. (An example question might be from someone interested in web design and whether they apply to Graphic Design or Digital Media. You can refer them to the academic departments on our Web site for a straightforward answer to this question.)
2. What is the tuition? Students asking this probably want to know the total costs. You can refer them to the Fact & Figures brochure; total costs for 2007-2008 are as follows:
   

   Tuition:	$23,560
   Room and Board:	$10,250
   Fees:	$570
   Total:	$34,380

   There is no "in-state" tuition cost. In addition, please inform students that scholarships are based only on merit. Marist also offers a full range of assistance--grants, loans, and workstudy--to those with demonstrated need. Finally, the admission process is completely need-blind, which means we admit students without knowing whether or not they are applying for financial aid.
3. Does Marist feel isolated? What is there for students to do on campus? While Marist is in Poughkeepsie, a town of about 30,000 people, Marist students never seem to run out of things to do. We have 80+ student-run clubs and organizations on campus, all of which are listed on pages our website under College Activities. In addition, the Marist students decide what bands, comedians and speakers to invite to campus - and we attract many top performers and leaders because of our great students!
4. How big is Marist? There are just over 4,245 undergraduates and about 1,000 graduate students. (Refer students to the enrollment figures in the "General Marist Statistics" section of the Facts & Figures brochure, which also provides maximum class size and student-faculty ratio.)
5. Is Marist Diverse? Yes! There is no "typical" Marist student. Students in the Class of 2012 hail from 35 states and other countries across the globe. We have students from many races, ethnicities and religious backgrounds.
6. How is your (or do you have a) pre-med program? Marist offers the courses required by medical schools and an advising network to assist students who want to prepare for med school. There is not, however, a specific major for "pre-med" at Marist. At Marist College, most students who seek to enter graduate and professional programs in the health sciences after graduation major in Athletic Training, Biology, Biomedical Sciences, Biochemistry, Chemistry, or Medical Technology. Over the past six years, 86% of Marist applicants were accepted to at least one medical school that they applied to. Refer students to the School of Science page on the Web site for additional information.
7. Do you give AP/IB credit? Students who receive scores of 3 or above on any AP subject test will receive college credit. Credit is awarded to students who receive a score of 5 or higher on any IB subject test, taken at the higher level. IB exams taken at the standard level are not eligible for credit. All official test results should be submitted directly to the Office of Undergraduate Admission.
8. Are interviews required? For both freshman and transfer applicants, interviews are neither required nor offered. However, all applicants are encouraged to take advantage of the opportunity to meet with a MART member, visit campus for information sessions, and attend Marist programs to which they might be invited, in order to share their interests and learn more about Marist.
9. What are the average SAT/ACT scores? What tests are required? If a student wants a general idea of scores earned by our entering students, you can share statistics for the middle 50% of the incoming freshman class of 2007: 1700-1900 for the SAT I and 24-28 for the ACT. Marist requires scores from the SAT I or ACT. SAT Subject Tests are not required. You can show them page 26 of The Marist Viewbook for test and other admission requirements. This information is also available on the admissions Web site. The TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) or IELTS (International English Language Testing System) requirement for nonnative speakers of English is referenced on the website under "International Admissions".
10. How do you decide whom to admit? What factors are given the most weight? The two factors usually considered of prime importance are:
    • the transcript (classroom performance and types of courses taken) and
    • the student's personal application (the essays in the Common Application and the Marist Supplement as well as information about extracurriculars, volunteer activities and work, for example).
    There's no magic formula of grade-point average and standardized test scores that guarantees you will (or won't) get into Marist. A more detailed description of what we're looking for is available on the admissions Web site.

These are just ten of the most frequently asked questions; you may find certain questions pop up that are specific to your area. For example, questions about whether we have vegetarian dining (yes, we do) or if freshmen can bring cars (no, but cars aren't needed to get to class and we have many transportation options) may or may not be asked by the students you see. If a certain question crops up again and again, please let us know on the evaluation sheet so we can consider adding it to the standard cribsheet. Remember; please refer questions to us if you're not able to answer them.

Thank you for representing Marist!