Syracuse University reaches out to Chicago-area high schools

This is a guest post by Forrest Ball, '12.

As an alum us of both Syracuse University and Naperville North High School, I was excited to begin my new role as Syracuse's Chicagoland Representative. At a ground level, I was excited to share my experiences at Syracuse University with students who had similar high school settings. More contextually, I was excited to visithigh schools, build relationships, and speak with students and their families about how Syracuse can connect with them. I am thoroughly engaged and energized in my quest to make Chicagoland the next major market for the University.

I can happily say that the fall has been a wonderful success. I went to many highschools throughout the area, attended College Fairs, and interviewed many great potential Syracuse students.  Among many things, I enjoyed sharing more about what Syracuse has to offer students from the Chicagoland area: a school with the perfect size, flexible & strongacademic programming, and passionate students. 

Further, I met with the Chicago Regional Council and Syracuse Alumni Club of Chicago to speak about plans for the area; ways that we can further share Syracuse and the roughly 3,000 Alumni in Chicago with prospective students. We began to train Alumni to interview prospective students to further incorporate the Club with the University’s efforts, in addition to many other events.

We excitedly look towards the spring, where I will be working hard with many other people to host Spring Accepted Students programs in Chicago. At these events, it is my goal to have alumnus, faculty, and staff from various schools and colleges within SU to meet with prospective families to give that last push as to why Syracuse is one-of-a-kind and irreplaceable.

I look forward to visiting more high schools in the spring and next fall that I did not have the chance to visit.  While Syracuse’s relationship with Chicago is ever-growing, I, for one, am excited with the strides that we made in these short ten weeks.