The University of Dayton reached out to potential college students by participating in “College Prep Night” at Fifth Third Field from 6-8 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 26.
According to a press release issued by the Dayton Dragons on Sept. 19, College Prep Night was a free event hosted by the Dayton Dragons and Fifth Third Bank in an effort to provide potential college students and their parents with information for “planning an educational path.”
Brandy Abney, director of sponsor services for the Dayton Dragons, said the Dragons and Fifth Third Bank are now in their fifth season hosting the event, and that last year was the biggest turnout yet.
“College Prep Night is an opportunity for the community to promote higher education to local high schoolers interested in expanding on their education for the future,” Abney said.
Abney said that up to 47 colleges and universities were scheduled to attend including schools in Ohio such as Miami University, University of Cincinnati, Xavier University, Ohio Northern University, Sinclair Community College and Wright State University.
In addition, Abney said that some out-of-state schools scheduled to appear were Purdue University, Valparaiso University, University of Louisville and University of Kentucky.
Robert Durkle, assistant vice president for Enrollment Management, said that UD gets invited to about 700 events like these a year across the country.
Durkle said that when university promotion events are a long distance away, such as Arizona or California, UD has a program called Flyer Connection which connects with alumni to support the university and promote it if UD cannot attend the event.
“Events like these give us greater exposure to potential college students,” Durkle said. “When events like these are hosted locally, we want to make sure our home market is fully expressed,” he said.
Durkle said the university did set up a table at “College Prep Night” with information about UD, including pamphlets and representatives that were willing to talk with potential college students and answer questions for as long as they like.
Molly Lamperis, a freshman mechanical engineering major, said she first found out about UD from the college search engine, a web search engine for colleges and universities worldwide where the results are only school webpages.
“After seeing pictures of the campus and how beautiful it was, I knew I wanted to go visit it,” Lamperis said. “Once I arrived on campus, I loved the size of the student body and the kind atmosphere the university brought,” she said.
Kevin Hayes, a freshman discover arts major, said that he first started looking at UD because his sister currently goes here and one of his favorite high school teachers is a UD graduate.
“When I visited I noticed that Dayton felt like a tight-knit community more than the other schools I was considering,” Hayes said. “So far my experience at UD has been an amazing one.”
