Junior Visit Day brings many high-school juniors to campus, this year in record numbers, and a lot of great PR for the college. For admissions, the day is bigger than Christmas and Easter put together. Junior Visit Day is a day-long event, filled with the hard work, blood, sweat and tears of the admissions staff. But it’s not only the admissions staff involved, it takes the time and hard work of faculty, staff and students, too. By the time Junior Visit Day arrives, it’s a well-choreographed dance – designed to entertain both prospective students and their parents alike. The admissions staff sees this as a huge event, but is all the hard work worth it?

Many people who are attending Simpson right now never attended a Junior Visit Day. This day is planned down to the most minute details, but many of the coveted juniors won’t be back to see Simpson again.

It’s important for high-school juniors to be interested in college, but will they really be sold on Simpson because of one visit day? Simpson should invest in more cost- and time-effective ways to recruit students. Sending a few more representatives to high schools – in and out of state – would be a less-disruptive and easier way to recruit juniors.

Besides, all those juniors clog up the Pfeiffer lines during lunch anyway.