With less than three weeks until Admit Weekend, approximately 500 additional room hosts (RoHos) may be needed to accommodate visiting prospective freshmen (ProFros). While only 976 RoHos had registered for the event as of Friday, the Admit Weekend Team expressed optimism about reaching its target.
“The number of registered RoHos we have isn’t too far off our spring break total goal of 1,000,” said Matt Lopez ‘14, an Admit Weekend coordinator. “We expect that in the coming weeks, this number will grow to the 1,400 to 1,500 that we’re looking for.”
Lopez said that initially lagging registration has been a consistent trend in recent years, with lower numbers of RoHos signing up in advance of spring break before a registration surge closer to Admit Weekend.
“All Stanford students are so busy with their own work. We open the application in February and early March and, since Admit Weekend is not until April, students think, ‘I can put that off,’” Lopez said. “After spring break, when Admit Weekend is in three or four weeks, students start thinking, ‘It’s about time I signed up.’”
Lopez emphasized the Admit Weekend Team’s recent efforts to advertise the weekend and increase the number of registered RoHos by putting flyers in White Plaza and providing information to house hosts (HoHos) to distribute to their dorms.
“Not meeting our goal isn’t something we’ve talked about,” Lopez said, regarding whether the team is creating a contingency plan in case RoHo registration is inadequate.
Lopez noted that, at a similar time last year, the 2011 Admit Weekend team had only about 900 RoHos registered but was still able to meet its final goal.
“Last year, towards the end, they thought they were going to come up short, and they figured something out to get more RoHos,” Lopez said. “One coordinator on our team this year was also a coordinator last year, so he is pretty knowledgeable about what to do if we get to that point.”
In sharp contrast to any prospective shortage of RoHos, Lopez noted that HoHo applications exceeded the number of available positions as early as February this year.
“I wanted to be a HoHo because my Admit Weekend experience was good but not great, and I want to make it really awesome for this year’s ProFros,” said Will Setrakian ’15, a Larkin HoHo.
“I didn’t get to come to my Admit Weekend, so I want to live vicariously through my ProFro,” said Kelsey Lange ‘15, a RoHo.
In past years, Admit Weekend has had roughly equal numbers of ProFros and RoHos register.
“It’s not worth it to give that number [of registered ProFros] because it can jump by 100 a day,” Lopez said. “We’ve just started to connect with ProFros more, asking them to come to Admit Weekend.”
“I don’t think the number of ProFros is going to vary that much from previous years,” Lopez added. “We expect about the same numbers to come into Stanford, and we don’t think there are any big discrepancies in admitted students.”