Postcards Help in Student Orientation

New student orientation at the U-M today goes far beyond the traditional three-day campus visit during the summer.

It's an ongoing process of keeping in touch, beginning from the time the student is admitted and continuing through the student's first term on campus, says Pamela T. Horne, director of orientation and the Campus Information Center.

How do you keep in touch with 17-year-olds who are busy with senior plays, senior trips and finding summer jobs, and who may not want to admit–even to themselves–that their high school careers are ending? Postcards. The Office of Orientation sends large maize and blue postcards, a different one each month, from January of the students' senior year in high school through December of their freshman year, first to their homes and then to their campus addresses.

Conveying bursts of information, timed appropriately for the next step in the student's enrollment or orientation process, the postcards fit the communication style of a generation that grew up with MTV, Horne says.

For example, the first card, titled "Welcome," features short paragraphs on admissions, financial aid, housing and summer orientation. The second postcard, "Academics," talks about classes, libraries, museums, research opportunities, special academic programs and campus computing.

Topics in subsequent months include student finances at the U-M, information for the parents of freshmen, health issues, career and academic decision-making, and co-curricular and service learning opportunities.

The postcards also try to prepare students for some of the social adjustments they are likely to face, including returning home for vacations.

In part, the postcards are a response to previous surveys of admitted first-year students who had expressed disappointment that they had not heard more from the university after they were admitted.