Marist Does Their Makeup for Potential Students
Marist’s annual “Accepted Students Weekend,” held on April 6 and 7, is the last attempt the school gives to pull accepted students into the Red Fox Den. However, most students on campus might have noticed the great lengths Marist took to convince potential students to commit.
Fresh paint was applied to all of the walls in the student center, the lawns were edged to perfection against the sidewalks, and there was not a single goose dropping in sight. These were just a few of the many upkeeps that Marist College performed in preparation for the weekend.
On April 4, two days before the weekend, Deborah DiCaprio, Vice President of Student Affairs, sent Marist students an email advising them to steer clear of the dining hall between noon and 2 p.m. each day of the weekend. She said it was because of the influx of foot traffic as every visitor on campus would be given a free meal voucher.
But, if you were one of the students who opted to get food during that time, you were introduced to a new dining hall. It is no secret that the dining hall food during the weekend is sub-par; the brunch menu lasts all day and most of the different stations are vacant until Monday morning. But on this particular weekend, high school students and their families dined on slow-cooked chicken and full dining services.
One of best fronts that occurred over the weekend happened on the walls of the student center. Any other weekend of the year, Marist College limits their decorations to either a painting from a hotel room or a bare cream-tan wall. But for the first weekend in April, Marist utilized the Circle’s For the Record portraits that even featured some students who no longer attended Marist. The celebration of some of Marist’s finest students of yesteryear were used as a selling point for undecided families. A recognition was turned into an advertisement.
The crazy part is, Marist did not need to go all-out like this.
Marist treated this weekend the same way most students go out to the bars: getting dressed in clothes they do not normally wear, taking a lot of photos for social media to prove they are having a good time, and putting in a lot of effort to impress a group of people who might not even care.
Regardless of the answer, Marist did not need to sell itself that weekend. Like many of the potential students, I knew I wanted to come to this school the minute I saw our amazing view of the Hudson River. Marist is beautiful during all seasons of the year and has more personality than any other college in the area. “Accepted Students Weekend” made the beautiful school seem desperate for attention.