Recruitment of Local Students
One of the main goals of the Community-Oriented Digital Engagement Scholars program is to directly recruit underserved students, including first-generation college students, African American and Latinx students, and students living at or below the poverty line. For instance, the university has a higher education campus in East St. Louis, which includes a Head Start program, a charter high school, and Upward Bound, but there is no direct path for these students to continue into a college education at SIUE. CODES aims to take steps in fortifying a lasting partnership with communities such as East St. Louis by creating an infrastructure to make SIUE a consistent and reciprocal partner.
Currently, the Office of Admissions has a variety of programs dedicated to minority recruitment efforts, including:
- Chicago Area Bus Tours
- On-Site Admission Programs
- Email and postcard campaigns
- Attendance at college fairs
- Hosting the Illinois Association for College Admission Counseling (IACAC) Camp College Program
- Assisted with School of Pharmacy Healthcare Diversity Summer Camp
- Collaboration with the Hispanic Leaders Group of Greater St. Louis
- Hosting the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce St. Louis Foundation’s High School Hispanic Leadership Insititute
- Building partnerships with St. Louis Graduates
- Production of the Diversity and Inclusion brochure
- Offering scholarships to underrepresented students
- Attending the “Sharing the Dream” annual conference
We plan to work directly with the Office of Undergraduate Admissions to create more targeted recruitment campaigns for high school students in the Metro East and beyond. Additionally, the project team will develop a series of promotional materials to distribute to high schools.
Prospective Students
CODES plans to provide up to $4000 of funding per year per admitted student. The mean composite ACT score for SIUE students over the last two years has been 23; for African American students the mean ACT score has been 20. As a result, many of the financial tools the University uses to recruit students are not available to African American students (The Cougar Pride Scholarship, for instance, requires a score of 23 and the Meridian Scholarship averages students with an ACT of 30 or higher).
ACT Scores
