College of Ontario

Sault Star
January 28, 2008
By Brian Kelly


Sault College is working the phones earlier than usual this year in a bid to convince more prospective students to study in Sault Ste. Marie.

The stakes are lucrative. First-year applications are up 16 per cent compared to late January 2007.

Susan Hunter, director of marketing and communications, declined to release the actual number of students who are considering attending Sault College. The college does not yet have a projected enrolment number for this fall.

There's no guarantee all those extra applicants will end up in the school's classrooms, laboratories and computer labs come September.

That's where volunteers such as Erwin Goertz come in. The natural environment and outdoor studies department professor and other faculty, staff and students want to ring up every one of those students before Thursday.

Their message is simple. They thank students for showing an interest in Sault College.

"We are a friendly place," said Hunter.

"We're worth it. We will support you. We want to see you here and answer any questions they might have. We really want to foster that relationship early on."

The hope is that an early, personal touch before students are "inundated" with information from other schools will encourage applicants to choose Sault College.

The school has made similar calls in past years, but newly installed president Ron Common wanted to reach out to applicants earlier this year.

"We are trying to touch the student an increased number of times in different ways, from phone to calls to mailouts to e-mails, than we have in the past in recruitment," said Hunter.

"We want to be sure that they know that they're valued, that we value their application and thank them for being at the college."

All applications received before Feb. 1 get equal consideration for placement in college programs.

Sault College's application increase is well above the provincial average.

The Ontario College Application Service received 54,429 applications for the fall 2008 term as of Jan. 21. That's a four-per-cent increase over January 2007.

Hunter credits the jump in interest to employers giving Sault College graduates the top satisfaction rating in the province in 2006 and 2007.

"I think if you're strong in that way, people think, 'Oh, I'm more likely to get a job if I go to that school,'" she said. "Obviously we're providing them with the skills that employers want."

Provincewide, first-year enrolment climbed six per cent in 2007. Sault College numbers jumped 5.3 per cent from 1,094 to 1,153.

Colleges Ontario, an advocacy group for 24 community colleges, expects to see another healthy increase again this fall.

"I think we're starting to see a bit of a trend," said senior communications officer Darrell Neufeld. "We did have a good, healthy, significant increase last year as well."

Popular programs include health-related studies such as nursing and dental hygiene and broadcasting.

While Neufeld didn't have specific numbers available for each school, he said Sault College "is on the higher end of the scale" for percent increase in applications received.

"My sense was that the Northern colleges were all doing quite well actually, " he said.

Sixty per cent of first-year post-secondary students attend college.