Agenda for CS Undergrad Recruiting: January 17, 2007

CS Undergraduate Recruiting Committee Agenda

Wednesday, January 17, 2007
9:15 a.m. to 10:30 a.m.
DC 2102


Committee Members: Ashraf Aboulnaga, Peter van Beek (ex officio Undergraduate Admissions), Shai Ben-David, Dan Brown (ex officio Director of First Year), Sandy Graham, Mark Giesbrecht (Chair), Tian Kou, Ed Lank, Kate Larson, Naomi Nishimura (ex officio Director of Undergraduate Studies), Troy Vasiga.

  1. Report from Committee Chair
    • Progress in “Access to CS courses for high school students”
    • Reasons for declining UW CS from Non-comfirmed applicants 2006 (UW Marketing and Undergraduate Recruiting)

      For 2006 Fall entry, among the students who were accepted by  Computer Science (not including Bioinformatics and Software Engineering) but rejected our offers, 65 gave their reasons for declining. The top five reasons of choosing another university were:
      1. UW not the first choice 69% (45/65)
      2. Chosen program will prepare me better for a career 83% (54/65)
      3. Scholarship too small 67.7% (44/65)
      4. Too far from home 55.4% (36/65)
      5. Concerned about the availability of co-op jobs 97% (63/65)

    What can we do to improve the above issues?

  2. Report from Recruitment Coordinator
    • adding admission information to “Prospective Students” undergraduate page
    • adding co-op employment placement rate to “Prospective Students” undergraduate page
    • emergency re-arranging prospective undergrad pages.

  3. Continue discussion on Undergraduate CS Poster.
    Posters are to be developed for both Undergraduate and Graduate CS recruiting. We will be working with graphics services in the design of these posters. It will be useful to develop some contents requirements:
    Possible Text:
    • Full name of school
    • Contact info/web address
    • Mission statement, if available and not too long
    • Catchy descriptions, words/phrases: "CS is everywhere", "Leaders of Tomorrow", "Build the Future", "Shape the Future", ...
    Possible Pictures:
    • Students working/discussing (at least one female).
    • Students and profs discussing
    • Interesting software displyed on screen, and/or I/O device (graphics, HCI, ...)
    • Davis Centre
    • UW logo
    We may use photos in the archive, or have new photos taken.

  4. Survey of the Recruitment Effort (Questionnaire)
    It would be extremely useful to find out what attributes of UW CS and what communication from UW and CS in particular is reaching and attracting our incoming students. A possible mechanism is a simple survey of first year students in Computer Science.

    A starting point for a questionaire to send to all first year CS students is as follows. Please consider the suitability of the survey, of these questions, and any other questions which may be useful.

    The David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science is examining its efforts in attracting recruiting students for its Undergraduate program. Your answers to the following questions will help us to determine our future efforts in recruitment. Your answers are completely confidential and will in no way be tied to your name. This survey should take only a few minutes to complete. Thank you very much for your input. We hope it will help in improving our school and your future fellow students.

    1. Where did you hear about Computer Science at Waterloo for the first time?
    2. What grade were you in when you heard about Computer Science at Waterloo for the first time?
    3. What grade were you in when you decided to study Computer Science in university?
    4. What is the most attractive feature of the School of Computer Science at Waterloo that caught your attention?
    5. Where did you get further detailed information about Computer Science at Waterloo after you heard about us?
    6. What was the most helpful part of your communication with the University of Waterloo prior to your accepting to come to Waterloo?
    7. What was the least helpful, confusing or problematic part of your communication with the University of Waterloo prior to your accepting to come to Waterloo?
    8. What was the most enjoyable aspect of your first year at the University of Waterloo so far.
    9. What was the least enjoyable or frustrating aspect of your first year at the University of Waterloo so far.
    10. Do you have any suggestions which could improve the experience of incoming students into Computer Science at Waterloo?
    11. You are a citizen, or a permanent residence of: (if you are a Canadian, please give region – details see below.)
    12. Your background in Computer Science is (none, Grade 11 CS, Grade 12 CS)

    (Add the following paragraphs once received ethics clearance: )
    This project has received ethics clearance through the Office of Research Ethics at UW. Please contact the office at 519-888-4567 ext. ??? if you have any questions or concerns.