The Most Fun Our Session Room Has Ever Seen

It’s not often that you get to leave a legacy but W&M has given me the opportunity to do just that.  During my first year as a professional, my then boss asked me to establish an interview program for William & Mary.  Over the course of several months I devised a program through which our office would hire rising W&M seniors to conduct optional evaluative interviews with rising high school seniors during the summer months.  Essentially, my legacy is two-fold.  On one hand, it provides prospective applicants the opportunity to add a three-dimensional component to their application and to sit down, one-on-one, with a current W&M student.  On the other hand, it is a full-time paid internship opportunity for select W&M students.  The program has been wildly successful on both fronts.  Each summer, we hire the best and most dynamic W&M students to interview over 1500 prospective applicants.  Personally, the program has provided me with a professional legacy which I created and sustained for my alma mater and I know that this program will continue long after my professional affiliation with W&M ends.  Additionally, the program has provided me the opportunity to meet an incredibly gifted, diverse, and dynamic group of students.  These students are so special to me that the first class of interns (who worked the summer of 2004) was invited to my wedding in 2005.

This year marked the sixth class of Senior Admission Interviewers.  Now numbering nearly 50 people among six classes, our office decided to host a reunion for all of them this past weekend during Homecoming.  The event was marked by good food, good friends, and good conversation.  It was truly emotional for me not only to reconnect with these students who have impacted my life but to see them reconnect with each other (even with those from different classes).  It was inspiring to see what they have accomplished in the few years since they left W&M.  Some are Teach for America corps members and recruiters who are impacting change on local and national levels.  Some are in the Peace Corps affecting global change.  Others are working on Capitol Hill while others are working for magazines.  Some are designing art for movies like Ice Age while still others are in medical, law, and other varieties of graduate programs.  Some are higher education professionals (and I’d like to think I had a little something to do with that) and others are my actual colleagues here at W&M’s Office of Undergraduate Admission (I’d like to think I had a little something to do with that as well). The enthusiasm and sheer brilliance of personality among these individuals made what we expected to be a 90-minute meet-and-greet into a four-hour party complete with picture-taking, dancing, and numerous hugs.

The event was also symbolic of the life-long connections W&M students make to this institution and to each other.  Even though we all worked together for only a few short summer months, the friendships generated have lasted long beyond the formal internship period.  Each of these individuals holds a special place in my heart and in my memory and I cannot wait to see them all again at the second annual Homecoming Interviewer Reunion!  Club Session Room eagerly awaits the next party!

– Wendy Livingston