I Only Dog Paddle

All I've gotta say is that something's in the Texan waters this year and applications are pouring in.

We are already at 50% of the total number of applications that I received last year and it's only September.

Yesterday, I was on the phone for four hours calling prospective students.

45 new applicants just this week as well as 13 meetings so far just this week and travel planning galore.

You could say that I've been drowning just a little bit, but it's the very best kind (minus some of the meetings. Really. So very many meetings could be an email).

Our first call to a student is known as an APN call, APN standing for APlicant Not yet contacted.

When we call them, it's this bizarre interaction knowing that there's a chance that this may not just be a phone call to a student, this may be the start of a year long relationship with a student, ending with orientation leaders swarming their vehicle and moving all their belongings into the dorm.

It could end with the start of a new life here at John Brown.

On Tuesday, I took one of my new Freshman students out for coffee because she was feeling a bit homesick and needed to see a familiar face.

While we were talking, I couldn't help but think that I had known her longer than anyone on campus. For more than a year, we have talked once a month at least.

All those interactions--going on a tour, calling when I got her application, a text upon reception of her transcript, seeing her when I visited her school at lunch, her acceptance call, a note on her birthday, ecstatic texts and calls when she raised her test scores to scholarship competition eligibility, a hug at scholarship competition, lots of tears and hugs when she shocked everyone and won the scholarship, class registration advice at early registration, a welcome at move in--became a year.
I've gotten to see her grow up a lot, as I have many of my students as they've gone through the process.

Each one of my APN calls has the potential to become part of our future.

While it may feel right now that I need to just desperately reach out for contact with my enormous list, it's worth the dog paddle, taking my time, feeling the potential gravity of the 5 years ahead.