Meghan French ’24 also loves going to the library atrium during tours to point out the Dale Chihuly sculpture. Photo courtesy of Catarina Costa.
By Rebecca Gagnon ’23
Features Editor
After over a year of virtual tours and information sessions, the Mount Holyoke campus welcomes back prospective students for in-person tours. Over the past few months, to prepare for the summer, the Office of Admission has been hiring and training student Admission Ambassadors to guide tours. Ambassadors also do other work in the office, such as conducting interviews with prospective students, holding information sessions and answering any questions one might have about the College. The Mount Holyoke News caught up with three members of the admission staff to get a glance into summer tours on campus.
Catarina Costa, director of U.S. Admission and Campus Visit Experience
Catarina Costa, the Director of U.S. Admission and Campus Visit Experience at Mount Holyoke College, oversees the campus visiting programs, including the hiring and training of new Admission Ambassadors. But for Costa and her team, the work doesn’t end there — they also act as mentors and supervisors to the ambassadors.
“It is a huge undertaking,” Costa said. She explained how the admission office staff, led by the student employment group, are tasked with determining the best ways to recruit, hire, train and oversee new Admission Ambassadors. Even after the training concludes, the staff continues to help the students throughout their employment however they can.
“It’s kind of an ongoing thing,” Costa explained. “We don’t think of it as, ‘well, we hire you and we train you and then you’re sort of on your own for a year or a summer.’ … We want to provide, again, as much support and mentoring as we can, because that, I think, prepares students well for what will come later, after graduation.”
An Admission Ambassador may hold several roles during their employment. One is giving tours around campus during the summer or school year; another is to connect with transfer students or Frances Perkins scholars to assist with questions they may have about Mount Holyoke and their transition. Lastly, the senior Admission Ambassadors interview prospective students and perform other tasks around the office. Whatever role they play, to Costa, all ambassadors are the face of the College.
“The work that our ambassadors do for us every day is changing the lives of prospective students,” Costa said. “Students who visit … remember who they interacted with, and, even if they don’t choose Mount Holyoke, they’ll remember that interaction and how we made them feel, so we just tell our ambassadors to be authentic.”
This sentiment is reflected in the hiring process for ambassadors as well.
“We look for students who are enthusiastic about their Mount Holyoke experience and excited to share that enthusiasm with others,” Costa explained. She expressed that they can teach the ambassadors facts about the College and prepare them for the most common questions, but what they most hope to do is hire students who are eager to share their connection to Mount Holyoke and how it has changed their lives.
This August marks 15 years Costa has been working at the Office of Admission. She has the same passion for Mount Holyoke and its students that she hopes the ambassadors show prospective students. She even has a favorite spot on campus: the atrium in the Williston Memorial Library. “I’m continually inspired whenever I enter the atrium,” Costa said. “I just think the library atrium is abuzz with kind of the essence of what Mount Holyoke feels like to me.”
Costa’s advice for current ambassadors is to enjoy every moment of their job, “and also that there is learning and growth to be had continually.”
Sophia Smith ’22, Admission Ambassador
Sophia Smith ’22, a double major in biology and studio art, has worked in the Office of Admission as an ambassador since her sophomore year.
While working as an Admission Ambassador, Smith has discovered one of the joys of her job is the opportunity to spark excitement and interest in Mount Holyoke in prospective students, just like she felt when she first toured the College.
“Right now, I’m actually a senior Admission Ambassador,” Smith began. “I do interviews for prospective students, as well as give tours to prospective students and their families when they come to campus.” She also explained that, since the beginning of the pandemic, she has helped with online tours and information sessions.
Smith has found being a tour guide presents some challenges.
One common obstacle is when prospective students are quiet during a tour and don’t ask many questions, even though they may be curious. Ambassadors have strategies to fall back on in these cases. “Ahead of time, we ask at the beginning of tours, ‘what are you interested in studying,’ and so if they might be a little bit more shy, you have to sort of guess what they might ask about,” Smith explained.
Another way to help a quiet group is to tell a story of one’s time at Mount Holyoke. One of Smith’s favorite stories to tell is of her first Mountain Day. She shared how she took a lot of early morning classes that year and lived in Brigham, so she was right next to the clock tower and could hear the bells every day. That particular morning, she was extremely tired and didn’t want to get out of bed. “So, I was counting the bells and I was like, ‘please keep going, please go past seven. I want it to be Mountain Day.’ Then, of course, the bell stops, and I was like, ‘okay, it was time to get up,’ but then the bells kept going, and I was so excited, all my sleep just completely left,” Smith laughed. “I was in a triple — I woke up both my roommates and everyone who I knew down the hall, and we were in the first shuttle to the mountain.”
Smith also shares her favorite spots on campus with tour groups to help them emerge from their shells. “I really like to talk about the atrium and the banners with all of our class colors and mascots, because that’s the first sense the tour gets of our traditions and how many we have [and] how important they are,” Smith stated. At that point, she said prospective students will sometimes get excited about all the traditions they get to partake in if they choose Mount Holyoke. The banners are also the first tradition the prospective students experience. During the tour, the Admission Ambassadors tell them what class year they will be in if they attend Mount Holyoke, and they walk up the stairs reflecting their mascot.
These moments, when prospective students begin to grow excited about Mount Holyoke, are one of Smith’s favorite parts of her job. “Seeing that spark come across their faces, that I know I felt when I was a prospective student, is the best … [I] see that I am succeeding in giving them that excitement that I felt and that drew me to the position in the first place,” Smith said.
While giving a tour, an Admission Ambassador is one of the first people that prospective students and their families interact with at the College, which influences what they think of Mount Holyoke. Smith recalled that when she was a prospective student, she was drawn to the sense of community and personal respect she received from the Office of Admission. “I wanted to be that person for new coming students,” Smith stated. “I want to, you know, show them that we care about them, as students and as people, and just sort of give them that welcoming first introduction to our campus community.”
Meghan French ’24, Summer Student Ambassador
Along with experienced Admission Ambassadors, the Office of Admission hired new ambassadors for the summer, such as Meghan French ’24, a neuroscience and behavior major.
During her employment, French learned that a key aspect of any new job is having the ability to be flexible and think quickly on your feet.
The training for new ambassadors took place over the course of a week at the beginning of June, mostly over Zoom. During this time, the staff went over things such as protocol and what to say during tours and information sessions. “We also did in-person meetings,” French recalled. “We did a mock tour, where a senior gave a tour, and we followed them around campus, and we kind of picked up what they were saying on the tour, just to give us an idea of what a tour looks like.” Each new student hired was also paired with a returning Admission Ambassador tasked with answering their questions and preparing them for their first tour.
Although French has only been guiding tours for two months, she loves her job.
“It really brightens my day to show the prospective students around campus and show them my favorite spots, especially when they’re engaged and they have questions,” French said. “It really is rewarding for me to talk about my school and represent my school in the best way that I can.”
One of French’s favorite spots on campus to point out on tours is the Talcott Greenhouse and the Botanic Garden. “I’m a big plant person — I love plants,” French laughed. “So, I’m a little biased in this, but it's definitely … my favorite. I love talking about the first-year plant, and also the spring flower show with the prospective students.”
She also loves going to the library atrium during tours to point out the Dale Chihuly sculpture. “I always, like, ooh and aah over it and make sure that everyone appreciates it,” French said. Her tour guide instinct for facts and stats emerged as she added that the sculpture was donated by the class of 1937.
Even though French has been giving tours for only a short while, she has been asked some unexpected questions. One happened after she toured a particularly quiet group when a mother approached her after the tour had concluded. French recounted the interaction, “She was like, ‘Hey, hey, you did a great job, it was a great tour. By the way, [I] just wanted to pull you aside and ask, what is the best way for Mount Holyoke students to meet men?’” French said, “I appreciate that she didn’t want to ask it in front of everyone and embarrass her daughter, potentially, but it’s still this very blunt, very straightforward [question].” French continued that, although it took her by surprise, she told the mother what her friends generally do to meet people, and said she was happy to help.
French’s advice for anyone looking to join the staff of the ambassadors would be to go with the flow. Touring is filled with unexpected experiences and conversations — the trick is to keep her wits about her and take the surprises in stride. “When you’re talking with a student, that could go awry,” French said. “[Or] that woman who asked me about meeting men, I didn’t expect that [either], but I just go with the flow. Or I’m walking backward and my shoe falls off. … I have to go with the flow.”