This weekend is Chair Conference 2022

We are so excited to welcome many of you to campus this weekend for Chair Conference! The conference will begin on Friday evening, August 25, and run through the evening of Saturday, August 26.  

If you will not be joining us in person, we invite you to participate in some of the sessions virtually.  You will receive an email with Zoom links for the available sessions. They are also included below: 

We hope that you will tune in to hear from the following university leaders:
  • Provost Beverly Wendland (Friday at 6:30pm CDT) Meeting URL: Join the meeting
  • Chancellor Andrew D. Martin (Saturday at 9:30am CDT) Meeting URL: Join the meeting
  • Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Anna Gonzalez (Saturday at 1:00pm CDT) Meeting URL: Join the meeting
  • Associate Vice Chancellor for Alumni and Constituent Engagement Susan Cohen (Saturday at 3:30pm CDT)  Meeting URL: Join the meeting

The sessions will be recorded for future viewing if you cannot attend live. If you have any questions, please contact Jenna Kalkwarf, jenna.kalkwarf@wustl.edu.  

2022-23 APAP season updates
Your first step

Please log in to the APAP Volunteer Portal to agree to this year’s eligibility requirements and update your information.  We will ask all members to do this as well.  

Interviews

After two years of only virtual interviews, we are bringing back the option to conduct in-person interviews. We will let volunteers know that either option is fine, though they should defer to students’ preferences if possible and if geography allows.

As chairs, you will continue to assign interviews in the APAP Volunteer Portal.  

More information will be coming to you about interviews in the coming weeks.  We will start matching students for APAP interviews around September 15.

Events

College Fairs: We plan to staff College Fairs with APAP volunteers.  If we are looking for help with a fair in your area, we will notify you and your volunteers by email.  Any APAP member may staff a fair and we will provide all the details you need.  

Admissions Information Sessions: The APAP staff has emailed volunteers in some areas to ask for help with checking in and greeting guests at Information Sessions for prospective families.  

Kick-Offs and Recruitment Happy Hours: We plan to hold optional in-person fall Kick-Offs and Recruitment Happy Hours. See below for more information and a survey to let us know if you’d like to host one in your area. 

Interview Days: We plan to host a limited number of Interview Days in December and January.  We will be in touch with you if there will be one in your area.  

Committee updates

Alumni interviewers who are willing to conduct additional interviews outside of their committee can opt to conduct them in the western US, eastern US, and/or outside the US. They will indicate this when they update their information in the Volunteer Portal.

We are happy to announce that we now have a committee in South Korea, chaired by Yoon Chang, EN08 and Young In Kim, LA11. For more information about any of these events and activities, please visit the Chair Resources section of the APAP website or contact your APAP liaison.  

Kick-Offs and Recruitment Happy Hour

Please complete this survey to let us know if you are interested in having an APAP Kick-Off or Recruitment Happy Hour in your area this fall. These events are not required, but they are great ways to get members of your committee together and/or recruit new volunteers.

APAP Kick-Offs are informal social events that allow APAP members and chairs to get to know one another, while providing an opportunity for training. Chairs have the flexibility to tailor the Kick-Off to meet the needs of their committee members. The APAP chair(s) leads the event. APAP staff members do not travel to these events though occasionally an Admissions Officer may attend.

APAP Recruitment Happy Hours provide informal social opportunities for APAP members to get to know one another, as well as for other alumni in the area to learn more about APAP.  In addition to current members, we invite recent alumni living in the area to attend.  The APAP chair(s) attends the event. APAP staff members do not travel to these events though occasionally an Admissions Officer may attend.

Chair training
Online chair training

Please complete the brief online training for chairs, which is available in the Chair Resources section of the APAP website.  We require that new chairs complete the training; returning chairs are encouraged to review it as a refresher.  It should take about 15 minutes to complete.

Email updates

Please read these regular email updates, as they are the best way to stay up-to-date regarding what’s happening in APAP and at WashU.

APAP website

All training resources are in the Chair Resources section of the APAP website.  In order to access this section, you will need your WUSTL key and password.  

Chair timeline
Here is a timeline that details your role as chair this season.  We will send you more details about next steps soon.  In the meantime, please reach out to us if you have questions.  

Your committee members

You are able to access a current list of your committee members at any time on the Volunteer Portal. Your Committee List includes detailed information about your members, including their email addresses.  

We will soon ask all members to log in to the Portal to agree to the eligibility requirements for this season, as well as to update their contact information and volunteer activities. If alumni volunteers would like to conduct additional interviews outside of their committee areas, this is where they will indicate that information. Earlier this month, we removed any volunteer from your list who did not log in to the Portal last season. Prior to doing so, we contacted each of these volunteers three times over the summer (by email, mail, and text message) to let them know that in order to participate, they must log in to the Portal.  If you hear from any of these volunteers about wanting to rejoin, please let us know and we would be very happy to reinstate them. Hopefully, by taking this step, the volunteers on your list will be responsive to your interview assignments.  

Finally, we’d like for you to send your members a welcome email within the next couple weeks.  Please utilize the template in the Chair Resources section of the APAP website.

Recruiting more volunteers

We are always looking for new APAP volunteers. Any undergraduate alum or current WashU parent is invited to participate. Please spread the word to your networks and encourage your friends to join. Even staffing one College Fair or conducting one interview is a great help! If you would like to reach out to alums to who live in your area but are not current APAP volunteers, please let us know.

Similarly, if you are willing to help us recruit a certain population of WashU alumni or parents (from your graduating class or your child’s class, from your academic division, etc.), please let us know and we can send a list to you.