Selling NIU: Attracting and Retaining High Achieving Students to NIU

Throughout my time at NIU, I have been involved in the recruitment and retention of high achieving students. It is my goal to highlight specific practices that can aid in the attraction and retention of these students. Aside from the obvious practice of offering extremely large scholarships, I am going to focus my efforts on what is currently being done at NIU and a few other schools, and the underlying reasons as to why students do and do not choose to come and stay at NIU. I want to find out what programs or opportunities that NIU offers that aid to attract and retain these high achieving students. I plan to use existing research, such as what has been discovered by the retention workshops conducted by NIU faculty and staff over the past few years, as well as collect some qualitative research of my own. I plan to interview some NIU faculty from admissions, student involvement, and other offices that deal in student affairs. By asking what is already being done, I hope to gauge a starting point for where my research can add value. I will be utilizing both primary and secondary sources to conduct my research. The final completed project will be a sort of best practices compilation of how to attract and retain high achieving students.B.S. (Bachelor of Science