A new initiative created by the Office of Admissions and the Office of the Dean of Arts and Sciences will put faculty members in contact with up to five of the top 500 applicants from the Class of 2013 each in an effort to recruit them to attend the school, according to an e-mail Dean of Arts and Sciences Adam Jaffe wrote to faculty explaining this initiative.The Office of Admissions began sending e-mails to these students last Friday, providing them with a link that enables them to tell admissions officers if they would like personal contact with a Brandeis faculty member, Jaffe, who is coordinating the faculty effort for the initiative, said in an interview with the Justice.

"By the time the actual acceptance letters go out, students are flooded with information from multiple schools, so we thought it was sensible to contact them before the acceptance letters actually went out in an effort to interest them early on," Jaffe said.

Jaffe said the University's budget situation did not play a direct role in the forming of the initiative.

"This initiative does not have anything to do with Brandeis' budget difficulties; it is a further step in recruiting admitted students," Jaffe said. "However, given the circumstances, it will be a helpful opportunity to assuage any concerns applicants may have about these issues," he explained.

Dean of Admissions Gil Villanueva wrote in an e-mail to the Justice that the office of admissions identified the top 500 applicants as those students who "achieved the highest ratings in the admissions application review program," which he said was based on "quality of courses taken and performance, personal character and potential for contribution to the Brandeis community."

"Brandeis has such a self-selecting applicant pool (so many demonstrate to be some of the top high school seniors in [the] nation and abroad) that we could have easily sent 2000 preliminary admission letters," Villanueva wrote in an e-mail to the Justice. "The selection process was most thoughtful and deliberate. Ultimately, applicants that rose above the rest were chosen," he wrote.

According to Villanueva, the initiative was designed to keep pace with Brandeis' competitors such as Yale, Dartmouth, Amherst, Lehigh and Duke Universities. "We are aware that some of the most selective colleges and universities, including some Ivies, send preliminary admission letters," Villanueva wrote in an e-mail to the Justice. "We understand that top students want to be wanted. By extending this preview, we are clearly expressing our interest in them," he wrote.

Jaffe said that faculty members would be paired up with students based on the individual students' academic interests, which they would indicate on the Web site. Jaffe explained in his letter to the faculty that faculty would not be asked to speak with more than five students. He wrote that the admissions office would send those who wished to participate certain "talking points" that stress Brandeis' positive aspects to promote the University. He clarified in an interview with the Justice that faculty can choose the number of times they wish to contact the applicants and discuss these talking points with the students. "Once the initial contact is made with the applicant, the subsequent interaction is truly in the hands of the faculty," he said. However, he added that "the faculty really need to take this initiative seriously."

Jaffe said he received 89 responses from faculty interested in the initiative, such as Profs. Judith Eissenberg (MUS), Gordie Fellman (SOC), Bong Lian (MATH) and Jane Kondev (PHYS). Heather K. Young, Jaffe's assistant, provided the list of faculty members to the Justice.

"The faculty has been tremendously enthusiastic about this program. Many responded affirmatively. We are grateful to them," Villanueva wrote.

Eissenberg wrote that she hopes "to get a list of students who have expressed interest in my own areas of interest, which would include music, social justice, the arts, cultural production, interdisciplinary intersections, global studies and education" and that she is "happy to have a conversation either by e-mail or phone."

Eissenberg wrote in an e-mail to the Justice that her own experience choosing a college showed her that faculty outreach will help persuade students to enroll at Brandeis in the fall. "When I went to school, eons ago, it was part of the process for me to play for the violin teacher on the faculty that I wanted to study with. In that try-out meeting, a sort of lesson for both of us, I could make a better decision about my choice," she wrote. Ultimately, she wrote, that "one-on-one experience" helped her choose The Yale School of Music over the Juilliard School.

Both Jaffe and Villanueva hope the initiative will persuade applicants to enroll in the fall, particularly in light of the fact that Brandeis may encounter difficulties in that area as a result of the budget difficulties and the fallout from the Jan. 26 decision to close the Rose Art Museum. "While the impact of negative press is difficult to isolate and to measure, we hope that these students will take this initiative for what it is-a genuine expression of our interest in them," Villanueva wrote.