UI mistakenly sends recruitment packets to 1,049 kids

Shimek Elementary parent Jennifer Lange Hackathorn said she couldn’t help but laugh on Christmas Eve Day when she saw her elementary-age children had received recruitment packets from the University of Iowa.

“So they are recruiting 10 and 8 year olds?”, Hackathorn wrote when posting photos of the letters to Facebook.

For the past few days, UI officials have been fielding questions from many confused parents as to why the university was sending the packets to children who won’t even be taking the ACT for another six or eight years.

“I’m so glad you’re considering the University of Iowa,” began the letter from Emil Rinderspacher, UI’s director of admissions. The letter went on to reference the admissions viewbook, which was enclosed with the letter, and to invite the children for a campus visit.

“We’re looking forward to hearing from you soon!” the letter ended.

UI spokesman Tom Moore said the packets were sent mistakenly to 1,049 participants in UI’s Wildlife Camp as the result of a clerical error. UI offers the outdoor camps for first- to sixth-graders during the summer, spring and winter breaks.

“We apologize for any inconvenience,” Moore said.

In a later email, Moore said the mailing was intended to go to high school seniors in the university’s prospect file. On Dec. 8, the university uploaded information about Wildlife Camp participants into that file. For about two-thirds of the camp participants, however, no age or graduation year was included. In each of those cases, the system mistakenly added 2015 as the graduation year — leading to the system later to assume they were high school seniors.

“We are telling parents that we have corrected the error,” Moore wrote. “We are in process today of deleting these students from our prospect file.”

Hackathorn said she found the packets particularly humorous because she knows UI has been increasing its recruiting efforts over the past year.

UI is trying to grow its undergraduate population in response to recent changes in how the Iowa state Board of Regents will divvy up the state funding it receives for Iowa’s three public universities. Under the new model, approved by the regents over the summer, 60 percent of the funding will be based on a school’s in-state enrollment.

During a presidential forum earlier this month, UI President Sally Mason said growing UI’s student population — both in-state and out-of-state students — would place the university in a better position to claim a larger portion of that state funding under the new model. That is why the university has launched new recruitment strategies — including the “University for Iowa” marketing campaign — and begun the process of ensuring “our campus facilities can accommodate the larger student body.”

The letters, while received this week, were post-dated Dec. 29, 2014.

For many of the children, the date would have been more appropriate as coming from a few years in the future rather than a few days.

Reach Jeff Charis-Carlson at 319-887-5435 or jcharisc@press-citizen.com.