How do you go about contacting alumni from a school you’re interested in?
Short answer:
Via the admissions office, the Office of Institutional Advancement, regional Alumni groups, or the Alumni Relations Office. But why would you do that?
Detailed answer:
Alumni should not be a part of your college search process. Here’s why:
1. If they are older alums, they are completely disconnected from the truth of today’s college-going experience. They don’t know your generation, they don’t know you, they can be exuberant about the institution based on their own experience there, or they can be negative about the institution based upon their own experience there.
2. Their information is not real information. The information older alums receive about their alma mater is via the Office of Alumni Relations (or some such department), the Foundation (which reaches out to them for donations), and/or the annual report. These departments craft their messages to alumni in such a way as to keep the alumni engaged. This is so that they will continue to 1) market the college via their vocal college allegiance to the media, parents, and prospective students, and 2) donate money to the college.
3. The entire institutional ethos/mission may have changed since the alumnus attended. Today, institutions actively are reinventing themselves in order to remain fiscally viable in the highly competitive marketplace of higher education. The college of today is not the college of yesterday.
4. The college administration, staff, and faculty may have completely changed from the time an alumnus attended the institution. There may have been several different college presidents since the time the alum matriculated, and that means a potential equal number of administration turnovers, and entirely new ways of approaching higher education and its many parts.
5. If they are young alums, they may have a certain idea of the present campus atmosphere. However, again, their experience was their experience. You don’t know their personal strengths or limitations, including their ability or inability to successfully navigate admissions, financial aid, student life, or the registrar.
6. Alumni of all ages are being actively marketed to by the college in order to keep them engaged in assisting with admissions recruitment and financial support of the institution. I know of a Director of Institutional Advancement who insisted that the admissions office inform him of expensive cars in the admissions parking lot, which indicated to him a family of wealth. He wanted the department to give him the family name so he could begin a strategy to engage them from the time the student enrolled.
7. Never, ever meet with an alum for an admissions interview. This person could be terrific. But the fact is that you don’t know this person at all, and just because they represent the institution doesn’t mean they are a good person and are safe to meet with alone. If the college requires an interview, and they suggest you do it with an alumnus, politely decline and request a Skype interview.