By Nancy Johanson
It may seem like the freshman are getting younger every year, but some of them may actually be high school students incognito.
Every weekend of this semester through November, except Thanksgiving, the Campus Visits office hosts “Y Weekend,” where high school seniors with an ACT of 30 or above are invited to check out the BYU campus.
The students who attend pay their own way to Provo, and a $65 fee for two days and two nights jam packed with information on applying to and attending BYU.
Students who attend these weekends say they find them very informative and help make their choice of which college to attend an easier one.
“I’ve always wanted to go to BYU, but I came to Y Weekend to find out why,” said Rachel Call, 18, of Richland, Wash., a Y Weekend attendee.
The two days allotted to the students have a very tight schedule starting as soon as they get here.
Thursday nights begin with a pizza party and get-to-know-you games.
From there the 40 or so attendees are taken on a night time campus tour including a trip up to the roof of the Kimball Tower where thy get a bird’s eye view of campus, and an earful of BYU stories from the tour guide.
Friday is filled with presentations done by the honors program, the scholarships office, freshman academy, various BYU major advisement centers, question and answer sessions with school relations representatives, and a tour of the library’s special collections.
In between all of the different meetings the participants get a chance to attend a Book of Mormon class and have some free time to explore campus, and see friends and relatives already attending BYU.
Rachel Harrison, 17, a senior in high school from Berthoud, Colo., a Y Weekend attendee, said of the experience, “I thought attending BYU would be limiting my horizons, but this weekend is opening my eyes to the opportunities available at BYU. I think I want to go here,” Harrison said.
April Birk, 26, of Salt Lake City, a family science graduate from BYU, is the Campus Visits/Y Weekend coordinator.
Birk said that the program is very successful and helps prospective students decide if BYU is right for them.
“Usually participants who are questioning whether or not they should attend BYU solidify their decision to come here based on their Y Weekend experience,” Birk said.
