Yearly, the Office of Undergraduate Admissions holds the Open House the same week as the North Carolina State Fair.

The Open House is intended for prospective high school juniors and seniors.  At Open House, students can talk with University students in different programs and clubs, as well as admissions officials.  As well, University Ambassadors holds campus tours throughout the day for students and University Housing has two model rooms, one in Owen Residence Hall and one in Lee Residence Hall.

According to Joyce Mai, admissions assistant director, the event ran smoothly.

“Today’s been a great day,” Mai said.  “We saw the numbers we were expecting to see.  It’s definitely been running smoothly so far.”

Ricky Smith, a sophomore in biology and an intern at the Office of Administration, said he was required to attend Open House.

“It’s part of our job to represent the student body, in addition to the University Ambassadors,” Smith said.  “We are a little bit of extra help basically.  We predicted over 7,000 people coming today, so obviously every set of hands would be really great.”

Smith said the day went smoothly and he answered a lot of questions.

“I’ve been answering questions most of the day.  Mostly today I’ve been getting questions where everything is at and how to get up and down and what building am I in.  We got a few questions about the student application,” Ricky Smith said.  “Actually, a lot of students here have already applied.  There are information sessions about applying for admissions but the first deadline was yesterday.”

Some students, such as Andrea Smith, a senior in international studies and Spanish, attended Open House to help usher and direct people to various locations where sessions were being held.


”We came out here to usher people in and answer everybody’s questions and help out,” Andrea Smith said.  “I love talking to people and the prospective students.  They usually have lots of questions.  They have a ton of question about the different colleges.  They find all of this stuff online but they like to talk to people.  It’s been a ton of people nonstop.”

Marina Brochado Offner, assistant director with admissions, said they are the people who organize the event.

“We are the one that head everything.  We work with all of the other departments to get everything organized,” Offner said.  “We had about 6,500 students register to come to Open House.”

According to Mai, N.C. State’s Open House draws a large crowd.

In regards to other Universities, some might have more than one open house,” Mai said.  “They might have three or four.”

Prospective N.C. State students and their parents were standing outside the doors, according to Cheryll bowman-Medhin, an administrative support associate with the College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences dean’s office.

“I came out to assist at Open House.  I’ve been doing this for about three years now and basically give out information about the college and find out what interest prospective students have.”

Bowman-Medhin said she thought there were more high school students than normal.  

“They estimated about 7,000.  When I cam this morning there were people standing outside waiting to come in, so we’ve had quite a few.  I haven’t been counting, but I can tell it’s been very busy,” Bowman-Medhin said.  

Staff Writer Joanna Benagas contributed to this report.