The Emory Wheel

Social media shifts approach to University marketing, applications

By aLexa FreedmaN Contributing Writer

When incoming first-year student Tai Jackson started looking at colleges his junior year of high school, Emory University was not his top choice. He knew he wanted to go somewhere with a strong theater program, and Jackson said Emory did not seem to fit the bill with its pre-med reputation.

However, after discovering Emory’s “very strong” theater community, such as Dooley’s Players, on Instagram, his perspective shifted. By senior year, Jackson was set on attending Emory. He was accepted in Early Decision I.

“I would have never even known that Emory had a good theater program, or even had a theater program, if it wasn’t for social media,” Jackson said.

Associate Vice Provost and Dean of Admission John Latting said that if the University sends an email to 300,000 prospective students, only about 600 people will open it, while an Instagram video can get 30,000 views in three days. This outreach is a large part of the admissions process, Latting said.

“Our whole team were involved, not just in selecting students, but in engaging students, in telling the Emory story, ” Latting said.

Latting added that students seek answers to their questions on social media instead of looking up statistics in a book.

“We're really having to shift and rethink what tools do we use to tell the Emory story,” Latting said.

According to Director of Enrollment

Marketing and Communications

Luca Magnanini (05B), the University started a program called Emory Student Ambassadors in 2022, which employs students as paid influencers. The students create content, such as day in the life videos, that the University can post on their social media accounts.

Five students employed as influencers did not respond to requests for comment. Arianna Ophir (25C) said that she was unable to provide comment as an Office of Undergraduate Admission employee.

Social media can help prospective students who are unable to visit campus, Magnanini added. He recalled discussing this with a Canadian student who told him she never visited campus before coming to Emory.

“She really relied on our site as well as social media to really get a good sense of what Emory was about,” Magnanini said.

Incoming first-year student Tessa Butler said social media gives a better look into what day-to-day student life is like than campus tours.

“Social media and the virtual tour and so forth are really our opportunity to enhance, to help students and their

Students cite ‘degrading’ accessibility difficulties at Emory

By Nica LeuNg Atlanta Campus Desk

Most students can walk from Raoul Hall to Callaway Memorial Center in about six minutes. Once they are out the door, it is a straight shot past the Emory Student Center and across Asbury Circle before they can enter Callaway through the south entrance. For Jaden Ellman (24C), however, the trek is not always that simple.

Ellman is one in about 126,000 people in the United States who have Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease, a neuromuscular condition that impairs muscle strength in the feet, legs and hands. Ellman struggles to walk long distances and often relies on a mobility scooter to help get around campus.

just kind of take the scooter and hope for the best.”

To determine the best mode of transportation, including reviewing pick-up and drop-off locations, Transportation and Parking Services works with DAS and registered students, according to Assistant Director of Transportation Walter Kolis.

Though Ellman explained that students will inevitably need to put in extra work to get their accommodations met, he said much of the hassle on his part “could have been avoided.” parents make a decision,” Magnanini said.

Incoming first-year student Jahara McGarrell, who is from New York, said that one of her biggest concerns was moving to Georgia by herself, but social media “nullified” this concern because it enabled her to “network” and form her “own little community.”

Incoming first-year student Halle Stewart, who is from Jamaica, said social media was her main outlet for learning about colleges, remembering Emory's posts about Dooley’s Week.

“Those kinds of things, they kind of drew me into the school,” Stewart said. “It looks like an environment that I’d want to be in.”

Managing Editor Madi Olivier (25C) contributed to reporting.

— Contact Alexa Freedman at alexa.freedman2@emory.edu

On rainy days, the paratransit services, a subset of Emory University’s transportation department, used to drive Ellman to his classes as a part of his Department of Accessibility Services (DAS) accommodations. However, Ellman eventually stopped using the service because it was inconvenient, describing the route as “silly.” Paratransit starts at Raoul Circle, loops to Emory Village, then up Dickey Drive to drop him off near Asbury Circle, only cutting the walking distance roughly in half.

As a result, Ellman said he was forced to walk without his mobility scooter on brick paths in the rain to get from Asbury Circle to Callaway. And, because carrying his bag was difficult enough, Ellman often did not bring an umbrella. This walk, Ellman said, was ultimately more strenuous than if he had taken his scooter in the first place.

“I pretty much, starting last semester, sort of just gave up on using paratransit,” Ellman said. “If it's raining, I

“The goal of an accessibility office, anyone advocating for accessibility, should be to minimize the amount of that extra work that people need to get the accommodations they need because ultimately that's the whole point of accommodations is to even the playing field and make people comfortable,” Ellman said.

Ellman is not alone in his accessibility needs. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated in 2022 that over 61 million people in the U.S. have a disability, making up 26% of the nation’s population. The South has the highest percentage of people with disabilities at 11% in metro areas.

Emory provides accessibility services that help facilitate accommodations and equal access to students. But, according to disabled students like Ellman, failures within Emory’s accessibility services have led to “a number of frustrating experiences.”

“People are always kind of surprised by that,” Ellman said. “It's not something that is talked about a lot.”

According to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), disabilities are physical or mental impairments

Bloodlines of medicine: Students report nepotism in medical industry, pre-med opportunities

By JuLia Laszcz Science & Research Desk

Vulture magazine defined 2022 as the “Year of the Nepo Baby” in the entertainment industry, referring to “nepotism babies,” or children who advance their careers through familial connections. The rise of celebrities such as actress Lily-Rose Depp, who shares ties to famous kin, encouraged a cultural examination of nepotism in the entertainment industry.

According to some students, nepotism is not limited to the entertainment industry. Emory University

Minority Pre-Medical Society

President Precious Ajiero (24C) wrote in an email to the Wheel that parental connections in the medical field provides an advantage in securing internships and other opportunities.

“Individuals who have parents in the medical field typically have access to great connections with other physicians early on and access to shadowing and internship opportunities,” Ajiero wrote.

Additionally, legacy status sometimes plays a role in medical school acceptance. Many universities reserve a percentage of their incoming classes for legacies. In 2020, legacy students made up 21% of the incoming class at University of Notre Dame (Ind.). While Associate Dean of Medical Education

Ira Schwartz noted that the Emory School of Medicine does not track applicants’ legacy status, Emory’s Office of Undergraduate Admission values legacies and encourages them to detail their ties to the school.

Maurice Safar (23Ox), who is premed with parents in the medical industry, wrote in an email to the Wheel that while Emory offered him academic opportunities other universities would not have, such as clinical research, certain groups of students should not be rewarded with exclusive opportunities. The biggest disadvantage for pre-med students is coming from a “boring” background, according to Safar.

“Neither the student born to economic excess nor the student born to economic distress chose their financial situation,” Safar wrote. “If both of them have demonstrated capability in that they have made it to college, the aspects of their life that they cannot control should be neither punished nor rewarded.”

Although Safar obtained some shadowing opportunities through family contacts, he wrote that he earned most of his opportunities by reaching out to professors and doctors. Safar volunteered at the Newton County Senior Center through the Oxford Service Corps and started a non-profit that sends refurbished hearing aids to the Dominican Republic and Haiti.

Simren Kochhar (26C) also has parental connections in the medical field. She was exposed to the medical field through her mom’s dental practice, but her parents initially discouraged her from pursuing medicine. After shadowing her mom at her dental office and other health professionals, Kochhar decided to pursue the pre-med track at Emory.

“My parents always said to do anything I wanted except medicine,” Kochhar wrote. “It’s way too long a road and that the stress and paperwork and lifestyle is draining. However, seeing my mom working and the impact she made heavily influenced me.”

Pre-Health Advising Director Kim Molee said that while parents influence their children’s career paths, parental connections are not the sole factor in deciding to pursue medicine.

The demanding nature of being premed requires self-motivation, Molee said. She noted that the most recurring reasons for pursuing medicine she has seen were personal experiences with a healthcare issue or seeing a family member go through one.

By developing mentorship programs and eliminating financial barriers to application resources, Ajiero noted that pre-med students without familial ties to medicine gain opportunities they previously could not access.

“In order to bridge students who face economic struggles, college and medical schools must first acknowl- edge that there are disparities present that can have detrimental impacts on their students' future endeavors,” Ajiero wrote.

An abridged version of this article appears in print. Read the full version at emorywheel.com.

— Contact Julia Laszcz at julia.laszcz@emory.edu