You may have previously seen him give a family a campus tour — if he didn’t first give you a tour.
Junior Tyler Smith is the admissions intern to Andy Gammons, executive director of admissions.
One of Smith’s behind the scenes responsibilities include data analytics, which involves compiling information such as the times of the year that prospective students visit and the percentage of students that are likely to go to Taylor based on their number of visits. He also helps manage recruiting events across the country.
“I just got back from Denver doing a recruiting event,” Smith said. “We’ll go to Michigan, north and south Indiana. We’ll go all over those places to recruit prospective students. And so I do a lot of that, and then I also help out with events that we do on campus.”
As a marketing major, Smith’s role has helped him learn more about networking and the overall concept of sales.
This includes promoting Taylor to prospective students and telling them about his own experiences.
“I think that’s the biggest thing,” Smith said. “And it’s also helped me to grow my network skills a whole lot, which is what you need for sales and marketing. And so it’s been really helpful doing this internship to help with what I want to do after college.”
This year, one of his biggest challenges has been time management with having to travel frequently for recruiting. However, Smith said that Gammons has been flexible with Smith’s schedule.
Last year, you may have seen Smith give tours to prospective students and their families.
“Tours were fun,” he said. “It was a good way to get to know a family and talk about your school to a family. They love the campus. A lot of people come here because they want to experience the community that Taylor offers. And I think tours are a great way to bring them into that community just for an hour or so.”
Some of Smith’s favorite things to show on tours included the Silent Night mural just outside of Odle Arena, showing people around residence halls and bringing them to chapel.
Before coming to Taylor, Smith did a 24@Taylor visit. He stayed with his older brother who was a student on First West Wengatz.
“24@Taylor is super important for us in the admissions department,” Smith said. “because that’s one of the biggest tastes of Taylor that you can get as a prospective student staying overnight. And so that’s what helped me, and that’s what I want to help others do too.”
One of the challenges of giving tours was working with more reserved families who didn’t want to be overwhelmed with information.
He recognized that, for a majority of these guests, Taylor may have been their first college visit.
This past J-term, Smith and Gammons went to Thailand for recruitment. There, they connected with an alum in Chiang Mai and another in Bangkok.
Both alumni were working in colleges, and Taylor’s admissions department wanted to increase their international presence. The students in these colleges knew about Christian colleges in the Midwest, and they wanted to have Taylor on that list.
Taylor hopes to welcome more students from Thailand in the next couple of years.
“It was really fun to look at the differences and just be a part of the culture,” Smith said. “We didn’t take any Thai prior to going, so there was a language barrier. The food was amazing. We ate every good meal. And then our alumni also helped us. They helped us navigate what food we should get and go to this place at this time. So we had a lot of people in our corner that helped out with the success of that event.”
Smith’s advice for recommending Taylor is to share positive experiences to those who are looking for a good community.
That’s why they visit Taylor, he said.
“A lot of high school kids are looking for a place to grow in their faith,” he said. “And I think that’s something that Taylor does really well with chapel and with small groups and with the discipleship opportunities that Taylor provides.”
