Current outstanding Northern Kentucky University students may help attract more students to campus. The new Student Success Series will utilize NKU students in advertisements to be published in local high schools.

Katie Herschede, Student Government Association president, began the Student Success Series in June after gaining support from the Admissions Office.

“[One of] the goals of the program [is] to create a connection between prospective students and current students,” Herschede said. “If a high school student sees someone they went to high school with who is now at NKU, they have an instant connection. Also, if they identify with that student and the NKU student is excelling academically and extracurricularly, that enhances the image of NKU.”

Five local high schools are being considered for a possible “test run” of the program. According to Herschede, the students who will be in the ads were selected from “a report of all current NKU students who went to those high schools. From those students, we identified students with exceptional GPAs and campus/community involvement.”

While the students have been selected, they also have not been confirmed as participants.

While the program is still developing, the Student Success Series receives funding from Admissions and additional support from Enrollment Management. The ads are being designed by University Communications and are expected to be published this fall and spring. When the program is completely set up, more schools will receive the ads and the target audience will expand.

“We are still identifying the media markets for these recruitment pieces. Most likely, we will have large foam boards to be displayed at the schools, ads in the high school newspapers and hopefully community papers as well,” said Herschede.

If the program proves beneficial, the Student Success Series will continue to create advertisements for the campus in forthcoming years.

“It is my hope that we will update this media each year with new students and stories. I think this is a great way to attract high achieving students and to show off our outstanding current students,” Herschede said.