JET College Nights Reach Beyond Catholic High Schools

Not so long ago, the Jesuit Excellence Tour (JET) wrapped up two weeks on the road in Colorado and California. What was formerly an ad hoc group of college reps visiting Catholic high schools has now become a much-anticipated tour in which members of the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities (AJCU) introduce their schools at a series of college fairs open to the public throughout the school year.

“The Jesuit Excellence Tour has been a highly effective vehicle for Jesuit colleges and universities to jointly recruit in targeted areas across the nation,” said Jeffrey Blahnik, assistant dean of admission at Marquette University. “From the students’ perspective, the JET’s provide simultaneous access to a host of Jesuit schools—some of which the students may not have had previous exposure to—from varied regions of the country.”

Beginning in early September, tours featuring any number and combination of the 28 Jesuit institutions are arranged from California to DC and back, with stops in many cities in between. In California, for example, eighteen colleges and universities hosted fifteen college fairs including public events in Los Angeles, Sacramento, Oakland, and San Francisco.

The Denver JET is typically the Wednesday-Friday following Labor Day each year. This year, the JET organizers devised a unique billboard campaign to promote individual events. Each of the eight billboards had a website with links to participating Jesuit colleges and universities.

In the DC area, the Jesuit Excellence Tour will hit area schools during the week of March 7, 2011. The public is invited to attend fairs scheduled for the evening of March 7th, at Loyola Blakefield in Towson and on Thursday, March 10th at Georgetown Preparatory School.

For more information or to learn when the JET colleges will be in your area, check directly with any of the 28 AJCU member schools.