For City Year, an educational non-profit and one of many AmeriCorps organizations, Trinity has become a lucrative place for recruiting potential corps members. If selected, corps members act as tutors, mentors, and role models to push students to succeed in school. They also lead and organize after school activities.

According to Marnee Grant, senior manager of regional recruitment, there have been 22 applications from University of Texas at Austin and 11 applications from Trinity. This number is half that of applications submitted by UT-Austin students this year.

“The partnerships we have with faculty and staff and their understanding of what our organization is about drives student interest. Each year we try to increase the new partnerships we cultivate on campuses. As more students are applying from our targeted recruitment efforts, the word of mouth increases from currently serving corps members,” said Grant.

Twyla Hough, director of career services, applauds the long-standing reputation of Trinity graduates to engage in programs like City Year.

“Yes, we have high numbers of people applying, interviewing, and accepting offers. They give each institution a goal and Trinity surpassed recruiting goals even with one more deadline to go,” says Hough.

The most effective recruiting tool that City Year has used to attract Trinity graduates into the year of service is by cultivating connections with alumni and faculty to help them understand the mission of the organization.

“City Year provides Trinity students with the opportunity to take what they have learned and put it to work in an environment where it has the highest probability of making a direct positive impact on the lives of other individuals. Personally, I am most excited about the opportunity to engage directly with at risk students with the hope that my interactions with them may sway them towards the goal of high school graduation and furthering their education,” said Joseph Faulk, a senior accepted to City Year 2014-2015 corps.

Hough also said she is excited about the number of applicants to City Year and the success rate that students have reached.

“With City year, we have a lot of students interested in social responsibility, and you see that with the student organizations on campus and the activities that student organizations do to support the community. This is a way to give back to the community beyond college. It also gives students the opportunity to do something meaningful as they explore career paths they want to pursue if they are not 100% sure at the time of graduation,” said Hough.

Given the increase in students applying from sites of targeted recruitment efforts and that the number of applications has increased during the past five years, the application becomes more competitive each year.

“Waiting until the last deadline means competing against the “˜now or never people’ and that’s the same for about any job or graduate school. When you talk about competitiveness, there are some sites that are more competitive to get into than San Antonio. That also plays into whether you will get accepted to the program,” says Hough.