Who’s at the Door? College Officials Delivering Your Acceptance in Person (Sometimes With a Dog)

Two men and a bulldog showed up unannounced at Caitlin Strickland’s after-school job on a Friday afternoon. One held a video camera. The other held a leash attached to the burly dog with a pronounced underbite. Ms. Strickland’s supervisor at an after-school program for younger students asked her to step outside. Apprehension spread across her face as she wondered if she had done anything wrong. Admissions officers are traveling hundreds of miles with a live animal to inform high-school seniors they have been accepted to a college—and to urge them to enroll. It’s not just the star athletes or scholarship winners who get the treatment. It is pretty much anyone, a tactic driven by competition to snag the declining number of college-bound high-school students.