Lexington students take a peek at UK

By Jennifer Graham

The See Blue Preview Night hit Lexington last night to educate a wall-to-wall crowd of local high school seniors about UK.

See Blue Preview Nights are the student component of President Lee Todd’s See Blue tour, allowing prospective students to learn about UK’s colleges and opportunities. There was also a short lecture covering topics like the application process, scholarship opportunities and financial-aid information.

“We’ve done preview nights for years, but we wanted to make it fit in more with the See Blue tour,” said Laura Glover, associate director of undergraduate admissions. “Dr. Todd has been gracious with time to talk and see students and parents.”

“The purpose of the preview nights is to show what UK has to offer,” said Don Witt, director of admissions and university registrar. “Our goal is to give students as much information as possible.”

The preview nights have nine stops throughout the state and one out-of-state stop in Nashville. Glover said UK plans on doing more out-of-state stops in future years.

“We’ve had record crowds across the state,” Witt said. “The turnout has been outstanding.”

The Lexington stop is a little different than the others, Witt said.

“Oftentimes, when students live in the same city as the university is located, they feel they know everything they need to know,” he said. “They drive by it, but we are trying to get them inside of the campus.”

Local high-school seniors say they are reaping the benefits of preview night even though UK is in their hometown.

“I’m trying to find out what college to go to, and coming to preview night has given me details about majors that I’m interested in and scholarship information,” said Jordan Valenta, an East Jessamine senior.

“I came to preview night to turn in my application, but I learned so many different things and found out about other areas that I didn’t know much about,” said Courtney Ehrler, a Scott County senior.

See Blue Preview Nights also give current UK students a chance to interact with high-school students and tell them about the university.

Diana Baulch, a communication senior at UK, volunteers with Preparing Aspiring Wildcats, which helps the Undergraduate Admissions office put together preview nights.

“We try to get students to want to go to UK,” Baulch said. “I try to let everyone I talk to know that they can find their comfort zone at UK. I encourage all of the students to get involved in at least one extracurricular so they can find their core group of friends.”

The preview nights help UK demonstrate its strengths, Witt said.

“We want people to ‘see blue,’ ” he said. “We want to show students that we have a lot of things at UK to be proud of.”