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TCU 360

TCU 360

All TCU. All the time.

TCU 360

Students discuss religious topics in a small group. (Photo courtesy of tcuwesley.org)
Wednesday nights at TCU’s Methodist campus ministry provide religious exploration and fellowship
By Boots Giblin, Staff Writer
Published Mar 27, 2024
Students at the Wesley said they found community on Wednesday nights.

TCU admission website’s new look, language

TCU+admission+websites+new+look%2C+language

In efforts to help Spanish-speaking families interested in TCU, the Office of Admission released a website update in late September that includes an information page translated into Spanish by native speakers.

The page contains basic information about the admission process and costs. Courtesy of TCU Admission.

The new page includes details about deadlines, average grades, planning visits to TCU and more.

All the information was translated with help from Beatriz Gutierrez, an assistant director of admission, and Maribel Lomeli, a senior admission counselor.

Both Gutierrez and Elizabeth Rainwater, director of admission marketing, said opting out of using Google Translate was the best way to go about this process.

Instead, they chose to utilize a native speaker to translate the page that way phrases and messages would come across cohesively and naturally — something they said Google Translate isn’t always the best at.

“Anyone can translate something in Google Translate, but the way that it reads and what it’s telling you is not actually what you’re trying to get across,” Gutierrez said.

TCU does require that incoming students know English. However, the admission office wanted to give Spanish-speaking parents the same access to information that English-speaking parents did.

“I would love to take the burden away from the students having to explain everything to their parents, not because it’s a necessity, but because they want them to feel a part of their experience,” Gutierrez said. “This will allow our first-generation college students whose parents speak a little bit of English or even speak English but have a little bit of a harder time when they’re reviewing it, especially for something as complicated as admissions, have a better understanding.”

Other priorities for the new admission site were improved navigation, adding more visuals and adapting to the changing way people search.

“In the last three years, the way people have navigated the internet has changed,” Rainwater said. “Three years ago, people would use Google to find a web page and then go to that web page and navigate it. Now, people go to Google and they look for a lot more specific items in a web page.”

The office is also hoping to make more use of the yearly hashtags posted for each grade and getting current and incoming students to share why they chose TCU. The website update added social media content to the bottom of pages to further promote student interaction with TCU’s social media accounts.

As for future updates to the admission process, the admission office is working on a virtual campus experience utilizing 360-degree cameras. They already have an online tour posted to YouTube.

Editor’s Note: All stories on TCU 360 can be translated into Spanish. Click on the “Translate Page” tab in the bottom, left-hand corner.

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