Another blue cardstock enrollment paper was shoved in junior Ainsley Agniel’s face by an Indian Hills eighth grader. Though she’d already spent the past hour helping students in the Indian Hills library, she was happy to help yet another student finish filling out their course request card for the 2026-27 year — their freshman year of high school.
Agniel was selected to be an SM East enrollment representative — part of a group of ten students started by Student Services this year. After seeing the application posted on a Canvas announcement in December, Agniel filled out the Google Form, hoping she would get the chance to work with eighth graders, including her younger sister.
Sophomore Leighton Fulghum also filled out the form for similar reasons, though she didn’t know quite what an enrollment representative’s duties would be.
“My sister's about to be a freshman, and it just seemed really fun to be able to help all the incoming freshmen with enrollment,” Fulghum said.
When an email appeared in their inbox from academic counselor Susan Fritzmeier, both Agniel and Fulghum were thrilled they had been chosen. Fulghum was excited to have a leadership position as an underclassman with fellow sophomores Hannah Rosemann, Alex Medley, Chloe White and David Williams.
Started by the counselors this year to help make both middle school and high school enrollment smoother, five sophomores and five juniors were selected to be of aid to the counselors throughout the enrollment process during late January and early February.
“They helped out with distribution of materials, checked in on advisories, and did eighth grade presentations,” Fritzmeier said. “[They] helped with the flow of getting students to come up to the library, and then we would have them set up a little table if students needed help entering course alternates.”
Counselors are no longer frustrated to see a student come to a meeting with a blank blue enrollment sheet. Rather than having six counselors be in charge of giving speeches, directing students in the library and ensuring enrollment cards are filled before meeting, there’s countless friendly faces happy to advise their peers on course choices.
The representatives' help was much appreciated by teachers and counselors, and the group will return next school year. Not only did they make enrollment easier for counselors, but the representatives enjoyed helping other students, advising them from a high schooler’s perspective rather than just a counselor's.
“I always enjoyed when I was in middle school when the high schoolers would come and explain a little bit about [SM] East,” enrollment representative and junior Collin Stroud said. “I just wanted to do the same for the eighth graders.”
The representatives had the opportunity to choose whether they spoke to students at Indian Hills or stayed at East, though almost all were eager to help the eighth graders. They also had the opportunity to choose what classes they’d be excused from to assist the counselors in the library, so as not to miss too much class time.
It was also strategic to have non-seniors as representatives so they could potentially keep the same group of students for next year’s team.
“If we get to assemble a team as seniors [next year] we get to choose [who is a representative],” fellow representative and junior Avner Crafton said. “We have a meeting next Tuesday where we’ll talk about everything [that went well this year] and what we can do better next year.”
Agniel, Fulghum, Stroud and Crafton were all excited to learn they would likely remain representatives next year, finding the opportunity very rewarding. New students will be added to the group next year, though, returning representatives will already have the skills and knowledge to help the counselors efficiently.
For now, the counselors and the representatives see this group as a great opportunity for growth and improvement in the enrollment system. While they all applied for similar reasons, each representative acquired skills they’ll carry with them regarding enrolling, met new people and had a great time.
“I really enjoyed making a lot of new friends the most,” Williams said.
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