Sunday, April 22, 2012

The Ethics Of Yeshivah Enrollment

I had an interesting conversation on Shabbat with an old acquaintance who now works in Yeshivah targeting  targeting non-Israelis coming for their post Highschool year of learning. The conversation was about the ethics (or lack of) that he is encountering around recruiting students to the yeshiva.  Last year there was a mini scandal as it was revealed that a recruiter for a yeshivah had offered generous bribes to schools that would send his yeshiva students.  Partly as a reaction to this story a group of yeshivot and school principals recently got together to discuss some ethical questions around the yeshiva recruitment process. These are some (but not all) of the topics that were discussed: 

  • From the yeshiva side, there was a call to give all yeshivot an equal chance to address their students. Apparently some schools set dates when yeshivot could come to speak to students. However certain yeshivot were invited to give shiurim to those students - thereby giving another chance to promote their yeshivah.  
  • Additionally there was a call for all yeshivot to announce a single date by which students would have to decide to which yeshiva they wish to go. This was to stop some yeshivot from setting very early cut off dates - thereby forcing the students to decide on their yeshiva before they had heard whether they were accepted to other yeshivot. 
  • In a similar manner - no giving discounts to people who decide by a certain date.
  • There was some discussing what recruiters can tell students about other yeshivot. 

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