“Liberty University, Training Champions for Christ since 1971” There you have it, the tag line for Liberty University. Based in Virginia this co-ed liberal (ahem..what?) arts University is out their marketing to their ‘target market’- your kid. They are doing so through music festivals and apparently its paying off quite well.
Now Liberty U is not exactly Yale but its not The ‘University of Nations” either. The later being a non accredited sheep herding global organization. Liberty is in fact accredited (Southern only) at less than $30k its not exactly the cheapest place to champion for God but they do hand out about a million dollars of scholarship an academic year. Hey guess what, when they were in financial trouble Reverend Sun Myung Moon helped them out! Tambourine and moonie hair do not required but you will need to attend lectures three times a week. For the Lord of course. Heads up Jerry Falwell Jr. is the chancellor and these people are conservative Southern Baptist.
Back to music. So, what better way to score more soliders than at a Christan music festival? Screw college fairs and on site recruits, get them to sign up when they’re busy doing other things. Divine indeed. Prepare for their ‘booth’ cuz theyre bitching about it but doing it.
“Those events will have our target demographic; during the summer that’s the primary way we’ve found, that’s most effective, in reaching students,” said Aaron Marks, an LU graduate who is now the college’s lead recruiter. A Liberty is the only school that is active at annual events yearly.
“We don’t just show up one year and then we’re not there the next year,” said Marks. “In a lot of ways Liberty innovated attending and recruiting at Christian music festivals.”
The number of students who have attended LU after meeting a recruiter at a summer music festival tour is not known, but Marks can estimate.
“We’ve gotten hundreds, if not thousands, to Liberty as a result of doing summer festivals,” he said. One of those on the summer music festival recruiter team was, herself, recruited at a summer music festival. She has since graduated and is now a recruiter with Marks.
Their acceptance rate is listed as 24%- I think its much greater than that= either that or those interested are stymied by other issues than academics.