Profile: Lisa Yaeger

Many transfer students know Lisa Yaeger. She is a senior associate director and the transfer coordinator in the Undergraduate Admission office.

Some of her main responsibilities include oversight of the transfer and veteran recruitment programs. She works with transfer students from four-year public and private colleges, as well as community colleges across the country. She makes connections with prospective transfers through on-campus information sessions, personal interviews, and online communications. With a goal of recruiting more veteran students, the transfer team offers veteran-specific information sessions at Emerson and hosts meetings in veteran offices at local community colleges. Overall, last fall, 943 students applied for transfer admission and 180 enrolled.

Yaeger also manages the College’s articulation and admission agreements in the Undergraduate Admission office. The College has articulation agreements with Bunker Hill Community College in Boston and Miami Dade College in Florida. These agreements make it possible for eligible students from these schools to maximize the number of credits they are able to transfer to Emerson. The College also has admission agreements with nine community colleges in the Northeast. Under these agreements, if students meet certain conditions, they are guaranteed acceptance and their application fee is waived. Initiating and maintaining these agreements involve collaboration with colleagues in the Academic Deans’ offices, Academic Advising, the Registrar’s office, and faculty across the College.

She oversees the College’s four transfer scholarship programs, three of which are for community college students and one of which is for students transferring from a four-year institution. These merit-based scholarships make an Emerson education possible for a select number of academically strong transfer students each year. Yaeger also has the opportunity to work with alumni through the Alumni Admission program. Alumni help the Undergraduate Admission office with recruitment efforts by speaking at open houses and admitted student events, attending college fairs around the country, and writing postcards to admitted students in their local area.

Yaeger enjoys the cyclical nature of her job. She travels around the country from September to November recruiting students at college fairs, community colleges, and elsewhere at Undergraduate Admission events. In the winter months, her travel slows down and she spends much of her time back in the office reading applications. She returns to the road in the spring, and then spends the summer months analyzing data and creating a transfer recruitment plan for the next academic year.

She also likes that she is able to “share the benefits of an Emerson education” with new students every year and help change the trajectory of their lives. Yaeger enjoys working with such talented young people who inspire her every day and keep her young!

Yaeger started at Emerson as an application reader while she was taking time off to raise her three children. In 2006, she started part-time as an assistant director in Undergraduate Admission. Before she took time off to stay at home with her children, she worked in the private banking division of a large national bank and also worked at Regis College in Weston, Massachusetts.

Yaeger has a fun story about her first job out of college. She was an admission counselor at Hanover College in Indiana. The other admission counselor in the department was now-Vice President Mike Pence, and actor Woody Harrelson was one of the department’s tour guides.

Growing up, her family moved a lot for her father’s job, so she doesn’t call once place home. She was born in Omaha, Nebraska, and lived in Indiana, California, New Jersey, and Illinois. She was a psychology major and business minor at Gettysburg College in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. She and her husband, Dan, moved to the Boston area for his graduate school program. They now reside in Swampscott, Massachusetts, with their cockapoo Phineas.

In Yaeger’s spare time, she enjoys gardening, entertaining, and reading biographies. She also enjoys reading and taking classes on garden design and interior design. She and Dan share a passion for renovating houses (while residing in them!) and are working on their third renovation. Their second renovation garnered them a town restoration award. Their house overlooks the ocean, and they start off most days by taking a three-mile walk along the beach with Phineas.

Nancy Howell (Marketing)