When A.J. Brown (SFS ’08) first came to the Hilltop as an accepted student, it was love at first sight, and his honeymoon with Georgetown still hasn’t ended. As president of the Georgetown Admission Ambassadors Program, it is Brown’s job to put on the university’s best face for prospective students. Before making phone calls to recently admitted students, he spoke about his views on Georgetown – specifically, why he likes it so much.

What do you do as GAAP president?

It’s a whole bunch of little things, really. It’s working with the admissions office, especially our two advisers, and seeing what the goals are for the admissions office for the year and for GAAP weekend, and then taking that information and coordinating it with our 12 board members that we have, and working throughout the year with outreach to [high school] seniors to get them to apply, and then accepted student phone-calling. And then our biggest part of the year is the GAAP weekends.

What made you pick Georgetown?

I always thought I was going to go to [the University of Pittsburgh] or Penn State, because I’m from Pittsburgh. But I knew I wanted to do an international affairs or international studies major, and through college research I found out [about], just sort of stumbled on, Georgetown. I looked at the Web site, decided to apply early action, got in and then came on GAAP weekend. That was the first time I came to campus. And within 10 minutes of being on campus I told my parents this is where I wanted to go to school. It was pretty easy for me.

What about Georgetown do you highlight to prospective students?

We talk a lot about what Georgetown has to offer outside of the academics, because obviously, if they’re getting into Georgetown, they’re pretty smart kids and they know that this is a good school. So we try not to focus on that, but we try to focus on the sense of community that comes with 6,000 undergraduates up on the Hilltop, and just what makes Georgetown unique, whether it’s the Jesuit identity, whether it’s the sense of community.

This weekend, pretty much all we talked about was the basketball team making it to the Final Four, but just the sense of community and the way that everybody’s able to find their niche here at Georgetown. We always say you could ask anybody and they’ll tell you why they like Georgetown, but we all like it for different reasons, and that’s what makes it special.

Is that what you realized when you visited campus?

I think that when I came that GAAP weekend did a good job of showing that to us. There were tons of student volunteers and plenty of students willing to meet with you and tell you what they liked about the school. Administrators were out there welcoming you, so it really felt like there was really a chance for everybody to make it feel like home.

What is your favorite part about working with GAAP?

My favorite part is meeting the accepted students and getting to talk with them, because . all of us here, and especially those who do GAAP, we had such positive experiences here. We want to share that with the accepted students and get to talk with them, help them make up their mind, show [them] why we chose Georgetown, why they should choose Georgetown.

Do you have any advice for future Georgetown students?

You just have to see what feels right. If this doesn’t feel like home, you can’t force it, but you have to give it a chance and you have to see what’s going to be special about Georgetown to you. Not everybody fits the same mold here when they come up here. Everybody’s different when it comes to finding out why Georgetown’s special, so you have to find why you think Georgetown’s special for you, and that’s what’s going to make the difference.

If you could change anything about Georgetown, what would it be?

I always get this question and I can never, ever think of a good answer. I really don’t know. I really couldn’t tell you, at least right off the top of my head. I’ve just had such a positive experience here, so it’s hard to pick something that’s bad.

Should Jeff Green stay for next year?

Oh, definitely, definitely. One more year. They’re all going to come back and then we’ll win it next year.