Alex Alvendia-Wienkers

Director of Admissions, Rice University, CUP 2021 LA Fellow

Alex Alvendia-Wienkers (he/him) oversees Rice University’s Office of Admission and serves as a key member of the leadership team for the Enrollment division. As Director of Admission Alex provides strategic leadership and long-term vision, developing robust pipelines of world-class scholars from a wide breadth of academic, socioeconomic, geographic, ethnic & racially diverse backgrounds to enrich the undergraduate learning environment at Rice. In doing so, Alex manages a 30+ person team of highly skilled admission officers trained at executing a highly selective, holistic evaluation process of over 31,000+ applications each year.

Alex has extensive experience recruiting students domestically and abroad having spent eight years, prior to Rice, at the University of Southern California (USC) overseeing undergraduate international student recruitment. While at USC, Alex created and led the Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Justice committee within the admission office, achieving tangible systemic change within the institution. Before cutting his teeth in undergraduate enrollment at world-class, highly selective institutions, Alex worked at 2U (NASDAQ:TWOU) – an educational technology startup – as it went public, and at the White House in the Council on Environmental Quality within the Executive Office of the President of the United States during former President Barack Obama’s second term. He developed an interest in university admissions during his undergraduate years, when he worked as a tour guide and an admission office ambassador for his alma mater.

Alex holds a Master’s degree in Strategic Public Relations from USC’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, and a Bachelor’s degree in Environmental Studies from the George Washington University.