The more I read about this admissions and enrollment cycle, the farther back my mind goes: Sometimes it wanders all the way back to my first college fair program in Eagle Grove, Iowa, and the first student I ever talked to (I remember his unusual first name, so I went to Classmates, but that particular […]
I made an appearance in this article in the New York Times today, written by Ron Lieber, a journalist I’ve known and liked for a while, and talked to several times over the years. That’s a gift link, but I’m not sure how long it will work. Anyway, I got an email from Ron last […]
Too often, people assume Enrollment Management is just a fancy name for admissions, or that it’s just recruitment on steroids, or that it’s a sign of never-ending administrative bloat. With regard to the first and last observations, well, let’s save those for another post. But with regard to recruitment, it’s among the first, and perhaps […]
Today, some of the senior leaders at my university had a chance to learn more about Microsoft CoPilot in a session conducted by two Microsoft staff members. It was helpful and instructive, and eye-opening, even for someone who’s been dabbling in it for a while. Part of the exercise taught us how to put in […]
If your university enrolls a lot of undergraduates, April can be the cruelest month. Typically, May 1 is the deadline most institutions use as their candidate’s reply date, when students offered admission must let the college know if they plan to accept the offer to enroll or not. The percentage of students who accept your […]
If you’re like a lot of people in higher ed, you have a lot of people outside higher ed who want to help you with your enrollment goals (full disclosure: I do too.) But too often, the companies that have convinced themselves that they’ve cracked the code–that they’ve reduced complexity to simplicity–will hire young, completely […]
I once knew an Enrollment VP who was dedicated to his data: He could tell you the inquiry-to-applicant conversion rates by geo-market. He knew how SAT and GPAs varied by gender. His financial aid expenditures? Three, maybe four years off the top of his head. Having recall like this is impressive, and given the choice […]
I say it all the time. You probably do, too. Good enrollment management practice starts with good data, and good analysis of the data. It’s hard to argue that point. The word “starts” is critical in that sentence, however. I’m often reminded of this graphic, which is a good one for people just getting started […]
In case you’re not watching March Madness, Drake is the darling of the NCAA basketball tournament this year, with good reason. It’s a great story; everyone loves a plot like this. They just beat a higher-seeded team from the SEC by ten points in their first-round game. It goes to show how hard it is […]
I came across some data compiled by University of Tennessee professor Robert Kelchen, and found it quite compelling, precisely because it doesn’t conform to our biases. It’s a simple set and a small table, but I immediately found a dozen ways to look at it. One is included below. It shows enrollment growth over ten […]
Enrollment VP 