Successful Admissions Prospecting Tips from Presidents

Today's Campus repackages 9 brief interviews with campus presidents who excel in one way or another at admissions prospecting.

The combined ages of the nine campuses represented here may well approach a thousand years. Each shares a common characteristic--a hands-on president, who is intent on the school's remaining a strong competitor. Each knows the value of having a particular distinction. And each campus has mastered at least one admissions prospecting tactic.

These are really brief quotes apparently taken from longer interviews. Each paragraph has a bolded key phrase, and those are: articulation agreements, simultaneous dual admission and enrollment at more than one school, external partnerships, internet advertising agencies, carefully refined leads, recruiter motivation tactics, referrals from alums, focus on sustainability, location and employment assistance, and welcoming unusual combinations of studies.

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Regional SCUP Events! Enjoy the F2F company of your colleagues and peers at one of three SCUP regional conferences this spring:

• March 14–16: Baltimore, MD
• March 24–26: Cambridge, MA
• April 5–7, San Diego, CA

Cal State Schools Planning Quick Downsizing

Now SCUPers can connect on Facebook and on LinkedIn.

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Two years ago, San Jose State University was working hard to increase enrollments. Last spring no transfers were allowed. Next year's incoming freshman class will be reduced by 2,500 students, even though applications were up this year by 48 percent. Systemwide, 40,000 student seats will be gone in 2010-11. Chancellor Charles Reed says "we cannot educate more students with $546M less money." SCUP conferences for the next few years will be loaded with planners sharing how they made all of the program changes needed to effectively handle a shrinking student body.

SJSU says it will handle the surge in demand by becoming more selective, raising admission standards for entry into high-demand, or "impacted," majors. This is a more nuanced approach than last year, when any qualified California student who applied before Nov. 20 was accepted, but those who applied between Nov. 20 and 30 were accepted or wait-listed, based on where they lived. That policy triggered a barrage of angry phone calls to the SJSU admission office.

Today's GI Bill: Connecting America's Veterans to Higher Education

Now SCUPers can connect on Facebook and on LinkedIn.

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Tomorrow, Wednesday, November 11, is Veterans Day. Take a moment to let someone you know who has served that you appreciate their service.

The American Council in Education (ACE) has just launched a new website to assist veterans in navigating their choices and making the most of their opportunities: "Service members and veterans deserve access to high-quality, postsecondary education. It eases the transition into civilian life and ensures lifelong economic and social benefits. Today’s GI Bill is designed to help you make the most of your education benefits by providing clear yet comprehensive guidance."

Establishing a Veteran-Friendly Campus

This brief article from Business Officer+ is a mini-case study about Youngstown State University, which established a formal Office of Veterans' Affairs aimed at recruitment of veterans who have the new GI Bill:

The challenge in recruiting veterans is that they are not gathered in great numbers in one place as are high school students, office professionals, or displaced workers seeking to retrain. What veterans do have, however, is a strong word-of-mouth network and family connections looking out for them. These realities are the basis for YSU's recruiting strategies.

What Are College Admission Counselors' Perspectives in 2009?

Today's Campus (formerly Greentree Gazette) shares a collection of very brief quotes from conversations it overheard at the National Association for College Admission Counseling annual meeting recently, in Baltimore. Some examples: "Using sophisticated econometric models, we predicted enrollment to be down 10 percent this year.  That didn’t happen." - Kevin Crockett, CEO, Noel-Levitz; and "This is not the bad year.  By the time everyone realized (in Spring 2009) that this economic situation was not a blip, they had already committed (for Fall 2009).  Next year will be the test."  -Brian Niles, CEO, Target X.

A Tale of Enrollment Planning Strategies in Two University Systems

A brief, but useful compare and contrast interview, which provides some related environmental scanning insights:

Enrollment management strategies at the University System of New Hampshire and the California State University System reflect starkly different geographic realities. While USNH projects a dwindling market, CSU is struggling to serve a growing population. Despite the contrasts, each can learn from the other.

California Community Colleges Between a Rock and a Hard Place

The California Postsecondary Education Commission recently published an advisory report for the governor and legislature on the crunch where declining budge resources meet climbing demand for enrollment in community colleges: 

"The community colleges took an 8 percent budget cut for the 2009–10 school year. If the colleges cut enrollment proportionately, nearly 180,000 potential students could be turned away. The state is currently not providing any funding for enrollment growth. Three-quarters of districts already serve more students than they have space for. To catch up with growing enrollment demand, community colleges will need at least 3% enrollment growth funding annually until college opportunity is restored."

Read the full article here; http://www.cpec.ca.gov/PressRelease/Press2009_08_31_Mtg.pdf

A meeting agenda and reports may be viewed at www.cpec.ca.gov/agendas/agnd0909.asp. CPEC audio-streams its meetings atmedia.cpec.ca.gov/media.

Access Matters

Related: A concurrent session at SCUP–44: The College Funding Crisis: Five Ways Planning Can Help.

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As we keep reminding ourselves in the SCUP office, "Never waste a crisis."

Colleges and universities must begin to forge a new alliance with government at both the state and federal levels. Higher education can plant the seed for such an alliance by investing in efforts to educate the public and government officials about the nature and breadth of the financial aid problem and its potential impact on America’s fortunes. . . . Equally important, all constituencies in higher education must make a genuine attempt to reduce operating costs without sacrificing educational quality. Reducing costs is an essential good-faith effort to win the support of political officials and the American public.