Campus Case Study Archives - Ruffalo Noel Levitz Blog: Higher Education Enrollment, Student Retention, and Student Success

Using college student satisfaction data to take action to improve: Examples from campuses

May 22, 2017 by Julie Bryant, Associate Vice President for Retention Solutions, RNL Leave a Comment

I recently heard someone say, “Schools don’t lack for data. However, they often lack the ability to take action with their data.” Do you agree? As you gather student feedback data on your campus, I encourage you to look for survey tools that are going to give you data that is prioritized and actionable.

Student satisfaction surveys from Ruffalo Noel Levitz are one example of an actionable survey tool. These surveys gather student perceptions of the current experience at your institution and prioritize the findings. Many institutions assess student satisfaction on a regular basis with these tools. College student satisfaction data can serve as the “student voice” for informed decision making for student success efforts (i.e. retention improvements), strategic planning, and accreditation purposes.

Prioritization drives action

The college student satisfaction data from the RNL Student Satisfaction Inventory (SSI) are prioritized based on two types of scores students assign to each survey item:

– importance scores (a level of expectation)
– satisfaction scores (student perceptions of their current experience)

The survey uncovers priority items for improvement by identifying areas where students express a high level of importance along with a low level of satisfaction, based on national norms. Survey items measured in this way are actionable by changing institutional policies and procedures, immediately or in the near future, and by adjusting student perceptions.

To take action, you also need the following:

Supportive leadership
Budget dollars (but there are things that can be done with a small investment)
Individuals who will take responsibility for new initiatives
Additional direction from students–through focus groups or other qualitative methods–to be sure you fully understand what the item on the survey means on your campus.

Examples from campuses putting college student satisfaction data to work

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Share your student success assets with others

February 7, 2017 by Janene Panfil, Senior Vice President for Retention Solutions, RNL Leave a Comment

We all live in and enjoy the benefits of a sharing economy, where individuals are able to borrow or rent assets owned by someone else. We see this regularly when the price of the asset is high (a car, a home) and not fully utilized all of the time, think Airbnb, Uber. But it can also apply to the sharing of information technology and intellectual resources. It’s that sharing of intellectual resources, specifically, college student success assets, that I want to focus on today.

As educators, the reality of our work today is that we face intense pressure to address our college student success needs. Think performance-based funding, budgeting and net revenue issues, accreditation, local, regional, and national employment trends. And student needs are changing as demographics change; we have less time and resources to design an effective solution, not to mention we have very little room for error. Instead of designing something from the ground up, we often take advantage of our student success sharing economy and frequently look to established best practices, associations, vendors, and colleagues for an idea that can be customized to fit our unique needs and situation.

Descriptions of more than 170 award-winning retention programs

I hope you’ve taken advantage of the body of knowledge Ruffalo Noel Levitz contributes to the student success sharing economy. One way we contribute is by celebrating effective college retention programs with the Lee Noel and Randi Levitz Retention Excellence Awards (REAs). More than 170 colleges and universities have been honored with Retention Excellence Awards and they all have shared their retention assets via our compendium. If you’re looking for new ideas to serve minority students, to create a comprehensive retention plan, to recruit back stop outs or virtually anything else, check out the retention assets your colleagues have shared.

Apply for a Retention Excellence Award

Naturally, giving is as important as receiving in the college student success sharing economy. I invite you to share your retention assets by applying for a 2017 Retention Excellence Award (REA). Applications are now being accepted and must be completed by March 17, 2017. The application process is brief and is similar to submitting a proposal to present at a conference. Up to three winners will be recognized and the honor includes a free conference registration to the National Conference on Student Marketing Recruitment and Retention being held in Denver, July 26-28, 2017. Winners are featured in a national webinar hosted by Ruffalo Noel Levitz and will serve as a judge in selecting the 2018 winners.

Please take the time to contribute to the student success sharing economy. I encourage you to review the application and consider applying. The process is easy, and the rewards for your campus and our student success sharing economy are many!

Questions? Please contact me directly by email or call me at 800.876.1117, ext. 8787.

Application inflation: How one college successfully responded to its stacks of incomplete applications (Part 2)

November 15, 2016 by Ruffalo Noel Levitz Leave a Comment

This is part two of a two-part blog post published with the permission of Simmons College

Recap: Simmons College (read part one here)

“The college’s system was handling a growing number of applications and the admissions team was becoming increasingly bogged down with trying to get them to an actionable status. Having to focus on the logistics of application materials limited the meaningful conversations counselors could have with interested students and their families—and lower yield rates showed it. Dolan believed it was time to reconsider how they built and cultivated the college’s inquiry and applicant pools.”

Our story continues…Adapting to a new approach

Telling your campus that you’re experiencing what was ultimately a 27 percent decrease in applications is enough to cause panic, despite the very promising indicator of a rise in campus visits that fall. Dr. Dolan is the first to admit that there was more than a little trepidation on campus as their first early action deadline neared. The raw application numbers didn’t live up to the previous year, and he realized they needed to assess (and report on) different metrics because this was a very different approach. A closer look at the status of the first round of early action applications painted a more promising picture. “Our file completion rate was 97 percent. We had never seen that before.” Without changing its admission standards, Simmons had the same number of offers of acceptance to keep it on track for its yield and enrollment targets. The trend continued through the second early action and regular decision deadlines.

What’s more, with its inquiry pool now qualified, the team could see that the number of prospective students who had a very high interest in Simmons was, in Dr. Dolan’s words, “through the roof.”

Focusing on applicants—not applications

With RNL providing unprecedented intelligence on each prospective student, the counselors were able to focus their own outreach. They could do seemingly simple things that made a tremendous difference. For example, they could reach out to all of their prospective students who hadn’t yet filed financial aid forms and advise them on the process. In the past, the applicant volume prevented being able to achieve that in the tight timeline necessary. “The team became so much more efficient. They had more time to connect with their prospective students and strengthen those relationships. They really understood their students,” said Dolan.

Focusing on the right numbers

Explaining the new approach and its benefit to students is great, but in assessing and projecting enrollment to the campus, it’s still about numbers. It’s just that the numbers they needed to look at were different now. “We needed to educate our community,” Dr. Dolan explains. With the support, insights, and counsel of the RNL team, Simmons rebuilt its metrics to evaluate the applicant pool, including building a 13-point affinity metric. “It was still a bit of a leap of faith,” Dolan admits, “but by March 11 we knew we had it.”
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Application inflation: How one college successfully responded to its stacks of incomplete applications

November 7, 2016 by Ruffalo Noel Levitz Leave a Comment

This is part one of a two-part blog post published with the permission of Simmons College.
See part 2.

Simmons College was in a good place in fall 2015. One year after enrolling the smallest class in its history, the freshman class of this Massachusetts college was now its largest ever. Not a small feat for this private, liberal arts women’s college in Boston. It was the type of success you’d want to replicate. So—for many people—it was a bit of a shock when the college completely changed its recruitment and marketing approach for the class entering in fall 2016. Why make such a seemingly risky move?

Dr. John F. Dolan, vice president of enrollment management at Simmons since 2014, explains, “Our system was full with applications that didn’t necessarily behave the way we needed or wanted…and required too much time and energy to manage.” He chose to partner with Ruffalo Noel Levitz (RNL) to more effectively manage the college’s enrollment stream.

The perils of inflated applications

In making this decision, Dr. Dolan had taken a close look at the numbers. Applications had more than doubled since 2007: to the casual observer, a positive indicator of demand. Yet the number of offers of acceptance remained steady—and not by a concerted decision to become more selective. Rather, it was because the number of completed applications actually remained flat over the same period.

This meant the college’s system was handling a growing number of applications and the admissions team was becoming increasingly bogged down with trying to get them to an actionable status. Having to focus on the logistics of application materials limited the meaningful conversations counselors could have with interested students and their families—and lower yield rates showed it. Dolan believed it was time to reconsider how they built and cultivated the college’s inquiry and applicant pools.

Refocusing on genuine interest: It’s all about getting the right applicants, not just generating more applications

In partnering with RNL to recruit and enroll its class entering for fall 2016, Simmons College utilized the company’s Enrollment Marketing Solutions and Enhanced Search Strategies. RNL employed its customized predictive analytics and its multi-channel creative communications approach to strengthen Simmons’ search program, which included rising seniors. RNL also surveyed students in the inquiry pool, scored their enrollment propensity using predictive analytics, and engaged with them via its Comprehensive Inquiry Management.
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Campus case study: How fall 2016 enrollment GREW via a counterintuitive DROP in applications

September 14, 2016 by Ruffalo Noel Levitz Leave a Comment

For Marquette University, freshman enrollment increased for fall 2016 by 163 students despite a 39 percent decrease in submitted applications. The difference? A stronger applicant pool. Marquette achieved a major boost by searching for the right students thanks to a shift in campus culture and data-driven strategies that targeted students who were more likely to enroll—not just fill out another application.

Better qualified pool of applicants a key to enrollment gain

In her first year as interim dean of admissions at this four-year private institution, Jean Burke saw the need for a change in student search and application generation. While Marquette’s application numbers had increased over the years through its search program, yield was not increasing. The university desired to reach more of the right applicants—those who would proceed to enroll after applying.

The quest to build a more qualified applicant pool and a more focused search program came with a challenge: Could the university trust the analytics from Ruffalo Noel Levitz (RNL) which showed, counterintuitively, that yield would increase with a decrease in the number of applications?

To conduct a more intentional search based on using analytics to reach a more specific audience, the university’s leaders took a leap of faith. Why? Because getting more of the right applications was the goal—not getting more applications overall. Also, the staff realized that having a smaller search pool would make it possible to spend more time and resources on students who were more likely to enroll.

“Our staff was so excited to hear that we were going to make this change,” Burke said. “It was a risk, but I felt that it was a calculated risk.”

To set the wheels in motion, Burke built a team to work with Ruffalo Noel Levitz to implement the new strategy.

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