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 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 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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Recognizing innovative college student retention programs

June 25, 2015 by Julie Bryant Leave a Comment

Earlier this year, I wrote about why we need to hear about college retention programs that are working. I shared that we have the opportunity to learn from the excellent retention programs that are making a difference in student success across the county. Part of my intention in writing that blog was to encourage institutions to apply for the 2015 Lee Noel and Randi Levitz Retention Excellence Awards (REAs). More than 165 colleges and universities have received this award since the REAs began in 1989, and I am excited to share the three institutions (and their retention programs) that are joining this prestigious list in 2015:

University of Central Oklahoma: Operation Degree Completion
Edgewood College: Strategic Retention Plan
Grand Rapids Community College: FastTrack

A common theme among these programs is the importance of innovation in retention.

University of Central Oklahoma helps students and former students become alumni

The Operation Degree Completion program at the University of Central Oklahoma has two steps. The first step is to track down students who have disappeared from campus even after completing almost all of the requirements to graduate and then guide them to graduation. The solution could be changing a major to a more general degree, or taking just one more course, or simply applying for graduation. The full-time advisor for the program knows a little about re-admissions and financial aid and a lot about persistence!

The second step builds on reverse transfer trends by identifying transfer students who have enough credits to receive an associate’s degree from the originating community college. Unofficial transcripts are provided to the community college for each eligible student, and a degree check is run by the community college adviser. Students are then contacted and informed of their new degrees. How innovative is it to improve institutional graduation rates with students who have already achieved (or almost achieved) the requirements and simply don’t know it? Can you imagine how thrilled these students must be?

Result: Since the inception of Operation Degree Completion, the university has awarded 270 bachelor’s degrees, exceeding its goal one year early, and is on track to facilitate more than 2,000 associate degrees. In addition, the program generated an additional 10,651 credit hours due to students returning to complete their degrees. This represents $1.7 million in additional tuition revenue.

Edgewood College’s institutional culture improves retention and graduation

Edgewood College’s Strategic Retention Plan is a multiyear, collegewide project. The Strategic Retention Plan guides efforts to puts students and their success at the heart of what the college does. One initial step of the plan was to establish a group of faculty, staff, and students to research and make recommendations to strengthen the first-year experience. Action steps included establishing a common reading program, expanding the first-year seminar to a three-credit academically-oriented class, expanding the early alert program, and revising the academic advising infrastructure.

Once Edgewood College experienced success with first-year students, they turned their attention to second-year students. Activities included a “sophomore summit” to share research findings, the development of a “welcome to the academic department” program, and a more comprehensive approach to working with students who have not yet declared a major. Edgewood’s Strategic Retention Plan objectives are reviewed annually and action steps are updated quarterly by the retention council. While many of these initiatives are commonly recognized best practices, Edgewood’s comprehensive approach has been innovative and successful in improving student success.

Result: Since committing to this approach, retention for first-year students has steadily increased from a low of 66 percent in 2005 to a high of 82 percent in 2012. Four-year graduation has increased from 27 percent in 2005 to 40 percent in 2014. Five-year graduation has increased from 48 percent in 2005 to 55 percent in 2014. In addition, students indicate higher levels of engagement and satisfaction, and alumni continue to report strong employment and graduate school placement rates.

Grand Rapids Community College develops a program to help students bypass developmental education

Supported by a U.S. Department of Education Title III grant, Grand Rapids Community College created FastTrack–a program to help students bypass developmental education with an emphasis on retention and completion. FastTrack is an intensive three-week, 14-hour-per-week learning lab in which students remediate academic skills through a combination of web-based and tutor-guided activities. There are specific labs for reading, English, and math. The purpose of the program is to give developmental students an opportunity to accelerate skill building so they are able to bypass developmental course work and move directly into college-level courses. Eligible students are referred to FastTrack after they complete their placement tests, and students who choose to participate must accept the requirements to participate in the program (including completing a mandatory student success plan with an advisor and working with a college success coach).

FastTrack is free for qualifying students. Once they complete the program, they are eligible to retake the placement exam for the subject they remediated. This is an innovative approach that avoids students getting slowed down in a semester-long developmental class and gets them into college-level classes sooner and more successfully.

Result: Since FastTrack’s implementation in 2012, 837 students have been recruited for the program and 651 students successfully completed the three-week program. Of those 651 students, 449 were successful in their retake of the placement test and were able to avoid one or more developmental education courses. FastTrack participation saved a total of $324,000 worth of in-district tuition, fees, and books for students, as well as a total of 33,480 hours of instruction for students who bypassed their placement.

Read about retention innovations and successful programs from past Retention Excellence Award winners

This year’s winners will receive their awards and share their stories during the Ruffalo Noel Levitz National Conference on Student Recruitment, Marketing, and Retention in Boston July 8-10. If you are not able to join us in Boston this year, you will also have a chance to learn more about these innovative programs during a free webinar on Tuesday, September 29. You can register for this event now. I also invite you to download the PDF of the Compendium of Successful, Innovative Retention Programs and Practices, which provide descriptions of the programs that have been recognized from 1989-2014 (we will be adding this year’s winners to that compendium after they receive their awards).

What are you doing to improve student success on your campus? Consider sharing your approach with us by applying for next year’s Retention Excellence Awards. The application will be available in March 2016. In the meantime, feel free to contact me if you have questions about successful retention practices in general.

Using senior search to generate more college applications

May 1, 2014 by Pegi Anton Leave a Comment

Co-written with Andrea Gilbert.

When talking about student search, campuses usually think about search campaigns for high school sophomores and juniors. However, colleges and universities can also have success generating applications and enrollment with a focused senior search.

In many respects, a senior search is very similar to a traditional search for sophomores and juniors. You buy fresh names of seniors, develop a search campaign for them, and engage as many inquiries as possible. At the same time, the compressed period for a senior search does require campuses to adjust their traditional search strategies as there is much less time for relationship building. The list purchase in particular needs to be comprised of qualified leads who can quickly turn into inquiries, applicants, and enrolled students.

I can illustrate an effective senior search campaign by discussing how one of our Noel-Levitz Direct marketing campus partners, Midwestern State University, conducted one.

Building a qualified senior list through predictive modeling

Midwestern State University is a regional four-year institution that, prior to working with us, had declining local enrollment. It suffered from limited brand awareness and was squeezed between two large metropolitan markets that were within a two-hour drive. The campus had an immediate need to boost enrollment, which meant increasing the application pool as quickly as possible. A senior search would be an ideal strategy.

However, given budgets and the shortened time frame of a senior search, campuses have to be very strategic about the names that they buy. Frankly, we do not recommend conducting a senior search without some kind of predictive modeling qualification. Predictive modeling allows an institution to use advanced statistical analytics to assess the likelihood of a prospective student enrolling. For a senior search, this means a campus can zero in on prospects who have a good chance of not only applying, but enrolling if accepted, which makes for a much stronger list purchase.

That’s what Midwestern State did. They used the Noel-Levitz SMART Approach system, which applies a predictive model to the data-rich NRCCUA database of high school students. This allowed them to cultivate names that had a higher propensity to enroll and that had other desired characteristics as well. Not only did Midwestern State use this method to uncover senior prospects in their traditional markets, they also found students in new markets they would have otherwise overlooked.
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Increasing student success through statistical modeling for student retention: Lynchburg College (Virginia)

November 12, 2012 by Ruffalo Noel Levitz 2 Comments

Lynchburg College is a small, private liberal arts institution serving students from diverse geographic regions with a wide range of academic performance (high school GPAs ranging from 2.5 to 4.0). Because of this diversity, Lynchburg College has made it a campuswide priority to understand the needs of incoming students and connect them to the resources they need to succeed.

Since 1998, the campus has used the College Student Inventory (CSI), an assessment for incoming freshmen. The CSI measures the self-reported strengths and challenges for students along with their receptivity to assistance. It has helped Lynchburg identify at-risk students earlier and make more targeted interventions. The student data also provide valuable information for academic advisors.

After more than a decade with the CSI, Lynchburg decided to enhance its retention efforts by adding another component: predictive modeling for student retention with the Student Retention Predictor (SRP). This combines the college’s enrollment data with the CSI data into a powerful statistical model that provides comprehensive student retention analytics. Being able to gather data from multiple points efficiently and effectively has helped the college build on proactive retention strategies already in place.

One key factor that spurred Lynchburg to add this predictive modeling element was the inclusion of a sweeping, integrated online portal called the Retention Data Center. This portal not only makes it very easy for the campus to manage its retention analytics, but also allows it to prioritize first-year students based on their retention scores, run key strategic reports, customize the scope of student records, and provide advisors with key information about individual students or populations.

“With the Student Retention Predictor, we are able to not only see a more comprehensive picture, but we are able to get into the Retention Data Center and do something with the data. It isn’t just there to look at—it is there to use,” says Mari Normyle, assistant dean for academic and career services at the college. This became increasingly crucial for the campus as its enrollments grew over the years, especially after enrolling the largest class in school history in 2011.

With student retention, there are a host of variables that can contribute to a student persisting. Academics, motivations, family background, social attitudes, and finances are just some of the myriad factors that can affect whether students complete their educational goals. But what role do these factors play in retention?

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The joys of constant vigilance: A case study of the student retention funnel

June 27, 2012 by Dr. Lew Sanborne 1 Comment

How can campuses avoid student retention surprises?

One of my campus partners copied me on an e-mail recently that reminded me why I so enjoy being a retention consultant for Noel-Levitz. The e-mail consisted of a 2011 fall cohort enrollment update. In mid-June this college’s retention director was providing an update to the goal for the fall 2011 cohort’s retention rate: about 17 percent of the fall 2011 cohort was not enrolled for the fall 2012 term. Also, she could account for those who were not enrolled—the list correlated highly with students who had been under review through this college’s early-alert system. Even better, the anticipated retention rate of more than 82 percent is significantly ahead of the retention goal for the cohort. This retention director also explained how much “melt” (the number of enrolled students who might withdraw) could occur and still have the cohort meet goal.

In a 102-word e-mail, this retention director encapsulated so many best practices that I had to share them in this blog. Let me tell you what I see from a chronological perspective. First, this college had a clearly documented retention goal for this particular cohort (I should note that this goal had been revised up a year earlier based on the performance of the previous cohort). The campus leaders who were the primary recipients of this e-mail knew the goal and had charged the retention director to mobilize the campus to meet the goal. She was also empowered to bring key campus constituents together to do the work. Clearly the president and cabinet had provided a strong foundation.

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Campus case study: Aurora University

February 17, 2011 by Ruffalo Noel Levitz 1 Comment

Aurora University partners with Noel-Levitz to strategically target their recruitment efforts and increase enrollment rates and net revenue. Higher education recruitment tools case study.

Aurora University uses data to grow enrollment and increase their net revenue.

For several years, Aurora University in Illinois had been trying to increase its first-year enrollment without reducing its net revenue. “We always had a goal of 200 freshmen,” says Director of Freshman Admission James Lancaster, an Aurora alumnus who assumed that role in 1999. “But our average freshman class from 1990 to 1999 was 148.”

When President Rebecca Sherrick arrived in 1999, Lancaster relates, she asked Noel-Levitz to evaluate the college’s enrollment efforts and provide strategic advice. That year, the admission office began employing the Noel-Levitz Enrollment & Revenue Management System™, which uses an institution’s historical enrollment, tuition, and award data to create an econometric model that guides financial aid awarding to maximize enrollment returns. “This allowed us to take a hard look at price elasticity to make decisions on tuition hikes and merit awards to help us shape and build our class,” Lancaster says. “We hit 204 that year.”
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