Enrollment Management Archives - Page 3 of 27 - Ruffalo Noel Levitz Blog: Higher Education Enrollment, Student Retention, and Student Success

Seven ways to understand your prospective student pool using conversion benchmarks

December 15, 2016 by Anne Monroe Leave a Comment

How healthy is your pool of prospective students for 2017? Are you on track to achieve your enrollment goals? Our latest set of recruitment conversion benchmarks can help you better understand the quality of your pool now–and throughout the cycle–and can help identify possible strategies to take now to close any gaps.

Accurate prospective student conversion data is the key. Below are some specific suggestions for how to use peer institution benchmarks to take your prospective student conversion to the next level.

1) Be sure to track separate student populations in your institution’s conversion rates. As the latest data from Ruffalo Noel Levitz’s 2016 Recruitment Conversion and Yield Rate Benchmarks demonstrate, different types of prospective students convert and yield at different rates, so it is no longer possible to use a “one-size-fits-all” tracking approach. We recommend that four-year public and private campuses should, at minimum, be separately tracking freshmen and transfers, in-state and out-of-state, international, traditional and nontraditional-age, and campus applications versus applicants from third-party services. In addition, applicants whose first contact is the application (stealth applicants) should be tracked separately from those who are inquiries before applying.

2) Develop more accurate enrollment projections using your institutions’ conversion data from previous years. Look back at your own internal conversion rates first, even before examining external benchmarks such as those from Ruffalo Noel Levitz. By examining your institution’s historic conversion rates at each stage of the cycle and for each type of applicant, you can better predict where your future enrollment will end up as each week of the admissions cycle unfolds. For effective internal benchmark comparisons, we advise our client institutions to store and analyze three to five years of comparative data. To more fully understand how to use this historical trend data to predict and influence enrollment, see the table and illustrations on pages 2 and 3 of the Ruffalo Noel Levitz white paper, 7 Categories of Admissions Data to Guide Decision-Making.

3) Strengthen your recruitment strategies by using peer benchmarks to identify strengths and challenges/opportunities. This will allow you to keep building more efficient and effective programs for student recruitment and admission. For example, in places where you see that your conversion rate is significantly lower than peer institutions, you may need to initiate new activities aimed at raising your rate. Or, in cases where you see that your rate is above a given benchmark, you may decide to build on that area as a particular strength of your admissions/recruitment/marketing program.

4) Measure conversion of students from your search purchases to assess your effectiveness in drawing them to your institution. The days of the convenient “response card” are long gone, but institutions still need to assess the return on their investment in search name purchases—specifically, the percentage that convert to inquiries. If your conversion rate is lower than peers’, you may need to step up your early contact with all, or a qualified portion, of the search pool. Coverage rate (the percent of enrolled students who were in the search campaigns) should also be calculated.
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Highlights from 2016 enrollment research:
7 things we learned this year about college students and higher education enrollment management

December 2, 2016 by Ruffalo Noel Levitz 1 Comment

2016 research from Ruffalo Noel Levitz shows student trends and data that colleges and universities can use to guide their planning processes

Ruffalo Noel Levitz conducted numerous studies in 2016 to understand the behaviors and attitudes of prospective and current students in higher education as they relate to student recruitment, campus marketing, and student retention. We also examined current campus practices for enrollment and marketing. Here are just a few highlights from all that we learned this year:

The college website is still the #1 way to communicate with prospective students but the runner-up is now split between email and text messaging. In recent polls, campus officials rated text messaging and email almost equally effective, and 70 percent of prospective students indicated they were open to receiving text messages from colleges and universities. But fewer than half of campuses currently send mass recruiting texts. Download our 2016 Marketing and Student Recruitment Practices Benchmark Report, our 2016 E-Recruiting Practices Report, and watch for our forthcoming 2016 E-Expectations Report.

Colleges and universities can accomplish five goals at once by increasing student satisfaction. Many consumer studies have shown that increasing satisfaction builds positive word of mouth. Now a 2016 study has confirmed that increasing student satisfaction is also linked to lower student loan default rates, adding to earlier-confirmed links with higher retention rates, completion rates, and alumni giving. Is your institution measuring and rewarding improvements in satisfaction? See the research.

At $2,232 per student, private colleges spent nearly four times more than four-year public institutions on student recruitment last year. We also learned that budgets for recruitment and admissions remained flat over the past two years for the majority of four-year and two-year institutions. Is your institution tracking ROI on all of its recruiting activities and identifying new, high-payback opportunities? See our 2016 Report: Cost of Recruiting an Undergraduate Student.

40 percent of high school seniors apply to colleges they learn about during their senior year. In addition, 50 percent of seniors rule out institutions based only on “sticker price.” Is your institution focusing a substantial amount of its recruiting on seniors? And how are you emphasizing your institution’s value to skeptical students and parents? Download our 2016 Perceptions of Financial Aid Report and Infographic.

54 percent of adult prospective students have clicked on a paid online ad from a college or university, as have 47 percent of high school juniors, yet most institutions place these ads only occasionally. What new digital outreach strategies should your institution be considering in 2017? Download our 2016 Adult E-Expectations Report, our 2016 E-Recruiting Practices Report, and watch for our forthcoming 2016 E-Expectations Report.

Mathematics is a struggle for 51 percent of incoming adult learners, including 53 percent of incoming first-generation adult students. Our 2016 research shows a majority of incoming students agree with the statement, “Math has always been difficult for me.” Do you know how many students at your institution are struggling with mathematics and other areas inside and outside the classroom? Download our 2016 Adult Learner Motivation to Complete College Report.

95 percent of incoming traditional-age students express a desire to graduate, but only about half do. Our latest freshman research shows a wide array of personal, social, financial, and academic obstacles prevent students from reaching their goals. Have you explored the merits of using noncognitive surveys to better understand your incoming students’ needs early on, or do you wait until you see visible signs of struggle? See our 2016 Freshman Motivation to Complete College Report.

New edition of book, plans for 2017 research
Also in 2016, we released our 2016 update of the book, Strategic Enrollment Planning: A Dynamic Collaboration. Order this authoritative, step-by-step guide to help your campus prepare for major changes in today’s marketplace.

Looking ahead to 2017, we plan to release new benchmarks on college student satisfaction and motivation, new research on recruiting conversion and yield rates, a new study of student retention indicators, and updates on rising seniors’ perceptions of financial aid and high school students’ and parents’ perceptions of and preferences for college communications.

Sign up to receive the latest updates
Ruffalo Noel Levitz regularly publishes white papers and trend reports. Sign up to be notified when new reports are available.

Learn more about our Higher Education Research
To help educators stay on top of the many changes in higher education, we regularly conduct trend research and share our findings widely. Learn about several ways we provide information.

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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Student success today – why it’s important to “sweat the small stuff”

October 19, 2016 by Julie Bryant Leave a Comment

Some of you may remember Richard Carlson’s late 1990’s advice, “Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff.” A copy of this motivational book is on my bookshelf. It reminds me not to let the minutiae of life get in the way of the big picture.

However, when it comes to the college experience of today’s students, you may want to reconsider this advice and start paying attention to the little aggravations and annoyances that your students are experiencing, because we have seen that these can indeed make an impact on students’ larger perceptions of your institution. Sometimes, small details truly do matter.

First, let’s look at the big picture.

Over the past 20-plus years, we have studied our National Student Satisfaction and Priorities Reports and consistently seen that a high priority area for improvement for students at four-year private and public institutions is: “Tuition paid is a worthwhile investment.”

How four-year college students rate the statement,
“Tuition paid is a worthwhile investment”

	Students attending four-year private institutions	Students attending four-year public institutions
Importance to me	88%	86%
My satisfaction level	45%	52%
Performance gap	43%	34%

Source: 2015-2016 National Student Satisfaction and Priorities Report, www.RuffaloNL.com/SatisfactionBenchmarks

The chart above reflects the percentage of students who indicate that this statement is important or very important to them as well as the percentage that say they are satisfied or very satisfied, as measured on our Student Satisfaction Inventory (SSI). The performance gap is the difference between these two numbers. For your reference, in the range of scores at four-year privates, the tuition-is-worth-it statement is eighth in rank order of importance (out of 73 items), but with satisfaction scores that can get as high as 72 percent in the national data, you can see that there is definitely room for improvement here. Similarly, at four-year publics, this statement is again eighth in rank order of importance, and satisfaction scores can range up to 69 percent, so again, improvements can be made at four-year publics as well. (As a side note: Students at two-year community colleges, where tuition amounts are often much lower, score this item higher, with importance at 90 percent and satisfaction at 69 percent.)

So what can colleges and universities do to improve perceptions of student tuition being worthwhile?

When consulting with colleges about their satisfaction scores, I used to recommend that institutions respond to this issue by working to improve students’ perceptions of the value of their education. This included suggestions such as telling students more about job placement rates and other outcomes after graduation, like the success of college alumni. I still believe these are important messages, especially while you are recruiting new students. It is also a good idea to continue to emphasize these messages with enrolled students. But sometimes, if an individual student doesn’t inherently value what you have to offer, it can be difficult to truly change their perception in this area.
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Recruiting international students—what’s working in today’s environment

October 18, 2016 by Deborah Pierce Leave a Comment

Many colleges and universities across the U.S. and abroad now use digital marketing tools such as chat, skype, virtual college fairs, and webinars to reach prospective international students abroad, along with a wide variety of social media and technologies including:

Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Instagram
WeChat (especially for China – 650 million monthly active users)
Blogging
WhatsApp
Google+
Snapchat
Weibo (“Twitter” for China; 460 million monthly active users)
Virtual college fairs
YouTube

Tools like these are essential elements in the mix of methods for recruiting international students–but they are not the whole thing. In my experience, most institutions find they are best used in combination with face-to-face recruiting and other key methods such as email, print materials, paid advertising, and—of course—the institution’s website.

Per Quacquarelli Symonds (QS), students outside the U.S. require a mix of online and offline resources. Online resources used include:

Official college and university websites (94% of students use)
University ranking websites (74% of students use)
Specialized recruiting websites (44% of students use sites like Study in the USA)
Student chat rooms (14%)
Social media (13%)

This data is consistent with what I hear from the NAFSA Association of International Educators: Social media in nations outside the U.S. are seen by U.S. recruiters as complementary rather than as primary recruiting tools; not as many students are depending on social media as we may think. For prospective students, social media appear to be primarily a source for ideas and inspiration, rather than a selection tool.

8 tips for taking your recruiting to the next level

Of major importance in using technology for international student recruitment:

First, get your website content and email strategy in order, then work on social media. Students prefer to use email to initiate contact with a university, but if there is no quick response, they’ll resort to social media to get what they want.
Connect students with students. Strive to create authentic conversations and to keep it genuine. Connecting prospective students with current students from the same region/country is most important.
Responses should be personal and quick–within two hours.
Photos are better than text-heavy posts.
Hire some actual students to do the posting (after training them as ambassadors).
Personalize messages: Happy Eid, Happy Lunar New Year. All communications must always be personalized and relevant.
Ask current students to evaluate your social media strategy so they can tell you what works and what doesn’t.
Social media efforts often work better as yield activities rather than as initial contact.

Something interesting, and an area that has room for significant improvement: students say it’s really hard to find information on costs and scholarships on official college and university websites. I would agree! There’s a real opportunity here for institutions willing to work hard and thoughtfully on their websites.
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Infographic: 5 gaps in college digital marketing

October 17, 2016 by Ruffalo Noel Levitz Leave a Comment

Sources for this infographic include four Ruffalo Noel Levitz reports:
The forthcoming fall 2016 E-Expectations Report
2016 Adult E-Expectations Report
2016 E-Recruiting Practices Report
2016 Marketing and Recruitment Practices Benchmark Report

How can you improve your digital marketing?

Call 800.876.1117 or email us for an appointment to discuss your digital marketing strategy with an expert from Ruffalo Noel Levitz. We’ll listen to what’s working for you, and share what’s working for our partner campuses. All conversations are completely confidential.

Join us for two upcoming webinars

Maximizing Your Engagement With Prospective Students on Social Media
Thursday, October 20, 2016, 2 p.m. Eastern Time
How to Reach Prospective Adult Students: Insights From 2016 E-Expectations Research
Thursday, November 10, 2016, 2 p.m. Eastern Time

6 college shopping behaviors of high school seniors

September 20, 2016 by Dr. Raquel Bermejo Leave a Comment

How does your application data compare?

Take a data-informed approach to the recruitment of high school seniors! Study your own data. Data should drive your strategies.

I can help you take a look at your current efforts to communicate, engage, and recruit high school seniors and uncover opportunities to make your communications more effective, target prospective students who fit your enrollment goals, and other strategies. Email me and I will be happy to set up a time to talk—with me or one of my student search colleagues.

Seeking gender balance in college and university enrollments

September 19, 2016 by Aaron Mahl Leave a Comment

This post is adapted from a recent article in University Business

Achieving gender balance in college enrollments means different things to different institutions. Technical programs with STEM-heavy curricula have traditionally struggled to attract female enrollments, though women are fast making inroads into these fields. Large public universities and smaller liberal arts colleges, on the other hand, are finding it increasingly difficult to maintain their male enrollments.

By 2020, it is projected that men will only represent 41 percent of college enrollees. Research has shown that not only are fewer men attending postsecondary institutions, but also that a larger percentage of them are dropping out as well. These data are certainly sobering, especially for institutions who desire a larger percentage of male students.

Calibrating goals to reality

For institutions struggling to attract males, reasonable goals should be considered. Institutions with a broad mix of academic and co-curricular programs may be able to achieve 45-50 percent male enrollment. However, for other institutions that lack programmatic advantages (both curricular and co-curricular), achieving 35-40 percent male enrollment may be an aspirational goal. Given the challenging statistics noted above, it is imperative that colleges and universities be proactive and intentional if they hope to overcome the demographic obstacles standing in the way of gender balance.

Academic and co-curricular programs

The balance of academic programs can have a significant impact on male/female ratios. Attracting a higher percentage of men will likely begin with the institution’s academic portfolio. When was the last time your institution audited its academic offerings? Examining yields by academic division and/or program over a five to seven year period may reveal certain academic programs where you’ve lost male market share. What programs are attracting a higher number of male admits? Where has yield either decreased or increased dramatically over the last five years?

It is also important for institutional and academic leadership to consider its ability to attract a balanced gender representation from any future majors or programs that come online. Of course, before launching any academic program, conducting market research on expected returns and weighing those returns against the institution’s enrollment goals will be critical.

Athletic programs

Institutions have also utilized athletics to grow enrollment from males. Although a costly sport, beginning a football program can boost enrollment by 80-100 students in one enrollment cycle. Of course, as with any initiative, examining the trade-offs will be necessary. What is the start-up cost of beginning a new athletic program? What indirect investments in support services will be needed? What will the impact be on retention? What type of impact will the new program have on the campus culture?

Marketing to men

Institutions seeking to grow male enrollment would also be well-served by conducting an audit of their marketing materials. For those institutions seeking to attract men, here are some questions to consider: What type of language is used in your publications? Can male prospective students easily “see themselves” in your campus culture? Do you emphasize extracurricular activities like athletics and hands-on classroom experiences? Do you segment your communication by gender? Consider having a segment of recruitment materials designed entirely for males. Institutions have long segmented other communication based on their enrollment goals. Perhaps it is time to develop a “male communication track” which highlights the features and advantages of your institution that are most likely to attract males.
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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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