Looking Beyond the Campus Visit: How Online Behavior is Changing Predictive Enrollment
Many admissions directors I’ve spoken with explain that of all the predictive indicators they track, a campus visit is the most telling of whether an admitted student will actually enroll. Indeed, a student’s behavior, such as a campus visit, is typically a much stronger predictor for enrollment than geographic or demographic data, such as whether [...]
Wooing International Students Without the Help of US News
Flashback to my junior year of high school in Singapore. I was an international student, and even though I had followed an American high school curriculum, selecting which US colleges to apply to was overwhelming. There were the obvious “brand name” institutions: Stanford, Harvard, Yale, as well as universities in famous US cities such as [...]
How Should Colleges Respond to Declining Student Populations?
A daunting trend has beleaguered the health of higher ed institutions in the Midwest and Northeast–declining numbers of high-school graduates. According to a recent Inside Higher Ed report, declining student populations in the Midwest and Northeast present a challenge for colleges who primarily recruit students in those markets. Since I consult primarily with institutions in the [...]
Increasing Enrollment in the Face of Budget Cuts
I’ve had dozens of conversations with Admissions Directors who feel stuck between a rock and a hard place: trying to increase enrollment numbers in the face of shrinking budgets. State and local funding for public higher education per student fell by 21 percent from 2000 to 2010. California alone saw $650 million in budget cuts [...]
