Strategies to increase enrollment with a limited admission team

Last Updated on December 16, 2024 by iSchoolConnect

The higher education enrollment landscape has evolved significantly owing to the pandemic. Enrollment leaders across the globe are recalibrating strategies to achieve enrollment targets with a leaner team. In the sea of ever-emerging marketing practices, enrollment managers may find it difficult to narrow down the most effective tools. Here’s what to look for when exploring the various methods to cost-effectively improve institutions’ enrollment growth.

According to recent data from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, colleges and universities across the U.S. faced significant challenges in fall 2024, with overall freshman enrollment declining by 5%. Public and private nonprofit four-year institutions saw the largest drop, exceeding 6%. Private colleges serving a high number of Pell Grant recipients experienced an even steeper decline, averaging over 10%.

These trends highlight the growing pressures on institutions to adapt to shifting student demographics, budget constraints, and rising competition. Admission teams are now expected to do more with limited resources, making the adoption of effective strategies essential for enhancing productivity and achieving institutional goals.

Problems caused by limited resources

Operating on a low/small workforce can be significantly detrimental to the growth and objectives of the organization as it increases the workload and responsibilities of the existing members. This, in turn, can lead to inefficiency and resentment unless reinforced with enhanced strategy and cutting-edge tools.

img-alt;causes-of-work-related-stress;SOURCE: HSE- Work-related stress, anxiety or depression statistics in Great Britain, 2021.

Some other issues caused by limited resources are-

Ineffective data management

One of the major challenges universities face is ineffective data management because of the amount of student information they consume. Admission counselors not only interact with students but also juggle multiple tasks, such as working leads, managing sheets, Gmail, answering student queries, and so on.

Because of multitasking and managing many things at once, their productivity gets affected. In the higher education industry, time is money, and it’s important to have a quick turnaround time with queries.

Irregular follow-ups

The institution’s admission team receives 100s of leads every day from different sources. Due to this, there is an expectation that each of these leads must have a timely follow-up despite the team size.

Since these students are applying to many universities, the universities that follow up look more promising, and they are the ones that students apply to.

img-alt;problems-caused-by-limited-resources;The HSE management standards cover six key areas of work that can affect employees’ health and productivity. They are- demands, control, support, relationship, role, and change.

Manual creation of reports

Using sheets involves a manual process of data management, which results in more work for employees. Creating reports, analyzing the data, and seeding in the information that comes in from these leads is a tedious process that takes up a lot of time.

Some institutions have designated personnel tasked to work on the creation of these reports each day. Such procedures also carry the risk of producing glaring errors.

Increase in customer scrutiny

Colleges and institutions are concerned with institutional assessment because of the increased pressure to be accountable for students’ futures. Higher education stakeholders ask more questions; the primary one being ‘Are we getting our money’s worth?’

With the growing scrutiny, it becomes crucial for institutions to market their brand in the best way possible. Studies show that this forces institutions to improve their relations and analyze their effectiveness for quality education. Institutions and colleges benefit more if they focus on communicating directly with parents, luminous students, and government officials instead of pursuing media relations.

Time spent training new trainees

In institutions, personnel turnover necessitates system reconfiguration and the hiring of new employees. Although it’s an important step, organizations must be aware of the considerable expense involved in recruiting, employing, and training new staff. However, integrating AI into the system can help solve the problem.

5 Cost-effective strategies

Set clear objectives

img-alt;cost-effective-strategies-for-limited-resources;Objectives can help institutions reach higher targets and achieve more, even with limited resources.

Institutions must break down these benchmarks into daily and weekly targets to achieve enrollment goals. For example, if institutions want to conduct webinars, there must be a goal of how many students would attend, the leads converted from the webinar, and so on. Post the goal setting, the team must create a plan of action.

Focus on efficiency, not features

Features are essential to any website. It makes the admission process easier for students and counselors. However, less is more in this case. The more features added to a website, the more counselors have to work on the backend.

Institutions must have smooth processes to get the admission team to work efficiently. To achieve this, institutes can create a guide or a blueprint that counselors can follow. Having this guide will help them be more efficient, save time and not involve creating new processes.

Use the right AI-powered tools

Integrating systems like this will cost institutions, but if this investment is made with the right system, it will not only increase enrollment rates but will increase employee productivity.

Use better-integrated solutions

img-alt;using-ai-for-better-integration;Integrating systems like this will cost institutions, but if this investment is done with the right system, it will not only increase enrollment rates but will increase employee productivity.

Using multiple platforms is challenging for the admissions team and is not feasible in the long run. It involves more steps the team must learn and train new employees, which consumes more resources.

An integrated solution with straightforward systems will improve productivity and admission rates. Some good admission tools are-

• EDMO
• RNL
• Salesforce.org Education Cloud
• EAB: Education Technology, Services, and Research

Create regular reports

There are over 100 different types of reports, and each has various customizations, but they are still ineffective. The key to an excellent report is creating actionable plans.

Reports are the fundamental aspect of making any data-driven decision. Effective reporting strategies can significantly boost the admissions team’s productivity.

Utilizing actionable insights will help counselors work productively and create more useful reports. The focus will move from micromanaging counselors to delivering results that can be implemented, which will enhance the admission rates.

Conclusion

Research corroborates that insufficient personnel will suffer in terms of efficiency and effectiveness, hampering the overall performance. Thus, modern tools will be a better and more feasible option for institutions.