Lester Erikson Ona

Recruiting for Fall 2021 During COVID-19 A Communications Guide to Strategize Outreach Recruiting for Fall 2021 During COVID-19 1 Table of Contents Introduction................................................................................................................................................................04 A Self-Assessment on Your Readiness to Optimize the Fall 2021 Recruitment Cycle.......... 06 Key Shifts in Admissions Evaluation and the Opportunities for Outreach............................. 08 Top 9 To-Dos for Admissions Teams................................................................................................................12 Tips for Appealing to Graduate Students...................................................................................................13 A Prospective Student Enrollment Management Framework...........................................................15 Strategic Communication Considerations................................................................................................. 20 Recruiting for Fall 2021 During COVID-19 2 [2020] will be a year for the ages (I hope!), and I’d like to not have to repeat it ever again. But something tells me the next one is going to be another fasten-your-seatbelt roller coaster ride. Inzer of Hamilton Recruiting for Fall 2021 During COVID-19 3 2020 and the COVID-19 pandemic required a rethinking of every aspect of education recruitment: college admit days, college visit days, campus tours and a move to test-optional, and with 4,500 institutions nationally, it is no surprise there were mixed results. Small schools had advantages of already small classes and campus cultures that in many ways could influence behavior differently than large state institutions with established Greek programs and large athletic programs. The experiences were mirrored at the graduate level as on-campus, research and cohort programs were forced to readjust and move their programs online and, in many cases, shut down their labs. It is now the time to look forward beyond the disruption and adjustments of the Fall 2020 semester; it is time to do what admissions professionals do best: build the pipeline and convert interest to applications and applications to students. This year is fundamentally different. COVID has diverted the attention of institutions to creating safe spaces for their current students more than showrooms for their prospective students. Finances continue to loom large as students seek affordable paths to degree attainment in the midst of the greatest unemployment levels since the Great Depression. Furthermore, institutions are struggling to balance budgets and the competing interests of the academic community as budgets are cut by legislatures and available resources are spent on COVID-related contingency planning. Athletics has long been an enrollment funnel booster for all tiers of institutions. COVID’s impact on college athletics has an unknown long-term impact on students’ decisions to attend our institutions. Recruiting for Fall 2021 During COVID-19 4 CLICK HERE to read our blog about the NACAC changes and what they mean for admissions departments. Institutions have a number of new variables to consider as they rethink their recruitment strategy. The NACAC changes of August 2019 set the stage for many institutions to revise their recruitment practices, though all indications point to few colleges having made significant adjustments even with COVID. A core element of admissions is also being submerged: testing. Test optional has opened the door to students demonstrating their interest in the institution in new ways beyond their test-taking prowess. Issues of equity and access are also taking center stage as institutions seek to demonstrate their commitment to inclusion while students take to social media and share their stories. And, the Fall 2020 political environment adds more potential changes to educational policy and the types of students who will align with a particular college’s political leanings, as well as the future of international enrollments and their associated financial contributions. Even with all of these challenges, there is so much potential to find the right students for your campus. Each institution must have its own map for its incoming student’s journey and the associated messaging and communication to move the student into the classroom. This guide provides institutional leaders with 1. A self-assessment on your readiness to optimize the Fall 2021 recruitment cycle 2. Key changes in fundamental admissions criteria 3. Top 7 to-dos 4. A framework to engage with students 5. Strategic communication guidance as an essential element to hit in Fall 2021 While only 3% of students today say they want to receive less information from their colleges, it’s important not to bombard students with every piece of information available, no matter whether the message is relevant to them. The key to success will not be the frequency of communications, but rather, a strategic approach to the cadency and quality of communications. Moving your institution to a strategic, right-sized communication plan is your key to meeting your Fall 2021 goal. Recruiting for Fall 2021 During COVID-19 5 A Self-Assessment on Your Readiness to Optimize the Fall 2021 Recruitment Cycle Click here to download the self-assessment Have you determined how you will offer courses in Fall 2021 and what makes that great? Students have been on a roller coaster ride since March and they are seeking clarity in how you offer courses – online, in person, flexible, omni – and how you make those courses great learning experiences for them. Be transparent with your students on what you offer and why. Have you defined your desired student populations? By knowing your desired student populations, you can define what you offer, why it is important to them and why your institution is the right fit for them. It is unlikely for even the wealthiest institution to be all things to all students; what makes you a good fit for your students? Are you clear and transparent about finances? Colleges have been deemed unaffordable and finances have been challenging for a long while, but now we have the most challenging unemployment environment in 100 years and the associated impact on state budget allocations. Students know this and they want to spend their time applying to schools that they know they can afford. What can you offer, and if a student’s situation changes, how do you fill the gap? Being clear on how you will articulate your approach to financial aid and being authentic in the real costs will help move students through the admissions funnel. Do you have sensible processes and timelines (for the student as well as the institution)? Students are short on time and getting used to Amazon-level customer services. The one-click purchase is possible and students want that ease in every purchase decision. Students don’t want to answer the same question multiple times or have a fragmented admissions-enrollment process. Reviewing processes and timelines to make the process seamless and relevant will build students’ confidence that you are the right choice for them. Recruiting for Fall 2021 During COVID-19 6 Are you tracking how prospective students engage with your outreach and changing your messaging based on student behaviors? By understanding open rates, click-through rates, and how fast students respond to your outreach, you will understand what an effective message for your desired student must look like. The more effective you are in communicating to compel action, the less effort that your team will have to expend on crafting communication and the more time you can spend moving your students to enrollment. Rethinking your communication strategy – types of information, frequency, channel – based on student behaviors increases the likelihood that they will actually respond versus tuning out. There is no need to send the same message multiple times. There is a huge need to send the right message to the right student at the right time. Do you have a coordinated plan of who communicates different types of messages/information with students? A presidential/provost/chancellor update signals that the campus leadership is engaged and focused. However, this does not mean that students are seeking information and guidance from these individuals. COVID has created a new pipeline of communication from campus leadership. Providing students direct, easy and quick access to professional staff becomes ever more important as students make decisions on their next steps. Knowing who is responsible for providing just-in-time updates to students will ease the staff workload, as well as ensure that they are aware of directives going out to students. Recruiting for Fall 2021 During COVID-19 7 Key Shifts in Admissions Evaluation and the Opportunities for Outreach Recruiting for Fall 2021 During COVID-19 8 Key Shifts in Admissions Evaluation and the Opportunities for Outreach The EAB enrollment survey suggests that increased volatility in your prospect pool may compromise the next year’s recruitment markers. In addition, the 2020 Naviance survey found that 20% of students would not be attending any visit day – virtual or in person. The 2020-21 academic year is going to be different, and we know the recruitment cycle is going to be impacted by a number of factors: Standardized testing is moving to optional. Many institutions moved to test optional over the past few years as standardized testing was challenged through the lens of equity and the prudence of using a test score as a proxy for students’ success. The complexity has continued as more institutions have instituted test blind admissions practices. During COVID, many institutions broadened their test optional policies to accommodate the closure of testing centers. A new NACAC report articulates, “As the population interested in admission to college has rapidly expanded and diversified, however, testing agencies have not been able to ensure that the access to and availability of test administrations, the quality of the testing experience, and the integrity and validity of test scores are preserved consistently.” A focus on grit or character. There has been a steady increase in writing on the importance of grit and character, and colleges are including those elements in their admissions decisions. According to David Holmes in an Inside Higher Ed article, “The most recent National Association for College Admission Counseling survey of college admission practice found that 70 percent of colleges consider character of ‘considerable’ or ‘moderate’ importance in admission.” The opportunity: If your institution is moving to test optional, help prospective students understand what you are looking for, specifically. By clearly prompting students to share what will make them successful at your institution, you are giving students an opportunity to reflect and connect what you are selling with who they are. Recruiting for Fall 2021 During COVID-19 9 A glimpse through the virtual. A new EAB study found that “68% of enrollment leaders say they are investing in new virtual engagement opportunities to support recruiting.” Scheduled and choreographed virtual tours, virtual events, virtual meetings are taking the place of casual campus visit days. Building new types of relationships. Relying on strong alumni connections has been a tool used by many campuses. HE institutions can use the 2021 recruitment cycle as a way to engage with alumni for non-donor engagement and as higher impact engagement as an alternative to giving financially, especially for young alumni. The opportunity: Differentiate prospective students’ virtual sessions with a follow-up personal experience that could include polls, introductions and invitations to subsequent opportunities. Invite students to sit in on a virtual seminar with key faculty to have a taste for the classroom experience. Change the timelines (and incent student behavior). November, March, May – the key months of traditional enrollment. Students apply in November, are notified in March and commit May 1. May 1 as a key benchmarking date was largely nullified by the NACAC changes. The timing change was exacerbated in 2020 due to COVID; is there a reason to go back? Does Fall 2021 have to start in August or is there a dynamic bridge program that will anchor students at your institution? Building an early on-ramp or add a return-ramp. Why recruit externally for graduate students when your faculty members know who your best and brightest are, meaning those who can migrate into your post-baccalaureate programs. For those students who chose alternative paths previously, optimize the NACAC changes and reconnect with former applicants and students. The opportunity: Reconsider the timelines and policies to access your programs and matriculate. For students previously admitted or returning, simplify the process to reconsider your institution. Recruiting for Fall 2021 During COVID-19 10 Double down on inclusion. Today’s students are more diverse than ever before, benefitting the entire community. This is an important aspect of the educational experience so that students feel connected, motivated and engaged (CAST 2020). Institutions using Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles as a recruitment tactic as opposed to limiting it to the classroom will see rewards. This includes the accessibility to information via technology and the internet. Is their support that you can be providing them through the admissions process to • Foreshadow the type of support they will be getting on campus? • Build confidence in multiple paths to student success? • Support family members who may have alternative learning/understanding needs? Make engagement fun and measurable. Capitalize on where students are and what they are used to (Ed Dive). Gamify your admissions activities and create incentives for students to engage with the institution often and repeatedly. Simultaneously, collect insights into their behaviors, interests and other elements that can be used for understanding where students are interested, where the funnel is growing and where there may be shortfalls. The opportunity: Showcase scholarships and special programs (emergency financial aid grants, laptop loan programs, a Virtual Student Support Expo or niche centers) for underserved and under-resourced students. Understand where students are engaging and how those activities are moving the student to application. Take a lesson from Guided Pathways. Guided Pathways is a movement joined by nearly 300 community colleges to improve the student experience and, thereby, outcomes. They do so by organizing majors into large careers groups, helping students focus on connecting with skills and knowledge without the need to commit to a specific major until later in their student journey. The opportunity: Draw connections for your students between their interests and a broad category of coursework that they can explore. For instance, they may be interested in healthcare. If they struggle through introductory science classes, they will still have a variety of other related majors that make use of the credits earned and keep them within the topical area – healthcare policy, social work, health care marketing and administration, etc. Recruiting for Fall 2021 During COVID-19 11 Top 9 To-Dos for Admissions Teams Click here to download the to-do list Keep your admissions team focused on high-value activities. Integrate admissions with a registration activity. Segmentation has never been more important! Be very Know who you are recruiting and talking to. Today’s clear on what you are planning to offer – online, in-person, flexible, omnichannel, etc. have for them? What do they want to hear from you? students are of all ages and walks of life; they bring unique experiences. As you are engaging with propects, segment the conversations to not only appeal to who they are, but to capture what makes them such a compelling addition to your community – either online or in person. Get clear on finances. What can you offer? What does your Dispel the myths. There are so many misperceptions about who Segment your desired populations. Why them? What do you desired population need? How do you fill the gap? How are you going to talk about it? How are you going to be authentic about the real costs? goes to college, what colleges are looking for, and even the value of one type of education mode versus another. Address them directly. U.S. News & World Report highlighted six common myths: Reconsider your processes. Are all of them absolutely • Getting all As is the most important thing. necessary? Is the timeline right? • Test scores can make or break your chances of getting in. A. Timeline for how undergraduates apply, get admitted, and get enrolled B. Consider expedited admissions Rethink your communication strategy. Consider the types of information, frequency of communication, and channel to use for each communication you send. Build relationships. Get to know your prospects and offer them information and guidance that are relevant and personal to them. • The more clubs and activities on your resume, the better. • You should ask for a recommendation only from a teacher who gave you an A. • It’s a mistake to get creative with your essay. • To make yourself memorable, you need to visit the campus. Some of these may be accurate and others may truly be myths. Let your prospects know what you’re thinking! Recruiting for Fall 2021 During COVID-19 12 s iT p g n i l a e p te p A ua r f o ra d s G t to e n d u St Recruiting for Fall 2021 During COVID-19 13 Tips for Appealing to Graduate Students An undergraduate degree can be a long haul. Students look forward to graduating and joining the workforce or heading out on premier experiences like AmeriCorps or the Peace Corps. Unfortunately, COVID has shaken up many of these plans. Consider these tips for guiding your undergraduates to alternative post-bachelor plans. • Many conferences are moving online and offering free registration for current students. Get current students to participate in conferences through supporting in-class research, providing scholarships to attend, and creating small career development groups to discuss what they learned and how the conference changed their perceptions of the discipline. For graduating students, create opportunities to recruit at conferences or get students “recruitment-ready” through introducing them to key faculty in other graduate programs and exposing them to the process, especially if your school does not offer graduate coursework. • Promote summer research opportunities that include new ways of thinking about research. Give students an opportunity to practice it. • Emulate the undergraduate recruitment experience with similar programming and opportunities to engage with faculty and students. • Explain how graduate funding works, why it’s different, and the advantages of some graduate funding. • Explain how graduate admissions work with decisions being owned in the department, not centrally like at most organizations. • Create paths to expedite admissions with opportunities for students to apply in their junior year and double-count classes in their senior year or provide admissions decisions on a rolling basis. When students know they have a spot in your program, they don’t need to expend the energy and effort to apply to other programs. Recruiting for Fall 2021 During COVID-19 14 A Prospective Student Enrollment Management Framework Recruiting for Fall 2021 During COVID-19 15 Recruiting has often been oversimplified to “if we can get the students on campus, we can convert them.” Institutions have put together impressive campus-wide events, supplemented with campus tours by standout students and a commitment to athletics to fill the enrollment funnel. Boardapproved Strategic Enrollment Plans are unlikely to be specific enough to attract the shrinking number of students. For Fall 2020 with many students, visiting campuses will be limited to exploring via a virtual, digital experience. To hit Fall 2021 enrollment targets, an institution’s enrollment success relies on alerting students to these virtual experiences, making the virtual experience memorable and personalized, following up on that experience to address outstanding concerns, and moving those students into completing their application. It can feel overwhelming to the most well-oiled enrollment office. The Prospective Student Enrollment Management Framework outlined below takes into consideration the features and benefits of an institution within the novel context of COVID and prospective students’ desire for new, different and relevant information. It is built on a foundation of data with responsive and personalized communication. This framework provides institutions with new ways of engaging with their prospects for relationship building and iterative communication based on how students are responding to outreach by campus teams. P R E - U NDE R G R A DUAT E PRE-GRAD UATE Pre-HS senior “Building the pipeline” Engage Bachelor applicant “Converting to student” Build confidence Graduate school applicant “Promoting lifelong learning” Seamless opportunity Degrees (Features) Degrees as career pathways Participating in a classroom Building on the UG experience The Student Life (Features) Exploring what being a student is like Connecting with current students and alumni Differentiating graduate vs. undergraduate student life Support (Benefits) How the institution supports the student inside and outside of the classroom Easing into the student journey New opportunities for support and skill building COVID’s Impact Highlighting the COVID experience What COVID brought to campus and the student experience New policies and opportunities Projecting Forward Opportunities to “be a student” prior to matriculating Connecting to young alumni Accelerated and different career paths Responsive and Personalized Communication Data (generated from conversations with students) Click here to download the Prospective Student Enrollment Management Framework. Recruiting for Fall 2021 During COVID-19 16 This framework can be adapted to any prospective student type, from building the K12 pipeline to the bachelor or graduate applicant. Each population requires a different perspective into the institution based on their timeline to application, their life and education experience to date, and their expectations about what higher education means to them. We do know quite a few things about incoming students of all types. Regardless of age or generation, today’s prospective students are consumers (RCE, Ed Dive). The internet is anticipating their needs prior to them knowing what they want or need. Purchasing decisions are determined as much on brand and customer experience as price. Today’s prospective students also have a lot of options but are highly likely to narrow their choices based on geography. With over 4,500 institutions to choose from, most students choose an institution within 50 miles of their home residence; this includes online programs where students choose institutions within 30 miles of their home residence (IHE, ACE). Students find campus visits a critical component to choosing their institution (College Board). With many institutions having limited opportunities to bring prospective students on campus and limitations on how admissions counselors may engage with students in their home school settings, we have to get creative in sharing our institution’s story, features and benefits and the positive things that COVID is bringing to bear. Positioning your institution as the student’s learning partner by highlighting (in the voice of a student) degrees, student life, student support, how COVID impacted your campus and the future that students will find on your campus will differentiate you from the myriad of options that prospective students have and support your students through a challenging process in the best of times. Degrees (AKA what you are offering academically). No matter the level of higher education, the question of “What are you majoring in?” can be heart-palpitating for students. Majors give students a grounding point or purpose for their decision to pursue education. Some students are pursuing this next educational step purely for career advancement and job security, and others simply are choosing a program based on interest or competence. Regardless, institutions have to help connect students to their degree programs and articulate the value for the student in choosing their program over another institution’s, which may have the exact same name and perhaps a very similar curriculum. For students in the pre-bachelor’s pipeline, this may include matching career interests to career pathways. Some are obvious; many are not. What majors do you offer? Do you have to apply? What if I’m not good at math/writing/speaking? And the questions go on and on. A solid web page for majors is a start, but it is the communication around the major that becomes so important to getting the student excited about what you are offering. Recruiting for Fall 2021 During COVID-19 17 For students in the application stage, it is time to amp up the conversation on degrees to how they will experience the classroom, their faculty and other students in the program. Conveying the essence of the learning experience, how faculty teach and support a student’s academic journey, and what students are doing to build knowledge help a student see themself in the classroom and compel a student to apply. Getting the student to participate in those classes even before full enrollment provides the tactile experience to cement a student’s decision. For many, graduate school is for another time in the future. However, as the job market wavers, graduate school can be a viable use of time and energy. Current undergraduate students or bachelor-conferred alumni are often unclear in how a graduate degree is different from an undergraduate degree, the value of the degree in their career path or even what a graduate program experience looks like and the requirements to get in. Taking time to educate and build easy on-ramps into graduate programs will serve the institution well. Degrees will be so much more than just majors. It could also include things like revisiting how competency-based learning or life experience credits will fit into the student record. A real focus on internships and other hands-on learning that can continue in these alternative formats demonstrate the institution’s commitment to students expanding their range of learning engagement. Student life (AKA what the institution provides outside of the classroom). Our current students are critical to the Fall 2021 recruitment cycle. Thanks to a plethora of movies and TV shows, students may think that they know what higher education is like. COVID has complicated perceptions as institutions have taken very different approaches. Fortunately, you have an opportunity to clarify what college is like for your students. From sharing vignettes of student activities, to connecting current students to prospective students in a meaningful, ongoing conversation across their student journey, institutions will need to be more intentional and more choreographed than ever before. Student support. Being a student is hard. Every institution has its own rules and regulations, own nomenclature and unique scheduling structure. The entire bureaucracy can be difficult to navigate. Articulating how you support the student outside of the classroom, from tutoring and enrichment activities to registration and financial activities, will be important for students greater than a year out. For those coming in Fall 2021, easing the students into the processes, demonstrating that your processes are simplified and relevant and that professional support is available, is critical. Showcasing career development is essential for the Fall 2021 incoming class. Recruiting for Fall 2021 During COVID-19 18 For example, showcase the support systems on your campus through weekend or “special courses” that students can take, and if students determine that they want to be at your institution, guarantee to them that you will offer them credit at a discounted rate. Make sure that students have personalized and immediate access to the information. Supporting them underscores the commitment of the institution to guiding students through the business of being a student and not letting paperwork get in the way. Oftentimes in-person and being face-to-face has been a proxy for student engagement. However, the research shows it’s not a good proxy and that a student’s level of participation and focus on co-curriculars is a better proxy. Your institution’s ability to support student engagement through studentstudent, student-faculty or students-staff results in a completely different measure of student engagement. How COVID impacted your campus. COVID did impact your campus in good ways and bad. Explain how you are handling COVID and what that means to your commitment to students. Find ways to highlight the positive changes that have resulted for students and their experience moving forward, as well as new policies and opportunities. Showcasing how COVID made you more student-centric reframes a negative year into the possibilities that await them on your campus. This could also include examples of curricular changes that leveraged COVID to keep the coursework relevant and timely. One example is process engineering. This could include examples like running reports to identify students and allocating funds to students who meet criteria instead of having students apply if they meet particular income thresholds. This changes the conversation with the student from “you have more to do and more hoops to jump through” to “we reviewed your record and we think that this will help you be more successful. Your performance to date has been great; keep up the good work.” As you can see from this example, the tone and the benefit is fundamentally different and positions the institution as the grand supporter as opposed to a bureaucratic organization that’s difficult to navigate. Projecting forward. Give students opportunities to practice being your student prior to matriculation. Give them reasons to begin networking in substantive ways with young alumni and show how these opportunities open the doors to new and different career paths. Recruiting for Fall 2021 During COVID-19 19 Strategic Communication Considerations Recruiting for Fall 2021 During COVID-19 20 Strategic Communication Considerations The goal is not to overcommunicate. The goal is to communicate with students when they need it with very specific information and then be responsive to students when they take action. An institution’s communication plan with prospective students must include web, social, email and texting to effectively move students through the funnel. With a carefully coordinated plan, texting can be fully optimized. Students desire just-in-time information, especially given the tremendous changes that will be happening on campus. Texting during COVID enables institutions to provide time-relevant information. • Tweak messages specific to student segments based on their behaviors. • Provide updates to students on their own access and participation to campus services and activities. • Reduce student wait times through proactive guidance. Students have never liked to wait. Texting enables institutions to quickly respond to student inquiries. • Use a blend of automation and professional staff. • Identify common questions or bottlenecks in the system that need to be prioritized. • Allay summer melt and retention concerns . Prospective students have two options when you send them a text: engage or disengage. If they take action or respond, that is engaging. Sending the same message to students who have taken action signals that you don’t know that they have done it or are too busy to update your outreach. In this time when students are distracted, that is not what you want to convey. Rather, you want to acknowledge and reward the action and move them to the next step. Recruiting for Fall 2021 During COVID-19 21 If students don’t respond, it is a signal of disengagement. They need a new, different message to drive them to action. This may be due to driving urgency with dates, clarity of consequences or an emotional check-in: “Are you okay?” Ultimately, the students who aren’t responding will be a defined list where professional staff must get involved and reach out with a phone call. Texting enables institutions to quickly identify which students are engaging with outreach, enabling them to • understand the types of information that students seek to understand, • assess how students feel and are making decisions against that outreach, and • quickly deploy resources to address student concerns. The pressure of the pandemic has resulted in students needing more information specific to them. While they are off campus, without easy access to staff, they are speaking with their peers and getting insights into what other schools are doing. Institutions need to be highly responsive to student inquiries to both ease concerns and ensure that students don’t create their own answers in the time it takes to respond. With changes to NACAC on top of COVID, students will move to institutions that are the most responsive and easiest to respond to. Recruiting for Fall 2021 During COVID-19 22 Special Thanks To: Produced By: Jesse Boeding, EdD Higher Education Consultant Rachel Hicks Senior Marketing Associate Sara Vigen Marketing Associate Haleigh Cadd Communications Intern Lester Ona Graphic Designer