As your admissions team strategizes how to reach their goals and improve admissions yield there’s a lot to consider. In addition to the typical obstacles, there’s also the unknown of the pandemic and how the roster of incoming prospective students will fluctuate then.
In this new kind of normal it’s imperative to garner techniques that can be effectively applied in any situation. With the help of an admissions platform, shape your modern enrollment game plan to attract students in this competitive market, with these 7 ideas for improve admissions yield and help encourage admitted students enroll at your university.
1) Develop Genuine and Personal Communications
Admit it, no one’s a fan of robotic, carbon copy emails. Take on the perspective of an admitted student, who worked their high school career to have a balance of impressive grades, activities, and test scores to be considered for your school. And in return, they receive continuous correspondence that’s lackluster. Create and send communications that give students a sense of the time and effort they put in to apply to your university. For starters, one way is to leverage an admissions platform – you can customize your voice and communications throughout the platform, crafting an experience for all admitted students to feel they’re already a part of your community.
2) Offer a Creative, Quality Presentation
Today’s prospective students are technologically savvy, and have grown up with dynamic, eye-catching social media platforms, and technical tools. Spend time on the design of your admissions platform (such as the photos and videos you choose). From your platform, you are able to package your voice, your university’s brand, and graphics into a high-quality presentation. From the mobile experience, to desktop capabilities, gather your admissions content in one go-to space that’s easy and aesthetically pleasing to navigate.
3) Whether In-Person or Virtual, Host a 5-Star Tour
For the upcoming enrollment season, it’s difficult to determine at this point if potential students will be able to tour your campus in-person. But, you have trusted and trained tour guides with impressive knowledge who really make a spectacular impression on prospective students and their guardians. Just in case you have to go the virtual route, record tours with your tour guides, virtually navigating the campus. A recorded tour gives your team the opportunity to make it a real production. From top-notch editing, to scripts and redos for tour guides, design a virtual tour that appeals and leaves a lasting impression on students determining if you’re the school for them.
4) Pull in Your All-Star Players
We already touched on some of your key admissions players like your tour guides, but make sure you have a stacked team ready to go. No one is a better ambassador for your school then former or current students. In an admissions platform, give prospective students the virtual opportunity to network with current/former students in channels. They can answer questions from a personal perspective about a diverse offering of topics from majors, classes, professors, Res-Life, student activities, experiences, and build that community, camaraderie environment that’s so pivotal for a prospective student. It’s truly the most genuine of voices you can get to speak and promote the pros and positives only your school has to offer.
5) Be Prepared and Proactive
From questions, logistics, even COVID-19 plans, be on your A game to field any question in a timely manner. With the power of an admissions platform, have channels and campus leaders, staff, and administrators ready to address questions and concerns as related to their particular field. Whether you want to have a General AMA or a message channel dedicated to prospective admissions students, have your key players prepared and accessible to participate in this outreach. Students and their guardians will get the chance to make those interactions and answer all the questions on their mind.
6) Strengthening Your Brand While Improving Admissions Yield
Like we mentioned, this is the age of students who have incredible technical prowess. Whichever college students choose they want to take pride and celebrate the university they choose to go to. In addition to tours, the place that’ll instill what your college has to offer from a brand perspective are your social media channels and website. How do you make your brand stand out? Make sure you have brand guidelines in place, your digital team members are sticking to it, and you continuously upkeep your social media presence, website, and admissions platform, so wherever students are researching your university, they get the best sense of you.
7) Build Communities and Activate Spaces for Dialogue 
What better way to stand out from other universities than activating go-to outlets for prospective students to get to know one another, interact with future staff and administrators, ask questions and points-of-view from student leaders or ambassadors, and explore school offerings from student activities, student resources, Residence Life, and other points of interests that the school community comprises of. With an admissions platform, you can house all of these features and opportunities, providing a hub for students making their next big milestone decision. They’ll remember your university as the one that gave them a full presentation, answered all of their questions, and where they could see themselves in the upcoming school year.