People who've spent time recently on high school or college campuses will notice that students spend a considerable amount of time in the digital world on mobile devices. Students use them to get information, communicate, complete tasks, and are notified of important (or interesting) things.
Are you using QR codes in your admissions? If not, you should -- as they can supercharge engagement with your candidates. They're easy to use. They work well with mobile devices. And; one can get started without navigating the internet or typing a web address.
You’ve captured the attention of a prospective student. Congratulations, your marketing and recruiting efforts are paying off. Now, it’s time to get them on the path to becoming a new student.
"We don't have the budget to implement anything new for our admissions"
We've heard this from a number of institutions who are struggling with declining enrollment....
Last week Mechelle Aitson-Roessler, AVP of Enrollment Management and Registrar at Rose State College (RSC), presented her institution's journey to addressing their admissions challenges.
In our prior blog entry, we mapped out the journey that candidates follow from an unknown person to a student. We also described that inbound marketing focuses on optimizing each of the transition points so that more people successfully navigate that journey.
This article will now discuss how to engage the candidate, which is the mechanism by which you move a candidate from one stage to the next in the admissions journey.
Lead. Yield. Call it what you will. Attracting candidates is important to every university. Most organizations are looking for ways to improve admissions results. Whether you’re trying to improve enrollment for the institution as a whole or for specific groups of students, it all starts with leads or yield.
If you work in the higher education industry, you probably don't need a report to tell you that 2020 was a challenge for colleges and universities. However, the most recent report put together by the National Student Clearinghouse (link here) gives insight into how COVID has affected enrollment in each type of school and demographic -- and it's not all doom and gloom.
We are pleased to announce that following a short 5 month implementation, Rose State College deployed Mutara's Admissions Candidate Application SaaS product on February 3, 2020.
This week Mutara had the opportunity to exhibit and present at the National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC) Virtual conference. This was a first time I participated with this community and found it extremely informative. As expected, the overall theme was COVID-19 and how institutions are coping and planning.
Today, Business Insider had an opinion piece about Google's Career Certificates program, which allows non-degree learning to help people (especially people in IT) gain critical skills that can help them advance their careers. In our blog, we've previously discussed how the higher education market is has recognized the opportunity growth of lifetime learning and the nontraditional student.
Virtual Alliance 2020 is in the books. Over the course of the week, we learned how to attend sessions from our homes, got to see where friends and colleagues worked, and was photobombed by toddlers and pets. As expected, the overall theme was COVID-19 and how institutions are coping and planning.
This afternoon, CSU Chancellor Timothy P. White announced that with limited exceptions, virtual-only learning will continue through the fall term. This means that close to 500,000 students won't be returning to campus until 2021 at the earliest. However, that's just the tip of the iceberg.
Last week, one of our customers shared an article with us that (1) describes their biggest pain point, (2) how that pain is translated into different areas of friction, and (3) how they see Mutara's products helping them.
As the discussion about re-opening businesses gets underway, one of the most challenging areas to consider is re-opening our campuses. How do you balance public health with the realities of campus life? Where do you start as you develop these plans?
Higher Ed institutions are implementing study at home programs to cope with the coronavirus. This is a culture change for both parents and students. How do you set expectations appropriately?
"May you live in interesting times"
This (purported) Chinese curse seems appropriate to the impact of coronavirus.
"Please select the type of student you are"
This was the very first question asked in the online application of an institution we met with this week. It was followed by 11 choices from which a candidate was expected to choose.
In our prior bog entry, we defined the nontraditional student and described the impact they will have on the Higher Education Industry going forward. Now that you’re ready to increase enrollment through this demographic. How do you do it?
It’s a new year and new decade. What are the trends and outlook in Higher Education? Are today’s institutions prepared?
Thank you for all of you who attended this week's webinar: Optimizing your Admissions.
It’s a Saturday morning and I’m having coffee with a few friends. As I sip on my cappuccino, I hear about the most tender and juicy ribeye in history; and how it was prepared. My interest is peaked. What would it take for me to make perfect steaks?
Ever since I wrote about how the online application could be hurting your ability to innovate, I’ve had many discussions with institutions discussing ways they've increased their candidate pool and engagement throughout the applicant journey – and how this has a direct impact on their admissions results.
Now that the fall HEUG regional season is winding down, I thought I’d put together some observations from the two most recent events in which we participated.
Thank you for all of you who attended this week's webinar: Optimizing your Admissions
Many institutions today are facing a competitive landscape and are searching for ways to remove barriers to candidate engagement. However, many also want a more complete picture of the candidate as part of the decision-making process for both admissions and finical aid. What does this mean for essays on either the application or within standardized tests?
Over the past couple of years, the Higher Education industry has gone through an unprecedented level of innovation. Technology, competition, and market expectations have collided to create this perfect storm.
SCHRUG 2019 is a wrap. It was great meeting with old friends and new at the Davidson-Gundy Alumni center. We also unveiled an early version of our Admissions product.
It’s a wrap. We just finished our first event – the Higher Education User Group annual Alliance conference. As a new company, we had modest expectations in terms of exposure and feedback – and we were blown away by how far we exceeded them.
This morning, the justice department charged more than 30 people for fraudulently helping their kids get into a who’s who of higher education institutions.
Many of my best friends know that I really enjoy action movies (and TV shows) – especially Superhero and Science Fiction genres.
Star Wars? Of course! Incredibles? Definitely! Game of Thrones? Absolutely! Deadpool and Logan? Hell Yes!
When NASA declared earlier this month that the Mars Opportunity Rover was no longer working, it hit home to me – especially since its accomplishments realize what I strive to deliver with the products I’m a part of.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
SAN RAMON, Calif., February 5, 2019 – Today, GreyHeller (now Appsian) founders Larry Grey and Brian Sparling announced the formation of Mutara Inc. to address two of the biggest challenges facing colleges and universities:
In 2005 -- following Oracle’s successful acquisition of PeopleSoft -- my colleagues (Brian Sparling, Chris Heller) and I were feeling disillusioned with our careers and the direction we saw the enterprise software space going. With little more than a vague concept of what we felt customers needed and a feeling that we could build something that could fill that need, we started the company that is now Appsian.
It’s not an easy question to answer. There are many factors involved in making sound admissions decisions. It’s crucially important to get it right because it affects every aspect of the institution.
Why does an organization adopt a new software product? For most, it’s to transform its business in positive ways to maximize business value. This means disrupting the status quo for something that’s better. Unfortunately, disruption usually brings chaos with it.