Scannell & Kurz Enrollment Management Blog

When I was at the CIC Presidents Institute earlier this month, there was a lot of buzz about the most recent call for an agreement to focus institutional resources on need-based versus merit aid and to reduce the amount of “negotiating” of aid offers. The most surprising announcement in this session was the news that conversations had been held with the Justice Department about the legality of a possible agreement between colleges on these matters. (For more details on the conversation, see Inside Higher Ed’s Baby Steps for Need-Based Aid.) Some believe that if the Justice Department were to allow collaboration on certain principles, it may reduce the competitive pressure to continue with aid strategies based on merit rather than need.…Read more

Resolutions for 2013: Never try to control the social media conversation. Rather, work tirelessly to create points of contact or links. Never send a new recruiter on the road without proper training regardless of when the “newbie” was hired. Throwing a new recruiter “into the deep end of the pool” will not serve the institution well in the long run. Always be sure that admissions and financial aid leadership share the common goal of a net tuition revenue target generated by new students. Check regularly to be sure your net price calculator is a good marketing tool in support of making your case for affordability. Always have the alumni admissions volunteer program be housed and overseen in admissions, led by a seasoned admissions…Read more

Everyone at Scannell & Kurz wishes you a safe and happy holiday season! We hope to see you in the new year. Look for us at the following 2013 conferences: Jim Scannell and Bill Berg will be attending the CCCU Chief Enrollment Officers conference January 2-6 in Phoenix. Bill will also be presenting on January 5th. Kathy Kurz, Mary Piccioli, and Rita Haschmann will be attending the CIC Presidents’ Institute January 4-7 in Innisbrook, Florida. Jim will be presenting at the Academic Impressions conference January 23-25 in St. Louis. Kathy will be presenting at the NASFAA conference July 14-17 in Las Vegas. Scannell & Kurz staff will be presenting at the RuffaloCODY enrollment management conference in Denver July 23-24. Please check…Read more

The fact is that most colleges and universities today are not in the selection business, accepting 80% (or more) of completed applications. Most higher education institutions should be focused on sales, but that is not how many schools chose to spend their time and energy. Here are a few suggestions. Are your admission counselors buried under a mountain of applications? Sounds like a good problem to have, but if your sales force is busy handling applications, how much time are they spending selling? Not to diminish from the time and care students put into preparing their applications, but if students are clearly admissible based on quantitative measures like GPA and SAT, automatically admitting them and reserving more thorough reviews for borderline…Read more

Although helping institutions with financial aid strategies may be why we are most often hired, we typically find that an institution’s enrollment success is seldom just about financial aid - making the case for value, building relationships, and providing excellent service are also key in meeting enrollment goals. The best aid strategy will not be effective in growing enrollments, for example, if there is not sufficient demand to generate a critical number of admitted students. In addition, at some institutions, admitted students are simply not very sensitive to increases in grants. In this case increasing grants would likely result in minimal enrollment growth and come at the expense of net tuition revenue. Even if students are responsive…Read more