Strategic Enrolment Awareness

“SEP” Versus “SEM”-The Strategic Enrolment Process

Posted on Wednesday, January 17th, 2024

There’s a difference between strategic enrolment planning (SEP) and strategic enrolment management (SEM), but too often the terms are used interchangeably to describe the framework that is used by post-secondary institutions to achieve their enrolment targets.

When institutions begin their strategic enrolment planning, it is important to note that the most exciting part of the process is the planning phase itself. It’s an opportunity to bring multiple stakeholders together to develop strategies that will help the college set its enrolment goals, while also considering the resources and actions that need to be taken to be successful. This is the work that is done “in the trenches”, where ideas and initiatives need to be thought through with a lens assessing impact, cost, and the resources needed for them to take hold.

Through this highly interactive engagement with the college community, the foundation of a SEM plan starts to take shape, including key performance indicators that consider a variety of important metrics such as the admissions funnel, student retention and completion rates, program development, and the balance between domestic and international enrolments.

Once the plan is in place, it becomes everyone’s role to help manage the results. Of course, there are leaders within the college who must take responsibility for SEP and SEM, but it’s the contributions of many that leads to creating a culture where paying attention to the overall health of the institutions’ enrolments is top of mind for everyone.

In a new book written by the American consulting firm, Ruffalo Noel Levitz, the authors write, “Few will read the entire SEP document; but the entire college or university community should have been touched by the process; if not directly involved, then at least well informed and with opportunities to provide input.”

That is the call to action. Employees should feel empowered to learn more about strategic enrolment planning and management. It will help them find their place in a process that has ebbs and flows, but ultimately seeks to support the college mission of transforming hopes and dreams into life-long success.

It’s not always obvious to support staff, faculty, and administration how they can contribute to this cause, but by learning more about how our interactions with applicants, students and alumni can influence the overall enrolment picture, employees can find their place in contributing to a healthy enrolment picture for Algonquin College now and into the future.

More information on the college’s strategic enrolment management can be found at the Senior Vice President Academic website, including articles from our Roadmap series, written to build more awareness about the topic. In the weeks ahead, there will be opportunities for employees to engage and learn more on a variety of topics that apply to strategic enrolment management. All employees are encouraged to participate and learn how their day-to-day work makes a difference.

Visit the SVPA site to learn more: https://www.algonquincollege.com/vpacademic/strategic-enrolment-awareness/

 

Roadmap Series: Conversations on student success

Posted on Tuesday, November 21st, 2023

It’s not always easy for an Algonquin College employee to determine how they can contribute to the College’s enrolments. Or is it? In this month’s strategic enrolment management roadmap series, we share ideas on how Algonquin College’s employees can help the College achieve its enrolment targets through their day to day work. These ideas are presented in a short video produced at our Pembroke Campus and as you will see, every employee has a role to play in helping our college recruit and retain students.

Watch the video at this link.

If you want to learn more about strategic enrolment management, review the previous roadmap series articles.

Roadmap Series: Conversations on Student Success – the Influencers

Posted on Thursday, October 5th, 2023

The Influencers

Meeting enrolment projections takes a lot of work, particularly domestic enrolment targets. At a time when our country is aging and there is increasing competition for the shrinking pool of prospective students, colleges have to work smarter to reach their target audience and that means having a strategy that connects with the influencers.

High school educators, particularly guidance counsellors, are an obvious primary influencer because of the nature of their work, but arguably the most influential group is parents for younger students and spouses for mature students. When it comes to recruiting a domestic student, it really is a case of “all in the family,” as impressing the influencers will go a long way to securing the student. So, how do we go about doing this at Algonquin College?

Open Houses are a good start, the kind of open house that gives family members a chance to walk the hallways of our campuses, visit the labs and facilities and partake in presentations that provide prospective students and their families with the information they need to make an informed decision. These events are an opportunity to start building a relationship, not only with the student but also their supporting cast.

That doesn’t mean regular contact with mom and dad, but a warm smile or friendly conversation that happens at the open house does offer some assurance to the parents that if they need to check-in they know who to call. It’s also an opportunity for the college to set some boundaries, explaining the need to have a release of information on file that gives college staff permission to discuss certain situations with a parent or family member. For parents who are sending a child to post-secondary education for the first time, particularly if they are from out of town, that’s a huge step forward in building trust with a family. It offers them some reassurance that the college cares, one of our core values.Information sessions that are geared to parents can also be a great way to make a strong connection with them. Helping family members understand how the college operates, drawing their attention to the academic calendar and important deadlines and sending them newsletters that highlight social activities that can help their student meet new friends. Making these suggestions to families and showing them how they contribute to their student’s success is extending an olive branch for them to be our partners in achieving our mission to transform hopes and dreams into life-long success.

These sessions are also where the college can ask parents if they want to receive a newsletter that is written for them. A simple sign-up sheet that parents and family members voluntarily sign gives the college permission to add them to our email distribution list. At any point, they can opt out. The key to the newsletter is good storytelling mixed in with some key dates and things parents should know. At the Pembroke Campus, parent and family newsletters are sent out quarterly. You can view the latest newsletter here.

Engaging families in student success is important at a time when the college is making a concerted effort to reduce attrition by implementing several initiatives to promote student retention. There is no one who knows their student better than a family member who can easily detect warning signals that their student may be struggling and need extra support from the college. By sharing information about various student and academic services with parents and spouses, the college is being pro-active in helping a family member intervene to get a student the help they need to get back on track.

Courting the influencers is rarely found in a strategic enrolment management plan, but when it comes to identifying low hanging fruit in a strategy that can support the college’s overall recruitment and retention efforts, parents and families have to be part of the conversation. They are just too important to be ignored. They are the primary influencer.

They assist their student when deciding what school and program to attend, they help pay tuition and they cheer on their student from the sidelines. Their hopes and dreams are to see their student at their convocation ceremony. They are the ultimate influencer for colleges to pay attention to when managing their enrolments.

Intercepting our students to keep them on track

Posted on Tuesday, September 5th, 2023

Day one of the fall term has arrived, arguably the most exciting day of the academic calendar. Thousands of new and returning students are back on Algonquin College’s campuses and their presence has generated a lot of positive energy as they begin or continue their academic journey.

Over the next ten days, the College community will be watching closely as some students either change or postpone their plans to train for a new career. This is the time of year that the College experiences its highest number of student withdrawals.

While choosing to withdraw from college is often an emotional decision, it is also a logical step for students who are second guessing their program choice at Algonquin College. Most students are aware that if they withdraw within the first ten days of their program they will be refunded for the majority of their tuition, and therefore the early days of a term always have the highest number of students who leave.

To reduce withdrawals, the College utilizes an initiative called Intercept, though students know this as the Program Withdrawal Process. Intercept is a retention initiative that has been in effect at Algonquin College since 2016. It is led by the Academic Success department in collaboration with the Registrar’s Office, the International Education Centre, the Academic Area and Career Clarity. Here’s how it works: when a student meets a College employee, such as a program coordinator or admissions officer who is made aware that they are planning to withdraw from their program, they are referred to the Program Withdrawal website to book an appointment to speak with someone about all of their options.

Students often aren’t aware of all the options available to them and sometimes assume they either need to continue in their current program or leave the college altogether. However, in some cases it might benefit the student to drop to part-time studies or switch to another program that better aligns with their goals It could also mean enrolling in an academic upgrading program to help the student be better prepared for a later entry into a post-secondary program.

The goal of Intercept it to provide the individual student all the options that are available to them to allow them to make an informed, independent decision based on their personal circumstances. This one-on-one meeting allows the student to share their story with an informed employee who can act as a sounding board to help the student come to their decision.

Whatever the outcome is, Intercept has been successfully helping the College retain students in the critical first few days of a term for several years. It’s an initiative that aligns with the College values of Caring, Learning, Integrity and Respect because it gives students the personal attention they deserve at a time when they are feeling vulnerable and unsure that they are making the right decision by attending college.

There’s strong evidence that Intercept is a highly successful initiative. Last fall, there were 1,062 Intercept appointments and 608 or 57 per cent of the students chose not to withdraw from the College after their meeting. A closer look at the data indicates that 259 of the students elected to stay in the program they were registered in, 193 students transferred to another program in the fall semester, 107 students deferred their admission to a future semester and 49 students chose other options, such as part-time studies, rather than moving forward with withdrawing from college.

Intercept is a great example of a student success initiative that supports the overall health of the College’s enrolments. By tracking the results of these one-on-one interventions with students, the College is able to make data informed decisions on the effectiveness of this retention strategy and build on it. For example, Intercept now starts before the first day of classes, helping to save students who may be getting cold feet as Day One approaches.

So, as a new school year begins, be mindful that there are students who are questioning their college plans. If they are considering withdrawing from their program, Intercept is one way that we can help them make sure they have an opportunity to speak to a College employee about their options.

Any students considering withdrawing from their program should be directed here.

Any staff or faculty who have questions please reach out to the Academic Success team at academicsuccess@algonquincollege.com.

Upstream and Downstream Students

Posted on Monday, April 24th, 2023

In his best-selling book, author Dan Heath, writes about the upstream challenges many organizations face when they choose to tackle tough systemic issues to help the most vulnerable people in society. It’s a concept that can be applied to student success when you consider the great challenges some of our students face when they choose to better themselves by accessing post-secondary education.

Much of the work we do with students can be categorized as upstream. Moving prospective students through the admission funnel and preventing them from melting away before classes start is upstream work. So is retaining them after they start classes by not only providing them with additional supports but ensuring they access this help.

When you consider why students leave the college before completing their programs, in many cases the behaviour is predictable. We have access to a lot of data that helps us understand who our students are while they are still in the admissions funnel. For example, a student who just meets our admissions requirements is considered a higher risk of not being successful, because their high school transcript is an early indicator that they may struggle in some academic courses.

(When we are working with upstream students, any or all of these student characteristics can apply)

A student who self identifies that they are not sure they are in the right program or is concerned about being able to pay for their educational investment, also presents risk factors. An out of town student, who displays signs of home sickness, is also vulnerable to dropping out of school.

This is where the upstream work begins. The earlier we can intervene, by introducing retention strategies within the student recruitment funnel, the better position we will be in to help students succeed.

But doing upstream work isn’t as easy as applying downstream support. Students who are categorized as being in the downstream have clear career goals, they have the marks to succeed in college, they have family support and financial resources to pay their tuition and they have confidence in their abilities. These students move through the admissions and retention funnel easily and require limited interventions leading up to the start of classes and during their program of study.

The students who are swimming upstream in the admissions funnel are struggling and need reassurance they are making a good decision. If that support isn’t coming from their own network, it needs to come from the college. Early and intrusive interventions such as having them participate in campus tours, meeting a current student or faculty member to start building relationships, and engaging in academic preparation programming are good example of things the college can do to help these students stay the course in the admissions process.

(When we are working with downstream students, they move seamlessly through the student lifecycle from application to graduation.)

So, when we think of the admissions funnel, we need to consider both the upstream and downstream impact of the work we collectively do to support students. It’s easier to focus on downstream, but there aren’t enough students in this category to meet our enrolment aspirations, so we need to invest the time and energy with the upstream applicants to keep them moving through the funnel.

That takes a village. Our college values of caring, learning, integrity and respect guide our work in helping students who have an upstream pathway to attend college. They need us and we need them. A warm smile, an offer to help a student who isn’t sure where they should be going for support, or an invitation to participate in an orientation activity can go a long way in helping a student adjust to their new surroundings.

Collectively, college employees work together to provide a life jacket to students swimming in the upstream so they feel comfortable and supported that they are making the right decision, but upstream work doesn’t end with a few interactions with a student. It continues through their academic journey. That’s why it’s tough work, but the benefits to the college and particularly the student, are well worth the effort.

Author: Jamie Bramburger