How We Did It! (Our All-Time Record Enrollment in Fall 2009)

Bill Firman
Dean of Admission
Wesley College

In February 2008 Wesley College purchased 100,000 names of high school juniors who had taken the SAT. These students were sent a ?personalized URL card? [PURL]. This? ard was a slightly larger-than-postcard- sized, high-gloss photo of a cell phone with a? ersonalized message on the screen saying, ?Hi, [first name]! You have 1 message, from? Wesley College?. On the reverse were instructions for going to their own personalized Wesley web site: firstname.lastname.@wesley.com. From that site, students were provided with links to 15 different points of interest on the Wesley web site [financial aid, cost, student life, etc].

Once the students accessed their web site, their data was downloaded to our database. At that point, they became a Wesley inquiry and received new promotional materials including a viewbook, visitor?s guide and an open house invitation. They also became part of a six-letter direct mail series [sent over six months] from various alumni of the College [as well as the President] discussing different strengths of the College.

These prospective students were contacted via telephone by our evening telecounselors who called to discuss their eligibility for Wesley academic scholarships and grants and to encourage them to apply for admission.

Those various stages of contact [PURL, viewbooks, letter series, phone calls] over a six-month period beginning with those 100,000 in February 2008 [and followed up with another separate group of 100,000 now-rising seniors in June 2008, who had taken the SAT] generated a record applicant pool. Applications increased 63% compared to the previous year. Once the students applied, our exceptional admissions team entered into the process and began their work.

We were fortunate that we started the admissions cycle in September 2008 with a full staff [as we know, not always the case in admissions] of five very capable and dedicated?admission counselors.

These counselors maintained a communications plan [phone, email, and letter] of sustained monthly contact with each applicant throughout the cycle. This sustained communication provided applicants with constant updates on their applications, including materials still needed to complete the application review, important information on the financial aid process, invitations to visit campus for individual tours and other pertinent information.

More applications made possible improvement in the academic profile of the fall 2009 class. We were able to be more selective about those offered admission to the College for Fall 2009. The applicant pool was so large, that even with greater selectivity, we were still able to generate a large pool of accepted students.

Once a student was accepted, the counselors continued their intense communication with the student, with the messages slightly altered to include more follow-up on the student?s financial aid application. At this stage in the cycle, the counselors had one goal: remove every conceivable barrier that would keep an accepted student from making an enrollment deposit. These obstacles may be financial, academic, social, or a combination thereof. Obviously, we were unable to remove every obstacle for every student. Once an obstacle arrived that could not be overcome, invariably the student would decline our offer of admission. This was positive, though, in that it allowed the counselors to concentrate their efforts on a steady pool of actively interested accepted students.

With these remaining students, as obstacles were removed [financial aid awards, tours of the campus confirming the student?s original belief that Wesley was a good fit, etc], students began depositing. They did so earlier and in greater numbers than in history. Eventually, an all-time record number of them enrolled at Wesley in the Fall.
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How did Wesley do it?

? A great deal of hard work by a dedicated staff of counselors and support staff who provided better client service to potential students than competing institutions were able to deliver.

? We purchased more search names.

? We had our staff in place earlier than ever.

? We had a firm recruiting plan ? the seeds of which were actually started back in October 2007 when we began creating new recruiting materials like viewbooks, visitors guides, posters, etc] ? from which we never strayed.
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