Admissions Office Audit for Park University

Visit 2 ReportClayton A. Smith, Ed.D.

David R. Wallace, M.S.

July 22, 2008

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Consultation Summary

AACRAO Consultants Clayton A. Smith and David R. Wallace conducted a consulting visit to Park University on June 16-17, 2008 to review admissions and student recruitment functions, and make recommendations regarding the viability of developing a centralized admission process. This is the second of two planned visits to Park University to enhance enrollment management.

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Project Goals

AACRAO Consulting will conduct a review of Park University’s Office of Admissions from its knowledge base of leading practices in higher education administration. The audit will focus on:

Review of current organizational structure including policies and procedures.

Recruitment strategies for undergraduate students.

Potential centralization of admission processes.

-Contract, p. 7.

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Visit 2 Agenda

Two-day campus visit to include meetings with the Park University project team and relevant stake holders to discuss project focus areas

Focus area: non-traditional and on-line admissions, and visits to satellite locations in the Kansas City area

Assess the viability of centralizing admission processes, and if that is to be done, the best methods for doing so

-Contract, p. 7

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Interviews in Chronological Order

Vice-President for Student Services

Director, KC Area (accelerated)

Director, Marketing

Kansas City Area Students

Associate Dean for Enrollment Services/Director of the PSSC

Vice-President for Distance Learning

Associate Vice-President for Academic Affairs and Registrar

Associate Vice-President for Administration and Regional Directors (by conference call)

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Interviews in Chronological Order (continued)

Dean/Professor of Education, Director of Field Experience, Director of Graduate Studies

Team Coordinator, Park Student Success Center and Admissions Advisor, College for Distance Learning

Vice-President for Student Services and Director of Admissions/Student Financial Services

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General Observations Park University operates an extensive accelerated and on-

line educational program, using an extended learning approach, which produces $50 million of the total $75 million in University revenues, making it a significant player on the institutional stage.

While Park desires to have a “one university” presence, enrollment-wise it operates two very different enrollment management operations, one focused on the traditional students attending the Parkville campus; the other in support of the University’s vast accelerated and on-line instructional program. One could even say there are five enrollment funnels at Park: traditional, KCA, graduate, online and the College for Distance Learning remote centers.

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General Observations (continued) While a concern, enrollment increases are less urgent in

the non-traditional programs.

Communication across the two primary enrollment channels creates challenges for staff, faculty and students.

Students enrolled in the accelerated programs are often stop-outs who take up to eight years to complete a degree. Cost, location, study by cohort, availability of financial support and reduced bureaucracy appeal to these students. Thus, customer service is seen as an essential ingredient to the Park experience.

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General Observations(continued)

The concept of a home campus creates a more competitive than cooperative environment.

There is a great deal of interest throughout campus to improve service to incoming students, both traditional and non-traditional.

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Admissions Policies & ProceduresObservations

Admission to the KC Area Center requires a high school diploma or GED and a DD214 if the student has completed military service. The transcript requirement is waived for students who have a college transcript with 42 hours of transferable coursework. This is essentially a paperwork/procedural approach to admission with admission open to all who can provide it.

Desire for degree completion is seen as the primary reason for success, with individual circumstances the cause of stop-outs or withdrawal.

Regional center staff all perform admissions functions, particularly in the areas of advising and program selection.

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Admissions Policies & ProceduresObservations (continued)

The University uses a centralized admissions process (AY), with decentralized decision-making, which works well for the students who enroll at the regional centers and with CDL.

Delegating down, rather than controlling down, is an effective way to ensure that solid admission decisions are made with flexibility. An example of this is the prerequisite waiver, which permits the program director to waive the prerequisite after interview at the local level when military training does not match perfectly.

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Admissions Policies & ProceduresObservations (continued)

Some academic programs do not permit for flexibility with regard to admission policies (e.g., Education) due to accreditation and certification rules.

Cost and convenience toward degree completion are seen as the primary reasons why students enroll in the non-traditional programs.

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Admissions Policies & Procedures Recommendations

Park should consider incorporating an assessment of non-cognitive factors (e.g., student motivation) into its admissions policies and procedures.

We recommend continuing the current centralized admissions process while maintaining decentralized admission decision-making.

Consider amending admissions policy to include maturity and motivational factors.

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Organizational StructureObservations

Park does not have a chief enrollment management officer responsible for the institution’s enrollment; instead, it has managers for each of the University’s primary enrollment programs.

The Registrar now reports to Academic Affairs and is seen as an important part of academic service delivery.

The new Director of Academic Advising position should have considerable impact on the University’s student success effort.

There is interest in Academic Affairs and Student Services to develop more and better ways of interacting to impact both student recruitment and retention.

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Organizational StructureRecommendations The University should consider naming a chief enrollment

officer who would be responsible for coordinating strategic enrollment management across the institution’s wide-ranging enrollment programs. It is important to note that strategic enrollment management is much more than oversight of enrollment services. It requires connectivity to the University’s strategic plan and involvement in the setting of enrollment-related priorities for the institution.

We support the movement of the Registrar into the Academic Affairs area of the University. It is, however, important that the Registrar maintain close connectivity to those engaged in student recruitment and admissions, especially as it relates to the processing of transfer students both on- and off-campus.

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Organizational StructureRecommendations

Creation of the new Director of Academic Advising position will be instrumental in moving the campus more toward a student success platform. While we are supportive of it being housed in the academic area, it should be located in a high student traffic area.

The student services retreat should include a dialogue with the academic affairs area to establish topics of overlap that can be mutually supported.

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Student RecruitmentObservations

No system currently exists to provide basic and automated information to incoming students (prospect forward) and, therefore, facilitate the necessary personal contact import to creating the “family” feel so important to Park.

The Parkville campus often receives inquiries for on-line and accelerated programs (especially for the KC Center).

Students sometimes choose their campus of record on the basis of the tuition structure, which suggests that there may be reason to examine Park’s various tuition regimes.

Park is spending money creating an enrollment funnel to yield applications; however, little effort is focused on the follow-up of inquiries.

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Student RecruitmentObservations (continued)

PSSC currently responds to 70% of its student calls/emails, with 20% referred and 10% sent to a supervisor.

There is Academic Affairs interest in having faculty more involved in student recruitment.

Park has experienced success in building personal relationships with students in the athletic and international areas on campus and at the regional centers off-campus.

The primary sources of student recruitment at the regional centers is word of mouth and a student-oriented staff.

Competition for on-line students is intense, with Phoenix able to respond to inquiries within 10 minutes.

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Student RecruitmentObservations (continued)

Faculty are generally not involved in post-admissions communication with newly-admitted students.

The Admissions staff is not focused on the recruitment of adult students in the Kansas City region.

The PSSC communications plan is relatively strong (4 emails in first 30 days, phone call within 48 hours, and a supplementary series of emails); however, there is potential for making it more personal.

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Student RecruitmentRecommendations Park should develop a one-stop University welcome

infrastructure, which would assess student needs and then refer appropriately to the traditional or non-traditional enrollment departments. It is important that all staff in this area be knowledgeable about and supportive of Park’s various educational delivery approaches, as well as the many ways that individual students can meet the University’s entrance requirements.

Park should examine its tuition structure as it relates to the campus of record concept and student enrollment decision. We think students should choose their campus of record on the basis of service delivery rather than cost, especially when it results in some not ever attending their declared campus of record.

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Student RecruitmentRecommendations (continued)

The University should conduct a gap analysis to explain why there is a sizable difference between the number of inquiries created and applications filed with the Admissions Office. This should create opportunities for refinements in the student recruitment program.

Inquiry follow-up should become a priority for the enrollment management program. This should be done on a personal basis as much as possible. One technique is to use a post-inquiry qualification call to assess the student’s relative interest in Park and to then establish an appropriate personalized communication plan to move them through the enrollment process.

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Student RecruitmentRecommendations (continued)

We encourage Park to keep the development of personal relationships between staff/faculty and students a service priority. After all, it is the strength of this relationship that has been the hallmark of Park and what will permit it to position itself as the true “One University. Yours.” institution of higher learning in its key markets.

Park should benchmark its inquiry follow-up of on-line student inquiries with those in its competition group. While this should include the University of Phoenix, it should also include regional on-line providers with market share in Park’s regions.

The University should monitor/track faculty involvement in student recruitment and develop a way to reward outstanding contributions to student recruitment.

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Student RecruitmentRecommendations (continued)

Establish an increased presence of faculty in post-admission communications with newly-admitted students. This could take the form of a faculty calling campaign, personal letters or even email communications. What is important is that it be personalized to support the Park brand. In order to develop this on an individual faculty member basis, it will be important for faculty to have a good amount of personal information on their new advisees.

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Student RecruitmentRecommendations (continued)

We recommend that attention be given to adult student recruitment in the Kansas City area. This should include professional development for the Admissions staff, increased coordination between admissions and the KC Area Regional Center, and an enhancement of publications/materials to emphasize adult student concerns and interests.

PSSC should consider making a personal phone call to prospective students at the conclusion of its 30-day communications cycle as a way of checking in with students and moving them to an earlier enrollment decision.

Student RecruitmentRecommendations (continued)

Review the forced choice nature of the initial application and consider a more universal one-stop approach to divert inquiries to the correct enrollment funnel.

Develop and program a comprehensive communications plan to provide and track information needed to complete the transition from school/work place to Park.

Consider more recruitment of adult students in the Kansas City area.

Other Topics

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Enrollment Data

Observation: enrollment data is currently counted by campus of record.

Recommendation: to increase academic department buy-in to the enrollment management effort, Park should consider counting enrollment by academic department in addition to the current practice of recording enrollment by campus of record.

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MarketingObservations The marketing program is focused on taking potential students from

unaware to interested. There does not appear to be any further connectivity between marketing and student recruitment. This is evidenced by a noticeable gap in terms of inquiry yield (see Platform Advertising survey results).

Marketing faces a number of challenges in advertising such a large and wide-spread educational program.

Due to the great number of post-secondary educational choices in the Kansas City area, it is difficult to present a distinctive message that resonates with the various student profiles Park is focused on enrolling.

There is currently only limited knowledge in the Kansas City area of Park University.

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MarketingObservations (continued)

Advertisements in the regional campus areas do not include the local telephone number for the regional center; instead, advertisements use a central telephone number.

The changing military deployment patterns impact student enrollments off-campus and creates the need for continued attention to the environmental impacts on the enrollment program. This is evidenced by the loss of 15,000 credit hours last year, which is the second year Park has experienced a loss in military enrollment.

Park does not use web-based advertising to support the off-campus enrollment program.

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MarketingObservations (continued)

Advertisements in the non-traditional areas have included some of the traditional ads (e.g., Jump Start ads), which have not resonated with the adult student prospective student markets. Similarly, marketing materials in the traditional market often use older students, with the exception of the new view book and the former Jump Start ad campaign.

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MarketingRecommendations

Park should identify and support in each of its enrollment funnels an improved inquiry yield approach that results in more inquiries becoming applicants. This will require closer working relationships between the marketing and student recruitment functions.

We like the idea of creating an institutional brand (“One University. Yours.”) and sub-brands that recognize targeted student markets. If committed to in the long run, this should produce more institutional identity and greater enrollments in the specific student markets of interest to Park.

The marketing program should build upon the word-of-mouth and student-oriented staff at the regional centers as a way of attracting more interest in Park.

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MarketingRecommendations

Park should list local telephone numbers in its ads placed in regional markets.

The marketing program should investigate web-based advertising as a way of supporting off-campus enrollments.

Marketing should look to designing and making use of advertisements in the off-campus regions that focus on adult student motivations.

We would encourage increased liaison between CDL and Marketing as a way of creating increased promotion for the centers. This may include the establishment of a marketing position in CDL.

Marketing in the regions should focus on attracting adult students, rather than high school learners.

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RegistrationObservations There is a noticeable difference between what courses a

Parkville and KC Area Regional Area Center can take.

Parkville students register one semester at a time, while those enrolled in the KC Area Regional Center can register for more than one term at a time.

At KC Area, students can take up to 15-18 hours of coursework as a non-degree student provided they meet course prerequisites.

Scheduling is a local responsibility, with hiring of instructors an academic department responsibility.

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RegistrationRecommendations

There appears to be a need to reconcile the differing registration practices between Parkville and the regional centers. This is especially true in the Kansas City area where students register at multiple locations. Registration practices should not be a reason why students opt to take courses traditionally or accelerated.

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Technology

Observation: systems (AY and Jenzabar) are not fully utilized. Few employees are trained in their efficient use and, therefore, communication at all levels (e.g., prospect, student, faculty, administration, community) suffers from being incomplete and sometimes unavailable.

Recommendation: increase training and support so that the key enrollment functions (e.g., recruitment, marketing, departmental reporting, retention, institutional research) can more fully benefit from the existing student information systems.

Summary

In general, we believe that the enrollment management effort is relatively strong and with some attention to improving management across the traditional and non-traditional enrollment funnels, Park will be well on its way to executing a strong enrollment management program.

We thank you for the opportunity to provide support to a university community that cares deeply about its students and its place in the American higher education landscape.

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Respectfully submitted,

Clayton A. Smith, Senior AACRAO Consultantcsmith@uwindsor.ca

David R. Wallace, AACRAO Consultantdwallace@memphis.edu

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