Recruiting Intelligence

Think instant granular analysis of transcripts. Think about your ability to identify the specific classes and grades indicating future student success. Think about automatically excluding that A in Phys Ed from the overall GPA calculation.  

For the sake of speed and efficiency, institutions rely on the overall GPA, an SAT score (if submitted), or the presence of AP classes on a transcript. All helpful shortcuts as indicators of future success, to a point. And we’re not going to get into the SAT debate right now, though we have some strong opinions on that one. 

But now, along comes AI and admissions teams are apt to place some hope in the promise of what it can do to streamline unwieldy processes that tend to get in the way of enrollment yield. But there’s so much more edtech can now do. 

Opportunities to Meet the Intead Team  

• AIEA in March, ASU+GSV in April, and NAFSA in May. We'll be presenting our latest findings with colleagues from Chronicle of Higher Ed, IIE, AIEA, University of Tulsa, University of Memphis, Northeastern, and others. Let us know  if you want to connect at any of these events. 

Bookmark this: Intead’s Resource Center 
Access 800+ articles, slides decks, reports with relevant content on any topic important to enrollment management and student recruiting.  Check it out.

In our last post, we highlighted an edtech venture worth watching – especially if you’re among the AI curious. MyDocs is the brainchild of entrepreneur John Reese, whose name you may recognize from Parchment, the company that moved our industry from paper to digital transcripts (PDFs). That little startup originally founded by John grew up and just sold a year ago for more than $800M (all cash). Now, John is taking admissions capabilities a step further – moving institutions beyond digital transcripts into admissions data processing. And last year, he reached out to the Intead team for product launch support. 

MyDocs uses advanced OCR (optical character reader) and machine learning to evolve the tedious tasks of transcript analysis and processing. With application volumes rising thanks in part to the student efficiency tool Common App (don’t get us started), this new edtech helps smooth a specific task – and frequent bottleneck – in the admissions process. MyDocs' AI-powered platform scans and analyzes digital transcripts (PDFs, JPEGs, photos) to make them both human and machine-readable. 

That means the school of origin and every class, every grade, all become actionable data, instantly. Are you starting to see the possibilities? Oh, and if the transcript happens to be in another language, the tool translates to English. 

You can see why we were excited when John approached us and asked for our help with his entrepreneurial approach to transcript evaluation. The data analysis possibilities got the whole team here buzzing.  

For institutions, this kind of AI assist is more than welcome. One forward-thinking private New England institution we work with recently used this edtech tool to evaluate and process 11,000 applications in a single day. That’s just one anecdote, but the expediency is something to behold for anyone who’s ever managed admissions processes and credential evaluation. 24 hours vs. 1,500 hours (when done by humans). Something to think about. 

On the surface, technology like MyDocs seems like a game-change. Still, a challenge remains: institutions may find they are swimming in data without a clear strategy for leveraging it beyond this singular task of admissions efficiency: accept or reject?  

But, we have ideas. So many ideas. Read on… 

Bringing the real world into the classroom is so important to the future of your students. And last week we shared one way Suffolk University is taking action (find that post here). A sort of ​Career Readiness 101. This week, Career Readiness 201 as we talk about you and offer a helpful career-prep checklist, complete with on-campus practices and recruiter tips, too.  

Opportunities to connect in person and hear our latest market intel:

• Join us in Paris Nov 8-10 at CIEE's 76th Annual Conference.
• Join us in Boston Nov 13-15 at PIE News Live.

Let us know if you'll be joining us (info@intead.com).

Like you, the vast majority of students we talk to are playing the long game. Well before they even have a high school diploma, they’re thinking beyond university. They’re smart consumers and they need to know what their hard-earned degree, whatever the field, will mean for them in the market. Never mind that many of them are not sold on a major yet. They’ve been hearing for years about the rising costs of higher education. They understand ROI more than previous generations ever did. And their parents are all about that approach. 

According to the National Center for Education, in 1980, the annual cost of attending university (including tuition, fees, room, and board) was just over $10,000, adjusted for inflation. Fast forward to the 2019-20 academic year, and that that bottom line had ballooned 180 percent to nearly $29,000. This is the story your prospective students have grown up hearing. For decades, everyone, university administrators and families, have been wringing their hands about the rising costs and yet, not a thing has been done about it. 

For families, the reality is they’re looking at an average debt for a four-year Bachelor’s degree of $34,700 per the Education Data Initiative. And while the standard repayment term for federal loans is 10 years, it can take up to 30 or more years for more than a few students to pay off these loans. You can see their concern. 

Some of us optimistically thought the rise of online education would bring costs down and become a reliable source of revenue for universities and a powerful educational avenue for students. The reality: yes, a growing source of revenue, but the cost to produce truly effective online education that carries students forward with all the tools and supports, is fairly pricey to produce. And the low quality stuff really does not achieve the educational outcomes, so students pay for an ineffective degree - a credential that does not meet real-world employer needs. (See our blog post here about the perceived value of online degrees) 

Of course, these are tuition numbers you’ve thought about many times. And they’re all over the news right now as student loan repayments will soon be back on after a long pandemic pause. Smart students want to know the kind of return they’re going to get on their investment, and they’re looking to you to provide an attractive answer. 

So, what is your answer?

Read on for a checklist of essential ways to help ensure your campus helps prep students for the careers they’re hoping higher ed will lead them to. And yes, we’ve included pro-tips for you recruiters. Read on...

Let’s talk about the messaging your institution uses to convince students and families that what you offer has value. Pretty simple stuff, right? Maybe not. You’ll appreciate the helpful checklist that follows in part 2 of this series. Think marketing differentiators in a competitive marketplace. You won’t want to miss it. 

Opportunities to connect in person and hear our latest market intel:

• Join us in Paris Nov 8-10 at CIEE's 76th Annual Conference.
• Join us in Boston Nov 13-15 at PIE News Live.

Let us know if you'll be joining us (info@intead.com).

But first a story. 

Ok, so you are up in front of your board of directors presenting your business growth and marketing plan. You and your team have been figuring this out for a while and last night was a late one as you worked together to put the finishing touches on your slides. There were still disagreements among your team, but you settled the issues and felt nervously ready. 

Everyone has a speaking role but some on your team are stronger than others. Some don’t have appropriate clothes to wear for the presentation so they borrow something professional looking from friends. Some sway nervously back and forth and read their slides rather than engage with the very important board members. You realize early on in the presentation that the data presented on slide 7 is wrong. It doesn’t support your final recommendation. Maybe no one will notice. 

It is your Marketing Business class final presentation to a mock board of directors and as first year undergrads, your team is anything but seasoned. Your final grade is riding on how your team performs. 

Every semester for years now, I have had the honor of judging the final marketing analysis presentations of undergraduate students in a marketing business class at Suffolk University. A good friend of mine there teaches the class and gathers a set of judges from the biz to help the students get some real world feedback. Each judging session is as different as the teams presenting. It’s a blast for us, the judges. Nerve racking for the students. 

Recently, the department asked a few of the real-world judges for additional input and it truly impressed me. They wanted to hear from us as employers to understand what we look for in candidates as we hire. What tools should their students know how to use? What business concepts and approaches are critical to us as employers so their graduates will crush the interview?  

That line of questioning is SO important for business programs that often focus so much on esoteric business theory and simplistic case studies while purporting to be all about the real world. As our Intead Advisory Board Member Hillary Dostal, global marketing advisor at Pegasystems, says: There is best practice and then there is actual practice.  

This goes for your team, too. Read on…

From your steeped-in-student-recruitment vantage point, you see quite clearly the symbiotic relationship retention has with your recruitment efforts and resulting yield. It has everything to do with your student services, student success, and all the small-batch interactions you do to ensure your students experience both.

As David Hautanen, Vice President for Enrollment Management at St. Mary’s College of Maryland said so well in a recent Recruiting Intelligence post: "Retention is both a moral and economic imperative." We wholeheartedly agree. And it is as true for students as it is for institutions. 

We can dive into all of this with you at #Nafsa2022 in Denver. Let us know if you’ll be there and want to share a cup of coffee.

As campuses across the globe emerge from their pandemic safety bubbles and return to recruitment as usual (more or less), now is a really good time to rethink your institution’s retention efforts—and the student-first mentality it requires.

The bottom line: it’s your team’s soft skills that matter most and their availability to use them. Read on for our take…

We recently talked with students past and present from Vietnam to Bangladesh and heard encouraging stories.

• A professor hand-delivered a recommendation during the early phase of the pandemic.
• A class specifically designed around a student’s pursuits.
• A helpful phone call to a trusted member of the international student services team when tragedy struck.

Stories that embody the kind of student-first experience we all imagine we provide to our students. It’s the kind of experience we certainly all tell the world of prospective students (and parents) that we will deliver.

The reality, unfortunately, is often quite different. Blame branding or the bottom line (lack of resources), but the undeniable truth is that competing priorities often win out over the well-founded ideal of student-first. 

Today’s post is not a how-to on making your website user-friendly. Today we put a spotlight on the policies and actions that put students first. We’re looking at what is undermining your institutional integrity and how you can address it. And trust us, students are well aware of how well your institution delivers on the promise of student-first. And they tell stories. So, yes, this post is enrollment marketing-focused.

When you delight, they gush with positive word-of-mouth support. And when you fail, they tell that story too.

To offer deep perspective on this topic, in addition to our own experience, we tapped a few colleagues who know more than a thing or two about fostering the student-first mindset:

• David Hautanen, Vice President for Enrollment Management at St. Mary's College of Maryland
• Jessica Sandberg, Dean of International Enrollment Management at Duke Kunshan University
• Jewell Green Winn, Senior International Officer of International Affairs at Tennessee State University (and newly appointed chair of AIEA)
• Brad Farnsworth, Principal of Fox Hollow Advisory and former Vice President at the American Council for Education (ACE)

They each had great perspective on the subject. We are so appreciative of their time and the insights shared. You, our readers, are the beneficiaries of their wisdom.  

Read on to learn concrete actions you can take now to help ensure your enrollment program is student-first. Is this post a good one to share with your leadership? Uhm, yes.

Struggling to define strategies that will bring back your enrollment from China? You’re not alone.

But there’s good news: Clark University met the needs of their Chinese students this past year with an innovative and quickly installed remote campus in Shanghai. Their story is full of instructive lessons. And our webinar tomorrow will enlighten (see link below). 

And there is even more good news: Chinese parents are still eager to provide a US-style education for their child, with 97% of parent respondents in our latest market research citing the US as their first-choice destination for their child’s education.

The short of it: opportunity for your institution is still out there. Chinese parents and students are ready and waiting for your message despite current travel restrictions, if only you could reach them…

As you plan your strategy for next year, consider this: CIEE has created a powerful option that has proven successful at helping US institutions meet their Chinese students where they are. And it is not just about enrollment. It is so much more, thankfully. 

We’re talking long-term partnership building in one of your key markets and a new pipeline that will foster both student success and help you reach your enrollment goals. We’re talking International Campus Opportunities with your programs and your students — in China. Clark University was one of ten US institutions that acted fast and benefited from this innovative approach last year. Now, they will be sharing their story with you. 

Join us tomorrow, Thursday, April 15th at 11am Eastern for a webinar event with CIEE and Clark to discuss the state of the Chinese market, the international campus experience, and the steps necessary to make this opportunity work for fall 2021 at your institution. 

This event is for academic institutions only (.edu email addresses and other academic institutions).

Moderated by Ben Waxman, Intead CEO, the expert panel of your colleagues with a wealth of experience in higher ed and China will include:

• John LaBrie, Dean of the School of Professional Studies and Associate Provost for Professional Education, Clark University
• Jill Zhang, China-based Admissions Counselor, Graduate Admissions, Clark University 
• Seamus Harreys, Vice President Global Enrollment, CIEE
• Brad Farnsworth, Principal, Fox Hollow Advisory, Former Vice President for Global Engagement at American Council on Education

Read on for a preview of the valuable topics to be discussed and how to continue leveraging your presence and academic programs in this challenging time. 

According to Moody’s reports on the financial pain 4-year institutions are facing, higher ed administrators are managing a host of escalating challenges.

What we know: cutting your way to success has never worked for any institution.

What we want: strategic, incremental investments that pay off.

But which ones will lead to predictable enrollment growth and revenue? Oh, and student success?

There is a guiding light, a process to achieving this kind of success.

With technology playing an increasingly critical role in every aspect of our lives, especially now, academic institutions have recognized the need to accelerate the adoption and development of digitally oriented enrollment processes and education delivery. These moves can reverse enrollment declines and support the quality of education that students and families expect. A new partnership between Intead, iSchoolConnect, and Google addresses these needs with a smart, agile, and modular approach.

Framed as a modern and flexible model, incremental investments in technology for marketing and student success can align university leadership, administrators and importantly, faculty. CFOs take note, this is a plan for predictable enrollment and revenue streams.

The team delivering on this approach brings deep skills in marketing, enrollment management, and technology to support academic institutions through transformative initiatives carried out incrementally.

The goal is to produce an enrollment management transformation and a re-imagined approach to student success. Affordable marketing and AI-powered technology investments, each with clear transactional wins (think ROI) that justify the process, move the institution through a series of system improvements and enhancements toward the envisioned state. 

We’ve been here before, and we know that transformation is tough at large institutions. Bold and expensive strokes often fail to build the necessary stakeholder buy-in. The result: limited successes, far less than envisioned. 

Incrementalism recognizes that there are common modules every institution will want to address (recruitment, enrollment management, alumni relations, student and career services, etc.). Each institution is different in how and when each valued area blends into the transformation effort.

Read on to view our latest webinar in which I am joined by Ashish Fernando, iSchoolConnect CEO, and a panel of excellent guest speakers from Dartmouth, Babson, Northeastern, and Google to discuss how this new approach can pave the way to predictable, affordable, and transformative enrollment results. 

Tracking the macro indicators of market growth and decline is where we were at the start of our journey more than a decade ago. The Intead team defined the global market opportunity for student enrollment in ways we felt others were not seeing. And we published our findings and ideas.

While we in higher education are no strangers to global enrollment shocks, there’s no getting around the reality that the year 2020 and the seismic health, political, and economic shifts have challenged our collective efforts to achieve institutional growth. The student enrollment declines being reported are very real and so many of us are feeling them and anticipating more declines in the near term.

Just this week IIE and the National Student Clearinghouse are providing new data showing how the student market has changed for the worse. These numbers are absolutely worth watching and it all makes for good headlines.

Yet, the team here has moved far beyond those headlines and numbers you are seeing. As we approach each new client engagement, we are focused on where specifically the opportunities lie. Which micro demographic? Age range? Region? Academic program interest? Which market differentiators will be attractive and where? Specifically. Globally and locally.

A wealth of data available to make really smart decisions

Today, there is so much data to analyze to help define the real market opportunities for each institution. Given the harsh market conditions, decisions today will determine which institutions will thrive going forward. In some cases, it is about which ones will simply maintain, forget about thrive. Many are trying to predict the future and with investment in the right tools, that is possible.

"Really?" You ask. "Yes," we reply.

The reality: Your bottom line is more important than ever. Your budget? Smaller than ever. Your enrollment goals? More challenging than ever. Your students? Struggling to succeed.

With so much of this past year being entirely unpredictable, a little confidence in the future would be truly welcome.

Luckily, there is an achievable path forward to predictable and sustainable enrollment growth. We’re talking long-term transformational growth here — those “Aha!” moments that transform your institutional practices and reality for years to come. Interested?

Today we are talking to all of you big picture thinkers.

Enter: Predictive analytics.

We know what some of you may be thinking. Long a buzzword in higher education, predictive analytics strategies often come with a “proceed with caution” label and (valid) concerns about budget, staffing, and implementation.

But we’re here to change all that with our new eBook — The End of False Promises: A Guide to Real Predictive Analytics Success.

In this newest Intead publication, we discuss predictive analytics, past, present, and future, including our vision for a manageable, affordable path to incorporating data- and Artificial Intelligence-powered (AI) solutions throughout the student journey at your institution.

To bring this new reality of actionable predictive analytics services to life, we have partnered with iSchoolConnect, a growing leader in advanced EdTech artificial intelligence (AI) tools, to create a new model for marketing, communications, and analytics for academia. Bonus: as one of the world’s few official Google Cloud partners, this new tie-up has access to data insights and resources others only dream of!

The successful approach we are talking about relies on flexible, incremental investments that produce clear returns. With a trusted partner guiding your institution forward on this journey, the transactional successes add up to transform your entire system for enrollment management and student success.

Read on for a quick-hit predictive analytics crash course and to download your free copy of the new eBook. Plus, a closer look at the new Intead + iSchoolConnect approach.

There's one important thing institutions should do to reverse enrollment declines. Most won’t do it.

What you need to succeed: the knowledge that each incremental investment provides a near-term win, a return on investment, while advancing your institution towards a transformative state for long-term growth. 

On Monday, November 16th at 12pm (EST), we will be joined by an amazing line up of experts to discuss how predictive analytics and flexible, modular investments in technology can transform both enrollment management and student success.

With so many institutions experiencing enrollment declines and budgetary challenges, strategic investments are essential. No institution has ever cut its way to success. 

Join us for this intriguing discussion about predictive analytics powered by Artificial Intelligence (AI). Following our webinar, attendees will receive an advance copy of our newest eBook on how to customize this modular approach for your institution. And we will be making a big announcement about how Intead is changing, significantly, to take advantage of the opportunities we see ahead.

During the webinar, I will be joined by my co-host, Ashish Fernando, CEO of iSchoolConnect, and together we will get some amazing strategic insights from:

• Lisa Adams, MD: Associate Dean for Global Health, Director of the Center for Global Health Equity, Dartmouth Geisel School of Medicine
• Jesus Trujillo Gomez: Strategic Business Executive for Higher Ed at Google Cloud
• Kerry Salerno: CMO, Babson College
• Hillary Dostal: Economics Adjunct Professor and Lecturer, Northeastern University and Endicott College

Are your moments of fear and anxiety your best growth opportunities in costume?

Reality check: some days the fortitude to push forward is harder than others. There is simply so much work to be done.

Still, we are moving forward. Always.

On this morning following the US 2020 election, regardless of the final outcome, the hard work of pushing for learning environments that advance individuals and society takes forward thinking and energy.

We, as a community, do this every day because we know that a diverse student population fosters cultural understanding and personal growth.

We, as the Intead team, supply the expertise and energy to make this happen with all we have in us.

And we know that institutions at the top of the food chain and the bottom do not achieve diverse learning environments easily. Today, the light is shining very clearly on the fact that without proactively addressing student recruitment, enrollment, and support processes, institutions fall into ineffective practices. Worse, practices that can subjugate and demean student segments. Practices that undermine and diminish the very mission statements institutions hold so dear.

Still, we move onward with fortitude and hope for a future in which students and institutions can realize success. 

And while the path to that future might not always be clear, opportunities abound. Read on for our perspective on recognizing those opportunities, including the latest data from Moody's Investors Service and NAFSA that point the way forward.