Recent data published by the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges (ASCCC) found that campus community impacts student success by 44 percent. Students are more likely to thrive when they have access to people who understand and relate to them and when they can gain support from programs that value their culture and ideology. Including…

Over the past two years, the Indiana affiliate's Government Relations Committee (GRC) has undergone a metamorphosis. As co-chair, the author has had the opportunity to witness the once largely inactive committee grow by 250 percent. The affiliate has embraced storytelling as an important advocacy tool. In this article, the author shares a couple…

Parents and guardians often have more fear than their students about the journey off to college. They are unsure about fit, cost and value, distance, health and safety, an empty nest, and more. COVID-19 has added even more factors into the mix. The pandemic drastically changed the way many colleges deliver instruction, as well as the ways students…

In both the stacks of research compiled by education think tanks and in the conversations had around the dining room table by families of aspiring college students, one stumbling block to college enrollment predictably crops up--financial aid. The topics range from avoiding endless, crushing debt to options for part-time jobs. But often the focus…

The looming demographic crisis has been talked about for nearly a decade, has had higher education enrollment managers to strategically think ahead and urge their institutions' stakeholders that the model must change, that they must adapt, and that not all colleges and universities could be winners in the hypercompetitive environment they were…

Like most National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC) affiliates, the Western Association for College Admission Counseling (WACAC) earns most of its revenue from a trifecta of professional development events: Share, Learn, Connect (SLC) sessions, college fairs, and an annual conference. Last summer when the WACAC executive board…

It is becoming more and more common for adults to delay their education and enroll in college one or more years after they have graduated from high school. Typical reasons why a student starts later in life may include military deployment, a career change, lack of financial resources, and/or learning disabilities that hinder academic success.…

As the pandemic subsides in the United States and parts of the country edge toward normalcy, NACAC professionals believe that virtual recruitment resources that colleges invested much effort in developing will not vanish. They say that virtual recruitment will have long-lasting staying power as a supplement to in-person recruitment. This article…

There are a growing number of creative new ways that college admission professionals are reaching students and their families, but often, experts say, the biggest payoff can come from the simplest technique: building relationships. And those relationships may extend beyond the short-lived connections to the student who is inquiring or enrolling,…

College advisers were forced by COVID-19 to adapt the services they offer to effectively reach students online. While many say they have discovered more innovative and efficient ways to reach students, they also report a fair amount of challenges that have made certain tasks--such as protecting student privacy or working through the Free…

As a practitioner who has scored many admission essays, the author has noticed that numerous colleges and universities include questions that seek to expose and evaluate students' interactions with diversity, equity, and inclusion. Frequently, applicants are encouraged to disclose a difficult moment in their life and share how they overcame it.…

There is no doubt that 2020 has put a number of professions through their paces--college admission and recruitment included. The longer it takes to secure widespread COVID relief, the worse the economic situation becomes. These challenges are broad, sweeping, and beyond the scope of one institution's individual strategies. One framework has shown…

COVID-19 has changed the college search and selection process. Transforming the focus according to student need will continue to be important to support and recruit the next class. Some experts say the pandemic will forever change higher education and young people's attitudes about it, but others believe the crisis has shown most colleges can…

For many students struggling through high school closures and rapid changes to their postsecondary plans, there has been one overriding theme during the last six months: uncertainty. Instead of savoring familiar traditions and farewells, they faced months of upheaval that tossed around every aspect of their lives during a period that should have…

The coronavirus pandemic has upended schooling and students' college admission journeys. Schools transitioned to remote learning, extracurricular activities vanished into thin air, and in-person visits to colleges were abandoned. The SAT and ACT calendars for the late spring were wiped out and subsequent plans for at-home testing were abandoned.…