This is a conversation with Connie F. Cooke, Director, Financial Aid, State University of New York (SUNY) Buffalo State and Sharon F. Cramer, SUNY Distinguished Service Professor, Emerita, SUNY Buffalo State. They started working together twenty years ago when they began to implement a new student information system for the university. The SABRE…

Years ago, we learned of a higher education institution with a wonderful reputation for excellence that had incredible silos and disparate processes that were not student friendly. These processes included requiring students to reapply and have their transfer credit reevaluated if they wanted to change majors that were in different colleges at the…

As a naïve young manager at a 30,000-student college, Jeffrey Levine vowed that if he ever participated on university cross-departmental teams building on a strong foundation from both student affairs and enrollment management (EM), he would never miss an opportunity to engage key faculty, senior leadership, and academic affairs leadership. Levine…

Registrars and other university offices are integral to students' full life cycle, from prospective students to alumni. In this more encompassing definition of enrollment management, registrars perform a number of duties that overlap with the objectives of enrollment management. This perspective paper analyzes the changes in the historic…

All enrollment managers face some level of challenge related to decentralized decision making and operations. Policies and practices can vary considerably by academic area, creating administrative complexity, restricting the scope and speed of institutional initiatives, and limiting potential efficiencies. Central attempts to standardize or…

Student retention is an important part of a strategic enrollment management plan. Many scholars have written about the challenges of helping students not only enroll in college but also complete their degree programs. Among students pursuing a doctoral degree in higher education administration, student retention is a popular topic. Many doctoral…

On-campus admissions events are the secret weapon that colleges and universities use to convince students to apply and enroll. On-campus events vary depending on the size, location, and type of institution; they include campus visitations, open houses, preview days, scholarship events, admitted student events, and summer yield events. These events…

Good enrollment managers know that keeping current enrollment must be Job Number One and that maintaining enrollment must be the concern of all campus constituencies. However, a large number of students are "lost" during registration due to closed classes. Lost enrollments are a largely invisible phenomenon that represents frantic and…

The array of admissions models and the underlying, and sometimes conflicting goals people have for college admissions, create the dynamics and the tensions that define the contemporary context for enrollment management. The senior enrollment officer must ask, for example, how does an institution try to assure transparency, equality of access,…

This article focuses on the interaction between students and institutions as they move toward decisions related to college attendance. Enrollment managers will find this information useful as they work within their institution to develop and revise long-term recruiting strategies that benefit both the institution and future students. Typically,…

This critique summarizes a recent examination of studies of campus-based retention efforts and also considers what is known about the roles and responsibilities of retention coordinators on college and university campuses. The paper closes with a call for more research on campus-based retention efforts and for a closer look at the management of…

Compared three types of orientation programs offered to new students at Salisbury State University (Maryland) traditional, alternative, and outdoor. Findings suggested enrollees in the outdoor program had better adjustment and higher retention rates than enrollees in other programs. The study concluded that interaction/ collaboration among…

Looks at the trend toward the early-start semester calendar in American colleges and universities, and examines administrative, pedagogical, and fiscal considerations in making the change from a quarter system. Topics discussed include the impact on the curriculum and instruction, summer session, access, enrollment management, and institutional…

Presents an information technology model designed to enable the consideration of enrollment management decisions in a portfolio context. Annual enrollment management decisions represent an important investment in a college's reputation. While the short run imperative to fill each incoming class is important, the long run implications of each…

A college degree is one of the most expensive purchases an American family can make. While today's costs are higher than ever before, parents have many more options whose sheer number and complexity have given rise to a whole new field-financial planning for college. This article, which is based on materials created for the enrollment management…