Continue to develop and improve online communications for graduate application.
Objective
Hobson Connect Application
Develop a fully functioning application to accept communications plan utilizing Hobson's Connect. Approach needed can be customized by program to increase transparency in the application proccess for both the applicant and the graduate program faculty.
KPI
Applicant Emails
Email to each applicant notifying of reciept of applications and status. Montior emails and calls from applicants. Develop an accept email one each by program 1 day after decision is posted.
Result
Graduate Admissions Communications
Incomplete application emails are sent upon receipt and 14 days later, ad hoc application status emails are sent according to the academic calendar. "Welcome to Graduate Studies" emails are sent to all accepted students on behalf of Dr. Tayebi in the Office of Graduate Studies. "accepted not enrolled" emails are sent according to the academic calendar. Phone calls and emails are monitored and tracked within Hobsons Connect.
KPI
Program Reporting
CONGNOS reports in place for each program showing applicants by program and status. Develop a report for programs to query a program by date of activity on application checklist items.
Result
Graduate Admissions Reporting
Weekly reports, one each by program showing application status by program have been developed and queued to go automatically to every Graduate Program Advisor. Approximately 80 reports total. Additionally, weekly reports for academic deans showing overall numbers by application status are queued.
Action
Ellucian Recruiter
Graduate Admissions is working towards Ellucian Recruiter implementation for all prospective and applicant student communications as well as application processing. Future communication and recruitment goals will live within the Recruiter CRM and we will continue to create and implement new procedures once the implementation is complete. Graduate Admissions will no longer utilize Hobsons Connect after August 2015 or completion of implementation.
Goal
Marketing Strategy
Develop a marketing strategy to increase applicant pools for those programs indentifited to have growth potentional and capacity.
Objective
Marketing Strategy And Plan Development
Identify graduate programs that have growth and capacity. Develop a program specific strategic marketing plan that includes online and print communications to increase quality and in some cases quantity of applicants. Funding will be needed to include higher quality pringing on-demand, working with external vendors like Zinch and CollegeWeek Live to improve online footpring, and purchase of print advertisements. We will needto provide additional tracking and reporting to measure return on investment.
KPI
Solidify Communication Plan
Expand and refine prospective communication plans to be more specific. Work on the ability to track performance by monitoring program pool size. Measure online footprint through Google analytics and other measures. Survey prospective applicants on how they received information on SHSU. Create a student focus groups to identify what students are doing with a program. Identify each program metrics;competitors, peer programs, capacity, desired pool size, and a prospective student profile.
Result
Communication Plans And Study Groups
Associate Director of Graduate Enrollment Communication, Lauren Sears has revised and implemented emails from each program advisor for prospective graduate students. Exported data from Hobson Connect to develop recruitment funnels and have been identified as growth or capacity programs. One student focus group was scheduled for Kinesiology, information was not useful for admissions purposes and deemed more academic affairs in nature and additional focus groups were not scheduled. On going work with programs to identify program capacity. Incomplete and Accepted-not enrolled were sent to the clearing house to find out where students were attending (competitor institutions)
Action
Continued Efforts
Graduate Admissions has received funding and entered into contract agreements for FY15 with both Zinch and CollegeWeek Live. Graduate Admissions intends to marketing the graduate programs to an additional 350 leads through Zinch and has scheduled CollegeWeek Live chats/events for Graduate students.
Graduate Admissions continues to identify and monitor program pool size with the purpose of refining the prospective communication plans. Assoc. Director, Lauren Sears has developed and implemented Graduate communication plans for each graduate program.
Goal
Graduate Admissions Process
Improve and streamline gradaute admissions process.
Objective
Streamline Admissions Process
Currently the graduate application process from time of application to receipt of department recomendation is a paper-based, manual process that is not scalable and does not support timely matriculation of our students thus hindering the ability to provide quality service to our community as well as to effectively market, grow graduate admissions, and speed-up the financial aid and scholarship award process. Critical to graduate admissions is the need for a supplemental application system that can accommodate the specialized needs of sixty graduate programs, allow for admissions materials to be uploaded at time of application, supports online faculty review of admissions applications, and has a fully functioning online status check page. While these issues are addressed at a division level, funding is needed to implement a CISCO phone routing system to handle phone call volume. Funding is needed for two additional student workers to ensure full office coverage is provided alleviating the strain placed on the majority of graduate admissions staff who spend half of their work hours processing mail, email, and handling phone calls.
KPI
Admissions Process Implementation
The implementation of a priority and secondary deadline to eliminate the gridlock created by applications received in the four weeks prior to the start of a term. Develop an online admissions decision form using PerfectForms. Monitor receipt date applications as compared to program deadline and start of term as compared to last year. Set-up an adivsory council of Deans to develop some best practices and explore options like revising application requirements to reduce materials overhead.
Result
Graduate Admissions Implementation
Coucil of Deans has not been developed. COGNOS reports were revised to include application received dates. Data comparisons from past recruitment cycles are now being communicated to program advisors. Online admissions decision form is still in development with IT. Many programs have implemented priority and secondary deadlines and have been communicated via PLP (program landing pages).
Action
Ellucian Recruiter Admissions Processing
Graduate Admissions is working towards Ellucian Recruiter implementation for all prospective and applicant student communications as well as application processing. Future communication and recruitment goals will live within the Recruiter CRM and we will continue to create and implement new procedures once the implementation is complete. Graduate Admissions will no longer utilize Hobsons Connect after August 2015 or completion of implementation.
On going meetings with programs to ensure program specific application processing is occuring.
On going work with Apply Texas to move towards a paperless enviorment.