Retention and FAculty-Admissions Intertraining
Admissions is often blamed by faculty for admitting students that have an unreal expectation of their program, or students that are not qualified to succeed in their programs. One possible answer to this question is to have meetings where faculty trains admission reps about what the courses are actually about, and what skill sets the students must have in order to succeed. Likewise, the admissions reps should train faculty about the details of the admissions process, the tests that the new prospective students must pass to get into the classes and any other tools used to choose the students that are enrolled in each class. Only when each group understands each others methods can they make meaningful suggestions for improvement.
I strongly agree, if it would only work that way.
I agree with getting the 2 departments together.
Knowing the steps of the ever changing admission process would be very helpful. Also I would like to see admission reps sit in on classes of all the programs offered. Open lines of communication is the key!
Why wouldn't a student be the their first choice of programs? Is this a qualification issue? Space?
I like that it is everyones responsibility and we all need to be on the same page. A red flag is a student who is not in the program of their 1st choice. This leads to problems for both students, teachers and the rest of the class.
How is that communicating and sharing of information going to happen?
I completely agree that there should be cross training of the admissions reps so that they are “selling” the correct information. I have witnessed reps that do listen and are giving the potential student the correct information on the program and I have witnessed the opposite. It is very hard to match the expectations of the student to improve retention when the potential student enrolls and is told something completely incorrect or irrelevant to what is actually being taught/delivered in the program. This can be avoided when faculty and admission are communicating, sharing information and supporting one another.
Hi Scott,
I strongly agree with your point, and I posted something similar. I worked at a college where the total lack of communication between Admissions and faculty was a real problem. This led to all sorts of rumors about the admissions process - they're fixing the numbers, they have different standards based on gender, etc. Then a recent drop-off in the average quality of students admitted was never discussed, resulting in ten percent of the recent freshman class landing in Academic suspension after just one year! I am happily working now for an online outfit that makes retention the absolute top priority for everyone involved.
Good points, Scott. Open communication greatly improves the mutual respect among departments. When I was directly involved with school management, I had an admissions committee that required sign off for each new student from the Director of Education as well as the Director of Admissions.
We also tried to have faculty members attend admissions department meetings to assure that the reps had accurate information about course competencies.
Have you been successful in implementing any of your suggestions at your school? If not, what are the prospects?
