How to work with admissions when the Corp. Office mandates how they have to enrol students
At my school, our admissions team has to follow a very strick script on how to enrol students and our corp office does not want them telling them the rules such as no flip flops or hats. We do a grad prep as well and Corp does not want the grad prep to talk about rules either. This tends to create some challenges when we first get students. Does anyone else have the same challenge and have you found a good way to address it?
Nice job. You know what to do! I love it.
Dr. B
Yes it is kind of the same at my school. However I have found it necessary to enlist the support and partner with our admissions team. I conduct quarterly teaching inservices with them to provide feedback from the classroom and industry updates. I get one rep once per month to come in to my class to speak to the students and ask for referrals. Whenever a student is out I immediately shoot the rep an e-mail about the student and their progress if I am having diffuclty with a student I ask the rep to speak to the student and encourage them. It has been yielding good results for me. I have seen a definte improvement in my retention. For the first quarter of school I lost 1 student. We enroll students every month. I had a .5 attrition.
I agree with you. And, consider this... what message do you want students to leave the room with? I suggest..."they need to walk away thinking that they can do it." That they will be successful and that they will have the education required to be successful in their career. Just a thougth.
Dr. B
I think that the rules should be discussed with the prospective student, and explained why the rules are in place.the students can then decide if they want to attend,but realy if a prospective student decides not to attend because he/she dont want to attend because of the shoe poilcy,hair,dress code. just how commited are they to better them self? if they are not told the poilicies.then when they are asked to conform to the policies they feel that they were lied to from the start, then they will have a chip on their sholder, nobody like to be lied to.
Great Anne. It is so important that admissions tells the same story as academics.
Dr. B
Our Corporate Office mandates do put controls to an extent on the Admissions personnel. There have been more cross-training and cooperation in the past year to improve upon what is said and not said to prospective students.
We have had a 40 hour General Studies Prep course for almost two years which takes place when the students begin school--before entry into their regular program.
The rules are being addressed in this Prep course, ie, professionalism, dress code, attendance,etc. There has been improvement in most areas due to this time spent before regular programs.
It will always depend on the type of students and their backgrounds to a certain extent but communication between the areas on caampus also make a big difference!
Anne Conway
Great idea on the cross-training. The idea is to link and support each other. Nice response.
Dr. B
Our campus has a pretty strict script to follow for admissions as well, as far as I know. I feel it would be beneficial for both sides, academics and admissions, to do some cross-training or exposure to what one another deals with. If we in academics better understand what limitations/guidlines admissions has, we would most likely be more willing to work more closely to make the relationship work, and vice versa.
Some of our challenges have come when students "expect" certain things they have heard from friends who attend other schools, for instance, the ability to take online classes. For example, we have restrictions set for students taking online classes as they are faster paced than on-ground courses. When they find out these options may not be available due to their low GPA, or other reasons, they are upset because they were not informed of these "rules" when they enrolled.
I realize it can become very tedious to cover all possible issues that may come up when enrolling a student, but many times it is very worth it because it makes certain a student has the right expectations going in.
I believe that to get to this point, ideally, the change would have to come through corporate for the setting I currently work in.
Good. I like the no flip flops :) It is best to be straight and for all to tell the same story.
Dr. B
