Direct admissions is the latest trend hitting higher education. Many schools are turning to this new process to grow the number of students in their funnel and hopefully see an increase in yield.

What is Direct Admissions?

Direct admissions in higher education, also known as direct enrollment, is becoming increasingly popular among colleges and universities looking to increase the size of incoming classes amid enrollment cliffs and dwindling applications.

Organizations like Niche, Common App, and Sage Scholars have already partnered with more than 90 colleges and universities to implement direct admission on their campuses — and that number continues to grow.

But direct admission turns the table on traditional enrollment for both students and schools. With the application no longer being the end goal, recruiters and enrollment managers must shift their attention to nurturing student engagement and yield.

For direct admissions to be successful, universities need to better connect with students. By building meaningful and personalized relationships, universities can ensure the conversion and success of direct admission students.

How to Increase Engagement and Make Direct Admissions Work

Direct admissions typically occur when students are accepted into a university or college based on their academic achievements and potential rather than through a competitive admissions process.

For direct admissions to be successful, universities need better engagement with students. This may include offering personalized support and communication, more one-on-one interactions, and providing resources that are unique to each student’s needs.

With the right technology in place, higher education institutions can build a relationship with students and provide resources and support to ensure the conversion and success of direct admission students.

Here are our top three ways to create engagement with direct admissions students and how to implement the process at your school:

1. Communication personalized to each individual student

Reaching out to prospective students with tailored messages that speak to their interests and goals can help build a connection and foster engagement. Students will be more likely to engage with schools that show how much they care.

Brainstorm ways to create a personalized communication plan that serves the information students need while streamlining the conversion process. As you learn more about the student, inject their likes, interests, and goals into the communication plan with dynamic content that can easily personalize each message to its intended recipient.

By automating your direct admission communication campaign, you can let the student’s actions trigger the following message. This way, you ensure they receive the right message at the right time and in their preferred format.

There's a high likelihood that your direct offer will not be the only one your prospects receive. You have to treat each student like an individual and show them how valuable their presence will be to your incoming class.

2. One-on-one interactions to build relationships

When students feel seen, heard, and cared about by admission staff, they are more likely to remember your institution and build affinity toward it. With the right student-engagement software in place, you can automate communications, pull powerful reports, and segment students by as many unique characteristics as you’d like in order to get a sense of who each student is.

With the right process in place, you can even automate manual tasks to save time and focus on what truly matters: communicating one-on-one with students to hear their concerns, speaking to them individually, and building the kind of relationships that stand out among your competitor schools.

With profiles that show a broad overview of each student’s interactions, interests, and more, your team will always know where a student is in the journey. This way, each conversation can be meaningful and relevant to the student.

Think outside the box when you communicate with students. Provide opportunities for prospective students to connect with current students, alumni, and faculty members to also help build a sense of community and increase engagement.

3. Relevant online resources students expect

Providing prospective students with access to online resources, such as college prep materials and financial aid information, can help support their decision-making process and increase engagement. A student-engagement CRM like Element451 can even track the pages students are visiting, and help you build an automated workflow for follow up email and text communication.

Let’s say a student continually visits a financial aid web page. That would trigger a workflow of emails and text messages centered around scholarships and financial resources. With our pre-written library of emails and texts, your team doesn’t even need to spend time crafting the perfect message. All you have to do is set up the sequence, set it, and know the right  students are receiving the right message at the right time.

Another way to provide relevant resources is through individualized landing pages and microsites. These pages dynamically pull in content that is relevant to each student. This personalization is the difference between sending out cookie cutter information that does not resonate or wowing students with messages that have been specifically curated for them.

WIth the right tech tools, you can easily build customizable hubs for students to learn more about their intended major, career goals, and details about your campus and institution that will help them make the right enrollment decision.

Software That Increases Engagement And Converts Direct Admissions Recipients

Creating a successful enrollment strategy for admitted students is essential in order to maximize the number of students that move from admitted to enrolled. 

Through automation, personalization and meaningful engagement, colleges and universities can ensure that prospective students understand the benefits of their school while also providing them with the necessary information to make an informed decision. 

To learn how your school can utilize Element451 to save time and focus on converting students, schedule a quick call to see it in action.