What is the best way to increase student enrollment? Pre-admission campaigns, as we spoke in the previous blog of this ongoing series, is fundamental to increasing the enrollment at any educational institution. While these campaigns are key to achieving the student recruitment target, experts opine that these are also often the most underrated ones. As a result, they often tend to get ignored.
While in the previous blog we provided ‘5 ways to increase student enrollment through digital tools’ for educational institutions, in this blog, we take a step back and focus on basics.
As you know, we, Classe365, have been closely monitoring trends in the education sector. And based on our observation over the last few years, we have started a ‘pre-admissions blog series’ to provide practical tips for institutions to increase student enrollment. Our prime focus is to help institutions understand the importance of digital tools and how data analytics can help them turn potential leads to future students.
In the second part of this series, we talk about ‘four compelling strategies for educational institutions to increase student enrollment’.
Conducting compelling campus tours – both physical and virtual
Conducting compelling campus tours go a long way in making sure that an inquiry converts into an enrollment. Getting it right though is a tricky task. Every individual might have a different need and it would practically be impossible to provide the campus tours in a personalized way.
But there is one unanimous expectation nowadays: both parents and students like to ensure that a particular school/ university provides a wholesome experience rather than just focus on academics, co-curricular and extra-curricular activities. For this, showcasing the infrastructural facilities is very crucial.
It is imperative to also have a virtual campus tour events for students aside from the physical ones. The virtual campus tour should be highly interactive so that even the international students have a good idea about the institution and why it could be better than the rest for them,
The tours must ensure that aside from having a detailed focus on the classroom and library facilities, they should also focus on celebrations, general entertainment, annual festivals, enjoyable sporting and leisure activities, auditorium, cafeterias, and more.
Simplified admission process
Filling multiple forms while filling the application can immediately make students and parents feel that the admissions process is a tedious task. These days, there are several Student Information Systems (SIS) available for the institutions and with the help of such software, schools and universities could enable a one-time data entry feature for the students so that they are not tasked with filling any more forms until they get enrolled. This could save time not only for the students, but for the institutions as well. Apart from this, it could guarantee a pleasant onboarding experience for the students.
These are some ways you can ease the application process for the students: auto-fill forms, accessible forms, reminder to complete filling the form, start where you left off, voice-enabled forms, guided instructions and pre-requisites and further steps
(Did you know? Classe365 helps institutions offer paperless admissions. Our online admission forms make it easy and convenient for prospective students to apply to your institution. You can track and review where a student is in the application process and manage their journey with ease)
Providing clear, but flexible curriculum details
Providing very clear information about the curriculum for all the courses is an important step towards increasing the student enrollment. These days, students, and even parents, are very particular about how flexible and dynamic a particular curriculum has been designed. They do not like it if it looks rigid. Hence, the curriculum has to be showcased accordingly along with how they would be useful in real life. Specify the lighter aspects of the curriculum as well. It would make sure that the students are not intimidated by the course structure.
Counselors are crucial to this particular strategy as prospective students might have multiple doubts regarding their curriculum and assessment methods. So, enable email/ phone interactions for students with the counselors so that they can have their doubts clarified as and when required.
Sending the curriculum brochure as personalized emails to prospective students can be very effective. Possessing good customer relationship management (CRM) software can be very useful as it would help in gathering information about the prospective students and sending out automated, but personal emails.
(Did you know? Classe365 offers a one-click email, call, or SMS feature for institutions. Our integrated CRM function enables your admissions staff to proactively follow your potential leads with ease)
Showcasing attractive financial package options
Fees, facts, and figures. These are key components of your campaign to attract students to enroll. As part of your enrollment strategy, keep in mind that offering attractive financial packages can swing many a student into your academy. Work with banks and financial institutions to come up with a viable payment plan for a variety of students. Students from affluent families may want to pay up full time one-time. Some international students may want to pay according to the fiscal quarterly pattern followed in their countries.
Again, the emphasis is to learn how to up-sell the available schemes so that enrollment is easy. Speak to enrollment managers and accounts department to understand the scale of student aid and financial packages required. Similar to the admission process, even everything regarding fee payment could be made online to make the process easy for students.