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Strategic Use of ACT’s Enrollment Management Services

Strategic Use of ACT’s Enrollment Management Services. Presented by Don Pitchford PhD, Higher Education Consultant February 26, 2009. Enrollment Management Services. Class Profile service Enrollment Information Services Educational Opportunity Services

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Strategic Use of ACT’s Enrollment Management Services

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  1. Strategic Use of ACT’s Enrollment Management Services Presented by Don Pitchford PhD, Higher Education Consultant February 26, 2009

  2. Enrollment Management Services • Class Profile service • Enrollment Information Services • Educational Opportunity Services • ACT Information Management Services • Predictive Modeling

  3. ACT Tested by State 2008 2,203 1,527 11,951 2,548 6,286 6,113 44,863 12,469 10,589 46,990 44,311 1,251 10,081 6,959 123,918 8,159 4,361 19,439 14,714 22,950 16,573 88,103 986 6,295 143,734 15,884 11,603 10,740 22,598 16,896 50,420 47,240 1,503 23,687 31,728 72,326 13,054 50,225 27,131 16,521 22,545 11,602 11,951 25,641 33,238 35,590 79,050 93,884 34,211 2,047 3,182 > 100,000 70,000–100,000 40,000–70,000 20,000–40,000 10,000–20,000 < 10,000 Source: WICHE: Knocking at the College Door 2/2008 - Projections of H.S. Graduates by State

  4. EMS: What We Do and Why • ACT collects an enormous amount of information from students and from colleges • Our job in Enrollment Management Services (EMS) is to translate that data into forms that can help campuses improve student recruitment and student retention

  5. What We Say… • The ACT College Report provides the most complete and helpful information available about your freshmen: • Comprehensive picture of students’ needs, interests, backgrounds, and abilities • Is available before first advising conference • Is easy to use and interpret • Helps the advisor match student needs with institutional resources

  6. What Happens on Campuses… • All the activities we say the ACT record can be used for presume that all the data gets in the hands of the right people, in the right format, at the right time! • Because ACT data is largely unavailable to end-users, there is a big disconnect between how we say the data should be used and how it is actually used.

  7. Freshman Class Profile Service The Class Profile Service provides: • a comprehensive summary of a college's ACT-tested entering freshman class by showing parallel descriptions for students who sent scores, who enrolled, and who sent scores but did not enroll. • In addition to making comparisons with national enrolled freshmen, the information can be used for enrollment planning and trend analyses.

  8. The report contains: * Executive Summary—highlights the academic characteristics of your enrolled freshmen. • College Attractions—highlights your institution's position in the students' order of preference (1st choice, 2nd choice, etc.) at the time of testing. • Academic Abilities—provides distributions of the ACT scale scores and high school grades. • Goals and Aspirations—provides summaries of students' educational major choices and their degree aspirations at the time of testing. • Plans and Special Needs—provides student-level admission/enrollment information, needs for special programs or assistance, and financial aid considerations. • High School Information—provides information about the students' high school core curriculum preparation, academic background, and a list of the major feeder high schools. • Competing Institutions—provides the names of those institutions to which score reports were sent as well as to your institution. • Year-to-Year Trends—provides five-year trend data on such areas as ACT scores, high school grades, family income, and special needs and interests.

  9. The Class Profile Service can answer: • Has the popularity of selected academic majors changed in the last five years? • What has been the trend in average ACT scores in the last five years? • What proportion of ACT-tested students who designated our institution as their first choice actually enrolled? • How successful have we been in enrolling minority students?

  10. ACT’s Enrollment Information Services (EIS): • EIS is a comprehensive market research tool that assists with enrollment planning by pinpointing the schools and geomarkets where your best prospects can be found • Contains the data on all ACT tested juniors and seniors that have tested on one of the six national dates

  11. Strategic Enrollment Planning with EIS EIS is a tool for more than the Admissions Office! Use EIS campuswide to: • Inform discussions with faculty & academic administrators about market realities • Provide senior management with decision-making data to drive new enrollment initiatives • Provide admissions counselors and other enrollment staff with marketplace information to guide territory management

  12. Enrollment Funnel through EIS 1.4 Million ACT-Tested Students Campus Scores Received(Visibility) Breakout by: Ability Geography Race/Ethnicity Family Income Intended major Enrollment Preferences, etc. Market Overlap Competitor Analysis Campus Enrolled(Yield)

  13. Best Uses for EIS: • Manage primary markets • Identify underperforming high schools • Identify new markets • Train new admissions counselors • Help senior administrators set realistic goals • Develop marketing messages tied to student interests and characteristics • Identify competing institutions for specific markets

  14. Market Position & Competition Use EIS to compare your institution's image and appeal within student populations and among competing institutions • Which institutions are receiving score reports from students in primary market segments? • What is your score report overlap with these institutions? • What is the academic quality and educational major interest for these students? • How does the collegiate competition vary across the educational programs you offer?

  15. Market Segment/ Territorial Management • EIS for underperforming school/region analysis • Low awareness, low conversion • High awareness, low conversion • EIS for counselor training • EIS for territory management • EIS for managing competition and market overlap • EIS for name purchases • EIS for identifying new markets • EIS for strategic and realistic goal-setting • EIS for benchmarking success of initiatives

  16. Identifying and Building Awareness in New Markets • Identify areas (county, EIS segment, etc.) with a concentration of students with desired characteristics and/or characteristics that yield enrolled students • Purchase targeted names using EOS, and send awareness-building messages • Do competition analysis to determine if students in target areas are mobile and attend schools like yours • Identify selected high schools to visit • Use EIS data as a benchmark to identify success of initiatives

  17. Publication/Website Development • Use EIS to: • Identify target group characteristics such as income and intended major (Overview Report) • Identify competition and competitor markets • Use Class Profile Report to: • Identify strengths to promote; weaknesses to counter • Develop lead recruiting messages • Focus websites and print materials on student interests and needs (departments, services, and activities to feature)

  18. Keycharacteristics Gender Educ. major Race/Ethnicity Family income Religious pref. College selection variables Geographic variables States ACT EIS segments High school districts High schools Distance from campus Academic performance GPA Class rank ACT scores Create Customized Queries on Demand

  19. How to get prospective student names • ACT • ACT score-sender • ACT EOS • PLAN EOS • On top of hundreds of other sources

  20. Educational Opportunity Service (EOS) • Use EIS data to effectively inform EOS purchases. • EOS is a great tool to help you build your inquiry/prospect pool by purchasing qualified cohorts of targeted students that meet your desired institutional student profile.

  21. EOS is simple! “It provides you with a method to get the right message, to the right students at the right time”—some famous enrollment manager .

  22. Student Data in ACT Record • Personal/demographic data • Admissions/recruitment data • ACT Scores, norms, and prediction research • High school courses and grades • Educational plans, interests, and needs • Activities and accomplishments More than 350 fields of data provide a complete student profile:

  23. The Problem with Electronic Data • Last year, more than 1,000 colleges received only electronic reporting of ACT records, totaling more than 4,600,000 scores sent • Of the top 300 campuses (> 5,000 score reports) 87% are electronic only • For the great majority of these campuses, only the ACT composite score can be loaded into student information systems.

  24. A Sad State of Affairs • After 25-plus years of electronic reporting, there is a whole generation of enrollment managers who have never seen a paper report… • And, most have no idea that ACT collects significant information related to student’s academic ability and career interests.

  25. Key Questions Regarding SIS Vendors • What data elements can be imported? • What data elements can be extracted via forms and reports? • Can data move to/and from my CRM?

  26. What Options Do Campuses Have for Viewing and Sharing ACT Data? • Market for enterprise-level student information systems dominated by few companies: • SCT Banner • PeopleSoft • DataTel • EMAS • Hobsons EMT • Jenzabar

  27. So… ACT Developed AIM… • Remove barriers of access to data • Ensure data is used as intended • Ensure sharing of data in admissions, academic departments, student services, and extracurricular areas AIM turns ACT data into information that leads to action!

  28. ACT assessment data Two primary types of data • Cognitive data- scores, subscores, predictive data • Noncognitive data- the student profile section (SPS) The ACT Information Manager ( AIM )software can be used to house and manipulate all student data collected from the ACT assessment

  29. ACT’s Predictive Modeling • ACT’s Predictive Modeling Service offers accurate college enrollment predictions at a fraction of the cost of other services. Because it is based on student-level information, ACT’s predictive modeling data are more accurate and less expensive than predictions based primarily on geodemographic data.

  30. Four Predictive Models: • An inquiry pool model that allows an institution's entire inquiry pool to be scored • A model for ACT-tested score senders to the institution • A model for names purchased through the ACT Educational Opportunity Service (EOS) • A model that predicts first- to second-year retention

  31. Benefits of Predictive Modeling: • Save money on mailings • Focus recruitment travel • Segment yield strategies • Segment communications • Prioritize telecounseling • Forecast enrollments • Benchmark recruitment strategies

  32. Come to NOLA! Mark your calendar!13th Annual ACT Southwest Region Conference on College Readiness and SuccessApril 22-24, 2009Le Pavillon Hotel833 Poydras StreetNew Orleans, LA 70112

  33. Q and A Don.Pitchford@act.org Southwest Regional Office Higher Education Consultant Austin, Texas 512 345-1949

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