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Admitting Defeat: Why Admissions Staff Need to Look to Technology

A role with an Admissions team can be greatly enhanced with the strategic use of technology.

Working in a higher education admissions team, whether Vice President of Enrollment or an Officer in the trenches, is a tough gig.  Rewarding and valuable sure, but tough nonetheless. This, of course, is even more true if your institution is fortunate enough to receive thousands upon thousands of student applications on an annual basis.

Time Versus Targets

Much as sales personnel have quotas to achieve, admissions teams have enrollment targets to meet and spend an inordinate amount of time responding to inquiries from prospective students, hosting events and workshops, carrying out one-to-one meetings, hitting the road, reading applications and making admission recommendations.

All of this critical work goes hand in hand with time-sapping administrative tasks which, while necessary, take admissions teams away from the higher impact, in-depth application reviews and one on one engagements that result in admitting students who are a perfect fit for the institution.

More and more frequently, college admissions teams are looking to technology for hacks that can free up time for higher value activities.  From chatbots that handle routine inquiries such as course information and prospectus requests, to event management software that helps manage open houses and college tours, university admissions staff are successfully utilizing technology to add value to the service they provide to students, and to their institutions.

Use Your Imagination

If you are not already using technology to lighten the load in your admissions teams, consider the following:

You have hundreds of prospective students signed up to attend an open house and every one of them would like a tour of the campus and to book on to a couple of seminars, which are all running at different times in different locations.  Right now, your team is handling each request individually and monitoring numbers and logistics for every aspect of the event.  There has to be a better way, right?

What if you combined a chatbot with event management technology to allow student prospects to inquire, commit and manage their own agenda for the day?  Without any intervention at all from your team?

With solutions like GeckoEngage, you can enable prospective students to manage the logistical process for visits and inquiries themselves.  This removes the responsibility for admissions teams on manual form filling and event sign ups, chopping and changing an individual’s event program at their request, managing waitlists for specific sessions, issuing confirmations and tickets, and so much more.  All of this leaves the admissions team free to engage with students one-to-one, enhancing the experience and leaving the student with a fantastic impression of the institution – an impression that is more likely to turn into an application.

Admissions Hacks to Rock Your World

Here at Gecko, we understand how frustrating it can be when necessary administrative work eats into the time you can devote to high quality engagements with prospective students.  With this in mind, we’ve scheduled a live, 20-minute webinar where we will share some of the knowledge we’ve acquired when helping customers to implement software that drives efficiency.

For a quick dive into some of the most common technology hacks used in higher education to free up staff time, register to attend our webinar on Tuesday, August 13 at 11 am ET / 8 am PT.  If the time doesn’t suit you, register anyway and we’ll send you the recording to watch on demand :).