Getting a student to come to campus is one of the most powerful and high-yield strategies an institution has in its recruitment toolbelt. How are you differentiating your recruitment events?
Institutions must develop a strong, intentional enrollment strategy to be successful in the midst of changing student demographics and an increasingly competitive enrollment landscape. With the knowledge that hosting students on-campus is one of the most powerful, high-yield strategies available, recruitment events are becoming more important than ever before.
Rather than simply adding more events to calendars in a given enrollment cycle, it is critical to examine current event offerings to identify strengths, gaps, overlap, and opportunities to diversify and expand your recruitment events portfolio. The decisions you make should be strategic, intentional, and directly aligned with the institution’s overarching enrollment goals.
Join us for a practical and interactive conference where you will have the time, space, and support to audit your current programs and develop a plan to strengthen your overarching strategy. Throughout this training you will have ample working time to:
- Identify the programs you want to amplify
- Establish their purpose and alignment with the greater strategy
- Explore audience profiles for sharper targeting
- Outline an implementation strategy
- Determine appropriate metrics to measure your success
During the program, you will be exposed to a variety of inspirational events, from both speaker and attendee institutions, and share best practices, challenges, and success stories. You will leave with an action plan that you could take back to your campus and start implementing immediately.
Who Should Attend
This program has been designed for recruitment event, visitor services, admissions, enrollment management, and other institution-wide professionals who produce or help develop recruitment events for their campus. Rather than covering event planning basics, this conference will instead focus on higher-level strategy.
Agenda
Conference registration includes breakfast, lunch, and a networking reception on the first day, breakfast and lunch on the second, and refreshments and snacks throughout the conference.
Purpose and Strategy
During this foundational session, we will examine the need for an intentional recruitment events strategy. While understanding each event's purpose and developing a strategy to execute that purpose may seem straightforward, your institution likely has events that are hosted annually without the understanding of how these events fit into your institution’s overall enrollment goals in a cohesive way. We will introduce a framework that you will able to apply to each of your events to ensure they are leading you down a productive path.
In order to develop a cohesive and intentional recruitment events strategy, you must step back and examine what you currently are doing, including how it aligns with your overarching enrollment strategy. Do each of your events have a purpose? Where are the overlaps? The gaps? You will work through a guided activity that will help you audit your current events and set goals to focus in on for the remainder of the conference.
Your events should look different depending on their purpose and the audience each is intended to reach. Our expert speakers will share successes and challenges they have had in implementing prospective student events focused on specific student profiles including those offered scholarships, multicultural students, and department-specific recruits. You will articulate the purpose of the events you are focusing in on and identify opportunities to strengthen your specific events.
Students are applying and even putting deposits in at more schools than ever before, making it more difficult to project yield rates. In the competitive landscape, it is critical to stay nimble and set your institution apart from competitors throughout yield season. Admitted Students Days are a key to preventing student melt. We will focus on ways to strengthen your admitted students day experience through customization, personalization, parent engagement, and more.
It is critical to meet your prospective students where they are – and it isn’t always possible to get them on campus for a visit or an admitted students day experience. This hour will focus on best practices to create innovative events – both virtual and in-person - to recruit students from afar.
Attendees will be invited to share information about the most innovative recruitment event they currently offer. Successes, challenges, best practices, and new ideas will be shared throughout this interactive discussion.
We will come back together as a group to close day 1 with time for reflection and Q&A.
Measuring your Events and Finalizing your Plan
Your partners across campus are key to ensuring a unique and successful event experience. We will focus on developing mutually beneficial partnerships to create innovative and effective campus events.
How you follow-up with attendees after events can largely determine how productive an event was. What does this type of intentional follow-up look like? In addition, how do you know if an event was productive and successful? We will walk you through developing metrics to successfully debrief each event, as well as how to do so annually in a comprehensive way.
With a sense of which events you would like to tackle once back on campus, this working session will help you translate the event framework for one of your upcoming events, noting action steps for developing partnership, and transforming lackluster events. You will have the opportunity to work with faculty, present on your plans, and receive feedback from your peers.
Speakers
Jamie Henry-Troester
Senior Coordinator of Events & Campus Tours, Oklahoma State University
Jamie has served in her current role for ten years and is responsible for OSU’s campus visit and event program. Jamie is highly involved in all aspects of meeting and event planning including high profile programs to large-scale visit days with over 3,000 guests. She enjoys collaborating with campus partners to host and provide tours to over 30,000 guests each year. Jamie has direct oversight of forty campus tour guides and two staff members.
Barbara Loftus
Assistant Director of Campus Programs & Visitor Services, Rutgers University
Barbara oversees campus visits for prospective and admitted students and all on campus recruitment events for Rutgers University - New Brunswick. Their annual tour program hosts over 45,000 guests per year. Barbara plans all on campus yield events for admitted students including Rutgers' signature Admitted Student Open House that last year saw over 18,000 people for the one day event.
Amy Tiberio
Associate Vice President for Enrollment Management and Marketing, Roger Williams University
Amy directly oversees the undergraduate admission department and works collaboratively on financial aid and marketing strategies. Prior to Roger Williams, Amy worked at Stonehill College and Bentley University. Her career spans over 15 years in admission and enrollment and she has been actively involved with leadership roles within the New England Association for College Admission Counseling (NEACAC).
Questions About the Event?
Kate Poisson
Program Manager, Academic Impressions