Dive into January

Welcome back! January is a busy month, but luckily, we get to stay indoors with fewer on-campus events and visits this time of year. So, sit back, get cozy, warm up a beverage of your choice, fire up your CRM, and crank through the work ahead.

To get you started, we’ve outlined a few actionable tips to help you streamline your processes, personalize your outreach, and make the most of the tools at your disposal. Something tells us this will be your best year yet!

It’s application and essay reading time! Get yourself and your team ready for the assortment of deadlines that comes with this time of year. From internal deadlines to the all-important regular decision deadline, does your team have what it needs to tackle the tasks at hand? Here are a few tips that may help:

1. Have you sent reminder emails to students with missing materials? Don’t let missing materials hold up your application review! Even if your campus hasn’t started the spring semester yet, high school students are probably back in school and admissions counselors can follow up with a phone call or text to get those materials in.
2. How does your duplicate record count look? Make sure your team is merging duplicate records, whether they are inquiries or applicants. (Slate users: Visit Consolidate Records. Element451 users: See the Deduplication Module.)
3. Are you following up with students who started an application, but haven’t submitted it? Don’t let your institution fall off their radar!

If your institution conducts student interviews, you know the drill — schedule, interview, repeat! Whether these interviews are in-person or virtual, leverage your CRM to schedule these conversations. In your CRM, log notes on student records and make it so that any admissions counselor can quickly find your notetaking later.

It’s time to start converting admitted students into enrolled students for the fall. Plan how your team will be organizing admitted student events in your CRM. Here are a few questions to consider:

• Do you need any new templates built?
• How are your event communications looking?
• Do you want visit reports that show year-over-year goal progress from this year to last?
• Where is your admitted student checklist?
• Are the forms you’ll be asking students to complete accessible and easy to navigate?
• Do you have a plan in place for recruiting dual enrollment students?

There’s no better time than now to get financial aid packages prepared and proofread. This holds especially true if your institution has early deadlines or priority deadlines for submitting the FAFSA. Get ahead now and enter the spring term with less stress than last year!

No matter how perfect your website, pamphlets, FAQ documents, and information sessions are, students and parents will have many questions. How will you be triaging these types of questions this year?

We have some creative solutions in mind. Let us help you optimize your inbox configurations. Reach out to learn more!