1. Dr. Bob Duniway AVP Planning & Dir. of IR
How are we doing?
Key Benchmarks for Enrollment Management

2. Seattle University It’s in Seattle! Masters level university
4,589 undergraduates and 2,895 graduate students
Private Jesuit affiliated university
It’s in Seattle! 2

3. Enrollment Management at Seattle University
Year-to-year volatility in FYIC yield and discount rate pre- 2000
FASAM in house model deployed for fall 2002
Steady increases in retention and graduation rates.
New undergraduate strategic enrollment plan in 2012.
My role since 1999 has involved data analysis in support of improving enrollment management and forecasting figures for performance management and also for budgeting. This started with using predictive modeling to stabilize our freshman class size and discount rate.
Show Discount Rate and Yield chart
I have also been involved with a number of initiatives to improve retention and graduation rates, and last year I supported our new VP for Enrollment Management in developing an undergraduate strategic enrollment plan. This year I’m on the working group developing a graduate strategic enrollment plan.
We’ve enjoyed a number of successes and a few disappointments during the past 14 years. 3

4. Benchmarking for Enrollment Management
Provide a framework for thinking about benchmarking.
Provide an overview to the key metrics in the enrollment pipeline.
Give some specific examples of developing and using enrollment management benchmarks.
I hope to accomplish three high level things in this talk quickly enough to leave a little time for Q & A
Provide a framework for thinking about benchmarking
Identify candidates for benchmarking from the key metrics in the enrollment management pipeline.
Give a few examples of varied approaches to benchmarking for enrollment management. 4

5. Benchmarking Options Metric values compared to something:
Other institutions
Selected peers or aspirant peers
Similar institutions
All institutions
Your own institution
History
Subpopulations
Goals you made up without context
When you are evaluating the effectiveness of some aspect of enrollment management at your institution a benchmark is a metric where you are able to compare you performance to something meaningful. This helps you interpret information. Is 70% good or bad? 5

6. Enrollment Metrics – Admissions Funnel
When you are evaluating the effectiveness of some aspect of enrollment management at your institution a benchmark is a metric where you are able to compare you performance to something meaningful. Let’s look at the first half of enrollment management, the process of enrolling new students.
There are stages to the admissions process, often represented as a funnel because the number of students involved decreases at each successive stage. These admissions funnel stages include:
Prospects, students you are reaching out to communicate with because you think they would fit well at your institution.
Inquiries, or communications received from prospective students indicating they are interested in learning more or interested in applying. These may or may not come from your prospects.
Applications received. These typically come from your inquiry pool, but increasingly students are researching colleges without any direct communication before they submit an application. These are sometimes referred to as Stealth Application.
Admitted applicants.
Those who accept the offer of admission, often by making a deposit.
And matriculated new students.
The transitions between these stages can be expressed as percentages, and these percentages are the common metrics for understanding how the enrollment funnel is performing.
Response Rate is the percentage of prospects that become inquiries. This could be for the whole prospect pool, but more commonly it is for prospects contacted during a specific recruiting effort. Comparing response rates for different campaigns, invitations to campus or local events, or mail drops in terms of response rates can help measure the effectiveness of different marketing efforts. Similarly, comparing the response rates for the same type of marketing effort with different populations of prospects can help target marketing efforts where they are most likely to yield interest from the types of students you are hoping to attract. And monitoring the response rate for the same marketing effort from one year to the next can alert you when something stops working as well as it used to.
When you have a pool of inquiries, the percentage of these that submit an application is known as the conversion rate. Again, while you can discuss conversion for the entire inquiry pool, this rate is most useful when comparing subpopulations. Your conversion rate is likely to vary by test scores and high school grades of applicants, by gender and/or ethnicity of students, by where they live and if you have high schools where you have large numbers of inquiries it may even be worthwhile monitoring conversion rates for your feeder high schools.
The percentage of applicants admitted, also known as the admit rate, may have strategic importance for your institution. If you are trying to maximize your apparent selectivity you may want to see a lower admit rate. If you are focused on doing a better job of communicating fit to students at the inquiry stage an increasing admit rate may be a sign of success. Looking at subpopulations you might be able to speed up your admissions processing if you can identify subpopulations where admit rates are essentially 100% or 0%, so that these applications can be fast tracked for a decision. One thing to note is that admit rates can be calculated either using all applicants or all applicants with completed applications. Using all applications submitted looks more selective and helps you evaluate inquiry profiles unlikely to yield students. Using only completed applications gives you a more accurate picture of a students chance of being admitted once the application is complete.
The percentage of admitted applicants who enroll is the yield. At most institutions the yield doesn’t become official until the census date of the first term. During the admissions cycle what is known sooner is the percentage of admitted applicants who have accepted the admissions offer by confirming or by submitting a required deposit to hold a spot. To distinguish the percentage of admits confirming from the percentage who ultimately enroll you can refer to the deposit percentage as the gross yield. The percentage of students who confirm and then change their minds and aren’t enrolled on the census date is referred to as the melt. Again, these percentages are useful when comparing subpopulations and when comparing performance between years.
The admit rate and yield for first time full time college students are also readily available for peer institutions, making it easier to benchmark these rates against a market facing reference point. Keep in mind that higher or lower admit rates could be your institutions goal, but a higher yield is almost always preferable to a lower yield at least over time. A stable and predictable yield, though, might be more valuable than a higher but more volatile yield. 6

7. Enrollment Metrics – Admissions Funnel
Fall 2011
Fall 2012
Peers 2011
Prospects
300,000 NA
Response Rate
4.5%
6.2%
Inquiries
15,000
20,000
Conversion
22%
18%
Applications
3,600
3,900
Avg. 4,100
Admit Rate
83%
75%
76%
Admits
2,988
2,925
3,116
Gross Yield
20.0%
23.0%
Confirmed
598
673
Melt
7.4%
7.5%
Enrolled
554
622
629
Yield
18.4%
21.3%
20.2%
When you are evaluating the effectiveness of some aspect of enrollment management at your institution a benchmark is a metric where you are able to compare you performance to something meaningful. Let’s look at the first half of enrollment management, the process of enrolling new students.
There are stages to the admissions process, often represented as a funnel because the number of students involved decreases at each successive stage. These admissions funnel stages include:
Prospects, students you are reaching out to communicate with because you think they would fit well at your institution.
Inquiries, or communications received from prospective students indicating they are interested in learning more or interested in applying. These may or may not come from your prospects.
Applications received. These typically come from your inquiry pool, but increasingly students are researching colleges without any direct communication before they submit an application. These are sometimes referred to as Stealth Application.
Admitted applicants.
Those who accept the offer of admission, often by making a deposit.
And matriculated new students.
The transitions between these stages can be expressed as percentages, and these percentages are the common metrics for understanding how the enrollment funnel is performing.
Response Rate is the percentage of prospects that become inquiries. This could be for the whole prospect pool, but more commonly it is for prospects contacted during a specific recruiting effort. Comparing response rates for different campaigns, invitations to campus or local events, or mail drops in terms of response rates can help measure the effectiveness of different marketing efforts. Similarly, comparing the response rates for the same type of marketing effort with different populations of prospects can help target marketing efforts where they are most likely to yield interest from the types of students you are hoping to attract. And monitoring the response rate for the same marketing effort from one year to the next can alert you when something stops working as well as it used to.
When you have a pool of inquiries, the percentage of these that submit an application is known as the conversion rate. Again, while you can discuss conversion for the entire inquiry pool, this rate is most useful when comparing subpopulations. Your conversion rate is likely to vary by test scores and high school grades of applicants, by gender and/or ethnicity of students, by where they live and if you have high schools where you have large numbers of inquiries it may even be worthwhile monitoring conversion rates for your feeder high schools.
The percentage of applicants admitted, also known as the admit rate, may have strategic importance for your institution. If you are trying to maximize your apparent selectivity you may want to see a lower admit rate. If you are focused on doing a better job of communicating fit to students at the inquiry stage an increasing admit rate may be a sign of success. Looking at subpopulations you might be able to speed up your admissions processing if you can identify subpopulations where admit rates are essentially 100% or 0%, so that these applications can be fast tracked for a decision. One thing to note is that admit rates can be calculated either using all applicants or all applicants with completed applications. Using all applications submitted looks more selective and helps you evaluate inquiry profiles unlikely to yield students. Using only completed applications gives you a more accurate picture of a students chance of being admitted once the application is complete.
The percentage of admitted applicants who enroll is the yield. At most institutions the yield doesn’t become official until the census date of the first term. During the admissions cycle what is known sooner is the percentage of admitted applicants who have accepted the admissions offer by confirming or by submitting a required deposit to hold a spot. To distinguish the percentage of admits confirming from the percentage who ultimately enroll you can refer to the deposit percentage as the gross yield. The percentage of students who confirm and then change their minds and aren’t enrolled on the census date is referred to as the melt. Again, these percentages are useful when comparing subpopulations and when comparing performance between years.
The admit rate and yield for first time full time college students are also readily available for peer institutions, making it easier to benchmark these rates against a market facing reference point. Keep in mind that higher or lower admit rates could be your institutions goal, but a higher yield is almost always preferable to a lower yield at least over time. A stable and predictable yield, though, might be more valuable than a higher but more volatile yield. 7

8. Enrollment Metrics – Post Admissions
1st term & 1st year progress
Retention
Graduation
Employment/Graduate School
Once students have matriculated we aren’t done using metrics to evaluate enrollment management. We tend to enroll students with the expectation that they will be able to successfully pursue their educational objectives.
In the simplest case we are dealing with full time degree seeking students, and we would want to see them making full time academic progress and completing their degrees in a timely fashion. For students on part-time degree programs we would want to know that they are making enough progress to have a reasonable chance of actually completing their academic program.
We would also like to see the student graduating achieve post-graduation objectives for which we believe the degree is appropriate preparation.
Right now retention and graduation rates are readily available for mostinstitution through IPEDS, but only for first time full time degree seeking cohorts. 8

9. Enrollment Metrics – Financial Aid
Tuition & Mandatory Fees
Total Cost of Attendance
Family Income/ EFC
Need
Total Grant Aid
Net Cost of Attendance
Unmet Need
Institutional Grant Aid
Discount Rate
Average Loan Aid
Tuition and Mandatory Fees - IPEDS
Total Cost of Attendance - IPEDS
Family Income/ EFC
Need
Total Grant Aid – IPEDS
Net Cost of Attendance - IPEDS
Unmet Need
Institutional Grant Aid – IPEDS
Discount Rate – Calculate from IPEDS data 9

10. Enrollment Metrics – Discussion
Tuition & Mandatory Fees
Total Cost of Attendance
Family Income/ EFC
Need
Total Grant Aid
Net Cost of Attendance
Unmet Need
Institutional Grant Aid
Discount Rate
Average Loan Aid
Response Rate
Conversion Rate
Admit Rate
Gross Yield
Melt
Net Yield
1st Term & 1st Year Credits
Retention Rates
Graduation Rates
Post Graduation Results 10

11. Dr. Bob Duniway Seattle University rduniway@seattleu.edu
Thank You
Dr. Bob Duniway Seattle University
Enrollment Management and Benchmarking, Ch. 3,
New Directions in Institutional Research Vol. 156,
Dec. 2012