Office of Enrollment Management 2015 Overview

The Office of Enrollment Management is deeply committed to transforming students’ lives and supporting them as they pursue their degrees. We’ve enhanced our services, creating a one-stop shop at Student Central by adding front-facing bursar services. We’ve increased retention efforts by encouraging non-registered, current students to register for the next term and by reaching out to provide financial aid counseling to those students who hadn’t paid their bills.

Our students will live and work in a global and diverse world, and we want their educational experience to prepare them for success.

David B. Johnson, Vice Provost, Enrollment Management

Demographics in our country are constantly evolving, and our recruitment and outreach efforts must evolve in tandem. We work closely with many on- and off-campus partners to enroll students who enhance the academic and co-curricular experiences of the institution. To increase diversity recruitment, this year we hired new recruiters and implemented a strategy focused on community organizations and broader outreach.

The beginner class of 2015 is the most academically talented and diverse in IU Bloomington history. We’re bringing in more Hudson and Holland scholars and Hutton Honors College students. The class has a record median GPA of 3.76 and a recordbreaking average SAT/ACT score of 1218. Seventy percent of the beginner cohort has college credit and took 11 credits on average. We’re enrolling more underrepresented students, first-generation students, and international students. Our students will live and work in a global and diverse world, and we want their educational experience to prepare them for success.

As we look toward the future, we will continue to expand recruitment, enrollment, and service initiatives directed at student success. We are also finalizing an Office of Enrollment Management (OEM) strategic plan that is connected to—and framed by—IU’s Bicentennial Strategic Plan.

What is on the horizon for enrollment management as we work to recruit, enroll, and serve academically prepared and diverse students in support of their attainment of an IU degree?

• As competition in the higher education student recruitment space has no end in sight, and to maintain a competitive position in the marketplace, we are considering the potential implementation of a third party application for IU Bloomington, such as the Common App and a new Coalition App.
• We are looking at ways to enhance our service to students in Student Central (front-facing student services of registrar, financial aid, and bursar) with an improved website, including state-of-the-art online tools to help students find the answers they need.
• We want to support students in their career success; being able to differentiate themselves through their academic transcript is one way to make that happen. We are investigating ways that additional information describing service learning, engaged learning and other academic experiences can be added to transcripts.

• Finally, we are working to provide an intentional First Year Experience for ALL students. The culminating FYE experience will be a spring semester series of activities sending a more fully integrated group of students to their sophomore year poised to succeed at IU and prepared to be more deeply engaged in areas such as courses, internships, study abroad, research, and leadership.

OEM is just one of the IU offices helping our students succeed. As always, our students, faculty, and staff play a huge role, and I am truly grateful for and pleased with the work we’ve done together this year.


David B. Johnson

Vice Provost, Enrollment Management
Indiana University Bloomington

We strive to meet the Bicentennial Strategic Plan’s challenge to seek out and support underrepresented students. Two efforts in particular supported this goal during 2014–15: adopting a nationwide 6Cs strategy and increasing our national reach with the addition of new staff.

Our 6Cs strategies are:

• Working with campus partners to recruit students who participate in their camps and competitions
• Targeting specific populations with enhanced communication
• Expanding our relationship with Ivy Tech and other community colleges
• Reaching out to churches and faith-based organizations
  
• Working with community-based organizations across the nation to bring prospective students to IU
• Engaging with high school counselors

To fulfill the goals of this strategy and expand our reach nationwide, two new regional staff members were hired in Dallas and Washington, D.C., bringing the regional representative total to six, and one staff member was added to expand our recruitment of underrepresented students in Indianapolis.

The Office of Admissions expanded its programs for underrepresented students; this year it hosted three receptions for 49 admitted underrepresented students and their families and hosted an additional 67 admitted underrepresented students at the annual Campus Collage. Of the students attending each event, 82 percent enrolled at IU—an increase from 73 percent in 2014.

In addition, we increased the number of diversity programs offered by the Office of First Year Experience Programs, which resulted in an increase in the number of students who participated. We also partnered with IU Communications to pilot a new digital advertising campaign focusing on African American students in a unique effort to shape the class profile. These ads, which ran in the last two months of the recruiting season, reached 19,000 potential students.

We’re working hard with our partners to recruit students who will succeed at IU. In 2014–15, the Office of Admissions expanded its efforts in every area, including enhancing its marketing communications, increasing opportunities for student visits, and strengthening on-campus partnerships. As a result, both the Office of Admissions and the Office of Scholarships saw increased participation and had a record number of students who said yes to IU.

The Office of Admissions welcomed 40,962 visitors to campus this year and hosted 833 students at 23 programs throughout the nation. Eighteen Red Carpet Days saw 2,685 attendees, and nearly 80 percent of them enrolled. The Office of Scholarships saw an increase in the top band of exceptional students, with 442 prospective students who enrolled after attending one of many scholars receptions around the country and 2,758 prospective students who enrolled after receiving an IU Achievement Scholarship. And the Office of Strategic Planning and Research has improved our ability to manage and visualize enrollment data through implementation of Tableau software.

Student success is a common thread that runs throughout this report and, in fact, throughout all we do. Nowhere is this more apparent than through the services we provide. And we significantly enhanced our services this year when Student Central and the Office of the Bursar united to provide a single location for financial aid, class registration, and student account needs.

Before this move, students sometimes didn’t know which office to ask for help, causing them to bounce back and forth trying to resolve an issue. Students know that Student Central can now help them regardless of whether it is a financial aid or student account problem.

It is much more efficient and convenient for those we serve to make one stop, one call, or one email rather than three to get answers.

Kathy McDaniel, Student Central staff member

OEM does its part to ensure that IU Bloomington meets the goal of providing an affordable education as laid out in the Bicentennial Strategic Plan. University-wide financial literacy initiatives led to a decrease in student borrowing and pointed students to the Office of Student Financial Assistance as their first stop to get help paying for college. The Office of Student Financial Assistance, in a pilot program, reached out to assist students with a past due balance. Eighty-one percent of students that were contacted were able to pay their bill and continue their schooling.

In an attempt to increase retention, the Office of the Registrar contacted continuing students who did not register for the spring semester during the fall as a part of a pilot outreach effort. We offered them support and assistance from Student Central with the intention of encouraging them to register. This led to 2,131 students who were contacted then enrolling in the spring. The retention rate for fall 2014 beginners who were retained in the fall of 2015 is 89 percent. Although these efforts are aimed at more than just freshmen, they helped to influence the retention rate.