SPEAKER_00
Predicting yield, never a fun or easy exercise for admissions teams, became a lot tougher when COVID-19 turned the world upside down in 2020. Today, schools are scrambling to convert admits to enrolled students, as they always do this time of year, and many aren't sure how to blend traditional on-campus events with newer tactics like virtual tours and digital welcome centers that proved highly effective during the height of the pandemic. Our guests share strategies for creating authentic experiences for applicants, whether in person or online, that help prospective students picture themselves living and studying and thriving on your campus this fall.

Thank you for listening and enjoy.

SPEAKER_02
Welcome, everyone, to Office Hours of EAB. My name is Anna Masika, and today I'm here joined with Jess Ricker, Dean of Admission at Wellesley College. Jess, it's so great to see you.

How are you doing today?

SPEAKER_01
I am happy it's a Friday. It may not be Friday when they listen to the podcast, but I'm glad to be here today with you, Anna.

SPEAKER_02
Absolutely. Thank you so much for joining. So just a background, I joined EAB a few months back through the acquisition of a product called Wiser.

And for those of you listening, if you have never heard of Wiser, it is a platform that helps to connect students with campuses across the country and help them figure out what their next steps are, whether that's where they're going to school, what their orientation is looking like, or how to find a job after college. In that job, I actually, that's how I met Jess here. I worked with her as one of my partners at Wellesley, working on a few different projects to help prospective students and admitted students get to know the campus.

So again, just so great to be able to talk to you Jess today and talk about all the different, excuse me, digital engagement you've been able to do over the past few years. So I want to start out and just introduce what we're talking through today and define some things that maybe some of our listeners don't know exactly what that means. So first off, Jess, can you tell me a bit more about what yield actually is and why improving yield is a big challenge and a big goal for admissions teams?

SPEAKER_01
Yeah. So yield, I mean, let's just go back to baking cookies when you were a kid. Yield is you put a bunch of ingredients together and you do certain amounts of this and a dash of that in the hopes that it will come together and you will yield or be able to bake a certain number of cookies.

And so in the admission and enrollment world, yield is really putting together a bunch of events, experiences, types of engagement for an admitted student to get to know your institution so that they will choose your institution for their enrollment choice over any other offers that they have. So that yield season where we do a lot of different things because what each person needs. Some people like chocolate chip cookies.

Some people like walnuts in theirs and others do not. But what it really all comes down to is that it's important to get yield right in the enrollment world because if you're a residential college, you usually only have so many bed spaces. If you're an institution that relies on tuition revenue, you usually have goals in that regard.

So there are a lot of different enrollment goals. So you really need to be thoughtful about how much flour baking soda, chocolate chips and sugar to put into your cookies so that you get the right number of students enrolled in your class so you can meet those goals.

SPEAKER_02
Yeah, absolutely. Anyone who's ever baked before knows that trying to perfect the chocolate chip cookie recipe is not the easiest. So that is completely understandable.

You know, in years past, what has Wellesley done to help raise their yield numbers and help students to find your campus and choose to go there?

SPEAKER_01
Yeah, that's a great question. And you know, the pandemic has been such a long, you know, year and a half. It actually feels more like a decade.

But as I think back, pre-pandemic, you know, we certainly had students who didn't have the opportunity to visit our campus. We're an institution with a global applicant pool and, you know, there were barriers in the form of miles and distance, dollars, you know, to be able to get to campus as well as time. But pre-pandemic, our biggest deal of that each year was an admitted student open house and our open campus, we called it.

And 50% of the students who attended that and got to know Wellesley ultimately enrolled. So, you know, Wellesley is certainly known for being an academic powerhouse, but we are a women's college. And sometimes students, you know, aren't quite sure what that means and how that makes our community a little bit different.

So really having a chance to visit campus and connect with members of our community, it normalized the women's college experience. It showed them that this was going to be a place that they would be empowered and dedicated to their experience and they would learn and grow. And it really solidified their decision to enroll.

And so this was really the crux of our yield along with our really strong financial aid packages. You know, and then the pandemic rolled around and that changed things. But really, you know, prior to the pandemic, that was something that we spent a lot of time and, you know, a lot of resources and budget on.

SPEAKER_02
Yeah, absolutely. You know, I know when I was looking at colleges, a lot of my friends and myself, even the admitted student day on a campus was one of the big reasons why I chose where I went to school. So I can imagine that it does that for a lot of the students that come to visit Wellesley.

So that's definitely an important thing. And like you, you know, elated to the pandemic completely shifted that. So let's kind of back up to, you know, February, March of last year.

I know it's not a time that we all love to relive, but as things start shutting down on campuses, what was going on through your head? What was your sort of thought process for next steps from that point?

SPEAKER_01
Yeah, yeah, you know, the pandemic, it truly changed the game and it really forced us. We'd been dabbling in virtual engagement, but it really forced every institution to a digital first strategy. And so, you know, we felt lucky that we had a little bit of experience with that.

And we certainly had always recognized that this was a challenge that we always had wonderful admitted students who weren't going to have a chance to get to campus for our big open house or for a visit earlier on in their search process. So the pandemic actually forced us to look at these issues and address them and think about how we could have broader reach and how how students could get to know us in a way that would still lead to the same out same outcomes of being comfortable with making Wellesley their enrollment choice. So we asked ourselves a lot of questions, you know, about what it was in our previous yield efforts, whether that was emails or we had done a few online webinars, what it was about that big open house that a student needed to experience so that they could be comfortable with making it that choice to enroll at Wellesley.

And so as the pandemic hit, you know, we had to figure out how everything we collected in a mast about what we knew students needed to experience and figure out how to transcend devices and have that same impact, but in a very different way. And there can be a major reaction to just suddenly take everything you did, you know, the exact session or panel from your, you know, previous open house or, you know, the same tour guides who've been walking backwards across campus, just have them do it on Instagram. Right. But it actually I think you're missing out, right, in really benefiting from these digital opportunities. And I know we're going to talk about that more.

But our big question was how do we convey an authentic sense of Wellesley without these in person events? So, you know, we spent a lot of time figuring out how to blend the old and the new to have that broader reach and impact in this new digital world. So we asked a lot of questions. And I think that's a really, a really good thing that we did as we went along.

We didn't assume that we knew how to do this. We worked collaboratively. We collaboratively, we brought the expertise of the students who are working for us that semester and asked them what they thought about the ideas that we were coming up with.

And so we really, I think we took a really creative, innovative and collaborative approach on how we could best utilize some digital resources. And I don't know if this is the point in time where you want me to sort of share some of the specific things we did and maybe tell. I got to know you, Anna.

Absolutely. So, you know, when the pandemic hit in March, we had already done a bunch of planning for our open house. And we had heard from another institution about how they had used WISER's engagement platform, a WISER community to help with anti-melt, right? Students who enroll, keeping them connected over the summer before they arrive on campus.

And there might be a way to use that for yielding and engaging with our admitted students. So we learned about it and we had said, great, let's give this a try. This seems better than just piecing together with duct tape, a bunch of disparate events and emails.

And so we had nine days. We had nine days from the time we signed the contract with WISER to build out this online engagement community. And to set the stage, you know, it's not like a Facebook community.

It actually really, it really is a place to advertise virtual events, to have distinctly different communities where a student can pick and choose what resonates with them. I want to be a part of the first generation college community. I want to be a part of this, you know, identity and access community for, you know, underrepresented students of color.

I'm really interested in varsity athletics. I want to know about STEM and research opportunities on your campus. So students could really choose their own adventure and select from amongst all the different opportunities to hear questions asked, to see faculty lectures, to get answers about, you know, a research opportunity directly from a faculty member they might engage with.

Two, we had a community where students could ask questions of our current students and not at all have to worry that there were adults or admission officers lurking in that community. And so they were asking the things that, you know, they were maybe shy to maybe call the admission office and ask over the phone, but they were definitely asking that in the student real talk community. And so basically we were providing through this platform so many wonderful ways to get to know Wellesley that replaced, you know, the overnight on campus that they would have done on the open house where, you know, they would have sat and had coffee in the, you know, the campus, the campus student center until 2am, you know, bearing their souls and getting to know each other.

And so we found all of this was happening through the public communities, through the one on one engagement and the private chat function through Wiser. And it was, it was amazing. It really blew us away how much engagement there was.

SPEAKER_02
Yeah. And, you know, you've had on all these points, but one of the, one of my favorite things about working with your team and with Wellesley is you think of that student experience first. So it might not be exactly, let's translate the exact experience that they'd have on campus online, but how do we find ways to give them that same feel and that same value when they're interacting online with each other.

And you've always thought about that end user and that perspective or admitted student first off. You bring up a great point of, you know, we started this out with your admitted students and really starting to build out how having them find affinity to campus and deciding or helping them decide where to put their deposit down. But we also started working with your perspective students too.

And I remember, you know, I think you were one of our first campuses that gave us the opportunity to help interact with prospective students, which will always be so grateful to you all for. But can you talk a little bit about, you know, the differences and how you interacted with those students who were choosing where to put their deposit down and then those students who were just to choose, we're just choosing on where they wanted to apply.

SPEAKER_01
Yeah. Yeah, you know, it became very clear that campus visits, which, you know, for admission offices and enrollment managers are are a really great way to get students interested in applying to your school. And we call that building out the front end of the funnel.

Right. If we think of admission as a funnel where you have lots of students who maybe have heard about your institution, and then the funnel gets smaller as they actually go to your website and explore, and then they engage by signing up for your mailing list or joining the visit campus. And then that smaller number applies.

So as you you think about each phase of the funnel, it's a different kind of relationship, whereas yield is getting them to choose to enroll after they're admitted. The recruitment side of things, you know, they're less aware of your institution, they don't necessarily know all the details. They may only be looking at their in your institution, because, you know, their aunt or their school counselor or parent has suggested it or is making them look at it.

So you have to do a lot more to get them engaged. So when we decided to build out a wiser community for our prospective students, we knew that these would be students who would be interested in learning about Wellesley and about the college search process at the same time, and about financial aid. So one tactic we took, and we did use this a little bit in our admitted student community, we had short little videos and snippets.

So we had folks from our financial aid office give a three to five minutes snippet on what's the FAFSA. And it was, you know, recorded videos. So you actually sort of, you know, get a face and you can sort of sense enthusiasm and commitment to affordability.

When someone records that and then leaves it in the wiser community. We did how to choose whether or not to submit test scores during a test optional, you know, moment in the pandemic, and lots of little just short segments, because we knew that those prospective students who hadn't decided for sure to apply to Wellesley might not spend as much time as an admitted student would spend on a full 45 minute webinar. So these little bite size pieces, it's all about meeting students where they are, right? And so having those shorter snippets that are still personalized.

And in many ways, it was still sharing the Wellesley community, our faculty, staff, alums, with prospective students, but it was a different way. And we noticed immediately that they were less proactive and active and engaging with the site. They were a little bit more passive.

So we knew we had to curate more content and provide more information to them, because they didn't always know exactly what to ask or how they wanted to gauge or what they needed to know from us. So it was just a different approach to that engagement and relationship building

SPEAKER_02
experience. Yeah, absolutely. And I, you know, I don't know if I explicitly said this at the beginning, but you know, like I said, we now work with you on three different capacities.

So we've created that admitted student space to help admitted students connect with current students. We've created that virtual digital welcome center to help those prospective students connect. And even more so outside of, I know your department, but we also work with orientation to help students connect with their orientation leaders and build affinity before they make it to campus, which is fantastic.

And we've done all of this over, like you said, it feels like it's been so long, but it's been about a year and a half going on two years now. You're talking about some great strategies that you've done in both of those different virtual welcome center and admitted students spaces. What are some of the things you have learned over the past year and how have those different digital engagement strategies changed as, you know, the world outside has changed, but also as you've learned more about how your students want to interact online.

SPEAKER_01
Yeah, yeah, I really think that this gave us the push to take a little bit more risk than what we had been used to doing at Wellesley. And to really, you know, because we could have offered many, you know, of these same, we could have just had an embedded student Facebook group and a couple of online webinars, you know, either for the prospective students or the admitted students, but we really had to trust that there was a special synergy that you could create. So synergy being a fancy way of thinking about how, you know, the different pieces when put together are the more than the sum of their individual parts.

So one plus one equals three, right? There's something about creating a community that students can keep going back to and get to know each other in a more deep and meaningful way that you just can't get when you just offer, you know, the session and you have an admitted student Facebook group and these other, you know, different sort of strategies that a lot of admission offices have used during the pandemic to create that sense of community. And, you know, it works so well, right? As you said, we offered the prospective student center or Wiser Wiser platform. And then for orientation, because we had done so well with helping the students get to know each other and developing some class pride and those connections, I mean, we even hosted, you know, game nights and trivia nights through there, that the transition to the class Dean's office and their orientation Wiser site was such a natural, natural transition.

It was so clear that students were comfortable with this. And in fact, in our admitted student questionnaire, which we do every year, students, it definitely resonated with them. They told us it was so difficult to think of choosing an institution without having had a chance to visit campus.

And yet our yield the last two years, that first summer after the pandemic hit in this past summer, we've met our enrollment goals and with the cushion, right, more students than we had even anticipated. And it's because they feel connected. I mean, during the pandemic, I feel so many of us felt isolated untethered.

It was really disorienting for for a lot of students. And because we could use this very intentional way of bringing forth the community to our students, it became clear that if you don't have that synergy, that something special that brings it all together in a meaningful way, sort of like curating a full set of experiences that's comprehensive, that's personalized, that lets them choose. It's most important for me to see myself represented in the Wellesley community at this way.

So I'm choosing this session. And I like, you know, I watched the students video and I asked this question about student life, that we realized not only was it important to provide, but it met a need for the students who couldn't visit campus, right, in sort of pre pandemic times. So I know it really helped us start to think about digital first, taking risk, and looking at the analytics, one of the great things about the platform is we could see what posts and questions were getting the most attention and response.

And it helped us understand, you know, like our admitted student questionnaire, these analytics helped us get a sense of what really matters to the students. So we could be in a constant iterative process for evolving our content and the way we were engaging and adapting it to that, the kind of student was an admitted student was a prospective student. We even let parents into our, our, our prospective student wiser community and they were, you know, they had different questions and expectations than the prospective students.

So, yeah, lots of lots of different ways to sort of evolve your thinking about how you go about engaging with students. Yeah. And, you know,

SPEAKER_02
you keep bringing up this idea of having students see themselves on campus and helping them to find that they have a place at campus, you know, switching gears a little bit, but in a similar sense, one thing that we've seen, especially over the past year is that, you know, facifiling has gone down significantly, especially under, in traditionally underserved groups and, and groups that may not always see themselves at a college campus. And so I guess I pose the question to you, and I know this is a little bit of a tougher question, but, you know, what have, how have you seen and how have you seen digital engagement helping to impact those who don't typically see themselves at a college campus? And what do you recommend to other admissions offices or financial aid teams on how to meet students where they're at and help, you know, students who don't typically see themselves on a college campus long term, find and get the financial aid help they need so that

SPEAKER_01
they can make it there? Yeah. That's a, that's a great question. And I would say our office had been, you know, even, you know, the pandemic was a twofold pandemic, you know, there was the global health crisis of COVID-19.

But then, you know, there's, there's the racial inequity of the world around us that, you know, came to the forefront, not just with George Floyd, but with Breonna Taylor and so many other issues that, you know, prospective students and admitted students and our current students and our alums are all, you know, really, you know, really passionate about. So, you know, Wellesley for a while had already been looking at our admission practices and policies, you know, from a racial justice and an equity lens. And one of the areas that we hadn't quite tackled was, okay, we do offer financial assistance for students, admitted students to fly to campus and visit us if they didn't have a chance and didn't have the means to do so.

But that still wasn't reaching everyone. So this fact that we hadn't been able to provide an authentic Wellesley experience to students who didn't have a chance to visit campus before they applied and or to students who, you know, maybe hadn't originally thought of Wellesley, you know, there was this missed opportunity and Wellesley is known for being one of the most diverse institutions in the country. We're 49% identify as students of color, 17 first generation college, 14% international from 80, 83 different countries.

And so, you know, how were we going about really not just talking the talk, but walking the walk. And so I really think that being able to do this digital first approach, you know, provides more opportunity to provide equity really and truly it is a privilege to have the means to have the guidance and resources to visit a campus. And we all know it's a great way to get to know a college.

But the reality is, there are so many students where that's not an opportunity. I'm a first generation college student myself financially determined my enrollment choice that there was really no other choice about it. And I, you know, I just had no idea what I was doing with these digital first platforms, we can start pulling resources and reaching out to students.

And so, you know, if the one shy student who has admitted asked a question about how to read or understand a financial aid award, well, we started including tips and advice like that through our through the perspective student wiser platform, right. And that's where those little bite size, for example, financial aid videos, or personalized outreach, having access to a financial aid officer, telling students that if they're admitted, they should ask questions about their financial aid award, telling them that there is an appeals process, right, which, you know, so many students would never have known about if you hadn't given that information to them. So I really think these digital first resources have an opportunity to help us sort of democratize and provide more access to the fact that many, you know, many admission and financial aid offices, they want to provide the help, we just need to facilitate the connection that makes a student comfortable to either ask the question or the benefit of a platform like the one we use with wiser, one student asked the question, and then everybody who's on that platform benefits from seeing that bold question being asked and the response being given.

So the crowdsourcing, I guess you could call it has been really helpful, because we all know if one student has that question, a lot of them have the same one.

SPEAKER_02
So it really helps guide our resources. Yeah, you know, we always use the analogy here of no one likes being the first person at a party. And I feel like a lot of times when you put students in a capacity where they're supposed to ask the questions, they're always intimidated to be the first one to do it.

I mean, I look at myself who I was at 18 years old, I absolutely would have felt the same way. So I think you're really hitting the nail on the head with you offer them all of that access to all that information right off the bat, and it makes the conversation a lot easier, and it makes them feel a lot more comfortable to start having those what seem are seem to be tougher conversations at that point in time. So again, one thing I always, oh, go ahead.

You're so right,

SPEAKER_01
Anna. And I think these students, this generation, they're asking really tough questions. When I said, you know, we need to make sure that our our commitment to versity, equity, inclusion, and access, you know, they're asking these tough questions.

And so as you said, one student starts to ask, you know, what's Wellesley doing in the wake of, you know, George Floyd's murder to address this, what's happening on campus, and really, you know, having transparent and authentic ways for students to ask those questions and get answers is I think imperative for every institution's future, because I, and I really hope this isn't going to go away as an issue that we're going to all see this forward. So we're really grateful that, you know, the one bold question that someone asked then leads to others. So you're absolutely right, Anna.

Absolutely. You know, I think we've

SPEAKER_02
touched on a lot of incredible points today, especially with how digital engagement can affect yield strategies and prospective student strategies and just how to bring students more into the fold and give them more of a voice on campus and with their college, college choice process. But I want to make sure that, you know, anyone listening to the podcast today can walk away with a few very actionable pieces of advice or next steps for their admissions offices or for their program. So if you could wrap up, you know, all that we had talked about today into your few top insights or top pieces of advice that you've gotten with your digital

SPEAKER_01
engagement, what would those be? Great question, Anna. So, you know, hopefully we've, you know, relayed some tips and advice along the way. But, you know, I would say my top three might be innovate, don't replicate, right? It can be easier to just try to take what you have and sort of, you know, square, square peg round hole.

But you've got to take a little bit of risk. And you may even find that what you need to do is assign people and give them permission to be creative, to think out of the box, to set an environment where you say, we need to fail and we need to fail fast, right? We're going to make some choices here. But the great thing about some of these digital tools is we can, we can pivot, we can change things.

You don't get the full benefit of these, these, you know, digital and virtual, virtual engagement options. If you don't use it differently than you did your in-person events. So, you know, you have to think about, you know, what's the end goal and product? When Wellesley asked all those questions, what are we trying to do here? What does someone need to know to feel comfortable and confident in the decision to join the Wellesley community? And then we worked backwards with a very open, you know, what are our ideas? What do we have here? Lots of brainstorming.

So, so innovate, don't replicate. I would say benchmarking, right? Because things in this digital world change fast and there's access to so much great data and analytics. So, you know, as you think about your end goals, you know, like I said, in the earlier point, how are you going to sort of measure and benchmark and track your progress? And I think there's a pitfall of saying, great, we've turned this on and you just let it go.

But, you know, these digital tools and virtual tools, they need monitoring, they need adjustment, and they need work along the way. It's great that they're iterative and you can keep, you know, tweaking and retooling. But you need to know, you know, what's your strategy for keeping that boat on course and on track and making progress towards the goals.

So, you know, identifying and making some intentional, you know, 10 day, two week, three month, you know, depending on what's appropriate for what you're trying to do, opportunities to step in. And so, you keep stepping in to the nuance and the details and the data and then step back and being creative again. So, it really is iterative innovation.

And then I would say, you know, things are starting to open back up. And I think the other on the flip side, there's a possibility for everybody just going back to the way things were. And I really think if we are going to grow and, you know, for Wellesley, right, we don't want to suddenly go back to our on campus in person open house and lose the students that we had been engaging with, you know, prior to during the pandemic, right, those students who were, you know, in rural locations from further away, right, who are never going to be able to get to campus, you know, we're thinking about lots of new and different things.

So, you know, obviously, even as we've started to open up to some limited campus visits, we're still going, you know, moving forward with our our wiser engagement platforms. We're actually looking at taking it a step further and doing virtual tours, right. So, you have student, well, we didn't have any student tour guides this summer.

We just didn't know when we'd be back open. And so, they've been working for us remotely during the summer. But when we go back to the fall campus, or when we open back up in the fall on campus, and we do have some students, we're actually going to do virtual tours, because we don't have student tour guides every moment of the day.

What about evenings and weekends? What about academic breaks? And so, as we think about equity, and being able to provide the same wonderful tour experience, whether you're on campus or off, we've actually just started working on a self added tour platform that works on campus or off, that provides the same consistent information. So, we're not privileging students who already are privileged enough to get to campus, that we can, you know, for that first generation student from, you know, our rural place in the Midwest, or a student who just doesn't have the funds to get to campus, that we can still reach them. And I don't know if our thinking would have been there if we hadn't gone through the thought process during the pandemic and that huge pivot we did, and what we've really learned with wiser.

So, you know, I'd say those are my biggest takeaways for thinking about being more digital forward or digital first.

SPEAKER_02
Just, I think that's as good a recap as any for all that we were able to talk through today. And while I know we can talk about this for hours, I do want to make sure you can get back to your day. And I just want to thank you so much for being so open and being so willing to talk about all the different experiences you've had over the past year.

And I know it's been a tough one, but you all have been doing some incredible work. And I'm just really excited to see where all of this digital engagement can go with Wellesley. So thank you again so much for your time today.

SPEAKER_01
Yeah. And thank you, Anna. We've really enjoyed partnering with you.

It's been an adventure, right, as we've opened up new doors and new opportunities and ways of using these tools. But, you know, with the platform and the support and service from your team, we've really done a lot of great things together. And I'm really excited to continue partnering with you all, and to have other people learn from our experience.

So they don't have to start from a nine day turnaround. Let's launch this, but can really engage in some thoughtful planning for their digital experiences and virtual opportunities. So thank you for having me today.

SPEAKER_02
Absolutely. And again, everyone, that is Jess Ricker, Dean of Admission at Wellesley College, joining me, Anna Mestica here at Office Hours with EUB. Thank you all so much for listening, and we look forward to hearing you back here again soon.

SPEAKER_00
Thank you for listening. Join us next week when our guests review data that show why you might want to pay a little more attention to how your school is doing relative to local competitors at growing market share and what you should do about it. Until then, thank you for your time.