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Organizational Membership

Connect to the world of higher education

With AACRAO membership you'll be connected to more than 11,000 members from institutions around the world. Facilitate your professional development by attending discounted meetings, gaining complimentary subscriptions to our College & University journal and more.

Why should you join? State higher education coordinating boards, higher education associations, accrediting bodies and international ministries of education and more can collaborate with our members and lend their voices to discussions about practices in the field. 

Annual Membership Price: $710

Requirements: YOU MUST BE A PUBLIC SECTOR AND/OR A PRIVATE NON-PROFIT ASSOCIATION WHOSE INTERESTS ARE CLOSELY ALIGNED TO AACRAO.  

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Professional Competencies

Work on your skills like change management, technical knowledge and professional development and contributions to the field. We have the tools for you.

Online Learning

Strategic enrollment management. Admissions & recruitment. Transfer & articulation.  AACRAO regularly partners with organizations to hold joint discussions. No matter what your focus is, our webinars are loved by our members, and can raise the profile of your work. 

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AACRAO's Career Navigator is a wealth of job postings and resources for training. 

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AACRAO's professional journals College & University and SEM Quarterly are always accepting articles and have a wide circulation base.

Research Opportunities

Leverage the expertise of our over 11,000 members and contribute to one of the premier sources of practice related research within the global higher education community. 

Join a committee

Do work you're passionate about, with support and mentoring from fellow members. From Caucuses to specialized topics, it's all one community, no matter where in the world your institution is located. 


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AACRAO's bi-weekly professional development e-newsletter

The most overlooked recruitment insight

Aug 26, 2019, 12:12 PM
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Summary : 4 tips for recruiting students who feel like they belong.
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Fit, fit, fit: if your student doesn’t have it, they’re not going to stay. And, like a single dissatisfied dog can send a whole neighborhood howling, there’s a chance that unhappy transfer-out or stop-out students will bring along other ambivalent souls.

“Every admissions officer needs to look at every contact/touch with a student as a touch with a future graduate,” said Julia Ross, a professional tutor and admissions coach based in Virginia. 

Belonging 101

Based on her experience working with high school students seeking college admission, Ross has a number of recommendations for improving admission and retention rates -- all of which revolve around the central premise that students stay where they feel they belong.

1. Know your institution inside out. Like a server at a fine dining restaurant, your admissions staff should know not only what region the butter is from, but also the color of the cow that gave the milk. That is, admissions officers need to understand what makes your institution unique. They need to understand the culture, assets, and resources at the school as well as anyone. And, Ross notes, a robust training and vetting program for student tour guides is also a huge plus. One sour tour guide can spoil a whole lot of potential recruits.

2. Know your target market. Once your institutional brand is crystal clear [link], discover what kinds of students are seeking those particular qualities, and find a way to communicate that message to them. For example, a more highly rated school might draw students based on reputation, even though your institution actually has more diverse course offerings in a particular, less well-known field. That fact may be a hook for a subset of students who are looking for you and just don’t know it yet. 

“A lot of colleges have more ‘fit’ than they realize,” Ross said. It’s a matter of mythbusting and re-messaging.

3. Don’t oversell. An unhappy student is a former student, and it’s two or three times as expensive to bring in transfer students than to retain students in the first place, Ross said. 

“If you have an applicant that doesn’t match you, yet you recruit them to fill your quota, you’re going to lose that student,” Ross said. “Almost 60 percent of students leave the college where they start -- whether they drop or transfer -- and that number is even higher for African American and Hispanic populations.”

4. Invite contact. Many people -- even college-educated parents -- hesitate to contact institutions. Make it easy and welcoming. Encourage visits, demystify tuition (share merit and scholarship information), and get parents involved. As much as possible, get professors involved too.

Ross will share these and many more insights from her work with college-preparing students and admissions offices across the country in her engaging session at AACRAO SEM 2019 in Dallas. Learn more and register now.


Categories :
  • Admissions and Recruitment
  • Communications Plan
  • Enrollment Goals
  • Enrollment Management
  • Enrollment Mix
  • Meetings, Workshops, and Trainings
  • Orientation
  • Retention
  • SEM Conference
  • Student Recruitment
Tags :
  • optimal enrollment
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