Spotlight on SEM: Introducing the NEW Admissions and Advising Track

AACRAO Spotlight interviews are published biweekly before major professional development meetings. They feature our conversations with industry experts, highlighting key issues and promoting sessions and workshops at the upcoming conference.

Register for the SEM Conference before September 25 and save $125 on your registration.  You may also download the registration brochure to preview conference sessions and workshops.

In this issue of Connect, we spoke with presenters whose sessions will be featured in one of AACRAO SEM Conference's newest additions: the Admissions and Advising Session Interest Track, sponsored by Hobsons, which adds: "We have a longstanding relationship with AACRAO, and we are pleased to sponsor the Strategic Enrollment Management Conference’s new Admissions and Advising track, because we believe admissions is an advising moment along a continuum that begins in middle and high schools, results in enrollment at a right-fit institution, and continues until students achieve their educational goals." Read Hobsons' full statement here.

Honors First: A Pilot Recruitment Initiative for our University's Highest-Achieving Applicants

The Lee Honors College at Western Michigan University led a new recruitment initiative in April 2015 called Honors First, intended to increase the yield of academically high-achieving applicants.  This week, we talked with Anthony Helms on how WMU created and launched the Honors First initiative and what he learned during this experiment.

Read our interview with Helms here.

Going Beyond Articulation Agreements; How Two Institutions Collaborate for Strategic Enrollment Purposes

Despite recent concerns about the effectiveness of articulation agreements, most colleges and universities continue to base their recruitment and retention strategies for transfer students on expanding the use of such agreements. In this presentation, Virginia Commonwealth University and John Tyler Community College will describe how the development of new articulation agreements resulted in improvements in their recruitment, advising, assessment, retention, and curriculum development planning.

Read our interview will Bill Fiege here.

Meeting the Demands of Shifting Enrolment: Early Admission Based on Final Grade 11 Grades

Using institutional strategy and data driven decision making, the University of Calgary adopted an Early Admission pathway based on final grade 11 grades. After two admission cycles with this pathway, find out what was learned and how this pathway has shaped undergraduate admission from high school at one of Canada's top research intensive universities.

Read our interview with Scott Robinson here.