| 0:00:09.82 | 66.9s | Alex Fronduto | Hello and welcome to the Admit It podcast hosted by AACRAO where we dive deep into the art and science of enrollment management. Today, we're exploring a topic every admissions professional knows is critical, innovative approaches to campus visits from getting students to campus to creating memorable experiences and following up effectively, we're breaking it all down. I'm thrilled to be joined by three incredible guests who bring diverse perspectives and expertise to the table. I have Tiana director of on campus programs at American University. Emily, who's the Executive Director of Admission at Lasell University and Alex, the Director of Admissions at Os U Cascades. Together, we'll discuss everything from innovative timelines for campus visits to non scripted tours, virtual options and the follow up strategies that truly work. We'll cover the full journey, how to get students to campus, what they experience while they're there and how to maintain that connection after their visit. I'm excited to dive right in with them and again, welcome to the Admit It podcast. |
| 0:01:23.33 | 29.5s | Alex Fronduto | Hello and welcome everyone. Thank you for joining the Admit It Podcast. I'm here with three great guests that are gonna talk to us about innovative campus visits. We're gonna talk through the whole idea of getting students to campus, the timeline for them visiting the visit experience and maybe some ideas around some follow up post campus visits. So I'm gonna have each of the guests introduce themselves so you can get to know a little bit more about them and then we're gonna dive right in Emily. Can I just have you give yourself a quick introduction? Thanks so much for being here. |
| 0:01:53.16 | 11.8s | Emily Stanley | Yeah, my name is Emily Stanley. I'm the executive director of Admission at Lasell University. Lasell is a small private institution located um about eight miles west of downtown Boston in a town called Newton. |
| 0:02:05.68 | 8.7s | Alex Fronduto | Awesome. Thank you so much for being here. I'm excited to hear all of your insights, Emily. I'm gonna pass it off to Alex next. |
| 0:02:15.36 | 18.4s | Alex Galbreath | Um Hi, I'm Alex Galbreath. She, her, hers, I'm the Director of Admissions at Oregon State University Cascades or Os U Cascades. Um We are a branch campus of Oregon State University uh located in Bend Oregon um in central Oregon. And we have about uh 1300 students. |
| 0:02:34.64 | 5.1s | Alex Fronduto | Awesome. Thanks so much, Alex and last but not least Tiana. Can you introduce yourself? Thanks so much for being here. |
| 0:02:40.33 | 23.7s | Tiana Hakimzadeh | Hey, Alex. Yeah, thank you for having us. Um I'm Tiana Hakimzadeh. I'm the director for on campus programs at American University in Washington DC. Um And American is a private uh four year University located right outside of the kind of downtown area of DC. Um And we've got about a little more than 8000 undergraduate students. |
| 0:03:04.36 | 50.4s | Alex Fronduto | Awesome. Thanks so much Tiana for all three of you. I really appreciate you taking some time to really share with our listeners, all the great things you're doing at your campuses, thinking about the campus visit kind of ideas as well as practices you have or maybe even some future thoughts as I mentioned earlier. Really, my goal is to talk us through from getting students onto campus, which we know sometimes can be pretty difficult. Um, I feel, you know, 5, 10 years ago, everyone was coming to campus. Now, we know that it's not as often or maybe later than we thought, which is interesting because we always keep hearing that people were starting the college process earlier. Um So I wanted to kind of start with the timeline. And so Emily, I would love for you to share some of your thoughts around this kind of idea of timeline. What are you seeing on your campus? What's changing? What's not changing? |
| 0:03:56.2 | 93.1s | Emily Stanley | Yeah, we started noticing, um, last year, last fall, um, maybe a little bit before then in the summer too, that students, uh, are starting to visit later in the cycle. Um, typically they follow the, the model of, you know, they start, if they're early birds, they visit maybe spring or even fall of their junior year if they're a little bit. Um, if they need to wait until the summer before their senior year, we see kind of an uptick there. Um And then we traditionally see a little bit more of a dip in the fall for, um, people who are in the fall of their senior year just because they start visiting earlier. Uh, but then we started seeing more of, uh, an increase in those fall visits and specifically spring visits too, spring after they're admitted. Um So they, the data was indicating for us that they were waiting to visit until after they had applied or even been admitted. And then I started seeing um other like vendors um whenever they were presenting data about campus visit, specifically mentioning the same thing that they were seeing uh in survey results that students were indicating preferences for visiting after they were admitted. Um And so whenever we um did our presentation at NACAC I included data from rnleab and market view um from surveys and data that they had gathered kind of showing that. So it's becoming more of a trend uh that we are seeing nationwide, not just a, you know, little Lasell are waiting and later to visit and we are definitely seeing that at Lasell again this fall. |
| 0:05:29.42 | 31.3s | Alex Fronduto | OK. And that, that was gonna be definitely something I was interested in. So you're saying you get these early birds still and that seems like it still exists. Is that correct? Ok. But then there's like this gap which didn't always exist. You know, you typically saw that people would maybe wait to apply and, you know, maybe they were applying later, but now it seems like they're still applying potentially, but they haven't even visited. So you're kind of almost unless they were already in your system, potentially seeing more stealth applicants. Is that potentially something you're seeing or were they already most likely in your system? |
| 0:06:01.30 | 34.3s | Emily Stanley | They're already in our system. Um, don't get me wrong. The still applicants do exist. They've always, but they're still in our system and we are, we're great in terms of our application number. But yeah, we're just seeing less of an interest in visiting early um to the point where I've even started asking families whenever I meet with them after tours um about their like anecdotal motivations and even the parents are like, yeah, we wanted to wait until later just because it's such an expense where it's a um it's a lot of time or whatever. Um But, and then I thank them for still coming early on. |
| 0:06:37.27 | 39.6s | Alex Fronduto | Good, good. I mean, I really appreciate the fact that also, you know, it might not always just be the acceptance piece, but that's obviously critical the financial aid piece, right? Really deciding if they're going to make the investment, not only to the institution but to even see the institution and kind of getting over that hurdle first because again, it would be great to see an institution prior to applying obviously getting that field like you fit. But if the other things don't line up, maybe not being accepted or potentially not having the financial aid that could really change things. Um, Alex, I'm curious, are you seeing similar trends or different trends? Um, whether it's on campus or with the different populations you're talking to? |
| 0:07:18.60 | 134.5s | Alex Galbreath | Um, yeah, I would say we're seeing similar trends as Emily shared in terms of, um, when students are visiting. I think one thing that's a little bit unique about our campus is that because we are a part of Oregon State University, we have students that may do their initial spring junior visit at our main campus and then they apply, they may learn more about our campus. Um And so then we see them kind of coming to visit us, but later, so there's a little bit of that that plays into kind of when we see students um visiting us. Um Some of the information that Emily had shared during our um conference as well was also just when students are first starting to research colleges. So looking pre pandemic in 2019, about 67% of students were starting that as early as spring in their sophomore year. Fast forward to 2023 and it's 40% of students. So I think there's a little bit of students, you know, in those populations. COVID probably didn't help with that in the pandemic. Um of when they're actually starting to think about college um and students are applying to more colleges and universities so that they need to kind of narrow down to prioritize where they want to visit. Um But this fall anecdotally with our recruitment staff um from both campuses, we kind of joined forces in the fall. We saw a lot of juniors at high school visits. Um this fall and so curious to kind of see um is it because those seniors maybe where some of those early birds and others are gonna wait until after they've applied to maybe get to know more, um, or are we seeing a shift in some of that early research coming back? Um, with, so juniors are gonna be the class of 2026 students. Um, so that's been kind of an interesting thing that we've seen anecdotally out on the road, just a lot more engagement, um, with juniors right now. So we'll be very curious to see how they visit us, um, you know, over the next year and a half or so? |
| 0:09:33.13 | 76.2s | Alex Fronduto | Right. Are they going to come next month or are they going to still wait another year, year and a half to come visit? I think that that's a really interesting, especially it, it kind of also echoing kind of some of the data that Emily was referring to and bringing in some of those statistics I think is really interesting for people to know because I think there was this idea in unfortunately not everyone is always keeping up with what's happening and what the actual trends are na nationally versus just at their institution. So hopefully our listeners are kind of thinking about like, have I looked at that data? Is it actually shifting? Do I know if it's shifting at my own institution? And if it is, how can we be adapting to that? And you know, we'll get to that in our next theme about the actual visit experience, right? If you know what types of students are coming to visit, you may be wanting to offer different things or having different opportunities to them. Um So I appreciate that you also shared that I want to ask one follow up question because you were talking about the the different campuses, right? So because of your system, um when you're seeing that, is there anything that you can plan for in terms of like being able to think about when they are visiting other campuses versus your campus? Like, is there any kind of nuances there that you might be able to share for others that might have a similar institution set up? |
| 0:10:50.4 | 124.9s | Alex Galbreath | That's a, that's a really great question. Um And it's uh very top of mind right now because um I've been in this role at this campus uh for the last two years, I worked um kind of at our main campus for many years beforehand. But um in our kind of fall open house programs where we see mostly, you know, seniors but a mix of, of juniors and sophomores too. At those, the last two years, we would maybe have, you know, one or two students who had already applied to our other campus in Corvallis. But we're very seriously considering us as well. We are two very different sized campuses, but we're still Oregon State University. Um, at our most recent open house program. this fall, we had seven students who were already applied, some even already admitted to our other campus who were here actively considering Os C Cascades, which is very different than what we've seen. And so we're actually doing a deep dive into these students to look at. When did they maybe first visit the other campus? Um Have they gone to any high school visits or college fairs trying to kind of find like, where's that point that maybe we started getting into their option list if you will? Um And there are some kind of uh admissions processes in place where it, it probably is best if they started with our, our campus in Corvallis. Um and then they can easily change to our campus. Um So we're, we're the short answer is we're looking into those students, you know, where is that shift? Um Is it because OS UK is getting kind of more reach out there and there's more students who are like, you know, thinking about it, are they going to the campus in Corvallis and seeing how large it is and thinking, well, I don't know, maybe I do now want to consider a small campus and, oh, OS U already has one, just 2.5 hours away. Um, so we're looking into that. It's kind of, um, a new thing that popped up this fall. That is definitely very intriguing. So, I'll, I'll be curious to learn more about these students and kind of follow them through the whole cycle to kind of see what ends up happening with them. |
| 0:12:55.40 | 83.9s | Alex Fronduto | Well, I appreciate you sharing that just even know that it's, you know, not formulated fully, but just how you're thinking through that could help others. I mean, even if it's not, you know, a multiple campus system, if you have multiple schools attachments, you know, as many universities are thinking about expansions, they might have satellite campuses, you know, thinking about that strategically is like, are they the same numbers? Are they different? How do you shift that? Um It can be complex for some people. So II, I think that could be really helpful. Um And so I wanted to kind of switch to our next step. It's really getting some on campus. So we talked about when are they visiting? When are they not visiting? And then what do we do when they're actually there? We know and this is nothing new that students that come visit campus and have a good experience. Are more likely to enroll, right. That, that's, that's nationally, that's at many institutions, their experience on campus is gonna very much impact that. And that's why all institutions want their students to, you know, accepted students, especially to visit to ideally yield them. Right? And so Tiana, I know you spoke, as others have mentioned, you all kind of how we met with, you were doing a conference presentation and you spoke a lot about kind of storytelling, non scripted tours and unique kind of tour experiences that maybe some institutions aren't doing. So, I'd love to kind of hear what does all of that mean and kind of how would that be useful to others? |
| 0:14:20.66 | 419.3s | Tiana Hakimzadeh | Yeah, sure. Um So, um when I took over in my role about 10 years ago, one of the things that, um the old tour guide kind of program had in place was a scripted tour and, um through, you know, meeting fellow colleagues in peer institutions, through S isa I've also interacted with folks that, um really do believe in the idea of a scripted tour and making sure that, you know, a certain type of story is being told. Um But one of the things that I'm kind of a very firm believer on is that, you know, everyone's communication styles are different, the way that people retain, um and give information is going to be different presentation styles, things like that. And so, um when I took over our tour guide program. Uh, I wanted to kind of shift things a little bit from this idea of, um, hey, we don't need to be doing scripted tours. I can be giving my tour guides. You know, the information that I want them to say about the university to say about schools and colleges, to say about the student experience. But I know that they all, you know, have their own unique personalities, they have their own unique communication styles. And I wanted us to be able to kind of use those characteristics that they have um to their own strengths. Um And so at American, um our tours are designed to be unscripted. Um And that allows our student ambassadors to bring their own personalities, um experiences and styles into their tour. Um And so the way that I kind of train them, and one of the things I talked about in our kinda presentation was this resource guide that I've created. And um for anyone that's like even remotely thinking about, like this is so cool. I want to implement this. It does take a lot of time if you are starting it from scratch because what I ended up creating was like a 5060 page manual. Um But it, you know, the, the resource guys, it, it equips um the ambassadors with um kind of the knowledge and the resources that they need to know about the university, but it helps them kind of create their own dynamic personalized campus tour. And so in the guide, I cover um a variety of topics. And so there's a section on the History of A U I don't expect students every single tour guide to talk about the history of our university. But I know that I have history buffs in our tour guide organization. And there are students who want to incorporate the history of the university into their route and into their talking points because it's something that they're personally interested and passionate about. Um I have facts and figures for those students that aren't, you know, numbers, people that, you know, they can just quickly remember percentages and statistics. Um for folks that have a lot of majors at their institution, for us, we have over 50. Um 1 of the things that took me the most amount of time, um but it has been one of the most valuable to my tour guides is I created elevator pitches for all of our academic majors. And so the resource guide has like 2 to 3 sentences about each major that we offer. So if someone is, you know, comes up to them and is like, hey, what's the difference between audio production and audio technology or they're asking about a major that, you know, maybe A U isn't known for, but it's something that we offer, the students have that information to be able to at least kind of briefly talk about those programs. Um and then the resource guide has the tour route. So um I have it kind of split up into the 13 stops that we um kind of have on our campus tour. Um But it's split into two sections. So I train the students on this idea of here are the things that you have to say. And this is just essential information that every ambassador must communicate. But the way in which they communicate it, the order in which they talk about it, how they talk about it, they have the autonomy to kind of build off of those talking points on their own. And then I have the second section for each stop, which is just good to know information. So this is going to be supplementary details that they can use to personalize the tour based off of the style or the interests of the group. So all of our tour guides, we ask every um perspective or admitted student to introduce themselves at the beginning of the tour. And that really allows um my ambassadors to kind of then model and mold their talking points based off of who's in the audience instead of it just being the same tour, same talking points over and over again. Um And so one of the things that we've found just in terms of the positives of non scripted tours, it does create that authentic experience that prospective students and their parents are looking for, right? They don't want this fake experience where you're just kind of like talking about all the positives and you're highlighting the things or showing the things that um everyone knows or wants to see about your university. There is a sense of authenticity and a sense of um you know, a sense that the tour guides also have that they don't feel like they're lying about the institution or exaggerating information that these are the things that they want to also be talking about and sharing with families. Um So it builds that connection with perspective and admitted students, it makes them feel more welcome and engaged. You know, the fact that a tour guide can go along the route and then get to a stop and say, hey, you're the one that said that you were interested in this area like this is your stop right now. All this info I'm about to give this is for you. Um It also creates a positive experience for the tour guides. I think that um a tour, you know, the tour guide job on any college campus tends to be a competitive position. You have to have students who are strong public speakers. Um But, you know, for me, one of the things is is when I hire these students, they stay until they graduate. So our retention rate and just keeping tour guides um and having a group of students who love what they're doing. I think the fact that the tours are not scripted, contributes to that positive experience that they're having in their roles. Um And then overall, it's a memorable experience for everyone. Families are walking away. Feeling as though, hey, you know, this tour guide really spoke to me. They paid attention to me, they answered my questions. And so for those two hours, those families have this, you know, walk away with this sense of feeling that, hey, American really cared about me in this short amount of time and they took the time to focus um and mold the tour toward my interests. |
| 0:21:21.8 | 54.6s | Alex Fronduto | I really appreciate you sharing all of that. And I think that there's so much within that those different pieces that you were saying. I mean, one thing that I think people would want to know about and I'm sure struggle with is sometimes the idea of it not being scripted becomes difficult, especially as people move up, right? Senior leaders then get nervous of. Well, what are they saying on tour? Are they not talking about our key points, our value proposition, our return on investment. And so how do you balance those needs? I know you mentioned that there are like some requirements still, even though it's like storytelling, but there are requirements of the storytelling. But like how have you felt like you balance the, the things that you really do need to say because this is our goal of our tour versus like making it authentic. And I kind of almost was thinking, like, see behind the curtain every time you kept saying, like, the authentic experience. So if you can talk a little bit about that. |
| 0:22:15.82 | 211.0s | Tiana Hakimzadeh | Yeah. Yeah. I, I think, I mean, I feel like a lot of people in Higher Ed would echo the sentiment of, you know, campus partners are important and maintaining positive relationships with those campus partners is kind of leads to our success. And, um, it's taken a lot of time for me to kind of build those relationships with campus partners and let them know, you know, when they email me and they're like, you're not spending enough time in our building. And I, you know, explaining to them like we only have 75 minutes and what we can cover, you know, is, is also above my pay grade. So the stops that we feature on the tour aren't necessarily my choice, but I only have 75 minutes to fill what are the most important pieces of information that's that are going to go into those 75 minutes. Um So what I do is at the beginning of every um summer, I do update the resource guide. I mean, information is always changing, new programs are being introduced. Um And so the resource guide is very coveted to me. So I don't send the whole thing out because there are competing like organizations on campus, you know, orientation, for example, um that want our tour uh manual and I'm not usually like comfortable sharing it out. But what I do is I take bits and pieces of the tour and share them with campus partners. So for example, any of our stops that cover um our College of Arts and Sciences, we have three stops dedicated to just them and their programs. I will send an email at the beginning of the summer with an attachment of that section of the resource guide. And I'll say this is what our tour guides are saying about your school. This is the, you know what they have to section the supplementary information that they should know. What are changes that you want us to make? Are there changes that you want us to make? And so I do put the onus on the schools and colleges and individual departments to update our information every summer. Um So I'll reach out to our business school. I reach out to the athletics department. I reach out to the library. Um Everyone, you know, I'm, I'm transparent about what the talking points are for each of their stops and I give them kind of that again, that autonomy to tell us, hey, what are the things that you want the student ambassadors to talk about? And so as we look to update the resource guide every summer, um still the students on their end have the flexibility to kind of see what the changes are, know what new programs have been introduced, but they also still have that creative freedom to figure out how they want to incorporate those changes into, you know, the way that they've been talking about something for the last year or so. The other thing that we do is that I also give all of our campus partners the opportunity to have a meeting with our tour guide. So for example, at the beginning of every semester, I do, uh we meet with our dining office. Um And so they actually give us a tour of their dining facilities so that they can show us and talk about the things that they want us to highlight on the campus tour. And so we will offer the opportunity for anyone if they want to come and meet with the tour guides, if they want to give advice or want to kind of give um even their own stories to share about like, hey, this is something really cool that we think that your students should be sharing. Um We'll give them that opportunity as well. |
| 0:25:47.43 | 1.8s | Alex Fronduto | So it seems very collaborative. |
| 0:25:50.1 | 45.1s | Tiana Hakimzadeh | I try to be as like collaborative as open minded as possible. I feel like, you know, I don't know if Alex or Emily experience this, but like we all also deal with campus partners who reach out to complain about a tour, right? Oh, hey, I heard your tour guide was saying this and we don't appreciate the way that they were talking about it. And so my method has always been to be proactive on my end and be like, hey, this is what we're saying about your school. If you don't like, you know what we've identified as the important components, you have the freedom to kind of look at this, send it back to us and let us know exactly how you want us to talk about something, what you want us to say about it so that I can also eliminate the number of, of those types of emails. I'm also getting, |
| 0:26:35.34 | 54.2s | Alex Fronduto | I completely understand, I oversaw our tour guides at my previous institution for 11 years. So lived and breathed all of that. And you always have to discern whether it's the student or if it's the information or what it was it a miscommunication. I've always heard, like I heard it through two of my doors and I'm like, did you hear everything you needed between both doors while in a meeting? I'm not 100% sure. But so I get it. Um Well, thank you so much for sharing that. I mean, really opening it up to Emily or Alex in terms of the campus visit experience when we're thinking about either something you're doing on campus that's innovative how you're kind of switching up anything, whether it's a tour, whether it's an info session. Um Maybe it's not even on campus, maybe it's something else you're doing. Maybe you're thinking virtual. Um I didn't know if either of you wanted to chime in. |
| 0:27:31.9 | 171.8s | Emily Stanley | Um Yeah, so we've been doing a couple of things to um kind of accommodate the trends that we're seeing. Um One of them this fall was I opted to host our Fall of in House. Um a little bit later like a week or two weeks later than usual on average. Um Thinking that that would, you know, help the fact that folks are visiting later and later and then just very fun thing. I ended up choosing a date that seven other schools in the local area hosted their events. So be able to see, yeah, if that was actually helpful. Um But we're also preparing uh just to be busier in the spring uh with our accepted student events um and tours for that reason. So I'm bringing on a couple more um tour guides in the spring just to accommodate potentially having more tours. Um But specifically, uh regarding like how visits drive applications since we're a smaller institution that has more of a, a 1 to 1 campus tour and admission information session. Um We actually in fall 2021 started um doing a type of application that we call the leaf application. It's not groundbreaking other schools around us, do it. Um But we saw that it would probably be a benefit for us because again, we have that more 1 to 1 visit model. Um So that application actually um replaces a student's letter of recommendation and essay with a, an admission interview. Um, so, and it's something that they can do whenever they visit and it was actually originally started to promote just two visitors. So as soon as a student signed up for a tour, if they were eligible, ie had the, you know, correct entry term, uh, or the entry term that we were marketing to at the time, they would receive an email as soon as they signed up her visit saying, hey, you haven't applied and you're eligible for this. Do you want to do the leap application? Um It's an expedited form. Um Once they fill it out, they're contacted immediately about either scheduling a, a visit if they haven't already or scheduling an interview either in person or via Zoom and counselors can do them with students on the road as well. Um But again, it was initially started um just to be a part of the visit process. Um And we saw a lot of growth over the years um in terms of the use of that application, um not just with the number of applications submitted and interviews completed. Um But over the three years that we've been utilizing that application, we've seen a lot of growth in enrollment uh from that type of application as well. Um So much so to where it's uh the first year, uh the percentage of students that ended up depositing and enrolling um from the leave application was only 3% and then the following year it was 12% and then last year it was 22%. Um, so we have seen pretty significant |
| 0:30:23.42 | 1.1s | Alex Fronduto | that is significant |
| 0:30:25.42 | 69.1s | Emily Stanley | and we think it has something to do with, you know, the fact that they are getting a very, even more of a personalized experience than they already were. Um, now, granted, I do have to kind of add the asterisk that typically the students that are completing this application are. Um they're already a little bit more inclined to be interested in Lasell. Um We have a lot of athletes, we have a lot of transfer students submitted. Um but of the students that are not athletes and transfer students, they're still enrolling at a higher rate than the students that you know, apply via the common app or our slate hosted application um just per the volume. So we've been grateful for the growth we've seen with the leap application and that we're still able to do it and that it's been sustainable for us and it's something that we're still promoting and trying to get into high schools to do leap days. We do them during, during high school visits, sometimes schools will allow us to do that there. Um So yeah, we we've been really happy with the leap um and are hoping that, you know, that will continue to help us battle this decline we're seeing in terms of when students want to raise their hand and express that interest or visit campus? |
| 0:31:35.33 | 62.6s | Alex Fronduto | Awesome. I appreciate you sharing that. And I think obviously seeing that positive momentum, it's the next question is obviously like, oh, how do we scale this? And it seems like you're already thinking about that. If you already know that by volume, of course, as you said that they're enrolling at a higher rate, then we want everyone to do that process if that's going to continue. So I appreciate you sharing some of your thoughts around the scalability because I know that is what every institution is trying to think about and being more efficient in some ways too, but not lacking the personalization like you were saying, right, that kind of 1 to 1 interaction. We know again, nothing new that this is something that is really beneficial when you can, not every institution can, right? It all depends on what your goal is at your institution, whether it is enrollment, whether it's academics, whether it's diversity, right? We know that there's, you know, enrollment management, 101, there's that kind of triad of how you go back and forth and pull those different aspects. Um Alex, I don't know if there's other types of visit experiences that we haven't talked about that you might want to talk about. |
| 0:32:39.68 | 143.5s | Alex Galbreath | Yeah, I think um that especially coming out of the pandemic. Um You know, there is uh a move back to more in person things but um there uh was a, a survey um done by EIB that kind of looked at, you know, our students still likely to use virtual tours and they still are. Um in 2021 that was about 25% of students were still likely to use virtual tours in 2023. That was 24%. So I think that um a lot of the work that folks kind of had to do because of the pandemic and people not visiting campus. Um And with this generation of Gen Z wanting that information, just kind of right away being very tech savvy. There's still a place I think for virtual tours, not only um to kind of increase access for students to be able to explore more campuses, but also in um opportunities for lead generation as that is really changing. Um And how we are getting kind of more students in top of funnel. And so, uh there are a lot of different um vendors out there that do virtual tours and a lot of really um neat options that I think is worthwhile for universities to explore and invest in. Um some of them that are kind of priority for. Um me right now is we're kind of navigating what we want to do next in that space. Um But thinking of things like multi-language tours, so particularly where we are at in Oregon. Um Over 15% of our families in our county, their primary language spoken at home is Spanish. Um And so knowing that there's such an integral part of that decision making for students being able to offer an opportunity for them to explore um in their native language um ways that students can personalize their virtual tour experience. So, like that piece is, is definitely really key. Um And so I think just being thoughtful about just because we're quote out of the pandemic and um virtual events and virtual tours still have a place that can really help um just continue that engagement with students and, and have a bigger reach. So, um that's kind of what I would add in terms of, of visits and would echo um everything that's kind of been shared so far. |
| 0:35:03.77 | 105.7s | Alex Fronduto | Well, I, I think that's really interesting because in your case, you are still talking about, right? People that are centrally located to you, whereas some institutions may still think obviously the virtual options will allow you to get to people that you may not go to, right? And that was this whole idea, even prior to the pandemic, people were not having as many virtual options. So it felt like you needed to have a regional counselor or you need this council to travel to this random state, you never get enrollments from, but we need to start building from the ground up in that state. And I think what virtual options has allowed. And again, we're not here to talk about whether or not people are attending. We hear that up and down. Like if you do a virtual high school visit, like are people coming to that? But separately, it's still allowing you to have some more reach and opportunity that you may not have been doing as much. Even from an internal standpoint of like doing a webinar about the admission process. Maybe you weren't doing that as much at the undergrad level because you felt like, oh, they're just going to come to campus or they're going to go to a high school visit, but kind of keeping regular cadence of those types of things will allow you right to reach that random person in that random state, you will never go to that. You're like, oh, well, now we can reach them better rather than waiting for that stealth applicant to apply from that state. Um So I think I do agree. I think virtual is still there and still present and still has a reason, especially if we're talking financial, if there are people from further away that are not going to be able to travel to your campus. Um How else are they going to get the information and feel like they can still have a quality visit experience even if they're not going to get to campus sometimes at all. Um We know that not everyone visits campus. And so how can you kind of essentially win over those people? Um |
| 0:36:49.88 | 71.9s | Alex Galbreath | And I'll just add to that um looking at our virtual like visit and our lead gen um we the students who complete those through a virtual visit versus visiting in person. Um Non residents are doing the virtual tour twice the rate is visiting in person. So it definitely is helping those beyond. Um But also part of kind of our mission and where we're located is serving this part. Um The other thing to kind of just know about virtual visits is that um our virtual tours is it really can benefit an institution for an entire student life cycle. So, you know, perspective or admitted students like through the recruitment process, I mean, truly worldwide, right? Um can also be leveraged through like orientation and enrollment. So thinking about things like um if your orientation is not on campus and students really want to be able to look at all the different residence halls to know where they're going to live and keeping them engaged until they get here and move in. And then even later as alumni and potential donor to be able to really see at any time what's happening on campus. So um it can kind of fit into a larger, you know, the full student life cycle um in that way as well. |
| 0:38:02.61 | 76.9s | Alex Fronduto | No, that's really interesting to think even like when you're bringing in the alumni piece and thinking about when we talk about enrollment management in general, not just like admissions and recruitment, right? Where we are talking about that whole piece of right from the beginning of enrollment all the way through graduation and post. So I really appreciated that it's kind of some of your mindset as well of like how it can be utilized in multi ways. Um So really our last topic is, is really the follow up, like, ok, we got them to campus or virtually, they're there virtually or in person then what? Um And so I wanted to spend a few minutes just talking about if any of you are doing anything that's of interest for that post visit, follow up, you know, what are you doing to set yourself apart from other institutions? Because we know that students are visiting multiple institutions. So they obviously are going to compare their experiences of each institution and that's where your visit experience is important. But there's another piece of like that post of like, what is that reflection or what is their next follow up? Um And I know in our, you know, our previous meetings, we've kind of talked about different opportunities, but I wanted to kind of first open it up if any of you had specific kind of thoughts you want to share about in terms of the time we have. |
| 0:39:20.76 | 286.0s | Tiana Hakimzadeh | Yeah, I'm happy to kind of kick us off with kind of probably the like the most common follow up is just survey results. And, you know, I think that um the idea of surveying guests, I don't know how, how popular that continues to be uh among, you know, colleges and universities, but it's something that we still do. Um And that we use at American. Um But one of, one of my favorite components of our um survey post visits surveys is, are, are the open ended questions. Um I feel like we can gather data on. OK, you know, did you have a good visit? One through 10? But what I really look at as the person who oversees our visit experience are the responses to the open ended questions that we're asking. Um because it's those responses that allow me to present, you know, ways in which um we need to do better. What are things that we are doing well at and that we need to continue to do. But also where did we fall short? And so um some of my favorite questions that we ask is, was there information you wanted as part of your campus visit that wasn't provided? Um So being able to kind of hear those and see those responses from students on, you know, hey, you didn't cover enough of this or this wasn't covered at all. And if we see um you know, similar responses, then we're able to have a conversation and say, you know what this is something that we continue to see, we we should start to incorporate it. Um We ask another question in terms of how did this visit compare with other campus visits and it's, you know, uh the two, the two answers are, it was similar or it was different and if you select it was different, there's an open ended box that says, um how was it different? And so in those responses, we have seen, you know, especially for us being a school in a city, most people are going to be visiting our peer institutions in the same day, if not the same day. So what are we doing to make that visit memorable? And uh one of the common responses which is really surprising to me was the fact that we include showing residence hall during the campus tour. It's part of our standard visit, whereas some other peers, it's not included at all or it's a separate tour entirely that you have to sign up and register for. And so seeing those responses coming in of like, I appreciate that you showed us a residence hall room validated to us. Hey, I need to advocate every year, you know, with our housing partners, we need to continue to have a showroom. This is such a highlight of our tour. It is something we need to continue to do. But those survey results also led us to working with them on how they can improve the resources on their website. So going back to kind of what Alex was saying about virtual tours, we now have virtual tours of every single one of our residents hall buildings on our campus. And so when you think about that full student life cycle and you now have the enrolled student who has found out what building they're going to be living in the fact that they're able to go online and actually see what a room in that building looks like because most likely that's not what they saw on their tour. Um, and then we always just kind of ask, um, you know, share any additional thoughts regarding your campus visit experience at a U. What are the things that we should know? Um And another kind of common response that we used to get was the information that you're giving during your information session is similar to what your tour guides are presenting. And so that was a common response and we were like, ok, what do we need to do to kind of differentiate what they're learning in the information session versus what we're saying on the campus tours? And that also was a huge driver in the idea of the unscripted tours because, um, the academic information and the information session was kind of the things that the schools and colleges wanted us to highlight and we transition to, ok, on the tour. When we get to the schools and colleges, let's focus more on the storytelling of the experience that you can have at these schools and colleges, what are programs or, uh, you know, social activities and things that you can get involved with as a student in these programs or not in these programs. And so I know that some schools are weary about incorporating open ended questions into their surveys. But I find that the most valuable feedback we get are from those questions. |
| 0:44:07.17 | 27.1s | Alex Fronduto | OK. That's great to know. I know that people go back and forth about surveys. And so I appreciate you sharing not only how it's helped you, but even that has come to be like data supporting, right? Like in the sense of the showrooms, right, there might be a budget component to that. And so being able to showcase like this is important and this is why helps with that. So I appreciate that piece, especially um Alex, are you doing any kind of specific outreach post visit? |
| 0:44:35.61 | 38.1s | Alex Galbreath | Um We do like uh we're a small campus, our visits are pretty small but we have um each ambassador that gave that tour does a like handwrit postcard refers is kind of something they talked about to give that personalized visit. Um We do have a survey, it's really hard to get um kind of feedback on it. And honestly has not been something I've been able to tackle um in the last two years, but the something we've implemented this year is uh texting. And so we're going to look at how we can use texting to help get more of that survey feedback um and tie into having that personal connection again once they've left campus. |
| 0:45:14.37 | 63.0s | Alex Fronduto | Ok. I really appreciate the, again, back to that personalization. I think that's a theme throughout this whole conversation and thinking about what can you be doing to make sure you're making that connection? And I know that sometimes a struggle for larger institutions. So even thinking about like, how can you still get down to that granular level of a connection if you have hundreds of students on your tour? I know that's something I always hear like a small institution. It's easy to write a handwrit note card. Whereas if you have 100 people on that tour, like, how are you giving that same experience? Um Well, as we're kind of nearing our end, I always like to ask a final question to really have the audience think about what they can take away. We talked about a lot of different aspects. Maybe some things we didn't even get to that might be on your mind for the audience. But what would be a piece of advice if I'm especially if someone thinking about our events or our visits, what would be something you would give as advice of something that I should think about moving forward. What would you say to those people that are listening as the audience? So, just kind of a quick piece. Um I'll start with Emily and then I'll go Tiana, then Alex. |
| 0:46:19.18 | 51.3s | Emily Stanley | Yeah, I would um say to folks in our position or even folks who are you know, visit coordinators, event planners that you have to be open to um seeing where the trends are going and adjusting based on those trends. Um as long as it is to scale and something that is sustainable for you in your institution, in your office. Um So we've talked about, you know, a lot of personalization, not everyone is going to be able to personalize the same way that, you know, we do with the 1 to 1 visits, the 1 to 1 interviews, all of that. Um But finding a way to adjust um kind of based on what you can do and what your office can do is really important. Um And I am always a big fan of steering away from the reasoning of, oh, that's the way we've always done things. Um I, all of us here are a big fan of innovation. |
| 0:47:10.54 | 11.7s | Alex Fronduto | Yeah, good. I appreciate that. Yeah, I hear it all the time. This is how we've always done it. Ok, great. Why? Um So thank you for sharing that. Um Moving on. |
| 0:47:22.90 | 108.7s | Tiana Hakimzadeh | Yeah, I think um I mean, I would echo everything that Emily just said. I think another piece of advice for visit and event planners is this idea of not only staying up to date with trends, but um being mindful of not losing your identity and getting caught up with those trends. So like if you know all of us who are event planners um who oversee visits that are institutions, you know, we were hired for a reason, right? There is an expertise that we bring to the table. And so I also want to encourage for folks to be advocates for the things that you truly believe in. But also don't be afraid to stand up and say, hey, you know, this idea that you're pushing for us to do while I know you think it could be valuable. But here are the reasons why I don't think it could benefit our visit experience or enhance the work that we're doing. Um When I took over my role 10 years ago, one of the biggest struggles I had was restructuring our tour guide organization and speaking up and letting leadership know, hey, I know for 16 years it had been done a certain way, but I'm telling you, it's gonna be better if we change it. And so I would encourage folks to, you know, not be afraid to speak up and stand up for yourself to advocate for the work that you do, but also advocate to higher ups, the value of the campus visit experience, I think because it's oftentimes thought of as a high budget um kind of big financial lift sometimes. Um Having those folks understand that. Yes, I do know certain things are gonna be costly, but this is the value that it can bring. Um And here's how it's gonna only help our institution grow. |
| 0:49:12.26 | 21.1s | Alex Fronduto | I love the value piece because things, especially if you think events over visits, like visits can be expensive, but events in general are very, very expensive, especially when they involve food, which I know I've worked at institutions that want to cut like all food. I'm like, well, that's what keeps people happy. Um, so I hear you and thanks for sharing that last, but not least Alex. Do you want to close this out? |
| 0:49:34.26 | 141.8s | Alex Galbreath | Yeah, I, I again would echo what? Um Emily Emily, that would be Emily and Tiana mixed together. So, yeah, I go with uh Tiana and Emily had to share and I think I've worked in, in Higher Ed both in admissions and visits and events um over the last 14 years and there are a lot of professional organizations and opportunities to connect with colleagues um around the broader admissions arena, but really specific to visits and events um is a little bit more limited, but there are um professional organizations and opportunities to kind of find your people, how visits and events are set up, every institution is different. Um And kind of are they under admissions? Are they under marketing? Um Is it just a welcome center? Is it all visitors? It really can vary. And so um being able to kind of find the people who do this kind of specific area of work uh to lean into for how to troubleshoot through things, how to build out an ambassador program, how to um tackle group visits how to show the ro I there is a lot of, of information people and I think sometimes it can feel a little isolating because we are sort of in this unique part of sometimes admission, sometimes not. Um but within higher ed. And so, um just taking the opportunity to, to seek those folks out at any sort of professional kind of organization um that you might be a part of or looking at ways that you can connect with potentially new ones um to, to have that support system. Um I'll, I'll say even in doing this for 14 years, I asked Tiana for her tour guide manual because I have given it to you and she, I'm very respectful. Um But uh how I lifted the welcome center and visit programs at Oregon State in Corvallis, which I ran for um five or so years is different than what the needs are here and having to kind of rethink that. And so even even thinking I've been in this in a long time, I have a lot of information. There are still there so many different ways of thinking about things um to, to make sure that we're providing the best experience um for students, whether we are supervising them or they come to visit. |
| 0:51:56.59 | 19.3s | Alex Fronduto | I love that and finding kind of finding your tribe kind of comes to me a little bit and find people that are doing the similar work. So I appreciate you sharing that, Emily Tiana. Alex. Thank you all so much for being here, sharing your thoughts, your expertise with all of the listeners. I'm sure they're gonna get a lot of out of this and thank you so much for being here. |
| 0:52:16.43 | 3.3s | Tiana Hakimzadeh | Thanks Alex. It's been fun chatting with you guys today. |