Technology has taken over every part of our lives so why are most universities still using pen and paper in students’ admission? Although prospects can find college and program information on universities’ websites and complete an online form or sign up to receive emails, the process of engagement remains very similar to the process before the internet ever existed.
Prospective students lead hectic, content-filled lives. A university that doesn’t communicate in the right way through the right channels is going to come across as outdated and the admission journey will be long and inconvenient. Which will affect the applicant's decision as to whether they choose to study at your university or another.
Many universities struggle to track applicants through their journey. Multiple platforms often cause this, but even a CRM that’s not made specifically for universities and higher education institutions can lose students at the moment they should be getting the most attention from the university’s admissions team.
It is time for universities to find an easier way to the admission process. By using an admission system your university can finish the whole process without the need for excessive manual work and as a bonus, it will help in increasing enrollment numbers.
An admission system helps you in
An admission system is software that enables universities and HEIs to conduct all the student admission and enrollment processes online. It manages students' admission form collection to submission., collects the necessary documents, and shortlists candidates to complete the admission process online.
The main perk of an integrated admission system is that it's comprehensive, customizable, and used to implement student recruitment strategies across a wide range of channels. An integrated system is implemented at every phase of the student application life-cycle, starting from initial contact to enrollment. This gives the university full visibility on each prospective student, along with information on each of their engagement points, progress, and application details.
1. Viewing student applications on the system itself or downloading them into PDF, therefore, eliminating a lot of unnecessary paperwork.
2. Conduct interviews and evaluation forms on the system and run each applicant through a consistent process, to ensure you are attracting and admitting the best students into your university in a timely manner.
3. Online Payment; The admission system offers a safe and secure online payment gateway.
4. Determining the deserving candidates for enrollment and generating the final list. For example, if 1000 students had applied, the admission system would shortlist the most qualified 100 students (based on the availability of seats in your university).
5. Generating accurate reports; a shift to an admission system means more real-time data is available. Which will help universities in analyzing the data and changing courses accordingly.
6. Breaking down the barriers between the admission team and the marketing team. The data you will gather through the admission system will be analyzed to begin to identify user behavior which will help in personalizing the experience for applicants in each stage.
7. Increasing productivity; As a result of digitizing the whole process, universities can utilize their manpower resources in other, more important activities.
8. Going green; Eliminating the paperwork will make your university more environmentally friendly and reduce your carbon footprint.
In a recent blog about challenges facing HEIs in Egypt, we can see that universities can't afford to lose out on students simply because they aren’t communicating well with prospective students or are struggling with complicated processes. An admission system makes the students’ enrollment journey an easy and hassle-free experience and gives the university more efficient results. Also since admission systems help automate all admission operations it provides complete transparency to the students as well as the university administration team. Having an integrated admission system will help you work smarter, not harder!
Scitecs believes in the power of a strong marketing plan in enrollment growth that's why we created STEP -Scitecs Technology in Education Program- to help HEI reach their goals by providing adequate practices and tools of the latest marketing and admission technologies.
The first STEP your HEI can take to increase its enrollment numbers is understanding how inbound enrollment, inbound marketing, and admission systems can benefit you. Download our eBook now to learn more about Inbound Enrollment.