Mission
The mission of the Office of Admissions is to recruit, admit, and serve a diverse student population by cultivating relationships with prospective students and partners on and off campus. Our goal is to educate, support, and guide students and their families through the admission process while striving to make their transition to higher education a positive, exciting, and successful experience at UA Little Rock.
Summary Narrative
Improve student recruitment and yield processes
- Implemented a new CRM, Slate, which has significantly and positively impacted our business processes.
- Obtained graduation lists from two-year institutions to utilize for targeted transfer recruitment.
- Conducted communication campaigns with prospective students via phone, text, and email (personal invites to events, admitted but not enrolled, campus tour invitations, applied but not yet admitted, admitted but not registered, missing credentials, advising completed but not registered, etc.).
- Continued efforts in recruitment/marketing communication mailers to include inquiry postcards and handwritten thank you notes to tour participants.
- Created and implemented a summer melt communication plan.
- Continued the TROJAN2023 campaign which offered students an application fee waiver.
- Continued on-campus and virtual prospective student days for high school seniors and juniors, transfers, and non-traditional students.
- Purchased 50,000 ACT scores for seniors, juniors, and sophomores in Arkansas and Texas; uploaded new leads into the recruitment funnel, mailed postcards, and began targeted communication.
- Collaborated with the Office of Records and Registration, Office of Transfer Student Support Services, and Financial Aid to continue the use of a front desk management system, QLess.
- Collaborated with Momentous again this year to produce a mutually beneficial publication called the Visitor’s Guide. It provides great information about UA Little Rock and the opportunities available, as well as ads for local businesses. Shared this publication with the campus and provide one for each campus tour participant.
- Developed and disseminated a viewbook that specifically utilized the new communications branding to target prospective students.
- Developed admit packets for returning, post-bac, and non-degree student types. The admit packets have important onboarding information needed for students to successfully begin their journey at UA Little Rock.
- Continued to update the website’s counselor resource page, revised admission standards, announcements, new and improved visit link, quick guide revisions/updates, campus event and tour updates, and more.
- Worked with the Office of Communications on marketing efforts to prospective students including print ads, email blasts, and social media posts.
- Participated and assisted campus units with on-campus events and presentations.
- Created recruitment publications for the upcoming year.
Create non-traditional student recruitment pipelines
- The Non-Trad Recruiter position was changed to the Corporate Partnership Coordinator. This eliminated a recruiter to actively work with HomeSchool Co-ops.
Increase access to student wellness and inclusion services
- Admitted students receive communications about student wellness and inclusion services, including TRiO, the Fitness Center, Counseling Services, Childcare Connections, and more.
Enhance the recruitment, service, and engagement of and for UA Little Rock’s diverse student population
- Began the creation of a Hispanic recruiter position.
Prioritize compensation, professional development, and work environment necessary to recruit and retain a diverse student affairs staff that is prepared to support a diverse student population.
- Two staff members attended SafeZone training in March 2023. This brings our overall training completion for this program up to 42% of the Admissions staff.
At A Glance
School Visits: 400
- 251 high school visits/application days/award ceremonies
- 75 ArkACRAO and TACRAO high school college fairs
- 24 ArkACRAO two-year college fairs
- 43 College fairs (hosted by schools outside of ArkACRAO and TACRAO)
- 7 two-year college visits (Did not have a Transfer Recruiter until February and the two-year college fairs are the months of February and March)
Campus Tours: 7/1/2022-6/30/2023
- 686 registered for individual tours (traditional and virtual)
- 445 attended (65% show rate)
- 49 group tours visited with an estimated total of 1,778 guests
- 1,074 students attended an on-campus recruitment event
On-Campus and Virtual Events:
- Organized and implemented on-campus and virtual events for prospective students, admitted students, high school counselors and two-year administrators.
- Campus Tours
- Virtual Tours
- Transfer Fridays
- Saturday Spotlight
- Trojan Twilight Tours
- UA-PTC Trojan Transfers (application day)
- Counselors Luncheon
- Discover
- Explore (HS junior open house)
- Trojan Transfermation
Other Information:
- Nearly 50,000 pages scanned and linked into ImageNOW
- 20,363 phone calls to the Office of Admissions main phone line
- 13,362 emails received in the Office of Admissions email account, admissions@ualr.edu
- 427,160 prospective student emails sent via two CRMs:
- 756,291 prospective student emails sent via CRM Recruit, and
- 351,869 prospective student emails sent via CRM Slate
- 739 text messages sent via CRM Recruit
- 91,586 inquiry postcards mailed
- 33,591 affordability mailers
- 585 counselor postcards
- 50,000 ACT scores for seniors, juniors, and sophomores in Arkansas and Texas; uploaded new leads into the recruitment funnel, mailed targeted communication, including an affordability piece.
Assessment 1
Alignment with UA Little Rock Goal
Enhance access to higher education at UA Little Rock and ensure student success overall
Alignment with Student Affairs Goal
Improve student recruitment and yield processes
Goal
Increase freshmen enrollment in FY23 by 3-5%
Type of assessment (learning outcome or operational)
Operational
Activity or experience being assessed
- Updating territory management by recruiter, including splitting up Central Arkansas and adding a Dallas-Fort Worth recruiter to better support students in these areas.
- Updating publications to better serve incoming students.
- Utilizing the new CRM Slate to better communicate with students and track interactions.
- Providing professional development to recruiters through conferences such as ArkACRAO and CIVSA.
Assessment artifact
Statistics of actual enrollment of students compared to the previous year.
Time period assessment was done
July 1, 2022 – June 30, 2023
Results
On 06/30/2023, Fall 2023 freshmen enrollment decreased by 0.88% or 3 students compared to the same day in 2022 for fall enrollment. This number will be updated on census day in August 2023.
Continuous improvement process
- Track enrollment data, interactions in CRM Slate, and share conference knowledge with the recruitment team to implement new programs and strategies.
- A regional recruiter for Dallas-Fort Worth was hired in March 2023 and began networking with local high school counselors.
- In Fall 2023, there were only two recruiters on staff. As of the end of the assessment period, we built up the team to five in-state high school recruiters, one in-state transfer recruiter, and two out-of-state high school recruiters. Even with the turnover in staff and the later implementation of Slate, Fall 2023 freshmen applications saw a slight increase of 0.56% or 8 students.
- 2 New Admissions Counselors attended ArkARCAO Bootcamp
- 4 Admissions Counselors – Recruiters attend ArkACRO A Conference
- New Dallas Fort Worth Admissions Counselor attended TACAC Conference
- Assistant Director of Admissions participated in the Student Affairs Leadership Academy (Madison and Jordan participated in this)
WHEN: FY23
Continuous improvement process
Utilize the knowledge of new staff who have worked with the Slate app in previous positions to get the most out of the system in relation to recruitment strategies.
WHEN: FY24
Assessment 2
Alignment with UA Little Rock Goal
Enhance access to higher education at UA Little Rock and ensure student success overall
Alignment with Student Affairs Goal
Improve student recruitment and yield processes
Goal
Streamline the new application review process
Type of assessment (learning outcome or operational)
Operational
Activity or experience being assessed
- Utilizing the new CRM Slate and its features to more quickly review applications and process documents
- Ongoing training of processing admissions counselors to use the new application
- Updating training materials with the new processes to cross-train other staff members
Assessment artifact
Analyzing time required to process new applications or new documents
Time period assessment was done
FY23
Results
At the start of FY23, the processing window is within 4 business days to review a new application or a new document. As of June 29, 2023, all processing was done within two business days.
Continuous improvement process
Monitor Slate and adjust as needed.
WHEN: FY23 and FY24
Assessment 3
Alignment with UA Little Rock Goal
Enhance access to higher education at UA Little Rock and ensure student success overall
Alignment with Student Affairs Goal
Improve student recruitment and yield processes
Goal
Increase customer service representatives’ knowledge base, confidence, communication skills, and professionalism when speaking to students and their families.
Type of assessment (learning outcome or operational)
Operational
Activity or experience being assessed
- Individual meetings with supervisors
- Additional training materials in SafeColleges and others found online related to customer service assistance, communicating with others, and understanding diversity and inclusion were also provided to staff
Assessment artifact
Feedback from individual meetings
Time period assessment was done
FY23
Results
By implementing regular meetings with customer service individuals, staff members were able to discuss weaknesses in their training or provide feedback about strengthening office training.
Continuous improvement process
We began including training from other campus partners during the monthly full staff meeting, including Advising, Orientation, Financial Aid and Scholarships, Records and Registration, the Bursar’s Office, and more.
WHEN: 3/3/2023 – 6/30/2023, FY24
