Good. And, what would happen if you linked all departments together? Do you see any advantages to all admin being involved from the first day of school?
Dr. B
I sincerely believe we always can improve on our retention methods. Utilizing self checks for applicants has quite good results in assessing where prospective students stand in truly knowing what the training requires and the job requirements.Having present students answer questions such as what it is like to be a student here and they are going when their studies are complete has definately increased our retention numbers.
Good idea. The notion of a check list or self-checks helps you to stay on task. Another key is to involve or link academics with enrollment. Why? The student gets the same story. This important to retention.
Dr. B
I most certainly feel the admission process can be improved at our school. I think occasional meetings that bring together the admissions staff and instructors will help to clarify expectations of the students as they go through the program. I hear many things that our admission team will say to prospective students that is either incorrect information, or a version of the truth. The students then enroll with expectaions that will not be met in the classroom, which in turn may effect retention as they feel they were mis-informed and are left very unhappy. Through the years, this has greatly improved, however, there is still work to be done in this area.
The admissions processes can be improved to increase student retention by meeting with each new admissions rep to go over specific program details (FAQ's). The more the admissions people understand their product, the closer the student expectations will align with what is being taught in the classroom.
Yes, the idea is to link academics with admissions right up front. This way, the story is the same.
Dr. B
It seems that our admissions pocesses are geared to accepting everyone and there is very little emphasis on qualification. As an instructor I have had to contend with students who could not read at a grade-school level. Our school is a tech. school and these students cannot compete with their peers and certainly not in the job market. There should be a test to see if a student has the basic skills to perform on the job sight.
Charles, this is common. Perhaps a last chance to change the person life is a good thing. The key is to strive to teach and create a learning environment that changes lives.
Dr. B
Of course. There is always room for improvement. As a member of the Academics Team, it is imperative that we/I accept the responsibility of providing product knowledge to our Admissions Team. This needs to be constant and ongoing--as a healthy curriculum is always under review and open for improvement and Team Membership is always evolving. As part of this product knowledge training, it is important that we assist our Admissions Teammates with the setting of accurate expectations for incoming students.
I definitely think it should be a "recommended option" for prospective students to sit in on one class in their anticipated program of study. This may not necessarily have to be one at the introductory level; it can be any class. For example, the program in which I teach has periodic presentations. This might be an excellent opportunity for a prospective student to see actual students' work and listen to how they speak about it.
This can go a long way in ensuring that the prospective student receives a realistic sense of what is expected. In a way, it could set in motion the concept of mentorship--an upper level student beginning to take a new student under her wing.
Yes, our admissions process tends to be a little weak in qualifing the student's interest and matching with his/her professional training selection. The check lists we utilize seem to be more internally focused and we can learn a lot from the ideas presented in the first module of this course.
As an Instructor in my facility I get to see differant issues with the students, and their frustrations. The reps do provide info on the training programs and the job opportunities, however they tend to sugar coat the responsibilities of the student. They also sugar coat the job opportunities to inflate the students hopes for premium jobs. Sometimes the reps act as used car salesmans to sell the product no matter what the reading or writing skills of the future student. The best way to improve the addmission proccess would be to have all students having to be tested for basic intelligence, not to see if they see their breath in the mirror. also they should let the student know that high school is over and an effort will have to be put into their learning if they plan to succeed in this chosen field. The no student left behind was not meant to pass students that still cannot read or write and hand them a diploma, to me that is leaving a student behind.
I hear you. We should always be concerned about the probablity of success. The idea is to link with admissions early in the process to help all to predict the probability of success.
Dr. B
Definitely, our admissions processes can improve in many ways. The interview process can be more personal so the admissions rep will have additional (helpful) information when students are challenged and overwhelmed with college and school life in general. If main focus is the student and not only on the numbers, retention will be higher. More training programs for the Admissions team, involvement of career services right from the beginning are just a few of the ideal scenarios I believe can help increase retention.
As an instructor, I do not actually know what the specific admission process for our institution entails. However, the general ed faculty have discussed wanting more remedial classes so that students will have a greater chance of success and hence, a higher retention rate.
During the first day of a new module, I always ask the student "What life situations led you to choose this career path" About half of the students say that the admission rep chose for them or this was the program that was available at the time. A few also say they want to be in Medicine but do not want to touch patients; body fluids, needles etc... Occassionally the student can not pass the entrance exam for the program they really wanted and they are just shifted over to another that they can get into. I think we should do a better job of finding out the student interests and skill sets before we just stick them in a class just because we need to fill it.
I like the idea of a check off sheet.I think it would give the student some idea of what they were getting in to and what may be required of them. Most of the time, when a student leaves the program, it is in the first 1-2 modules. They often say it was not what they thought it would be or that they are not really interested in the field. They also say that they do not like research or reading or computers. I am always surprised because this is all we do! I even have some students that graduate (they did not want to quit what they started) but never work in the field as they really do not enjoy it.
I think every admission rep should be required to spend a day in a classroom, to see for them selves what the students do in each program.
I find it a very provocative idea that retention starts in admissions. At this school, it seems that the admission rep gets them in the door and the education department is wholly responsible for retaining them. When the student withdraws, the education department is always at fault.
I do feel the admissions process can be improved. The development of a checklist specific to our program could be invaluable to an admissons representative who has many programs to represent.
I believe that in our program specifically, the entrance test needs to be more difficult. Although we have recently changed it, there are still students that may not have the academic abilities that it takes to be successful. I also believe that prospective students need to have it spelled out very clearly how much time outside of school will need to be spent on studying, homework, etc. Sometimes students aren't prepared for that & it seems to come as quite a shock.
I completely agree with you. It always amazes me when students apply to a program and know absolutely nothing about it. It saddends me to see students enrolled simply because they can pay. If admissions processes are not improved we'll never improve the reputation of for profit schools.
Anything may be improved upon. I liked the double check lists.
