CSU | QI | Roles & Responsibilities - Function Representative

SLO Recruitment & Admission - A Campus-Wide Approach
By: James L. Maraviglia, Executive Director, Admissions and Recruitment, SLO

At SLO, the Recruitment and Admissions office continues to support a campus-wide student entered approach to the recruitment and admission endeavor.

Their integrated communication approach focuses on a comprehensive, coordinated and institution wide recruitment campaign. This plan stresses communication, not merely promotion. It has as its goal the transmission of critical values and messages and seeks to interrelate with audiences in ways that they understand and to which they respond.

The campus had direct contact with 120,000 prospective students before they ever filed an application through tracked prospecting actions last year. We track over 300 individual points of contact with prospective students in our database. Since 1994, this unit has had direct contact with over 600,000 prospective students through tracked recruitment actions.

The primary objective is simple - provide the capability for all campus departments such as the President, Provost, college deans, department chairs, Student Affairs directors, student clubs, and the Admissions Office to communicate directly with prospective students and applicants in a highly personalized fashion.

Over 97% of the new students had prior contact with the campus before filing an application. At SLO, the prospect sources are qualified into a number of different recruitment campaigns and provide the opportunity for each academic program to communicate with students interested in learning more about their majors. This allows tracking of the recruitment sources that are generating inquiries from students who are highly likely to gain admission. It also allows better planning of travel itineraries and recruit targeted populations with the greatest likelihood of gaining admission.

We continue to support the entire university's involvement in recruitment. Over 75% of the undergraduate academic departments participate in this effort. We have expanded the efforts of our volunteers and we collaborate with a number of groups across campus, including the Academic Colleges, University Advancement and the Alumni Relations Office to support our recruitment endeavor. As an example, thanks to the Alumni Rep program and other admissions volunteers, we participated in a record number of college fair programs (315) this year. Over the last five years, we have tripled Cal Poly's participation in these events. We also hosted over 4,500 prospective students through the campus tour program. The Admission Officers also presented over 150 Admission Information Workshops on campus last year for our campus visitors.

Since 1993, we have seen a 63% increase in new undergraduate applicants with steady increases in not only the overall quality of the applicant pool but the overall ethnic and geographic diversity of these pools.

We have also seen considerable gains within our service area. Since 1993, our applicant pool within this market has more than doubled. In the Santa Maria area schools alone we have seen a 115% increase in applicants. More importantly, we have also seen a significant increase in the success rates of these applicants gaining admission to the university.

There have been significant productivity gains that have resulted from a fully automated electronic admission, evaluation, and selection process. All applicants submit an electronic application portfolio that includes an electronic record of all courses attempted, grades earned, test scores, courses in progress. It also includes the amount of hours worked or hours of participation of each applicant in extracurricular activities. The data is automatically mapped to the campus' student information system and multi-valued criteria for admission (MCA) database.

The MCA database supports the 32 admission models developed by the faculty to automatically score, rank and select candidates based on projected space and also provide an automated CSU evaluation of each candidate's credentials for admission.

If we take as base the traditional mode and level staff needed to support the practices and procedures widely practiced at CSU campuses, Cal Poly would require 42 additional positions to support its recruitment and admission endeavor. This represents combined salary and benefit savings of over 1.45 million dollars per year in staff alone to carry out the campus' recruitment and admission charge.

These results are the primary reason why we have been asked to do workshops for 34 campuses across North America, including 13 different CSU campuses and 5 different professional organizations. It's also the number one reason why many of our colleagues consider our unit's endeavor as a "best practice" operation.

Please feel free to call me with any questions, or if I can provide you with additional information on these efforts.



QI NEWSLETTER-July 1999	06/22/99

SLO Recruitment & Admission - A Campus-Wide Approach By: James L. Maraviglia, Executive Director, Admissions and Recruitment, SLO At SLO, the Recruitment and Admissions office continues to support a campus-wide student entered approach to the recruitment and admission endeavor. Their integrated communication approach focuses on a comprehensive, coordinated and institution wide recruitment campaign. This plan stresses communication, not merely promotion. It has as its goal the transmission of critical values and messages and seeks to interrelate with audiences in ways that they understand and to which they respond. The campus had direct contact with 120,000 prospective students before they ever filed an application through tracked prospecting actions last year. We track over 300 individual points of contact with prospective students in our database. Since 1994, this unit has had direct contact with over 600,000 prospective students through tracked recruitment actions. The primary objective is simple - provide the capability for all campus departments such as the President, Provost, college deans, department chairs, Student Affairs directors, student clubs, and the Admissions Office to communicate directly with prospective students and applicants in a highly personalized fashion. Over 97% of the new students had prior contact with the campus before filing an application. At SLO, the prospect sources are qualified into a number of different recruitment campaigns and provide the opportunity for each academic program to communicate with students interested in learning more about their majors. This allows tracking of the recruitment sources that are generating inquiries from students who are highly likely to gain admission. It also allows better planning of travel itineraries and recruit targeted populations with the greatest likelihood of gaining admission. We continue to support the entire university's involvement in recruitment. Over 75% of the undergraduate academic departments participate in this effort. We have expanded the efforts of our volunteers and we collaborate with a number of groups across campus, including the Academic Colleges, University Advancement and the Alumni Relations Office to support our recruitment endeavor. As an example, thanks to the Alumni Rep program and other admissions volunteers, we participated in a record number of college fair programs (315) this year. Over the last five years, we have tripled Cal Poly's participation in these events. We also hosted over 4,500 prospective students through the campus tour program. The Admission Officers also presented over 150 Admission Information Workshops on campus last year for our campus visitors. Since 1993, we have seen a 63% increase in new undergraduate applicants with steady increases in not only the overall quality of the applicant pool but the overall ethnic and geographic diversity of these pools. We have also seen considerable gains within our service area. Since 1993, our applicant pool within this market has more than doubled. In the Santa Maria area schools alone we have seen a 115% increase in applicants. More importantly, we have also seen a significant increase in the success rates of these applicants gaining admission to the university. There have been significant productivity gains that have resulted from a fully automated electronic admission, evaluation, and selection process. All applicants submit an electronic application portfolio that includes an electronic record of all courses attempted, grades earned, test scores, courses in progress. It also includes the amount of hours worked or hours of participation of each applicant in extracurricular activities. The data is automatically mapped to the campus' student information system and multi-valued criteria for admission (MCA) database. The MCA database supports the 32 admission models developed by the faculty to automatically score, rank and select candidates based on projected space and also provide an automated CSU evaluation of each candidate's credentials for admission. If we take as base the traditional mode and level staff needed to support the practices and procedures widely practiced at CSU campuses, Cal Poly would require 42 additional positions to support its recruitment and admission endeavor. This represents combined salary and benefit savings of over 1.45 million dollars per year in staff alone to carry out the campus' recruitment and admission charge. These results are the primary reason why we have been asked to do workshops for 34 campuses across North America, including 13 different CSU campuses and 5 different professional organizations. It's also the number one reason why many of our colleagues consider our unit's endeavor as a "best practice" operation. Please feel free to call me with any questions, or if I can provide you with additional information on these efforts.


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Last updated: November 9, 2004