Distorted Reflections: Fixing What's Wrong with Recruiting of Adult Students

THE PROBLEM It might seem axiomatic that the character of university's academic experience would be reflected in the character of its admissions processes. Unfortunately, it is not - at least, not in the world of continuing and adult education. Universities that offer rich academic programs, high-quality student/faculty relationships, and top-quality learning environments do themselves the remarkable disservice of creating admissions processes that are overly automated, impersonal, and distressingly bureaucratic. Why is this happening, and how can it be fixed? Consider this example: A well-known university in major metropolitan area faces strong competition for enrollment of adult students. The university prides itself on its community feel. We aren't like those other schools, senior administrators say. Here, students get to know their professors well. Our class sizes are small, we have beautiful campus, and students really enjoy their Accordingly, the school's Web site promises a approach. Small classes. Great professors. Convenient schedules. Online options. The message is clear: This university provides rich, individual experience for every student, and its programs are flexible enough to suit working adults. Many adult-serving and continuing education institutions promote themselves similarly. But the trouble starts when prospective students start inquiring, often by visiting the school's Web site and requesting more information. Eight days after doing so, large packet marked media mail arrives in their mailbox. The packet is filled with forms and flyers from various departments - grab-bag of information and action items that can be overwhelming. To begin an application, prospective students are asked to visit Web site that is hosted by third-party service, looks generic, and has poor version of the school's logo pasted in the top corner. Prospects create an account on the new site and receive an e-mail thanking them for beginning an application on ApplyHere(the third-party service) to our heretofore personalized university. If more than two weeks elapse before the prospective student logs into the application system, she receives an automated e-mail reminding her that the next application deadline is fast approaching. The message includes list of steps required to complete the process. If our prospect has question, she is free to call the university, though the phones are manned only from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m. weekdays, and the automated voice response is careful to point out that staffing is thin during the lunch hour. Fortunately, when our imaginary prospect gets staff member on the line, he is friendly and helpful. But it's been up to the prospect to initiate contact. No one from the university has been proactive in seeking to contact her. Finally, when she is accepted, our student receives form letter on school letterhead, along with second packet that includes more forms. During the week before classes start, she receives an e-mail from the bursar's office reminding her that tuition is due. On the first day of class, she arrives in the classroom, virtual or otherwise, where she meets her professor and classmates for the first time. Thus, having been largely ignored (save for some automated communication) and left to her own devices throughout the admissions process, our student crosses the metaphorical enrollment precipice, ready to participate in her university's personalized academic experience. What shame. HOW DID WE GET HERE? At many universities, the contrast between the character of the admissions process and the academic experience for adults is striking. Somehow - and without anyone intending it - gap has developed between what universities promise to adults in their academic programs and the experience that they model during the admissions process. Entry into an academic program that promises to be personally engaging, professionally enriching, and intellectually transformative is preceeded by an admissions process that is highly transactional, mostly impersonal, potentially destructive to students' perceptions of the school, and discredit to the university brand. …