Untangling Enrollment with Streamlined Communications
Many students who have been admitted to college struggle with how to navigate complicated enrollment processes. Faced with unclear requirements, conflicting communications from different departments, and no way to track progress or quickly get help, it’s easy to inadvertently miss deadlines or required steps.
ideas42 partnered with Coppin State University (CSU), a historically Black university in Maryland, to improve their enrollment processes. We focused specifically on making the enrollment process easier for CSU's adult transfer students, who often have unique needs that can be overlooked by traditional enrollment systems.
Our Approach
Through a comprehensive review of administrative data and feedback from students and staff, we learned that adult transfer students often struggle with confusing communications, unclear processes, and a lack of personalized support.
To address these challenges, ideas42 and CSU redesigned enrollment communications. We created a set of streamlined emails from a central messenger, specifically tailored to adult students. The emails highlighted key information while also providing actionable enrollment guidance.
The Results
We piloted the redesigned communications campaign with current adult transfer students. To evaluate its impact, we sent out a survey to learn about students’ enrollment experience. Half of the students we surveyed had seen our newly designed emails, while the other half had received the same emails as in previous years.
We found that students who were shown the new emails reported feeling significantly more prepared to complete upcoming enrollment steps.
Students who saw our revised emails also felt more prepared to navigate financial aid options.
Lastly, students shown a simplified inbox with emails from a single messenger felt more confident managing important enrollment communications than those shown a typical student inbox cluttered with irrelevant or repetitive messages from multiple senders.
Our findings suggest that behaviorally informed communications—which come from a single messenger, strategically highlight key information, and provide actionable guidance on completing key steps—can improve the college enrollment experience for admitted students. These improvements can help all students, but are particularly impactful for adult students, transfer students, and others with unique circumstances and needs.
What students say…
“It would have saved me a lot of time and effort. I think this is a great option for future students.”
“The instructions were very clear in what to do and how to proceed forward with registration.”
“I like the way the hypothetical email looks well streamed especially with the labels. The way my inbox is set up now is very overwhelming”
Interested in strategies for improving enrollment?
Explore behavioral best practices for written communications that drive engagement.
Access guidance and templates to build dynamic, personalized, actionable enrollment road maps that help students complete the necessary steps to make it to Day One of classes.
Email us at education@ideas42.org with any questions or to learn more.