Well-prepared Enrollment Managers should have some documented experience with tracking and evaluating enrollment systems. This exercise is dedicated to improvising and tracking a symbolic outreach project that contributes to the foundation of Strategic Enrollment Planning and data analysis.
The capstone experience is the final requirement of the SEM-EP. It should begin early in the program experience in order to collect data to coincide with completing the research component by the time all other components are finished.
This study is intended to be an abbreviated exercise and does not include all the academic protocols of a clinical research project. It is designed to guide you through a mini-campaign to develop, track and analyze data from a prototype that can be used as a base for how populations respond to various treatments.
The foundation of strategic enrollment management is rooted in well-prepared professionals. Enrollment managers should have some documented experience with enrollment planning, tracking, research, and evaluating enrollment systems.
The objective of this on-site exercise is dedicated to providing candidates an opportunity to conduct a study directly related to enrollment planning or research. It should collect data to benefit your institution or reflect how data will be collected if not an actual study.
The research will be confined to either (A) new student populations (B) returning student conversion results or (C) an enrollment planning project. (Note: FERPA compliance. No personal student data is to be reported in the final paper. Only generic information relating to quantitative results, trial conditions, and anecdotal observations are required to fulfill this component.)
- A prospective student study (first-time freshmen or transfers) can be shaped as they move through the pipeline toward enrollment. For instance, a non-enrolled prospect progresses from inquiry to applied or to disposition (accepted, tabled or denied) or to campus visit, or to deposited or, registered, etc. Your research study can be from any conversion step (sequence) in the funnel to the next. It does not have to be from the initial point of prospect contact to fully matriculated.
- A “retention research project” can be conducted to re-enroll stop out students who have dropped out for 12 months or more. Other retention targets can be efforts to address niche populations such as at-risk students, financial hardships, declining majors, gender, ethnic, or geographical recovery.
- As an alternative, an enrollment planning project could be substituted for an active research project. This might include a skeletal “outline” for the development of a strategic enrollment management plan, an enrollment planning budget, a research model designed to study and rank effective outreach tools to improve or measure enrollment.
Determine if you would like to track a population of returning students for retention data, or a population of prospective students who have not applied, or been accepted or an enrollment planning project.
Capstone papers should be between eight and ten pages including at least one table, graph, or chart to illustrate data and outcomes.