Activating Admissions at Case Western

by Florence Kizza

Getting What You Want From IT – A Case Study

November 2006

In 2002 the Office of Undergraduate Admissions' web presence wasn't where it needed to be. "Our web presence wasn't targeted at the university's strengths. It gave a good overview, but didn't highlight some of Case's strengths the way they should have been," recalls Jonathan Wehner, associate director, information technology for enrollment management at Case Western Reserve University.

Florence Kizza

"We had a static web presence, and knew we needed to move in the direction of something more dynamic."

On the administration side, the web site had an online inquiry card that was simply a form field for students to fill out. The admission office then had to enter the information into their system by hand.

A revitalized web site

The push to do something about their web site came with the arrival of Chris Munoz in July 2003. Munoz, the former vice provost for enrollment, had experience with dynamic web sites and by September of that same year, ActiveCampus was lauched.

Datatel's ActiveCampus is a web based application suite that includes a number of products such as ActiveApply and ActiveAlumni. ActiveAdmissions, an application deployed at a school that takes over their web site and gathers intelligence on prospective students in a non-evasive manner, allows students to personalize the web site by providing information such as their extracurricular activities and intended major. The web site is then tailored to the potential students, showing them personalized information including students from their area and news from within their intended major.

The new tool

Case Western Reserve University's website

"ActiveAdmissions caters to two needs," explains Kevin Guyton, ActiveCampus Sales Manager at Datatel. "First, it treats different people differently. This is really what institutions need to meet students' expectations. Second, it instills an emotional comfort level in students early in the admissions process, creating a high impact. Students today are using the web as their number one tool for searching about college – so the way they see the web site is how they see the school."

The software integrates several features into one suite, including e-mail communications, registration and e-commerce. It provides a "To Do" list for the student, and automates a lot of the steps, which takes the burden off of the school. For example, a prospective student can schedule a campus visit or check the status of their application in the same place, and the school can send targeted e-mails to different groups. Datatel will host the system at their data center or the school can host it, and it can be designed to match the school's web site. Currently, 110 campuses are using the product.

"The goal of the software is to hold the student's hand through the admission process. It's designed to gear the student towards the next step. General behavior of prospective students has changed. This is the MySpace generation - they are making decisions based on how easy you make it for them. If your site frustrates them, they'll bail. They have a high expectation level today – your site is their first impression of you," explains Guyton.

The process

"Initially we moved the static stuff into ActiveAdmissions then we progressed and learned how to create more dynamic content for our students," explains Wehner. When they launched ActiveAdmissions in September, the admission office was recruiting for fall 2004. The results of the new system became apparent by looking at the fall 2004 and subsequent classes.

Of the overall inquiry pool for fall 2004, 14 percent personalized the web site. In 2005, the percentage rose to 23. "Personalization has been the big strength of ActiveAdmissions for us," says Wehner. "I can't underscore the fact that when a student personalizes, they're providing their information to us. Based on that, we provide the student with personalized, compelling content – we're showing a student the content they want to see. Our goal is to show the student where their particular piece fits into the whole puzzle that is Case Western Reserve University, so when it's time to enroll, they can't think of anything else."

Case encourages prospective students to personalize the web site by sending postcard reminders. The first year they found that students who personalized the web site converted to applications at a higher rate than those who did not. Wehner attributes the rise in applications to several factors, the new web site being one of them. Through the personalization, the school has been able to see what their prospective students are involved in. For example, when a Case professor discovered a new galaxy year, the story was e-mailed to or prominently displayed on the web site for students who had an interest in science.

The results

The percentage of online applications has risen so significantly – over 90 percent of applications were online in 2005 – that this is the only way Case is accepting them for fall 2006/7. Since 2003, the school has had a 60 percent application increase, allowing them to improve their selectivity. In 2005, the school surpassed its target enrollment numbers.

Wehner says that the use of ActiveAdmissions has reduced the stress on the admissions' staff. Because they no longer had to enter all inquiries by hand, they did not have to increase their staff to accommodate the increase in inquiries and applications. Additionally with the help of an imaging solution, Case's counselors are now able to read more applications online.

"As the crème de la crème of students are applying to 11 or 12 schools now, the competition among great universities has increased," says Wehner. "We want more applications so we can be more selective, so the makeup of our classes is coherent with the university's mission. The ability to be more selective is good for Case overall."