Associate deans of engineering take note: You may be facing new and fundamental questions about the future of enrollment in your programs, but you are not alone. In fact, many of your peers will soon be meeting to share and discover readily attainable solutions for the challenges you all share. You’re invited, too.
First, the bad news. In 2017, among all science and engineering fields, engineering programs experienced one of the most precipitous year-over-year declines in international graduate student enrollment: from 96,300 to 89,000 students, according to the National Science Foundation’s “Science and Engineering Indicators 2018” report.
Now the good news. The American Society for Engineering Education’s (ASEE’s) 126th Annual Conference & Exposition — the only annual gathering dedicated to all disciplines of engineering education — is almost here. Running from June 15-19 in Tampa, Florida, the ASEE conference provides associate deans from across the country with an ideal opportunity to step back from routine operational tasks for a few days and focus instead on exchanging ideas about strengthening their institutions and programs in the critical years ahead.
Liaison International, the leading provider of higher education admissions and enrollment marketing solutions, will be part of those conversations at the ASEE conference — and hopes you will, too.
Why? Because, like you, Liaison makes it a high priority to foster learning, leadership and innovation in the field of higher-education admissions. Liaison also provides tools that can help your institution achieve those goals.
Consider, for example, EngineeringCAS™, Liaison’s Centralized Application Service (CAS™) designed exclusively for engineering programs. This cloud-based admissions platform, which is now the tool of choice for more than 31,000 academic programs on over 1,000 campuses, helps schools and programs more efficiently identify and accomplish enrollment goals while simultaneously reducing effort and costs.
In fact, admissions professionals who have already adopted Liaison’s CAS solutions report being able to reduce application review times by as much as 75% and increase their applicant pools by more than 10%.
It’s also worth noting that EngineeringCAS is available at no cost to schools and programs.
Scaling effort and effectiveness without scaling resources
Before implementing a CAS, Weill Cornell Medicine’s application review process “literally took weeks on end, with people working 80 hours a week to prepare applications for review,” says Matt Cipriano, associate director of enrollment and education operations. After joining a CAS, that all changed.
“We didn’t have to spend that time processing applications to get everything where it needed to be or sending requests for letters of recommendation out — all those things were handled by the software itself or by Liaison’s services team,” he explains.
Prior to joining a CAS, Oregon Health & Science University’s admissions team manually processed all applications and supporting documents. Automating document management with a CAS was “like moving from the Stone Age to an iPhone,” says Assistant Dean for Academic Affairs Richard Goranflo, who reports that processing times have decreased by a whopping 99%.
In light of the aforementioned decline in international graduate student enrollment, EngineeringCAS’s strong track record of exposing schools to broader, more diverse applicant pools is also particularly relevant for engineering programs navigating today’s uncertain admissions landscape.
Building a better class
Norman Fortenberry, ASEE’s executive director, believes EngineeringCAS empowers associate deans and other admissions professionals to achieve their ultimate goal: building a best-fit incoming class, year after year.
“EngineeringCAS offers insight into enrollment trends and the changing demographics of our applicant pools,” says Fortenberry. “With EngineeringCAS, we’re better prepared to build a diverse class of students, attracting and retaining those with the unique perspectives that will solve society’s most pressing issues.”
While you’re at the ASEE conference, you should also make it a priority to learn about Liaison’s HigherYield solution. The result of a partnership with the Educational Testing Service (ETS), HigherYield helps you seamlessly find an ideal pool of applicants and then develop, launch and manage dynamic multichannel communication plans that will make those prospects want to engage you in return.
As professionals working hard to ensure that engineering programs not only thrive but survive, we all share many of the same goals and challenges. Let’s make the most of our time together at the ASEE conference to share our insights and solutions, too.