What do your students expect?

In a previous post, we covered the secret to crafting an effective graduate student engagement strategy: leveraging the 4 Ws to recruit best-fit students. Now, let’s explore the What.

You know what you expect from prospective graduate students. Now it’s time to ask yourself if you know what they expect from you at every step of the admissions process — and whether you have the tools and resources in place to deliver what they need.

With more people expecting a greater level of transparency from businesses, nonprofits and governing bodies, you can bet that prospective students will expect it from your program as well. But what does “transparency” mean?

Think about your program’s admissions process. Are you communicating quickly and personally with students when they reach out for information? Do students understand what happens once they’ve applied? Are the different steps of the process clear to them, and are they confident of knowing where they are at each stage?

Keeping students informed

Businesses like Amazon and Domino’s have instant progress trackers that allow people to stay on top of their order status any time, from anywhere. For example, when you order a pizza from Domino’s, you can find out in a moment whether your pizza is still in the being prepared, or whether it’s on the way to your house.

You may want to consider using similar technology to help streamline your process while allowing prospective students to feel more connected to your institution.

Next up: determining the “why” of your student engagement strategy.