Dear College: Your Enrollment Process Sucks. Said Every Student Every Where. The Story of a First-Generation College Student.

I applied to only one college over 20 years ago. The college came to my high school and, after a brief interview and transcript review, I was told I would probably be accepted. It felt easy and seamless. I can’t remember if I had to write an essay or not. I received a letter in the mail saying I was accepted about a month later. And that was it. I continued with my senior year of high school, working full-time in the evenings and weekends. 

 I was a first-time college student with immigrant parents. While they said things like school is important, my parents seldom knew what grade I was in, how I was doing in school, or what I was studying. I had to navigate the entire school system on my own, including how to apply to college. The only times my mom came to school was when it was required for parent-teacher conferences, and these events were more stressful than helpful. 

After I was accepted into college, I needed to fill out my FAFSA. I filled this damn document out 19 times, and each time it was rejected. At 17, I had no idea how to read my parents’ tax forms. 

Somewhere between the 15th to 19th time filling out my FAFSA form, I seriously contemplated giving up and not attending college. I figured if filling out the form is this hard, I assumed I was NEVER going to succeed in college.  

I finally called my college admissions office, sat down with someone who walked me through how to fill out the FAFSA, and just like that, my whole ordeal was over. I was well on my way to starting orientation. Had I known to call my Admissions office to help me with my FAFSA, I would have requested a meeting with someone in the financial aid office months before.

As a first-generation college student and first-generation American, I was not advocating for myself; I had no idea who does what, and I often avoided asking questions. I noticed most of the community I lived in was filled with immigrants who were doing their best to stay afloat, put food on the table, and navigate the complex American way. I usually tried to fly under the radar, as this is how my parents navigated their lives in the US. My parents were suspicious of everyone and everything. They came from a country where most people didn't help each other, and it was best not to show any weakness or perceived weakness.  

At orientation, I was the only student without a parent present, and I was ok with it because they often made these experiences more difficult for me.

While this sounds like a horrendous experience, I finished college in exactly four years. I only met with my Counselor one time, who helped me enroll in 7 am labs and 3-4 hour breaks between my courses, which made it difficult to find jobs that would work with this schedule. Often I was juggling 2-3 jobs to help me pay for college and housing. I was on my own to pay for everything.

After that first scheduling experience, I never stepped foot into the building again. I planned my own scheduled, signed up for my classes, and planned my path to graduation at a college with over 40,000 students. I didn't participate in many campus activities as I needed to work.

I graduated but didn’t attend my graduation. I couldn’t rationalize paying for the cap and gown and graduation fees- just for the pomp and circumstance. The graduation costs were $500+. For weeks after classes were done, I seriously wondered if I had graduated. It all felt so anti-climatic, which is why attending graduation is an important milestone. I now would recommend all students to attend their graduation and for colleges to offer financial support if students cannot afford to attend.

Eventually, I received an email that it was time to pick up my diploma. I went through boxes and boxes until I found my diploma and I never spoke with anyone. I just picked up my diploma and went on my way. 

While this experience seems harsh, it shaped my professional career and helped me develop a profound level of empathy for incoming college students. As my experience highlights, not everyone comes from parents with legacy status at Liberal Colleges or elite universities. The struggle is real. 

My husband was a legacy Liberal Arts College graduate. His enrollment and college experience paints a stark contrast to my own. He doesn't remember much of his enrollment experience, as his Dad did most of it for him.

How Can your College Better Support First-Generation College Students?

Here are some stats on the value of adjusting your enrollment, retention, and graduation process to better support first-generation college students. 

10 Key First-Generation College Student Statistics and Why these Students Need their Own Student Persona

• First-generation students represent half of the US college population.
• The median age for first-generation college students is 24.
• English is not the first language of 20% of first-generation students.
• 36% of first-generation college students are required to take remedial classes.
• Continuing generation college students have a 165% higher median household income than first-generation students.
• 75.3% of first-generation students predict they’ll need to find work during their freshman year.
• Less than 50% of first-generation students are likely to graduate on time.
• 50% of first-generation college students attend community college.
• Just 7% of first-gen students go to private universities.
• 61% of first-generation graduates want to give back to the community.

How this Experience Shaped My Higher Ed Career 

My passion has always been Marketing. I’ve spent the majority of my career in Higher Ed trying to help colleges improve their enrollment process, so they can better serve students like me.  

Over my 20-year career in Higher Ed, I secret shop colleges and universities. I would create different personas and either request information from the college or fill out the Apply Now link. I would review a college's enrollment process through the lens of incoming students and first-generation students.  

I’ve shopped over 200 colleges and universities, and the enrollment process still sucks. We can do better for incoming students. 

The Case for More Enrollment Automation in YOUR Higher Ed Enrollment Strategy

Some colleges collect prospective student info from High School visits and put their contact forms into a storage room until they can get to them, taking up to a year. Imagine requesting information from a college and that college does not respond for over a year. 

Incoming students are digital natives where they expect immediate responses and a frictionless experience. 

I order almost everything off Amazon because Amazon has created the ultimate friction-less experience. I click Buy Now, and the package gets delivered in 1-2 days. I do not have to type in my credit card info, my address, and I don’t have to decide if the shipping costs are making me second guess my impulsiveness. 

Many colleges, unfortunately, think if they make the enrollment process simple, they will not be able to weed out tire kickers. We need to challenge this perspective and use technology to personalize the enrollment experience at scale. One goal is to get more of your website visitors to enter your enrollment funnel by making your website Admissions' experience more streamlined while easily conveying your university's value. 

For those colleges looking at lowering their Acceptance rate to boost their rankings, this strategy can help with this too. 

High school students are epically stressed, trying to find the right college for them. Elite colleges' applications are skyrocketing, which smaller colleges are floundering. 

This is a time for colleges to streamline the enrollment process and communicate with students how they want to be communicated, including text messages, lead nurturing campaigns, more videos, and creating a frictionless enrollment experience. 

During my shops, I’ve encountered so many colleges sending bottom of the funnel messaging to top of the funnel prospects.

If you think of the enrollment process as a funnel, website visitors are at the top of the funnel, while those who apply to your college are at the bottom of the funnel. 

I see countless colleges and universities sending messages like Apply Now (which are bottom of the funnel) to prospective students who just requested to learn more about your college. It can be so presumptuous to assume he or she is ready to enroll without knowing the value of your college, your education quality, and their future career prospects. 

Why Isn't the Enrollment Process Changing?

The enrollment process hasn't changed much in the last 10-20 years because, for most schools, no one in the university system owns the student enrollment journey. People are so siloed in their departments, owning a portion of the process. For example, Universities often have a robust Communication Department with exceptional social media posts. However, these Communication Departments often do not participate in the Admissions process. Colleges should use the creative assets they create for social media throughout the admissions cycle. Most people in the Admissions process are focused on processing applications and supporting enrollment documents.

Colleges should re-think their Admissions process as an opportunity to take prospective students on a journey. Use storytelling, visuals, and a robust communication strategy to share your institution’s value. 

By adjusting your enrollment process, your institution isn't devaluing its education or becoming predatory, instead, your institution is becoming a service organization. You are putting the prospective student's needs before your needs.

Your College Needs to Re-imagined its Enrollment Process

You probably don’t need more technology, you need an enhanced enrollment communication strategy to put your prospective student’s needs first. 

As a first step, your school needs to create:

• Communication sequence (what to say, and when to say it)
• How to build value throughout your enrollment process (social proof)
• Which channels to communicate on (email, text, phone, social media messenger, etc.)  

You’ve done the hard part! 

You’ve gotten people engaged enough to visit your website. Now is the time to lean in and get those prospective students into your funnel process, so you can truly communicate what makes your school so special. 

Your College is NOT Using its Technology to Its Fullest Potential

Whether your college uses Salesforce, Ellucian, HubSpot, or another CRM, I can bet you are not using the technology to its full advantage during the enrollment process. And, if you do not have a CRM, we can help you pick the right technology to help serve your incoming students for years to come. 

Let me help you set up the right triggers to include marketing automation, enrollment automation, and sales enablement automation. 

Do You Know You Can Streamline More of Your Enrollment Process? 

We are now in an era where people demand simplicity. We no longer need to add to things, but instead, take things away. We need to remove the friction. Let me help you identify the friction points in your enrollment cycle and help you remove the friction.   

Let’s work together to make it easier for prospective students to learn more about your college and help get their questions answered.  

Here are some stats to socialize among your team to drum up support for why your enrollment process needs to be re-imagined:    

• 84% of consumers say experiences are as important as products and services. -Salesforce State of Marketing Report
• Research indicates that 72% of students who do not re-enroll give customer service as the reason. (Neal A. Raisman, The Business of Higher Education) 
• 37% of marketing professionals see an increased number of more qualified leads through applying marketing automation and lead nurturing and lead scoring techniques (Liana Technologies)
•  Thanks to lead nurturing, we get 50% more qualified leads at a 33% lower acquisition cost (Forrester Research)
• Nurtured leads generate an average of 20% more purchasing opportunities than non-nurtured leads (DemandGen Report) 

I leave you with this last thought and reason to adjust your enrollment process. 

Did you know that Gen Z students unlock their phones an average of 79 times a day? How is your enrollment process going to adjust to meet your students where they are? Text messages are opened at a 98% rate. Are you using this channel to its full potential?

Use What Your University Already Has

Your school is probably creating amazing videos and images for social media. We can weave these creative elements throughout your enrollment experience.  

 Next Steps #1 Schedule a 30- Min Discovery Call with Renee Seltzer, Head Strategist  

The Time is Now. It's Time to Right the Ship.

Types of Consulting Engagements

• High-level strategy consulting where your team implements the recommendations 
• A hybrid mix of strategy and some implementation including automation triggers 
• We help to create your entire enrollment strategy, write and design emails, set-up automation, etc.  

Now is the time to re-imagined your enrollment process, improve your yield, drive more tuition revenue, and most importantly, make it easier for incoming students to select your college. Students want to pick a college to attend; help make this process easier for them. Then continue supporting them throughout their college experience. 

Once the student is enrolled, how can you better improve their experience attending your college, especially when enrolling in courses, financial ad, and dealing with Administration? That is a topic for another day. 

Research indicates that 72% of students who do not re-enroll give customer service as the reason. (Neal A. Raisman, The Business of Higher Education) 

Service Matters.

About Renee Seltzer:

Visit to Learn More: https://ellisonellery.com

Schedule a 30- Min Discovery Call with Renee Seltzer, Head Strategist  

Renee Seltzer has spent over 20 years in Higher Education. She has worked on the school-side, worked with various OPM’s and on the agency side and affiliate marketing side. 

She started Ellison Ellery Consulting over 13 years ago. She has worked with over 200 schools, and secret shopped over a 1,000 Reps. She is part understands the importance of data, data quality, and qualitative research to drive long-lasting results for her college, and university clients. 

You will not find a marketer with a larger breadth of experience in digital marketing for colleges and universities. Outside of higher ed, Renee has worked with a usability testing start-up in San Francisco, massive lead generation websites in healthcare, and various other industries, including nutrition advocacy, travel, and SaaS. 

Renee is a cross-functional Marketing Executive with extensive experience crafting messaging, branding, storytelling, and digital marketing from lead nurturing to qualitative research, including student journey mapping and secret shopping. She has created campaigns allowing colleges and universities to develop authentic connections with students using the channels that most resonate with students, including social media, email, SMS/MMS, call campaigns, influencer marketing, videos, and storytelling.

Visit to Learn More: https://ellisonellery.com