Will Patch’s Post

I still remember my years on the road through rose-colored glasses. Sure I got to eat in all sorts of diners and greasy spoons across east central Indiana and Ohio, but there were mishaps too. What are your favorite stories to share from the road?

While I look for my next role I'm dividing my day up so that I can spend time applying/searching and doing things for myself like learning new skills and finding hobbies. I haven't painted in decades but decided to try my hand at something relaxing and focusing. I'm trying to have the same approach to my search as painting: It doesn't have to be great today, but it does need to show progress.

How well are admissions counselors connecting with students, understanding their needs, and providing the right messages and resources to move them forward toward enrollment? There needs to be a clear strategy, a playbook even, for serving students and helping admissions counselors develop their professional chops. Support and train your admissions staff and they'll better support students. Treat them as professionals and you aid the profession.

Questa is a fantastic organization and I hope a blueprint for more regional retention efforts around the country.

Tomorrow is the day! You can give any amount, big or small, to a great cause serving so many people in the Fort Wayne region.

I've had a lot of great conversations so far in my job search with smart and interesting people that I hadn't crossed paths with before. As I think about who all is out there and what they do there have been a lot of conversations about efficiency and optimization (strong background skills for me). We talk a lot about holes in the funnel, which I prefer to think of as a dance because of all the entry and exit points as well as back and forth behaviors. That got me thinking about another question, one that might be easier to answer. Where do you think you really do well?

Fall travel is a big budget item at most colleges. But how effective is it? The majority of students say that they don't meet with colleges who visit their high school or attend college fairs. Those that do usually meet with colleges they've already applied to or are planning to already. So is the purpose of travel to build interest and name recognition, or is it to nurture interest? What is your goal and how do you determine success? (Or do you not have a goal or success metric?) Take a look at the past couple of cycles and see which high schools and fairs generated the most new names and what the conversion rates were. If you don't have tracking for this there's still time this cycle! That's my data challenge this week for all my admissions operations friends, take a strategic look at travel.

This is fantastic and very well deserved!

You can't dig yourself out of a hole if you lack mental availability and affinity with students and parents. Build a strong brand foundation and build on it, you can't skip that or you're building a house straight on mud.

This is what I want to see more of. How are you serving students who benefit the most. We don't need to celebrate more apps, we need to celebrate more outcomes of those apps and enrollments.