Director of Graduate Admission Miami University Oxford, Ohio, United States
In Fall 2020, Miami University launched three online graduate programs and created a new institutional model for graduate admission and enrollment. These new fee-generating online programs were created to counter the dependency on first-year enrollment tuition revenue that contributes significantly toward the overall university budget. The new graduate admission and enrollment model included partnerships across divisions and departments, something entirely new for the institution, to reach enrollment goals. The internal offices include university marketing and communications (UCM), the provost’ office, enrollment operations, graduate admission, and an external vendor who manages our enrollment coaches. This model allows for fewer graduate admission staff, divisional leaders to be stakeholders, and minimizes the challenges that come from maintaining qualified staff to respond to leads and stealth applicants. This new model has led to professional and automated communication plans, targeted program specific digital marketing plans, and increased communication across divisions. Since 2020, this initiative has grown to 21 graduate programs (mostly online, but all fee-generating) each with data driven enrollment goals. Although student enrollment has steadily decreased, overall net tuition revenue has increased. This has led to a continuing shift in the culture and makeup of the graduate student body at this Midwest institution.
Learning Objectives:
Share an overview of the previous state of graduate admission at Miami. This includes the number of programs, student body makeup, and how graduate admission functioned within the Graduate School. This allows the audience to better understand the significance of the changes made to shift the culture and processes needed to enroll adult learners interested in fee-generating graduate programs.
Discuss the steps made to engage staff in offices focused specifically on graduate enrollment management. This includes graduate admission moving divisions from Academic Affairs to Enrollment Management. Share how this move led to increased staff who work with, but not for the graduate admission leadership. Additionally, discuss how new staff within the international admission office focus their recruitment, yield and enrollment budget and programming to include graduate students, including an in-country representative.
Engage the audience with details on where graduate enrollment is now and how these partnerships led to success in some areas, specifically net tuition revenue and challenges in others. Share how we communicate to ensure all offices are aware of updates, changes and pivots. Finally, share insights into what is next, challenges we were able to overcome, and how we obtained funding for this new model.
