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EMPOWR: Optimizing Student Recruitment

Colleges and universities around the country face a daunting challenge, working in an intensely competitive environment, striving to realize favorable returns on extensive recruitment investments and annually attain a desired application volume. In a climate where less efficient practices can easily reduce the potential applicant pool and less efficient spending in effect reduces net revenue, many institutions find that they have the data but not the information they need in order to make their best strategic recruitment decisions to achieve their goals without continually increasing spending. Generating and utilizing knowledge about student characteristics and student markets through research and analysis is no longer a luxury; it is a necessary best practice.

With EMPOWR™, our comprehensive student recruitment optimization service, we blend analytical expertise and hands-on enrollment experience to help you address various complex issues and identify new opportunities with your prospects, inquirers, and applicants. Infusing new knowledge will enhance your framework for making sound, informed decisions, freeing you to use your expertise to achieve even greater results.

With Maguire Associates' commitment to exceptional service and true collaboration, our holistic analyses and customized enrollment management innovations can help you:

Click here to read our latest paper on student recruitment,
EMPOWR Your Recruitment Cycle.
  • Identify markets and regions of institutional applicants and enrolled students;
  • Uncover characteristics of the most likely applicants;
  • Save substantial amounts of money by deploying recruitment resources more efficiently;
  • Increase admissions applications by focusing on students most likely to be influenced to apply, increasing inquirer to applicant conversion rates;
  • Expand applicant pool diversity by reaching out to students in new areas who share key characteristics with students who are interested in and thrive at your institution; and
  • Enhance institutional understanding of the student body, facilitating better student service in the recruitment process and an improved ability to engage students.
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What's The Issue?

Student recruitment budgets represent six, seven, or even eight-figure financial commitments. Where else in your institution's budget do you spend that much money without verifying results or exploring missed opportunities? Are you spending only what is needed to achieve your objectives, and no more?

EMPOWR lets you identify the most effective and efficient uses of resources. We provide insight and evidence that lets you save money that is being wasted on ineffective student recruitment tactics, tactics that are, in effect, reducing your net revenue. We help you target increased application conversion rates and extract more value from the resources you already have.

What Are The Benefits?

EMPOWR is a comprehensive service for optimizing student recruitment. It is not merely report-delivery, nor is it a mere tagging service, nor is it stand-alone software that forces you and your staff to learn a new system and do all of the work.

Instead, partnering with Maguire Associates delivers:

"EMPOWR is the comprehensive approach that Clarkson University has been searching for. It enables us to use both analytical tools and proven methodology to identify and target those students who will excel on our campus. EMPOWR takes the guess work out of the recruitment process!"

Brian Grant
Director of Admission
Clarkson University
  • A comprehensive analytical program for improving student recruitment from the first moment of contact;
  • Experienced enrollment research, analysis, evaluation, and multivariate statistical modeling on application likelihood;
  • Inquirer score groupings that differentiate between students who are unlikely to apply, those who may be on the fence, and those who are likely applicants;
  • Analysis of prospects to better inform targeted list purchases;
  • In-depth experience with both research techniques and admissions processes and priorities needed to effectively combine the results of complex analyses with institutional needs and goals;
  • Research and information on student markets, characteristics, and application conversion tendencies;
  • Expert enrollment research and analysis in a timely fashion, without new software or systems, that does not require additional work of current employees;
  • Practical recommendations for ensuring that results can be applied in valuable ways, avoiding the familiar sequence where research is performed, findings are presented, and a report then gathers dust in a drawer because it was never made clear precisely how that research is applicable to daily operations; and
  • Opportunities to further enhance admissions marketing strategies by integrating EMPOWR with survey market research services to learn more about your institution's competitive position, institutional strengths and weaknesses, and the impact of information sources and influencers on your prospective students.

How We Work With You

Many institutions are awash in data but starving for useful information. Mining data, researching, analyzing, and targeting student recruitment efforts are now essential for every institution looking to succeed in the increasingly competitive landscape of higher education.

EMPOWR lets you extract meaningful knowledge from your data and apply your expertise with ever-greater efficiency and effectiveness. An EMPOWR project provides several core analytical methodologies and processes customized for your institution:

  1. Geographical Approach – We analyze the geographic makeup of your inquiry pool, applicants, and enrolled students. We create detailed maps that identify your student markets, providing extensive statistical data in addition to accessible visual representations of these critical groups within the enrollment cycle.
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  2. Application Conversion Approach – We examine your inquirer and applicant pools and analyze the conversion rates with respect to numerous key variables, including first contact source type, geography, ethnicity, academic quality, and others. We help you discover where your recruitment efforts are most successful and where there is room for improvement, and we provide practical recommendations for application conversion enhancement.
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  3. Student Characteristic Approach – We identify key variables and characteristics that are significant in a student's likelihood of applying to your institution. We provide clear explanations of the data and the implications of the results, helping you connect this research to your ongoing student recruitment operations.
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  4. Search Optimization Analysis and Recommendations – Maguire Associates will carefully examine your search and prospect qualification strategy. We identify where your spending is not leading to increased applications as well as where there are opportunities for expansion. Search is an incredibly expensive process that includes extensive printing, mailing, and postage costs. Analyzing its effectiveness and offering specific targeted recommendations are key components of the EMPOWR service.
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  5. Inquirer Application Likelihood Scoring and Additional Customized Enrollment Management Innovations – We will perform multivariate statistical analyses to identify the students in your inquirer pool who are least likely to apply, who may be on the fence, and who are likely applicants, as well as providing recommendations for managing your resources to make the best use of this information. We can also help you expand the value of various external data sources available to colleges and universities, and Maguire Associates has developed strategic recruitment innovations that we will recommend when appropriate for our clients.