Eastern Illinois U and U of Houston Apply Azorus to Yield Management

• By Dian Schaffhauser
• 06/12/08

Eastern Illinois University in Charleston and the University of Houston in Texas have both selected relationship management software from Azorus to help improve their yield rates, the numbers that show how many students accept a school's offer of admission and then how many actually register. Both universities will be using Azorus' Yield Management Program to communicate with accepted students in the last phase of the recruitment cycle.

Institutions seek to increase their historical yield numbers by segmenting their accepted student populations and delivering targeted messages to each segment throughout the conventional "summer melt" period when accepted students disappear and don't show for their first day of class. This summer melt, which has a direct effect on institutional yield, has become a growing concern with the increase in the number of "stealth applicants"--prospective students the institution first meets when an application is submitted, frequently via an automated process.

Prior to signing with Azorus, Eastern Illinois U was working towards a communications strategy for accepted students but was unable to execute a plan that delivered targeted messages to unique segments of its accepted pool. "With nearly 40 percent of our incoming freshmen being first generation students, we need a way to more effectively inform them through the important summer months why an EIU education and experience would be a valued life experience for them," said Brenda Major, director of admissions. "Another unique goal is for us to change the demographics of our institution to a small degree. We seek to gradually increase our freshmen class from 60 percent to 70 percent. Having Azorus assist us with communicating with students and helping us focus on who is truly engaged, we feel will be a huge asset in converting those extra 100 students."

For Jeff Fuller, director of admissions at the University of Houston the mandate is somewhat different. "Despite its importance, this is the first time we've been able to segment our database, deliver relevant communications to each segment, and most importantly report back on student interest to help refine our final recruitment efforts." For Houston, enhancing the profile of the school is a mandate and enrolling top tier students is critical. "Azorus is helping us focus on students with high SAT scores and who graduated high school in the top 20 percent of their class. Historically, we have 48 percent of our freshmen in this category and we seek to push that over 50 percent."