• The tree cutter – Your Team
• The tree – Your incoming Applicants
• The tool – Your Admission Application Software
• The “old axe” – Online .PDF Application
• The difficult to wield chainsaw – The big vendor’s latest offering
• The trusty sharpened axe – SimpleApply LLC
• Sharpening the blade – Commitment to learning, training, and growing within the Software
• Your needs – Accomplishes the goal, Easy to Use and Setup, Affordable, 508 Compliant

• Update existing solutions to new regulations (IPEDS Ethnicity Reporting, Net Price Calculator Requirement, Section 508 accessibility)
• A new Learning Management System
• An updated Website and Content Management System
• Implementing a Social Media strategy (Facebook, Youtube, Twitter) to increase enrollment
• Improving upon your existing toolset (Application, Registration, Email Marketing)

Let’s take a look at true cost if your institution loses just one applicant, according to average college prices in 2009-2010 reported by College Board:

Average cost of private four-year college: $26,273 x 4 years = $105,092
Average cost of public four-year college: $7,020 x 4 years = $28,080
Average cost of public two-year college: $2,544 x 2 years = $10,176

Take a look at some of the statistics:

• A poll conducted by education market research firm Art & Science and sponsored by Embark showed that 63% of students preferred applying online, 15% said they didn’t plan on filling out any paper applications at all.
• Surveying nearly 250 colleges and universities across the U.S., the “average” college has seen a 36% increase in online inquiries and a 35% increase in online applications over the past year. In addition, one out of five colleges surveyed (22%) now accept application fees directly through their Web site.
• Nine out of ten colleges surveyed reported seeing a rise in online applications, with one out of five citing increases in excess of 50% over the same time period. The proportion of schools without an online application capability further decreased over the past year from 11% to 6%.
• The telephone survey found that almost all prospective college students had access to the Internet either at home or school.
• According to a survey by consulting firm Education Now and online application service ApplyYourself, nearly 65 percent of schools accepted online applications.
• During a recent survey of Illinois High schools, 69% of students completed all of their college applications online.
• The TMP Worldwide college admission marketing survey shows the proportion of schools without an online application capability further decreased over the past year from 11% to 6%.

1. Misspellings and grammatical errors— I can understand why this is a big pet peeve for everyone. On the bright side however, it does provide insight into the quality of the student. While technically you can add spellcheckers to your webforms I would not normally recommend doing this beyond essay submissions. This is one of those things where I believe students need to exercise their own quality control.
2. Applying online, but the application isn’t actually submitted— Your online admission application should have the full capability of reaching out to your prospects who haven’t yet completed your application. Furthermore, always, always, always show and email each prospect some form of confirmation. Imagine shopping online and not being sure whether or not you actually bought what you wanted. Problem solved.
3. Forgotten signatures— Having an online admission application only requires a “digital” signature. Prospects won’t be able to forget their signature if it’s a required input. This solution is short and sweet.
4. Not reading carefully— This one can be harder to solve however if the answer typically has a limited subset of answers, toss it into a data type that conforms to that specification. Put it in a dropdown and don’t let them fumble on such simple questions.
5. Listing extracurricular activities that aren’t— Ditto on this one, just see the answer above.
6. Not telling your school counselor where you’ve applied— You can choose to solve this one by collecting their counselor’s information and then simply contacting them directly once receiving the information. You can even take it a step further and send the counselor an automatic email with the details of the online application if you want to alert them autonomously.
7. Writing illegibly— Since an online admissions application is digital this would naturally become a non-issue.
8. Using an email address that friends might laugh about, but colleges won’t— Unfortunately there’s not much you can do to prevent this one but at least you won’t be stuck trying to decipher cryptic writing with questionable wording or meaning.
9. Not checking your email regularly— You can’t fix this problem directly but you can still reach out to them via other contact information that you can require to collect from an online admissions application. You can even be more cunning by introducing automatic SMS texting capability from within your online software. I guarantee every prospect checks their mobile phone not just regularly, but every hour or even every minute.
10. Letting Mom or Dad help you fill out your application— This one is also difficult to protect yourself against. Though it’s a proven fact that if your admission application is online rather than in paper form, it increases the chances your prospect will be filling out the application themselves.

Well there you have it. An online application is a catch-all solution to nearly all of your biggest admissions headaches. It never ceases to amaze me some schools still do NOT have an online admission application!

In an October 2009 poll by WebAIM of 665 screen readers 448 users or 74.9% answered that they do not disable JavaScript in their web browser. This statistic proves that JavaScript degradation is NOT a reasonable solution to supporting website visitors with visual disabilities. Simply put the screen reader will come across the JavaScript the vast majority of the time and it will NOT degrade gracefully.

While some screen readers do an ok job of handling JavaScript some do not and there is no consistency or standard to how much functionality will work and when. Bottom line is that the assumption that you can code for screen readers by degrading JavaScript is false. You can see the entire survey here.

Interested in how easy this actually is? I thought so.

For Twitter, simply add the code below:

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<a href=”http://twitter.com/home?status=I just applied to college! http://www.school.edu/apply” title=”Click to share this on Twitter”>Share on Twitter</a>

For a more polished look, you can wrap the link with a colorful twitter share icon and further aggregate the post by adding a few Twitter #topics (for example #college, #localcity) at the end of the post:

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<a href=”http://twitter.com/home?status=I just applied to college! http://www.school.edu/apply #college #Chicago” title=”Click to share this on Twitter”><IMG src=”http://school.edu/logo.gif” /></a>

For Facebook, you will need to enter the following code:

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<meta name="title" content="I Just Applied to Blah College!" />
<meta name="description" content="" />
<link rel="image_src" href="http://www.school.edu/SmallSchoolLogo.jpg" /> 
<script>function fbs_click() {u=location.href;t=document.title;window.open('http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u='+encodeURIComponent(u)+'&t='+encodeURIComponent(t),'sharer','toolbar=0,status=0,width=626,height=436');return false;}</script><a href="http://www.facebook.com/share.php?u=<url>" onclick="return fbs_click()" target="_blank"><img src="http://b.static.ak.fbcdn.net/rsrc.php/zAB5S/hash/4273uaqa.gif" alt="" /></a>

If you would like to review more information on the Facebook Share API, you can find it here.

Here would be an example of both of the sharing features added to the application submitted area of a live online application:

With the viral power of Facebook, your friends can comment on your recent enrollment and then this comment will be spread to all of their friends. Also, with every new comment to the post thread, each user involved will receive an e-mail update of it from Facebook.

If you do not currently have an online application or are looking for a solution that meets current governmental requirements you can view the SimpleApply demo admission application here. Your school may also be eligible for free software by joining the Beta Partner Program.

Other Related Articles:
Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube as Admission Recruitment Tools

• There is no need for a centralized web team, just a webmaster
• It empowers departments to generate their own content

• Your marketing message lacks a clear consistent voice because it is being communicated by many different people (no copywriter/web writer)
• The overall aesthetic treatment (look and feel) of the website degrades over time as users come up with new ways to style their respective sections outside of your specified guideline

• A centralized and dedicated 5 person web team consisting of the following roles:
  
  Webmaster – leads team, touches all areas of development, develops site standards
  Web Editor – reviews all information, makes decisions on publishing priorities
  Web Designer – maintains look and feel, develops imagery, art, and animation/movies
  Web Programmer – educated in the code structure of the selected CMS
  Web Marketing – solicits content from departments, edits and writes copy



• A leadership mandate dictating specific procedures for the management of the website and decision making structure of the web team

Do you consider yourself to be Hispanic/Latino?
Yes
No

In addition, select one or more of the following racial categories to describe yourself:
American Indian or Alaska Native
Asian
Black or African American
Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander
White

• You must ask the questions in the order above (Ethnicity before Race)
• You can use any word such as “Select”, “Mark”, “Choose” but CANNOT use “one or more” or “all that apply”
• You CANNOT require these questions to be answered on collection, however you are not “required” to tell them that answering the questions is optional
• You can ask further racial categories, the questions above are the bare minimal requirements
• For postsecondary institutions, presenting the data collection form to students and staff is sufficient to ensure that individuals have had an opportunity to respond