Stop the Melt
Now that the May 1st enrollment deadline has passed, admissions offices can focus on two things: gearing up for next year’s recruitment efforts, and reducing summer melt.
Admissions professionals are familiar with the term, but for those of you who don’t know, “melt” is the term used to describe students who submit a deposit but do not end up attending the university in the fall. Colleges and universities usually estimate that they will have a melt of 15 to 30% between May and August, and therefore, counselors and other admissions representatives concentrate very hard in the summer on reducing melt and doing everything they can to make sure students matriculate in the fall.
Social networking can be extremely helpful in reducing summer melt. Through the utilization of social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Zinch, U360, YouTube and MySpace, universities can target students at all hours of the day and night and make sure they are a constant presence in the students’ lives. By focusing efforts beyond phone calls and emails, schools are proving that they really care about the students and admitted those students to the school because they really thought it would be a good fit. Some schools have reported reducing their melt significantly, experiencing only a 10% melt rate after implementing social media as a yield and retention tool.
What are some methods you plan to use to help reduce summer melt?
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