Page 29 - BusinessWest April 18, 2022

Jonathan Scully
says Elms College stays engaged with incoming students from acceptance until they arrive on campus.
BusinessWest
EDUCATION APRIL 18, 2022 29
Education
Back to School
Application, Enrollment Numbers Trending Up at Area Colleges
After two years of massive shakeups on college and university campuses — from sending students home in 2020 to building remote and hybrid programs and instituting sweeping safety protocols — admissions officers are seeing an uptick in enthusiasm, and applications, from prospective students, sparking hope that the coming fall will mark a return not only to normalcy, but to healthy enrollment numbers.
By Mark Morris
F
or college enrollment professionals, March and April are the busiest months of the year.
That’s when, after considering thousands of applications, colleges begin reaching out to students who were accepted for the fall semester.
April, particularly for four-year institutions, is crunch time, as May 1 is known as National College Decision Day, the deadline for students to submit their acceptance forms and make a deposit.
According to Jonathan Scully, vice president of Enrollment Management and Marketing at Elms College, the job is not done on May 1. He and his staff work with students until they arrive in September.
“When a student has been accepted and they pay their deposit, they’re stoked,” Scully said. “Then they have to wait four months before they come here, so we stay in contact and have events over the summer to make sure that level of engagement stays up.”
There’s plenty of engagement to maintain, as many colleges report that appli-