We recently spoke with Bobby Ho, Hammersmith Academy’s Communications and Marketing Manager, to learn more about how Admissions+ has enabled them to run a remote enrolment day.
Bobby explains how they adopted Admissions+ and created a remote enrolment day.
We run our enrolment day completely remotely, and one of the reasons was when we switched to Admissions+, I think in 2018, we found, as we started using it, it helped drive an increase in the the number of applications we were receiving. We’re in a very competitive market in West London so there are a lot of colleges and lots of sixth forms.
The students really do have a lot of choice and they will be making multiple applications. But we found that using Admissions+, our numbers went up each year, and they are still going up. So it’s partly to do with the ease of application, but having a platform makes it easier in terms of marketing and advertising because they can click on a link and use a QR code. So it makes for a much easier user experience.
As a result, we have seen in the last couple of years that our number of applications has exceeded a thousand. So we’re dealing with a lot of applications. Having all of those numbers and having an ‘in-person’ enrolment day makes it incredibly difficult to manage. We have to process all our own internal students and external students so you can imagine that with all the different results and the requirement for a large number of staff, it was very difficult to manage.
Given the sheer number of applications that we have to deal with, we have now switched over to a completely remote enrolment process.
So offers go out throughout the year on Admissions+. And then on the enrolment day itself, it’s a bit like university clearance. Initially, the applicant will call the academy and say, “I’m holding an offer, and I want to take up my offer and go through enrolment.” So, if you’ve been offered a place, that’s what gets marked up. We have two teams for enrolment: a checking team and an enrolment team. Initially, all applicants go through the screening team. The checking team will then check over their confirmed results and personal details, making sure they’ve uploaded a photograph of themselves and proof of ID and address. All of that data checking And once they’re happy, they will mark each section as checked and then mark the applicant as ready to enrol.
What the checking team will then do is pass on the applicant to the enrolment team.
The enrolment team doesn’t have to worry about checking personal details or entry requirements. They’re only checking for individual subject entry requirements and whether they’re suitable for that course. Some of the enrolment team members are not based on site.Â
What are the benefits from adopting a more digital approach?
Aside from the time-saving elements It really gave us a more streamlined approach to managing staff time. We have multiple different departments feeding into the admissions process, so heads of departments will be checking the details of the students and the calibre of students for the department. As well as the admin team coming in and our data team making sure the data processing is correct.
Everybody feeds into the system and works from it much more efficiently and effectively than if it were a paper-based or totally in-person enrolment system.
For more information please visit www.applicaa.com