Worcester Business Journal

6 Worcester Business Journal | January 20, 2020 | wbjournal.com Central Mass. colleges face a rise in applications and technology, as selectivity and yield decline Admissions UPHEAVAL BY GRANT WELKER Worcester Business Journal News Editor C ollege admissions oen thinks of itself as the cli- ched mix of art and science: Part marketing and data analytics, but still a lot of old-school relationship building. In recent years though, an industry- wide spike in the number of applications from high school students has compli- cated the finetuned formula for figuring out which students – and how many – will ultimately enroll. e application surge has sent acceptance rates and yield rates, which measures how many enroll, haywire in the last decade, according to a Worces- ter Business Journal review of federal admissions data for four-year colleges based in Central Massachusetts. "No one ever has seen a crystal ball in how enrollment is going to shake out in a given year," said Bob Mirabile, the vice president for enrollment management at Worcester's Assumption College. Students applying to more schools to- day can mask a looming crisis for higher education: a declining high school-age population. Colleges are already fighting for a shrinking pool of candidates, especially the colleges whose footprint doesn't normally extend far beyond Central Massachusetts. High school graduates peaked in Massachusetts in 2013, according to the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education, which projects a 12% drop in the following two decades from that time. High school graduates across the Northeast peaked in 2010, according to the Colorado-based group. at helps explain why Central Mas- sachusetts colleges are looking broader geographically. Worcester Polytechnic Institute, for example, is drawing more from faster-growing areas of the country, like California and Texas, as well as from Asia and Europe. e school has three full-time international recruiters. Fitchburg State University, which has traditionally drawn overwhelmingly from Central Massachusetts, began recruiting last year in New York and New Jersey, adding to a candidate pool already expanded recently to Connecti- cut and Rhode Island. With Fitchburg State's core candidates looking at more places, said Jinawa Mc- Neil, the school's admissions director, Fitchburg State has as well. Adjusting to technology and a swarm of applications At Central Massachusetts colleges, applications are up 45% in the past decade, while the number of students enrolled is up 7%, according to the U.S. Department of Education. at has forced college enrollment officials in Central Massachusetts and beyond to tweak the long-held and critical calculus for how many students they should admit and how many would ultimately enroll. "ey're just less reliable now," said Andy Palumbo, WPI's associate vice president of enrollment management and the dean of admissions and financial aid. One harsh reality of admissions is most students who are accepted will choose to go elsewhere. With so many more applications for a relatively flat enrollment, the yield – the number of accepted students who ultimately enroll – is down nearly everywhere. But the rise in applications can be a boon to colleges: e number of applica- tions can be key for marketing, and the acceptance rate is factored into rankings. Scott Latham, a business professor at UMass Lowell who studies higher education, said a scramble to admit enough students with shrinking high school demographics has led to schools oen accepting students they may not have otherwise, or grown their student body in an attempt to bring in ever- higher revenues. "at means there's some financial strain in the institution," Latham said. "A rising acceptance rate is not a good thing." John Hamel, Anna Maria College's vice president of enrollment, sees a continued emphasis on religion and the introduction of football as two critical elements of the college's success. PHOTOS/MATT WRIGHT

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