From Application to Offer

Frustrated student waiting for an offer

From Application to Offer: How long is your university’s conversion time?

 

According to a study carried out by Net Natives,  the second highest priority right now for HE’s in the UK is conversion between potential applicant and student. Did you know what 76% of applicants expect to receive an offer within 4 weeks of submitting their application and that 28% expect to hear the result of their application within 1 week? Compare this with the average turnaround time of 3 moths reported by universities. It’s important to remember that admissions is a competitive business. 83% of students have chosen their subjects before they consider the location or culture of the university. A postgrad student, particularly an international student, is likely applying to a number of universities and time to offer is an important consideration for them. A student is more likely to accept the first place offered to them.

So why this discrepancy between student expectation and reality? There are lots of reasons: missing documents, missing information, students not responding to emails, applications getting lost in the mix, assessors not knowing when they should be assessing to name a few.

There can be no denying that admissions teams are overworked as postgraduate application rates continue to rise across Ireland and the UK. The solution offered by PAC Apply is automation. Our system of checks and triggers ensures that work is carried out at the correct step by the correct assessor. By automating your workflow your admissions team can have confidence that PAC is working behind the scenes to ensure that all work is being carried out and that your applications are being processed efficiently and in a timely manner, ensuring shorter conversion times and increasing student retention.

For more information or to book a demo with us email info@pac.ie

Data Reporting with PAC Apply

The third level education market is extremely completive and driven by many factors – course choice, reputation and accessibility to name a few. Admissions to Irish universities have risen by 12% since 2014/15 (https://hea.ie/statistics/). In June 2018, the Journal of Retaining and Consumer Studies published a study which stated that students should be considered as consumers by their university’s marketing strategy. (https://edtechmagazine.com/higher/article/2020/06/how-higher-ed-can-use-data-analytics-boost-admissions)

At the end of the day, your college is a business and the endpoint should be attracting the highest number of applications you can and translating them into the possible best student population.

Data analysis provides a snapshot of how your University is performing in its admissions processing. You need a robust data reporting system to collate your statistics – for financial reporting, to see what kind of students your HEI is attracting, how long the process is taking, what is your applicant retention rate? By analysing this data, educators can make more informed decisions, increasing student populations.

PAC Apply offers a robust reporting tool that allows your users to extrapolate and examine the data gathered. PAC Apply also lets you create customised reports.

Book a demo with us to find out more.

Greening the Admissions Process

We are all trying to reduce our carbon footprint and it is an important issue for your students. Did you know that switching to the cloud has a huge impact on your company’s carbon footprint? In fact, it is calculated that cloud computing is 93% more energy efficient and has 98% lower carbon emissions than on-site data centres (www.agileit.com).

Let us consider the paper trail a university application can create. A form that is 4-5 pages long, documents that the applicant needs to provide – transcripts, language competency forms etc; it can be approximated that one single application to a university can run to twenty pages. All this paper will, more than likely end up in your shredder. Moving to a cloud based system eliminates this paper trail, making your college greener and more efficient. PAC apply provides upload fields for all file types within our automated, customisable application form builder.

Universities, among other institutions, promise us a paperless future – so why should your admissions process involve reams of photocopied transcripts, ID and personal statements when all these documents can be stored on the cloud? If you need a hard copy, PAC Apply converts all the documents provided by your applicant into one Pdf file so there is no extraneous paper.

Book a demo with us today to discuss greening your admissions process.

What Makes a Great Online Application Form?

Your application portal is often the first point of contact a student has with your college. To that end a clear, concise and well laid out process is integral to attracting applicants and that starts with your application form. You may be using a paper form or requesting applicants to apply via email. This will feel outdated to your potential students and it is much more convenient for them, and your administration team, to move your form online. This also ensures you can request all documentation you need and not have to chase your applicant for more information at a later date. 

So what makes a good online application form?

In a world where most of us use our smartphones or devices to fill out online forms, consider simplifying your application form. Asking for too much information can frustrate the applicant, especially if the information seems unnecessary.

Your college knows the profile of the students you hope to attract so build your application form to suit this profile. Why ask for details of past work experience if the work is not relevant to the course? Providing too many fields on your form can also result in the applicant providing superfluous information that you do not need and then have to sift through.

Applicants will use different kinds of file formats to upload their documents. It is vital then that your online application form is robust enough to allow for uploads of all file types. PAC Apply converts all files uploaded to Pdf for the convenience of your administrators. 

You may allow applicants to apply to more than one course at a time. The applicant does not want to answer the same basic questions twice over. PAC Apply’s custom drag and drop form builder allows answers to questions such as address and phone number to be carried over to multiple applications. 

A clear and concise application form ensures that your admissions offices gets all the information they require and nothing extraneous. 

The Benefits of Automated Workflows

 

What can an automated workflow do for your business?

Every project your team complete has a workflow, whether you have officially created one or not. A good workflow is a great tool for any business when it comes to cutting down on extraneous work, by identifying and eliminating “busy” work, and ensuring that all pending work ends up on the right desk. While it may seem to be a positive for employees to appear busy, often looking busy requires more energy than actual work! According to a research study, companies can lose up to between 20 and 30 per cent efficiency due to inefficient work practises. A strong workflow can remedy this by streamlining your workload and assigning the right task to the right person at the right time.

At PAC Apply we create customisable, automated workflows, developed to fit your existing process. This helps your business cut down on waste – energy, time and your paper chain. By streamlining your business process, you improve your business performance. The PAC Apply platform can be used for higher education admissions, recruitment, LEAN business models, and works seamlessly alongside any existing software or CRMs your business might already have in place.

A workflow is simply the series of steps your work process goes through and can be defined in four points.

  • What needs to be done?
  • Who is responsible for the task?
  •  How long should it take?
  •  How should the task be carried out?

Our workflows help you identify your workload and prioritise tasks. We set up trigger notifications for your team so they can reduce extraneous work, producing the results you want to see.

1. Identify: A good workflow highlights the most important aspects of your process and identifies the most efficient way of completing the task. By clearly defining the role/task and assigning it to the correct staff member, your automated workflow ensures task always end up on the correct desk.

2. Prioritise: Although it may seem like multi-tasking is a good thing, the truth can be quite different. Studies have found that it can take time for employees to mentally shift gears between tasks and that it is more efficient to complete one task before moving on to the next. Having a workflow in place prevent extraneous work being carried out, as the priority task is clearly defined.

3. Trigger: The PAC Apply platform is set up to assign the right person to the right task on your workflow. This means that when your employee has work to do, they receive a notification. They simply complete their task and check the box to progress the task along the workflow, cutting down on the danger of micromanagement and uncertainty among your team.

4. Reduce: By identifying and prioritising our essential tasks we can reduce our workload. An automated workflow removes the need to organise your workload daily/weekly. It can be estimated for example, that your average paper college application can run to over twenty pages between emails letters back and forth. An automated process takes out the need for this chain of contact and streamlines the process, making it easier for both your team and your customer. Automating your workflow cuts down on human error as every task is mapped out in in order.

5. Results: An automated workflow creates results – they reduce time and energy spent, help your team prioritise tasks and ultimately improve performance and productivity. You will find by establishing an automated workflow, your teams’ efficiency will improve and you will yield better results.

If you would like to see a demo of how PAC Apply’s bespoke, automated workflows can improve your business performance click here or email info@pac.ie