CEU moves recruiting to a national level

This archived article was written by: Gypsie Delgado

CEU is only one of the many schools in the state that has dropped in enrollment fall semester. With enrollment down, Todd Olsen, director of admissions and scholarships, plans on increasing recruitment through a national mailing list and CEU video.
“The thing we’ve done this year that we’ve never done before is that we actually did a national mailing list,” stated Olsen.
CEU bought roughly 29,000 student names from NRCCUA for approximately $3,500-$3,600. NRCCUA buys or has access to databases from ACT, ASVAB and high school lists.
“I did a survey about what our student body is like, their GPAs, economic background and ranking class and we get a lot of different variations. We bought senior’s names in that group that we identified for class of 2004, 05 and 06.
“They say you should expect national statistics mass mailing like that show a good return of about 5 to 8 percent. The brochures, the mailing, the letters, it’s an expensive process,” said Olsen.
Total cost of brochures, letters and envelopes was about $7,543. Average cost of mailing is about $24,500.
“Something new, which I will have a proof of next week, is that we are doing a video, which we paid for early fall last semester.
“The good thing about this is that it will actually get to air on the national college review. That gets us national exposure,” said Olsen.
They produced an eight-minute, a three-minute, and a 30-second spot we can use in our recruitment. The video will be used for tour presentations.
It is digital, it can put it on the web page, it will be aired on national college channel and commercials. The video cost an estimated $20,000.
“The main focus of the recruitment plan is the high school tour on which we’ve increased our contacts by about 25 percent this year.
“Since we started the program I’ve always talked to my peer institutions, people throughout the state like Utah State, Snow College and Dixie who have the program as well. They always say it is like an evolutionary process. Eagle Experiences started out strong, hit a valley and now are picking back up again. You learn from your people, that is the best way to do it,” said Olsen.
The regular things as far as getting the name out, we compile everyone’s name who is interested in different areas and send them to the different departments.
As far as enrollment in the state college system, according to Olsen, everyone stayed level, Snow was down, UVSC was up, Dixie was level, Weber was level, CEU was down for fall but we are about where we usually are for spring.
“So it is showing that we are retaining better. So many things come into effect as far as world politics.
“We lost an awful lot of students to the war, about 1 to 2 percent. Plus Utah State University erroneously gave some freshman students full four-year-tuition scholarships.
“Based on their GPAs and ACTs, they were titled to one-year scholarships, but a misprint in the offer letter awarded them four-year scholarships instead.
“I know we lost 5-6 percent of our incoming freshman to that. Utah State said yeah, it is a mistake but we have to make good on it. Recruitment is a campus-wide effort. The thing I think we miss out on the most is the general marketing message. The administration is working on that but it takes time to find what our nitch is,” stated Olsen.
Three to five years ago, CEU’s budget was legitimized for the first time. CEU spends about half of what other institutions do in recruitment.
For as long as I can remember, “our budget was always just a budget that was flexible. The administration just would say keep us posted on what