New enrollment practices

This archived article was written by: Eric Love

Eric Love
staff writer
[email protected]
Recruitment is an essential part of any school’s existence. A campus will fail if they do not recruit effectively. Every year, tens of thousands of students in the state of Utah graduate; on a normal basis, only about 4,000 of those students will hear about Utah State University Eastern (USUE), while about 16,000 to 18,000 of those students will hear about the main campus in Logan. This year, those numbers will change.
Kristian Olsen, director of enrollment services, said, “All recruiting is now coordinated with Logan.” This is one of many changes brought to USUE’s enrollment management this year. Among these changes are unified recruitment, transferable scholarships and a singular-application process.
“Last year on the Utah high school tour, Eastern was represented and Utah State was represented, so we both had separate presentations.” Starting this year says Olsen, “There will only be one presentation.” This means that Utah State University will present Logan, Price, Blanding and all of the regional campuses as a whole system. Meaning that Eastern will no longer recruit separately.
“One other huge change was scholarships, ”Olsen said. “Now scholarships will be transferable across the system … if you get a 100 percent tuition and fee scholarship here, it will be a 100 percent tuition and fee scholarship at Logan.” The hope here is to provide financial flexibility to students thinking about switching campuses.
Also, potential students will not have to worry about complicated application processes. Olsen said, “Last year, across the system, we had 17 different applications, we have reduced that to three.” The reason for that major reduction is the fact that there was two different application systems, one for the main campus and the other for the Eastern campuses; now there is only one.
According to Olsen, it is unclear what the effects of these many changes will be, but he is cautiously optimistic. “Over the long run, it’s going to be immensely beneficial. As for what is going to happen next year, we have no idea.”
As a result of these changes USUE will reach thousands of students that normally would never hear about the school. Olsen is very confident about these changes saying, “It is really an exciting time for Utah State to go out and talk to students because we think we can meet the needs of any student in the state.”