UNC Charlotte Graduate School

Identify and Recruit Stellar Students

Maintain an up-to-date website!
Establish "pipelines' with colleagues at other universities to recruit top students; offer to visit the institution to recruit the prospective students.
Follow-up with students who initiate contact by providing their contact information in UNC Charlotte's Prospective Student Database via ApplyYourself (see Kathy Giddings in the Graduate School for more information).
Purchase names and contact information of prospective students from the GRE Search. To access the GRE Search site, go to the ETS site, click on GRE, then on GRE Educators (on the left side of the site), then click on 'Get General Test Details', and then on 'Student Recruitment' on the top of the site.
Advertise your program to UNC Charlotte undergraduates in related disciplines via the University Times or other medium such as fliers.
Advertise in professional conference proceedings in your discipline or in interdisciplinary programs focused on diversity, such as the Society for the Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science and Engineering [SACNAS], the Society of Women Engineers, and Opt-Ed (N.C. Alliance to Create Opportunity Through Education).
Initiate summer research programs to bring exemplary students to campus and then use the opportunity to recruit them to your graduate program.
Host an evening or weekend telethon for faculty to call prospective graduate students.
Host an Information Session or Open House for prospective students and invite them to campus to meet currently enrolled students, alumni, faculty and staff, and tour the program's facilities. Contact Kathy Giddings or Maryanne Maree-Sams in the Graduate School to arrange an Information Session. Note that the Graduate School can utilize ApplyYourself's Event Management System for students to provide an electronic RSVP for the Information Session.
Encourage UNC Charlotte juniors with a strong GPA to apply to the Early Entry program (if your program has one).
Utilize a variety of recruiting methods to reach prospective students, including electronic mechanisms like Chat Rooms and Virtual Open Houses, as well as more traditional paths like targeted mailings, posters, advertisements, and receptions at professional conferences.
Develop a PowerPoint or Flash presentation to show at conferences and when visiting other universities that will provide a prospective students with a visual representation of your program, facilities, and people.
NOTE: To learn more about recruiting International Students, please contact Greet Provoost in the Graduate School.

Create and Maintain an Informative Website

Make certain that the site is easy to navigate, loads quickly, and is returnable via the popular search engines.
Highlight testimonials of alumni and currently enrolled students, including their accomplishments, research interests, and reasons why they chose to enrollment at UNC Charlotte.
Include photographs of faculty and their research interests, recent publications, and contact information.
Provide information on the percentage of graduate students receiving funding via grants, fellowships, and scholarships, as well as retention and persistence data on time-to-degree and completion rates for your program.
List a profile of your students and separate it by domestic and international students, master's and doctoral, gender, and ethnicity. Most of this data is available via the Institutional Research website.
Make certain that the Graduate Student Handbook for your program is available online that provides detailed information about such things as satisfactory progress, funding, graduation, etctera.
Include an easy to find Frequently Asked Questions [FAQ] link.
Make the site as interactive as possible. Include a link for prospective students to provide their contact information in the Prospective Student Database, as well as an email link to communicate with the Graduate Coordinator or Director.

Determine Candidate Selection Processes and Program Capacity

Work with your program faculty and department Chair to determine the "capacity" of your program. The capacity should be based on the number of new students the faculty can support and mentor through the program to completion, the number of assistantships/scholarships/fellowships the program can provide for both new and continuing students, desired class sizes and the average time-to-degree for students to graduate. Remember to take into consideration all four terms of the academic year unless your program only admits to one semester.
Evaluate the yield rate for your program; how many people must be admitted in order to enroll the optimum class? Your yield ratio equals # new students enrolled / # new students admitted. Note that yield ratios for domestic in-state and domestic out-of-state and international students can vary considerably.
Interview prospective students to help "connect" with them and determine if there is a good "fit" between your program and their interests.
Invite top recruits to campus for a Recruitment Day or Recruitment Weekend; this helps establish connections among the recruits and allows faculty and staff to highlight the strengths of the program at the same time. If possible, have the Recruitment Day coincide with an event in the program that highlights graduate student achievements, such as a Research Fair.
Make admission and funding offers to strong candidates early (before your competition) in the admission process!
Look for funding sources to supplement departmental or Graduate School funds.
Follow-up with students who are offered admission and encourage them to visit campus if they haven't already done so.
Collaborate with Katherine Hall-Hertel in the Graduate School to plan a successful orientation program for new students.