Nov 17, 2021 8 min read

Shari Payne.

Of course we’ve had phases of the pandemic and we have shifted our strategy several times according to where we are in the stages.

When we first got shut down, everyone shifted to remote work  and our admissions staff was no different 

We started doing virtual appointments, telephone appointments, appointsment through msteens orZoom if people preferred. We had Facebook chats with people, howver we could get to have a conversation with a perspective student and their families. 

We also started having virtual events because we weren’t able to bring people on campus. We contracted with a company to do a virtual tour of our campuis, that was more interactive than the one we previously had 

When we moved into a phase where we were allowed to open up the offices, we started having apopointments under a tent outside. Summer of 2020.

We started having folks come, doing everything in the outdoors and giving them very abbrevaited tours of campus to avoid co-mingling our visitors with our campus folks. we were really trying to keep our college students in their own little bubble soi that we weren’t having any kind of spread. 

As the restrictions decreased we started to normalize some of our operation

First open house in October recruitment event. About 100 people on campus. of course, we still had our mask requirement for indoors, but outdoors people were permitted to remove their masks and we were able to give them campus tours, meet with our campus folks. Not quite normal, but definitely getting back to what we would consider a normal open house event. 

Able to send counselors to in-house recruitment events this year. Some [places were having in-person college fairs or high schools were allowing our counselors to come in and do one on one counseling or counseling to a group of people. 

So we were grateful to have that oppurtunity this year. It certainly wasn’t a normal year. There were a variety of rules and regulations because our counselors travel to a number of different states. We made sure we were trying to follow the rule in each area and at times ther were cancellations because of outbreaks changing in rules or policies in different areas.

It was a transition for sure, but the team really worked hard to adapt and adjust to the changing situation. Our folks are really flexible, so that when something would get cancelled, we would just set up a new opportunity in its place. It’s been a transition, but we are working toward some normalcy by having these programs

Do have another program coming this Saturday. It’s a little bit bigger than our last one, so each program that we have gets a little bit bigger, we open it up a little bit broader. 

had first mock crime scene in almost two years.

People not taking advantage of the virtual tours as much . I think we’re seeing some level of exhaustion with virtual events and programming 

Still offered. It’s helpful for students who live far away but want to speak with someone, want to meet with someoen face to face virtually. We’re going to keep it in place. That won’t ever go away. It is helpful for people who come from far, far away or can’t afford transportation.

One of the things we instituted is a travel reimbursement voucher. Anyone coming from more than 300 miles away to visit the campus we’re reimbursing up to $200 in expenses.

We have a really convenient scheduler on our website, so they don’t even need to contact a person. 

They can schedul right on line or they can call us. the admissions office is very accomodating for our visitors. 

Can schedule a virtual visit, a group visit or a personal visit.     

Enrollment struggles during the pandemic. At Waynesburg, we weren’t immune to that. We did have some drops in enrollment. We’re fortunate in that we were able to sustain a very good operating level and we’re working towards building back to where we were pre-pandemic. The signs are good for Fall 2022.

National college fair in Pittsburgh was virtual.

In our region, there seems to be fewer in-person college fair opportunities than in some of the other states where we’ve traveled.  

which includes a greeting from President Doug lee.

Nicole Focareto

At W&J, we have a lot of virtual visit opportunities.

Recelty, launched the augmented reality tour. We decided that we really wanted to reach as many students as possible and one of our concerns and challenges throughout the pandemic is that students who are a little bit far away from W&J may not be visiting at the rate they noirmally had been. This augmented reality tour gives students an opportunity to visit and see the campus through the eyes of one of our student tour guiides. They can ask questions in real time, which is different than the usual virtual tour. We’re fiding our perspective studentra and their parents really want something that is authentic, they want something that is raw and real, because they’re making such a big life decision. They want to make sure that it is genuinely the experience they would have should they be oin campus.

Soft launch in early to mid-october. Official launch Oct. 1. The enrollment team has really been working hard since the spring semester to figure out the best way to go with the augmented reality tour.

Did demos had focus groups did a lot of back-end communicayoion before the soft launch.

We’ce designed it to be a one-one-one experience with a current student tour guide. When they go through an AR Uncommon gtour experience, they are able to slect five specific places on camps that they want to see, they want to learn about. Can submit questions at the point of operation.

That’s where they can ciustopmize their tour a little bit.

Group Augmented uncommon reality toru Virtual event Nov. 4 W&J experience virutla group tour. First time did something lie thayt

It really swent well. It was sort of a first look for some of the students who attended that virtual event. We;ve rteceived some pretty good reviews on that. based on that feedback, we’ll; think through how to operationalize more of a group uncommon tour experience Right now it’s designed to truly be a one-on-one so our students and their parents can ask questions of our student tour guides in rweal time. 

Soft launch applicants and middle students for fall 2022 semester 

Two uncommon tours each day.     11 a,.m. and 3 p.m. They have been booked. I anticipate we’re going to be booked in Decmebere.

The nice thing is families don’t have to travel a student can make a decision today to regiuster for an uncommomn tour and if a spot olpens up they can do it later this week.

They don’t have to arrange to be iout of school,. It reall allows students to keep W&J on their list of college choices and see if they want to take the next step an oinp-campus tour.

Regsiter on website.

It came from my brai n. the whole idea of reaching as many studxents possible something the admissions team was challenged with as 2020 rolled around.

To think differentl and push oursleves to think differently other ideas 

Hallowen 2 heasdset. Microsoft teams.

The only cost that we had was purcahsing oiur own Hallwen 2 headsets 

$3,500 

IT’s something we love to do because we see the value in spreasding the grweat news about what’s happening at W&J. We love everything about W&J and we just want more students, more parents and more school counselors to see and understand the value of a W&J education and why we love it so much.

It was a gereat problem for the enrollment team to solve.

Enrollment numbers weren’t down. We were pretty fortunate. We did not experience the decline that other colleges and universities did, specifically the Fall 20 year. We trended ahead with our first year stuxdents 

Fall 21. Pandemic impacted us a little bit more than in fall 20. We are happy to say our class was almosyt equal fall 20. Enrollment has stabilized. Being flat is like the new being up

We

‘re really ina fortunate place but wer’e sexcited about what is next and what’s to come at W&J.

Current student ambasador team eeladingn the tours 40 

It’s just one of the dutires our ambasadors are able to perform on their shifts.

5-10 hours a week ambassadors.