CRi-fact

CRi Pre-Application Research

Practical research to help a university increase the number of top students who decide to apply

There are two ways to raise the quality of students in next year’s entering undergraduate class:

The first is to remove sources of friction and address the information and service gaps in the period between when a student makes an application and when they make their final university selection. CRi’s current recruitment and admissions research identifies the practical actions that can lead to the conversion of more top applicants into confirmed students.
The second – and generally overlooked method – is to increase the number of good students who decide to apply. CRi’s new Pre-Application Research is designed to generate the practical information to allow a university to improve its pre-application efforts and address this strategic gap.

CRi Pre-Application Research tracks student perceptions of the university and the effectiveness of its existing pre-application recruitment tactics in supporting or changing those perceptions across its markets. The research takes place over the pre-application phase, from initial student contact through to students making their applications. Critically, CRi Pre-Application Research captures feedback from students who interacted with the university but decided not to apply.

Benefits to the university

> Increased competitive advantage
Because the pre-application phase is rarely studied, universities who choose this stage as a focus gain an early-mover competitive advantage by using insights from the CRi Pre-Application Research to identify and prioritize changes to their recruitment tactics that lead to more applications from top students.

> Practical recommendations about the students the university most wants
CRi Pre-Application Research identifies practical ways to increase the number of applications from the top students that best fit the university’s overall enrolment strategies.

> Easy implementation
The university's time commitment is minimized by CRi's turnkey approach. CRi handles all aspects of the survey program from instrument development and respondent contact to report presentation.

> A solid step towards an improved academic environment
Attracting better qualified and more highly desirable students to apply can give a university the opportunity to measurably improve the quality of its entering class. A better entering class can have a meaningful impact on the university’s ability to attract quality faculty. Better students and professors can create a “cycle of virtue” that positively impacts the overall academic environment and leads to changes in the public’s perceptions of the university.

> Cost effective
CRi’s clients are nearly universal in their agreement that our research solutions provide tremendous value for money.

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