Robert Gould, vice president for strategic enrollment management, and Stephanie Ruckel, director of admissions operations, joined host Jay Fedje as featured guests on a recent episode of the Enrollment Edge podcast by enrollmentFUEL.聽
The episode focused on the power of direct admissions鈥攁 simplified approach in which students are admitted based on high school GPA, in some cases before they have even applied鈥攖o break down college access barriers.聽
鈥淓ssentially, what we鈥檙e trying to do is remove as many barriers as we can for students, and give them the most options to enroll in whatever institution is a good place for them,鈥� said Ruckel. 鈥淲hen you start thinking about the student鈥檚 perspective, you can start questioning the [admissions] process a little bit differently. Why are we requiring these things? How are we using this data? Are we using this information?聽
鈥淭he challenge in doing this is really stripping down the application鈥攎aking sure we are collecting what we need to collect, but keeping it as simple as possible.鈥�
Augsburg鈥檚 participation in pilot programs with the Minnesota Office of Higher Education and the Common App, as well as significant changes to the Augsburg application itself, puts the university at the leading edge of this new policy movement.聽
鈥淚 want to credit the whole team,鈥� said Gould. 鈥淲e鈥檝e literally taken the admissions process and the system and changed it in one cycle. We had some good thoughts about how it fulfilled our mission as an enrollment division, but I think more importantly, people had the appetite for it鈥攚anting to build deeper relationships and wanting to eliminate barriers for all students.鈥�
Listen to the episode here: Direct Admission: Unpacking College Access
Najeeba Syeed, El-Hibri chair and executive director of Interfaith at Augsburg, recently joined 鈥淪tate of Belief,鈥� Interfaith Alliance鈥檚 weekly radio show and podcast, to speak about her background and what the broader interfaith and American community can learn from the teachings of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.