A ‘Double Excellent’ inclusive college and home to some of the top performing curriculum departments in all of Wales, Bridgend College attracts 5000+ applications from hopeful learners every year.
The college received high praise during a recent audit for ‘good practice that is not often seen elsewhere’ – both from a learner and a staff point of view - having recently transformed its applications and enrolments process.
Prior to switching to paperless enrolment, all applications were processed manually, and administration overheads meant that in September 2017, 500 applicants in the college’s system had yet to be offered an interview. Of those offered an interview, 39% failed to attend. This had significant cost implications.
New in post, Assistant Principal Joe Baldwin’s analysis of the legacy process revealed that students’ first interactions with the college differed greatly, depending on which curriculum area they applied to and their language preference. So he set about streamlining the applications and enrolments process using Prospect to:
“The new, automated process through Prospect ensures compliance with our duties under the Welsh language standards, GDPR and general accessibility and personalisation of communication as part of an individual learner journey. It was highly praised during our last audit!” - Joe Baldwin, Assistant Principal.
Emulating the efficiencies and experience of HE institutions, now when a student applies to Bridgend College they:
This workflow works really well for Bridgend College – but is entirely customisable to your own admissions cycle. Other than administrators inputting interview date options at the beginning of the year – everything is built on workflows. This ensures complete fairness for all applicants.
Joe Baldwin continues: “Having engaged applicants through to interview, the last thing we want is them standing in a queue for 5 hours… we want them to have a really vibrant experience on enrolment day so they tell their friends - and then hopefully we get another application as a result!”
Replacing the seemingly endless cycle of data entry, re-entry and printouts that the college suffered prior to implementing Prospect, the new enrolment days are now a combined effort from marketing, administration, curriculum, skills and student wellbeing teams to make the whole experience a really positive, inclusive first step into the college.
Joe Baldwin concludes: “We’re really proud of our new process but we’re always looking for ways to improve including implementing Tribal Engage, the student app, so learners can manage more of their journey via their mobile phones.”
Thinking about moving to a digital enrolment and admissions process? Watch this video to find out more about the experience of Bridgend College.
Transforming enrolments and admissions at Bridgend College