The Weekly VineDown with Emily Smith

In this special bonus VineDown short, join Emily Smith as she sits down with Kent Barnds of Augustana College for an in-depth conversation about the complications surrounding the new FAFSA rollout. Ken shares his perspective on the Department of Education's latest efforts, including a significant $50 million concierge service aimed at aiding families through the FAFSA completion process. Despite t...

Wanna know something that all directors, deans, AVPs, and VPs of enrollment do, but very few have been formally trained on how to do it well? People management! We are pumped to have been able to welcome Ashley Hardy of DePauw University to the show this week where we talked tactfully about how to be a great manager, supervisor, and mentor.

This week on the show, our host Emily Smith chatted with Leigh Mlodzik (Vice President for Enrollment, Simspon College) in another episode of our Higher Ed Leaders Series on the VineDown. The pair talked through how Leigh's small, private institution in the midwest executes a relationship-first recruitment strategy, how Leigh motivates his team to actually communicate with applicants, and how to m...

Curious about how AI might shape enrollment management and recruiting? This week, host Emily Smith chatted about what changes we are already starting to see in admissions offices, what's still to come in 2024 and beyond, and how your team can use AI to improve your enrollment funnel and recruitment process.

Check out the most recent installation of the VineDown Higher Ed Leaders series where we talked data with Kate Ralston, PhD Director for Enrollment Analytics at the University of Iowa. She shared encouragement that new problems can be solved with the data you likely already have, plus shed light on some valuable insights about student mobility trends. TL/DR on this: smart use of simple data can dr...

On this week's VineDown, Emily hosted a part 2 of one of our favorite topics: prospect management. CollegeVine CEO Zack Perkins also joined in on the fun to talk about how he thinks about prospect management and how it relates to what we do at CollegeVine. For those of you who missed our first show on this topic in December, the prospect management framework Emily and Zack chatted about this week...

On this episode of our Higher Ed Leaders series, Emily was joined by Joel Bauman, Senior Vice President of Enrollment at Duquesne University to chat about some basics of prospect management. The pair covered topics such as how to identify best-fit students and how to cultivate real relationships with your top prospects. The prospect management framework they highlighted focuses on recruiting stude...

This week we kicked off our Higher Ed Leaders series with Towson University VP of Enrollment Management, Dr. Boyd A. Bradshaw! In this episode host Emily Smith and Dr. Bradshaw chat about enrollment goals, resource management, and what should be on the minds of enrollment leaders during the winter holiday season.

This week, host Emily Smith got real for a session about handling difficult conversations. Check out this recording for a look at types of conflict, the physiology of stress, and what you can do to handle tough situations with ease.  Whether you spend your days chatting with parents who are upset their student wasn't accepted to your school or giving feedback to your colleagues, this webinar will...

Reaching students in a meaningful way isn't easy. Join Emily Smith and Mickey Baines in this recording of our VineDown from November 16, 2023 to learn more about optimizing your communication to prospective students. In this video, they talk about high level strategy, and also provide some more nuanced and useful tips your team can implement now to improve the way you and your team build connectio...

In this week's VineDown, Emily Smith chatted with two veteran recruitment marketing pros about one of the most venerable and sometimes misused recruitment marketing channels: email. Emily was joined by Joe Bellavance and Roger Jones to pick their brains about their past experience with email as a channel for recruitment marketing Despite many early predictions of the demise of email as a channel,...

This week VineDown host Emily Smith was joined by Williams College Associate Director of Admissions Kate Heekin to chat about overcoming the current and upcoming challenges that admissions teams are facing. The pair offered tips and insights about leveraging tech, software, and other efficiencies to overcome very real difficulties like the Search Cliff, demographic cliff, and the ongoing exodus of...

This week, Emily Smith and Jason McNair-Faulk kicked off the first in a series of professional development chats. This series will take a look into how admissions teams can borrow tricks from the sales playbook to improve their game. On this episode, the pair jumped into a deep-dive session on making admissions talks more effective. Armed with decades of experience, our hosts have plenty of knowle...

This week, CollegeVine's own Jason McNair-Faulk, joined host Emily Smith to chat about admissions and recruitment travel. Jason is a former Dean of Admissions with over 20 years of experience in K-12, Higher Ed, and EdTech. The pair provided some actionable tips you can take along with you as you pack up your suitcase this Fall. They dove into topics about preparation before travel, taking care of...

On this week's VineDown, host Emily Smith outlines some (actually) actionable activities your team can take on to maximize your Fall recruitment efforts.  Emily provides tips related to applications, communication, operations, and travel that you can implement now to make this recruiting season more effective and efficient.

CollegeVine Co-Founder Vinay Bhaskara joined our host Emily Smith this week to look into the recent decline in the performance of search in college recruiting. Watch below to check out recent search funnel data, the reasons why search is becoming less effective, and what you can do about it. If you would like to check out the full report, you can download it at:  go.collegevine.com/2023-search-rep...

This week, VineDown host Emily Smith was joined by Vinay Bhaskara to chat about our enrollment survey of over 12,000 students.  Our survey dove into the various factors that play into the college decision process for students and which of those factors influence them the most. Tune in for some tips about how you can use these insights to improve your recruitment strategy.

This week, VineDown host Emily Smith chatted with a few friends close to home: CollegeVine team members Vinay Bhaskara, José  Mallabo, and Jason McNair-Faulk.  The group spent some time discussing summer melt, especially among students of color, and how the phenomenon is interacting with recent changes to race-conscious admissions. 

This week, webinar host Emily Smith was joined by a few friends to chat about what's happening with race conscious admissions. The panel talked about what the end of race-conscious means for colleges, and how institutions can use CollegeVine to continue building a diverse class.  Specifically, the group honed in on a new free tool that colleges can use on the platform: the Student Environment Expl...