Blueprint for the Future

This comprehensive audit and analysis of your institution’s enrollment function is just that: an honest, fact-based assessment that will deliver usable recommendations for enrollment growth. Conducted by Registry enrollment expert Joel Wincowski, options include an audit/analysis of your entire admissions process and/or your financial aid strategy. All work is tailored to the specific institution and reports include short- and long-term strategies for enrollment success. 

Enrollment Management Audit & Analysis

This is a thorough examination of your entire admissions service area to determine what is working, what is not, and where opportunities exist to enhance yield and maximize ROI. Services include analysis & recommendations for the following areas:

• Enrollment budget, including an analysis of vendor services (for effectiveness and ways to accomplish key tasks internally)
• Admissions staff, focusing on their knowledge of academic programs & strategies in meeting with students, parents, and guidance counselors
• Travel schedule, the campus visit, & recruitment events (on and off-campus)
• Internal team building: Athletics & admissions; the role of faculty, staff, alumni, & trustees in recruitment
• Your brand image and how to market it, including publications & advertising
• Timed communication system and messaging: email, postal, texting, etc.
• Web strategy, including SEO effectiveness & conversion opportunities
• Social media strategy for recruitment
• Student search & mail houses, effectiveness of
• Competitive analysis and new markets
• Establishing and reaching recruitment goals

The enrollment management audit & analysis will take place over the course of two weeks and will include a campus visit. The Recommendation Report will include usable strategies that can be applied for numerous admissions cycles

Financial Aid Analysis

This in-depth analysis of financial aid will deliver a tailored strategy to optimize net revenue. We will analyze how the institution packages aid and will recommend a model that reduces the discount rate, improves net revenue, and enhances marketability.

• Analysis of institutional scholarship spending: by quality, academic program, sport, diversity, geography, etc.
• Analysis of application process, award process and yield
• Creation of a scholarship program that fits the institution’s mission and drives up the applicant pool. 

Registry Advisory Services is having a very productive year. 

Recent results:

• University of Alabama: Started with applications behind 12% and generated the largest applicant pool in Alabama's history. Orientation confirmations and deposits down less than 1% on May 1, 2020.
• East Tennessee State University: As of May 1, 2020 Orientation confirmations are up 10%.
• Christian Brothers University- Memphis TN: Started consulting in January, 2020 with applications, acceptances and deposits all down between 40%-45%, as of May 1, 2020 deposits for first year students are down 5%, deposits for transfer students are up 100%.
• Salem College- Winston Salem, NC: Started consulting in the summer of 2018, deposits for first year and transfer students as of May 1, 2020 are up 16%, and a two year gain of 39%, while dropping the incoming student discount rate by 11%. 

Practice Leader

Joel Wincowski has 40-years of experience as an enrollment management leader and his work has been reported in The Chronicle for Higher Education, Inside Higher Ed,  University Business, and more. With The Registry, he served as Special Assistant to the Provost at the University of Alabama where he has implemented numerous changes in strategy and structure, which has resulted in the largest applicant pool to date in the history of the University, at the University of Maine, where his unique scholarship program generated and additional $51 million in net revenue in 2 years; at the University of Saint Joseph, where he led a 41% increase in first-year enrollment; and at St. Mary’s College of Maryland, where he brought in 80+ students in a summer.

Joel Wincowski earned an B.S. and an M.Ed. from Springfield College.

Representative Team Members

Marguerite Dennis - International Enrollment Management Expert  

Marguerite J. Dennis is a nationally and internationally recognized expert on higher education administration, admission, financing, and international strategic planning.

She is the author of six books on higher education, she is a frequent contributor to Times Higher Education, University World News, the Observatory on Borderless Education, and the Journal of International Students.

During her tenure as Vice President for Enrollment and International Programs, Marguerite signed collaborative agreements with schools in Chongqing, China, Shanghai, China, Kyoto, Japan, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, Tbilisi, Georgia, Buenos Aires, Argentina, Paris, France, and London, United Kingdom.

Rebecca Eckstein - Online and Social Media Utilization Expert

Rebecca has 30-years of experience as an enrollment management leader and her work has been reported in The Chronicle of Higher Education, The Christian Science Monitor, The Yield, Business Talk Radio, and College Hunt, USA.  With The Registry, in her roles as Interim VP of Enrollment, she has had extraordinary success.  She is an expert in retention planning for long-term sustained success.

Jeffrey Handler - Digital and Technology-Based EM Marketing Expert

Jeff has been responsible for providing leadership, inspiration, vision, tactical direction and brought analytical data-driven strategies to enrollment management offices, linked to core academic missions and strategic goals of many institutions of higher education.  Jeff’s background includes having served as a Vice President for Enrollment Management and Marketing at private and public institutions for over 30 years focused on traditional, adult, graduate on-campus & online programs.

Trent Gooden Multi-Platform Technology Expert (CRMs/SLATE)

Trent has 20 years of experience in higher education IT and Enrollment Management. He was the technical lead in the implementation of CRM technology at a large public institution and has deep expertise in the integration of CRMs with external systems.  He has a particular interest in data quality, data mining, predictive modeling and the creation of analytics tools to support decision making.  Trent also has extensive experience with the Banner Admissions module and lead teams of programmers and database administrators in previous roles. 

Dan Tramuta - Financial Aid Retention and Orientation Management Expert

Thirty-six years of total Financial Aid experience, the last twenty-three of which were built on supervising and/or directing the Admissions, Financial Aid and Orientation Units - with a clear and consistent strategy tied to regularly integrating all three within the "Student Success" Continuum as it relates to both recruitment and persistence.