VCU has a centralized Graduate School Admissions office that processes applications for all
university graduate programs. Until recently all applications, supporting documents and
communication between the central admissions office and the individual departments (like the
School of Business Graduate Studies) was via paper. Last year, the central admissions office began
transitioning to an online application system, "WebNow," and in conjunction with that transition,
the Graduate Studies Admissions staff decided to utilize Intelliworks to improve their internal
admissions processing and communication.
The application processing procedure Graduate Studies implemented in Intelliworks is outlined
below:
1. They started by creating a program in Intelliworks called Admissions and adding an iteration for
each category of applicant they process:
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Certificate Applications
Domestic Masters Applications
International Masters Applications
Domestic PhD Applications
International PhD Applications
2. WebNow routes applications to the Graduate Studies office where a graduate assistant uses an
IW application form to manually enter the applicant into the appropriate iteration. To expedite
application processing, the Graduate Studies office created an Intelliworks site to house all five
application links, and used the site URL as the return URL on all application forms.
3. Once the application (registration record) is created in Intelliworks, Graduate Studies admissions
counselors use a combination of lifecycle, registration status and customized list views to
monitor the status of the application.
As various supporting documents of the application are received, the registration record for the
applicant is updated. Several custom fields in Registrations quickly identify missing documents
and a custom notes field helps admissions counselors share information.
Once the application is complete, the Registration Status is changed, and an admissions
counselor uses an email template to alert the appropriate faculty advisor that the applicant is
ready to be reviewed. A pdf of the application, printed from WebNow, is attached to the email.
By monitoring data in a custom field, in combination with the registration status, Graduate
Studies admissions counselors can quickly and easily identify faculty advisors who are slow to
review applications.
When an application decision has been made, the faculty advisor notifies the Graduate Studies
Assistant Dean. The Assistant Dean then updates the applicant’s lifecycle and uses a case
template to Accept, Accept Conditionally or Reject the applicant.
The Case Templates for accepted students trigger a WFA to the Graduate Studies administrative
assistant with a highly detailed list of instructions for completing the application processing–
which includes notifying accepted applicants via another email template.
By implementing this new online admissions processing procedure in Intelliworks the GSIB office has
been able to:
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Save paper. They no longer create paper files and copies of application materials. In the past
18 months, they estimate they have saved about 6,600 pages–just in the application copies
alone, not counting files or correspondence.
Save time. Before implementing this new procedure, when an applicant called the office to
check on their application status, an admissions counselor would have to pull the physical
file and sort through paper copies in order to respond. Even then it was not always possible
to determine the application status of the student. Now, using the information stored in IW,
any admissions counselor is able to quickly determine the applicant’s exact admissions
status.
Streamline communication. Before implementing the new IW procedure, a paper copy of
the applicant's file would be sent to the faculty advisor and admissions counselors would
then wait for the file to return with a copy of the decision. Using IW to email faculty
advisors with electronic application files allows faculty advisors to receive information
instantly and thus substantially improve the decision response time. Just as importantly, it
provides admissions counselors with a way to track their communications with faculty
advisors.
Save money. Paper copies of acceptance letters are no longer sent via snail mail. This new
process allows Graduate Studies to merge all of the applicant's information in the IW
database into an email template. This email template serves as a confirmation of
acceptance and an individualized curriculum form. In addition to the cost savings, the
applicant receives notification of the decision much sooner!
Increase efficiency. Being able to access the applicant’s information in IW allows Graduate
Studies to function remotely–the Assistant Dean can review applications and make decisions
regardless of whether or not she is physically in the office.
Access valuable data. Using the data in IW, the Graduate Studies office is able to quickly
generate reports to answer almost any question regarding the admissions process: What is
our average GMAT score?, How many students did we have apply to the finance program?,
etc.