Day:
Monday, November 4, 2019
Time:
10:30 AM - 12:00 PM
Location:
Sapphire, Lobby Level
First Learning Outcome: Understand the basics behind how queues and work backlogs form
Second Learning Outcome: Gather the data from admissions processes to calculate their measures of effectiveness and select an operational domain (quality, quality and efficiency, or efficiency)
Third Learning Outcome: Basic spreadsheet queuing models - how to create them and where to locate supporting resources
Core Competencies: Change Management, Interpretation and Application of Institutional and External Data
Proficiencies: Admissions: Evaluating Emerging Technologies, Admissions: Strategic Staffing and Operations
Intended Audience: Significant experience in the profession, Senior management (President, Provost, Vice President, Vice Provost)
Queuing Models for Applications Processing in the Admissions Office
Category
Session
Description
This fictional case study will highlight the usefulness of spreadsheet queuing models to analyze application processing and operations in an admissions office.
Every year, universities around the world face the challenge of processing a high volume of admissions applications in a timely manner. Their admissions offices are in essence a factory, one whose output is decisions, but with a critical difference. Where a factory has some degree of control over the timing, quality and volume of inputs, an admissions office has far less control over the timing, quality and volume of applications received. The application process starts with a pool of prospective students then proceeds through the stages of application initiated, application complete, decision (admit, deny or waitlist), offer (accepted or rejected), and finally to matriculation for those accepting their offers.
In recent application cycles, Utilitarian University received a volume of applications so high that the Admissions Office was taking over a month to render decisions on files ready for evaluation. Respondents to an ‘offer declined’ survey noted they received offers from Utilitarian’s main competitor – Veritas University – two weeks prior to receiving the Utilitarian offer. In response to this trend and out of concern for the potential detrimental impact on future enrollment, the Provost of Utilitarian asked a professor in the Department of Statistics, Dr. Cue, to analyze the applications queue in the Admissions Office. The hope is that Dr. Cue’s recommendations for improvement would be implemented over the course of the summer so that next year the University would be ready to handle the volume of applications with fewer delays.
As Dr. Cue reviewed the current situation, it was immediately apparent that the complexity of the applications queue, with its peak period and lack of steady state, merits the use of spreadsheet models and simulation in order to analyze the situation and consider possibilities for improvement.
What recommendations will Dr. Cue submit to the Provost to help the University’s ‘decision factory’ tame its unwieldy applications queue?
Submission ID:
6518
Presenter(s):
Carolyn Ford The University of Western Ontario
Winner Status
- Session