Day:
Tuesday, November 5, 2019
Time:
1:30 PM - 2:30 PM
Location:
Madrid, Mezzanine Level
First Learning Outcome: Participants will gain better context for identifying admissions barriers for potential transfer students at their home institutions.
Second Learning Outcome: Participants will explore approaches to collaborative problem-solving across institutional divisions.
Third Learning Outcome: Participants will comprehend the importance of creating transparent and accessible resources to navigate the complexities of the admissions process.
Core Competencies: Problem Solving, Communication
Proficiencies: Admissions: Creating a Communications Plan, Cross-Functional: Transfer & Articulation
Intended Audience: Some experience in the profession, Significant experience in the profession
Transfer Roadmaps: Increasing Informational and Institutional Access Through a Collaboratively Produced Resource
Category
Session
Description
With more than 100 highly diverse majors, a a significant challenge for prospective transfer students to Virginia Tech has been where to find information on how to pursue a competitive schedule for a specific major or group of majors, for which the admissions course prerequisites may be highly specialized or indeed unique.
Introspection and external feedback from students and key partners revealed that prerequisite coursework requirements or recommendations for admission were not being adequately or effectively communicated to the public or to our community college partners, nor available in any centralized, accessible, and standardized medium. This created an unintended yet pronounced knowledge barrier in the Transfer process, and therefore a latent access barrier for prospective transfers. The result of this barrier has been too often realized in the sizable body of high-achieving applicants who each year present academic records that are "non-competitive" only insofar as they fail to note completion of one or more courses that have been internally prioritized for admission into that program---often unbeknownst to the applicant.
This year, team members from the Office of Undergraduate Admissions worked collaboratively with recruiters, advisors, and administrators from academic colleges and individual departments across campus to address this communicative disconnect in a systematic way. In this session, the presenter seeks to showcase that collaborative and multi-stage effort and highlight the impactful final product created as a result: a standardized, comprehensive, publicly available, and easy-to-follow "Roadmap" to each transfer major at Virginia Tech, which highlights course requirements and recommendations and notes key contacts who can assist applicants with transferring into that particular program. Further, the presenter will note the impact so far of this new resource, including its effect in building relationships and streamlining communications with internal and external partners and institutions and the highly positive feedback from the students themselves. Finally, the session will conclude with an open discussion of the Roadmaps as a viable model and the challenges that Virginia Tech or others might face in adapting and evolving this model in the changing higher-education landscape.
Submission ID:
6551
Presenter(s):
Jarrid Dulaney Virginia Tech
Winner Status
- Session