November 3, 2026

Dr. Kyle Brantley
Senior Vice President of Strategic Marketing & Communications

Alumni: Give Them a Reason to Come Back

Alumni are similar to your undergraduate population in one important way: they already know you. But recruiting them requires a different set of strategies.

You no longer have a captive audience. Some alumni will remain deeply connected to the institution. For others, that relationship will have grown cold. Some won't be interested in graduate school at all, and others will choose programs elsewhere. That's okay.

Your alumni still represent a high-potential prospect pool with something you don't have with a purchased name or cold lead: an existing relationship.

If undergraduate recruitment is largely about continuity, alumni recruitment is about renewed relevance. Why does graduate education make sense for this person now?

Don't Let the Relationship End at Graduation

Alumni recruitment really begins before someone becomes an alumnus. Before students graduate, make sure you have personal contact information beyond an institutional email address they may never check again. Ask about their post-graduation plans: employment, location, career goals, and whether they anticipate pursuing graduate education in the future.

A student who says "not now" during senior year hasn't necessarily told you "no." You don’t have to allow that student to disappear from your graduate recruitment funnel at commencement. Move them into an intentional young-alumni nurture strategy.

Recruit Alumni in Stages

Pay particular attention to alumni within their first five years after graduation, when career advancement or a change in direction may make graduate education newly relevant. Someone who had no interest in graduate school at 22 may think very differently at 25 after spending three years in the workforce. Funny what three years of meetings that could have been emails will do to a person.

A useful framework might look something like this:

• 0–1 years: Maintain the relationship and learn where they landed.
• 2–5 years: Recruit more intentionally around career advancement and professional goals.
• 5–10+ years: Periodically re-engage with relevant opportunities.

These don't need to be rigid categories. The larger point is that alumni recruitment should be a long-term strategy rather than a one-time email after graduation.

Lead With the Career Need, Not the Degree

Don't assume an alumnus wakes up one morning thinking, I really want an MBA. Nobody has ever thought that pre-coffee.

They're more likely thinking: I'm ready for a promotion. I want to move into leadership. I'm hitting a ceiling. I want to change careers. I need another credential. I want to earn more. I need new skills.

Furthermore, your business undergraduates aren’t the only ones interested in an MBA. Your MBA program is likely composed of students with undergrad majors in communication, the humanities, health sciences, and kinesiology, too.

Instead of beginning with "Earn your MBA," begin with the problem the MBA can help solve.

The graduate degree is the vehicle. Market the destination.

Segment Your Alumni Messaging

Develop graduate communication flows based on what you already know about your alumni. Undergraduate major, graduation year, location, professional field where available, previous graduate-school interest, and engagement can all help determine who should hear from you and what they should hear.

Education graduates might receive information about an MEd. Nursing graduates might receive information about an MSN. English graduates might receive information about an MA.

But again, let the data challenge your assumptions. Your best alumni prospects for a particular program may not always come from the undergraduate majors you expect.

Reintroduce Those Relationships That Resonate

Just as faculty can be powerful recruiters of current students, they can also reconnect with former ones.

An email from Graduate Admissions saying, "Explore our master's program," is easy to overlook. A personal note from a former professor saying, "Jason, I was thinking about some of my former students who would be great candidates for this program, and your name came to mind," is different.

Coordinate with faculty to identify alumni who might be strong candidates. The institution already spent years building those relationships. Put them to work.

Make Alumni Feel Like V.I.P.s

Your alumni already completed a degree with you. Don't treat them exactly like someone applying to your institution for the first time.

Similar to reducing friction for undergraduates, where appropriate, consider:

• Waiving application fees.
• Retrieving undergraduate transcripts internally.
• Waiving entrance exams for alumni meeting specific criteria.
• Waiving or reducing recommendation requirements.
• Offering alumni-specific scholarships or tuition discounts.
• Providing expedited admissions review.
• Giving alumni a dedicated contact who can help them return.

There's a good message underneath all of this: You invested in us once. Now we'd like to invest in what's next for you.

Integrated Graduate Recruitment

Graduate admissions shouldn't own alumni recruitment alone. Alumni relations already communicates with these individuals through newsletters, events, reunions, social media, chapters, and affinity groups. Graduate opportunities can naturally appear within those touchpoints without turning every alumni communication into an admissions sales pitch.

Career services can also be a valuable partner. If you offer career support to young alumni, use those conversations to identify people who may benefit from graduate education. Consider intentionally extending services such as resume assistance, interview preparation, career coaching, and networking to graduates during their first five years after graduation. When graduate education makes sense, your own programs can naturally become part of that conversation.

Ultimately, this requires collaboration among graduate admissions, undergraduate enrollment, academics, marketing, alumni relations, and career services. If everyone assumes someone else owns the pipeline, there's a good chance nobody really does.

Create Re-engagement Events

Don't rely exclusively on email. Give alumni reasons to interact with the institution again while providing something of genuine value. Possibilities include:

• "Is Graduate School Worth It?" webinars.
• Graduate program previews.
• Alumni panels.
• Industry-specific events.
• Program-specific lunch-and-learns in markets with large concentrations of alumni.

These events serve two purposes: they provide useful content to alumni while also identifying people who may be interested in taking the next step.

Let Returning Alumni Tell the Story

Feature alumni who came back to earn another degree. Rather than simply asking them to praise the program, build their stories around the questions prospective students are actually asking: Why did you decide to return to the institution for graduate school? Why was the timing right? How was graduate school different from your undergraduate experience? How did you balance graduate school on top of work and having a life? And most importantly, what changed professionally as a result?

An alumnus who has already made the exact decision you're asking someone else to make can be one of your most credible messengers.

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Build the Pipeline, Then Measure It

None of this should simply become a collection of disconnected tactics. Build an intentional internal graduate recruitment pipeline and measure whether it's working.

Start with a few simple questions: What percentage of your new graduate students earned their undergraduate degree at your institution? How many transitioned directly from undergraduate study? How many returned later as alumni?

Track those numbers by graduate program rather than relying solely on an institution-wide percentage. Your MBA may receive a significant portion of its students from your own undergraduate and alumni populations, while another graduate program receives very few. That's useful information that can help you better tailor your messaging and focus your resources.

Then identify which undergraduate programs actually feed your graduate programs. Perhaps you already know business administration students commonly enter your MBA. But what if the data shows that communication or political science graduates also enroll at unexpectedly high rates? Those patterns can reveal audiences you aren't currently recruiting—or at least aren't recruiting intentionally.

Finally, track these populations through the graduate enrollment funnel:

Prospect → Engagement/Inquiry → Application → Admit → Enrolled

Compare performance by audience, undergraduate major, graduation year, graduate program, and recruitment strategy. Over time, you'll begin establishing your own benchmarks.

There may not be a universal percentage of graduate enrollment that should come from your own undergraduates and alumni. But you can determine what that percentage currently looks like at your institution, identify where the greatest opportunities exist, set realistic goals, and measure whether you're improving.

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Final Thoughts: Stay or Come Back

There's a simple distinction between these two audiences.

For your current undergraduates, the invitation is to stay.

For your alumni, it's come back.

Yes, that's essentially the plot of every heartbreak song ever recorded. But it's also the primary message you want to sing to your undergraduates and alumni. Both audiences offer something enormously valuable: you already have a relationship with them. But don't mistake familiarity for a reason to enroll.

Your existing relationship can get their attention. Trusted faculty, institutional pride, fond memories, and a sense of belonging can help open the door. Ultimately, though, students pursue graduate education because they believe it will take them somewhere. Career value, program quality, affordability, convenience, outcomes, and a strong value proposition still have to close the deal.

Graduate enrollment teams should absolutely continue investing in finding new audiences. There are plenty of fish in the sea, after all. But before spending all your energy searching for the next prospect, take another look at the students sitting in your classrooms and the graduates already displaying your diploma.

Some of your best graduate prospects may be hiding in plain sight.