March 27, 2026

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

Every August feels a little like New Year's Day in higher education (or maybe like the movie Groundhog Day if you’ve worked in enrollment long enough…).

One class is moving into residence halls. Orientation is underway. And while everyone else is celebrating the start of a new academic year, enrollment leaders have already pressed the big giant reset button and have shifted attention to building the next incoming class. Alas, no rest for the weary!

And if you’re going to build a stronger class than the one moving in this month, it starts with knowing exactly how you’ll measure progress.

Years ago, a mentor shared a piece of advice with me that has resonated ever since:

"If you can't measure it, you can't manage it."

Simple? Absolutely. Obvious? Maybe. But it's also one of the most overlooked foundations in enrollment management.

Most institutions already track the basics—inquiries, applications, admits, deposits, and enrolled. There's nothing revolutionary about those numbers on their own, but there’s much more to be discerned beyond these basics that will lead you to enrollment success.

The best enrollment leaders don't measure metrics for the sake of reporting them. They measure metrics because every one of them answers an important question.

• Are we generating enough initial interest? → Inquiries
• Are we converting that interest into applications? → Inquiry-to-app conversion rate
• Are financial barriers slowing students down? → FAFSA completion and unmet need
• Are prospective students experiencing campus? → Campus visit rate
• When are students leaving our funnel—and why? → Melt

When you start asking better questions, your dashboard becomes more than a collection of numbers. It becomes an actual tool for decision-making.

This article isn't about introducing flashy new KPIs or complicated analytics. In many ways, it's a return to the fundamentals. But fundamentals win championships. (Insert your favorite sports success story here.)

The metrics in this article form the foundation of a healthy enrollment operation. Measured consistently, tracked over time, and evaluated intentionally, they can help your team identify opportunities earlier, make more nuanced decisions, and ultimately build stronger incoming classes.

So as you kick off another recruitment cycle this August, let's make sure you're measuring the numbers that matter—and asking the questions that matter even more.

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Are we generating enough interest? (Inquiries)

Every enrollment funnel begins with one simple question:

Do enough students know about us, and are they interested enough to raise their hand?

That's what your inquiry pool tells you.

A critical exercise each August is to compare where you stand today against where you were at this same point last year (or even better, over the past five years). If your inquiry pool for Fall 2027 is down 15% compared to this point in the Fall 2026 cycle and your goal is enrollment growth, you should be asking some hard questions. It's certainly possible to make up ground later in the cycle, but it's much more difficult to build a larger class when you're already starting from behind.

Think of your inquiry pool as the raw material for your enrollment operation. You can't enroll students who never enter your funnel. While there will always be some ebb and flow as you experiment with new lead sources, retire underperforming ones, and adjust your recruitment strategy, the overall health of your inquiry pool deserves regular attention.

Don't stop at the total number, either. Dig deeper into where those inquiries are coming from.

• Which sources are producing the most inquiries?
• Which sources are producing the highest-quality inquiries?
• Which sources are ultimately leading to applications and enrollment?

Those answers can help you make smarter investment decisions. They may reveal opportunities to double down on strategies that are working or give you confidence to reallocate resources away from efforts that aren't producing meaningful results.

After all, the goal isn't simply to generate more names. It's to build a stronger pipeline of future students.

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Are students moving through the funnel? (Conversion)

These numbers should be familiar to every enrollment leader:

• Inquiries
• Applicants
• Incomplete Apps (an app started but not submitted)
• Admits
• Deposits
• Enrolled

Nothing groundbreaking there.

The mistake many institutions make is stopping with the raw counts.

A funnel isn't just about volume. It’s about movement. For every stage, calculate the conversion rate to the next stage:

• Inquiry → Application
• Application → Admit
• Admit → Deposit
• Deposit → Enrollment
• Inquiry → Enrollment

Those percentages often tell a much more interesting story than the totals themselves. Imagine applications are up 12%.

Huzzah! Great news...right?

Well, maybe.

If inquiries increased by 30%, your inquiry-to-application conversion actually declined. Your funnel got wider at the top but leakier in the middle.

That's why conversion rates deserve just as much attention as the totals.

Again, as the saying goes, what gets measured gets managed. I'd take it a step further: what gets measured correctly and paid attention to gets improved.

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Are we up, down, or flat? (Multi-year comparison)

One year's data tells you what happened. Five years of data reveals the trend.

Every institution should maintain a historical enrollment dashboard showing at least five recruitment cycles.

Why? Because context matters.

Maybe inquiries are down this year. Should you panic? Not if they're still 20% higher than they were three years ago.

Maybe deposits look flat. But if admit volume has also declined, your yield may actually be improving. Historical data helps separate real problems from normal fluctuations.

Think of it as the enrollment equivalent of watching a stock chart. Nobody makes investment decisions based on Tuesday afternoon alone.

You have to know where you’ve been to know where you’re going.