A note from André Phillips: Yielding brilliant Badgers is a team effort
Yield—the number of admitted students who enroll—is much more than a number. Yield efforts are about showing students that UW–Madison is where they belong. In OAR, this means high-touch outreach, strategic communications, answering questions, processing transcripts, and hosting events that help students take their next steps as #FutureBadgers.
The OAR does an outstanding job with yield, and we don’t do it alone. Yield success depends on vital collaborations across campus and especially within our division. Well before and during each yielding season, many efforts, processes, and partnerships across DEM occur behind the scenes to provide our admitted students an exceptional experience that fortify their desire to attend.
To excited students and their ardent supporters, our admitted student events, expertly coordinated by the OAR Events team, showcase the Badger experience. Students are met with a warm welcome—a welcome that relies on day-of assistance from the entire OAR operation and on our partnerships with divisional colleagues who table, present, and assist during events.
For communications, we lean on OSFA and OAR’s key collaboration for Pell-eligible student outreach. From Cohesive Communications to our awards, technology, outreach, recruitment, and communications teams, the work between our offices ensures that our students are informed, included, and financially supported.
For our transfer students, the RO’s Credit Evaluation Services Team provides crucial transcript reviews that help students understand how their coursework transfers, their timeline to graduation, and how UW–Madison is the right fit.
Essential administrative tasks further facilitate yield: OAR processes final transcripts and removes holds, RO teams load test scores, support the new student to-do list, and provide crucial guidance to advisors and students at SOAR. OSFA navigates another season of delayed FAFSAs, funding clarity issues, and system changes to provide financial aid information and illuminate true costs of attendance for students.
Perhaps a less conspicuous collaboration is the one between our incredible frontline teams, advisors, and counselors. Their work is not a one-way service but a collaboration with students and their supporters to ensure a transformational undergraduate journey that will impact lives. Their excellent and compassionate service to our prospective students and their supporters removes barriers and epitomizes how our Badgers are treated and supported throughout their time at UW–Madison.
Yield truly is a team effort. I thank my team and all DEM team members who are working to yield yet another stellar enrolling class of Badgers.
André
Executive Director of Admissions and Recruitment