GoalQuest Inc. today announced the results of research designed to evaluate the effectiveness of its eCRUIT™ and EYOp™ (Enrollment Yield Optimization) tools on student application rates and enrollment yield. The research, which examined 42 programs at 22 institutions, found that high school students who used eCRUIT were six times more likely than non-program users to submit applications. Admitted students who engaged in an EYOp program at their school were three times more likely than non-users to matriculate at that school. The average school using eCRUIT saw a 14.74 percent difference between program users and non-program users while the average school using EYOp saw 29.66 percent difference—with program users applying and enrolling at higher rates in both cases.

The research was conducted in conjunction with a portion of the company’s 130 college and university clients.

"The results are clear and striking,” said Dr. Adam B. Troy, GoalQuest’s director of research. “Not only do the findings lend support to the effectiveness of these two programs, but, in the majority of the samples, program use proved to be a better predictor of student behavior than all other variables in the datasets, including out-of-state status, ethnicity and academic indicators, such as GPA, SAT or ACT score. Our client schools can capitalize on this knowledge by including program usage indicators in their predictive enrollment models, further targeting groups of interest.”

GoalQuest’s eCRUIT and EYOp programs immerse prospects and admitted students in custom-written and designed interactive content. The company’s production and editorial teams work closely with enrollment staff to ensure that the content – which includes video as well as survey and assessment material – conveys key marketing and pre-orientation messages from each school’s perspective.

eCRUIT and EYOp also include proprietary e-community features (Universe™ suite of products) such as UPeers™, UBlog™ and UScene™ to promote student affinity and interest. In addition, the programs’ administrative technology enables colleges to identify students whose activity may warrant a more personalized follow-up by admissions staff. The GoalQuest Reporting Center analyzes a range of key metrics to help institutions better allocate their enrollment management resources, including students’ responses to embedded survey questions.

Further studies to determine the effectiveness of EYOp and eCRUIT tools are in progress.