Prospective students at the check-in table at a 2024 Accepted Students Day.
MANHATTAN UNIVERSITY PHOTOSHELTER / COURTESY
Grace Cardinal, Editor-in-Chief
After a year of financial uncertainty, admission rates for the Manhattan University class of 2029 are trending in the positive, with around 5000 more applicants and 30 more deposits than at this time last year.
“So compared to last year, we have close to 5000 more applications,” Benjamin Boivin, director of undergraduate admissions said. “Our accept numbers are also much higher, about 4000 more accepted students as well. The ratio of who we actually admit hasn’t changed. We haven’t modified our standards at all. We’re still looking for the best students possible to come to Manhattan, but I think we’re just doing a better job of recruitment.”
For the university, more applicants means more options, Interim President Frederick Bonato, Ph.D explained .
“The importance of having more applications is you become at the top of the funnel, and the more you have to work with, the more you have to potentially yield from,” Bonato said. “So having 5000 more applications is a very good thing, because even though we don’t know if all those applicants are necessarily as serious as last year or previous years, it always helps to start with a bigger number. So that’s a good place to be. And so we’re very fortunate to have that many, 5000 more compared to, say, 9500 in total last year. We’re talking 14,000 this year. Tremendous difference.”
According to Boivin, improved marketing in MU’s tertiary markets, including Texas, California, Florida and Virginia could be to thank for the increase in numbers.
Stephen Pugliese, Ph.D., interim vice president for enrollment management, explained his philosophy behind the improved tactics.
“My whole philosophy is, be more personal with our engagement,” Pugliese said. “We are about the students here, and I wanted to start in the admissions process, so working with Ben [Boivin] and the admissions team, having that more personal touch, the phone calls, as opposed to just a blanket email going out, picking up the phone and having those conversations are pretty important.”
One of the biggest battles MU has fought since the COVID-19 pandemic is keeping up student interest in living on campus. Not only is this a major source of revenue for the university, but having more students on campus contributes greatly to the overall student experience.
“From a housing perspective, based upon our geographic expansion, we are seeing more interest in student housing,” Pugliese said. “We have some empty rooms on campus for beds, and we want to obviously fill them. I always say, right now, when I think of housing, it’s really about expanding campus life. Students that reside on campus are a little more connected to campus life…[there’s] something about having more students on campus to really talk about the atmosphere, so it is one of our priorities at the university, and part of my priority is to work that avenue in our admissions process.”
Pugliese later added that 62% of the current deposits from the class of 2029 are for on-campus residence.
One of the deciding factors in the name change from Manhattan College to University was international appeal. Applications for the class of 2029 are also trending upwards in this area.
“We’re definitely up from last year,” Boivin said. “We’re up in applications. We’re up in deposits. International [students] especially, they don’t see May 1 as a necessary deadline, because they go through a different process. They sometimes deposit all the way up until August. But I definitely think when you Google engineering or business or communications, and you Google Manhattan, if you’re from India or you’re from China, we’re the first one that pops up. I think, and I say this all the time, the Christian brothers that called us Manhattan College back in 1853, one of them had to be a marketer.”
Pugliese has not only observed the positive trend the name change has had for international applications, but right here on campus.
“I think we’ve seen more international applications,” Pugliese said. “When I’m looking at the trends in our enrollment, there are more applications now. Obviously there are differences in getting them to convert because of the I-20 processing…but we have seen more international applications coming in. I think the other piece too, from what I’m hearing anecdotal from students, when I’m talking to our admissions tour guides, or our students when I see them, is that they like the fact that we are now a university, because they feel that it puts us on par with what they would consider some of our competitors, and I think that they like the fact that they’re graduating from a university instead of a college.”
As for what the admissions and enrollment teams have been working to implement to attract future Jaspers, new events include a Junior Preview Day and a virtual Accepted Students Night option, amongst others.
“Next Tuesday, we are doing our virtual Accepted Students Night,” Pugliese said. “We had, as of this morning (4/25), over 80 students and families signed up for the accepted students night. It’s an abbreviated version of what they experience here on campus. They still will have an address from President Bonato. They will have interactions with the deans and students, kind of a next step since abbreviated, but we also want to make sure that we’re not alienating students who live in California from having some type of accepted student experience. So that’s something that we’re integrating. And I think we need to look at how we’re doing a little bit more virtual in the future.”
As for the Junior Preview Day, Boivin emphasized the importance of including more student-led events in the admissions process.
“One of the things that came out of our feedback from Accepted Students Day [was that] families, of course, love to meet our students,” Boivin said. “We’re doing a Junior Preview Day now on Friday, May 2, and truly, students are leading that. We are going to be there to facilitate the event, because a lot goes into event planning, but it’s really a student-led event.”
In addition to these newer events, Bonato says he simply strives for facetime with prospective families.
“It’s not that I implemented a change,” Bonato said. “But I want to be there and be part of all these events. I want to personally welcome the families and tell them things about Manhattan, not only as their president, but as a parent. I’ve been through that, so I know, but really it’s the team. It’s the admissions team putting it all together, making it happen to do a great job. And also the people show up, the faculty and the deans. Everyone pulls together on those events, and it shows.”
Boivin recognizes the many challenges that can come with attracting new students, but says the most important thing is personalizing the experience.
“It’s a lot of sticking with it, making sure families feel comfortable, making sure that that personalized touch we talk about, we sell it,” Boivin said. “We say the classroom is personalized, you have time with professors. That has to start in admissions, that has to start with our admissions ambassadors, if we’re selling personalized education, transformative experience, and we’re not showing that to them from the admissions office, we’re not doing our job. So it’s really important that we give them that hand-holding personalized touch point from the minute they meet us, until they’re Jaspers.”