WILMINGTON — Wilmington College’s record entering class in fall 2018 continues to garner recognition for the institution as Hobsons named WC a finalist for an Education Advances Award.
The company filmed a video on campus earlier this month that will be presented at the awards program during the Hobsons Summer Institute in Florida July 30. Winners in each category receive a $2,500 award with runners-up taking home $1,000.
Hobsons, a national leader in education technology, praised four K-12 schools and six higher education institutions for their “impressive work and impact” in the field of student success. It presented these institutions for awards in three categories.
“Hobsons is proud to honor the tremendous outcomes and achievements in student success that our clients across the country are delivering every day,” said CEO Kate Cassino. “The awards finalists have demonstrated how much is possible when institutions combine people, process and technology to make a difference in the lives of students.”
The company nominated Wilmington College among three finalists in its “Match & Fit Admission” award category, along with Caldwell University (NJ) and Stony Brook University (NY).
The College’s entering class for the fall 2018 semester was the largest in school history. WC hosted a record 385 first-time freshmen and 450 new students, the latter of which constitutes a combination of the new freshmen and 65 transfer students. Also, those numbers fueled the main campus enrollment of 1,103, WC’s largest since 2007.
Dennis M. Kelly, senior vice president and chief enrollment officer, said the College is “humbled to be selected among thousands of Hobsons’ higher education partners” as a finalist for a 2019 Education Advances Award.
“We are equally grateful to have Hobsons as one of our elite corporate partners in the field of strategic enrollment management and technology,” he added.
Hobsons mentioned southwest Ohio as an especially competitive region for enrolling college-going students. It recognized WC’s success in reaching students who might have been previously unaware of the school through what they described as “multiple intersect solutions.”
Adam Lohrey, director of admission, noted that Hobsons’ product, known as Intersect, assisted WC in fostering institutional awareness by thousands of high school students.
“With the growing user base right here in Ohio, we took advantage of the opportunity to get our message out to best-fit students,” he said, noting the College’s partnership with Hobsons has facilitated both tracking student engagement and pinpointing unique student enrollments.
“I can say definitively that we’ve noticed an increase in enrollment from students we connected with using the Hobsons product — this resulted in our all-time record enrollment class for fall 2018,” he added.
Lohrey added that Hobsons’ focus on college and career readiness allowed WC’s message to “resonate directly” with a core student audience through high school visits by admission counselors.
“Utilizing RepVisits (part of Hobsons’ Intersect product) has streamlined the way our counselors schedule visits to high schools by creating efficiencies and allowing more time for counselors to focus their recruitment efforts,” he said.
