When I was a vice president of enrollment management, I knew our numbers. Applications, enrollments/admits, deposits and yield were never far from my mind.
Like enrollment leaders everywhere, I spent a lot of time asking what was moving those numbers and what we needed to do next.
Looking back, I wish I had spent more time on something much harder to put on a dashboard: the conversations happening every day between prospective students, families and the people representing our institution.
That is the lesson I carry most strongly from my time in enrollment leadership. Data tells us what happened, but it does not always tell us why.
That distinction matters right now
National enrollment numbers have shown modest growth, with spring 2026 postsecondary enrollment up 1% year over year, according to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center.
But national trends can hide very different realities on individual campuses. Institutions are still competing for students, responding to shifting demand and trying to understand why one prospective student enrolls while another disappears.
When I was leading enrollment, I naturally looked to the funnel for answers. Where were we losing students? Were inquiries converting? Were deposits holding? Those questions matter, and I would still ask them today.
But I would add another set of questions.
- What are prospective students asking us over and over again?
- Where do families seem confused?
- What concerns do students hesitate to say directly?
- What do our admissions professionals hear that never makes it into a report?
The people closest to prospective students often have an enormous amount of institutional intelligence. Leaders have to create better ways to hear it.
If I were back in the VP seat today, I would do three things differently.
I would spend more time listening to student-facing conversations.
Not to evaluate individual employees or script what they should say, but to understand what students are experiencing. I would listen for patterns. Are students struggling to understand cost? Are parents asking questions our website assumes they already know the answers to? Are students comparing us with another institution in a way we did not expect?
A dashboard cannot give you that context.
I would treat recurring questions as data.
When the same question surfaces repeatedly, it is easy to think, “Admissions gets that one all the time.” But repetition is a signal. It may point to unclear messaging, an unmet concern, a gap between what the institution thinks is important and what students care about, or a change in the market that leadership has not fully recognized yet.
The National Association for College Admission Counseling has been pushing the field to think more intentionally about the role of admission professionals, including developing a coaching framework and structured training for admission staff. That work reflects something enrollment leaders should take seriously: The role is not static.
The environment students are navigating keeps changing, so the way institutions prepare and listen to the people guiding them has to change too.
I would bring frontline insight into leadership conversations more deliberately.
Enrollment leaders often have access to an incredible amount of quantitative information. What is easier to miss is the qualitative information sitting inside hundreds or thousands of interactions with students.
I would ask admissions teams regularly: What are you hearing this month that you were not hearing six months ago? What seems harder for families to understand? What is making students hesitate? What questions are catching you off guard?
Then I would put those answers next to the enrollment data.
This does not require another technology platform, a new committee or a major initiative. It requires leaders to get closer to the conversations already happening.
NACAC research has also found that students want to be seen as individuals during the college admission process. That should be a reminder that enrollment is not experienced by students as a funnel. It is experienced one interaction at a time.
I wish I had understood the value of those interactions more deeply when I was a VP of Enrollment.
The numbers will always matter. Enrollment leaders are responsible for them. But if I were sitting in that chair again, I would spend less time asking the dashboard to explain everything and more time listening to the people and conversations behind it.
That is often where the “why” lives.
