Successful Enrollment

Only 1.8% of K12 students in Santa Clara County are African American/Black. Our African American/Black students may not see other students who look like them when visiting the college which impedes their sense of belonging.

The rise in fraudulent applications has taken valuable time from our admissions staff that would previously have been spent working to support individual students. This is not a unique issue for West Valley College and has occurred across California Community Colleges. In reaction to fraudulent student applications, many valid applications are “stuck” in the system. When the Outreach Team visits high schools, about 20% of the students need admissions personnel to help “unstick” their application. When we spoke to current Umoja students, 6 of the 26 students (23%) had their applications get stuck in the process.

In Fall 21, we sent a text survey to the WVC applicants who did not enroll (48% of our applicants had not enrolled.). 76 of the 530 respondents shared they had challenges with the enrollment process. In the last three years, West Valley College has implemented technological processes to prevent fraud. These include requiring students to log in using a college-issued username that looks like very much like an email address. Students are also required to register for classes before their school-issued email address is activated. This means they cannot access a counselor on Cranium Café with their school email address until after they register for classes. Students would need to call or visit the counseling department in person to schedule a counseling appointment.

Many of our onboarding structures are designed for spring applicants. In March or April, we hold Open House and Early Admission (EA) Orientation. In the Spring, all our full-time counselors are available to meet with students. However, 36% of our African American/Black students apply during the months of July and August, when these supports are not available. In 2022, all general counseling appointments were already claimed by the beginning of August, leaving those who had just applied without needed support.

From the moment African American/Black students apply, they will have a liaison helping them through the onboarding process to register for classes and connect them with the events on campus. Through Signalvine, our texting service, we would program a message to all new African American/Black applicants, inviting them to reach out with questions. The liaison would also provide a “fast pass” to get assistance with admissions and counseling appointments. The liaison would also reach out to African American/Black Student Organizations at the local high schools connecting early with the students and encouraging them to apply.

We would have enough staff to proactively move students’ applications through the system, rather than reactively serve students who had problems. Students could easily access the admissions team in person, online or by phone.

An equity-minded process for onboarding would model Amazon’s “one-click” method. We would ensure instructions were clear, and the pertinent action button simplified the process. All messaging from the college or district would utilize the same terminology and steps, making it clear what students needed to complete. For the most common processes, we would provide brief written instructions paired with a short video.

Because 36% of our students apply after July 1, we would have systems in place to support them, offering a variety of workshops, providing additional texting support, and hiring additional counselors. In summer 2022, we piloted four sessions of WOW workshops for new high school graduates. We should expand those in future years, offering them on a weekly basis. In addition, since WOW workshops focus on recent high school graduates, we should offer “Let’s Get Started” workshops for adults who have been out of high school for some time. Also, we should offer more dedicated texting support. In August 2022, we piloted offering dedicated texting times, sending an initial text saying we were available to help. Over a three-hour period, we helped answer questions for over 300 students. In cases where questions could not be answered through text, we called to answer in depth questions. 98% of questions could be answered through text and by sharing “how to” videos.

Hire a part-time African American/Black Liaison to support the outreach and onboarding of African American/Black applicants. This liaison would work closely with the African American/Black Resource Center Intern and African American/Black Faculty Fellow, forming a core support team for current and prospective students. The liaison would:

• Phone call/text new applicants, seeing if they need support and inviting them to events happening on campus
• Visit all high schools that have an African American/Black Student Union
• Troubleshoot onboarding issues and provide students “fast pass” access to admissions and/or the Umoja counselor

Hire a full-time Equity Admissions Advisor. This new advisor would:

• Regularly check the “stuck” applications, pro-actively clear them or request additional information, if needed.
• Provide application and pre-orientation workshops at local high schools, troubleshooting issues real-time with students.
• Partner with the Outreach Team and African American/Black Liaison about how to support new students most effectively.

• Write welcome email from District and College with consistent language matching the five steps on the website (apply, activate, empower, register, and prepare)
• Redesign the portal so it is more user-friendly
• Create additional videos pertaining to onboarding, available both on our website and in the Advantage orientation
• Provide updates by text regarding when students have accomplished specific tasks
• Design a visual tool where students can easily see which steps they have accomplished (like SJSU)

To support the 1/3 of students who apply in July and August

• Create more workshops to help both recent high school graduates and adult applicants onboard to the college.
• Given the summer demand for counseling, hire additional counselors to support students. Provide more drop-in sessions so students can get the help they need to successfully enroll.
• Texting Tuesday and Texting Thursday campaigns from mid-July until the start of the school year to help answer questions and get students moving forward
• Create videos to help new students select classes. Sample topics would include:
  • I am undecided and cannot meet with a counselor. What classes do I register for?
  • I am a business major and cannot meet with a counselor. What classes do I register for?