Transparency is an important tenet of holistic admissions and is needed for faculty, staff, and applicants. For applicants, a program’s website and Guide pages need to be clear, current, and consistent. They should include information detailing the admission process and guidelines for writing application responses, along with a list of the evaluation criteria that will be used during review. For faculty and staff, identifying past trends and determining future enrollment goals will be used to establish evaluation criteria. 

Review your graduate program’s website, Guide pages, and communication plan

Ensuring your web content is clear, current, and consistent is vital to attracting a large and diverse applicant pool.

• Is the admission information on your program’s website up-to-date and simple to navigate? Is it consistent with what is listed in your program’s Guide pages?

• Do you provide information detailing the application process and timeline?

• Do you offer guidelines or prompts for application essays or statements?

• Does your program continue to communication with prospective students after they have been offered admission?
  • Check out the post-application recruitment resources available to assist you. Included are PDFs about the strength of our graduate assistant benefits package, information about comparing funding offers, PDFs on the global reputation of UW-Madison, videos with testimonials from current graduate students, and much more.

Review previous enrollment data

Identifying trends is crucial for evaluating your past recruitment and admissions success, as well as for shaping future enrollment goals and admission strategies. Utilize the Graduate School Explorer data resource for accurate program data. Can you answer the following questions about your program:

• Is the number of applicants increasing or decreasing?

• Is your yield rate going up or down?  In other words, how successful are you in enrolling those that you admit?

• How does the demographic data shift by applicants, admits, and new enrollments? Is the diversity of your enrolled cohort the same at application and admit stages? If not, at what step does it change?  

• Do you know why your admitted students may choose to not enroll at UW-Madison? Do you know where they enroll instead? If not, check out the Graduate Admissions Competitor Landscape.  

Solidify program and enrollment goals

Work with your faculty and staff to set clear program and enrollment goals for the next year. 

• How many students do you hope to recruit and enroll?

• What skills and attributes lead to success in your program or field?

• What criteria will be used to evaluate and identify the desired skills and attributes among applicants? This information can further guide you in the development of your evaluation rubric.

This work can be done at any point of the admissions cycle but looking at these questions a few months before the application opens for the next admitting term ensures enough time can be devoted to analysis and implementation.

View additional modules in the Holistic Admissions Toolkit:

Admissions Committees

Evaluation Rubrics

Interviewing

International Applicants