2 Simple Ways To Re-Engage Alumni

Alumni engagement is a task all colleges struggle with, and you’ve likely felt the strain yourself. You have a network of adults all connected through a single institution, but it’s difficult to get them involved.

Struggle no longer – here are two simple ways to re-engage your alumni:

1. Invest in their success

To most alumni, every message from their alma mater feels like a request for something – a donation supporting a fundraiser, an appeal to mentor a current student or a request to use their likeness. Your former students may respond once in a while, but too many of these requests become tedious.

Other typical alumni re-engagement efforts simply tell your former students what’s new with the school. They come in the form of magazines and newsletters published by the institution. Unfortunately, your alumni’s interest in these types of details starts waning the minute they step off campus. Once they’ve secured a good job, they think about their school less and less (assuming they don’t care for college sports or happened to dot the i in marching band)

Essentially, your school doesn’t appear as relevant to your alumni as it was when they were students. Whether or not this feeling is true is beside the point. Your alumni think they don’t need you, so they start to ignore you.

It’s up to you to show alumni that you’re still important. Do this by reminding alumni why they chose your school in the first place: for the credentials. By giving them digital access to their transcripts, diplomas, and other such documents, you remind alumni that your institution is heavily invested in their success.

Ordinarily, alumni would have to contact the school’s registrar office to get copies of their diplomas, transcripts, licenses or other documents necessary for education verification. Without these papers, they have a hard time proving their background to employers. Help them out by making it easy for them to request this information and send it in the blink of an eye.

2. Meet them on relevant channels

When was the last time you checked your mailbox when you weren’t expecting a package from Amazon? If you’re the type who checks every day, chances are you’re often disappointed by the letters you find. Your alumni feel the same way, even when that letter is from their alma mater. Usually, missives from your school go right in the garbage.

Avoid the trap of the trash can by interacting with alumni on the channels they use in the here and now, not a decade (or even a year) ago. In 2018, that means extending your engagement efforts to social media. No doubt your school has general Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter pages already. It’s beneficial to incorporate alumni engagement posts onto these platforms or to create separate profiles specifically for interacting with former students.

In fact, your digital credential tool can help you in this area, assuming you choose the right one. With Parchment, alumni (and current students!) can share their credentials on their social media platforms. What better way to show school pride than posting a verified version of a diploma on Facebook?

To further engage former students, why not include some user-generated content or hold a social media contest? Have alumni share screenshots of their digital credentials and randomly select a winner for a prize. For a simpler approach, use Facebook, Twitter or Instagram Stories to conduct an informal poll. The more you can get alumni involved via the platforms they use the most, the greater chance you have of re-engaging them.

3 Simple Steps to End the Year for Parchment Receive Members

Fall semester is winding down, which means it’s a good time to reflect and reorganize. So that you are all set to enjoy the holiday season and start fresh next semester, we wanted to share three simple steps to help you end the year on a good note.

  • Get your year-end Parchment Receive report
    • Just contact Ray Santos (West Admissions) at rsantos@parchment.com or Lindsay Kleiss (East Admissions) at lkleiss@parchment.com to get your year-end receive report. It’s a great snapshot to share across your institution, including monthly volume, your top senders, year-over-year growth, and document volume by type. You even get recommendations customized for your institution.Contact us to get your end of year report.

 

  • Update your administrators 
    • Make sure you have the correct setup for your user:  Go to SETTINGS tab >> Choose USERS >>Delete administrators who have left >> Add new administrators
  • Sign up for training
    • Learn how Parchment can make your life just a little bit easier. Topics include: Mastering Administrator Settings, Downloading Tips & Tricks, Expert Filtering, Reports & Analytics to Make You Shine and more. Just sign in to Parchment, click Support, and then click Training to sign up for one of our weekly webinars.

Find Out Your College Admissions Chances on Your College List

Remember when Amazon was just an online bookstore? Now, an entire day can be filled with Amazon products – just ask Alexa! She’ll send you dinner, put on your favorite show, and help you store a lifetime of memories. Simply put, technology is amazing.

At Parchment, we use the power of technology, our expanding network, and some pretty smart data wizards to go beyond just helping you send your credentials. We also let you explore what opportunities those credentials can lead to. Answering questions like “What colleges can I get into with my SAT scores” or “what are my chances of getting into my parents’ alma mater.” If you thought Parchment was just for sending your high school transcript to the college of your dreams, think again.

Use Parchment’s College Tools to think bigger and discover colleges you may not have even known should be on your top list. Just like the “You may also like” or “People also viewed” sections on your favorite streaming app showed you your new favorite show, Parchment College Tools will help you explore new colleges and find out your true potential.

Parchment College Tools

Complete your Parchment profile by answering a few quick questions at the top right-hand corner. Question include:

  • Where you went to high school
  • Unweighted and Weighted GPA
  • SAT and ACT scores
  • Class rank and class size
  • College majors interest
  • Extracurricular interests

Once your profile is complete, that’s when the data-magic happens. Quickly add colleges you are interested into your “College List” and gain an inside look* at the types of students who are also interested in that school. For example, you can see the average ACT and SAT scores, GPA, top states they are coming from and their top majors, so you know how you rank against your competition.

Better still, let the colleges you’ve added to your list know you are interested in them. Their admissions office will be happy to hear you are interested in learning more about their school. You can also keep track of important admissions deadline information or your application statuses, then export the list to share with your high school counselor or parents. They’ll be impressed that you are staying organized and taking the next steps towards your future goals – college, here you come!

Get started today by visiting My Chances.

*Our college predictions, ranking, and recommendations are powered by 765,689 college applications annually – the largest application database online. The Admissions Chances algorithm we’ve created should not be considered a guarantee that you’ll get into your top choice. But, it’s still a helpful guide to create a list of colleges where you have a good chance of admission.

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